M.D.

“ There may be many more learned perhaps, more skilful, older, or younger, as the case may be, but the best of them have something to learn from our doctor. He is such a combination of sweetness and simplicity. ”

“ YOUNG WOMAN (to be neighbor at dinner) —"Guess whom I met today, doctor?"
DOCTOR—"I'm afraid I'm not a good guesser."
"You're too modest. Aren't you at the top of your profession?"—Life.
DOCTOR—"My dear sir, it's a good thing you came to me when you did."
"Why, Doc? Are you broke?"—Life.
"It's a little hard for young doctors to get a start." ”

“ They prefer walking by faith—they must consult the savans—the doctors. Now I think very well of a good, old-fashioned doctor—one doctor I mean—but, when they get to be gregarious, my observation tells me, no good can possibly come of it. ”

“ I've studied now Philosophy
And Jurisprudence, Medicine,—
And even, alas! Theology,—
From end to end, with labor keen;
And here, poor fool! with all my lore
I stand, no wiser than before:
I'm Magister—yea, Doctor—hight,
And straight or cross-wise, wrong or right,
These ten years long, with many woes,
I've led my scholars by the nose,—
And see, that nothing can be known! ”

“ Many of his hearers, when they had laid fitting foundation of knowledge, flew higher to loftier studies, and those who bore them diligently were promoted to the degree of Masters in a short while, and certain of these applying themselves to yet fuller knowledge were found worthy to be counted in the number of the Doctors. ”

“ Early left fatherless he had only an ordinary school education, and after attending medical lectures in the University of Pennsylvania began practice with an M. B. degree when only twenty-one, gaining patients by his talents and his handsome face and winning ways. ”

“ After all, who knows the people of a community so well as the physician who lives among them? To the world the Doctor's patients were laborers, bankers, dressmakers, scrub-women, farmers, servants, teachers, preachers; to the Doctor they were men and women. ”

“ The physician, whether as a specialist or a general practitioner, by years of study, experience and ability, becomes an authority, and the record of his experience and his dissertations fill the pages of the medical journals, and his name and fame exist in records more enduring than brass. ”

“ The doctor, always sensitive to such moods, laid his hand kindly on the young man’s shoulder, and asked him if he really wanted a field for heroic work, and if he was equal to bearing the persecution of the world to-day for the sake of helping on a noble cause. ”

“ The little Doctor followed me, and stretched out his hand.
"Thou art a man," he said, "whatever thy faults. I will hold ever sacred the trust thou hast given me, and will deal with the boy as I would with my own." ”

“ And the doctor, a young man who was rising rapidly in his profession—a son of the people, who, through difficulties and rugged obstacles, and calumny and opposition, had emerged purified, and conscious of power from it all, and attained an honorable position professionally and socially, looked at that fragile form, and paid homage to the right-thinking and right-acting spirit it contained. ”

“ What can be more wonderful than the faculty recently developed by the advocates and practitioners of a new system of medicine, who, by shaking a bottle in a peculiar way, give to its contents a medical virtue which did not exist before, and which another man,—the patient, for example,—might shake till doomsday without imparting?*
The Natural Bonesetter is one instance of the possession of a faculty both rare and astonishing, and so is any old woman who can pow-wow the fire out of a burn. ”

“ When I stand at anyone’s feet, you can be of assistance to every such person; but if I stand at anybody’s head, don’t attempt to aid him.’ It came to pass. The child’s father went from patient to patient, where the godmother caused illness, and benefited every one. All at once he became a distinguished physician. A prince was dying—nay, he had breathed his last—nevertheless, they sent for the physician. ”

“ It is a very thoughtless thing to say that the physician stands to the divine in the same light as the divine stands to the physician, so far as each may attempt to handle subjects belonging especially to the other's profession. ”

“ Let us hope that the physician is modest enough to ascribe the patient's estimation of his personality to the encouragement that has been offered him and to the widening of his intellectual horizon through the astounding and liberating revelations which the cure entails. ”

