Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1857-09-12
PY COVER & GOLDSMITH.
The Medical Profession, by One who knew ii

The Medical Profession, by One who knew it.
The American Medical Gazette for
June gives remarkably interesting letter
from an American medical student in Par
is. This writer says that he once heard
Magendie, the celebrated French physi-
clan and phyisologst, open lecture some
what in the following words:
"Gentlemen: Medicine is a great hum
bug. know it is called science-sci-
ence, indeed 1t is nothing like science.
Doctors aie mere empires, when they are
not charlatans. We are as ignorant as
men can be. Who knows any thing in
the world about medicine? Gentlemen
you have done me honor to come here to
attend my lectures, and | must tell you
frankly in tile beginning, that | know
nothing in the world about medicine, and
[ don't know anybody who does know
anything about it. Don't think for mo
ment that | haven't read the bills adyer-
Using the course of lectures at the Medical
School; | know that this man teaches an
atomy, that man teaches pathology, anoth-
er man physiology ,such-a one therapeutics,
such another materia medica-Eh betn.!
ct apress What's known about all that (?
Why gentlemen, at the school of Montpel-
Ter (God knows it was famous in its day y
they discarded the study of anatomy, and
ia lgltt nothing but the dspensary; and
the doctors educated there knows just as
much and quite successful as any others.
| repeat it, nobody knows anything about
medicine. Tue enough we are gather
ing facts every day. We can produce ty-
plus fever, for example, by injecting a
certain substance into the veins of a dog
that's something; we can alleviate dia-
betes, and, I see distinctly we are fast ap.
preaching the day when phthisis can be
cured as easily as any disease.
We are collecting facts in the right spir-
it, and | dare say in century or SO the
&C eunulaion of facts may enable our sue
cessors to form a medical science; but |
repeat it to You, there is no such thing
now as medical science. Who can tell
how to cure the headache! or the govt
Or disease Of the heart? Nobody! OH
you tell me the doctors cure people. /
grant you people are cured. But how are
they cured? Gentlemen, nature does a
great DEAL Imagination does great deal
Doctors =. deviish little :. when they
don't do harm. Let me tell you gentle
men, what l did when [ was head physi-
elan at the Hotel Dicu Some three or
four thousand patients passed through my
hands every year. | divided the patients
into classes: with one, | followed the dis
penaary, and gave them the usual medi
zines without having the least idea of why
or wherefore to the other, gave bread
pills and coloted water, without, of course
letting them know anything about it :.
and occasionally, gentlemen, | would ere
ate a third division, to whom gave moth
ing whatever. These last would fret p
II good deal, they would feel they were
NEGLECTED, unless they were well dragged
|. . les imJc6iesi and they would initiate
Themselves until they got really sick, but
nature invariably came to the rescue, and
all the people, in the third class got well.
There was little tmoralty among those
who received bread pills and colored wa
ter, and the morality was greatest among
those who were carefully drugged accord
ing to the dispensary.