Medrese

“ The learned doctor understood the case, both from his examination of the water, and the information given by the nun, and then he gave his prescription.
Now I know that it is the custom in many cases to give a prescription in writing, nevertheless this time he gave it by word of mouth, and said to the nun;
“Fair sister, for the abbess to recover her health there is but one remedy, and that is that she must have company with a man; otherwise in a short time she will grew so bad that death will be the only remedy.” ”

“ Her state now requires she should see an eminent physician once every day. Look into your heart. What is the sensation you feel there at the idea of her being examined by forty or fifty medical students besides?
It is an indignant protest against their attendance.
It is the mission of a priest to be made the confidant of many sorrows; he has to suffer with the sufferer, to mourn with the mourner; and he can state that, of all trials which attend medical treatment in hospitals, there is not one more distasteful than the doctor's visit, especially to women. ”

“ So sacred is the relation between the physician and patient regarded that the courts will not compel a physician, while on the witness stand and under oath, to tell the truth, and not only the truth, but the whole truth, to reveal what is imparted to him in confidence by his patient. ”

“ The physician shall treat a priest for a pious blessing or spell, the master of a house for a small draught animal, etc., the lord of a district for a team of four oxen. If the physician cures the mistress of the house, a female ass shall be his fee, etc., etc. ”

“ They go to mass on Sundays, and on week days they go to him for advice and assistance in everything. He visits the sick, and administers medicine as doctor, or extreme unction as priest. He settles all their quarrels better than any judge or jury, and there never ain’t any appeal thought of from his decision. ”

“ The king listened to what he said, and answered, "If you be able to perform what you promise, I will enrich you and your posterity. Do you assure me that you will cure my leprosy without potion, or applying any external medicine?" "Yes, Sire," replied the physician, "I promise myself success, through God's assistance, and to-morrow, with your majesty's permission, I will make the trial." ”

“ Would a priest be endured in his parish if he did not receive every insult with a smile, or a barrister gain his cause if he suffered his face to proclaim his disbelief in its justice, or a doctor keep his patients if his countenance revealed what he thought of their complaints? ”

“ Once more let it be remembered that the Tribunal of Penance is for the accusation and absolution of sin. Name, nor abode, nor fortune, nor domestic concerns, have any place there. The priest is the spiritual physician, and it is the disease which is submitted to him; all else is foreign to his office, nor has he the right to ask of other matters. ”

“ Any open assertion of the infinitely superior importance of such a ministry as mine, compared with the ministry of the medical man, would only have provoked the doctor to practise on the human weakness of his patient, and to threaten to throw up the case. ”

“ The important duty which the medical practitioner has to perform, when he delivers his testimony before a court of justice, should be clearly defined, conscientiously felt, and thoroughly understood,—his opinion ought to be conveyed in a perspicuous manner; he should be solemnly impressed that he speaks upon oath, the most sacred pledge before God [4] between man and man—and that the life of a human being depends on the clearness and truth of his deposition. ”

“ A doctor has in some sort a priesthood of his own. Admitted at all hours to the most secret intimacy of families, he knows, guesses, and is able to effect much. Like the priest, in short, he has the ear of the sick and the dying. ”

“ A physician shall visit his patient at least twice a day and at the wish of his patient once also at night, and shall charge him, in case the visit does not require him to go out of the village or beyond the walls of the city, not more than one-half tarrene in gold for each day’s service. ”

“ A record is kept of the name, regiment, and company, disease, and number of ward and hammock of each patient admitted, and of all transfers, so that any patient in the hospital can be found, and all the facts in relation to his case learned, in a few minutes. ”

“ A clergyman who has a knowledge of the medical profession and of medicine, in speaking of the importance of such teachers, says: "Moreover, from their relation to the sick and suffering, from their habit of analyzing the mental and moral states of their patients, and from the deep, tender sympathy which sincere, God-fearing physicians have for suffering human beings, they are placed in a much closer relation to the people than any other vocation could give them. ”

“ Eighthly, Another trick is when the Patient is cured, and the Physician therefore hath given over his Visits, then comes the Apothecary and insinuates by his words and passions, either some danger of relapse, or some other present distemper, and repairs to the Physician for a Bill to cure the imaginary disease. ”

“ To battle with the occult forces which play so important a part in determining the course or consequences of disease, it is absolutely essential that the physician should know all that is possible to be known of the patient’s history, and of the history of the patient’s family. ”

“ The clergy are our spiritual advisers, preparing us for a pleasant and easy place in another world. The lawyers advise us on legal themes— showing us how to obey the law, or else evade it, and they protect us from lawyers. The doctors look after us when disease attacks our bodies—or when we think it does. ”

“ Every physician should advise his patients, and every boarding-school in existence and every hospital should have its surgeon or matron, and every regiment its officer, to make their nightly and hourly 'rounds,' to force a stop to so unnatural, disgusting, and dangerous a habit! ”

“ The physician often finds, that the clergyman, upon whose family he has attended without charge, perhaps for a long time, gives his certificate in recommendation of some nostrum, or employs some quack, or becomes the noisy advocate of some new system just now rising into popular favor, or perhaps, in his zeal for his sect, becomes the active patron of some practitioner of his own denomination, urging him even upon the families of the physician whose services he has so long gratuitously enjoyed. ”

“ You will find, gentlemen, as we proceed in our course, that Doctors have very many occasions in which to apply the lessons of Jurisprudence in their medical practice. I even suspect that they need to be more conscientious in regard to the dictates of the higher law than any other class of men, the clergy alone, perhaps, excepted. They need this not only for their own good, but also for the good of their patients and of the community at large. ”

