The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-09-18
OUR MEDICAL VISITORS.

Hall, with every prospect OF q large attenO-
ance and a successful meeting. In the three
days of the session half a hundred papers
will be read, opinions exchanged, and doubt
less much good be accomplished. This soci-
| ETY. is independent of the county and State
medical organizations of the three States
Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois-which COM
pose it. 1t originated in the "Pocket' of
Indiana, and its first meeting was held at
Vincennes. Meetings have also been held at
Louisville, KY, Springfield, ILL.,, Terre Haute,
and this year at Indianapolis. The object of
the tri-State society is to promote fellowship
and useful acquaintance between the leading
medical men in the area that has Indianapo-
lis for it's center. 1t does not draw largely
on Cincinnati, st. Louis or Chicago. as these
great centers have special societies and
schools of their own.
No class of professional men is better
organized for mutual improvement and the
progress of their combined science and art
than physicians. The best of them attend
weekly or monthly medical meetings in their
respective counties, and once a year are to
be seen at their State society. Here dele
gates are elected to the annual meeting of
the American Medical Association, which
represents each State of the Union, and in
Indiana most Of the counties. There are
also in this State district associations, each
comprising several adjacent counties. These,
in connection with the tri-State society, have
done much to advance medical science and
ameliorate the condition of the suffering.
What respectable physicians know or dis
cover they share in common. They have no
secret remedies or cabalistic prescriptions;
to patent a medicine or an instrument, or to
use such, is considered not merely unprofes-
s%ional, but criminal. This is the spirit of all
honorable medical men. The result has
been a progress which has rescued medicine
from the domain of magic, necromaDcy and
the black SIT, and placed its devotees in
the front rank of science and philanthropy.
America has made substantial additions
to medical science and literature. The dis
covery of ether an@sthesia by DIR. G. T.
Morton, of Boston, who found ether inhala-
ton the dangerous amusement of chemical
lecture-rooms and left it the sovereign ano-
dyne of the race in its moments and hours
of agony; OF ovariotomy. by Ephraim Nc
Dowell, of Danville, KY, which has, accord
ing to DR.. o. w. Holmes, added in this CEN
fury fifty thousand years of active, useful
life to suffering women, and which has
opened up a new realm in surgery, are only
notable instances of what the United States
has lone for medical science. The success
of these men came in the ordinary line Of
daily practice and duty, for the success of
medical men depends on these, rather than
on adventitious circumstance of time and
place. In England or on the continent these
men would have been knighted, but the hon
est physician needs no extraneous title
TO insure his Office dignity and respect. The
simple designation of doctor or physician,
without the name of any schooFor pathy So
called, is enough glory and title for those
who have elected medicine, wisely looking to
the higher aim of it, and to that which is the
proper end of all action and living.
There is a Misrepresentation among the peo-
pie as to the character and worth OF the true
| physician-the good man, skilled in healing
due to the fact that without government
or social regulation the profession is over
run and is, especially in the larger towns
an6 citiaS 6llad with ouaolS oOA cbar1afarc
who nave neither common nor medical
knowledge, or having such knowledge use it
for purely selfish and m%ercenary ends. This
class has increased the number and decreased
the quality. Bogus colleges have issued their
fraudulent diplomas until we have in the
United States over $1,000 doctors but
probably not over 10000 physicians. More
over, Americans naturally take TO drugs,
aud this false class carry the impression that
disease is All entity and they have the spe-
cities, rather than ass erting that medica-
ments are only aids to the natural processes
of restoration.
But, none the less, there are good physi-
clans, men of great hearts and small incomes,
the family doctors and the country physi-
clans, who, for small pay long delayed,
stand by the bedsides alike
of the newborn and of the dying,
oring rest and sleep to the suffering in the
agonies OF sickness and injuries, and 20
down to their graves with their gray heads
covered with honor and blessing. In the
ranks OF these are the honest and progressive
men who appreciate the value of medical
association and fellowship, and whose genial
faces, carrying hope to the desolate and rest