Faust in America / [Henry E. Sigerist].

  • Henry E. Sigerist
Date:
[1934]
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: Faust in America / [Henry E. Sigerist]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    f Reprinted from Medical Life, April 1934 Faust in America Henry E. Sigerist, M.D. Professor of History of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore C’est le peuple, qui compose le genre humain; ce, qui n’est pas peuple, est si peu de chose, que ce n'est pas la peine de le compter. L'homme est le meme dans tons les 6tats; si cela est, les etats les plus nonibreux mtiritent le plus de respect. J. J. Rousseau. i I. The motto makes evident the fact that I do not mean Goethe’s Faust. It is another Faust, whose relationship with America will be studied in these pages. The sentences quoted above, from J. J. Rousseau, contain the revolutionary program of the 18th century. They are true today as well, and, strange as it sounds, still revolutionary. They would make a good slogan for a socialist state, and there are countries today where the fact has been forgotten that “man is the same in all countries.” The man who wrote these sentences on the title-page of one of his books,1 who could have placed them at the head of all his books, was a German physician, Bernhard Christoph Faust—a doctor and philanthropist, deeply imbued with the philosophy of the “Aufklarung”, a man who devoted the work of a long life to the people’s health and general welfare, a dreamer visualizing a league of nations—an ideal community embracing all mankind, ruled by the same laws, enjoying the same liberties.2 His career was utterly uneventful. Born on the 23rd of May, 1755, in Rotenburg (Hessen), he studied medicine at the Uni¬ versity of Gottingen, graduated in 1777 from the Lutheran Uni¬ versity of Rinteln, and started practising in his home-town. In order to be nearer to the common people, he then went to the country, and practised in villages for several years until, in 1788, he accepted the position of body-physician to the Princess Juliana 1 Gedanken uber Hebammen und Hebammenanstalten auf dem Lande. Frankfurt a. M., 1784. 2 See the splendid essay on Faust by Helene Dihle, Bernhard Christoph Faust und seine Zeit, Archiv fiir Geschichte der Medizin, vol. 24, 1931, pp. 283-311 ; and the letters of Faust to Paul Usteri, in Zurich; edited by Helene Dihle: Bernhard Christoph Fausts Beziehungen zur Schweiz und seine Briefe an Paul Usiteri, Archiv fiir Geschichte der Medizin, vol. 25, 1932, pp. 349-381.