Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1900-07-27
"A MISSION OF CHRIST
DR.. Talmage Discourses on the
Great Surgeon.
Efficacy Of the Divine Power In Heal
ing the Worlds Wounds and De-
Standardization OF Sur
gerry and Theology.
Copyright, 1900, by Louis Klopsch.1
W. ShinDfon Iuly %

0 Washington, July p.
In this discourse DR.. Talmage (who
is now travelling in Europe) puts in an
unusual light the mission of Christ
and shows how Divine power will yet
make the illnesses of the world fall
back; text, Matthew XII, s: THE blind
receive their sight, and the lame walk,
the lepers are cleansed and the deaf
hear
Doctor" I said to distinguished
surgeon, do you not get worn out
with constantly seeing so many
wounds and broken bones and distor-
tions of the human body?" '.Oh, no."
he answered; "all that is overcome by
my joy in curing them" A sublimer
and more merciful art never came
down from Heaven than that of sur
gerry. Catastrophe and disease en-
tered the earth so early that one of
the first wants of the world was a
doctor. Our crippled and agonized
human race called for surgeon and
family physician for many years be-
fore they came. The first surgeons
who answered this call were minis
tiers of rehgion-namely, the Egyp-
tian priests. And what a grand thing
if all the clergymen were also doc
tors, all d. DIS were NJ. DIS, for there
are SO many cases where body and
soul need treatment at the same time,
consolation and medicine, theology
and therapeutics. AS the first sur
geons of tt e world were also ministers
of religion, may these two professions
always be in full sympathy! But I'M
der what disadvantages the early sur
geons worked, from the fact that the
dissection of the hu1na n body was for
hidden, first by the pagans and then
by the early Christians Apes, being
the brutes most like the human race,
were dissected, but no human body
might be unfolded for physiological
and anatomical exploration, and the
surgeons had to guess what was in
side the temple by looking at the out
side of it. If they failed in any surgi-
cal operation, they were prosecuted
and driven out of the city, as was
Archagathus because of his bold but
unsuccessful attempt to save a pa
tient.
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
missions of a 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 pal
ace, and it broke, and he fell from the
upper to the lower floor, and he was
so hurt that he sent to the village
of EkrOn for aid, and AeSculapius,
who wrought such wonders of surgery
that he was deified and temples were
built for his worship at Pergamos;
and Epidaurus and Podelirius intro
duced for the relief of the world
phlebotomy, and Damocedes cured
the dislocated ankle of King Darius
and the cancer of his queen, and
Hippocrates put successful hand on
fractures and introduced amputa-
ton, and Praxagoras removed obstruc-
tons, and Herophilus began dissec-
ton, 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 pralles treated the eye, and
Rhazas cauterized Tor the prevention
of hydrophobia. and Percival Pott
and in our own century we have had,
among others, RouX and a Larray
an France, an Ashley Cooper and an
Abernethy in Great Britain and a
Valentine Mott and Willard Parker
and Samuel d. Gross in America and
a galaxy of living surgeons as bril-
liant as their predecessors. What
mighty progress in the battling of dis
ease since the crippled and sick of
ancient cities were laid along the
streets, that people who had ever been
hurt or disordered in the same way
might suggest what had better be
done for the patients, and the priests
of olden time, who were constantly
suffering from. colds received in walk
ing barefoot over the temple pave
ments, 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
people only invoked the gods!
/ notice this Surgeon had fondness
for chronic diseases. Many a surgeon.
when he has had patient brought to
him, has said: ''Why was not this at
tended to five years ago? You bring
him to me after all power of recupera-
ton is gone. You have waited until
there is a complete contraction of the
muscles, and false ligatures are formed,
and Justification has taken place. 1t
ought to have been attended to long
ago." But Christ the Surgeon seemed
to prefer inveterate cases. One was a
ihemorrhage of IL years. and he stopped
it. Another was curvature of Is years,
and He Strengthened it. Another was a
cripple of 3S years, and he walked out
well. The 1s-year patient was wom-
an bent almost double. If you call a