“ It is the doctor who, by feeling the patient's pulse, is expected to detail the various ailments of his patron, which can be correctly diagnosed by a clever practitioner from the slow or hurried beats. ”

“ And when you quit this scene of your early labours to assume the responsibility of medical practitioners, take heed lest you allow the anxieties of life to lead you astray from the path you have chosen. Call to mind the good advice you have received within these walls, and act on it steadily and consistently. Remember that your success depends greatly upon your character, and not merely on attaining a particular grade in the profession. ”

“ The Doctor’s reflections, as he looked after them, and heard the purport of their discourse, were limited at first to certain merry meditations on the folly of all loves and likings, and the idle imposition practised on themselves by young people, who believed for a moment, that there could be anything serious in such bubbles, and were always undeceived—always! ”

“ A physician, by ever so great attention, could not so speedily rid a man of the fever, as a patient man would cool, by the breath of his own words, a person who was passionate and burning with wrath. And why do I speak of a physician? ”

“ And you are not simply a physician, but also a teacher of that art for those who desire to learn, so that I might almost say that what physicians are as compared with the mass of men, you are, compared with other physicians. ”

“ As to your practice, if a gentleman walks into my rooms smelling of iodoform, with a black mark of nitrate of silver upon his right forefinger, and a bulge on the side of his top-hat to show where he has secreted his stethoscope, I must be dull, indeed, if I do not pronounce him to be an active member of the medical profession. ”

“ I went over to the window, the place where I had [Pg 96] stood one night and looked down upon a quarrel between Old Master and the doctor.
"Why of course?" master repeated.
"Thought you knew the man I meant."
"He and almost all other men had passed out of my mind, sir," said the young man, leaning with his elbow upon the table. "There are times when I don't think of man, but of what man has said."
The doctor coughed. "Don't you think there's just a little pretense in all that—this learned abstraction?"
"If there's any pretense at all it is just a little. ”

“ Her whole soul goes out to him in unspeakable gratitude when he brings back to her from the power of the grave her husband or darling child. The Doctor knows many of our secrets, of our sorrows, which no one else knows,—some of our sins, perhaps, which the great God alone else knows; how many cares and secrets, how many lives, he carries in his heart and in his hands! So you see he is a very important person the Doctor, and we should do our best to make the most of him, and to do our duty to him and to ourselves. ”

“ It is to you to-day, entering on this profession, that we look to do your share in keeping up the dignity of the medical profession and in maintaining standards in medical education. We have a glorious tradition of 6,000 years behind us with the great men of the profession worshipped as gods at the beginning, because men thought so much of them, and remembered fondly as great masters when they came in the after-time. ”

“ A great many regular physicians now, and all soon will, show patients how they can make use of the great healing, medicinal power of thought, the miracle of right thinking, which unites them with the Force back of the flesh. They will show each patient what attitudes of mind, what affirmations and what auto-suggestions will tend to keep him in harmony; they will teach him the healing use of suggestion. The physician of the future will use largely for his remedies, ideas, mental attitudes, and suggestions. ”

“ You see a great deal of the doctor; he is often here, and you and he often sit up late at night, talking with one another about many things: do you ever tire of the doctor and wish him away? Have you any feeling toward him that you try to keep secret from me? Can you be a perfectly frank man with this friend of your middle life? ”

“ Thus the physician, when he sees the patient's case desperate, troubles him no more with physic; and the father resolves to correct his child no more when, finding him hardened, he determines to disinherit him. ”

“ The physician who most commands our confidence and, as a consequence, does us most good is he whose description of our symptoms most nearly corresponds with our own experience, who, we reason, obviously "knows our case." ”

“ You must imagine, gentleman, quoth Mutio, for so was the doctor's name, that men of our profession are no blabs, but hold their secrets in their hearts bottome, and therefore reveale what you please, it shall not onely be concealed, but cured, if either my art or counsaile may doo it. ”

