Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1897-06-16
REV. DR.. TAlMACt,
$e Eminent DiV,ne's SUNDAY
Discourse.
rh" inhr"ity of King Ass is Made
the Text at An Eloquent rribase tn the
Medical Profession - Good Reasoas
Why All Doctor. should Re Chri.tians

rh- Infrmity of King Asa L. Made
the Text of AN Eloquent rribate tn the
Medical Profession - Good Reason.
Why All Doctors should Re Chri.tiAMs
and Asa. in the thirl and ninth YEAR o,
his reign, was diseased Ina his feet until his
disease was exceeding great vet in his
disease he sought not to the Lord, but to
the physicians. And Asa slept with his
fathers. - ii. Chronicles xvi, IL IS
Al this season OF the year, when InsdicA.
colleges OF all schools of medicine are Civ
ping diplomas to young doctors, and at the
capital and in many of the cities medical
associations are assembling to consult
about the advancement of the interests Of
their profession, feel this discourse Is ap
Oropriate.
In my text is King Asa with the eour,
HIGH living and no exercise have vitiated
his blood, and my text presents him with
his infiamed and bandaged feet on AN otto
man. In defiance Of God, whom he hated,
he sends for certain cOnjurors or quRcks
They come and give him all sorts of lotions
and panaceas. They bleed him. They
sweat him. They manipulate him. They
blister him. They poultice him. They
scarify hun. They drug him. They cut
him. They kill him. He was only a YOUNG
man and had disease which, though very
painful. seldom proves fatal to young
man, and he ought to have got we'll but he
fell victim to charlatanry and empiricism.
And Asa In the thirty and ninth year OF
his reign was diseased in his feet until his
disease WAS exceeding great yet in his dis
ease he sought not to the Lord, but to the
physicians. And Asa slept with his ia,
hers" That is, the doctors killed him.
In this sharp and graphic way the Bible
sets forth the truth, that you have no right
to shut God out from the realm Of
pharmacy and therapeutics. If Asa had
said: 20 LRrd, l am sick. Bless the in
strumentality employed for my recovery"
Now, servant, go and get the best doctor
you can find"-he would have recovered
In other words, the world wants divinely
directed physicians. There are a great
many such. The diplomas they received
from the academies of medicine were
nothing compared with the diploma they
received from the Head Physician Of the
universe on the day when they started out
and He said to them, go heal the sick and
cast out the devils of pain and open the
blind eyes and unstop the deaf ears" God
bless the doctors all the world over. and let
all the hospitals and dispensaries and In.
frmaries and asylums and domestic circle
NJ the earth respond, Amen"
Men of the medical profession We often
meet in the home of distress. We shake
hands across the table of ag gonized infancy
We join each other In an attempt at solace
where the paroxysm of grief demands an
anodyne as well as prayer. We look into
each others sympathetic faces through the
dusk AS the night of death is falling in the
sick room. We do nof have to climb over
any barrier to-day in order to greet each
other, Tor our professions are In full SYM
pathy. You, doctor are our first and last
earthly friend. You stand at the gates OF
life when We enter this world and you stand
at the gates of death when we 60 out of it,
In the closing moments of our earthly exist.
ence, when the hand Of the wife or mother.
or sister or daughter, shall hold our right
hand, 1t will give strength to our dying mo-
ments II we can feel the tips Of your fingers
along the pVlse of the ieft--ySt NSTs 10
not meet &c Ia t,S- On other dsys, In II ases
OF dstress, but by the pleasant affairs OF
God, and propose sermon Of helpfulness
and good cheer. As tp the nursery children
sometimes re-enact all the scenes of the
sick room, 50 to-day you play that you are
the patient and that am the physician, and
take my prescription just once. 1t shall be
tonic a sedative, dietetic, disinfect-
ant, a stimulus and an anodyne at the same
time. rs there not balm in Gilead? Is
there not physician there?"
