Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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rimsE OF THE LEDGER: GAFFNEV, S. C., JLXE 10, 1807. DOCTORS. *EV. DR. TAi WAGE PAYS A HIGH TRIB UTE TO THE MEDICAL PROFESSION. Il*’ ThU.-h tho ( of King .Vmi, \Vh<» Mini tlu> G.iut, iu.«l SIiowh Why th<< llortor* Could Not Cure Him—1‘lety and .Modlcul Skill. New York, .Tutio 6.—It is not often that men of one profession have much encouragement for men of another pro fession, hut this sermon prepared by Dr. Talmago contains enthusiastic words of a clergyman to physicians. The text is II Chronicles xvi, 12, 13, “And Asa,in the thirty and ninth year of his reign, was diseased in Ins feet until his disease was exceeding great, yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians. And Asa slept with his fathers. ’’ At this season of the year, when medical colleges of all schools of medi cine are giving diplomas togoung doc tors, and at the capital and in many of the cities medical associations are ns- seiubling to consult about the advance ment. of the interests of their profes sion, I feel this discourse is appropriate. King Amu’s Gout. In my text is King Asa with the gout. High living and no exercise have vitiated his blood, and my text presents him with his inflamed and bandaged feet on an ottoman. Indcliunco of God, whom ho hated, ho sends for certain conjurors or quacks. They come and give him all sorts of lotions and pana ceas. They Meed him. They sweat him. They manipulate him. They blister him. They poultice him. They scarify him. They drug him. They cut him. They kill him. He was only a young man and had a disease which, though very painful, seldom proves fatal to a young man, and ho ought to have got well, but ho fi J1 a victim to charlatan ry and empiricism. “And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased iu Lis feet until ins disearo was exceeding great, yet in his disease he sought net to the Lord, but to the physicians. And Asa slept with his fa thers.” That is, the doctors killed him. In this sharp and graphic way the Bible sets forth the truth, that you have no right to shut God oat from the realm of pharmacy and therapeutics. If Asa had said: “O Lord, I am sick. Bless the instrumentality employed for my recovery.” “Nov/, servant, go and get tiie best doctor you can find”—be would have recovered. In other words, the world wants divinely directed physi cians. There are a great many such. The diplomas they received from the academies r<f medicine were nothing compared with the diploma they re ceived from the Head Physician of the universe on the day when they started out .and he s?iid to them, “Go heal the sic* and cast out the devils of pain and opwi the blind eyes and unstop the deaf enr\” God Mess the doctors all the world over, and let all the hospitals and dispensaries and inlirmilries and asylums and domestic circles of tho earth re spond, “Amen.” Men of tho medical profession wo of ten meet iu the home of distress. We shako hands across tho cradle of ago- ’ ‘ fancy. Wo join each other in an attempt at solace where the paroxysm of grief demands an anodyne as wi 11 as a prayer. Wo look into each other’s sympathetic faces through the dusk as tiie uightof death is fulling in the sick room. Wo do not have to climb over any barrier today in order to greet oa'’h other, for oar professions are in fail sympathy. You, doctor, aro our tirst and last earthly friend. You stand at tho gutes of life when we enter this world and you stand at the gat s of death when v/e go out of it. In the clos ing mom< nts of our earthly existence, when the hand of tho wife or mother or sister or daughter shall hold our right hand, it will give strength to our dying moment if wo can feel the tips of your fingers along tho pulse of the left wrist. We do not meet today, as on other days, iu houses of distress, hut by the pleasant altars of God, and I propose a sermon of helpfulness and good cheer. As in the nursery children sometimes ro-enact all the scenes of the sickroom, so today you play that you are the patient and that I am tho physician, and take* my prescription just once. It shall be a tonic, a sedative, a dietetic, a disinfect ant, a stimulus and uu anodyne at the sanio time. “Is tlx re not balm in Gil ead? Is there not a physician there?” An Ilonuritblo Cttlliii}-. In tho first place, I think all the med ical profession should become Christians because of tho debt of gratitude they owe to God for the honor ho has put upon their calling. No other calling in all the world, except it be that of the Christian ministry, has received so great an honor as yours. Christ himself was not only preacher, but physician, surgeon, aurist, ophthalmologist, and under his mighty power optic and au ditory nerve thrilled with light and sound, and catalepsy arose from its fit, and the clubfoot was straightened, and anchylosis went out if the stiffened ten dons, and tho foaming maniac became placid as a child, and the streets of J< - insult m became an extemporized hospi tal crowded with convalescent victims of casually and invalidism. All ages have woven the garland for the doctor's brow. Homer said: A wine physician, skill) d our wound* to heal, L more tliun armies to the public weal. Cicero s:»id, “Th«T0 is nothing in Which men so approach tho gods as when they try to give health to other xn -n.” Charles IX made proclamation that all the Protestants in Franco should be put to death on Ht. Bartholomew'* day, but made nun exception, and that the cuMi