Femina, A Work for Every Woman

by John A. Miller

The medical press has a comparatively limited opportunity for imparting information to the public, unless the editor of the secular press happens to make a quotation.

The exclusiveness that has characterized the learned professions generally, and the medical profession particularly, is rapidly passing away. Only half a century ago, the medical lectures in Germany were mostly delivered in the Latin language, and, while we now often suffer, in listening to medical lectures in bad English, the latter may still be the lesser evil. In fact, so great is the deference to public opinion in favor of diffusing knowledge that medical faculties court popular favor by delivering a course of lectures on medical subjects, and consider these the best-drawing card of the institution.

Information that is not sensational nor untruthful cannot fail to do incalculable good to the class for whom it is intended, namely, our wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters, so that they may avoid errors, that entail suffering and disease; information that will teach them how to cure themselves of the commoner and simpler ailments, and thus avoid running to the doctor, who cannot always afford to tell them the truth. Some would not if they could.

The Darwinian theory is of wider application than to mere animal or plant life; it extends itself to the overcrowded professions, and the increasing “struggle for existence” in the ranks of the profession makes men dishonest and greedy for any opportunity to raise a fee, so that patients are being treated for diseases which are created for them by the cunning and dishonesty of their doctors.

A little common sense and a knowledge of the elementary principles of disease would be the best protection against these deceptions; but, as a rule, sick persons are inclined to throw aside all good sense, and give themselves up entirely to their feelings or to their doctor. This is a very wrong thing to do, and opens the door for all manner of impositions.

The general practitioner of thoughtful and studious habits finds that, in the course of years, a diversified reading on the different diseases which in the routine of his work he is called upon to treat makes him a generally well-informed man, but not a thoroughly exact man, either in theory or in the details of his treatment.

Fifty to sixty years ago the entire field of medicine was comparatively so small that it was easier for a brilliant mind then, to comprehend all that was believed to be known, than it is for the same quality of mind to understand any of the subdivisions of medicine to-day.

Those were the days of doctrines and rules. Little that was absolutely correct or true was then known about disease, otherwise such absurd theories as the “dynamization or spirit-like” influence, causing disease on the one hand, or that the “great source” of chronic diseases was psora, or itch, on the other, as Hahnemann would have them believe, could never have gotten a foothold.

These are the days of scientific deductions from microscopical and physiological research, in laboratories connected with great universities, and the result is, that any of the specialties or subdivisions of medicine is as large and interesting a field as the entire area was some time ago. It thus happens, that some thoughtful persons, after years of general practice, drift almost involuntarily into some one department of medical art and science. To this they become gradually wedded, and in it they grow in knowledge and experience far beyond their previous anticipations. What they read on the subject is better understood, and new ideas are constantly formed, which enlarge the scope of their knowledge. In this manner the writer drifted into the domain of diseases peculiar to women, which was as unhappy on the one hand, as it is interesting on the other, for the phrase “diseases of women” has fallen into disrepute because every superficial practitioner professes to know all about them, and it often is but another name for criminal abortion.