Page:The Harveian oration - delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, October 18th, 1899 (IA b24975941).pdf/32

 There have always been trustful souls-saved and half-saved-persons with idées fixes to whom mental progress is painful-who see sin where none is, and who find blasphemy in the simplest acts; for, as Shakspeare says, "there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so." Puschmann re- cords how the nuns of Bologna were offended by the skill and enterprise of Tagliacozzi, the great master of plastic surgery who, as they alleged, had been guilty of blasphemy by presuming to alter the human form. These poor ladies were tormented by voices which repeated the words "Tagliacozzi is damned," and it is recorded that their phrensy was not quieted until the body of the surgeon had been exhumed and re-interred in unconsecrated ground. It is barely half a century since the use of anæs- thetics for the relief of the pangs of labour was denounced as an impiety and contrary to Scripture, and nowadays there are those who object to the simplest and most obvious measures for preventing syphilis, and in the name of purity denounce any attempt to mercifully restrain those whose profession it is to traffick in impurity. The plain practical duty of the physician, however, is to prevent, cure, or alleviate disease by the most direct methods. Those who hesitate to relieve suffering on metaphysical grounds should change their profession.

So, with regard to another burning question, there be those who apparently hold the view that a guinea-