The true Greek medical principles were not practiced, as such, but lay sleeping. A mystic secrecy enveloped and kept them incarcerated behind the carved stones of the great cathedrals, where industrious friars collected and transcribed these ancient tests of Galen.

In France, churches dedicated to the Virgin, as healer of the sick, were raised everywhere, and saints who "specialized" in healing particular diseases were worshipped. Magic, one again, became the basis of the healing miracle, and miracle working deteriorated into quackery. More than to divine causes, a miracle was attributed to the miracle worker and his fetishes."

The Renaissance changed the tide of medico-religion. A return to the simplicity of the gospel began. People abandoned their relics and fetishes, their pilgrimages to the cathedrals, and their worship of the Virgin Mary (the greatest spiritual force in the building of cathedrals in the Middle Ages).

They returned to healing through prayers to God. The shapeless chaos of medieval medicine changed into a more solid form. The physician began to change from a miracle working magician into a scientist.

From the time of the Renaissance to the present era (with the exception of a short period of revival of miracle workers at the beginning of the 20th century: clairvoyants, astrologers, quacks), the physician has become—and is looked on more and more—as a scientist.

I am sure there are some people who feel that with this background of science, there is no room or need for religion in medicine. I and, I am sure, a great many of you feel this is not true.

To the practicing physician of today there are many things which say that God is the creator, the guiding hand in the making of man. I do not mean the original creation but he every-day creation with which we medical men deal. Who, but an all-knowing entity, could put together in one cell formed by the joining of the male seed and female egg, the characteristics which go to form a human being?

It forms an individual, and that is exactly what its name implies. Arguably, no two are alike, not even twins. Look at the mouths of each of you in this room. None of them are the same, nor are the noses or eyes or other features. This is true the world over. Who could engineer such a feat?

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