The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1890-04-23
CHRIST, TIE SURGEON.
Rev. DR.. Talmage Discourses on the
Saviour's Wonderful Feats l.
or Healing All Sorts of Bodily Ailments
without Pain and without Medicine
"A Surgeon Able to Give Inn
mortal Health.

recent DISCOURSE was on Une frOlebSlOl
OF Healing" and his text, Matthew H.,
8: "The blind receive their sight, the
lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and
the deaf hear" The popular preacher
spoke as follows:
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 hui
man body?" 30, no." he answered,
'all that is overcome by my Joy in cur
ing them" A sublimer or more merci-
full art never came down from Heaven
than the art or surgery. Catastrophe
and disease entered the earth so early
that one of the first wants OF the world
was doctor. Our crippled and ago
nized human race called for surgeon and
family physician for many years before
they came. The first surgeons who an
swered this call we're ministers of re-
ligion, namely, the Egyptian priests.
And what grand thing II all clergy
men we're also doctors, all d. DIS were
M. DIS, for there are so many cases
where body and soul need treatment at
the same time-consolatio and medi-
cine, theology and therapeutics As the
first surgeons Of the world were also
ministers 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 the human body was for
hidden, 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 physiological and anatom-
ical exploration, and the surgeon had to
guess what was inside the temple by
looking at the outside of it. II 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 begin
ming kept calling for surgeons, and their
FIRST skill is spoken of in Genesis, where
they employed their art for theincisions
Of sacred rite, God making surgery the
predecessor Of baptism; and we sec 1t
again in II. Kings, where Ahaziah, the
monarch, stepped on some cracked lat
t.ce-work in the palace, and 1t broke,
and he fell from the upper to the lower
floor, and he was SO hurt that he sent to
the village OF Ekron for aid; and Escu-
lapius, who wrought such wonders OF
surgery that he was deihed, and temples
were built for his worship at Pergamos;
and Epidaurus and Podlirius introduced
for the relief OF the world phlebotomy;
and Damocedes cured the dislocated
ankle OF King Darius, and the cancer OF
his queen; and Hippocrates put success
iul hand on fractures, and introduced
amputation; and Praxagoras removed
distractions; and Herophilus began dis
section: and Erasistratus removed tu'
mors; and CELSIUS, the Roman surgeon,
removed cataract from the eye and used
the Spanish fly: and Heliodorus arrested
disease Of the throat; and Alexander, oi
Tralles, treated the eye; and Rhazas eau
terized for the prevention Of hydrophobia
and Percival Pott came to combat dis
ease OF the spine; and In our own century
we have had Roux and Larray In
France, an Ashley Cooper and an Aber
nethy In Great Britain. and a Valentino
Mott and willard Parker and Samuel d
Gross in America, and agalaxy Of living
surgeons as brilliant as their predeces
sore. What mighty progress In tn'
battling OF disease since the crippled ant
sick Of ancient cities we're laid along thu
streetsa that people who had ever beer
hurt ~ disordered in the same wa.
might suggest what had better be don't
for the patients; and the priests OF Older
time, who were constantly suffering from
colds received In .walldng barefoot owe
the temple pavements, had to prescrib'
for themselves, and fractures we're con
sidered so far beyond all human cur'
that instead Of calling in the surgeon
the people only invoked the godsl
But notwithstanding all the surgica
ana medical skill OF the world with wha
tonacity the old diseases hang on to tn
human race: the most Of them are thou
sands Of years old, and in our Bibles W
read Of them; the carbuncles Of Job an
Hezekiah, the palpitation Of the hear
spoken Of In Deuteronomy; the son
stroke OF O child carried from the field
ofBhunem crying, my head my head
King Asa's disease Of the feet whic
was nothing but gout; detection Of teeth
that called for dental surgery, the ski
ofwhich, quite equal.to any thing mod
srn, Is still seen in the filled molars {
the unrolled Egyptian mummies; th
ophthalmia caused by the juice OF th
newly ripe fig, leaving tho people blin
ut the roadside; epilepsy. as in the oas
oftheyoung man often falling into u
Are and Oft into the water; hypochol
dria, as OF Nebpehadnezzer, who In
agined himself an OK, and going out
the Acids to pasture; the withered ham
which IN Bible times, as now, csmefrol
the destruction Of the main artery,
from paralysis Of the chief nerve; u
wounds OF the man whom the THEW
left for dead on the road TO Jericho, or
whom tho good Samaritan nursed, pou
ing in oil and wine-wine TO cleanse u
wound, and oil 10 sooth It. Thank Gt
for what surgery has done for the allie,
alton and cure OF human sufferingl
But the world wanted Q surgery wit
out pain. Drs. Parre and Hickman a.
Simpson and Warner and jackson, wi
their amazing genius, came on, and WI
their anmsthetics benumbed the patie
with narcotics and ethers as the ancien
did with hasheesh and mandrake, al