Or measure or advice—advice can't rule."
Colman.
POSITION, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS OF THE PROFESSION—OF
HYDROPATHY—OF HOMŒOPATHY—OF QUACKERY—OF PUBLIC
IGNORANCE.
A writer[84], of no ordinary judgment and discrimination, has observed, that "it often happens in human affairs that the evil and the remedy grow up at the same time: the remedy unnoticed, and at a distance scarcely visible perhaps above the earth; whilst the evil may shoot rapidly into strength, and alone catch the eye of the observer by the immensity of its shadow; and yet," he adds, "a future age may be able to mark how the one declined and the other advanced, and how returning spring seemed no longer to renew the honours of the one, while it summoned into maturity and progress the perfection of the other."
We know not how it may appear to the reader, but we cannot help thinking that, in the foregoing sentence, there is a far-seeing perception of a very leading character in human affairs. There is no evil but which is charged with a certain degree of good. At first, it is indeed "scarcely visible"—nay, it escapes alike the most penetrative perception and faithful confidence, in the surpassing working-to-good of all things around us; but so soon as the evil begins to tell—so soon as the full flood of mischief becomes obtrusive or remarkable,—the small ripple of some corrective principle rises into view.
It would be easy to illustrate the foregoing proposition from general history, from the progress of nations, or even from the contracted area of individual experience. But we will confine ourselves to an illustration more directly in relation to our immediate object—namely, the present condition and prospects of medical science.
There are, no doubt, many persons who view the present state of Medical Science as little better than the triumphant domination of a conjectural art, which has long obscured, and is still very imperfectly representing, a beautiful science; and that the perception of the true relations which it bears to such science has been veiled by the impression that it involved some mystery from which the general public, who were most interested in its development, were necessarily excluded.
There have been at all times individuals, perhaps, sufficiently astute to see the real truth of the matter; but still they were rare exceptions, and did not prevent Mystery from conferring, on a very considerable section of people, the social advantage of a gainful profession; that property being enhanced, of course, in that it ministered to an ignorant public. But, even in an early stage, correctives to an equivocally-earned advantage began to appear; for a thing which had no character but its indefiniteness, and its apparent facility of acquisition, obtained many followers: the supply, such as it was, was thus so close in relation to the demand, that what in theory seemed necessarily very gainful, in practice, on the whole, proved anything but a lucrative profession. As contrasted with any other, or a variety of commercial pursuits, medical men were neither so affluent, nor always so secure of their position. Retiring competency in well-conducted callings has, in a rich country, been rather the rule. We fear, in the medical profession it is the exception; which, we are apprehensive (in its bereaved dependents), contributes more applicants for eleemosynary relief than any other.
This surely is not a state of things which can be well made worse. Public ignorance, the real mischief, has, in the meantime, been left uninformed; and any attempt to enlighten it has too often been branded with some kind or other of corrupt motive. Public positions have been conferred without competition—the surest test of fitness or excellence; and the public have been further doubly barred out, in that the chance of eliciting men of spirit and enthusiasm has been diminished, by the first positions having been often rendered contingent on the payment of money in the right quarter.