of Pare, the fufbt r of French surgery. The battlefields of the Atner- iean revolution welcomed l)rs. Mercer rose, and they wont on to the conflict. God has honored this professioii ail the way through. Oh, tho advancement from the days when Hippocrates tried to cure the great Pericles with hellebore and flaxseed poultices down to far later centuries when Haller announced tho theory of respiration, and Harvey the circulation of the blood, and Asceli the uses of the lymphatic vessels, and Jen- ner balked the worst disease that ever scourged Europe, and Sydenham devel oped the recuperative forces of the phy sical organism, and cinchona bark step ped the shivering agues of tiie world, and Sir Astley Cooper and Abernethy, and Hosack and Romeyn, and Grisrom and Valentine Mott, of the generation just past, honored God and fought back death with their keen scalpels. If we who are laymen in medicine would understand what tho medical profession has accomplished for the in sane, let us look into the dungeons where tho poor creatures used to bo in- careeratcd—madmen chained naked to the wall, a kennel of rotten straw their only sleeping place, room uuveutilated of Edin- dcath of the pbo- tho win- t M* y TJ »i it It* t tt* i fir* ft imii t||«? r !• in 1! urmi w^is entirely demoralized by fear i<f tro plague, the leading surgeon of that a:my inoculated himself with the plague to slam the soldiers there was Do contagion iu it, and their courage and unlighted, the worst calamity of the race punished with the very worst punishment—and then come ard look at the insane asylums of Utica and Kirkbride—sofacd and pictured, libra- ried, concerted, until all the arts and adornments como to coax recreant rea son to assume her throne. Look at Ed ward .Tenner, the great hero of medi cine. Four hundred thousand people an nually dying iu Europe from the small pox. .Tenner finds that by the inocula tion of people with vaccine from a cow tho great scourge of nations may be ar rested. The ministers of the gospel de nounced vaccination, small wits carica tured Edward .Tenner as riding in a great procession on the hack of a cow and grave men expressed it ns their opinion that all the diseases of the brute creation would bo transplanted into the human family, and they gave instances where, they said, actually horns hud come out on the foreheads of innocent persons anil people had begun to chew the cud. But Dr. .Tenner, the hero of medicine, went on fighting for vaccina tion until it has been estimated that one doctor in f;0 years has saved more lives than all tho battles of any one century destroyed. Mmllcai Frog re ns. Passing along tho streets burgh a fi w weeks after tho Sir James Y. Simpson, I saw tograpli cf the doctor iu all clows of the shops and stores, and well might that photograph be put in every window, for he first used chloroform as an ana sthetic agent. In other days they trie d to dull human pain by the hasheesh of the Arabs and the madrepore of the Roman and the Greek, but it was left to Dr. James Simpson to introduce chlo reform as an nmesthetio. Alas for the writhing subjects of surgery in other centuries! Blessed be? God for that wet sponge or vial in the hand of the op r- ating surgeon in the clinical departin* nt of the ni' dical college or in the sick room of tho domestic circle or on the battlefield amid thousands of amputa tions. Napoleon after a battle rode along the line and saw under a tree standing in the snow Lnrrcy, tho surgeon, oper ating upon the wounded. Napoleon passed on, and 24 hours afterward came along the same place;, and he saw the same surgeon operating in the same place, and he had not left it. Alas for tin- battlefields without chloroform. But now the soldier boy takes a few breaths from tho sponge and forgets all the pang of tho gunshot fracture, and while tho surgeons of the field hospital are standing around him he lies there dreaming of home and mother and heav en. No more parents standing around a suffering child, struggling to get away from the sharp instrument, but mild slumber instead of excruciation, and the child wakes up and says: “Fa ttier, what's the matter? What’s the elector here today for?” Oh, blessed bo God for James Y. Simpson and tho heaven descended mercies of chloroform. Tho medical profession steps into the courtroom, and after conflicting wit nesses have left everything in a fog, by chemical analyses shows the guilt or in nocenco of the prisoner, as by mathe matical demonstration, thus adding honors to medical jurisprudence. This profession has done wonders for public hygiene. How often they have stood between this nation and Asiatic cholera and tho yellow fever. The mon uments iu Greenwood and Mount Au burn and Laurel Hill tell something of tin! story of those men who stood face to face with pestilence in southern cit ies, until staggering in their own sick ness they stumbled across the corpses of those whom they had come to save. This profession has been the successful advocate of ventilation, sewerage, drainage and fumigation, until their sentiments were well expressed by Lord Balmerston, when he said to tho Eng lish nation at the time a fast had been proclaimed to keep off a great pesti- ienee: "Clean your streets or death wifi ravage, notwithstanding all tho prayers of this nation. Clean your streets and then call on God for help.” Sen what this profession has done for human longevity. There was such a fearful subtraction from human life that there was a prospect that within a few centuries this world would