Page:A Discourse upon the Institution of Medical Schools in America - John Morgan.djvu/77

 directed is amazing. Why then should we continue to follow such a variety of different occupations as are generally crouded together in the practice of the healing art? The mutual interest of patient and practitioner seem to require a different procedure. The chief argument alledged for it, viz. that it is less expensive, is altogether fallacious, and, unless I am much out in my conjectures, it will be found a very difficult task to prove the assertion. But granting it to be truely so, yet when life is the object at stake, a notion of cheapening health, and a disparagement of the practitioners skill, argue a sordid mind, and will, in the end, always discover a most mistaken plan of œconomy.

Physic, Surgery, and Pharmacy were in different hands, practitioners would then enjoy much more satisfaction in practice. They would commonly be less burdened with an over hurry of business, and have an opportunity of studying the cases of the sick at more leisure. Would not this tend to the more speedy relief of diseases and the perfection of medical science, as every Physician would have more time by study, observation, and experience united, to cultivate that knowledge which is the only foundation of practice? "This knowledge, fought out by Philosophy, drawn from nature and the operation of Medicines, and founded upon the causes of our complaints, upon observations of their signs and upon the laws of the animal œconomy, form