tic suggestion, a tribute to the secunty of the Suk School Physicians with second level conditioning bound their long hair in a silver ring The nng of the first level physicians was gold Only one or two second-level graduates were produced each year First level graduates arose about every five years The extent of conditioning, as determined by the school, determined the price that the school would request for placing the physi 487 SUK SCHOOL cian with a family or group Many of the Houses Minor or groups of businessmen would pool their resources to obtain and share the ministrations of a Conditioned Suk physician The employers paid a lump sum, always large, to the school and recorded a contract with the individual physician Although the Suk School of Medicine still exists, it has greatly changed from the days when it produced physicians for the Imperial Family The decline of the school began when the myth of unbreakable Imperial Conditioning exploded The best documented case is that of the infamous Dr Wellington Yueh, who was forced by Baron Harkonnen to consider the unthinkable and found, no doubt to his own surprise, that it was diifi cult but not impossible to betray his employer Yueh's case is known, but we must wonder if other successful Suk-doctor betrayals re main unknown to this day The existence of possrtde levers for sab verting the Imperial Conditioning must have been known to the officials of the Suk School because Suk physicians with Imperial Con ditiomng were encouraged not to marry, al though they were not forbidden to do so After the facts concerning Yueh's subversion were revealed, the Suk School forbade its graduates of the Inner School to marry Unfortunately this m$ve did not prevent other Suk Imperial Conditioned physicians from being subverted Once the support of universal faith was removed, once the doc tors themselves realized their vulnerability they knew both good and evil thereafter Contributing to the demise of the Imperial Conditioning was Ac discovery that the Tlcilaxu had produced a twisted Suk physician The final blow came with the ascension of Leto 11 to the Imperial throne Since Uto II had no need of a physician, he withdrew his financial support of the school In the mtdst of financial ills the school officials were approached by a group of Mmg practitioners in the year 12953 B G The Mmg group had been denied Imperial permission to establish a separate medical school and although Tsai and Mmg are two very different forms of medicine both techm cally and philosophically the two groups reached an agreement to join fortes to rejuvenate the dying Suk School of Medicine Rivalry between the two had always been great and it took hard negotiating to work the compromise with many Tsai practitioners refusing to be a part of the merger The major difference between the Tsai school and the Mmg school concerns the mode of treatment The Tsai practitioners are herbalists and their treatment except m surgical cases involves administration of natu ral herbal medicines usually processed by the physician himself The Mmg practitioners however, rely primarily on the manipulation of the body s musculoskeletal structure and utilization of vital pressure points to mobi kze the body s immunological system When the two groups of physicians first began teaching together at the school all students received the same basic medical education and then were allowed the choice of Mmg specialization or Tsai specialization Many students began to realize the advan tages of each type of medicine and requested training m both Most students at the Suk School of Mediune now opt for this dual training, and for this reason the school is presently thriving M S Farther references YUEH WELLINGTON YUEH WANNA Fanna Jahid Heal and Hurt Villains m Medicine (Zunaona Kinat) Fanna Jahid History of the Suk School tfMedicine (Gromman United Worlds) Kamila Vanstonan Mmg Medicine Acupuncture and Osteopathy A Com parative Study (Richese New Caledonia Slate UP) 488 THORSE (thorsus thorsensis).