The ups and downs of a doctor's life : being the closing lecture of the course delivered in the Hahnemann Medical College for the session of 1863-64 / by R. Ludlam.

  • Ludlam, R. (Reuben), 1831-1899.
Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The ups and downs of a doctor's life : being the closing lecture of the course delivered in the Hahnemann Medical College for the session of 1863-64 / by R. Ludlam. 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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    send you an ungentlemanly message into the bargain. In many ways you may find that your brethren are given to ignore the requirements of good breeding, and of that good taste which wounds no feelings, infringes on no decorums, and respects all scruples. The best course of procedure is the plainest, if not the most easy one. Toleration is in great part a thing of temperament, but it is also a fruit, as well as the index of a thorough educa- tion. The outward touch does not soil the sunbeam. The snail, to be rid of annoyances, bartered its eyes for horns. The fire-fly may flourish his insignificant lantern, but it needs darkness to make it visible, and he will never set the world on fire. Not a truth has to art or to science been given But brows have ached for it, and souls toiled and striven: And many have striven, and many have fail) d, And many died, slain by the truth they awatZed. Depend upon it, gentlemen, the people, the laity, those most interested in our labors, care precious little for our professional squabbles. It makes little difference to the patient whether the surgeon about to amputate his limb holds the catlin in the left or the right hand, so that the operation is safely and prop- erly performed. It is well enough, indeed there must in the nature of things be differences of opinion and various schools of belief, among medical men. A land-mark is well placed between two brothers' fields. But that land-mark is, or should be, set up as a means of peace and not of warfare, to save trouble, and not to make it. Because I am an ingrain Presbyterian, does it follow that I am licensed to deny the benefit of clergy to my neighbor who differs from me in his religious tenets? Would community es- timate the depth of my character and the purity of my life by my zeal in propagandism ? Is the religious journal, the organ of a particular society, most esteemed for its polemical articles, or because of its richness and depth of learning, its varied re- a h, and the cropping out of a fervent piety thaadorns each page 2 You are organs of a particular belief m Medicine.