The scientific mind ought to appreciate the influence which one human being is capable of exerting over another; and by reflecting on it, the most available line of conduct in the removal of disease will be discovered. It is true, artifice has often taken precedence of merit. Attractive as popularity undeniably is, the practitioner who solicits the aid of artifice to rise into notice, not only forfeits his character, but hazards the sacrifice of future professional honor and success, on the altar of a most precarious goddess:—
“To seek honor, is to lose liberty.”
Recently the most strenuous efforts have been made to render the medical profession more worthy of public confidence, but the appropriation of means has surely been surprisingly perverted. It cannot be questioned, that a youth intended for this department of human labor, ought to be liberally educated, and that he present his testimonials to an accredited and competent tribunal is perfectly laudable; but that after five years apprenticeship, and after an extended durance at a recognised medical school, he should be submitted to the investigation of a trading company, is totally repugnant to every principle of science, and is calculated to divert the attention from those generous and enlightened principles, which should actuate the members of a profession often denominated learned and liberal.
It is not the knowledge of ancient and modern languages, of mathematics or moral philosophy, of chemistry, or pharmacy, or botany, or even of anatomy, physiology, and nosology, however important or essential, which can fully qualify a man for the honorable discharge of the arduous and responsible duties of his station. He must be a philanthropist. However extensive and useful his knowledge, if he has not a zest for the alleviation of human suffering, he incalculably circumscribes the usefulness of his acquisitions. There are men, indeed, who have pursued science with abstracted ardor; and there is indubitably something fascinating in those sciences, which are accessible to a medical student. But if there is an universality in Bacon’s maxim, that “knowledge is Power,” in what does the power of knowledge consist, but its direction to some useful purpose?
Some men have directed all their time and talents to insulated departments of medical or surgical practice. Does not this make them pedantic? Although they have risen high in these departments, yet having but partially appreciated other objects, they are contemned, notwithstanding they are effecting equal good by different agency. Division of human labor has its advantages; but, if frittered into needless division, it injures the whole.
Some distinguished men too have become so notorious in their tenets, that it is difficult to ascertain whether their reputation be that of paradox or merit.
There are others also, who seem to think it honorable to be eccentric; and, to increase the anomaly, have chosen an eccentricity, which ordinarily is esteemed disgusting. Abruptness, rudeness, insensibility, coarseness of manner, vulgarity, or obsequiousness, may be found in men, whose minds are far superior to mediocrity; and although nature or education might have been somewhat defective, it is not difficult to recognise the features of some pernicious habit. We have seen striking indications of disregard to human suffering in our hospitals; and often has it called forth a disgusting expression of risibility amongst the students. Painful, indeed, is it to observe the mistaken excellence attached to an apparent disregard of human suffering: it seems to be thought, that there is something philosophical in conquering the common sympathies of human life, although it is by them society is cemented.
Although no personal graces—no urbanity—no kindness, can be substituted for unremitting study, and discriminating observation, yet it is practicable to adopt a deportment equally remote from pliancy and barbarity.
For what beneficial end, many will exclaim, are these observations made? and had I not drawn for myself the line of demarcation, I would gladly meet the inquiry in an attempt to prove that some men of superior knowledge, and of eminent rank, would have greatly extended their benefits to human nature had not their manners been repulsive:—that the extraneous habits of these men are borrowed, by an aspiring race of students, who appear in plumes of fancied beauty; whose affected air justifies the suspicion that the art of medicine is not merely conjectural:—and that by ingenuousness, candour, kindness, and an attentive regard to mental phenomena, united certainly with a competency of knowledge, not only the honor of the profession is enhanced, but its utility promoted. If there are no diseases of mind independently of body, which we are willing to admit, the influence of mind on body must be allowed. The popular belief in the salutary influence of faith, is well founded—the opposite feeling of distrust, will act perniciously. The man whose mind is properly furnished will dexterously seize occasions of alleviating distress, which another, who may be almost exclusively watching for diseased structure, would not easily comprehend.[2]
An attempt to make chronic cases of disease subservient to any mercenary purpose, is an entire perversion of the liberal dictates of science; and often renders the most assiduous exertions unavailing. Where there is scarcely sufficient disease to impose bodily restriction, it cannot be expected that protracted courses of medicine can be endured, unless it be administered in the most simple and unobjectionable form. Nevertheless, it is a duty to subdue chronic diseases; and often it can only be done by a persevering management of diet, aided by medicine.