The spirit of democracy. [volume] (Woodsfield, Ohio) 1844-1994, 1844-07-19
For the Spirit Of Democracy.
THE SCIENCE OF MEDIcINE-No. II.

THE SCIENCE OF MEDICINE.--NO. III.
Such remuneration is little else than an insult
offered to the understanding of the scientific prac-
titioner. 1t is confounding Of all distinction,
and places the brightest luminary of the science
on a level with empires, q,.aeks and nostrum pa-
ders. The public journals groan with the enor-
nous weight Of these nostrum vtes, which prom
se to cure every thing and more too, when ten
thousand well attested facts prove it all hoax and
base imposition on the public mind, and yet their
designs are daily carried out And when men of
sound investigating minds tell US, and that too from
all the acs in the great materia of natures that
medicine cures by any specific virtue in itself; that
medicine only acts as aremediate agent; that under
the eye of the sage only il be administered so
as to be certain of success; that counter agency
is the end proposed in its minisraton; and that the
whole principle must be well understood in order
to involve the conclusion certan;-t are disrc-
garded, and the veriest phal smeller of some bel
danes urine conveyed forty miles in the pocket of
an enthusiast is applied to for specifics, in prefer
ence to the man who has burned the candle Of his
life down to the last inch in order to be qualified to
render himself useful. Such state of public
sentiment in relation to the science of medicine,
brings to my mind an expression made by lad
who took great delight in following his hounds,
upon reading Stephens travels among the Indians
of the south, where he states that they worshipped
eldemonia, l. e. they worshipped the devil, he
exclaimed in great surprise, "they have taken the
back track" Men in rejecting science fraught
with such momentous consequences, and flying to
those departments for relief where ignorance,
prejudice and superstition have filled the profess
sional CHAIR undisturbed by the glare of science,
more than two hundred years, must surely have
taken the back track.
And constant perseverance in that track may
happily introduce into the republic the golden age,
in which the perfume arising from the burning
liver of fish was all potent to chase the devil from
the nuptial chamber of the famed Tobias; or re-
action of the scenes in which Eiaazur pulled his
Satanical majesty from the noistrils Of an amable
Roman dame, by the application Of Solomon's
seal to her olfactores in the presence Of vespasan;
Orwhen noble doctor made him leave his post by
the application of plaster Of assafeotida in case
VI 1uS last CHCuIustdnCc, Us u lS
modus operandi, was a subject of much dispute
among the professors of that day. Some gave it
as their opinion that he was insulted at such filthy
application to the roseate maxillary of SO fair
creature, and so went off in high dudgeon. 9th.
ers again were of a contrary opinion, and gravely
maintained that as he had eyes, horns, ct cetera,
he might, forsooth have nose also, and of course
went away knking it up to avoid sneezing and
instant detection.
We do not, as medical men pretend to say to
which party the merits of the controversy were
awarded. This is not more marvellous than what
we find in our travels even in this more enlghten.
ed age 1t is quite common to find the blood of a
black cat applied to the curing Of erisypelas. In
many places where we are called in, these poor
black sons of the leo race sit moping under the
cabin corners, destitute of heavens longest gift
1--WE mean their tails) as Tam O'Shanter's mare.
tl' . SELKIRK.