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After searching medical literature he found that patients do feel more comfortable with a doctor in the traditional white coat. He noted that a doctor’s appearance was important to the father of medicine, Hippocrates, who said a physician should ‘‘be clean in person, well-dressed, and anointed with sweet smelling unguents that are beyond suspicion. For all these things are pleasing to people who are ill, and he must pay attention to this.’’

The white coat became a medical fixture in the late 19th century because it kept blood and body fluids off a doctor’s street clothes. Today, it’s practical, with deep pockets that hold tools of the trade. The coat has always been rich in symbolism. It confers scientific rigour and seriousness along with purity.

Sloppy and overly informal attire ‘‘brings the whole level of professionalism down,’’ Brandt says.

Banishing a Medieval Ghost
Have you committed sodomy lately? You may be surprised to know that, in all likelihood, you have. Sodomy, after all, is not theoretically restricted to homosexuals. It’s an act that can be engaged in by two people of the same or opposite sex. And as a legal matter, it has not been restricted to anal sex between two men (its most popular meaning). Sodomy statutes have long included a whole variety of sexual behaviours, specifically fellatio and cunnilingus, whether heterosexual or homosexual. Theologically, the definition is broader still. The natural-law tradition, which invented sodomy as a concept in the Middle Ages, defines it as any sexual activity outside reproductive heterosexual intercourse—that is, masturbation, coitus interruptus, using contraceptives and even incorrect sexual positions. In fact, it’s hard to have anything we might call sex today—including foreplay—that doesn’t have a sodomitic aspect.

Why was sodomy of such concern to the medieval theologians? Partly, it seems, because sodomy was widespread among the clergy, but mainly because in the early Middle Ages it was widely believed that sperm contained everything necessary to make a human being. The woman was a mere incubator and added nothing to the process. So ‘‘wasting’’ semen was tantamount to killing off human life.

One medieval church manual gave instructions on how to judge and absolve every sin known to man—from pride to sloth to envy and gluttony. But the subcategory of sodomy amounted to 40 per cent of the entire text. No wonder that when civil authorities adopted many ecclesiastical codes as law in the Renaissance and afterward, the death penalty was often prescribed for the sin of Sodom.

Thanks to our knowledge of biology, no one today would equate masturbation with homicide, and yet, until recently, several states retained laws that were rooted in exactly such an ancient assumption. What the US Supreme Court did when it struck down the Texas law banning sodomy, was to effectively remove these centuries of myth and bad science and inconsistency and remind us of a simple fact: We are all sodomites now.

Compiled from LATWP