Unwritten studies and duties of the physician : anniversary address before the Worcester North District Medical Society, April 9, 1859 / by Alfred Hitchcock ; published by vote of the Society.

  • Hitchcock, Alfred, 1814-1874.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Unwritten studies and duties of the physician : anniversary address before the Worcester North District Medical Society, April 9, 1859 / by Alfred Hitchcock ; published by vote of the Society. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    condition being known to the Physician—hut with this knowledge he would in all cases have greatly increased power for good, diminishing the severity and duration of symptoms, and hastening and perfecting convalescence. Many cases of sickness, with diseases not necessarily fatal, often linger surprisingly, the Physician as well as the patient being in a state of unsatisfied suspense and darkness. With many of these lingering cases it may undoubtedly be found that some mental or moral cause is the barrier to recovery. These cases should be studied in their more subtle nature, and the fears, the hopes, the sympathies and aspirations of the emotional nature should be brought to act a curative part in harmony with more ponderable therapeutic means. Human faces are not alike, so neither are diseases of the same name. The intellectual and emotional nature of every sick person is also unlike every other. Every physical disease is thus yoked together with a diverse spiritual nature, and hence every patient becdimes a study per se, physically and mentally, and is to be truly and radically investigated as though no other had ever existed. In treating the diseases of children this kind of discrimination is no less necessary. Though their intellects are less developed, yet their feelings, their desires, and their temperaments play a very important part in modifying their physical diseases. Their mental and moral peculiarities should be deeply studied and nicely measured before selecting for their use what is commonly called medicine.