The Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, S.C.) 1866-1891, 1890-05-08
PAINLESS SURGERY.
DIR. TALMAGE DESCRIBES THE DE-
vELOPMF"T OF THE ART
OF HEALING.
Christ Always Sought the Oldest and
Most Hopeless Cases on Which to
Perform His Miracles.


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 body"
''Oh, no. he answered, "all that is over
come by my JOY in curing them" A Subllmer
or more mercitul art never came down from
heaven 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 aSonized human racs
called for surgeon and family physician for
many years before they came. The first
surgeons who answered this call were minis
ters of religion, namely, the Egyptian priests.
And what grand thing if all clergymen
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 aud taerapeu-
tics.
As the first surgeons of the world were also
ministers of religion, may these two profes-
sions always be in full sympathy But un-
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 Arcnagathus
because of his bold but unsuccessful attempt
to save patient
But the world from the very beginning
kept calling for surgeons, and their hrst 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 i'll l. Kings, where
Ahaziah, the monarch, stepped on soma
cracked lattice work III the palace and 1t
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 dei6ed, and temples were built
for his worship at Pergamos: and Epi-
daurus and Podelirius introduced for
the relief of the world phlebot-
omY; and Damocedes cured the dislocated
ankio of King Darius and the cancer OF his
queen; and Hippocrates put successful hand
on fractures and introduced amputation; and
Praxagoras removed obstructions; and He
rophilus began dissection; and Erasistratus
removed tumors; and CELSIUS, the Roman
surgeon, removed cataract from the eye and
used the Spanish fly; and Heliodorus arrested
disease of the throat; and Alexander, OF
Tralles, treated the eye; and RhazaS cauter-
lied for the prevention of hydrophobia, and
Percival Po.o came to combat diseases of the
spine; and in our own century we have had
a RouS and a Larray in France, an Ashley
Cooper and an Abernethy in Great Britain,
and Valentine Mott and Willard Parker
and Samuel D. Gross in America, and gal
axy of living surgeons as brilliant as their
predecessors. What mighty progress in the
battling of disease since the crippled and
sick of ancient cities were laid along the
streets that people who had ever been hurt
or disordered in the same way might suggest
what had better be done for the patients; and
the priests of oiden time, who were con-
stantly suffering from colds received in
walking barefoot over the temple pavements,
had to prescribe for themselves, and frac-
lures were considered so 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 palpitation
of the heart spoken of in Deuteronomy; the
sunstroke of child carried from the fields of
Shunem, crying: "My head! my headw
King Asa's disease of the feet, which was
nothing but gout, detection of teeth, that
called for dental surgery, the skill Of which,
quite equal to anything modern, is still seen
in the filled molars 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 Nebuchadnezzar, who imagined
himself an OK, and going out to the fields to
pasture: the withered hand, which in Bible
times, as now, came from the destruction OF
the main artery, or from paralysis of the
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 wine-wine to
clease the wound and oil to soothe it. THANK
God for what surgery has done for the allie
Walton and cure of human suffering.
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
anasthetics benumbed the patient with mar
cotics and ethers as the ancients did with
hasheesh and mandrake, and quieted him for
while, but at the return OF consciousness
distress returned. The world has never seen
but one surgeon VINO could straighten the
crooked limb, cure the blind eye or recon.
struct the drum of soundleSs ear or reduce
dropsy, without any pain at the time or
any pain after, and that surgeon was Jesus
Christ, the mightest, grandest, gentleSt and
most sympathetic surgeon the world ever saw
nr ever will see; and He deserves the conf
dence and love and worship and hosanna of
all the.earth and hallelujahs Of all heaven. 4.
''The blind receive their sight and the lame
walk the lepers are cleansed and the deaf
hear
notice this Surgeon had a fondness for
chronic cases. Many surgeon, when he has
had pat ent brought to him, has said
"Why was not this attended to five years
ago? You bring him to me after all power
of re, operation is gone. You have waited
until there is a complete contraction OF the
muscles, and false ligatures are formed. and
ossifcation has taken place. 1t ought to have
been attended to long ago" But Christ the
Surgeon seemed to prefer inveterate cases.
One was hemorrhage OF twelve years, and
He stopped it. Another was a curvature of
eighteen years and He Strengthened it. Au-
other was a cripple of thirty. eight years. and
he walked out we'll The eighteen-year pa
tient was woman bent almost double. 1t
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 contrive
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 uu
posture she began to rise, and the empurpled
face began to take on a healthier hue, and
the muscles began to relax from their rigid
ity, 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
the ground before. now looked into the facs
of Christ with gratitude, and up toward
heaven in transport. Straight. After eight
cen weary and exhaustive years, straight
The poise. the gracefulnesS. the beauty Ol