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Physicians amassed knowledge, but that knowledge did not lead to improved patient management. Visitors to France from Britain and the United States even expressed serious moral reservations about Paris and its priorities. They noted that all too often physicians were little concerned about alleviating suffering or preserving life; surgeons, it was said, regarded operations as primarily a means to achieve greater manual dexterity, and the curriculum did not stress that the primary mission was to heal. Knowledge and its advancement were all that counted. Patients were objects to be observed as if they were displays in a natural history museum or stage props in a theater, and their presence on a ward was principally a means to serve science. Dr.
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Frank M. Snowden III (Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present)