Page:Anon 1830 Remarks on some proposed alterations in the course of medical education.djvu/19

 Medicine to European Doctors! The Coptic may be speedily introduced, unless a little delay can be obtained from the circumstances of Dr ’s death, and still burrowing among the pyramids; at length the darkness of Babel will be rendered visible, and the career of the Medecin assimilated to that of the Mandarin. Not to speak of Religion, for that, it is presumed, some innovators may consider as a vulgar and pitiful accomplishment, whatever others may think to the contrary, who, in this age of academical refinement and innovation, may choose to enter the field, and entertain the public with their propositions; such as, for example, that no physician be passed without possessing an unblemished moral character, and producing proofs and testimonials of sound orthodox theological knowledge. Indeed, when we call to mind the necessarily unguarded and unsuspecting intercourse and domestic privacy into which the medical attendant must, in many instances, be admitted,—the distressing scenes of dangerous disease,—of deathbeds,—of mental alienation,—in which he is imperatively called on to invoke the resources of mental and moral discipline, and of religious firmness and consolation; and, in situations where no clergyman may be at hand, may be competent, or, what is worse, may be inclined to assist, we shall perceive some practical good, different from that of axioms and propositions, in superadding the ghostly