Hot Springs weekly star. (Hot Springs, S.D.) 1892-1917, 1899-07-14
oLp.TtME DOCTORS.
There Woe Little Real Healing Viz.
tue in All Their Nedicaments.

There Was Little Real Healing Viz.
tue in All Their Kedicaments,
The Dutch West India Company,
which colonized the island of Manhat-
tan, enjoined upon the colonists to sup
port a minister and a schoOlmaster, and
also to appoint Zieckentroosters (com-
forters of the sick). Sometimes the
offices of pedagogue and comforter"
we're united in n person, he being
"pi0us, well-Qualified' and diligent."
Usually the comforter of the sick was
q safer attendant than the doctor Of
hose days, whose conception of dis.
ease and remedies was a confused the
Dry Of humors, sympathetics and antag.
onistics.
'The whole ground Of physic," says
a medical authority of 1867, sis compre.
hended in these two words, sympathy
and antipathy. The one cures by
Strengthening the parts of the body af.
tiicted. the other by resisting the mai.
ady affecting"
Certain simples and compounds, with
a few mineral remedies, were made up
into unguents, plasters. liniments. pills.
boluses and decoctions. Armed with
these, and with herbs gathered at Ger.
tain phases Of the moon or cOnjunctions
of the planets, and above all with the
lancet the seventeenth century doctors
waged war with disease. They had no
intelligent conception of the causes or
processes of disease. nor Of the true ac~
ton of drugs; yet they thought they
cured disease. No wonder the Dutch
of New York appointed "comforters Of
the sick!"
The author of an essay entitled, "The
Doctor in Old New York." published in
the "Half-Moon Papers," himself a ply
stefan, says that the remedies of the
most eminent physician of his time IN
Europe. whose patients were Henry Nv.
and Louis NH. Of France, and James
1. and Charles I. Of England, were cal
omel, sugar of lead, p%ulverized human
bones, raspings of an unburied human
SKULL and a balsam of bats.
We sheer at the remedies of Chinese
doctors. whose error is that they stop
ped learning three hundred years ago,
whereas their English brethren went on
from n medical discovery to another,
and often set as'.. the teachings which
were twenty years old as obsolete.
Doubtless the personality of these
doctors had much more to do with their
success, whatever it was, than their
practice had. They sought to make
themselves impressive; they carried
gold-headed canes and wore wigs with
two or three plgtails-so deliberately
dressed that they Went hatless to call
on their patients.
A silk coat and stockings, silver
buckles and n muff were essential to a
w%el+dressed doctor of the seventeenth
century. up to the days Of Charles
II. he made his visits on horseback,
riding sideways. after the fashion Of
women; but after that time he rode in
his coach drawn by two, and sometimes
four or even six, horses"
What Lincoln "Coutd Not Help.S
In some interesting "reminiscences Of
Lincoln, related by j. B. Montgomery,
a story OF Lincoln's mercifulness, told
by Gen. Moorlcad Of PENNSYLVANIA. is
repeated.
AS Gen. Moorhead was once entering
the White House, he saw a woman, al
most overcome with excitement, hurry
ing out. Within lie found President
Lincoln pacing his room in n manner
SO distracted that the Congressman
feared he had lost his reason.
Mr.. President" Gen. Moorhead es.
claimed, "what is the matter?"
Matter enough!" answered Lincoln.
'This is Black Friday; it is shooting
day in the army. The boy of that wom-
an who has just gone out was going ta
he shot to-day; he was found sleeping
on his post. He ought to hava
been enlisted; he was hardly sixteen
years old. l pardoned him. I shall be
denounced by the generals for demor-
alizlng the army. but l could not help
til could not help it,"
There is a general agreement that Mr..
Lincoln's frequent merciful interfer-
ence with the disciplinary orders of the
generals of the army did have a certain
demoralizing effect, but it has not low
cred the worlds estimation OF him as q
man, and it is not likely. as Mr.. Mont
gomery says in telling this story, to
count against him in 1.-The great ac-
count"
A Flag of Truce.
Such occurrences as this are ineyita-
bic. The father is II veteran of the
civil Il and the son helped settle
things in Cuba.