Herodotus said that the Persians didn’t consult doctors. Herodotus knew that his fellow Greeks would be interested.
It was part of Greek culture that an individual must cultivate excellence. It was assumed that a person would practice a skill if he or she showed natural talent. People who were good at shipbuilding would become ship builders. People who were good at healing would become doctors.
To the Greek mind, excellence was important. It’s best to find an expert. The Persians thought differently — and their thinking was such a departure Herodotus described it.
Because they do not consult doctors, when someone is ill they carry him to the main square, where anyone who has personal experience of something similar to what the ill person is suffering from, or who knows someone else who has, comes up to him and offers him advice and suggestions about his illness. They tell him what remedy they found effective in their own case, or what they saw working in someone else’s case, which enabled them to recover from a similar illness. No one is allowed to walk past a sick person in silence, without asking what sort of illness he has.
Roy Bedichek used to say that you’re a fool or your own doctor by age 40. I heard a version of that adage often. I grew up among people who didn’t have much faith in the medical profession.
Like the ancient Persians, rural Texans considered the symptoms, recalled cases from history and offered counsel and recipes for cures.
Not having anything to offer was some kind of social failure.
• Sources and notes: Herodotus, The Histories, translated by Robin Waterfield; Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 87.
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