Addison Darre Crabtre

“ Who is to soothe the fearful anguish, from lacerated nerve and muscle, by cruel shot and shell? And who shall smooth the dying pillow, hear the last prayer, for self, and for loved ones far away in the northern homes? And who will kindly receive the dying messages for those dear ones,—wife, children, father, mother,—whom he never will see again, and kiss the pallid cheek, commend the soul to God, and close the eyes forever of the poor soldier boy, who died away from home and friends, in the hospital? ”

“ One reason for this fatality is because of the prevailing and erroneous idea that it is inevitably a fatal disease.
Consumption is a relentless monster, and insidious in his approaches. He spares not the high or the low. Oftener known in the hovel, he fails not to visit dwellers in palaces. He paints the cheek of the infant, youth, maiden, the middle-aged, and the aged with the false glow of health. ”

“ If the author has spared no pains of study to make his book acceptable, he may be said, also, to have as unsparingly visited his indignation upon the quacks who have all along the line of historic medicine disgraced the physician’s and the surgeon’s profession.
The general public but little understand what a vast amount of ignorance has at times been cunningly concealed by medical practitioners, and how grossly the people of every city and village are even nowadays trifled with by some who arrogate to themselves the honorable title of Doctor of Medicine. ”

“ Do you not know that it is a well-settled principle of physiology and common sense that these habits are more exhausting to nervous vitality than almost any other violation of physiological law? And do you not know that life is pretty much what you make it and take it? You can make it bright and sunshiny, or you can make it dark and shadowy. This life is only meant to discipline us, to fit us for a higher and nobler state of being. ”

“ He was a tall, lean, lank-looking Yankee, with red hair and whiskers, a light gray eye, and claimed to cure all diseases by “spatting” the patient, or the diseased part thereof, with cold water on his bare palm, the use of a battery, and a pill. He had served as door-keeper to a famous doctor, who created a furore, a few years since, by the exercise of his magnetic powers, making cripples to throw down their crutches, and walk off; the deaf to hear, the blind to see; or, at least, many of them thought they did, for the time being, which answered the doctor’s immediate purpose. ”

“ The little boy trundles his hoop against the shins of the thoughtful student; the little girl knocks the spectacles from the nose of the man of science with her rope, while the preacher runs against an awning-post to make way for a red-faced nurse with a willow carriage; the antiquated apple woman, and the child with its huge chunk of bread and butter, sit on the curb; the painter digs the end of his ladder rather uncomfortably into some pursy old gentleman’s stomach ”

“ Reynolds, the gay equipage of Hannes, the library of Radcliffe, or the knowing nods and significant silence of some of the more modern doctors, will avail nothing in the time of great danger and distress.
It is the truly kind-hearted, humane, and educated physician upon whom you must depend in your time of need. Seek such. There are yet many; humanity is not a thing entirely of the past. Who loses faith in humanity has lost it in God. ”

“ Would you get and keep warm when cold, breathe copiously, for this renews that carbonic consumption all through the system which creates all animal warmth. Would you cool off, and keep cool, in hot weather, deep, copious breathing will burst open all those myriads of pores, each of which, by converting the water in the system into insensible perspiration, casts out heat, and refreshes mind and body. Would you labor long and hard, with intellect or muscle, without exhaustion or injury, breathe abundantly; for breath is the great re-invigorator of life and all its functions. ”

“ Health is that which makes our meat and drink both savory and pleasant, else Nature’s injunction of eating and drinking were a hard task and a slavish custom. It makes our beds lie easy and our sleep sweet and refreshing. It renews our strength with the morning’s sun, and makes us cheerful at the light of another day. It makes the soul take delight in her mansion and pleasures, a pleasure indeed, without which we solace ourselves in nothing of terrene felicity or enjoyment.—Mainwaring. ”

