Some are very anxious in regard to the spiritual welfare of the sick, when they are thought to be nigh unto death; but if death does not ensue, the moment that convalescence begins their anxiety ceases. Religion with them is altogether a thing for great occasions, and the season of death is of course one of them. Anything which is exciting arouses them to action, and awakens their sympathies for their fellow men. But they make little account of the every day influence which is exerted in their common intercourse—an influence vast in amount in a long life, though it may not be palpable in its results at any one moment. While they would press upon the sick man the solemn and faithful appeal, when they saw him to be near the borders of the grave, and concentrate upon that dread hour all their energies, they would perhaps, if he should recover, not even visit him at all during his convalescence, and the first time they met him they would welcome him back to that worldliness, in which they in common with him so freely indulge.
And yet it is in convalescence generally that you can exert the greatest influence upon the sick man. For look at the circumstances of the case. He has just been released from suffering. The recollection of those hours, when thought and feeling and sensation were so confused, and all was dark and dim, is still vivid in his mind. The world, from which he has been thoroughly secluded for a little time, now opens fresh upon him again—a new sun shines upon him, and he looks out upon a new earth. The pure air, as he remembers the stifled breath and the languor of disease, has an invigorating buoyancy that it never had before; and he now for the first time knows the luxury of such common blessings as breathing, and again and again he expands the chest to the full, to see how beautifully it does its work. He feels the genial glow of returning health pervading every part of his system, diffusing elasticity, energy, I had almost said joy, everywhere. And then as he goes forth, he meets on all sides the kind greetings of friends, some of whom had been by his bedside during his sickness. All these circumstances conspire to make both the sensations of his body and the feelings of his heart agreeable, and thus open the avenues to moral and religious influences. And then, too, the cares and selfishness of the world have not yet resumed their control over him. When, I ask, could there be a better time to awaken in that man’s heart proper feelings towards his Maker, and toward all around him. As he comes out afresh into life, with something of the simplicity of a child, disencumbered by his sickness of the entanglements which had gathered around his mind and heart in the midst of temptation and sin, how easily can he be led to appreciate what is right, and good, and enduring, in this evil and transitory world. His mind is not now weakened, nor his sensibilities blunted or deranged by disease. There is no dim vision now, but he sees things as they are, and his sensibilities are lively and ready to respond to the touch of the hand of friendship, like the chords of a newly-attuned instrument that gives forth its clear and harmonious sounds to delight the ear.
I cannot dismiss the subject of the moral influence of physicians without adverting to one topic, which I deem to be of no small importance.
Every man, aside from the influence which he exerts as a citizen in common with others, exerts also an influence through the business or profession in which he is engaged, by the manner in which he performs its duties and maintains its relations. There is a strong disposition in the community to separate these influences, and to assign to them for their governance two different sets of moral principles. This disposition is very marked in regard to politics. But it exists also in relation to other professions and employments. It has even extended to medicine. Men often do as physicians what they would be ashamed to do as men. The strict morality of common intercourse is relaxed in professional intercourse. But the man and the physician cannot thus be separated. Obedience to principle, no matter in what it appears, always has its good influence; and the same universality attaches to the bad influence of disregard of principle. There is a moral character belonging to every act. Strictly professional acts and relations have a moral influence. If the physician has a proper regard for the character and standing of his profession, promotes an honorable intercourse among its members, upholds its organizations, resists the encroachments of quackery, and helps to secure a good standard of medical education, he in all these ways exerts an indirect but important influence upon the general good order and well-being of society. But if, on the other hand, he has no true regard for the honor of his profession, sacrifices its interests to his own aggrandizement, labors for success by intrigue and manœuvre, and thus gives a license to quackery, though he may call himself a strictly moral man, and be so esteemed by the public, he exerts by his professional course a decidedly bad influence upon the general tone of morality in the community, and therefore does not merit the appellation of a good citizen.
FOOTNOTES:
[44] Our profession, to its honor be it spoken, has as a whole, done much for the cause of temperance. “Dr. Rush,” says Dr. Stevens, “paved the way to the great Temperance reform, and that cause, at a later period, had no advocates more powerful than Dr. Sewall of Washington, and Dr. Watts of New York, formerly President of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Among the living it now reckons Dr. Warren of Boston, and Dr. Muzzy of Cincinnati, and a host of other medical men.” It gives me much pleasure to state in this connection, that at the great entertainment given by the physicians of Massachusetts to the National Convention, at which there were more than six hundred present, ‘the feast of reason and the flow of soul’ were ample and rich without the aid of the intoxicating cup.
CHAPTER XIX.
TRIALS AND PLEASURES OF A MEDICAL LIFE.
The physician has his peculiar trials, and also his peculiar enjoyments. The principal of these it is my intention to notice very briefly and cursorily in this closing chapter.
Let us first look at the trials of a medical life.
The physician is subjected to great fatigue both of body and mind. He has no time that he can call his own. That regularity of life, which is so essential to comfort as well as to health, he must in a great measure abandon, especially if he practice in a scattered population. While most men have their stated seasons of repose, he is liable to be called for at any hour, and often night after night sleep is a stranger to his eyelids. His duties to his patients are often of such immediate importance, that no stress of weather, however violent, is considered as an excuse for delay. When prevailing disease spreads terror through the community he must be at his post, and expose himself to the pestilence under the influence of powerful predisposing causes—anxiety and fatigue. And then there are at all times anxieties and perplexities, producing a wear and tear of mind, which is worse than all the bodily fatigue that he is called to endure. It is not surprising then, that it has been satisfactorily ascertained by statistics, that physicians constitute one of the short-lived classes of the community.