Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1897-02-05
THE VILLAGE DOCTOR.
President Cleveland, in an Address, Pays
Him q Tribute.


New York, Jan. 3o.-President Cleve-
land arrived in this city Friday and at
tended the annual dinner of the New
York Academy of Medicine at Carnegie
hall. The president delivered an inter-
csting address, full of praise for the
modern physician and the advantages
to society of the researches of medical
scientists. He urged the profession, in
its devotion to it's professional duties,
not to disregard the claims which the
body polite had upon it, but to be ever
alive to the civic duties which devolved
upon all patriotic citizens. He said:
I'VE cannot but think that the discov-
cries and improvements in the medical
practice which we now enjoy are dearly
bought If the members of the profession
in their onward march have left behind
them their sense Of civic obligation and
their interest in the general public welfare.
We cannot accuse you of utter neglect Of
your duty to the country; and yet we can
not keep out of mind the suspicion that If
your professional work in exposing evils
were more thoroughly supplemented by
labor In the field of citiznship these evils
would be more speedily corrected. If laws
are needed to abolish abuses which your
professional Investigations have unearthed,
your fraternity should not be strangers
to the agencies which make the laws II
enactments already in force are neglected
or badly executed, you should not forget
that 1t is your privilege and duty to insist
upon their vigorous and honest enforce
| ment If members of your profession were
oftener found in our national and state
legislative assemblies, ready to advocate
the reformatory measures you have DEM
| orstrated to be necessary and to defend
your brotherhood against flippant and
nf nrtio hi tha
prospect of your bestowal upon your fol-
low men of the ripered results of your pro-
| fessional labor would be brighter and
nearer"
In opening his remarks the president
paid the following eloquent tribute to
the "old village doctors"
I'VE concede most heartily and without
reservation the learning and skill of those
| now constituting the medical profession,
and the wonderful advance that has been
made through their untiring labors and
| Investigations in the alienation of human
| suffering and the saving of human life 1t
may be that this seems to you an acknowl-
| edgment so much your duty as to be hard
ly worth making. You should, however,
| value 1t because 1t is sincerely made by
those who were not born yesterday, but
| who hold in lasting and tender memory
| the ministrations Of the village doctor Of
80 years ago and are now the living monu-
ments Of his faithful care. He, too. al
| leviated suffering and saved human life.
| We know that it was not given to him to
see the bright lights that now mark the
path of medicine and surgery, but you can
not convince us that he CROPPED entirely in
the dark. We remember without abhor-
renee his ever-ready lancet and the scare
| Of his blood-letting found in every house,
| hold. We endure with complacency the
| recollection of his awful medicine case
containing bottles, powders and pills.
| which. whatever might be thought of them
now, seemed then to be sufficient for all
| emersencies-to say nothing of the tooth
| pulling tools and other shiver- breeding in
| struments sometimes exposed to view II
| ne was ignorant of many of the remedies
and applications now in USE he in a large
measure supplied the deficiency by hard
| headed judgment, well-observed eXperi-
ence and careful nursing Besides, it was
| in his favor that he did not have to bother
his head with many of the newly invented
ana reflned diseases that afflict mankind
to-day. lie had no allotted hours for his
| patients, but was always ON duty, and We
knew the sound of his gig as it ratified
| past In the night. Your ways are better
| than his, but we desire you to regard this
admission as all the more valuable because
1t is carved out of our loyalty to our old
| village doctor, who brought us through the
| diseases of childhood without relapse. who
saved from death our parents and our
| brothers and our sisters in many a ha rd
| combat with illness, and who when van
Qulshed and forced to surrender was pres.
ent in the last scene to close the eve of his
aEing patient and sympathize with those