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Show toes. Today, when no other means are convenient, snake bites are often sucked to remove poison injected in-jected into the victim by the reptile rep-tile and contrary to popular opinion opin-ion snake venom thus introduced into the mouth seems never to effect the system of the one with-j drawing the poison. THE bW.EAWHINBAUGHMJX I Medieval Doctors ; . . The ignorance of the men in the s Middle Ages, who undertook to practice medicine was truly colossal. colos-sal. But they had a sense of showmanship show-manship that was supreme. They adopted peculiar dress, carried themselves with an air of deep mystery, had their offices filled with snake skins, stuffed frogs, bats, dried alligators, walrus tusks and other bizarre creatures brought to them by sailors who had the temerity to sail the seven seas and penetrate foreign lands. In addition to these they also displayed copper retors, glass test tubes and beakers in the laboratory lab-oratory equipment, the uses of which they were ignorant, but these materials gave their offices what we now call "atmosphere." Many of these men had their own gardens in which they cultivated herbs, plants and vines, later to be made into medicines. Naturally there were those among them who had brains and they stumbled across helpful treaments and useful remedies. They, too, developed some surgical knowledge, but most of them were so saturated with false theories and superstitions handed down from the Dark Ages that they accomplished ac-complished little of benefit to the human race. These doctors were entirely too "high-hat" to touch a wounded or sick man with their fingers, but with the magic wand with which they were equipped, indicated the place on the victim's body where the barber for barbers were the first surgeons should cut. Of course few recovered because these tonsorial artists had less education than the doctors. They knew nothing of the circulation of the blood, the action of the heart, had never heard of germs or bacteria, and were far more su-! perstitious than the doctors, who had at least attended some uni-j versity and possessed degrees. j Armies then had no surgeons. The various Crusades into the Holy Land had no medical atten-1 dants in their ranks. The wound-1 ed and the sick were left to themselves them-selves to get well as best they j could and the pathway of these i large bodies of soldiers were J marked by the lame, the halt, and the maimed. This custom of sucking wounds still exists in many countries. In India, native corn doctors apply I one end of a ram's horn to the) corn, and their mouth to the other end, and withdraw the of-1 fending bit of callous flesh from i |