“ This model physician, who said, “I cannot go to cure the body of my patient, but I forget my profession and call unto God for his soul,” in the same work, finely says of charity:—“Divinity hath wisely divided the act thereof into many branches, and hath taught us, in this narrow way, many paths unto goodness; as many ways as we may do good, so many ways we may be charitable. There are infirmities not only of the body, but of soul and fortunes, which do require the merciful hand of our abilities. I cannot contemn a man for ignorance, but behold him with as much pity as I do Lazarus. ”

“ We seem to be on the threshold of a new era in the treatment of disease, and already do we find an increase in the average lives of the race. No one need despair of the future in that direction; indiscretion and ignorance kill more human beings than plague, pestilence, or famine. The public must help to tear away the veil which hides the Truth, by not worshipping at the foot of Quackery, Chicanery, or Superstition.
The medical profession has so far escaped the pernicious tendency of modern thought, which tendency is to hamper every institution. ”

“ Next to religion, nothing is more precious or comforting than the sympathy of those who know and fully understand our sufferings, for, as my old favourite, Sir Thomas Browne, to whom I ever revert with renewed pleasure, truly and beautifully says:—“It is not the tears of our own eyes only, but of our friends also, that do exhaust the current of our sorrows, which, falling into many streams, runs more peaceably, and is contented with a narrower channel.” ”

“ He tells us that the real pleasure of travelling is not to boast of how many lions one may have slain in a single day, but to saunter about without an object, to inhale the moral atmosphere of places visited, to enter bazaars, not to buy, but to catch the hundred peculiarities of a new people, to stray hither and thither watching the work and the recreations of other races. ”

“ It is the special vocation of the doctor to grow familiar with suffering—to look upon humanity disrobed of its pride and glory—robbed of all its fictitious ornaments—weak, hopeless, naked—and undergoing the last fearful metempsychosis, from its erect and god-like image, the living temple of an enshrined divinity, to the loathsome clod and the inanimate dust! ”

“ So the most startling and perfect revelation of any great fact in human physiology may have been dimly perceptible to earlier intelligences groping in the dark, faint adumbrations of which may fall on the sensorium of the final discoverer, until a ray of divine light dispels the mists of ages, and the man, developing his crude idea with infinite pains, realises a great truth, and cries out “Eureka” to an astonished—and too often—an unbelieving world. ”

“ Coming back to the history of our own country, and dealing with the more interesting passages bearing on this theme, we find that in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, William Clowes, the Court Surgeon, believed firmly in the efficacy of the royal touch. “The king’s queen’s evil,” he says, “is a disease repugnant to nature, which grievous malady is known to be miraculously cured and healed by the sacred hands of the Queen’s most Royal Majesty, even by Divine inspiration and wonderful work and power of God, above man’s will, act, and expectation.” ”

“ All other Umtargarties are feigned Umtargarties, Boroo, Boroo! but I perceive here a genuine and real Umtargartie, Hoosh, Hoosh, Hoosh! in whose blood, I, the original Imyanger and Nookerer, will wash these bear’s claws of mine!’ All this time the learned physician is looking out among the attentive faces for some unfortunate man who owes him a cow, or who has given him any small offence, or against whom, without offence, he has conceived a spite. Him he never fails to Nooker as the Umtargartie, and he is instantly killed. ”

“ A dose of tigers’ bones inspires courage; an elephant’s eye burnt to powder and mixed with human milk is a sovereign remedy for inflammation of the eye; pulverised elephants’ bones cure indigestion; a preparation of elephants’ ivory is the recognised cure for diabetes; and the same animal’s teeth may be used for epilepsy. But if the patient cannot eat rice his case is abandoned as hopeless, and not even the physician who deals most extensively in magic pills, ointments, and decoctions will attempt to save the obstinate person’s life. ”

“ Blackmore said:—“I only undervalued false or superficial learning, that signifies nothing for the service of mankind; as to physic I expressly affirmed that learning must be joined with native genius to make a physician of the first rank; but if those talents are separated, I asserted, and do still insist, that a man of native sagacity and diligence will prove a more able and useful practiser than a heavy notional scholar encumbered with a heap of confused ideas.” ”

