FOOTNOTES:[25]The above remarks may be applied to an exclusive system quite popular just now—I refer to Hydropathy. Cold water is a valuable remedial agent, used both internally and externally, as the recorded experience of medical men abundantly proved long before Priesnitz appeared on the stage. But the indiscriminate and exclusive use of it, which is prescribed by his system, is as bad practice as the indiscriminate and exclusive use of anything else—anda full and impartial record of Hydropathic practice would show it to be so.[26]When an epidemic is prevalent, such a physician instead of allaying the undue public excitement, as it is his duty to do, increases it by his very grave and wise air of conversation, and by his reports of his cases, of which he is apt to have more than his neighbors, and to be of course very successful in their treatment. Even when there are only distant rumors of the epidemic, he has occasion to report to gossiping circles some cases which at least comevery nearto being true cases of it.[27]Dr. Holmes says of this pre-eminently talented and learned man—“Berkeley died at the age of about seventy; he might have lived longer, but his fatal illness was so sudden that there was not time enough to stir up a quart of his panacea. He was an illustrious man, but he held two very odd opinions; that tar water was everything, and that the whole material universe was nothing.”[28]The bare fact that death results is obviously no proof of the want of skill, any more than the bare fact that a case has ended in recovery is proof of the possession of skill. But the disposition to which I have alluded is quite common, and gives rise to many unjust conclusions in regard to the merits of physicians. Hence physicians often manifest, in various ways, a dread of having the charge of cases, which are sure to end fatally. Some, to avoid the imputation of “bad luck,” as it is expressed, often manage adroitly to throw such cases off from their own hands into those of some neighboring practitioner, or some empiric, before death actually occurs.
[25]The above remarks may be applied to an exclusive system quite popular just now—I refer to Hydropathy. Cold water is a valuable remedial agent, used both internally and externally, as the recorded experience of medical men abundantly proved long before Priesnitz appeared on the stage. But the indiscriminate and exclusive use of it, which is prescribed by his system, is as bad practice as the indiscriminate and exclusive use of anything else—anda full and impartial record of Hydropathic practice would show it to be so.
[25]The above remarks may be applied to an exclusive system quite popular just now—I refer to Hydropathy. Cold water is a valuable remedial agent, used both internally and externally, as the recorded experience of medical men abundantly proved long before Priesnitz appeared on the stage. But the indiscriminate and exclusive use of it, which is prescribed by his system, is as bad practice as the indiscriminate and exclusive use of anything else—anda full and impartial record of Hydropathic practice would show it to be so.
[26]When an epidemic is prevalent, such a physician instead of allaying the undue public excitement, as it is his duty to do, increases it by his very grave and wise air of conversation, and by his reports of his cases, of which he is apt to have more than his neighbors, and to be of course very successful in their treatment. Even when there are only distant rumors of the epidemic, he has occasion to report to gossiping circles some cases which at least comevery nearto being true cases of it.
[26]When an epidemic is prevalent, such a physician instead of allaying the undue public excitement, as it is his duty to do, increases it by his very grave and wise air of conversation, and by his reports of his cases, of which he is apt to have more than his neighbors, and to be of course very successful in their treatment. Even when there are only distant rumors of the epidemic, he has occasion to report to gossiping circles some cases which at least comevery nearto being true cases of it.
[27]Dr. Holmes says of this pre-eminently talented and learned man—“Berkeley died at the age of about seventy; he might have lived longer, but his fatal illness was so sudden that there was not time enough to stir up a quart of his panacea. He was an illustrious man, but he held two very odd opinions; that tar water was everything, and that the whole material universe was nothing.”
[27]Dr. Holmes says of this pre-eminently talented and learned man—“Berkeley died at the age of about seventy; he might have lived longer, but his fatal illness was so sudden that there was not time enough to stir up a quart of his panacea. He was an illustrious man, but he held two very odd opinions; that tar water was everything, and that the whole material universe was nothing.”
[28]The bare fact that death results is obviously no proof of the want of skill, any more than the bare fact that a case has ended in recovery is proof of the possession of skill. But the disposition to which I have alluded is quite common, and gives rise to many unjust conclusions in regard to the merits of physicians. Hence physicians often manifest, in various ways, a dread of having the charge of cases, which are sure to end fatally. Some, to avoid the imputation of “bad luck,” as it is expressed, often manage adroitly to throw such cases off from their own hands into those of some neighboring practitioner, or some empiric, before death actually occurs.
[28]The bare fact that death results is obviously no proof of the want of skill, any more than the bare fact that a case has ended in recovery is proof of the possession of skill. But the disposition to which I have alluded is quite common, and gives rise to many unjust conclusions in regard to the merits of physicians. Hence physicians often manifest, in various ways, a dread of having the charge of cases, which are sure to end fatally. Some, to avoid the imputation of “bad luck,” as it is expressed, often manage adroitly to throw such cases off from their own hands into those of some neighboring practitioner, or some empiric, before death actually occurs.