I cannot conclude this chapter without paying a passing tribute to the memory of one, my preceptor and friend, who stood among the foremost in the work of reform now going on in the medical profession. I refer to the late Dr. Hale,[33] of Boston. He was eminently a man of accurate observation. His enquiry always was after the facts. He asked not what a man supposed, but what he had observed—not what he thought, but what he had found to be true. His valuable contributions to the recorded experience, and the literature of the profession, bear him witness on this point. His labors, so deservedly prized by his brethren, are ended, but we have reason to rejoice, that he has left behind him so many of a like spirit, who are endeavoring to redeem our science from the dominion of fanciful theory and loose reasoning, and to place it under the control of a true and rigid OBSERVATION.
FOOTNOTES:
[29] Hunter in one of his lectures thus speaks playfully, but most truthfully of the various theories of digestion, which have arisen from exclusive views of different sets of facts. “Some physiologists will have it that the stomach is a mill;—others, that it is a fermenting vat;—others again, that it is a stew-pan; but in my view of the matter, it is neither a mill, a fermenting vat, nor a stew-pan—but a Stomach, gentleman, a stomach.”
[30] If this be a suitable charge for this operation, it would be proper to ask at least an hundred dollars for extracting a tooth, if the prices of operations are to be regulated by their magnitude, or by the amount of skill required in performing them.
[31] ‘Have you ever looked into Homœopathy,—have you ever read Hahneman’s Organon?’ said an eminent divine to an equally eminent physician. ‘No,’ replied the physician, ‘and let me ask you, in return, if you have read the Mormon Bible?’ The clergyman of course answered in the negative, and his medical friend said to him very properly, ‘when you take the trouble to examine Joe Smith’s Bible, I will take the trouble to examine Hahneman’s Organon.’
[32] An Essay on the Philosophy of Medical Science.
[33] The reader will permit the author to gratify his own feelings of regard for Dr. Hale as a man, as well as a physician, by inserting here the following extract from the memoir of him, from the pen of Dr. Channing. “Dr. Hale was an honest man. He was honest in sentiment and in purpose. He had little or no tolerance for what he thought unfair; and any believed misuse or abuse of trusts he resolutely opposed, however active or however strong was the agency by which the wrong was attempted to be consummated. These were not the elements of popularity. You could hardly make a very popular man out of such. But for the honor and exceeding praise of humanity, there are men who have found something better worth living for than the present fame—men who are happy and satisfied to do that which may live after them, and the memory and the use of which can only be for good. Dr. Hale enjoyed life—the best thank-offering for living. He was social and hospitable, for he would contribute to the pleasure of others, as well as his own. He was always cheerful, because he was truly hopeful. He looked on the bright side of disease in himself and in others; and if he labored so well for their recovery, he never questioned his own.
Dr. Hale was a religious man. In the development of the religious sentiment was his power. It was kept active by habitual, daily devotion. It influenced his whole life, making him an earnest student and a faithful practitioner—giving him strong interest in all wise effort to extend Christianity in distant lands, and by his example recommending to others the religious life. In his religion was his benevolence, which with very narrow fortune led him to attempt and to accomplish most important objects. In this was his cheerfulness in suffering and all trial; and out of his religion came the peace and the hope of his death hour.”
CHAPTER X.
POPULAR ESTIMATES OF PHYSICIANS.
There is no class of men whose talents and attainments are so erroneously estimated by the public as are those of physicians. Some of the causes of this erroneous estimate have been brought to view in the chapters on the Uncertainty of Medicine, and on Good and Bad Practice. I propose in this chapter to treat of this subject more distinctly, to point out some other causes operating with those which I have already mentioned, to show the results of this false estimate of medical character and attainments, and to develope some plain principles, on which a correct estimate may for the most part be secured.