“ The less experienced a doctor is, the higher are his notions of professional dignity, as I need not remind you, my young friend, so I was about to refuse the commission with indignation, when I bethought me that, quite apart from medicine, we were gentleman and lady, and that she had asked me to do something for her which was evidently of the greatest possible importance in her eyes. ”

“ On principle, I greet unfortunates with some pleasant remark, the better to call off their thoughts from their troubles. The physician who is at once wise and humane seldom unreservedly sympathizes with his patient. But come, I am a herb-doctor, and also a natural bone-setter. ”

“ The three cheap physicians—water, air, and exercise—are wisely held in high repute, and employed daily by all who wish to attain or preserve that best of all our heavenly Father's earthly blessings—"a sound mind in a sound body." ”

“ A certain physician was so fond of administering medicine, that, seeing all the phials and pill-boxes of his patient completely emptied, and ranged in order on the table, he said, "Ah, sir, it gives me pleasure to attend you,—you deserve to be ill." ”

“ We are publishing no secret, nor making any extraordinary confession, when we acknowledge that there are many names on the lists of regular physicians which should never have appeared there; names of men not without talents or merits, but men who might have graced some other profession or occupation, and shone with lustre in some other sphere, yet are illy adapted to the profession of medicine. ”

“ The principal physician is the responsible manager of every case, and should therefore be personally acquainted with the character and condition of his patients, the peculiarities of the diseased mind, as manifested in each one, and the sources of trouble and depression, or exaltation and perversity. ”

“ The mention of the intimate knowledge of family and constitutional conditions possessed by the old-fashioned country doctor, whose main strength lay in this and in his common-sense, reminds me of another great advance in the modern practice, in the attempt to understand nature better by the scientific study of psychology and the occult relations of mind and body. It is in the study of temper, temperament, hereditary predispositions, that we may expect the most brilliant results in preventive medicine. ”

“ The child that is now sitting by your side in perfect health, is suddenly taken sick. Its blooming cheeks turn pale, and it lifts its languid and imploring eyes for help. You call a physician, the most skillful one you can obtain. ”

“ In addition to going to school, where he studies books and has manual training, he regularly spends a portion of his time in the office of our resident physician, and has already learned to do many of the duties which pertain to a doctor's office. ”

“ The physician has an office of great responsibility thrust upon him; into his hands we blindly confide the lives of relations and friends, hoping and expecting that his medical knowledge, his experience and skill, may save the existence of some one dear to us. ”

“ When we visit a doctor, we find out before hand whether he is a surgeon or a diagnostician or a homeopath or a faith healer, for we want to know from what angle he will look at our complaint. We ought to be as careful in the choice of our historians as we are in the selection of our physicians. ”

“ I confess to an affection for the old-fashioned, all-round country doctor, who took a general view of his patient, knew his family, his constitution, all the gossip about his mental or business troubles, his affairs of the heart, disappointments in love, incompatibilities of temper, and treated the patient, as the phrase is, for all he was worth, and gave him visible medicine out of good old saddle-bags—how much faith we used to have in those saddle-bags—and not a prescription in a dead language to be put up by a dead-head clerk who occasionally mistakes arsenic for carbonate of soda. ”

“ The entrance upon a new course of Lectures is always a period of interest to instructors and pupils. As the birth of a child to a parent, so is the advent of a new class to a teacher. As the light of the untried world to the infant, so is the dawning of the light resting over the unexplored realms of science to the student. In the name of the Faculty I welcome you, Gentlemen of the Medical Class, new-born babes of science, or lustier nurslings, to this morning of your medical life, and to the arms and the bosom of this ancient University. ”

“ The mental constitution of the physician is essentially that of the naturalist; and the tastes and capacities of the naturalist reveal themselves, and, indeed, demand satisfaction long before twenty-one years of age, which is a good age for entering a medical school. ”

“ Some men are made that way.”
“Sooner or later,” began the Doctor, settling himself comfortably in his chair, “it comes to most of us. Sooner or later a man or a woman comes to consult us on what they imagine to be some trifling malady, and when we make our examination we find that it isn’t trifling. ”