"The first thing that strikes the reader of the advertisement is, that this Surgery is established exclusively 'for the treatment of negroes; and, if he knows little of the hearts of slaveholders towards their slaves, he charitably supposes, that they 'feel the dint of pity,' for the poor sufferers and have founded this institution as a special charity for their relief. But the delusion vanishes as he reads on; the professors take special care that no such derogatory inference shall be drawn from their advertisement. They give us the three reasons which have induced them to open this 'Surgery for the treatment of negroes.' The first and main one is, 'to collect as many interesting cases as possible for the benefit and instruction of their pupils—another is, 'the hope that it may prove an accommodation,'—and the third, that it may be 'a matter of economy to the public' Another reason, doubtless, and controlling one, though the professors are silent about it, is that a large collection of 'interesting surgical cases,' always on hand, would prove a powerful attraction to students, and greatly increase the popularity of the institution. In brief, then, the motives of its founders, the professors, were these, the accommodation of their students—the accommodation of the public (which means, the whites)—and the accommodation of slaveholders who have on their hands disabled slaves, that would make 'interesting cases,' for surgical operation in the presence of the pupils—to these reasons we may add the accommodation of the Medical Institution and the accommodation of themselves! Not a syllable about the accommodation of the hopeless sufferers, writhing with the agony of those gun shot wounds, fractured sculls, broken limbs and ulcerated backs which constitute the 'interesting cases' for the professors to 'show off' before their pupils, and, as practice makes perfect, for the students themselves to try their hands at by way of experiment.
Why, we ask, was this surgery established 'for the treatment of negroes' alone? Why were these 'interesting cases' selected from that class exclusively? No man who knows the feeling of slave holders towards slaves will be at a loss for the reason. 'Public opinion' would tolerate surgical experiments, operations, processes, performed upon them, which it would execrate if performed upon their master or other whites. As the great object in collecting the disabled negroes is to have 'interesting cases' for the students, the professors who perform the operations will of course endeavor to make them as 'interesting' as possible. The instruction of the student is the immediate object, and if the professors can accomplish it best by protracting the operation, pausing to explain the different processes, &c. the subject is only a negro, and what is his protracted agony, that it should restrain the professor from making the case as 'interesting' as possible to the students by so using his knife as will give them the best knowledge of the parts, and the process, however it may protract or augment the pain of the subject. The end to be accomplished is the instruction of the student, operations upon the negroes are the means to the end; that tells the whole story—and he who knows the hearts of slaveholders and has common sense, however short the allowance, can find the way to his conclusions without a lantern.
By an advertisement of the same Medical Institution, dated November 12, 1838, and published in the Charleston papers, it appears that an 'infirmary has been opened in connection with the college.' The professors manifest a great desire that the masters of servants should send in their disabled slaves, and as an inducement to the furnishing of such interesting cases say, all medical and surgical aid will be offered without making them liable to any professional charges. Disinterested bounty, pity, sympathy, philanthropy. However difficult or numerous the surgical cases of slaves thus put into their hands by the masters, they charge not a cent for their professional services. Their yearnings over human distress are so intense, that they beg the privilege of performing all operations, and furnishing all the medical attention needed, gratis, feeling that the relief of misery is its own reward!!! But we have put down our exclamation points too soon—upon reading the whole of the advertisement we find the professors conclude it with the following paragraph:—
"The SOLE OBJECT Of the faculty in the establishment of such an institution being to promote the interest of Medical Education within their native State and City."
In the "Charleston (South Carolina) Mercury" of October 12, 1838, we find an advertisement of half a column, by a Dr. T. Stillman, setting forth the merits of another 'Medical Infirmary,' under his own special supervision, at No. 110 Church street, Charleston. The doctor, after inveighing loudly against 'men totally ignorant of medical science,' who flood the country with quack nostrums backed up by 'fabricated proofs of miraculous cures,' proceeds to enumerate the diseases to which his 'Infirmary' is open, and to which his practice will be mainly confined. Appreciating the importance of 'interesting cases,' as a stock in trade, on which to commence his experiments, he copies the example of the medical professors, and advertises for them. But, either from a keener sense of justice, or more generosity, or greater confidence in his skill, or for some other reason, he proposes to buy up an assortment of damaged negroes, given over, as incurable, by others, and to make such his 'interesting cases,' instead of experimenting on those who are the 'property' of others.
Dr. Stillman closes his advertisement with the following notice:—
"To PLANTERS AND OTHERS.—Wanted fifty negroes. Any person having sick negroes, considered incurable by their respective physicians, and wishing to dispose of them, Dr. S. will pay cash for negroes affected with scrofula or king's evil, confirmed hypocondriasm, apoplexy, diseases of the liver, kidneys, spleen, stomach and intestines, bladder and its appendages, diarrhea, dysentery, &c. The highest cash price will be paid on application as above."
The absolute barbarism of a 'public opinion' which not only tolerates, but produces such advertisements as this, was outdone by nothing in the dark ages. If the reader has a heart of flesh, he can feel it without help, and if he has not, comment will not create it. The total indifference of slaveholders to such a cold blooded proposition, their utter unconsciousness of the paralysis of heart, and death of sympathy, and every feeling of common humanity for the slave, which it reveals, is enough, of itself to show that the tendency of the spirit of slaveholding is, to kill in the soul whatever it touches. It has no eyes to see, nor ears to hear, nor mind to understand, nor heart to feel for its victims as human beings. To show that the above indication of the savage state is not an index of individual feeling, but of 'public opinion,' it is sufficient to say, that it appears to be a standing advertisement in the Charleston Mercury, the leading political paper of South Carolina, the organ of the Honorables John C. Calhoun, Robert Barnwell Rhett, Hugh S. Legare, and others regarded as the elite of her statesmen and literati. Besides, candidates for popular favor, like the doctor who advertises for the fifty 'incurables,' take special care to conciliate, rather than outrage, 'public opinion.' Is the doctor so ignorant of 'public opinion' in his own city, that he has unwittingly committed violence upon it in his advertisement? We trow not. The same 'public opinion' which gave birth to the advertisement of doctor Stillman, and to those of the professors in both the medical institutions, founded the Charleston 'Work House'—a soft name for a Moloch temple dedicated to torture, and reeking with blood, in the midst of the city; to which masters and mistresses send their slaves of both sexes to be stripped, tied up, and cut with the lash till the blood and mangled flesh flow to their feet, or to be beaten and bruised with the terrible paddle, or forced to climb the tread-mill till nature sinks, or to experience other nameless torments.
The "Vicksburg (Miss.) Register," Dec. 27, 1838, contains the following item of information: "ARDOR IN BETTING.—Two gentlemen, at a tavern, having summoned the waiter, the poor fellow had scarcely entered, when he fell down in a fit of apoplexy. 'He's dead!' exclaimed one. 'He'll come to!' replied the other. 'Dead, for five hundred!' 'Done!' retorted the second. The noise of the fall, and the confusion which followed, brought up the landlord, who called out to fetch a doctor. 'No! no! we must have no interference—there's a bet depending!' 'But, sir, I shall lose a valuable servant!' 'Never mind! you can put him down in the bill!'"
About the time the Vicksburg paper containing the above came to hand, we received a letter from N.P. ROGERS, Esq. of Concord, N.H. the editor of the 'Herald of Freedom,' from which the following is an extract: