A discourse, read before the Rhode-Island Medical Society, on their anniversary, September, A. D. 1813.

  • Turner, Henry E.
Date:
1813
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A discourse, read before the Rhode-Island Medical Society, on their anniversary, September, A. D. 1813. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    him, the miserable victim of disease, looks for safety, with a confidence almost too great for human uailty to sustain;—> lo him, in the fulness of his zeal, the seasons have ceased to change;—his frame is insensible to the scorching blaze of a summer sun ;—the freezing blast of winter, cannot chill the current of a heart, warmed by active benevolence.—The day is occupied by his labours, the night brings not to him the blessings of repose.—However great may seem these re- quirements ; however important these responsibilities ; how- ever extensive these privations, his reward is as certain, as it is ample.—Fortune may, perhaps, elude his grasp; but the esteem, the veneration, which always court the accept- tance of worth and talents, afford him a joy, than which, in this world, there is but one greater—This also is so surely his, that it is beyond the leach of power, or accident;—it is the blessed consciousness of doing good It is this alone, which enables him to sustain hunger and thirst, and the pri- vations of repose, and* of domestic felicity ;—this alone sup- ports him, through the heart-rending scenes his duty com- pels him to witness. Such is the dignity and importance of the profession we have adopted.—That it is far fiom having attained the per- fection ot which it is susceptible, we fondly hope ; since pre- mature death, still defies the boasted p.>wer of the Physi- cian ; disease still baffles his utmost skill.—That it is imper- fect, we cannot but believe ; since discoveries are daily mak- ing, which open the way to new and to more important ones ; —since diseases, which were formerly considered incurable, now readily yield to a more skilful method of treatment; and some of them have been entirely struck off from the cata- logue of human ills ..That it is liable to many and great a- buses ;—that the profession has been sometimes brought into disrepute, and the progress of its advancement always great- ly retarded by then), the History of Medicine will not permit us to deny. Its annals furnish too many instances cf the in- juries it has sustained, from the pernicious theories that have from time to lime prevailed ;—too many instances of the ig- norance and depravity of its members ;—too many instances of the successful impostures of artful and designing men.— As the prevention of the^e evils, arid thereby the promotion of medical science, constitutes the principal object of the In- stitution we are assembled to commemorate ; it cannot be deemed improper to attempt an investigation of their causes ; nor presumptuous to point out then- remedies In order the more effectually to do this, it will be necessary, to take a cursory view of the origin $o,d advancement of the profession.