The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-04-21
SUBLIMITY OF SURGERY.
TALMAGE PREACHEs ON THE PRO-
FEssIoN OF HEALING.

Pictured as the Greatest Surgeon of
All History.
BROOKLYN, April 20.-The audiences DR..
Talmage has had on Sunday evenings, since
the burning of the tabernacle drove his con-
gregation TO the shelter of the Academy of
Music, have been something phenomenal.
This evening the spacious building was
filed in every part. The popular preacher
discoursed on the profession of healing.
His text was Matthew XII, 5: "The blind
receive their sight, and the lame walk, the
lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear" He
said:
Doctor" / said to a distinguished sur
geon, do you not get worn out with con-
stantly seeing so many wounds, and broken
bones, and distortions of the human bodyp
20 no, he answered, "all that is overcome
by my joy in curing them" A suhlimer or
more merclful 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 a
doctor. Our crippled aud agonized human
race called for surgeon and family physician
for many years before they came. The
first surgeons who answered this call
were ministers of religion, namely, the
Egyptian priests. And what a grand thing
if all clergymen were also doctors. all
ID. DIS were also NJ. DIS, for there are so
many cases where body and soul need treat
ment at the same time, consolation and
medicine, theology and therapeutics. As
the first surgeons of the world were also
ministers of religion, may these two pro-
fessions always be in full sympathy! But
under what disadvantages the early sur
geons worked, from the fact that the dis
section OF the human body was forbidden
first by the pagans and then by the early
christiausl Apes, being the brutes most
like the human race, were dissected, but no
human body might be unfolded for physio-
logical and anatomical 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 Archagathu5 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 en-
ployed their art for the incisions of a sacred
right, God making surgery the predecessor
OF baptism; and we see it again in IL Kings
where Ahaziah, the monarch stepped on
some cracked latticework in the palace and
it broke, and he fell from the upper to the
lower floor, and he was so hurt thai he sent
to the village for aid; and Esculapius, who
wrought such wonders of surgery that he
was deified, and temples were built for his
worship at Pergamos; and Epidaurus and
Podelirius introduced for the relief of
the world phlebotomy; eand Damo-
cedes cured the dislocate6 ankle Of
King Darius, and the cancer of
his queen; and Hippocrates put successful
hand on fractures, and introduced amputa-
tion; and Praxagora5 removed distractions:
and Herophilus began dissection, and Eras-
istratus removed tumors; and CELSIUS, the
Roman surgeon, removed cataract from the
eye, and used the Spanish fly; and Hello
dorus arrested disease of the throat; and
Alexander of Tralles treated the eve: and
Rhazas cauterized for the prevention of
hydrophobia; and Percival Pott came to
combat diseases of the spine; and in our own
century we have had a Roux and
a Larray in France, an Ashley Cooper
and an Abernethy in Great Britain,
and a Valentine Mott and Willard
Parker and Samuel D. Gross in America.
and galaxy of living surgeons as brilliant
as the 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 sug-
gest what had better be done for the pa
tients; aud the priests of olden time, who
were constantly suffering from colds re-
ceived in walking barefoot over the temple
pavements. had to prescribe for then-
selves, and fracture 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 ten
acity 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 carbuncles of Job and Hezekiah; /;
the palpitation of the heart spoken of in
Deuteronomy: the sun-stroke of child
carried from the fields of Shunem, crying,
"My headl my headm 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 ophtha-
mia 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; hypochondria, as of Nebuchadnez-
zar, who imagined himself an OK, and going
out into 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-wlne to cleanse the wound and
oil to soothe it. Thank God for what sur
gerry has done for the alienation and cure
of human suffering
But the world wanted surgery without
pain. Doctors Parre and Hickman aud
S mpson and Warner and jackson, with
their amazing genius, came on, and with
their an@sthetics benumbed the patient
with narcotics and ethers as the ancients
did with hasheesh and mandrake, and
Quieted him for while, but at the return
Of consciousness distress returned. Tho
world has never seen but one surgeon who
could straighten the crooked limb, cure the
blind eve, or Construct the drum of a
soundess ear, or reduce a dropsy, without
any pain at the time or any pain after, and
that surgeon was Jesus Christ the might
est, grandest, gentlest and most sympathetic
surgeon the world ever saw, or ever will
see; and he deserves the confidence and love
and worship and hosanna of all the earth,
and hallelujahs of all heaven. ''The blind
receive their sight, and the lame walk; the
lepers are cleansed aud the deaf hear.n
notice this surgeon had fondness for
chronic cases. Many surgeon. when be
has had a patient brought to him, has said !:
"Why was not this attended to five years
ago7 You bring him to me after all power
of recuperation is gone You
have waited until there is a complete
contraction of tho muscles, and false liga-
lures are formed, and ossifcaticn has taken