The Dallas weekly herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1885, 1882-08-24
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DNse Of Lectures in the |
IHent Of that Institution that
Pled by 50 much sound, pract-
20 aud libeplity Of view, that II Is
Mhy TO be- most generally read. The
Rist Of the doctrirc'teugh t ia that however
noble may be ,ho WORT OF the physician TO
attend to the discovery and apply the
remedial agents for healing disease or ale
waiting pain, yet the grander field and en-.
ployment Of his skill and study is the
ascertainmentand disclosure to the people
how to live that disease and pain may not
come upon them. This is truly fine senti-
ment and worthy the source and the pro-
fessioIf whence it emanates. BY this the
learned professor evidently means that
sanitary knowledge sho uld be more en-
larged and disseminated that it may be
more completely applied to our every day
lie to the end of development
for mai of longer life, more vigorous, q
happier and better one than any yet
known. He means that hygienic studies
must be more general among the young at
their schools and In their homes, that they
should begin to understand a little more
about their own bodies even at the expense
of the heavenly bodies, little more about
their own anatomy and physiology than
about the composition of the rocks or the
structure of the stars. He evidently
means that the microscope must be
in the future more used for the
ascertainment of our own physical
phenomena of the blood, flesh and bones,
than the telescope for the search of noun
talns in the moon and spots on the .sun; a
more minute inspection of the water we
drink, the air we breathe, the food we. eat.
And when these views shall obtain we will
be all the better Off 1t is charged that the
Catholics at one time would not permit
their adherents to read the bible. for fear
their faith should be shaken and certain
church doctrines exploded, but that they
world is better now for the newer
era that throws the books open
to its eyes. So has it
been charged that physicians write their
prescriptions in q foreign language, lest
the faith of the patient be lessened. But
it will likewise be p'l the better for the
layman and the professional when our
medical education shall be so arranged that
the general stndent may obtain fill views
and secure firm graspof the great truths
of animal life, of pathology, therapeutics
and practical medicine. The country will
be healthier, however, when blind faith
in all sorts of medical agents shall give
place to greater faith in right living, proper
diet, appropriate dress and good
drainage; when pure air, simple food,
and healthfUl exercise shall be the sub
stitutes for all sorts of drugs powerful in
quantity and quality. 1t is, indeed. better
to so live that diseases should not come,
than being ill 20 possess the possible means
of an ultimate cure. Now will this de-
tract from the physicians work? If, when
attending patient, he is specially con-
cerned in that patient having good nurse,
how much better is he off if the
sick himself is so well inform
cd that he contributes just so
much aid TO his own recovery? 1t will be
better too, for man, when he comes to I'M
derstand that his being is not simply an
aggregation of "raw-hide and blood and
BONES" mere physical composition of OIL
gans and tissues operated as through their
respective cells, by sundry molecular and
chemical forces, but that he is made up of
the moral essences as well, having his hopes
and his fears, his loves and his hates, with
II mind to think, to dare and to do These
are of the influences that often refuse to
yield to the treatment of mineral, me-
talic or vegetable substances, of the
pharmaceutical compound or the surgeons
scalpel. When we understand and appre-
ciate these. things as well as some others,
we contend that the world will be wIser
and better and humanity generally will
score up the average of life on the actuary's
insurance tables. We believe that the Drift
of the medical practice of to-day is in the
direction indicated, and he who censures or
loses faith in his physician because he does
not see fit TO order at each visit some addi.
tional prescription, is living in the idea of
the times that are passing away foreyer.