Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1890-04-26
PAINLESS SURGERY.
DIR. TALMAGE DESCRIBES THE DE-
vELOPMENT OF THE ART
OF HEALING.


TEXT, ''The blind receire their sight, and
the lame troLk, the lepers are cleanssd. and
the deaf hear. Matthew xi. 5.
Doctor" | said to distinguished sur
geon, do you not get worn out with con
stantly seeing SO many wounds and broken
bones and distortions of the human bodyyn
''0h, no. he answered. 'alI that is over
come by my JOY in curing them" A sublimer
or more merciful art never came down from
haven than the art of surgery. Catastrophe
and disease entered the earth so early that
one of the first wants of the world was doc
tor. Our crippled and agonized human racs
rallied for surgeon and family physician for
many years before they came The first
surgeons who answered this call were minis
tiers of religion, namely, the Egyptian priests.
And what grand thing if all clergymep
were also doctors, all D. DIS were NJ DIS
for there are so many cases where body and
soul need treatment at the same time conso
lation and medicine, theology and therapeu-
tics
As the first surgeons of the world were also
ministers of religion may these two PROBES
sions always be in full sympathy But UNI
der what disadvantages the early surgeons
worked, from the fact that the dissection of
the human body was forbidden, first by the
pagans and then by the early Christians
Apes, being the brutes most like the human
race were dissected, but no human body
might be unfolded for physiological and ana
tomical exploration. and the surgeons had TO
guess what was inside the temple by looking
at the outside of it. If they failed in any
surgical operation they were prosecuted and
driven out of the city. as was Archagathus
because of his bold but unsuccessful attempt
to save patient.
But the world from the very beginning
kept calling for surgeons and their first skill
is spoken of in Genesis, where they employed
their art for the incisions Of sacred rite,
God making surgery the predecessor of bap-
tism; and we see 1t again in Ii Kings; where
Ahaziah, tho monarch, stepped on some
cracked lattice work IN the palace and it
broke, and he fell from the upper to the low
er floor, and he was 50 hurt that he sent to
the village of Ekron for aid: and Esculapius,
who wrought such wonders of surgery that
he was deifed, and temples were built
for his worship at Pergamos; and Epi-
the relief of the world phtebot-
omy; and Damocedes cured the dislocated
ankle of King Darius and the cancer of his
queen; and Hippocrates put successful hand
IN fractures and introduced amputation; and
PraNagoras removed distinctions: and He
rophilus began dissection and Erasistratus
removed tumors; and CELSIUS, the Roman
surgeon, removed cataract from the eve and
used the Spanish fly: and Heliodorus arrested
disease OF the throat; and Alexander, of
Iralles, treated the eye; and RhaZas cauter-
lied for the prevention of hydrophobia, and
Percival Pott came TO combat diseases of the
spine; an in our own century we have had
a ROux and a Larray in France, an Ashley
Cooper and All Abernethy in Great Britain,
and a Valentine Mott and Willard Parker
and Samuel u. Gross iii America. and gal.
nxy OF living surgeons as brilliant as their
predecessors, What mighty progress in the
baftiing of disease since the crippled and
sick of ancient cities were laid along the
streets, that people who had ever been hurt
or disordered i'd the same way might suggest
what had better be done for the patients and
the priests of odeu time who were con-
stantiy suffering from colds received in
walking barefoot over the temple pa vements.
had to prescribe for themselves and frac-
tires were considered 50 far beyond all
human cure that instead of calling in the
surgeons the people only invoked the gods!
