Yes, he will be thy best physician!
P.
Wickedness may well be compared to a bottomless pit, into which it is easier to keep oneself from falling, than having fallen into, to stay oneself from falling infinitely.—Sir P. Sydney.
If there be an object truly ridiculous in nature, it is an American patriot, signing resolutions of independence with the one hand, and with the other brandishing a whip over his affrighted slaves.—Day.
OUR SENSATIONS.
FIRST ARTICLE.
Man has been somewhere described as a “bundle of sensations;” and certainly if ever sensations were capable of being packed together, they would make a bundle, and a good large one too. I am not a physiologist, or even a doctor, so cannot pretend to speak very learnedly on this subject: but as we all in common have “our sensations,” he must be rather a dull fellow, I should think, who would have nothing to say when they were laid upon the table for discussion. Even if he were a Jew, he might repeat with Shylock, “Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?” and so on.
When one considers the amazing number and variety of the feelings, or perceptions arising out of impressions on the senses, of which we are capable, we discover a new and interesting proof that we are indeed “fearfully and wonderfully made.” I was struck by this fact the other day, on hearing a young medical student say that he had been reading a “descriptive catalogue” of “pains,” which had been made out with great care for the use of the profession. People, when going to consult a physician, are often at a loss to describe the manner in which they are affected, and particularly the nature and character of the painful sensation that afflicts them. To assist them in this respect, and the physician in obtaining a correct idea of the case, this catalogue was made out, and highly useful I think it must be for the proposed end. The patient may thus readily meet with something answering to his own case, and lay his finger on the classification that suits him. I am sorry I have not the list by me, for I am sure it would be a curious novelty to many. There are however in it the “dull, aching pain,” the “sharp pricking pain,” the pendulum-like “going-and-returning pain,” the “throbbing pain,” the “flying-to-the-head and sickening pain,” the hot-scalding or burning pain, the pins and needles or nettle pain, pains deep seated and pains superficial, and, in short, an infinite variety, made out with nice discrimination, and all taken, I dare say, from life. None indeed could have drawn it out but one who had studied in some lazar-house, wherein, as Milton describes,
“were laid
Numbers of all diseased; all maladies