Inhumane vivisection
Students of the Timiryazev Academy and a number of other Russian universities will no longer dissect animals. Inhumane vivisection was replaced by videotapes and computer programs. February 5 was the day of getting rid of the laboratory death of many rats, pigeons, frogs and other small animals. There have already been cases in the West when compassionate students went to court and won. Question – did it help them to become professional zoologists-biologists-doctors later? History is silent about this. But it is full of opposite stories, thanks to which science, medicine, and art developed before...
Peter I and Dismemberment
In Europe, the Russian sovereign not only mastered the craft of carpenter and shipwright, but also studied anatomy, went to the hospital and was present at operations. One day he saw the dissected corpse of a child, and the baby seemed so charming to him that the king even kissed him in delight... And once the tsar noticed that the corpse disgusted his subjects. For educational purposes, Peter ordered to tear the muscles of the dead man with his teeth. He was a serious man, he bit into everything – and forced others to do so. After all, you can't force them – they will blow their noses in the corners. He kept a bag with the sick teeth of the courtiers torn out with his own hands. However, they say that the former owners of these teeth did not apply to him for the second time.
As Leo Tolstoy noted, Peter had a "passion to explore everything to the limits." Feel, chew, and not just look at books and pictures. Pushkin had an anecdote about this – about how an Arab boy sits down under a bush and complains to the sovereign in fright that his gut is coming out of him. And Peter, without blinking an eye, explains that this is an ordinary worm, and pulls it out with royal fingers...
Rembrandt and the experiments of Dr. Tulp
The hero of Moliere's "Imaginary Patient" (1673), although not burdened with intelligence, meanwhile gives the bride an anatomical drawing, and then calls for a public anatomy lesson. In Europe of the XVII century, this was popular: even the highest nobility flocked to anatomical theaters for open autopsies. It was considered shameful not to join medicine in practice, being content with only pictures and canvases of painters.
In Rembrandt's famous painting "Dr. Tulp's Anatomy Lesson" (1632), a body is depicted in the center, next to it – an experienced surgeon Tulp teaches his colleagues, and one of them has a book in his hands, a symbol of theoretical knowledge, important, but useless without practice.
Somerset Maugham and Fastidiousness
Somerset Maugham initially received a medical education, received a doctor's degree and even, they say, was talented at making diagnoses – though mostly at a distance. He did not like to approach patients, and even more so to immerse himself in living tissues – he was an extremely squeamish person.
In general, the diploma is a diploma, but the doctor did not come out of it. But the writer came out brilliant – he diagnosed society and treated with a pen. He was not the only one who ran away from medical practice, here you can remember Chekhov, Bulgakov, and Veresaev... So theoretical students can sleep in peace: they can find a case for them.
P.S.
To be honest, the image of a zoologist who has never touched a living being seems strange. Imagine Turgenev Bazarov with a drawing of a frog, well, or with its paper layout! Bazarov really believed in progress, but he still cut frogs and brought up willpower.
Is it possible to imagine a crowd of happy patients who will rush to a doctor who has never held a scalpel in his hands for humane reasons? You can ask endlessly: and the metallurgist who did not come close to any blast furnace, or the pilot who saw the plane only on the monitor screen?
However, the same Bazarov, if he had not become a doctor, would not have been infected with anything in the end and would not have died. And what would be the use of him if he did not climb to typhoid patients – it does not matter. But he himself would be more whole.
Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru
18.02.2008