Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 24.djvu/124

114 Magendie, Bock, Jules Virey, Jennings, Rush, but against bigots like Dr. Black; against medical obscurantists who dread the enlightenment of their victims as vampires dread the dawn of the morning; who oppose independent thinkers with that rancorous hatred which Jesuits feel toward the divulgers of their trade-secrets; who, by holding on to the last planks of their wrecked dogmas, by illogical compromises and temporizing sophisms, are trying to perpetuate the curse of a life-blighting delusion; who subordinate the interests of mankind to the interests of their clique, and disparage reformers till they find it convenient to appropriate the credit of their discoveries.

"Some acute philosophers," our obliging correspondent informs us, "think that all the phenomena of the universe can be explained on the laws of mechanics, from the motions of a molecule up to those of the celestial masses." Just so. And Dr. Black might as well confess the secret of his predilection for that system. Its application to therapeutics has so simplified the practice of medicine; and its recognition as the law of the universe would confirm the prestige of the orthodox cause. Instead of troubling himself with a life-long study of the laws and revelations of Nature, the lessons of instinct, the interaction of the vital functions, their modifications under abnormal circumstances, the secrets of the reproductive and self-regulating principle of the human organism, our mechanical philosopher would prefer to re-establish the system of the good old times, when he could consult a pocket-index of drugs, set against an alphabetical list of diseases, point to his diploma as a presumptive proof that he had learned to repeat the Latin synonyms and construct the pharmaceutic symbols of the various "remedial agents," etc., and magisterially reprimand hygienic "idealists," as a village schoolmaster, well read in Genesis, would reprove an exponent of the evolution doctrine.

"Dr. Oswald," says our astute correspondent, "is apparently unable to discern that all the customs and habits of savages are intimately correlated to their vital organism, and that for us to adopt only one of them might prove murderous to civilized beings." Because we can not imitate all the customs of a primitive nation, is that a reason why we should not adopt some of them? With such arguments our medical censor dares to insult the intelligence of your readers! Must we avoid the unleavened bread of the ancient Hebrews because we dislike circumcision? Must we disparage Japanese temperance, because we do not want to commit hari-kari? Would the Samian water-cure prove more murderous to civilized beings than Dr. Black's blue-pills? If I should recommend the system of the medical philosopher Asclepiades, who used to prescribe a special course of gymnastics for every form of human disease, Dr. Black would try to retreat behind his correlation-dodge. "Such systems," he would probably remark, "were intimately correlated to the physical and social organism of the pagan savages and their uncivilized doctors; but nowadays every intelligent druggist would agree with me that it would never do to let people cure their diseases with such