“ Their mission is to carry into the chamber of disease—and even of death itself—that calm courage, that buoyant hope, which has around it a halo of sympathy and of encouragement.
The public are loyal to the profession of medicine, and seldom do we hear of any members of that calling who abuse their high privileges. Their work is an absorbing work; it says to a man:—“You have placed in your hands the lives [Pg 40] of the human race. You are the true soldier whose business it is to give life and health and happiness to those with whom you come in contact. ”

“ The opening phrase of his dedication to Sir Thomas Le Gros—‘When the funeral pyre was out, and the last valediction over, men took a lasting adieu of their interred friends, little expecting the curiosity of future ages should comment on their ashes;’—this phrase strikes a key-note to the sombre harmonies which follow, connecting the ossuaries of the dead, the tears quenched in the dust of countless generations, with the vivid sympathy and scrutinizing sagacity of the living writer.... ”

“ I intend no Monopoly, but a community, in learning; I study [Pg 124] not for my own sake only, but for theirs that study not for themselves. I envy no man that knows more than myself, but pity them that know less. I instruct no man as an exercise of my knowledge, or with an intent rather to nourish and keep it alive in mine own head than beget and propagate it in his; and in the midst of all my endeavours there is but one thought that dejects me, that my acquired parts must perish with myself, nor can be Legacied among my honoured Friends.”
[Pg 125]
The “Doctor” in time of Pestilence. ”

“ It is not my intention to go back to those Greek fathers of the healing art, Hippocrates and Galen, or to dwell on the days when every monastery held within its walls some learned brother accredited to administer to bodies as well as souls diseased, or when the mistress of every feudal castle, every baronial-hall, was trained and skilled in leechcraft, distilled herbs, concocted potions and unguents, and not only physicked her household, but was prepared to staunch and dress the gaping wounds received in siege or tournay. ”

“ Sir Astley Cooper, who was one of the eminent surgeons who gave evidence before this committee, was asked whether the state of the law prevented teachers of anatomy from obtaining the body of any person, which, in consequence of some peculiarity of structure, they might be desirous of procuring. He replied:—“The law does not prevent our obtaining the body of an individual if we think proper; for there is no person, let his situation in life be what it may, whom, if I were disposed to dissect, I could not obtain.... The law only enhances the price, and does not prevent the exhumation. ”

“ When a young man, he, with companions who were law students like himself, ran up a score at an inn, which they were not able to pay. Mr. Holt observed that the landlord’s daughter looked very ill, and, posing as a medical student, asked what ailed her. He was informed she suffered from ague. Mr. Holt, continuing to play the doctor, gathered sundry herbs, mixed them with great ceremony, rolled them up in parchment, scrawled some characters on the same, and to the great amusement of his companions, tied it round the neck of the young woman, who straightway was cured of her ague. ”

“ The more credulous the invalid the more easy the cure, no matter what remedy is applied. Is it surprising, then, to find that among the more childlike races, or that among the infant civilizations, magic often supersedes medicine, or is combined with it? Ceremonies which impress the mind and act upon the imagination considerably aid the physician in his treatment of susceptible persons. Paracelsus himself combined astrology with alchemy and medicine, and his host of followers often went further than their master, and relied more upon magic than upon specific remedies. ”

“ He goes forth upon the quest directly his strength has returned, and when he has discovered the animal of his vision, he turns its skin into a pouch, and wears it ever afterwards round his neck. In peace or war he will never part with this talisman; it is the treasure of his life, a sacred possession, a charm against all maladies, and a protection from foes. It is scarcely necessary to add, after this, that the medicine-man of the tribe is held in highest honour, and regarded as a worker of veritable miracles. All things are possible to him. ”

“ It was hinted that the ravages of this new and dreadful disease were caused by the poisoning of the meat sold in the markets and the water in the public fountains; and the dwellers in the slums became so infuriated by this horrible and absurd rumour that mobs perambulated the streets howling for vengeance on the poisoners. Many unfortunate persons were murdered in the streets on being denounced as the perpetrators of these imaginary crimes, and so paralysed was the arm of justice by the influence of terror that nothing was done to vindicate the majesty of the law. ”

