By Dana Ullman at Brownstone dot org.

Harris Coulter has written an academic and fascinating four-volume set of books on the history of Western Medicine, brought back into print by Brownstone Institute:

Volume I: The Patterns Emerge: Hippocrates to Paracelsus

Volume II: Progress and Regress: J.B. Van Helmont to Claude Bernard

Volume III: Science and Ethics in American Medicine: 1800-1914

Volume IV, Part One: Twentieth-Century Medicine: The Bacteriological Era

Volume IV, Part Two: Twentieth-Century Medicine: The Bacteriological Era

Each volume is important to those who wish to understand the roots of modern medicine and to learn how and why many "unorthodox" practices did not gain general acceptance in the health care system. The four books are of particular importance to those involved in holistic approaches to health because Coulter traces the history of the holistic (AKA "empirical") practices that are often ignored or criticized unfairly in most medical history texts.

Ultimately, books on history are written by the "victors;" that is, by the dominant political or medical paradigm, and such books give an inadequately accurate view of true history. The books written by Dr. Coulter are therefore a refreshing and even compelling review of medical history. Coulter's books show that what we call "scientific medicine" today isn't really scientific but "reductionistic;" that is, these conventional medical treatments tend to provide short-term a highly limited assessment of health benefits from treatment, often ignoring the fact that such treatments provided only short-term benefits while creating many side effects that later led to chronic and deeper diseases.

The four volumes are scholarly written and are thoroughly footnoted with references to thousands of original writings. Volume I describes the era from Hippocrates (400 B.C.) to Paracelsus (1600). Volume II discusses medicine in Europe from 1600 to 1850. Volume III covers medicine in America from 1800 to 1914. Volume IV covers Twentieth-century Medicine: The Bacteriological Era (this volume is itself separated into two volumes, Part I and Part II).

The title, Divided Legacy, refers to the two predominant schools of thought or traditions that have dominated Western medical history (college courses in "philosophy" typically describe these two dominant schools of thought, and Coulter's books describe how these two different philosophies manifest in medical thought and practice). Although the two schools were not formalized with every practitioner aligning him/herself with one or the other school, Coulter's analysis shows convincing evidence how some of the best physicians and healers believed and practiced mainly in one or the other tradition.

One school was known as the Rationalist school, while the other was the Empirical school. The Rationalist school sought to understand health, disease, and the treatment of disease in an analytical fashion; It sought causes of disease and methods of treatment in a systematic and rational manner. It focused on the anatomical and biochemical nature of the human being as ways to understand the parts of the organism and how to make them function properly.

The Empirical school of thought held different assumptions about the ways of acquiring knowledge on health, disease, and the treatment of disease. It did not look for nor seek to understand the causes of disease. It sought and developed ways that worked whether or not the practitioner understood at first why the methods worked. Although Empirical practitioners usually had theories on how and why their methods worked, they recognized that their theories were always secondary to the fact that the method worked. Over long periods of time and through close observations, empirical practitioners developed their own time-tested and systematic health practices that were not based on an analytical understanding of cause and effect.

The Rationalist school, of which modern medicine is the latest develo...