A group of friends and I recently started a book club and the first reading was a section of Francis Bacon’s Advancement of Learning. In this section Bacon discusses the artistic nature of physical form, a section of the two books that I commonly haven’t done a deep dive on. Here are some general themes I pulled from the reading.
Medicine
Bacon’s (1605) ideal of medicine and health made from the alchemist, along with nourishment by the organisms of earth such as water, fruits, and the flesh of beasts, birds and fishes. This could be the 1605 version of maintaining a healthy lifestyle through the medicinal aspects of eating right and trusting the medical advancements with technology. Philosophically, Bacon sees medicine is more discussed then made, and with this lack of making produces a lack of advancement (Bacon, 1605). This has obviously produced a change in the scientific community regarding doctors and scientist embracing an empirical method of creating, testing, revising, testing again, and distributing medicine. One example of this is the massive advance of vaccines for prevention of infectious diseases, arguably, starting from as early as 1790 and Edward Jenner’s creation of the smallpox vaccine (Stern & Markel, 2005).
The Role of Physicians
“Nay, further, I esteem it the office of a physician not to only restore health, but to mitigate pain and dolours” (Bacon, 1605, p. 110). The reference to the Hippocratic Oath and the moral duty of the physician in to alleviate pain and not do harm to patients is a historic precedent of physicians. In this age of growing complexity, what is regarded as harmful? I pose an ethical dilemma, and for this, place yourself in the role of a physician:
You as a physician have a patient who is suffering from pancreatic cancer, a highly fatal disease with a small survival rate. The patient is in pain day after day and wishes to die (via assisted suicide) based on their cognizance, and free will. As a physician you are to alleviate pain, restore health, and not do harm by assisting a patient in their suicide. However, the patient is still in pain due to the cancer and keeping them alive is aggravating more pain towards the patient. What do you do?
This is a tough question to answer and a debate that continues in the doctor’s offices, hospitals, municipal, provincial/state, and federal government operations all over the world, to find the moral golden mean with this ethical dilemma.
Conclusion
This reading was presented in early January and is quite relevant now considering the global pandemic of the COVID-19 virus, and the world, for lack of a better term, is shutting down. I feel we need to take a pragmatic, empirical, and ethical look at this pandemic, and trust the experts that are working through the process. Members of the World Health Organization (WHO) are the physicians and the alchemist working towards the ethical course towards alleviating harm. We should trust these words and take heed if necessary. This of course, to avoid panic and slipping into theoretically lost conclusions from people who are not qualified to make theoretical conclusions in the first place.
References
Bacon, F. (1605). The advancement of learning.
Stern, A. M., & Markel, H. (2005). The history of vaccines and immunization: Familiar patterns, new challenges. Health Affairs, 24(3), 611-621. https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/pdf/10.1377/hlthaff.24.3.611
carsonbabich.com 