MEDICAL PROFESSION IN MODERN THOUGHT. 333 



extraneous titles of honor to give it dignity and respect. Put a doc- 

 tor in the midst of the wildest savages, and they will respect the 

 " medicine-man," when the lawyer's fluent sophistry and the preacher's 

 pathetic eloquence would not gain them consideration, or even save 

 them from death. Livingstone passed unharmed and esteemed among 

 the savage tribes of Africa under the protection of his medical skill ; 

 and Christ himself cultivated the character and functions of a healer 

 of disease, not only because in that capacity he went about doing good, 

 but probably also, as De Quincey surmised, for the secret reason that he 

 thus disarmed the jealousy and suspicion which the ruling authorities 

 might otherwise have felt of the crowds which he drew about him. 

 When the mighty fabric of the Roman Empire, penetrated by internal 

 decay, at last fell to pieces under the successive assaults of the Goths, 

 and the Vandals, and the Huns, many thousand persons were, as Gibbon 

 tells us, taken captive and distributed through the deserts of Scythia ; 

 and it is interesting to note what was the relative value of persons under 

 these circumstances. " The skill of an eminent lawyer would excite 

 only their contempt or their abhorrence. The vain sophist or grave 

 philosopher who had enjoyed the flattering applause of the schools 

 was mortified to find that his robust servant was a captive of more 

 value and importance than himself. But the merit of the physician 

 was received with universal favor and respect ; the barbarians who 

 despised death might be apprehensive of disease." So long as man 

 deems it the most important thing in the world to him that he should 

 go on living and he does that commonly as long as he is alive so 

 long will he hold in favor and esteem him whom he believes able to 

 prevent or to mitigate the suffering of disease, and to keep at bay 

 " the last enemy," death. It has always been so. " Honor a physi- 

 cian with the honor due unto him for the uses which ye may have of 

 him ; for the Lord hath created him." 



Having seen how good a thing is the direct work of relieving suf- 

 fering by medical art, let me now go on to point out that the training 

 through which you go in order to lit yourselves to do this is excel- 

 lently well adapted to make the most of your intellect as an instru- 

 ment of knowledge. It seems to me that no education which is given 

 anywhere, taking it all in all, is better than that through which it is 

 necessary to go in order to become a thoroughly accomplished physi- 

 cian. You are brought into direct contact with the facts of Nature, 

 face to face with them from the beginning of your course ; step by 

 step you advance in the practice of observation and reflection, from 

 more simple to more complex phenomena, and so you learn to make 

 the order of your ideas conform gradually to the order of Nature. 

 That is real instruction ; moreover, it is instruction at first hand. In 

 intercourse with Nature, sophistry and pretense avail nothing ; sin- 

 cerity, and humility, and veracity of mind, are essential ; we must learn 

 patiently her laws, and, learning, obey them, or we ourselves, our con- 



