Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1897-06-07

from the days when HippOcrateS trleC
to cure the great Pericles with hellebor,
and haxseed poultices down to far Later
centuries when Halter announced thu
theory Of respiration, and Harvey thu
circulation of the blood, and Asceli thu
uses of the Emphatic vessels, and Jen
ner baked the worst disease that eve1
scourged Europe, and Sydenham devel
oped the recuperative forces of the ply
steal organism. and cinchona bark stop
ped the shivering agnes of the world
and Sir Ashley Cooper and Abernethy
and Hosack and Romeyn, and Griscon
and Valentine Mott of the generation
just past, honored God and fought back
death with their keen scalpels.
If 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
Observation-Disclosures chained naked tC
the wall, kennel of rotten straw their
only sleeping place, room unventi1ated
and unlighted, the worst calamity OF
the race punished with the very worst
punishment-and then come and look
at the insane asylums of Utica and
Kirkbride-sofaed and pictured, libra
ried, concerted, until all the arts and
adornments come to coax recreant rea-
son to assume her throne. Look at Ed
ward Jenner, the great hero of medi-
cine. Four hundred thousand people an
nually dying i'll Europe from the small
pox, Jenner finds that by the inocula-
fiO11 of r,On,,1o with uo0oi11n from a
the great scourge of nations may be ar
rested. The ministers of the gospel de-
nounced vaccination, small wits carica-
tured Edward Jenner as riding in a
great procession on the back of a cow
and grave men expressed it as their
opinion that all the diseases of the brute
creation would be transplanted into the
human family. and they gave instances
where, they said, actually 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 vaccina-
tion until it has been estimated that one
doctor in so years has saved more lives
than all the battles Of any one century
destroyed.
MSOicsi1 1TCsFcSSs
Passing along the streets of Edin-
burgh a few weeks after the death of
Sir James Y. Simpson, [ saw the pho
tograph of the doctor in all the win
dows of the shops and stores, and we'll
might that photograph be put in every
window, for he first used chloroform as
an anasthetic agent In other days they
fri cd To Jr771 Hx-+ no hoe
of the Arabs and the madrepOre of the
Roman and the Greek, but it was left
to DR.. James Simpson to introduce chic
reform as an an8sthetic. Alas for the
writing subjects Of surgery in other
centuries! Blessed be God for that wet
sponge or vial in the hand of the oper-
ating surgeon in the clinical department
of the medical college Or in the sick
room Of the domestic circle or on the
battlefield amid thousands of amputa-
lions.
Napoleon after battle rode along the
line and saw under tree standing in
the snow Larrey, the surgeon, oper-
ating upon the wounded Napoleon
passed on, and "a hours afterward came
along the same place. and he saw the
same surgeon operating in the same
place, and he had not left it. Alas II
the battlefelds without chloroform. But
now the soldier boy takes few breaths
from the sponge and forgets all the
pang of the gunshot fracture, and
while the surgeons of the field hospital
are standing around him he lies there
dreaming of home and mother and heav-
Ell. No more parents standing around
a suffering child, struggling to get
away from the sharp instrument, but
mild slumber instead of excruciation,
and the child wakes up and says: CA
Their, what's the matter? What's the
doctor here today for?'' Oh, blessed be
God for James Y. Simpson and the
heaven descended mercies of chloroform.
The medical profession steps into the
and after conflicting wit
nesses have left everything in fog, by
chemical analyses shows the guilt or in
1ocence of the prisoner, as by mathe-
NAUTICAL demonstration, thus adding
donors to medical Jurisprudence.
This profession has done wonders for
public hygiene. How often they have
stood between this nation and Asiatic
anu tuC y61lOW I0VoI. Iu0
lments in Greenwood and Mount Au-
ourn and Laurel Hill tell something of
;he story of those men who stood face
% face with pestilence in southern cit
es, until staggering in their own sick
ness they stumbled across the corpses of
hose whom they had come to save.
This profession has been the successful
advocate Of ventilation, sewerage,
and fumigation, until their
were well expressed by Lord
3almerston, when he said to the Eng
ish nation at the time fast had been
proclaimed to keep off a great pesti-
ence: "Clean your streets or death
will ravage. Notwithstanding all the
prayers of this nation Clean your
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