648 



MEDICAL PROFESSION. 



Besides agriculture, many of the inhabitants are 

 employed in the sca-lisheries. The manufactures 

 m- mostly confined to articles fur home consump- 

 tion, such as linens, flannels, woollen stockings, 

 and straw hats. The baronies into which the 

 county is divided, are nine in number, and called 

 Burrishoole, Carra, Clanmorris, Costello, Erris 

 (Half), Gallon, Killmaine, Morisk, and Tyrawly. 

 The principal towns are Newport-Pratt and West- 

 port, two prosperous sea-ports, seated upon Clew 

 Hay ; Castlebar, Claremorris, Ballaghadareen, Fox- 

 ford, S\vineford,Shruel,Ballinrobe,andBallina. The 

 assizes nre held at Castlebar, and quarter-sessions at 

 Castlebar, Westport, Ballina, Claremorris, and Bal- 

 linrobe. Mayo returns two members to the imperial 

 parliament. In 1837 the constituency consisted 

 of 1350 voters. Population in 1841, 388,887. 



MEDICAL PROFESSION. The relation in 

 which this profession stands to society at large, 

 and the estimation in which it is held, are in some 

 respects peculiar to it. As a community, physi- 

 cians are, more than most classes of men, made the 

 butt of ridicule, and not unfrequently the subjects 

 of sweeping and unsparing censure, while as indi- 

 viduals, no class of men are more honoured and 

 trusted. Ignorance, conceit, or bigoted devotion 

 to visionary theories, indifference to human life, 

 and a sacrilegious disrespect to the dead, are freely 

 and generally charged upon them as a body; but 

 individually, they are as generally esteemed, each 

 iu his own particular circle, with peculiar affection 

 and regard. Happily for the profession, every 

 man excepts his own personal physician from the 

 suspicions with which he views the rest of his fra- 

 ternity, and then, as if to make amends for his in- 

 justice to others, tacitly, and perhaps unconsciously, 

 attributes to him the distinguishing excellence of 

 having resisted peculiar temptations, to which 

 most others in his situation have yielded. Now, 

 as a man's character among those to whom he is 

 personally known, is of incomparably more conse- 

 quence to him than his general standing with the 

 world at large as a member of a particular com- 

 munity, it follows that this general prejudice 

 against physicians in its practical operation, is in 

 some respects rather beneficial than injurious to 

 them individually. It fixes a lower standard of 

 merit, by comparison with which each physician is 

 judged; and consequently, it requires less absolute 

 merit to obtain for him among his acquaintances 

 the reputation of pre-eminent worth. Nor does 

 the general prejudice against the profession take 

 away the disposition to apply to a physician in 

 case of need. It is almost always found, that 

 those who when in health are the loudest and most 

 ready in their censure of physicians, are the most 

 prompt in seeking their assistance in sickness; and 

 if they are sometimes troublesome patients, it is 

 not from an unwillingness to trust themselves to 

 professional skill. 



But if the primary effects of this prejudice are 

 in some respects favourable to individual physi- 

 cians, it does not thence follow, that its influence 

 on the whole is either salutary or unimportant. 

 On the contrary, it is obvious, that whatever di- 

 minishes the confidence of the public in the pro- j 

 fession, takes something from the respectability 

 and influence, and consequently from the means of 

 usefulness of each meir.litr. The evil may be in a 

 great measure counteracted by the predilection for j 

 particular physicians, of which we have just I 

 spoken, and there may be individuals, who will ' 



entirely surmount it by the elevation of their own 

 character; but in an extended view of the whole 

 subject it cannot be doubted, that both the profes- 

 sion and the public must suffer from an unworthy 

 estimation of physicians, whether there be just 

 cause for it in the condition and character of the 

 profession or not. 



The principal effects, unfavourable to character, 

 which have been attributed to the influence of the 

 medical profession, may be resolved into the two 

 following, viz., a bigotted attachment to author- 

 ized modes of practice, and a peculiar sensitiveness 

 of feeling, or readiness to take offence for slight 

 causes. The former renders physicians unwilling 

 to receive information, or to adopt improvements 

 in practice, however valuable, unless they come 

 through the regular channels of scientific investi- 

 gation, or established theories ; the other disposes 

 them to frequent jealousies and quarrels among 

 themselves. There is, indeed, a third, which 

 charges the profession with a want of scrupulous- 

 ness in regard to the means of acquiring some 

 kinds of knowledge; but of this we do not pro- 

 pose to speak. 



Every one must have observed, how frequently 

 remedies are introduced by men who can make no 

 pretensions to regular professional knowledge, for 

 diseases which often baffle the science and skill of 

 educated physicians. We speak not of the infalli- 

 ble, universal remedies, the panaceas, and the 

 catholicons, which are blazoned forth by deception 

 and falsehood, to impose only on the ignorant and 

 credulous. We refer to the more modest discov- 

 eries of the means of curing particular diseases, 

 which have obtained the confidence, sometimes 

 founded upon an experience of their benefits, of 

 intelligent and educated men. The effects which 

 sometimes follow the use of such remedies, are not 

 a little surprising; and occasionally they bring no 

 small share of reproach and ridicule upon the pro- 

 fession and its regular practitioners. The lame 

 man, whom a long attendance of the most skilful 

 surgeons has failed to cure, is made to walk by a 

 few applications from the hands of a blacksmith ; 

 and a bookseller, by a single word, can teach the 

 dyspeptic to forget his indigestion, laugh at the 

 doctor, and throw away his physic. 



Physicians it is true, give little credit to all 

 these things. They rarely adopt remedies thus 

 irregularly introduced, and still less frequently do 

 they acknowledge their efficacy. This incredulity 

 of the faculty, however, does little to diminish the 

 confidence of the public. It rather gives point to 

 their sarcasms upon the profession. If discoveries 

 are made in the art of curing diseases, which phy- 

 sicians with all their learning have not the saga- 

 city to make, (and we hear little of discoveries of 

 this kind by regular members of the profession,) it 

 argues little for their candour or liberality, that 

 they can perceive no merit in them. 



Such is the view which many intelligent and 

 educated men take of the conduct of the medical 

 profession towards irregular practitioners, and their 

 irregular practices. But we cannot readily acqui- 

 esce in the correctness or justice of this view. We 

 do not deny, that remedies are often introduced by 

 men who are not physicians, which acquire no small 

 share of popular confidence. Neither will we 

 deny, that such remedies are sometimes signally 

 efficacious. So frequently is this the case, that 

 some remedy of this sort is almost constantly 

 before the public, and those who pay little atten- 



