The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1885-09-10
The Power of a Physician.

''The art of the physician can do
much to remove its subjects from dead
ly and dangerous influences, and some-
thing 10 control or arrest the effects of
these influences. But look at the re-
cords of the life-insurance offices, and
see how uniform is the action of ma
ture's destroying agencies. Look at
the annual reports of the death in any
of our great cities, and see how their
regularity approaches the uniformity
of the tides, and their variations keep
pace with those of the seasons. The
inundations of the Nile are not more
certainly to be predicted than the vast
wave of infantile disease which flows
In upon all our great cities with the
growing heats of July-than the fevers
and dysenteries which visit our rural
districts in the months of the falling
leaf. ....s . tss. -.-...
''The physician watches these
changes as the astronomer watches the
rise of the great river. He longs to
rescue individuals, to protect COM
munities from the inroads of these de-
stroying agencies. He uses all the
means which experience has approved,
tries every rational method which in
=
recovery leads him to believe he has
hit upon q preventive or a cure for a
malady which has resisted all known
remedies. His rescued patient sounds
his praises, and wide circle of his pa
tents friends joins in a chorus of
eulogies. Self-love applauds him for
his sagacity. Self-interest congratu-
lates him on his having found the road
to fortune; the sense of having proved
benefactor of his race smooths the
pillow on which he lays his head to
dream of the brilliant future opening
before him. If a single coincidence
may lead q person of sanguine disposi-
tion to believe that he has mastered a
disease which has baffied all who were
before his time, and on which his con-
temporaries looked in hopeless impo-
tence, what must be the effect of a
series of such condolences even on a
mind of calmer temper! Such series of
condolences will happen, and they
may well deceive the very elect. Think
of DIR. Rush-you know what famous
man he was, the very head and front of
American medical science in his day
and remember how he spoke about
yellow fever, which he thought he had
mastered.
''Thus the physician is entangled in
the meshes of q wide conspiracy, in
which he and his patient and their
friends, and Nature herself are in
volved. What wonder that the his
tory of medicine should be to so great
an extent a record of self-delusion!
'.H this seems q dangerous conces-
sion to the enemies of the science and
art of healing, 1 will remind you that
it is all implied in the first aphorism of
Hippocrates, the Father. of Medicine.
Do not draw a wrong inference from
the frank statement of the difficulties
which beset the medical practitioner.
Think rather, if truth is so hard of at
tainment, how precious are the results
which the consent of the wisest and
most experienced among the healcrs of
men agrees in accepting. Think what
folly it is to cast them aside in favor of
palpable impositions stolen from the
records of forgotten charlatanism, or
of fantastic speculations spun from
the squirting brains of theorists as
wild as the Egyptian astronomer.
"Begin your medical studies, then,
by reading the fortieth and the follow
ing four chapters of Rasselas. Your
first lesson will teach you modesty and
caution in the pursuit of the most de-
ceptive of all practical branches of
knowledge. Faith will come later,
when you learn how much medical
science and art have actually achieved
for the relief of mankind, and how
great are the promises it holds out of
still larger triumphs over the enemies
OF human health and happiness. -
OiiUer IIiendeH Holmes, in July allan
4,