The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1881-02-17
A DEADLY DEAD LANGUAGE.


A society has been started, the OBJ
iect of which is to stop this danger
ous style the doctors have of writing
prescriptions in the Latin language,
when many of them have never
looked into book of ancient Ian
guages, and not much into those of
their mother tongue. just think of
a doctor, who has practiced a
quarter of century, sticking bill
into a patients face with the oft re-
peated entry, "to one dost medr
writing a prescription in Latin,
which must then be entrusted
some apothecary's clerk, who ac-
cords to the doctor classical lore be-
cause he writes ."dost" for dose.
There is something exalted about an
indisposed fellow being killed out
right through pure Latin, but when
prescriptions are filled in chicken or
dog latin. and the fellow dies there
from, as he often does, all the romance
ofdeath is knocked out, and the thing
is fiat and stale and disgusting.
A man is bled to death, or his nerves
give way, and he collapses while the
skillful surgeon removes with his
delicate knife and saw, first the Gu
ticle and then the muscular tissue
and then the nerves and bones. He
dies because of a most scientific adj
vance upon his body, because one
and another point is taken and de-
stroyed, until by scientific approach
es the citadel oflife falls. This is
truly most honorable death, "a. sort of
death which a patient ought to court
with feelings of pride, because he
permits the skillful man of the
scalpel to do with the living, breath
ing body, and to observe effects,
that which he has done before only
with cold, unappreciative corpses.
The bungling practitioner, who has
probably carved up a dog or q cat,
takes hold of the human form di-
vine, and at the first stroke he
sewers a main artery, and amid
confusion and dismaY the wretched
creature passes out of existence
without even a sweet extension of
sympathy, and that, too, because he
employs. a, butcher instead of some
skillful surgeon, who knows how to
do the thing Handsomely SO it is
with the ignoramus who pretends 10
write..words in a language he knows
nothing of. He kills with bad
Latin, while the educated physician
kills in a style too elegant to criti-
else. But the world is becoming
too practical for these forms, touch
ing either end of the dilemma. 1t
is not as Hamlet soliloquised-"To
be or not to be"-but it is to cease to
be in style Ineligible to the aver
age man, who cares but little as to
the proper presentation on paper of
the English language. When the
doctor calls on us to quit these ills
than human flesh is heir to let us do
it with the mandate written in
tolerably fair English, SO thatall may
understand. A practical world calls
for the change, and hence we would
urge our legislature, since Texas
takes the lead in so many reas-
enable and practical things, to move
in advance of other states in this
matter. To be killed by dead Ian
guage is stale sentimentality; to be
killed by a live one is in harmony
with the spirit of Texas institutions;
and we therefore urge the introduc-
ton and passage of bill, for which
no one should be more. thankful
than the average doctor and clerk,
who rack their brains over formulas,
that have passed through their
minds like the spirit of an ignis
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