I admired the courage and persistency of these middle-aged women in studying their lessons, often mechanically without understanding their depth, yet I could not conscientiously consider them fit subjects to enter upon the practice of a profession which requires so much knowledge in various scientific directions as well as a broad education, so as to enable one to comprehend the effects of all kinds of environment upon the individual patient.
How absolutely necessary it is to cultivate in the student not only the scientist but also the philanthropist, the humanitarian, yes, even the philosopher, in order that one shall be fair and just in all situations when consulted by persons morally, mentally or physically afflicted.
I constantly taught that the treatment of patients cannot be learned from books but must be studied practically. This was a principle which only a few of the students would admit. The idea which I emphasized, that any other view of treating patients belongs in the realm of quackery, was considered by these ignorant students as an insult when I tried to explain it to them.
But it must be remembered that at this date such was the prevailing custom in even the best medical schools for, as I have already explained, students were expected to procure their practical training at the hands of their private preceptors.
That this training was liable to be a will-o’-the-wisp even with male students who had no difficulty in finding preceptors has been well shown by the personal experiences related by Dr. J. Marion Sims in his autobiography called The Story of My Life. Nowhere have I seen the consistent results of such a method of medical education as everywhere prevailed even at this time, so clearly described as in this book which was published in 1884.
Dr. Sims had a preceptor and he was graduated from the Jefferson Medical College, in Philadelphia, in March, 1835. He states that his preceptor was a very great surgeon who was often unfitted for his professional work by the habit of drinking. He also states that he was very glad when he was able to leave the office of this preceptor and attend medical lectures.
About two or three weeks after Dr. Sims opened his own office he was called to his first patient, “a baby about eighteen months old who had what we would call the summer complaint or chronic diarrhea.” He continues his story, saying, “I examined the child minutely from head to foot. I looked at its gums and, as I always carried a lancet with me and had surgical propensities, as soon as I saw some swelling of the gums I at once took out my lancet and cut the gums down to the teeth ... but when it came to making up a prescription I had no more idea what ailed the child or what to do for it than if I had never studied medicine.”
Telling the mother to send to his office for medicine, he continues, “I hurried back to my office and took out one of my seven volumes of Eberle, which comprised my library ... and turned quickly to the subject of Cholera Infantum and read it through, over and over again.... I knew no more what to prescribe for the sick babe than if I had not read it all. But it was my only resource. I had nobody to consult but Eberle.... He had a peculiar way of filling his book with prescriptions, which was a very good thing for a young doctor.... At the beginning of his article of twenty or thirty pages there was a prescription.... So I compounded it as quickly as I knew how and had everything in readiness for the arrival of Jennie.”
Speaking of his next visit, he continues: “As the medicine had done no good, it was necessary to change it.” He once more returned to his office and “turned to Eberle again and to a new leaf. I gave the baby a prescription from the next chapter. Suffice it to say that I changed leaves and prescriptions as often as once or twice a day. The baby continued to grow weaker and weaker.” And in a short time it died, although Dr. Sims says, “I never dreamed that it could die!”
About two weeks later, he was called to his second patient, another baby which was ailing similarly to the first one. He writes, “I was nonplussed. I had no authority to consult but Eberle; so I took up Eberle again, and this time I read him backward. I thought I would reverse the treatment I had instituted with the Mayer baby. So, instead of beginning at the first of the chapter, I began at the last of the chapter, and turned backward, and turned the leaves the same way, and reversed the prescriptions. The baby got no better from the very first. And soon this baby died.”