Medical miracles from a physician-scientist's viewpoint.

Abstract

With only five loaves and two fishes, Jesus fed 5,000 men. Moses stretched out his hand and parted the Red Sea. Jesus walked on the sea. Lot's wife was changed into a pillar of salt. Jesus turned water into wine at Cana. Aaron's rod became a serpent in Pharoah's court. These tales illustrate how thoroughly familiar we are with the concept of miracles, an idea not at all unique to theJudeo-Christian world. In fact, the notion of miracles is universal. It has existed in all cultures and all times. From the general concept of miracles it is but a step to the specific idea of medical miracles: miracles ofhealing. We know of such tales from our own culture. And great multitudes came unto him, having with those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, ... and cast down at Jesus' feet, and he healed them (Matt. 15:30). The Gospels relate that Jesus cured various people of leprosy (Luke 17:11-19), dropsy (Luke 14:2-4), blindness (Matt. 9:27-30, Mark 8:22-5, Luke 18:35-43, John 9:1-7), paralysis (Matt. 9:2-7, Mark 2:3-11, Luke 5:18-25), deafness and dumbness (Matt. 9:32-33, Mark 7:32-37), and revived Lazarus from the dead (John 11 : 14-44). In the Old Testament we read that Elijah brought the widow's son back to life (1 Kings 17:17-24) and that the prophet Elisha cured a man of leprosy and reanimated the Shunammite's dead son (2 Kings 5:8 and 4:32). The stories in the New and Old Testaments afford only a meager idea of the multitudinous tales of medical miracles that have circulated in all