Connecticut western news., 1897-06-10

ward Jenner, the great hero of medi- cine. Four hundred thousand people an- nually dying in Europe from the small pox, Jenner finds that by the inocula- tion of people with vaccine from COW 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 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 50 years has saved more lives than all the battles of any one century destroyed.
 Medical Progress.
 Passing along the streets of Edin- burgh few weeks after the death of Sir James Y. Simpson, I 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 anasthetio agent. In other days they tried to dull human pain by the hasheesh of the Arabs and the madrepore of the Roman and the Greek, but it was left to Dr. James Simpson to introduce chlo- roform as an anBsthetic. Alas for the writhing subjects of surgery in other centuriesl 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- tions
 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 24 hours afterward came along the same place, and he saw the same surgeon operating ill the same place, and he had not left it. Alas for the battlefields without chloroform. But now the soldier boy takes few breaths
 
 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- en. 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: "Fa- ther, what's the matter? Whats the doctor here today for?'' Oh, blessed be God for James Y. Simpson and the
 The medical profession steps into the courtroom, and after conflicting wit nesses have left everything in fog, by chemical analyses shows the guilt or ip nocence of the prisoner, as by mathe- nautical demonstration, thus adding honors to medical jurisprudence.
 This profession has done wonders for public hygiene. How often they have stood between this nation and Asiatio cholera and the yellow fever. The mon- uments in Greenwood and Mount Au-. burn and Laurel Hill tell something of the story of those men who stood face to face with pestilence in southern cit ies, until staggering in their own sick ness they stumbled across the corpses of those whom they had come to save. This profession has been the successful advocate of ventilation, sewerage, drainage and fumigation, until their sentiments were well expressed by Lord Palmerston, when he said to the Eng fish nation at the time fast had been proclaimed to keep off great pesti- lence: "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 a fearful subtraction from human life that there was prospect that within a few centuries this world would be left almost inhabitantless. Adam start ed with a whole eternity of earthly ex- istence before him, but he cut off the most of it and only comparatively few and then 500, and then 400, and then 900, and then 100, and then 50, and then the average of human life came to 40, and then it dropped to IS. But medical science came in, and since the sixteenth century the average of human life has risen from IS years to A, and it will continue to rise until the average of human life will be 50, and it will be 60, and it will be 70, and a man will have no right to die before 90, and the prophecy of Isaiah will be literally full An ba oh Cho1 years old. !" The millennium for the souls of men will be ths 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. Doctors For the Poor.
 But it seems to me that the most beautiful benediction of the medical profession has been dropped upon the poor. No excuse now for any one's not having scientific attendance. Dispensa- ries and infrmaries everywhere, under the control of the best doctors, some of them poorly paid, some of them not paid | at all. A half starved woman comes out | from the low tenement house into the | dispensary and unwraps the rags from
 
 | her babe, bundle of ulcers and rheum and pustules, and over that little sufferer bends the accumulated wisdom of the | ages, from Asoulapius down to last weeks autopsy. In one dispensary in one year 150, 900 prescriptions were is- | sued. Why do show you what God has | allowed this profession to dor Is it to stir up your vanity? Oh, mol The day has gone by for pompous doctors, with conspicuous gold headed canes and pow dered wigs, which were the accompani. ments in the days when the barber used
 to carry through the streets of London Dr. Brookelsby s wig, to the admiration and awe of the people, saying: Make wayl Here comes Dr. Brockelsby t wig" No; announce these things not only to increase the appreciation of