News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1897-06-09
THE GOUT OF A KING.
WHY THE PHYSICIANS COULD NOT
CURE 1T.

Rev. DIR. Talmage Shows the Mistake OF
Shutting Out God From the Realm OF
Pharmacy and Therapeutics-A Benedic.
ton For Doctors.
NEW YORK, June cit is not often
chat men of one profession have much en-
couragement for men of another profes
sion, but this sermon, prepared by DR..
Yalmage, contains enthusiastic words of
a clergyman to Physicians. The text is II
Chronicles xvi, IL, 49, 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 disease he
sought not to the Lord but to the physi.
clans. And Asa slept with his fathers"
At this season of the year, when med,
Zeal colleges of all schools of medicine are
giving diplomas to young DOCTORS and at
the capital and in many of the cities med
iCal associations are assembling to consult
about the advancement Of the interests OF
their profession, l feel this discourse is
appropriate.
In my text is King Asa with the govt.
High living and no exercise have Initiated
his blood, and my text presents him with
his in1amed and bandaged feet on an OF.
tOman In defiance of God, whom he
hated, he sends for certain conjurors OF
quacks. 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 him. They drug him.
They cut him. They kill him. He was
only a young man, and had a disease
which, though very painful, seldom proves
fatal to young man, and he ought tC
have got well, but he fell a victim tC
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 disease he
sought not to the Lord, but to the physi.
clans. And Asa slept with his fathers. -"
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 phar
macy and therapeutics. If Asa had said
30 Lord, | am sick. Bless the instru.
mentality 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 great
many such. The diplomas they received
from the academies of medicine were moth
ing compared with the diploma they re.
cei7ed from the Head Physician of the
universe on the day when they started out
and he had said to them: eco 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 dis.
pensaries and infrmaries and asylums
and domestic circles of the earth respond,
Amen"
Balm In Gilead.
Men of the medical profession we often
meet in the home of distress. We shake
hands across the cradle of agonized in.
fancy. We join each other in an attempt
at solace where the paroxysm of grief de-
mands 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 sickrOom. We do
not have to climb over any barrier today
in order to greet each other, for our pro.
LESSONS arc in full sympathy. You, doc
tor, 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 go out of it. In
the closing moments of our earthly exist.
ence, when the hand Of the wife, or moth
or, or sister, or daughter shall hold Oul
right hand, it will give strength to oul
dying moments if we can feel the tips OF
your fingers along the pulse of the left
wrist. We do not meet today, as on Other
days, in houses of distress, but by the
pleasant affairs Of God, and / propose a
sermon of helpfulness and good cheer. AS
in the nursery children sometimes rG-enaCt
all the scenes of the siCkrOom, so today
you play that you are the patient and that
am the physician, and take my prescrip
ton just once. 1t shall be tonic, soda
tive, dietetic, disinfectant, stimulus
and an anodyne at the same time. 'Is
there not balm in Gilead? Is there not a
physician there?"
In the first place, think all the medi'
cal profession should become Christians
because 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
ophthalmologist, and under his mighty
power optic and auditory nerve thrilled
with light and sound, and catalepsy arosC
from it's fit, and the club foot was straight
ened, and anchylosis went out of thu
stiffened tendons, and the foaming ma
MAC became placid as a child, and TIL
streets of Jerusalem became an extempo
rized hospital crowded with convalescen
victims of casualty and invalidism. AL
ages have woven the garland for the doc
tors brow. Homer said
A wise physician, skilled, our wounds to heal
Is more than armies to the pubic veal
Cicero said "There is nothing in whic
men so approach the gods as when the
try to give health to other men," Charlie
TX made proclamation that all the Prot
estants in France should be put to deaf
on ST. Bartholomew day, but made on
exception, and that the case of Pare, tn
father of French surgery. The battlefield
of the American Revolution welcome
Drs Mercer and Warren and Rush. Whe
the French army was entirely demoraliZe
at fear of the plague, the leading surgeo
of that army inoculated himself with IL
plague TO show the soldiers there was i
contagion in it, and their courage ros
and they went on to the conflict. God HI
honored this profession all the wa
through. oh, the advancement from Il
days when Hippocrates tried to cure IL
great Pericles with hellebore and haxse'
poultices down TO far later centuries wh'
Haller announced the theory of respir
ton, and Harvey the circulation of Il
blood and Asceli the uses of the lymphat