The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1885-09-21
HINTS TO DOCTORS,
ESPECIALLY ToYoUNe MEMBERS OF
THE PROFESSION.
Requisites for a Successful Practitioner
The Medical Mans Great Art-The
Ministers and the Ladies'
Avoid Patients Society.
brooklyn Eagie.l

brooklyn Eaglel
Do not be persuaded by foolish friends
to plant yourself in any new quarter OF
the CITY. All new colonies are fatal to
early enterprise, the first settlers only
clear the way for those who follow, and
are regularly ruined for the beneht OF
posterity When you have taken house
and put your brass plate on the door, you
cannot do better than go abroad for four
or five years At your return you viii
probably find that no one has inquired
for you, which must be very consolatory
TO your feelings, inasmuch as it will show
you have lost nothing by your absence,
and have yet given the world time TO be-
gin to ascertain there is such person In
existence as yourself. Having familiarized
people with your name. it behooves you
then to give it notoriety; therefore lose no
time in getting into print You cannot
lay out couple of hundred dollars to bet
ter advantage than publishing a pamphlet
on any popular medical subject. A
treatise on indigestion has gained many q
physician a sumptuous dinner. Mott,
Francis, Buck, furnish excellent examples
of that sort of alchemy which transmits a
grievous dyspepsia to a groaning table.
$50 many dishes, says Seneca, $50 many
disorders, but vice versa with the doc
tors. so many disorders, so many dishes
The great majority of mankind are
fools-that large portion you are to live
by therefore mystify your patients.
When you talk to them, let it be in King
{ analyses vein. The ears of the million
arc easily captivated; when once their
senses are COMPOUNDED, they have natur
ally religious reveration for anything
they do not understand. In brief, in all
your dealings with men, remember you
have to do with folks who. according to
the attn proveFb "haYe all at some time
been insane Never give a direct an
swer to patients question, never commit
yourself by entering into explanation
with the frieEds To the sick man you
cannot put too few questions; to the rela-
tives you can never give too few replies.
The great art of a physician is to gain
the confidence of the patient, and for that
purpose his first object should be to in
spire him with hope. 1t is not a heSitat-
ing manner or a melancholy mien which
is calculated to raise the dropping spirits
of the sick; it is not a hangman's look or
q mutes demeanor that is likely to lend
the physiognomy of the physician the
character of a messenger of glad tidings,
who comes with healing on his wings and
the gift of health IN his right hand; it is
not the timid eye, the irresolute tread,
the frivolous tongue, the fearful voice, or
the foolish simper of servile acquiescence
with the opinions of the friends or the
which are at all favorable to the produc
ton of that faith which can remove dis
eases which have been mountains to mere
medicine.
Never refuse a fee from any person who
Is able to give one, in order that you may
never have occasion to take one from q
man who is too poor to well afford one.
It matters not how mercenarY you may
be accounted by the rich, so long as you
oso full n 10
get fees without depriVing them of bread,
il were better you had never been doc
tor. Your friends nor your familiars
have any claim on your skill, whatever
they may have on your affection. If they
are entitled to your gratuitous attendance
q large connection would be great evil
to q physician. Were you q merchant
they would not ask your goods without
an equivalent, and surely because you are
man of science they cannot expect the
still more precious chattels of the mind
without any compensation.
To obtain practice be sure to enlist the
service on your side of the pastors of all
denominations in your neighborhood, and
pay your court assiduously to the infuen-
tial women. but above all, if in the coun-
try; to the one or two charitable ladies,
par excellence, who are to be found in
every town, devoting a life of single
blessedness and all the leisure Of neglected
beauty and imperishable celibacy to the
service of religion and humanity Be
sure that you buy golden opinions of
these good women, for with all their &C
tive b0nevOlenoe they have large portion
of their leisure to bestow on. the privacy
Of their friends and neighbors, and heaven
defend the reputation of that poor wretch
who. at the terrible Areopagus of their
tea table, is consigned to the tender mer
cies of their envenomed tongues.
Avoid the society of your patients.
Physicians should have no fanliliars; to
be thoroughly respected, they must stand
aloof from the gaze of society. A
prophet has no power IN his own country,
neither has physician in his own circle
Without skill it is impossible to become a
fiourishing physician, but without good
manners all the skill of the most eminent
physicians will not avail you in large
capital A good address is everything to
a doctor. The public are incapable of
Judging of medical mans real knowl-
edge; the only way they have of forming
an opinion, therefore, is by analogy. by
scrutinizing those superficial qualities and
the outward and visible signs of them,
which come Immediately within the
narrow sphere Of their comprehension.
If his manners be good, they give his
mind credit for the advantage.
The last and greatest precept Of all is:
\ ever violate in thought, word or deed
the sanctity of the sick chamber! He is a
villain who reveals the secrets of that
prison house. where pure humanity lies
bare and helpless; he is a traitor to his
profession who gossips about the infrmi-
ties he is called to relieve; he is unworthy
t he name of physician who, abusing the
confidence which is reposed in his human
ity and his honor. has no sooner turned
from the bedside of the patient than the
infrmities he has witnessed become the
subject of a Fibald jest.
Concerning Poisonous Snakes.
!I'h iadelphia Press.
1t Is remarkable fact that q poisonous
snake can not poison one of its own Spe-