The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1900-08-08
tCopyright 1901

who answered this call were ministers of
religion namely, The Egyptian priests.
And what grand thing If all clergymen
were also doctors, all DDS were NJ. DIS,
for theresare so many cases where body
and soul need eatment at the same time,
consolation1 aud medicine, theology and
therapeutics AS the first surgeons of the
world were alsc ministers Of religion, may
these two professions. always be in full
sympathy! But under what disadvanta.
aes the early surgeons worked, from the
fact that dissection of the human body
was forbidden, first by the pagans and
then BY the earlys Christians! Apes being
the brites most like the human race, were
dissected, but no hamansbody might be
unfolded for physipl 8icsf fand anatomical
explorations and The surg had to guess
what was inside the temple by looking fat
the outside of il. they failed inSany
surgical operation, they were persecpted
and driven out of the city as was Arch
gathus beeauee nt unsnc
full attempt t patis 81
steppeds St as15 On son Ssd b Fs5i]s 81
the palace. and fss
the upper to the; Id oor Be- w{ ~
hurt that he sent <of
for aid, and AsSx & y iso i7roqglis
such wonders Ut yIl9 at fe was DEL
fed and temples - tor:
ship at PergaW6s and
Podelirius introduced fd BE |ef the
world phlebotomy, and Danoa cured
the dislocated ankle OF sKing 5uss and
the cancer of his queeA&r1
put successful hand on res and
duced amputation, andNfaxaBoaa re-
moved distractions, and Hsroph philus Began
dissection, and Erasistratlsx removed tu'
mors, and CELSIUS, the Romsn ssgrgeon, re-
moved cataract from the eye and used the
Spanish Ay; and Heliodorus arrested diSs
ease of the throat, and Alexander Of Tralles
treated the eye, and Rhazas cauterized @E
the prevention of hydrophebia, and Pef
val Pott came to combat diseases Of HE
spine, and in our. own scentGry we
had, among others, a ,Roux and a. Inrra
in france, an AstleyS 4Roper and Se1
Abernethy in Great BritSlk ard a Valen.
tine Mott and Willard Parker and Samuel
D. Gross in America, and . galaxy OF nv
ing surgeons as brilliantsas their predecess
sors. What mighty progress in the bar
fling Of disease since the eTippled and slcks
of ancient cities were hid along the
streets, that people who had 4 ever been
hurt or disordered in the ssnnes might
suggest what had better be done tor rSthe
But notwithstanding al The sdsgical and
medical skill of the world, with what ten
acity the old diseases hang on to The hue
man race, and most of them are thou.
sands of years old, and IN QUE Bibles wq
read of them-the carbuncles of Job and
Hezckiah, the palpitation of the heart spo..
ken of in Deuteronomy, the sunstroke of
O child carried from the fields of Shunem,
crying, "My head! my head!" King Asa's
disease Of the feet. which was nothing but
gout; detection of teeth, that called for
dental surgery, the skill of which, almost
equal to anything modern, is still seen in
the filled molars of the unrolled Egyptian
mummies: the ophthalmia caused by the
juice of the newly ripe fig, leaving the pso-
,ple blind by the roadside; epilepsy as ila
the case Of the young man otter aAli1g
into the fire and oft. into the hy-
pochondria, as of Ncbuchad no
imagined himself an OK and 20
the fields to pasture; the sWlthet4 aand,
the destruction of the main artery OF 'pm
paralysis of the chief nerve the W1}lAds
of the man whom the thieTes left for
dead on the road TO Jericho, aud whom
the good Samaritan nursed, pouring IN oil
and wiue-wine to cleanse the wound and
oil to soothe it. Thank God for what sur
gerry has done for the alienation and cure
of human suffering! - !.
But the world wants surgery without
pain. Drs. Palre and Hickman and Simp.
son and Warner and Jackson. with their
amazing genius. came forward. and with
their anaesthetics benumbed the patient
with narcotics and ethers as the ancients
did with hasheesh and mandrake, and
quoted him for awhile. but at the return
of consciousness distress returned. The
world has never seen bat one surgeon who
could straighten the crooked limb, cure
the blind eye or reconstruct the drum OF
a soundless ear or reduce dropsy without
pain, and that surgeon was Jesus Christ,
the mighticst, grandest, gentlest and most
sympathetic surgeon the world ever saw or
ever will sec and He deserves the conf
dence and love and worship and hosanna
of all the earth and halleluiahs of all
heaven. "The blind receive 'ir sight
and the lame walk: the lepcrs are cleansed
and the deaf hear"
notice this surgeon had a fondness for
chronic cases. Many surgeon, when lie
has had patient brought to him, has
said: why w:s not this attended to tve
years ago? You bring him to me after all
power of recuperation is gone. You have
waited until there IS 4 complete coatrac-
tion Of the muscles. and false ligaturts arc
formed, and ossiication has taken Place.
1t ought to have been attended to long
ago." But Christ the Surgeon seemed to
prefer inveterate cases. One was a
6 ol,.o1 and ~ n CT
it. Another was q curvature OF eighteen
years, and He straight2ned it. Another
was a cripple of thirty-eight years, and he
walked out we'll. The eichteen.yca- pa
tient was a woman bent almost double.
If you could call i convention OF all the
surgeons of all the centuries. their com
bined skill could not cure that body so
drawn out of shape. Perhaps they might
stop it from getting any worse. perhaps
they might contrivc braces by winch she
might be made more comfortable. but it is,
humbly speaking. incurablc.. Yet this Gi-
vine surgeon put both His hands Oh her.
gan to take on healthier hue, and the
muscles began to relax from their r:cidity,
and the spinal column began to adjust it.
self. and the cords OF the neck began to
be more supple, and tie eyes, that could
see only the ground before, now looked
into the face of Christ with gratitude and
up toward heaven in transport. Straight.
After eighteen weary and eyhausting years,
straight! The poise, the gracefulncsS. the
beauty of healthy womanhood renstated.
The thirty-cight years, case was Il man
who lay on 4 mattress near the mineral
baths at Jerusalem. There were five
apartments where lame people were
brought, 80 that they could get the advan-
tage of these mineral baths. The stone
basin of the bath is still visible, although
the waters have disappeared, probably
through some convulson of nature. The
bath, l20 feet long. forty feet wide and
eight feet deep. All. poor man. if you
have been lame and helpless thirty-eight
rcars. that mineral hath cannot restore