There is a Hindoo story illustrative of the folly of this ex parte decision.
Four blind men went to examine an elephant, to ascertain what it was like. One felt of its foot, the second its trunk, the third its ear, and the last felt of its tail. Then they held a consultation, and began to talk it up.
“The elephant is very much like a mortar,” said the one who had felt of the foot.
“It is like a pestle,” said the one who had felt of its trunk.
“No; you are both wrong. It’s like a fan,” said he who had felt of the ears.
“You are all mistaken; it is like a broom,” vehemently exclaimed the man who had felt of the tail. The dispute grew warm. Each was sure he was right, because he had personally examined for himself. Then they waxed angry, and a lasting quarrel grew out of it; so, in the end, they were all as ignorant of the truth as when they began the investigation.
The diversity of medical opinion on diet is equally as great as on prescription, and often partakes largely of the notion or eccentricity of the individual physician, rather than the requirements of the patient.
One is an advocate of animal diet; another is a strict Grahamite, or vegetarian, and a third is an animo-vegetarian, which, according to the two kinds of teeth given to man,—the tearing, or canine, and the grinding teeth,—seems to be the most rational decision. Then there is the slop-doctor. I know of one in Connecticut. He weighs about two hundred and fifty pounds. He breakfasts on the richest steak, dines on roast beef, and sups on a fowl. Every patient he has is a victim to “typhoid fever: the result is inflammation of the glands of the stomach, and induced by too hearty food;” hence the patient is starved a month on slop or gruel.
This doctor was formerly a Methodist preacher, and—
“Exhausting all persuasive means to light
Our fallen race to Virtue’s glorious height,
To Medicine gives his comprehensive mind,
And fills his pockets while he cures mankind.
He scorns M. D.’s, at all hard study sneers,
And soon the science of its mystery clears.
His knowledge springs intuitive and plain,
As Pallas issued from the Thunderer’s brain.
He takes a patent for some potent pill
Whose cure is certain—for it cures to kill.
Such mighty powers in its materials lurk,
It grows, like Gibbon’s Rome, a standard work!
Pill-militant, he storms the forts of pain,
Where grim Disease has long entrenchéd lain,
Routs fevers, agues, colics, colds, and gouts,
Nor ends the war till life itself he routs.
If of his skill you wish some pregnant hints,
Peruse the gravestones, not the public prints!
To aid his work, and fame immortal win,
Brings steam from physics into medicine;
From speeding packets o’er th’ Atlantic waste,
O’er Styx’s stream old Charon’s boat to haste,
Proving that steam for double use is fit—
To whirl men through the world, and out of it!”