Physician

“ 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. ”

“ No physician ever revealed his skill without his patients. No court has ever revealed its justice without its cases. The doctor's dealings with his patients measure the extent of his known skill. Allowing that he understands himself and the conditions of his patients perfectly, and does his whole duty, the revelation of his skill must be perfect, to the full extent of its connection with the diseases treated. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But He who knows the heart knows its disease, and, as the Good Physician, if we give ourselves unreservedly into his hands to be cured, He will give that medicine which his perfect knowledge of our case prescribes. ”

“ When the physician discovers certain signs or symptoms which constitute the diagnosis of any disease, he regards those signs as the effects of a disease already in existence, and treats the patient accordingly. ”

“ 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. ”

“ LIFE is short, and Art long; the crisis fleeting; experience perilous, and decision difficult. The physician must not only be prepared to do what is right himself, but also to make the patient, the attendants, and externals cooperate. ”

“ We see at once the necessity of getting back to the old idea of the physician, as the friend, adviser and guide of his patients; to a closer personal relation between physician and patient, and where, as in a large hospital clinic, this is impossible, an organization which, under his direction, shall follow his patients to their homes, see what is possible to be done in the way of carrying out his instructions, how it may be best accomplished, and see that it is accomplished. ”

“ They refer the patient to the skilled surgeon.
The physician is both a curer and preventor of disease. I would advise every one, no mat [90] ter how healthy he may be, to consult a reputable physician once a year, and to be overhauled, so to speak. Most troubles can be obviated if taken in time. A symptom seemingly serious to the one having it may be of little consequence, and yet it may be the forerunner of an incurable disease. If a good physician is consulted in time, he may either obviate the trouble or prevent its rapid increase. No one should attempt to diagnose his own condition. ”

“ You behold in me Only a travelling Physician; One of the few who have a mission To cure incurable diseases, Or those that are called so. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Among the various avocations of men, that of the physician deserves to be placed in the foremost rank. The profession is founded in the multiplicity of diseases to which humanity is liable, and in the medical qualities of certain substances, which have been found to supply a remedy. ”

“ It is perhaps not too much to say that everybody nowadays knows as much about the treatment of disease as a large proportion of the members of the medical profession did in your time. As you may readily suppose, this is a situation which, even apart from the general improvement in health, would enable the people to get on with one physician where a score formerly found business. We doctors are merely specialists and experts on subjects that everybody is supposed to be well grounded in. ”

“ On 24 July 1830 he was gazetted physician extraordinary to the king, but he declined the honour. He enjoyed one of the largest practices in the metropolis, was an accurate and careful observer of disease, and a very sound practical physician. He was an accomplished classical scholar and a strenuous vindicator of the character and independence of the medical profession. ”

“ Medicine is a liberal profession, and those admitted into its ranks should found their expectations of practice upon the extent of their qualifications, not on intrigue or artifice.
§ 2. A physician, in his intercourse with a patient under the care of another practitioner, should observe the strictest caution and reserve. No meddling inquiries should be made; no disingenuous hints given relative to the nature and treatment of his disorder; nor any course of conduct pursued that may directly or indirectly tend to diminish the trust reposed in the physician employed. ”

“ Medicine was the foster-mother of chemistry, because it has to do with the preparation of drugs and the detection of poisons; of botany, because it enabled the physician to recognize medicinal herbs; of comparative anatomy and physiology, because the man who studied human anatomy and physiology for purely medical purposes was led to extend his studies to the rest of the animal world. ”

“ He who doth, with the greatest exactness imaginable, weigh every individual thing that shall happen or hath happened [442] to his patient and may be known from the observations of his own or of others, and who afterward compareth all these with one another, and puts them in an opposite view to such things as happen in an healthy state; and lastly, from all this, with the nicest and severest bridle upon his reasoning faculty, riseth to the knowledge of the very first cause of the disease, and of the remedies fit to remove them; he, and only he, deserveth the name of a true physician. ”

“ Therefore a physician should study as many allied branches of (science or philosophy) as possible. The physician who studies the Science of Medicine from the lips of his preceptor, and practises medicine after having acquired experience in his art by constant practice, is the true physician, while any other map dabbling in the art, should be looked upon as an impostor. ”

“ In the meantime secure the best physician within your reach, and follow his directions carefully, be calm and self- possessed when in the presence of the patient, for you must remember that he has full possession of his mental faculties and will notice every evidence of fear or worry in the faces of those who are nursing him. ”

“ A physician trained in thought is sure to thresh out in his mind while on the road, during the day or night, many knotty problems in the isms, ologies and pathies of medical practice; and when serious sickness claims his attention, and is pressing for his best endeavors, he will search all the treasure houses of his memory for everything that he has ever read or heard of in relation to similar cases. ”

“ Kind and considerate to the sick, be was a careful and judicious practitioner, punctual in appointments, cautious and accurate in diagnosis, full of resources in emergency, and sagacious, prompt, vigorous, and successful, in his treatment. Possessing thus all the qualifications of a skilful and accomplished physician, be was highly esteemed by his medical brethren, and was regarded by his patients, notwithstanding the reserve and formality of his manner, with the utmost confidence and respect. ”

