While the real merits of a physician are so frequently overlooked, we constantly see a blind confidence reposed in a quack. The cause is obvious. A man of real merit seldom extols his own good qualities, nor does he seek the fulsome adulation and praise of others. He rests upon his own deserts; but how seldom are they rewarded: when modesty places her light “under a bushel” who will bring it into view?
Duclos has explained in some measure this apparent anomaly.—“The desire,” he says “to obtain a high stand in the estimation of society, has given rise to reputation, celebrity, and renown,—the mainsprings of worldly action—arising from a similar principle, but showing different means and results. Both reputation and renown may be enjoyed at the same time and yet be widely different. The public is not unfrequently surprised at the reputations that it had itself created. It seeks to inquire into their origin, but not being able to discover a merit which never did exist, it gradually admires and respects a phantom of its own evocation. As society thus bestows a reputation in a capricious manner, quacks will usurp one by their intrigues or by a barefaced impudence, which cannot claim the comparatively honourable denomination of proper pride and dignity. They themselves proclaim their merit to the world—at first their impertinence becomes a subject of derision, but they repeat the assertion of their superior skill so frequently and confidently, that they end by imposing themselves upon society. People forget where, whence, and from whom they heard these flattering eulogies, to which at last they yield their credence, and an adventurer who thus resolves to establish a reputation, with perseverance and impudence seldom fails.”
It must also be remembered, that most medical men owe their success to woman’s all-powerful aid. They are in general as blind and as pertinacious in their partialities as in their dislikes; seldom bestowing much judgment in either, but acting according to the impulses of their warm passions and flexibility. Females, from their situation in the world, stand in constant need of a friendly adviser, although they are rarely disposed to follow any advice, if their pleasures are marred by the suggestion, but when art and opportunity enable a man to turn their flexibility, their impressionability to a good account, with the combined aid of vanity and weak nerves, he will in all probability succeed in obtaining a high estimation in the mind of a loquacious dame, who will blazon his fame far and near like the trumpeter of a mountebank. If this lady moves in an elevated and influencial sphere of life, to question her recommendation is to question her sense and power, both of which would be bold attempts; and thus have we seen an intriguing noble dame forcing a physician even upon royalty. Moreover, when we recollect that the wealthy send for a physician for every trifling real or supposed indisposition, which fashion or expediency may aggravate at will, to excite interest or carry a desirable point, it is manifest that the cures of such a practitioner must be most numerous, since the attainment of any desire constitutes a panacea; and frequently we have seen a box at the opera, a check on a banker, a new carriage, or a diamond necklace, more efficacious than the most renowned nostrum, while the expulsion of an unpleasant plain-spoken acquaintance, or the kind reception of a dangerous and treacherous inmate, may produce more sudden recoveries than the most approved specific. The great science of such practitioners is to practise with equal success upon every branch of the family, to whom in return for their confidence, they can ensure peace and pleasure if they cannot bestow health. I cannot better conclude this article than by quoting the following passage of the sceptic Voltaire:
It is true that regimen is preferable to physic. It is also true that for a long period of time, out of one hundred physicians were twenty-eight quacks, and it is also true, that Molière had very good reason to turn them into ridicule. It is also certain that nothing can be more absurd than to behold a crowd of silly women, and men, not less feminine in their habits, whenever they are satiated with eating, drinking, gambling, and late hours, calling in a physician for every trifling headache; consulting him as though he were a divinity, and praying for the miraculous gift of combined health and intemperance. It is nevertheless true, that a good physician in a hundred cases may preserve life and limb. A man falls down in an apoplectic fit, it will neither be a captain of infantry or a privy councillor that will relieve him. A cataract obscures my vision; my neighbouring gossips will not restore my sight; for here I make no distinction between the physician and the surgeon. For a long time the two professions have been inseparable. Men who would make it their study to restore health to their fellow-creatures on the sole grounds of humanity and benevolence, should be considered greater than the greatest man upon earth, and bordering upon divine attributes, for preservation and restoration stand next in rank to creation. The Romans were for upwards of five hundred years without physicians. Their people, continually employed in killing, thought but little of the preservation of life; what did they do when they were attacked with a putrid fever, a fistula, a hernia, or a pleurisy?—They died.
MEDICINE OF THE CHINESE.
This singular people possess works on medical science which they trace as far back as three thousand years, and chiefly written by two of their emperors, Chin-nong and Hoang-ti. It has been asserted that they received the early elements of the science from the Egyptians, but it is more probable that they derived their information from their constant intercourse with the Bactrians, whose arts and sciences were flourishing at the period of Alexander’s conquests, and the Chinese historians in support of this probability, state that several learned physicians came from Samarcand to establish themselves amongst them. Moreover, the doctrines of Erasistratus bear much resemblance to those of the Chinese.
The superstitious regard shown to the bodies of the departed, must naturally have materially retarded the progress of anatomical pursuits, although this people assure us that 2706 years before our era they possessed a work on this subject, entitled Nim Kin. Howbeit it seems probable, from their extreme ignorance of the structure of the human body, that this important branch of the science of medicine has remained stationary ever since the publication of the aforesaid treatise.
The Chinese physicians divide the body into a right and left portion, and three regions. The upper one, comprising the head and the chest, a middle one, extending from the lower part of the thorax to the umbilicus, and an inferior region, comprising the hypogaster and lower extremities. They admit twelve viscera as the sources of life, but they do not appear to have any distinct notion of the division, uses and conformation of the muscles, nerves, vessels, and the various tissues of the human economy. Their ignorance equally extends to the construction of animals.
They consider that man is influenced by two principles, heat and humidity, the harmony of which constitutes life, which ceases when their equilibrious state is destroyed. Vital moisture resides in the heart, lungs, liver, spleen, and kidneys, while vital heat pervades the intestines, the stomach, the pericardium, the gall-bladder and the ureters. These two principles are transmitted through the medium of the vital spirits and the blood by twelve canals, one of which carries a fecundating moisture from the head to the hands; another from the liver to the feet; a third from the kidneys to the left side of the body; and a fourth from the lungs to the right division.