“ Barnard de Mandeville, in “Essays on Charity and Charity Schools,” says of Radcliffe, “That a man with small skill in physic, and hardly any learning, should by vile arts get into practice, and lay up wealth, is no mighty wonder; but that he should so deeply work himself into the good opinion of the world as to gain the general esteem of a nation, and establish a reputation beyond all contemporaries, with no other qualities but a perfect knowledge of mankind, and a capacity of making the most of it, is something extraordinary.” ”

“ Clairvoyancy is a humbug; merely power of mind over mind. A clairvoyant can go no farther than your own knowledge leads him, unless he guesses the rest,’ was his emphatic reply.
“The same patients, disguised, visited him twice, but he would tell the same story to them as before. His diagnosis was truly wonderful.
“‘What is your mode of treatment, or what school do you represent?’
“‘There hangs my “school,”’ he would reply, pointing to a New York college diploma. ‘That, however, cures nobody. What cures one patient kills another. ”

“ When a patient came, or a servant announced a call, he would arise and say, “Pets, vamose!” and the cats would all scamper away to their nests, and the doctor, seemingly refreshed in body and mind, would return to the reality of life and its labors.
One’s solace is in his children, another’s in his wife, a third in his flower-garden; and others’ in opium, rum, or tobacco. ”

“ Who so well knew the value, or injury, of calomel, as he who had used it for twenty odd years? Admitting Professor Chapman, of Philadelphia, was within twenty years of right when he said, “He who resigns the fate of his patient to calomel, ... if he has a tolerable practice, will, in a single season, lay the foundation of a good business for life,” did not Dr. H. exhibit a little selfishness in attempting to deprive young practitioners of the opportunity of laying for themselves a foundation for a prosperous future? ”

“ Again, there is a class in every city who, to avoid a physician’s fee, go to an apothecary, briefly and imperfectly state their case, perhaps to a green clerk, or a proprietor who is as ignorant of the pathology of the disease as the miserable applicant; and who ever knew of a druggist too ignorant to prescribe for a case over the counter? The result is often the administration of harsh remedies, which aggravate the present, or produce some other disease worse than the original, and in the end the patient is obliged to seek the advice of a physician. ”

“ Now the pony and the swine met, the doctor still clinging to the sow’s ear with one hand, and to the tail with the other; of course, having turned a clean summersault from the pony, facing towards the sow’s hind quarters. The swine, beset on all sides, sheered off, and made directly through a large duck-pond in the field, scattering the geese and ducks every way, which, crying out, “Quack, quack!” made off as fast as feet and wings could carry them. Half way across the pond the doctor lost his balance, and, with his saddle-bags, fell splashing into the water. ”

“ Age dims the lustre of the eye, and pales the roses on beauty’s cheek; while crows’ feet, and furrows, and wrinkles, and lost teeth, and gray hairs, and bald head, and tottering limbs, and limping, most sadly mar the human form divine. ”

“ The damage is beyond earthly knowledge to estimate, beyond human power of indemnification. If ever the erring soul shall retrace her steps, it will be Christ himself who shall lead her; if ever peace shall brood again over her spirit, it will be the Comforter who shall send the white-winged dove. ”

“ The farmer does not consider it a compromise of his dignity to search out the best modes and means for increasing the quality as well as the quantity of his stock—his horses, his oxen, his sheep, and his swine,—and is man, the most noble work of his Maker,—man, created but a little below the angels,—is man an exception to this rule, that he should cease to be the study of mankind? Is humanity below the animals? ”

“ The life has been rolled out of many a poor wretch, over a barrel, under this foolish delusion of “getting the water out of him.” Lay him on his side, in a warm room, or in the sun. Try to inflate the lungs. Don’t get a “bellows,” and blow him full of wind. He is not like a bladder, or a balloon, that he needs inflating thus. To breathe is what he needs. Let the water, if any, in the mouth, run out. Wrap him warm—hot water at feet. Rub the limbs, if cold, for a long time. Persevere. Do not give him up until a good physician has arrived, and pronounced him beyond all hope of recovery. ”