Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/86

 lxxvi INTRODUCTION

contents, the ultimate item runs, "Lecture XVI, On the Study of Medical Jurisprudence." To this lecture let me turn at once, for its words are the earliest utterance printed in America on the most important subject in either medicine or law.

Reading this interesting chapter (and nothing composed by Rush was ever otherwise) one is struck by a number of most remarkable and even astounding facts:

1. The style of the book is extremely modern, in fact very much like Macaulay's without his disagreeable mannerisms. It exhibits the finely balanced constructions, the brief incisive sentences, the highly "organic" paragraphs which distinguish the remarkable author of the "Essay on Milton." It lacks, however, the forced antitheses, the eternal seesaw, the white this but black that and the black this but white that, and the well-nigh incredible exaggerations of the composer of "The History of England." In a word, the style is of those writers who, coming after Macaulay, have learned to adopt, to a great extent, the virtues of that master style, while avoiding its very obvious vices. And yet Rush came before Macaulay.

2. The subject-matter, or substance, of this lecture is also extremely modern. First, this medical master, in the beginning of the lecture, animadverts on the fact that "they entertain very limited views of medicine who suppose its objects and duties are confined exclusively to the knowledge and cure of diseases." He runs on: "Our science was intended to render other services to society. It was designed to extend its benefits to the protection of property and life, and to detect fraud and guilt in many of their forms. This honor has been conferred upon it by the bench and bar, in all civilized countries both in ancient and in modern times," etc. This strikes a note that sounds strictly and strangely modern.

Again, Dr. Rush hints at the dearth (or rather total absence) of American literature on the subject of medical jurisprudence, and the paucity of a corresponding literature in Great Britain and Ireland. He says: "I have thus barely named the subjects of medical jurisprudence. There has been much learning displayed in treating upon them in France, Germany and Italy. It is to be regretted that the works of Dr. Foder6, a French physician, contain the only valuable repository of that learning which has -leached this country. In Great Britain the science has advanced with more tardy steps than in other European countries," etc., etc. All this also sounds familiar to the reader of the medical journals of to-day.

Finally, in Rush's implication that the schools of his time are not exactly performing their duties in the matter of teaching medical juris- prudence there is again the modern note.