That many thousand cures attested Had I been the physician, however, I would have rejoined with arguments, not dissimilar to that which is so beautifully expressed in the above stanza. I would have told him that the Author of nature most certainly would not have created either a poisonous or salubrious vegetable, without intending that it should "dose and double dose" his creature man. Should it be objected that the tractors being also created substances ought also to be used, I could ingenuously retort, they were created in America, a country whose natives are Indians, an inferiour order of beings to man, as some great philosophers before me have asserted, and who, it is evident, are the only order of creatures, on whom it was intended the tractors should be used. I have no particular wish to injure Dr. Jenner, or I should positively overturn him and all his adherents with my resistless arguments. If I were not willing that he should retain his popularity, I should make it appear that the small-pox was created with the intent of being universally propagated among the human race for the purpose of mortifying female vanity; and Jenner's attempt to extirpate it, by substituting the cow-pox, which ought to have been confined to the quadrupeds, among which it originated, as the tractors ought to have been to the Indians, is the extreme of presumption, and the height of iniquity. I connot but conceive that our bishops and clergy are very remiss in not endeavouring to dissuade from such enormous, innovating practices. 6 That learn'd physicians pine with hunger. No man who possesses a heart, certainly none who pos 1 But those who from his prey would part him, That none should ancient customs vary, sesses bowels, can view us reduced to this deplorable condition, and hear this pathetick appeal, without the sincerest commisseration. The eminent services that our profession have rendered mankind, in contributing to avert some of the greatest curses that ever befel the civilized part of the world, are too well known, and have been too frequently acknowledged to be forgotten, ungratefully, in the day of our adversity. The testimony to this effect of the judicious, the humane Addison, ought often to be brought before the publick eye. "We may lay it down as a maxim," says that intelligent writer, "that when a nation abounds with physicians it grows thin of people. Sir William Temple is very much puzzled to find out a reason why the northern hive, as he calls it, does not send such prodigious swarms, and overrun the world with Goths and Vandals, as it did formerly : but had that excellent author observed that there were no students in physick among the subjects of Thor and Woden, and that this science very much flourishes in the north at present, he might have found a better solution for this difficulty than any of those he has made use of." Spectator, No. 21. 7 The patient save, but starve the doctor. This would be abominable. Physicians, in general, are That, though the Perkinistick fellows With many other men of merit, Say that those surgeons and physicians Since they've no interest nor right in a hale hearty race of men, as, indeed, must be readily conceived from their prudent maxims in regard to the preservation of their own health :-- they take no physick. No; they are too well acquainted with its tendency. Now, to starve so sturdy and powerful a body, when his majesty is in want of such subjects to check the ambitious strides of restless Buonaparte, as appears from the king's declaration of this day (May the 16th, 1803,) in preference to letting their miserable patients expire, whom Providence evidently intended should die off, is, I trust, too absurd and unreasonable an idea to be admitted. Such non-commission'd volunteers, And as by law a man may fire at, Then draw a just, but black comparison, That is, the chimney-sweepers sooty, 8 Like Perkinites they find Mecenases. The Perkineans have no cause to boast of the extent of their patronage, for the poor tawny reptile chimneysweepers have of late interested the friends of humanity in their behalf quite as much. Your worships will derive from this circumstance a very pleasant source for sneering at our opponents, which I am sure you will gladly em. brace, whenever opportunity presents. But chimney-sweepers and Perkineans Are such a scurvy set of minions, 9 Except by knaves retir'd from practice. This, gentlemen, is a circumstance of no small moment, and which I trust you will see the necessity of looking at with some seriousness. Some of our profession have, to their eternal disgrace, since their retirement on their fortunes, deserted our cause, and are now to be found in the ranks of our enemies. These fellows have the presumption to suggest that their duty to the interests of the community supersedes that which they owe to their old brethren, the unreasonableness of which sentiment I conceive to be self-evident, and therefore shall not trouble myself to prove it. Several have even addressed to the Perkinean Institution communications in favour of the metallick tractors, for publication, three of which are already laid before the publick. The first on this list is Mr. Lyster, late of Dublin, who having been above twenty years senior surgeon of the Dublin hospital, retired to Bath, where he now seems even to take delight in benefitting the mean and miserable poor, to the wanton injury of his own dear brethren. To show the extent of his malice, he has, in his communication to the Perkinean Society, introduced statements of remarkable cures by the tractors; among others one of total blindness of many years duration, in which all medical skill had previously failed; and, to wind up this tale of infamy, he has even ventured to censure, indirectly, my great champion, Dr. Haygarth, and to hint that his proceedings were not ac companied with honourable intentions! |