In the first place, think all the medica
profession should become Christians be-
cause of the debt of gratitude they owe to
God for the honor He has put upon their
calling. No other calling In all the world.
except it be that of the Christian ministry,
has received so great an honor as yours.
Christ himself was not only preacher, but
physician surgeon, aurist, opht halmologist,
and under His mighty power optic and su-
ditory nerve thrilled with light and sound
and catalepsy arose from its fit, and the
clubfoot was Strengthened, and anchylosis
went out of the stiffened tendons, and the
foamfhg maniac became placid as a child
and the streets of Jerusalem became An ex-
temporized hospital crowded with con-
valescent victims Of casualty and invalid
ism. All ages have woven the garland for
the doctors brow. Homer said:
A wise physician, skilled our wounds to
a.. heal
Is'hnore than armies to the public veal.
Cicero said There is nothing in which
men SO approach the gods as when they try
to give health to other men," Charles TX
made Proclamation that all the Protestants
in France should be put to death on st
Bartholomew day but made one excep-
tiop, and that the ease of Pare, the father
of French surgery. The battlefields of the
American Revolution welcomed D rs Mercer
and Warren and Rush. When the French
army was entirely demoralized by fear OF
the plague. the leading surgeon of that
army inoculated himself with the plague to
show the soldiers there was no contagior
in it, and their courage rose and they went
| on to the conflict. God has honored this
profession all the way through. Oh. the
advancement from the days when Hippo
crates tried to cure the great Pericles witt
hellebore and fiaxseed poultices down &c
far later centuries when Haller announced
the theory of respiration, and Harvey the
circulation of the blood, and Asceli the uses
of the lymphatic vessels, and Jenner baked
the worst disease that ever scourged Eu-
rope, and SydenhAm developed the re-
| cuperative forces of the physical organism,
| and cinchOna bark stopped the shivering
| agues of the world, and Sir Ashley Cooper
| and Abernethy, and Hosack and Romeyn,
and Griscom and Valentine Mott, of the
generation just past, honored God ano
| fought back death with beir keen scalpels.
II I'VE who are laymen N medicine would
| understand what the MEDICAL profession
has accomplished for the insane, let US look
| into the dungeons where the poor creatures
| used to be arcerated-madmen chained
| naked to the wall, kennel of rotten straw
| their only sleeping place, room unven.
| tilated and unlighted, the worst calamity
| of the race punished with the very worst
punishment-and then come and look a,
the Insane asylums of Utica and Kirkbrids
| -sofaed and pictured, libraried, concerted
until all the arts and adornments come &c
| coax recreant reason to assume her throne
| Look at Edward Jenner, the great hero o
| medicine. Four hundred thousand peopl.
annually dying in Europe from the small
| pox, Jenner finds that by the incubation o
| people ,With vaccine from a COW the grea
| seourgeOf nations may be arrested. Tn,
ministers OF the gospel denounced vaccina
| ton, small wits caricatured Edward Jennel
| a. ia Sitat PioScSSioh VA INC pdCs
| of a COW and grave men expressed 1t a.
their opinion that all the diseases of tn,
brute creation would be transplanted int
the human family, and they gave instances
where, they said, actually horns had COM
| out on the foreheads of innocent person
and people had begun to chew the cud. Blu
DR.. Jenner, the hero of medicine, went ol
| lighting for vaccination until it has beel
estimated that one doctor in fifty years ha
saved more lives than all the battles of an
one cent b destroyed.
The nrofeSSion has done wonders for pub
ic hygiene. How often they have stoo
between this nation and Asiatic choler
and the yellow fever. The monuments Il
| Greenwood and Mount Auburn and Laure
Hill tell something of the story Of thos
men who stood face to face with pestilenc
J In southern cities, until staggering in thei
fown sickness they stumbled across tn
rorpses of those whom they had come T.
save. This profession has been the sue
.essful advocate of ventilation, sewerage
4 ni0r hal