News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1897-06-09


worst calamity Of the race punished with
the very worst punishment. And then
come and look at the insane asylums OF
Utica and Kirkbride-sofaeda and pictured,
librared concerted, until all the arts and
adOrnments come to coax recreant reason
to assume her throne. Look at Edward
Jenner, the great hero of medicine. -Four
hundred thousand people annually dying
in Europe from the smallpox, Jenner finds
that by the incubation of people with vac
cine from COW the great scourge of ma
tions may be arrested. The ministers OF
the gospel denounced vaccination; small
wits carcatured Edward Jenner as riding
in great procession on the back of 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 cudl But
DR.. Jenner, the hero of medicine, went on
fighting for vaccination until it has beeL
estimated that that one doctor in so years
has saved more lives than all the battles
of any one century destroyed
Passing along the streets of Edinburgh
a few weeks after the death of Sir Jane,
Y. Simpson, L saw the photograph of the
doctor in all the windows of the shops
and stores, and well might that photograph
be put in every window, for he first useC
chloroform as an anasthetic agent. In
other days they tried to dull human pain
by the hasheesh of the Arabs and the ma
drepore of the Roman and the Greek. But
it was left to DR.. James Simpson to intro
duce chloroform as an an@sthetic. Alas fol
the writhipg subjects of surgery in Other
centuries! Blessed be God for that wei
sponge or vial in the hand of the operat
ing surgeon in the clinical department. o.
the medical college, or in the sickroom o.
the domestic circle, or on the battlefield
amid thousands of amputations.
Napoleon after battle rode along the
line and saw under a tree, standing in the
snow, Larrey the surgeon, operating upon
the wounded. Napoleon passed on anG
"a hours afterward came along the SAINT
place, and he saw the same surgeon operat
ing in the same place, and he had not left
it. Alas for the battlefelds without chic
reform. 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
BJuuulIS dIUuhu MN DG lies lDGFG uEGtlIn
ing of home and mother and heaven. Nc
more parents standing around a suffering
child, struggling to get away from the
sharp instrument, but mild slumber in
stead of excruciation, and the child wakes
up and says: Father, what's the matteri
What's the doctor here today for?" Oh
blessed be God for James Y. Simpson anC
the heaven descended mercies of chloro
form.
Public Hygiene.
The medical profession steps into tn,
courtroom, and after conflicting witnesses
have left everything in fog, by chemical
analyses shows the guilt or innocence o,
the prisoner, as by mathematical demon.
stration, thus adding honors to medical
Jurisprudence.
This profession has done wonders for
public hygiene! How often they have
stood between this nation and AsiatiG
cholera, and the yellow fever! The monu
ments in Greenwood and Mount Auburn
and Laurel Hill tell something of the
story of those men who, stood face to face
with pestilence in southern Cities until
staggering in their own sickness, they
stumbled across the corpses of those whom
they had come to save. This profession
has been the successful advocate of ventila
ton, sewerage drainage and fumigation,
until their sentiments We're well expressed
by Lord PalmerstOn when he said to the
English nation at the time fast had beeL
proclaimed to keep off a great pestilence
'Clean your streets or death will ravage,
notwithstanding all the prayers of this
nation. Clean your streets, and then call
on God for help"
See what this profession has done for
human longevity. There was such fear.
tul subtraction from human life that there
was prospect that within few CenturieA
this world would be left almost inhabit
antless. Adam started with whole eter
nifty of earthly existence before him, but
he cut off the most of it and only com
paratiyely few years were lett-Only zoe
years of life, and then 500, and then 400,
and then 200, and then 100, and then so,
and then the average of human life came
to 40, and then it dropped to IL. But
medical science came in, and since the six
teenth century the average of human life
has risen from 1S years to A, and it will
continue to rise until the average of hu.
man life will be 80, and it will be 60, and
it will be 20, and u man will have no right
to die before 80, and the prophecy of
Isaiah will be literally fulfilled, And the
| child shall die 100 years old" The mil.
lennium for the souls of men will be the
millennium for the bodies of men. Sin
done, disease will be done--the clergyman
and the physician getting through with
their work at the same time.
The Dispensaries.
But it seems to me that the most beau
tiful benediction of the medical profession
has been dropped upon the poor. No ex.
cuse now for any ones not having scien
tific attendance. Dispensaries and inhrm
aries everywhere under the control of the
best doctors, some of them poorly paid
some of them not paid at all. A hal
starved woman comes out from the low
tenement house into the dispensary ana
unwraps the rags from her babe, bundle
of ulcers and rheum and pustules, anC
over that little sufferer bends the accumu
lated wisdom of the ages from Hsculapiu
down to last weeks autopsy. In one dis
pensary in one year $50, 600 prescription
were issued. Why do l show you wha
God has allowed this profession to dor
it to stir up yonr vanity2 Oh no. TIL
LAY has gone by for pompous doctors, witt
conspicuous gold headed canes and pow
lered wigs, which were the accompani
; ments in the days when the barber use
to carry through the streets of Londol
DR.. Brockelsby's wig, to the admiration
and awe of the people, saying; "Mak
: way. Here comes DR. Brockelshy's wig