The Middleburgh post. [volume] (Middleburgh, Snyder Co., Pa.) 1883-1916, 1897-06-10
Or 1lLAAGrS SUNDAY SERMON.
A GOSPEL MESSAGE.
The Inarmity Of King Asa Il Made
the Text of an Eloquent Tribute to the
Medical Profession - Good Reasons
Why All Doctors should Ee Chrlstinns.

the Text of an Eloquent Tribute to the
Medical Profession - Good Reasons
Why All Doctors Should Ee Chrlstinns.
"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 physicians. And Asa slept with his
fathers. s."-II. Chronicles xvi, IL, 13,
At this season OF the year, when medical
colleges of all schools Of medicine are Civ
ing diplomas to young doctors, and at the
capital and in many OF the cities medical
associations are assembling to consult
about the advancement OF the interests of
their profession, feel this discourse is ap.
propriate.
In my text is King Asa with the gout.
High living and no exercise have yittated
his blood, and my text presents him with
his infamed and bandaged feet on an otto
man. In defiance Of God, whom he hated
he sends for certain conjurors or uuacks
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 n disease which, though very
painful, seldom proves fatal to young
man, and he ought to have got well. but he
iell victim to charlatanry and empiricism
And Asa In the thirty and ninth wear of
his reign was diseased In his feet until his
disease was exceeding great, yet In his dis
ease he sought not to the Lord but to the
physicians. And Asa slept with his fa-
Tiers. 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
pharmacy and therapeutics. If Asa Ind
said: - Lord, l am sick. Bless the in
strumentality 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 a great
many such. The diplomas they received
from the academies of medicine were
nothing compared with the diploma they
received from the Head Physician of the
universe on the day when they started out
ana lie said to them, GO heal the sick and
cast out the devils OF pain and open the
Diihd eyes and unstop the deaf ears" God
bless the doctors all the world over, and let
an the hospitals and dispensarles and in
hrmarles and nsylums and domestic circles
OF the earth respond, Amen"
Men OF the medical profession We often
meet in the home of distress. We shake
hands across the table ofagonizcd infnncy.
we JOIN each other in an attempt at soace
where the paroXysm of grief demands an
ahodyne as we'll as prayer. We look into
each others sympathetic faces through the
dusk as the night of death is falling in the
SICK room. We do not have to climb over
any barrier to-day in order to greet each
other, Tor our professions are in full SYM
pathy. You, doctor, are our first and Inst
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 m mother
or sister or daughter, shall hold our right
hand, 1t will give strength to our diving mo.
ments II we can feel the tips Of your fingers
along the pulse of the left wrist We do
not meet to-day, as on other days, in houses
OF distress, but by the pleasant altars of
God and propose n sermon of helpfulness
ana good cheer. As in the nursery children
sometimes re-enact all the scenes of the
SICK room so to-day you play that you are
the patient and that am the physician. and
taR my prescription just once. 1t shall be
tonic, sedative dietetic, II dsnfcct-
ant, stimulus and an anodyne at the same
time. us there not balm in Gilead? Is
there not physician therc?"
In the first place, think all the medical
profession should become Christians be-
cause 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
mas received so great an honor as yours
Christ himself was not only preacher, but
physician surgeon, aurist ophthalmojogist
and under His mighty power optic and au-
ditory nerve thrilled with light and sound
and catalepsy arose from its 1T. and the
clubfoot was Strengthened, and anchylosis
went out of the stilrened tendons, and the
fOuninu muDiup hnpn
and the streets Of Jerusalem became an ey.
tenporized hospital crowded with CON
vaiescent victims of casualty and invalid
Ism. All ages have woven the garland for
the doctors brow. Homer said:
wise physician, skilled our wounds to
heal,
Is more than armies to the public veal.
Cicero said, There il nothing in which
men so approach the gods as when they trv
to give health to other men," Charles IX.
made proclamation that all the Professionals
IN France should be put to death on st.
bartholomew day, but made one excep-
tlon, and that the case of Pare, the father
OF French surgery. The battcields OF the
American revolution welcomed Drs. Mercer
ana warren and Rush. When the French
army was entirely dcmoralized by fear OF
the plague, the leading surgeon of that
army 1noculated himself with the plague to
snow the soldiers there was no contaglon
in 1t and their courage rose, and they went
ON to the conflict God has honored this |
profession all the way through oh, the |
Advancement from the days when Hippo
crates tried to cure the great Pericles with |
hellebore and flaxseed poultices down to |
1ar later centuries when Haler announced |
the theory OF respiration, and Harvey the |
circulation Of the blood, and Ascei the uses |
OF the lymphatic vessels, and Jenner baked |
the worst disease that ever scourgcd Eu- |
rope, and Sydenhum developed the re-
cuperative forces of the physical organism,
and cinchona bark stopped the shivering
agues OF the world. and Sir Ashley Cooper
ana Abernethy, and Hosack and Romeyn,
ana Griscom and Valentine Mott. of the
generation just past, honored God and .
fought back death with their keen scalpcs.
III we who are laymen in medicine would
understand what the medical profession
has accomplished for the insane, let US look
into the dungeons where the poor creatures
used to be Observation-Disclosures chained |
naked to the wall, n kennel Of rotten straw
their only sleeping place, room unven-
tilated and unlighted, the worst calamity
OF the race punished with the very worst
punishment-and then come and look at
the insane asylums Of Utica and Kirkbride
-sOfaed and pictu rel lihrn riad nnpnnrtal