The Forrest City times., 1890-04-26
SURGERY WITHOUT PAIN.
Rev. I. Dewitt Talmage's Comparative
 Sermon.
A Sublime and Nerciful Art-surgery Pre- csding Baptism Messiahs for the vari- ous Ills of Man Christ the 0randsst the Mightiest of Them All.

csding Baptism Messiahs for the vari-
 ous Ills of Man Christ the 0randsst the
 Mightiest of Them All.
 Sunday morning Dr. Talmago preached at tho Brooklyn Academy of Music, taking for his text Matthew 1l:5--"rhe blind re- ceive their sight and the lame walk. the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear"
 .Doctor,'' 1 said to distinguished sur gcon, "do you not got worn out with con stautly seeing so many wounds and broken bones and distortions of the human botyf "Oh no;n hc answered, "ali that IS over como by my joy in curing thenL" A sub liner or more merciful art never came down from heaven than the art of surgery. Catastrophe and disease entered the earth so carly that one of the first wants or the world was . doctor. Our crippled and agonized human race called for surgeon and family physician for many years before they came, The first surgeons who an swered this call were ministers of religion, namely, the Egyptian priests And what grand thing If all clergynnen were also doctors, all D. D's were M D,s, for there are so many cases whero body and soul need treatment at the same time, consola- ton and medicine, theology and thcrapeu- tics As the first surgeons of the world were also minister's of religion. may these two professions always be in full sympathy ! But under what disadvantages the early surgeons worked, from the fact that the dissection of tho human body was forbid den, first by tho pasans and then by the early ChristiansL Apes, being the brutes most like the human race, were dissected, but no human body might be unfolded Tor physiological md anatomical exploration, and the surgeons had to guess what was inside tho temple by looking at the outside of it. If they failed in any surgical opera ton they were persecuted and driven out of the city, as was Archagathus because of his bold but unsuccessful attempt to save a 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 tho incisions of a sacred rite, God making surgery the pre-. decessor of baptism; and we sec 1t again in II Kings, where Ahaziah, tue monarch, stepped on some cracked lattice work in the palace. and it broke, and he fell from the upper to the lowcr floor, and he was so hurt that he sent 10 the village of Ekron for aid; and Esculapius, who wrought such wonders of surgery that ho was deiiicd, and temples were built for his worship ut Pergamos; and Epidaurus and Podclirius introduced for the relief Of tho world phlobotomy; and Damocedes curod the dis located anlSie of King Darius, and the cancer of his queen, and liippoeratcs put successful hand on fractures, and intro daced amputation; and Prayagoras TO- moved Instructions; and Herophilus began dissection; and Erasistratus removed tumors, and Celsius, tho Roman surgeon, removed cataract from tho eye and used the Spanish Ny; and Helioiorus arrested disease of the throat and Alexander, of Tralles treated the eye; and Rha1as cauterized for tho prevention Of hydrophobia; and Percival pott came to combat diseases of the spine; and in our own century we have had ltoux and q Larray in France, an Astley Cooper and an Abernethy in Great Britain, and Il Valentine Mott and Willard Parker and Samuel D. Gross in America, and galaxy of living surgeons as brilliant as thoir predecessors. What mighty progress in tho baflling of disease since the crippled and sick of ancient cities were laid along tho streets that people who had eyor been hurt or disordered in the samo way might suggest what had better be dono for the patients; and the priests of oldcn time, who were constantly suffering from colds re- ceived in walking barefoot oyer the tenn pie pavements, had to prescribe for them selves and fractures were considered so far beyond all human cure. that in stead of calling in tho surgeons the people only invoked tbe gods!
 But notwithstanding all the surgical and medical skill ot the world, with what tenac. ity the old diseases hang on to the human race, and most of them are thousands of years old, and in our Bibles VIC read oi them; the carbuneles of Job and Iexe kiah; the palpitauon of the heart spoken of in Deuteronomy; the sun stroke of a child carried from tho fields of Shuuem, crying, My head my head" King Asas disease of the feet, which was nothing but gout; defoction of teeth, that called for dental surgery, tho skill of which, quite equa! to anything modern, is still seen in the filled moiars of tho unrolled Egyptian mummles, the ophthalmta caused by the juice of the newly ripe fig, leaving the peo- plc blind at the roadside; epilepsy, as in the case of the young man oitea fallina into the fire md oft into tho water: hyp1 chondrla, as of Ncbuchndnexzar, who i'm agined himself an OK, and going out to the fields 10 pasture, the witnered haad which in Bible times, as now, came from the destruction of the main artery, or from paralysis of tho chief nerve ;a the wounds of the man whom the thieves left for dead on tho road to Jcrlcha, and whom the good Samaritan nursed, pouring in oil and wine -wine 10 cleanse tho wound, and oil to sootheit. Thank God Tor what sur. gery has doue for the alieviation aud cure of human suffering.
 But the world wanted surgery without pain Doctors. Parre and Hickman and Simpson and Warner and Jackson, with their amazing genius, came on, and with their anGstaetcs benamhed thu patient With narcotics aDd ethcrs as the ancionts did with hasheesh and mandrake and qaieted him for while, but at the return of consciousness distress returned. The world has never seen but one surgeon whe could straighten the crooked limb, euro the blind eye, or reconstruct the drum Of q soundless car, or reduce a dropsf, wlthou, any pain Ut tho time. or any pain after. and that surgeon was Jesus Christ the mightiast grandesl gontlcst, and mes, sympathetic surgeon the world ever saw or ever will sec, and He dcseryes the con, fidenee and love and worship and hosanna Of all the earth, and hallclujahs of all heaven 'Thc blind receive their sight, and the iafna walk tho lepors are cleansod, and the deaf heara
 nolico this Surgeon had a fondness for chronic eases. Many u surgeon, when he has had apatient brought ,o him has sa i'd "Why was net this attended, To five years aso' You bring hifa to me after all power of recuperation is gone Nou have waitai until thera is complete contraction ol the muscles, and false ligatures arc formed, and justification has taken place. It ough, to have been attended to long ago. But Christ the Surgeon seemed to prefer in. vcterate eases. One was hemorrhaga of N.s nrI Ia t.
 was a curvature of eighteen years. and Ilc staightrned it. Another was cripple oi thirty eight years and hc walked out well, The eighteen year patieat was woman bent almost double, If you could call a convention of all the surgeons of al the centuries, their combined skill could not cure that body so drawn out of shape Perhaps they might stot IL from getting any worse perhaps thoy might contrsve braces by which she migh be made moro comfortanle, but 1t is. humanity gnAnixfuxs iu,anraf,fa <a. ,A.