MEDICAL MYTHOLOGY

Imagine yourself as a student of physics, delving into this deep and fascinating subject with great enthusiasm. As you continue to learn and your understanding grows, you find yourself reading and rereading the writings of the giants in the field, the true pioneers of physics. But you aren’t rereading them to fully grasp their meaning; you’re rereading them because they don’t make sense to you. In fact, it seems like they’re wrong. But how can that be? You’re relatively new to the field, and what you’re reading has been read and studied and accepted by the greatest minds in physics for well over a thousand years. Surely you are mistaken. What you’re reading must be correct. How could you know more than Einstein?

So you continue to study and experiment, as much to prove the field’s founding fathers are correct as any other reason. But it doesn’t work. Your research and experiments and observations continue to cast doubt on the accepted wisdom.

What are you going to do?

That very question had to be faced by the man pictured above, except the field of knowledge he found to be so flawed and riddled with errors wasn’t physics; it was medicine and human anatomy.

His medical school studies led straight through the revered writings of Galen, a Roman/Greek physician, surgeon, and philosopher considered to be one of the most accomplished of all medical researchers of antiquity. Galen was born in the year 129. And the man above, William Harvey, didn’t come along until 1578. That’s well over 1,400 years! So no one over 14 centuries of time saw what Harvey saw? It didn’t seem possible. Surely he was mistaken.

But he was not. True, when he published his masterpiece in 1628, a work usually referred to by the abbreviated title De Moto Cordis — The Motion of the Heart, the first time the human circulatory system had ever been accurately described — much of the world’s medical community categorically rejected the idea. His medical practice suffered greatly and he was subjected to much scorn and ridicule. That is often the cost of being a trailblazer, even a true and accurate one.

By reexamining long held beliefs, William Harvey disproved a number of basic “facts,” among them that blood in both veins and arteries is all from one source. In fact, it’s the same liquid in different locations along its journey, not two different substances manufactured in different parts of the body. He discovered that blood circulates continuously instead of the previously held to-and-fro, flow forward, flow back action. He also discovered that the heart, not the liver, is the circulatory system’s pump.

Fortunately, Harvey saw much of his discoveries about circulation accepted and embraced as correct within his lifetime. He accepted the situation philosophically:

“I have often wondered and even laughed at those who fancied that everything had been so consummately and absolutely investigated by an Aristotle or a Galen or some other mighty name, that nothing could by any possibility be added to their knowledge.” +

No doubt some giants are indeed the creation of fable writers and ancient folklorists, but it would be false to claim that all giants are fictional characters. Say the word giant and who comes to mind? No doubts for many it’s the Bible’s Goliath, but he is not presented in the Bible record as a symbolic creature as are, let’s say, the figurative dragons of Revelation.

No, Goliath is presented as a real live honest-to-goodness giant with his physical dimensions (“six cubits and a span” tall), hometown (Gath), and several relatives all part of the Bible record.

Some extensive research about this ancient man has found its way into medical literature. One article was published in the May 2014 issue of Ulster Medical Journal, the abstract of which opens with,

“The biblical giant Goliath has an identifiable family tree suggestive of autosomal dominant inheritance. We suggest that he had a hereditary pituitary disorder possibly due to the AIP gene, causing early onset and familial acromegaly or gigantism.”

The article goes on to create a family tree for the Goliaths that includes the giant’s brother and three sons, all described as of gigantic stature. Goliath’s third son, not named in the Bible, “had on every hand six fingers and on every foot six toes,” again, say the authors “suggestive of a hereditary autosomal dominant pituitary gene, such as AIP.” And about that polydactyl son, since you asked: “The Bardet-Biedl gene, BBS1, is located close by on chromosome 11q13.2. Bardet-Biedl syndrome type I

The Bible record describes others in big terms, such as the pre-flood Nephilim, a descriptor transliterated from the Hebrew verb na-phal (fall), making them literally “fellers; those who cause others to fall down.”

The UMJ article references other giant clans of Bible times, such as the Rephaim and the Anakites, noting that the Hebrew word anaq may mean necklace, or possibly goiter. “This could suggest hyperthyroidism, possibly due to underlying pituitary gland, or other endocrine, dysfunction.” Gath was known as a stronghold of the Anakim. And King Og of the Rephaim was buried (according to Deut. 3:11) in a 14-foot long coffin.

Even the manner of Goliath’s death may have had a pituitary component, says the Journal “A pituitary tumour pressing on his optic chiasm, and consequent visual disturbance due to pressure on his optic nerve, would have made it difficult for him to see the stone [cast by David] in his lateral vision.” Other journals have also presented evidence of Goliath’s pituitary tumor.

The UMJ concludes, “Goliath may have had an AIP mutation causing early onset autosomal dominant pituitary gigantism.” But only until he met David.