[Footnote 4: Some advance has been made in this direction of late, but the outlook is far from satisfactory; there is scarcely a college lecture-room but in deficient ventilation, or a lecturer whose living habits, and, consequently, personal health, do not cry aloud, “Physician, heal thyself.”]
A. H. Stevens, M.D.: “The older physicians grow, the more skeptical they become in the virtues of their own medicines.” Prof. Willard Parker: “Of all sciences, medicine is the most unreliable.” Prof E. H. Davis: “The vital effects of medicine are little understood.” J. Mason Goode, M.D.: “The science of medicine is a barbarous jargon.” Dr. Bostwick, author of “History of Medicine”: “Every dose of medicine is a blind experiment.” Prof. Evans, M.D.: “The medical practice of the present day is neither philosophy nor common sense.” It was the well-known remark of Dr. James Gregory, who added as much reputation to the medical school of the University of Edinburgh, as any other individual——that, “ninety-nine in the hundred medical ‘facts’ are medical lies, and that all medical theories are stark, staring nonsense.” Dr. McClintock: “Mercury has made more cripples than all wars combined,” and he might have added that the abuse of soda or potassa in its present various forms is destroying myriads of stomachs every year beyond redemption. Sir Astley Cooper, the most famous physician and surgeon of the age: “The science of medicine is founded on conjecture and improved by murder.” Oliver Wendell Holmes said before a medical class in 1861: “The disgrace of medicine has been that colossal system of self-deception, in obedience to which mines have been emptied of their cankering minerals, the vegetable kingdom robbed of all its growth, the entrails of animals taxed for their impurities, the poison bags of reptiles drained of their venom, and all the conceivable abominations thus obtained thrust down the throats of human beings, suffering from some fault of organization, nourishment, or vital stimulation.”
That the practice of medicine to-day is not what it should be, is due largely to the position of the laity on this point——their aversion to taking advice instead of medicine. They will consider the question of prevention, in the shape of anti-bilious pills, for example, but not at the expense of their lawful follies. If indeed physicians, generally, knew enough about the natural laws to retain their own health, how could they all derive an income from teaching the simple method by which all their neighbors would remain well? A patient, for example, is suffering pain, and sends for the doctor, who comes, examines, and finally says, “I find nothing serious here——this pain in the head will soon leave you——just keep about if you can; if not, remain quiet. Coming in from the fresh air, I observe that your room is very close, sufficient of itself to give you the headache——change the air and keep it pure; eat nothing more to-day: you are ‘ahead of your stomach,’ withal; in fact, that is the chief trouble. Take a quick sponge bath on retiring, and you will find yourself all right in the morning——you need no medicine.” Do you fancy he would get another call from her, or from her friends through her influence? Her _head aches_, and she is incensed at such heartless nonsense. She sends for another doctor, who will probably be sharp enough to treat her _disposition_, and endeavor to “control the symptoms” instead of teaching her to remove the disease by removing its cause; he gives her a “quieting medicine”——something to deaden her senses; she has several days’ illness, he gets several fees——as he ought, to be sure——and the good-will of the family; and so he rises in the profession, while the other falls into the shade unless he drops his hygienic nonsense. Thus, we observe, a premium on shrewdness and a tax on sincerity.