The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1908-03-29


| grave?
The Modern Doctor.
| AS we see the individual work of the
ministers for individual souls being
neglected on account of the congestirg
| CT large numbers of people in our
| towns and cities, so we find the moral
| and the spiritual work of the old fash
toned Christian doctors is also passing
away The modern physician is as
! unlike his predecessor of the past gen.
Grafton as the work of the average cicJ
minister is different from the old fash
toned country pastor who used to move
in and out among his people in the
small villages where our grandmothers
, and grandfathers were born.
There are many reasons for this
change. The electric cars and the ele-
waited trains and the suburban rail-
road have made the neigh borhood
family physician relic of the past
The family physician 20 years ago ~.
ways had his office in his home. He
never thought of having an office
down town in some big office building,
as the physicians do now. The resu,.
was the old family doctor, because he
was a neighbour God doctor, became u
personal adjunct of every family. H,
had his patients individual interests
at heart. The boys and the girls of
the street were his boys and girls. They
were all his children.
Not only has the old -fashioned neigh
borhood physician passed away through
the Introduction of the telephone and the
electric cars and the downtown offices,
but also because of the specializing of
the different departments of medicine
and surgery Once you felt that the
family physician knew a great deal, but
now you have come to the conclusion
that one physician can know but very
little. If you have anything the matter
with your eye you must go to an Oculist;
or with the throat, to a throat special
list; or with the lungs, to a lung special
list; or with the skin, to skin specialist;
or with the nerves, to a nerve special
list. We have made a fad out of this
specialist business. Thus. instead of
today having one doctor whom we call
a family doctor most families have
four or five doctors on their payrolls
They have one doctor for the babies
and another for the father and another
doctor for the mother and another doc
tor for the sister. The result is, in
stead of a physician being a neighbor-
hood doctor and being part of that
neighborhood, he is but one In a pro-
cession. His patients come to him one
day and do not come to him the next
sonal interest in his patients which
he used to have, the average doctor
looks at his patients simply as cases
with so many sores or so many coughs
or with SO many stomach complaints
or with so many skin diseases. When
he has cured the physical ailments his
interest in the patient ceases. The ply
sician of the past was generally a pious
man. He knew hoy to speak the sym
pathetic word to the sufferers and as he
stood by the bed of the dying to breathe
a word of faith ard hope. Who knows
the good he did? Now, my friends, who
is going to do the work of the old-fash-
Toned Christian physician? You and
know that the work the old-fashioned
Christian physician did was second only
in eternal importance to what was ac-
ccmplished by the Christian minister him.
self.
DR.. Livingstone's Way.
When David Livingstone wanted to be-
come missionary to darkest Africa what