But Notwithstanding all the surgical and
medical skill Of the world, with what tenacity
the old diseases hang on to the human race,
and most of them are thousands of years old.
and in our Bibles we read of them: the car.
buncles of Joo and Hezeklah; the pauitation
OF the heart SPOKEN of in Deuteronomy; the
sunstroke of child carried from the fields of
Shunem, crying "My headt my headr'
King Asas disease of the feet, which was
Iothing but govt, detection of teeth that
called for dental surgery, the skill of which.
quite equal to anything modern, is still seen
in the filled moiars of the unrolled Egyptian
mummies; the ophthalmia caused BY the
juice of the newly ripe fig leaving the people
blind at the roadside; epilepsy, as in
the case Of the young man often falling into
the fire, and oft into the water; hypochon-
dria, as of Nebucha 1nezzar. who imagined
himself an OK, and going Ou5 to the fields to
pasture; the withered hand. which in Bible
times, as now, came from the destruction of
the main artnrv az from It.ie. Sc
chief nerve, the wounds OF the man whom
the thieves left for dead on the road to
Jericho and whom the good Samaritan
| nursed, pouring in oil and wiae-wine to
elease the wound and oil to soothe il. Thank
God for what surgery has done for the ale
Walton and cure of human sufferingi
But the world wanted a surgery without
pain. Drs. Parre and Hickman and Simp.
son and Warner and Jackson, with their
amazing genius, came on, and with their
anaeSthetics Demanded the patient with mar
cotlcs and etners as the auciauts did with
hasheesh and mandrake, and qItieted him for
While, but at tn return of consciousness
distress returned. The world has never seen
( but one surgeon who could straighten the
crooked limb, cure the blind eve or recon
struct the drum Of q soundless ear or reduce
dropsy without any pain at the time, or
any pain after, and that surgeon was Jesus
Christ, the mightiest. gFandest, gentlest and
or ever will see; and He deserves the conf
dence and love and worship and hosanna Of
all the earth and halelujahs of all heaven
1.-THE blind receive their sight and the lame
walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf
tear
notice this Surgeon had fondness for
chronic cases. Many surgeon, when he has
Sad pat emit brought to him, has said
why was not this attended to five years
ago? You bring him to me after all power
of recuperation is gone You have waited
until there is a complete contraction of the
MUSCLES, and false lgatures are formed, and
ossihcation has taken place. 1t ought to have
been attended to long ago" But Christ the
Surgeon seemed to prefer inveteFate cases.
One was hemorrhage of twelve years, and
He stopped it. Another was a curvature of
eighteen years, aud He Strengthened it. An
other was cripple of thirty-sight years. and
he walked out well The eighteen-year pa
tient was woman bent almost double If
you could call convention of all the sur
geons of all the centuries, their combined
skill could not cure that body so drawn out
of shape.
Perhaps they might stop it from getting
any worse, perhaps they might contri7e
braces by which she might be made more
comfortable, but it is, humanity speaking, in
durable Yet this divine Surgeon put both
His hands on her. and from that doubled up
face began to take on healthier hue, and
the muscles began to relax from their rigid
itS, and the spinal column began to adjust it.
self, and the cords of the neck began to be
more supple, and the eyes that could see only
he ground before now looked into the face
VI Christ with gratitude, and up toward
heaven in transport. Straight After eight
cen weary and exhaustive years, straight
The poise, the gracefulness, the beauty of
healthy womanhood feinstated.
The thirty-eight years case was man
who lay on a mattress near the mineral baths
at Jerusalem. There were five apartments
where lame people were brought, so that
they could get the advantage of thess min
eral baths. The stone basin of the bath is
still visible, although the waters have dis
appeared probably through some convulsion
of nature, the bath, one hundred and twenty
feet long forty feet wide and eight feet
deep. All, poor man, if you have been lame
and helpless thirty eight years, that mineral
bath cannot restore you, Why. thi .+v-sight
years is more than tie average of
human lifei Nothing but the grave
will cure you. But Christ the Surgeon
walks along these baths. and | have
no doubt passes by some patients who have
been only six months disordered, or a year,
or hve years, and comes to the mattress of
the man who had been nearly four decades
helpless, and to this thirty-eight years in
valid said: wilt thou DO made whole%'
The question asked, not because the Surgeon
did not understand the protractedness the
despsrateness, of the case, but TO evoke the
mans pathetic narrative ''WiJ thou be
made whole?' Would YOU like o get weI1@'
"Oh, yes" says the man, ''tbat is what l
came to these mineral baths for. | have
tried everything. All the surgeons have
failed, and all the prescriptions have proved
valuueless, and l have got worse and worse