The period at which Rich began the study of medicine was the commencement of a great revolution in medical theory and practice, both in relation to the treatment of disease and surgery; young and earnest men were struggling in every direction for light; new discoveries were made, reverence for the past was gradually wearing off, and the old theories of practice were subjected to a most searching and often irreverent scrutiny.
Dr. Ryan by no means belonged to that class of mind sometimes designated by the term, "The sword frets out the scabbard." On the other hand, he was hale and hearty, possessed of a noble frame, hair slightly tinged with gray, but ruddy cheeks, a fine set of teeth of pearly whiteness, and a frank, hearty manner, betokening real goodness of heart.
Though possessed of very moderate abilities, the doctor was a man of sterling worth, great integrity, and kind and sympathizing nature. He enjoyed a large practice, being the only physician in the place. The poor loved him, because he was ever as ready to attend to their wants as to those of his more wealthy patients, often put shoes on the feet of a barefooted child, and did not hesitate to bestow flannels and fuel, when he felt that they were more necessary than medicine. The utmost confidence was reposed in him, as his more intelligent patients, if disposed to doubt his skill in difficult cases, knew perfectly well that he would not hesitate a moment in calling in more competent persons, when he felt their aid was required.
At this period the spirit of inquiry was abroad. There were rumors in the air, and forebodings of a radical reform in medical practice. Practitioners of the doctor's age, who were either too indolent, prejudiced, or too far advanced in life to receive and act upon new ideas, were by no means to be envied, being somewhat in the position of one upon a ledge in the sea, cut off by the tide, that, constantly rising, rendered his passing into oblivion merely a question of time.
The old physicians stigmatized these disturbers of the peace of antiquity and their own as quacks, new lights, upstarts, and utterly unsafe as experimenters with human life. The advocates of the improved practice, on the other hand, were by no means backward in denouncing their seniors as fossils, petrifactions, enemies to all progress, and only desirous of retailing drugs at ninety per cent. profit, and fattening the graveyards; of promoting gangrene, and needless amputations, through their ignorance of the first principles of surgery; multiplying cripples by malpractice and ignorance of anatomy; that they had one mode of treatment for all disorders; and the time-honored allusion to "Procrustes' bed" was lavishly applied to their opponents.
The good doctor, firmly wedded to the ancient practice, felt all the animosity his genial nature permitted him to indulge in respect to the new lights; and when he heard that a young man thoroughly impregnated (as he could not doubt) with radical notions, was about to take the academy, and had already commenced the study of medicine, he felt very much as an old crower, who has walked in state, and lorded it over his dames, might be supposed to feel when he sees a young rooster suddenly flung down in the barn-yard, and inwardly resolved that the young upstart should receive neither aid, comfort, nor countenance from him.
CHAPTER XV. HOW DAN TOOK HIS MEDICINE.
While in this irritable and pugnacious temper it chanced most fortunately that the doctor did not happen to fall in with Rich; and when he did, being in a different state of mind, matters wore quite another aspect.