“ Monsignor, listen to me. In these cases the doctor always gives his advice. You see even the sacraments have their mental side; and on this mental side the doctor speaks. But the whole decision rests entirely with the patient and his confessor; or they can call in an expert priest-doctor. Only a priest can possibly decide finally the relations between the grace of the sacraments and their reactionary effect upon the mind. A lay doctor only recommends. ”

“ The priest effects cures in behalf of the Church and in the name of God by means of prayer, the laying on of hands, exorcism, relics and consecrated natural means, especially water, salt and oil. In doing this he acts as the visible delegate of an [Pg 69] unseen higher physician, the saint ordained of God to be the healer of the sickness. For every affliction has its physician among the ranks of the saints. ”

“ Certainly, if a physician have power to judge the disease of his patient, and what course of physic he must use, can he be counted a usurper unless the patient might take what physic himself pleased, day or night, summer or winter, at home in his chamber or abroad in the air?
If a church may assemble without and against the magistrate’s consent (as is affirmed) , then much more constitute and become a church, &c. ”

“ As we have said before, during the dark ages medical knowledge was confined to the clergy, and the same individuals officiated both as priests and physicians. But at length medicine became a separate profession, and the treatment of physical diseases was assigned to one class of men, and the care of moral and religious matters to another. ”

“ But before very long I found myself surrounded with patients of my own, and this for two simple reasons. In the first place, the men (I am speaking of the “ranks” now) had a very serious objection to going into hospital for any but urgent reasons, and the regimental doctors were rather fond of sending them there; and, in the second place, they could and did get at my store sick-comforts and nourishing food, which the heads of the medical staff would sometimes find it difficult to procure. ”

“ If the physician might be allowed to usurp in a measure the confessor's chair at such a time as the present, I would say for your consolation, in the event of the worst termination to the child's illness, that your irresponsible condition, which rendered you incapable of appreciating the consequences of your act, and which would excuse you before an earthly tribunal, should have some weight with your inward judge. ”

“ Nurse. Now God in heaven bless thee! Hark you, sir.
Rom. What say'st thou, my dear nurse?
Nurse. Is your man secret? Did you ne'er hear say, Two may keep counsel, putting one away?
Rom. I warrant thee my man's as true as steel.
Nurse. Well, sir, my mistress is the sweetest lady. Lord, Lord! when 'twas a little prating thing- O, there is a nobleman in town, one Paris, that would fain lay knife aboard ”

“ If the minister were a physician of bodies instead of souls, and patients who had not called him in should refuse to take the medicine which he thought his best and they his nastiest, he should either offer them another, a little less disagreeable if a little less efficacious, or let them alone. ”

“ The kind-hearted and high-minded physician, especially if he be a man of the world, as all great physicians have invariably been, is the priestly confessor among Protestants. He no more thinks of betraying the confidences of his patients than the Catholic priest does those of the confessional. ”

“ Such a church is of about as much practical value to the world at large as some consultations of physicians are to their patients. The doctors have a most interesting discussion, but the patient dies, and the nature of the disease is discovered at the autopsy. ”

“ An operation is often performed within the curtains of a dying bed, in behalf of such men, that the nurse and the doctor (I mean the doctor and the nurse) have no suspicion of. The soul makes but one step out of darkness into light, and makes that step without a witness. ”

“ Next to the Heavens, said the physician, you have the venerable Countess to thank for your recovery; such motherly care is more powerful than all of us doctors put together.
When the physician left, the Countess returned and kept the patient company. ”

“ To this end they required permission to spend several days and nights uninterruptedly in the same room with the patients, and to treat them in the presence of other nuns and some of the magistrates. Further, they required that all the food and medicine should pass through the doctors' hands, and that no one, should touch the patients except quite openly, or speak to them except in an audible voice. Under these conditions they would undertake to find out the true cause of the convulsions and to make a report of the same. ”

“ The very sick and dying—nay, they more than any others—were objects of attack. Every physician was ordered, on pain of a heavy fine at the least, to give notice to the mayor and the priest of the parish whenever he was called upon to visit one of the Religion. ”

“ Appeal to those who have made the trial, and you will find that very seldom have they been able to have those who by nature or by training were competent for their duties. Ignorant, unscrupulous, inattentive—how often they disturb and injure the patient! A physician told me that one of his patients had died because the nurse, contrary to orders, had at a critical period washed her with cold water. ”

“ Even, in case the house of reception is not used, the dead cannot be interred until after the lapse of three nights, without the proper certificate of the physician that the signs of decomposition have commenced. ”

“ When a physician visits a patient, and finds him in a doubtful or critical state, he must never omit to warn the patient or his friends of his real situation, with a view to enable them to call a medical consultation, and allow time for testamentary preparations and spiritual confession. ”

“ Have we not ingenious Physicians [227] and Surgeons, who act in public, not only to their own honour, but that of their country, and are, by their transcendant skill, become inimitable in all the world? Are not some disappointed in the success of a prescription from the most judicious hand? ”

“ The next day the poor curate coming to know his destiny, my lord told him, That he had used his endeavours to serve him as to the curacy, but with no success, the reverend gentleman having disposed of it before. The curate, with a deep sigh, returned his lordship thanks for his goodness, and was going to withdraw, when my lord calling him back, said with a smile, Well, my friend, ’tis true, I have it not in my power to give you the curacy; but if you will accept of the living ’tis at your service. ”