“ Originality, integrity, and honesty are attributes which grace the life of any man, and although the history of medicine claims no monopoly of these virtues, for they serve all men alike, yet they are the handmaids of greatness ”

“ There is scarcely a market but has a stall kept by a herb woman, who, in warm old-fashioned hood, with a little shawl round her shoulders, her ample waist encircled by broad tapes from which is suspended a pocket, capacious and indispensable, lays out with great care her stock of simples—roots, leaves, or flowers, studiously gathered at the proper time, when their virtue is strongest. ”

“ Of what ghastly secrets of moral and physical disease is he the depository!”
Sir Thomas Browne, in his “Religio Medici,” says:—“Men, that look no further than their outsides, think health an appurtenance unto life, and quarrel with their constitutions for being sick; but I, that have examined the parts of man, and know upon what tender filaments that [Pg 254] fabrick hangs, do wonder that we are not always so; and, considering the thousand doors that lead to death, do thank my God that we can die but once.” ”

“ The difficulties are enormous, the labour is colossal, but there could be no convictions were there no perplexities. Credulity is the disease of [Pg 37] a feeble intellect. Accepting all things and understanding nothing, kills a man’s intellect and checks all scientific investigation. The physician has to knock at the temple of the human frame, and patiently pick up the knowledge which nature always gives to those who love her best. ”

“ Only a few selected instances can be given to illustrate how large a part magic has played, and still plays, in the healing art. Medicine is by no means freed of its superstitions yet, and the success of quack advertisements of the day abundantly proves that the civilised public is still prone to believe that universal remedies are obtainable, and that miracles can be wrought.
Modern medical science, as one of its great exponents has pointed out, plays a waiting game when miracles are spoken of, and when magic is claimed to supersede specific remedies. ”

“ The medical profession is a noble and pleasant one, though laborious and often full of anxiety, straining mind and body. The good physician is the sympathizing, confidential, and comforting friend of the family. He values the humble gifts and testimonials of gratitude from the poor, even more than the costly presents of the rich.
The virtuous poor are always grateful. It can truly be said of the physician’s kind and often gratuitous services to them, in the language of scripture ”

“ Among savages, sorcerers, and magicians, are the medicine men; these are still represented, in civilisation, by impostors and quacks. Members of the profession, as a rule, keep themselves posted up in the medical science of the day, honestly and unselfishly do everything that can be done for their patients, and rejoice in being the means of their recovery, far more than in their fee. ”

“ When, at the present day, we hear of an epidemic of small-pox in some town where the practice of vaccine inoculation has been neglected, it is both instructive and consolatory to turn our thoughts back to the time, before the introduction of that practice, when that horrible disease caused ten per cent, of all the deaths in excess of those occurring in the ordinary course of nature. ”

“ Not only do we find the writing of books—otherwise than text-books and technical treatises—rarer [Pg 103] with them, but it curiously happens that in most instances it has been the successful practitioner, not the man walking the hospitals or waiting for calls, who has turned author. And we shall find that these medico-literati (if I may coin the phrase) have often been among the most hard-working in their profession, and the wonder is that they were able to enter upon a second pursuit and to follow it with so much zeal. ”

“ The noiseless tread of time will cause many [Pg 39] doctors whose names are now household words to be forgotten, but we may rest assured that the wreath of memory will cluster round the brows of these grand, noble workers in the field of medicine who have shown by their daily life that they never flinched from the arduous duties, aye and the dangers of their profession, but steadfastly plodded on. ”

“ An idea is in the air that the study of science has a tendency to make men sceptical. This is an error. For surely the study of Nature in any of its manifold aspects has a direct tendency to [Pg 38] lead us into the inscrutable. Amongst those who demonstrate the ennobling influence of science let us only name Boyle, Bacon, Kepler, and Newton. If we would select a few names from the number of medical celebrities of the past who have felt this elevating influence, the following will readily occur to us, Linacre, Sydenham, Brodie, Astley Cooper, Graves Watson, and Abernethy. ”

“ Had they been unhappy, one would suppose that he would have been more disposed to be cynical and pessimistic than to regard life’s incidents as provocative of merriment, yet, if they had been happy, why should he have regarded the engagement of Grace as an idle folly, a bubble on life’s surface, soon to burst? ”