Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-07-23
MISSION OF CH( RIST.
OR. TALMAGE SHOWS HOW DIVINE
POWER WILL HEAL THE WORLD.

Jesus the Surgeon Who VIII Extir-
pate the Disease OF S;n-Euma -lity's
Wounds viii Disappear Beneath
His Magic Touch.
WASHINGTON. July 22.-In this dis
course DR.. Talmage (whO is now trav
cling in Europe) puts in an unusual
light the mission of Christ and shows
how divine power will yet make the i'll
nesses of the world fall back; text,
Matthew XII ), 1.-THE blind receive their
sight. and the lame walk, the lepers
are cleansed and the deaf hear"
Doctor" l said to a distinguished
surgeon, do you not get worn out with
constantly seeing so many wounds and
broken bones and distortions Of the
human body?' "Oh, no. he answered;
call that is overcome by my joy in cur
ing them" A sublimer and more mer
ciful art never came down from heav-
en- than that of surgery. Catastrophe
and disease entered the earth SO early
that one Of the first wants of the world
was q doctor. Our crippled and agoniz-
ed human race called for surgeon and
family physician for many years be-
fore they came. The first surgeons
who answered this call were ministers
of religion = namely, the Egyptian
priests. And what Il grand thing if all
ciergymen were also doctors, all d.
DIS were NJ. DIS, for there are so
many cases where body and soul need
treatment at the same time, cOnS0la-
ton and medicine, theology and thera-
peutics AS the first surgeons Of the
xporI6 yv-ora aISn minister's of r0ljOiOn
may these two professions always be
in full sympathy! But under what dis
advantages the early surgeons worked,
from the fact that the dissection of the
human body was forbidden, first by
the pagans and then by the early
Christians! Apes, being the brutes
most like the human race, were dis
Sected, but no human body might be
unfolded for physiological and anatOm-
ical exploration, and the surgeons had
TO guess what was inside the temple by
looking at the outside of it. If they
failed in any surgical operation, they
were prosecuted and driven out of the
city, as was Archagathus because of
his bold but unsuccessful attempt to
save patient.
Great Surgeons.
But the world from the very begin
ming kept calling for surgeons, and
their first skill is spoken of in Genesis,
where they employed their art for the
incisiOnS of sacred rite, God making
surgery the predecessor of baptism,
and we see it again in II Kings, where
Ahaziah. the monarch, stepped on
some cracked latticewOrk in the palace,
and it broke, and he fell from the up
per to the lower floor, and he was so
hurt that he sent to the village Of Elk
ron for aid. and 3[sculapius, who
wrought such wonders of surgery that
he was deified and temples were built
for his worship at PergamOS; and Epi-
daurus and POdelirius introduced for
the relief of the world phIebOtOmy, and
Damocedes- cured the dislocated ankle
of King Darius and TIE cancer Of his
queen, and HippOcrates put successful
hand on fractures and introduced am
putation, and PraXagOras removed OBJ
structions. and HerOphiluS began dis
section. and ErasiStratuS removed tu-
morS. and CELSIUS, the Roman surgeon,
removed cataract from the eye and
used the Spanish fly; and Heliodorus
arrested disease of the throat, and AL
eXander Of TraIleS treated the eye, and
Rhazas cauterized for the prevention
of hydrophobfa, and Percival Pott
came to combat diseases of the spine,
and in our own century we have had,
among others, ROuX and Larray in
France, an Astley Cooper and an Aber-
nethy in Great Britain and 4 Valentine
Mott and Willard Parker and Samuel
D. Gross in America and a galaxy Of
living surgeons as brilliant as their
predecessors. What mighty progress
in the battling of disease since the Grip
pied and sick CT ancient cities were
laid along the streets, that people who
had ever been hurt or disordered in the
same way might suggest what had bet
ter be done for the patients, and the
priests of Olden time, who were con-
Stantly suffering from colds received
In walking barefoot over the temple
pavements, had to prescribe for them
selves, and fractures were considered
so far beyond all human cure that in
stead of calling in the surgeon the peO-
pie only invoked the gods.
But Notwithstanding all the surgical
and medical skill of the world, with
what tenacity the old diseases hang on
to the human race, and most of them
are thousands of years old, and in our
Bibles we read of them-the carbun-
cles of Job and HeZekiah. the palpita-
ton of the heart spoken of in Deuter-
onomy. the sunstroke of q child carried
from the fields Of Shunem, crying, My
head, my headr' King Asa's disease Of
the feet, which was nothing but govt;
detection of teeth, that called for den
tai surgery, the skill of which, almost
equal to anything modern, is still seen
in the filled molars of the unrolled