The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1885-08-14
4 PHYSICIANS POWER.
The Unasormity OF Natures Destrsyine
Agencies.

fAe Uniformity OF Natures Destrsying
Asencies.
Tho art Of the physician can do much
to remove its subjects from deadly and
dangerous influences, and something to
control or arrest the effect of these in
f1uences. But look at the records of the
Reinsurance Offices, and see how uni
form is the action of natures destroying
agencies. Look at the annual reports
of the deaths in any of our great cities,
and see how their regularity approaches
the uniformity of the tides, and their va
riations keep pace with those of the sea-
sons. The foundations 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 fall
ing leaf.
The physician watches these changes
as the astronomer watched the rise of
the great river. He longs to rescue in
dividuals. to protect communities from
the inroads of these destroying agencies.
He uses all the means which experience
has approved, tries every rational meth
cd which ingenuity can suggest Some
fortunate recovery leads him to believe
he has hit upon q preventive or cure
for a malady which had resisted all
known remedies His rescued patient
sounds his praises, and wide circle Of
his patients friends joins in chorus of
eulogies. Self-love applauds him for
his sagacity. Self-interest congratulates
him on his having found the road to for
tune; the sense of having proved a ben
on which he lays his head to dream of
the brilliant future opening before him.
If single coincidence may lead
person Of sanguine disposition to be-
lieve that he has mastered disease
which had baffled all who were before
his time, and on which his cOntempora-
ries looked in hopeless impotence. what
must be the effect Of . series Of such
condolences even on q mind of calmer
temper! Such series of condolences
will happen, and they may well deceive
the very elect Think of Dr. Rush.
you know what q famous man he was,
the very head and front of American
medical science in his day.-and re-
member how he spoke about yellow
fever. which he thought he had mas
tered.
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 involved.
What wonder that the history of Medi-
cine should be to SO great an extent q
record of self-delusiOn!
If this seems dangerous concession
to the enemies of the true science and art
of healing, l will remind you that it is
all implied in the first aphOrism of Hip
pocrates, 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 attainment,
how precious are the results which the
consent of the wisest and most expe-
rienced among the healers::of men agrees
in accepting. Think what folly it is to
east them aside in favor of palpable i'm
positions stolen from the records of for
gotten charlatanism. or of fantastic
speculations spun from the squirting
brains of theorists as wild as the Egyp-
tain astronomer.
Begin your medical studies, then, by
reading the fortieth and the following
four chapters of Rasselas. Your first
lesson will teach you mOdesty and eau
ton in the pursuit of the most decep-
tive of all practical branches of knowl-
edge. 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.-Oirer Wendell
Holmes in atlantic Monthly.