The unlicensed medical practitioner : a sketch from life.

Date:
[between 1850 and 1859?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The unlicensed medical practitioner : a sketch from life. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    2/6 (page 364)
    consider, “ What should I think were I in the other's place, and he were to do so and so to me ? How should I require him to treat me P What could I in fairness claim from him ?” THE UNLICENSED MEDICAL PRACTITIONER. A SKETCH FEOSt LIFE. § 4. Offices of Scripture, and of Conscience. Besides this most important rule for the appli- cation of our principles, we find in Scripture (as has been already observed) many precepts designed for the correction and improvement of our prin- ciples ; many cautions against the errors men are likely to fall into, in their moral judgment on various points: for, conscience is far from being an infallible guide, any more than reason, gene- rally. One may illustrate the distinct uses of Scrip- ture (in all that relates to morals) and of natural conscience, by the comparison of a sun-dial and a clock. The clock has the advantage of being always at hand, to be consulted at any hour of the day or night; while the dial is of use only when the sun shines on it. But, then, the clock is liable to go wrong, and vary from the true time; and it has no power in itself of correcting its own errors; so that these may go on increasing, to any extent, unless it be from time to time regulated by the dial, which is alone the unerring guide. Eveu so it is with natural conscience as com- pared with Scripture, which directs us according to the “ wisdom which is from above. In each particular case that may occur, our own heart will furnish a decision as to what is right or wrong; and that in many cases which are not particularly specified in Scripture, though they fall under the general principles of the gospel. But then our own hearts are liable to deceive us, even to the greatest extent, and to give wrong judgments, if they are not continually corrected and regulated by a reference to the word of God, which alone— like his sun in the natural world—affords an infal- lible guide. if. § 5. Regulation of Conscience. While, therefore, you take care, on the one hand, not to do anything that your conscience tells you is wrong, you must beware, on the other j hand, of concluding that your conduct is neces- sarily right because your conscience approves it; or, that you yourself at least are free from sin, as long as your own judgment does not condemn you. For, men may so far deprave their conscience as to bring themselves to mistake wrong for right; like one who should bend the ruler which he is drawl- ing lines by. Thus, our Lord declares to his disciples that those who killed them would think (not merely pretend, but think) that “ they were doing God service.” And Paul bitterly bewails his own sin in “ persecuting the church, when he “ verily thought that he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.” And afterwards when he became an Apostle, he says, “ I judge not mine own self; for I know nothing by myself [against myself]; yet am I not hereby justified ; but He that judgeth me is the Lord.” We must be careful, therefore, to regulate both our business by the clock, and the clock by the dial; that is, to regulate our conduct by our con- science, and our conscience itself by the commands and instructions which God has given us. Foreigners who penetrate into the least salub ous thoroughfares of this vast metropolis, generally struck by the number of chemists a. herbalists who flourish, like palm trees, where around is stale, flat, and unprofitable. At nig'.- the red bottles of the Pharmaceutical Society flc. like meteors across the unswept roadway, investi squalor itself with a couleur de rose that is high picturesque. The English have always been a bolus-lovi people. Scarcely one of us would not far soon think of travelling without pistols than withe pills. A Frenchman suffering from a torj- liver will not rest until, by violent exercise, he 1 restored the tone of the inactive organ. Mynhe when he finds his animal spirits somewThat bel concert pitch, consults not his physician, but pipe, and dissipates, by energetic whiffs, the vapor of his meerschaum and his melancholy. But < John Bull discountenances such frivolous rernedi Nature, in his opinion, is not a spoilt child, to coaxed and cheated out of her ill humours by swe. meats and fiddle-faddle. Aloes and gamboge i urgently demands, whatever amount of bodily ( comfort may be thereby engendered. The Bri (true-born) has no confidence in mere air as hygeianic agent—is not to be inveigled into che fulness by rural excursions; and as for the c< hot, or tepid bath system which government I established for state purposes, he rarely opens mouth upon the subject. The sponge and fie brush he throws aside as fitted only for those v have been nursed in the lap of luxury; and as shampooing, the very name is sufficient to aro his disgust. Taking into account the high premium whicl offered by this universal demand for medicamer we are not surprised that a certain class of prac tioners who have never qualified themselves the office, are always ready to pour drugs, of wh they know little, into bodies, of which they kr less. Many of the “ Dispensaries ” in a dens populated district, inhabited by the lower class are little mints for making money. Some their resident managers, who so liberally offer tl advice gratis, are not qualified for that off and the success which attends their treatment another proof of the old adage that “ practice ma perfect.” Many do not enter upon the lucrat art of healing until they are advanced in life. 3 vears a long-headed, shrewd, and self-concentra man will carry out coals with becoming humil At length, by some lucky accident—a broken 1 or collar bone—he becomes the inmate of a met politan hospital, where in a month or two he ma such additions to his previous knowledge of “ Materia Medica ” as to warrant his assuming lofty title of “ chemist ” and “ surgeon-dentis and” tfee transmutation of his coal-shed into a w; ing room for his expected patients. On a Sum morning you will see the “ shed ” crowded women and children, all sitting as quiet apd spectful as mice; for Air. Coalman will allow talking nor indecorous behaviour in his establi ment. “ If you women can’t hold your tongue :