CHAPTER XVIII.
MORAL INFLUENCE OF PHYSICIANS,
Intimate relation of physician to his patients. Mutual confidence. Abuse of confidence. Guilt of it, especially in case of females. Sympathy of the physician—active—grows constantly stronger and more tender. Self-control mistaken for want of feeling. Manifestations of feeling—surgical operation. Certain nervous effects erroneously supposed to be evidences of feeling. Sympathy of the physician a means of influence. Physician at home everywhere. Opportunity of studying every variety of character. Physicians often fail to exert the influence which these advantages enable them to do. Influence on moral questions. Temperance. Acting as a peace-maker. Influence of daily conduct—little hourly acts. Physician in sick room. Communion with the spirit in its most momentous hours. Physician’s great object to cure the patient—nothing should interfere with it. Cordial influence of hope. Little confidence to be placed in death-bed repentance and reformation. Opportunities of doing good in lingering chronic cases. Mode of doing it. Injudicious intercourse with the sick. In some cases duty clear—in others, doubtful. Conference between physician, clergyman, and friends. Opportunity of doing good in convalescence. Moral influence of the physician in his strictly-professional character.
CHAPTER XIX.
TRIALS AND PLEASURES OF A MEDICAL LIFE,
Great mental and bodily toil. Irregularity of life. No command over time. Exposure to causes of disease. Physicians a short-lived class. Compensation generally small. Medicine not a money-making business. Less obligation felt by many to pay physician than to pay others. Physician often obliged to see the quack and hobby-rider getting rich by their impostures. Facility with which the people are imposed upon, a great trial to the honorable practitioner. Especially so when imposition is practised by his brethren. Valuable lives sacrificed to ignorance and unskilfulness. Witnessing sad scenes. Mutual sympathy and confidence add in such cases to physician’s sorrow. Irreligion and vice at hour of death. Frequency of sad scenes in times of pestilence. Ingratitude of those on whom the physician has conferred favors. Services of faithful physician not to be measured by pecuniary considerations. Dismissing physician for frivolous or improper reasons. Not so much gratitude in the world as commonly supposed. Virtuous and vicious poor. Clergymen generally attended upon gratuitously. What, therefore, is due from them to our profession. Conduct of some of them. Want of respect to the medical profession, on the part of the community generally. Public ingratitude. Pleasures of a medical life. Medicine as a science, full of interest. Its intimate union with other sciences. Enthusiasm in its pursuit. All discoveries, however small, add to the capabilities of the medical art in relieving misery and prolonging life. Pleasure in unraveling the perplexities of medical practice—in guiding and assisting Nature’s processes when salutary, and in arresting them when not so. Mental management of the sick. Results of practice of the judicious physician gratifying. The physician a hopeful, cheerful man. Gratification of his humanity and benevolence. His attachments. His social enjoyments. His opportunity for exerting a good moral influence.
CHAPTER I.
UNCERTAINTY OF MEDICINE.
The uncertainty of medicine is a common topic in all circles; and yet it is one which is very generally misunderstood, even by the intelligent and reflecting in the community. They mistake as to the nature of this uncertainty, its causes, its practical influence in the treatment of disease, the means which should be resorted to in order to diminish it, and the best methods of guarding against the errors into which it is liable to lead us. These errors are, I may remark, so numerous and so common, and interfere so constantly with the usefulness of the physician among high and low, educated and uneducated, almost equally, that the subject is one of vast practical importance. It is important not only to physicians, but to the people, and to the people especially, for they are the sufferers from the multiform and often fatal injuries, which these errors engender.