The science of cure : an address delivered before the St. Andrews Medical Graduates' Association at the annual session held at the Freemasons' tavern on December 2, 1869 / by Benjamin W. Richardson.

  • Richardson, Benjamin Ward, 1828-1896.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The science of cure : an address delivered before the St. Andrews Medical Graduates' Association at the annual session held at the Freemasons' tavern on December 2, 1869 / by Benjamin W. Richardson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    In our attitudes to please the ignorant we sink daily too deeply in our owa estimation, and by consequence in tlie admiration and con- fidence of tho ignorant. On this timidity of ours the charlatan feasts. A grand remedy which the common experience of the best of our brethren has for centmies held as grand—a real remedy, from tho absence of use of which men die daily—comes into popular dis- favoui', and lo, the profession deserts it as if it were poison or murder. Some new remedy springs up ; it catches, by stray or accidental means, the public favour, and the public demand for it is actually listened to as if the professedly unlearned could and ought to think for the professedly learned. The natural result of this timidity is not satisfaction to the ignorant, but doubt respecting us all, and the introduction into our own body of scepticism on everything, cynicism, disbelief. Shall it be possible much longer for an historian of the present hour, truthfully and without fear of doing wrong, to proclaim to the historian of the future the terrible fact, that in this day, owing to the prevailing uncertainty as to our art, it would be quite possible for a professed healer to advance by stroke of fortune to the first rank of notoriety as a physician—I do not say fame, but notoriety—the said so-called healer having no belief in any remedial measure, but looking serenely on the work of each day of his Life as so much ceremony which has simply to be got through with so much grace and deportment. I trust it will not be possible for this to be said long truthfully as a part of history. Every hour it remains a fact it demoralizes that houi*; but if it is to be removed, the element of fear must be excluded from our own ranks. We must know in what we do believe, and be consistently firm in enforcing our belief, letting no temporary advantage to ourselves pay us for unmeaning, and, in oui- case, faithless complaisance. Never was there a period in the course of physic when firmness of purpose was so seriously required. In the old days the physician existed as a solemn my.stery; by his excess of learning he stood a head above those amongst whom he moved ; there was a wonder and a charm surrounding him. The names of his drugs were, to the illiterate masses, symbols; he was a power, and his word was law. Now the charm is melting away, the symbols are well nigh lost in the blaze of general enlightenment, and we, as a body remaining in doubtful hesitation, must be approached in knowledge by the whole reading and thinking world. Our duty then, not less than our interest, is to retain our power. Shall we retain it by doubting