“ The art of medicine among them is distributed thus:--each physician is a physician of one disease and of no more; and the whole country is full of physicians, for some profess themselves to be physicians of the eyes, others of the head, others of the teeth, others of the affections of the stomach, and others of the more obscure ailments. ”

“ Every individual may, strictly speaking, be said to be peculiar to some extent, and there is much force in the popular idea of the benefit resulting from a physician’s being acquainted with his patient’s constitution. ”

“ ADVANTAGES OF SPECIALTIES.
By thorough organization and a perfect system of subdividing the practice of medicine and surgery in this institution, every invalid consulting us is treated by a specialist—one who devotes his undivided attention to the particular class of diseases to which his or her case belongs. The advantage of this arrangement must be obvious. Medical science offers a vast field for investigation, and no physician can, within the limit of a single life-time, achieve the highest degree of success in the treatment of every malady incident to humanity. ”

“ The author still advises that a physician be consulted, if it be possible, not only on account of the danger of taking a wrong medicine or too much of a proper one, but because few people are really competent to make a proper diagnosis. ”

“ The external symptoms visible to the clinical eye of a physician worthy of the name, vastly outweigh in important significance, all the objectionable detailed examination of parts and organs which from long use has become the habit of the old-school practitioner. ”

“ A Physician will reside in the house, and one or more Physicians, of established character and experience, will attend regularly, and afford medical aid in all cases where the general health, or the particular cause of the patient's insanity, may require it. ”

“ Every reputable physician has not only graduated from a medical school, but was given opportunity to practice in hospitals and elsewhere before he became a family physician. The so-called specialist began as a family physician, and gives his time somewhat exclusively to one disease or to surgery. The surgeon, while a regular physician, specializes in surgery, and comparatively few family practitioners will handle a serious surgical case, except in emergencies. ”

“ If there be anywhere in the world a physician who has discovered sure and precious remedies, to whom is that physician sent? To those who are perfectly healthy? I think not. Put him down in a district where there are no sick persons, and he feels that he is not in his place. ”

“ The state of the face, eyes, tongue, voice, hearing, abdomen, sleep, breathing, excretions, posture of the body, and so on, all aided him in diagnosis and prognosis, and to the latter he paid special attention, saying that "the best physician is the one who is able to establish a prognosis, penetrating and exposing first of all, at the bedside, the present, the past, and the future of his patients, and adding what they omit in their statements. He gains their confidence, and being convinced of his superiority of knowledge they do not hesitate to commit themselves entirely into his hands. ”

“ In this respect, the fate of the young physician is one of peculiar difficulty and mortification. Through the revolution which the profession has, within the last half century, undergone, he is superseded in the treatment of all the more simple and ordinary diseases, by the general practitioner. His office is become chiefly that of consulting practitioner, to be referred to, when disease becomes intractable, or the more immediate attendant deems it expedient to divide the responsibility ”

“ The physician should have experience of illness in his own person; Why, I said, you join physicians and judges. Now the most skilful physicians are those who, from their youth upwards, have combined with the knowledge of their art Ethe greatest experience of disease; they had better not be robust in health, and should have had all manner of diseases in their own persons. For the body, as I conceive, is not the instrument with which they cure the body ”

“ Any good physician is competent to advise in the majority of cases, and will prescribe beneficial exercise and proper food. Most of us eat too much, and exercise too little. The province of the physician is as much to keep people well as it is to cure them. Good sense and economy suggest that a physician be consulted at least once a year, even by those in apparent health. ”

“ I hope the time will come when the chief practice of the physician will be, first, in oversight of the sanitary condition of his neighborhood, and, next, in preventive attendance on people who think they are well, and are all unconscious of the insidious approach of some concealed malady. ”

“ The practice of medicine is every year becoming [pg 293] more successful. New and improved methods of treating disease are being discovered and developed, and the conscientious physician will avail himself of all the means, by a knowledge of which he may benefit his fellow-men. ”

“ To this end must be added the one thing needful, personal fitness, sagacity in recognizing the peculiarities of individual cases, and in adapting the treatment of them, hygienic, dietetic, and medicinal, to the special requirements of each. In a word, the physician must never forget that he has a patient as well as a disease to treat. ”

“ A young doctor is called into a family which lives in the rear of a man’s place of business, above the store or next door to it. The competent young physician discovers a patient suffering from diphtheria, scarlet fever, maybe smallpox. ”

“ I observe the physician with the same diligence as he the disease; I see he fears, and I fear with him; ”

“ The physician must do something more than ride around in an automobile and look wise; he must be able to carry upon his mind and heart the anxieties of a hundred households at once, work all day, frequently half the [Pg 112] night, eating and sleeping as he can, and do all this without resorting to stimulants or drugs to keep himself up to the mark. ”

“ The duty and object, however, of the Physician and Surgeon, is generally considered to be the relief of a fellow-creature, by applying certain remedies to the cure of internal affections, or cutting some portion of the body, whereby parts are severed from each other altogether, or relieving cavities of the aggravating cause of disease. ”

“ Each of the doctors makes a complete examination, and each sends in his written findings to the head physician without any opportunity whatsoever to consult with any of the other examining physicians. ”