Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1897-06-15

where the poor creatures used to be in
generated. Madmen chained naked to
the wall. A kennel of rotten straw
their only sleeping place. Room I'M
ventilated and unlighted. The worst
| calamity Of the race punished with the
very worst punishment. And then come
and look at the insane asylums of Uti-
ca and Kirkbride-sofaed and pictured,
| libraried, concerted, until all the arts
and the adornments come to coax re-
| creant 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 vaccine from
a COW the great scourge of nations may
be arrested. The ministers of the
! Gospel denounced vaccination; small
wits caricatured Edward Jenner as rid
| ing in great procession on the back
OF COW; and grave men expressed it
as their opinion that all of the dis
eases 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 vaccination until it has
been estimated that that one doctor. in
| fifty years, has saved more lives than
all the battles of any one century de-
stroyed.
Passing along the streets of Edin-
burgh few weeks after the death OF
Sir James Y. Simpson, saw the pho
| tograph of the doctor in all the windows
of the shops and stores, and we'll might
that photograph be put in every win
dow, for ne first used chloroform as an
anaesthetic agent. In other days they
tried to dull human pain by the hash
eesh of the Arabs and the fnadrepore
of the Roman and the Greek; but 1t
was left to DR.. James Simpson to in
| troduce chloroform as an anaesthetic.
Alas for the writhing subjects OF sur
gerry in other centuries! Blessed be
God for the wet sponge or vial In the
hand of the operating surgeon in the
clinical department of the medical col
lege, or in the sick room OF the domes-
tic circle, or on the battle field amid
thousands of amputations. Napoleon
after battle rode along the line and
saw under tree, standing in the snow,
Larrey the surgeon operating upon the
wounded. Napoleon passed on, and
twenty-four 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 for
the battlefields without chloroform.
But now the soldier boy takes few
breaths from the sponge and forgets all
the pangs 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
heaven. No more parents standing
around a suffering child, struggling to
get away from the sharp instrument,
Int mild slumber instead of excrucia-
ton. and the child wakes up and says,
| Father. what's the matter? What's
the doctor here today for?" Oh, blessed
he God for James Y. Simpson and the
heaven descending mercies OF chloro-
form.
The medical profession steps into the
court room, and after conflicting wit
nesses have left everything in fog, by
chemical analyses shows the guilt or
;nnocence of the prisoner as by math-
ematic demonstration, thus adding ho-
ors TO medical jurisprudence. .
II seems to me that the most beauti-
OIL henediction of the medical pro-
focs;on has been dropped upon the
moor. No excuse now for any ones not
having scientific attendance. Dispen-
carries and infirmaries everywhere un-
aor tho control of the best doctors.
come of them poorly paid, some of
them not paid at all. A half-starved
woman comes out from the low tene-
ment house into the dispensary, and
unwraps the rags from her babe,
bundle of ulcers, and rheum. and pus-
| ,u,es and over that little sufferer
| bends tie accumulated wisdom OF the
ages from Esculapius down to last
| weeks autopsy. In one dispensary, in
one year, one hundred and fifty thous-
and prescriptions were issued. Why do
| 7 show you what God has allowed this
profession to do? Is it to stir up your
vanity? Oh. no. The day has gone by
for pompous doctors. with conspicuous
gold-headed canes and powdered wigs,
which were the accomplishments In the
DAYS when the barber used to carry
through the streets of London DR..
Brockelsby's wig, to the admiration
and awe of the people, saying: Make
way! here comes DR.. Brockelsby's wig"
No, / announce these things not only
to increase the appreciation OF laymen
in regard to the work of physicians,
but to stir in the hearts of men OF the
medical profession a feeling of graft
tude to God that they have been al
lowed to put their hand 70 such mag
nificent work, and that they have been
called into such illustrious company.
Have you never felt a spirit OF graft
tude for this opportunity? Do you not
feel thankful now? Then / am afraid,
doctor, you are not Christian, and
that the old proverb which Christ