St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1897-07-10

" PARISH, La, SA
turies when Hsller announced the the
ory Of respiration, and Harvey the cir
culation of the blood. and Ascei the
uses of the lymphatic vessels, and
Jenner balxed the worst disease that
ever scourgcd Europe and Sydenham
developed the recuperative forces OF
the physical organism, and cinchona
bark stopped the shivering agues oi
the world, and Sir Ashley Cooper and
Alternately, and HosacL, and Romeyn,
and Griscom, and Valentine Mott, oil
the generation just past. honored God,
and fought back death with their keen
scalpels.
II we who are laymen in medicine
would understand what the medical
profession has accomplished for the in
sane, let us look into the dungeons
where the poor creatures used to be IN
carcerated. Madmen. chained naked
to the wall. A kennel of rotten straw
their only only sleeping place. Room
unventilated and unlighted. The
worst calamity of the race punished
with the very worst punishment And
then come and look at the insane asy.
lums Of Utica and sofaed,
and pictured, ibraried, concerted, un-
til all the arts and adornments come to
coax recreant reason to assume her
throne. Look at Edward Jenner, the
great hero of medicine. Four hun
dred thousand people annually dying
in Europe from the smallpox, Jen-
ner finds that by the inocula-
ton Of people with vaccine from a
cow, the great scourge of nations may
be arrested. The ministers of the Cos
pei denounced vaccinations; small wits
Edward Jenner as riding
in q great procession on the back of .
COW; and grave men expressed it As
their opinion that al the diseases Of
the brute creation would be trans
planted into the human family; and
they gave instances where, they said,
horns had come out ON the
fOreheads of innocent persons, and
people had begun to chew the cud!
But DR.. Jenner, the hero of medicine,
went on fighting for vaccination until
It has been estimated that one doctor,
in fifty years, has saved more lives
than all the battles of any one century
destroyed -
Passing along the streets of Edin-
burgh q few weeks after the death of
Sir James Y. Simpson, saw the photo
graph of the doctor in all the windows
of the shops and stores, and well might
that photograph be put in every win
low, for he first used chloroform rs An
agent In other days they
tried to dull human pain by the has
heesh of the Arabs and the madrepore
If the Roman and the Greek; but it was
eft to DIR. James Simpson to introduce
as an anaesthetic. Alas
Tor the writhihg subjects of surgery in
,ther centuries! Blessed be God for
hat wet sponge or vial in the hand of
he operating surgeon in the clinical
department. Of the medical college, or
n the sick room of the domestic circle,
,r on the battlefield amid thousands
# amputa tions. Napoleon, after .
,attle. rode along the line and saw
lnder tree, standing in the
now, Larrey, the surgeon. oper-
Iting upon the wounded. Napoleon
'assed on, and twenty-four hours af-
erward came along the same place,
md he saw the same surgeon opearting
n the same place, and he had not left
{. Alas for the bat:le-fields without
But now, the soldier boy
axes a few breaths from the sponge
md forgets all the pang of the gun
hot fracture, and while the surgeons
4 the field hospital are standing
round him he lies there dreaming of
lome, and mother. and Heaven. No
more parents standing around . suffer
ng child, struggling to get away from
he sharp instrument, but mild slumber
instead of ofexcruciation. and the child
wakes up, and says: Father. what's
he matter? What's the doctor here
o-day for?" Oh, blessed be God for
ames Y. Simpson and the heaven de
cended mercies of chloroform.
The medical profession steps into the
and, after conflicting wit
esses have left everything ina fog, by
analyses shows the guilt or
innocence of the prisoner, as by mathe-
aatical demonstration, thus adding
onors to medical jurisprudence.
This profession has done wonders for |
ublic hygiene! How often they have |
TODD between this nation and Asiatic
holera, and the yellow fever! The
lonuments in Greenwood, ami Mount
luburn, and Laurel Hill tell some
hing of the story Of those men who |
TODD face to face with pestilence in
cities, until, staggering in
heir own sickness. they stumbled
cross the corpses of those whom they |
ad come to save. This profession has
cen the successful advocate of ven
llation, sewerage, drainage and fumi-
alton. until their sentiments were
7ell expressed by Lord Palmerston,
hen he said to the English nation at |
he time fast had been proclaimed to |
eep of q great pestilence: ''Clean your
treets or death will ravage, notwith- |
all the prayers of this nation. |
lean your streets, and then call ON |
cd for help.
See what this profession has done |
2r human longevity. There was such |
fearful substraction from human Gfe.l
nat there was prospect that within |
few centuries this world would be |
IT almost inhabitantless. Adam |
sarted with whole eternity Of earth |
, existence before him; but he cut OF |
ne most of it and only comparatively |
w years were left-ouly TOO years of |
fe, and then 500, and then 400. and |
,en 200. aud then 100. and then 50, and |
len the average of human life came
, ~, and then it dropped to 18 But !
ledical science NamA in and xsnNn Aha