be left almost inhabitautless. Adam start ed with a whole eternity of earthly ex istence before him, but he cut off tho most of it and only comparatively few years worn left —only 700 years of life, and then 500, and then 400, and then 200, and then 100, and then 50, and then the average of htitnmi life came to | 40, and then it dropped to 1H. But medical science came in, and since tin* ; sixtienth century the average of human life has risen from IS years to 44, and it will continue to rise until tho average^ of human hfe will be 50, and it will be [ mm it will be i«, ami it man will | have no right to die before UO, and the prophecy of Isaiah will be literally ful filled, "And tho child shall die 100 years old.” The millennium for tho souls of men will tie the millennium for the bodies of men. Sin done, disease will be done, the clergyman and the physician getting through with their work at the same time. Doeters For the Poor. But it seems to me that the most beautiful benediction of tho medical profession has been dropped upon the; poor. No excuse now for any one's not having scientific attendance. Dispensa ries and infirmaries everywhere, under the control of the best doctors, some of them poorly paid, some of them not paid nt all. A half starved woman comes out from the low tenement house into the dispensary and unwraps the rags from her babe, a bundle of ulcers and rheum and pustules, and over that little sufferer bends the accumulated wisdom of the ages, from iEseulapius down to last week’s autopsy. In one dispensary iu one year 150,000 prescriptions were is sued. Why do I show you what God has allowed this profession to cio? Is it to stir up your vanity? Oh, no! The day has gone by for pompous doctors, with conspicuous gold headed canes and pow dered wigs, which were the accompani ments in the days when the* barber used to carry through the streets of London Dr. Brcckelsby’s wig, to tho admiration and awe of tho people, saying: “Make way! Here comes Dr. Brockelsby’s wig.” No; I announce these things not only to increase the appreciation of laymen in regard to the work of physi cians, but to stir in the hearts of tho men of the medical profession a feeling of gratitude to God that they have been allowed to put their hand to such a mngn Tcent work and that they have been called into such illustrious com pany. ,HaVH you never felt a spirit of gratitude for this opportunity? Do you not feel thankful now? Then, I am afraid, doctor, you are not a Christian and that tho old proverb which Christ quoted in his sermon may be appropri ate to you, “Physician, heal thyself.” Another reason why I think the med ical profession ought to be Christians is because there aro so many trials and annoyances i?i that profession that need positive Christian solace. I know you have the gratitude of a great many good people, and I know it must bo a grand thing to walk intelligently through the avenues of human life, and with ana tomic skill poise yourself on the nerves and filers which cross and recross this wonderful physical ^’stem. I suppose a skilled eye can see more beauty even in malformation than an architect can point out iu any of bis structures, though it bo the very triumph of arch and plinth and abacus. But how many annoyances and trials the medical pro fession have! Dr. Rush used to say in his valedictory address to the students of the medical college, “Young gentle men, have two pockets—a small pocket and a big pocket, a small pocket iu which to put your fees, a large pocket in which to put your annoyances.” In the first place, the physician has no Sabbath. Busy merchants and lawyers and mechanics cannot afford to be sick during the secular week, and so they nurse themselves along with loze nges and horehouuT candy until Sabbath morning comes, and then they say, “I must have a doctor. ” And that spoils the Sabbath morning church service for the physician. Besides that, there are a great many men who dine but once a week with their families. Daring tho secular days they take a hasty lunch at the restaurant, and on the Sabbath they make up for their six days' abstinence by especial gormandizing, which, before night, makes their amazed digestive or gans cry out for a doctor. And that spoils the evening church service for the physician. Then they are annoyed by people coming too iate. Men wait until the last fortress of physical strength is taken and death lias dug around it the trench of the grave, and then they run for the doctor. The slight fever which might have been cured with a footbath has become virulent typhus, and the hacking cough killing pneumonia. As though a captain should sink his ship off Amagausett, and then put ashore in a yawl, and then coma to New York to the marine office and want to get his vessel insured. Tco late for tho ship, too late for the patient. Wise Doctor*. Then there are many v/ho always blame tho doctor bccanso the people die, forgetting tho divine enactment, “It is appointed unto all men once to die.” The father in medicine who- an nounced the fact that he had discovered the art by which to make men in this world immortal, himself died at 47 years of age, showing that immortality was less than half a century for him. Oh, how easy it is when people die to cry out, “Malpractice.” Then the phy sician must bear with all the whims, and the sophistries, and the deceptions, and the stratagems, and the irritations of the shattered nerves and the becloud ed brains of women, and more especially of men, who never know how graceful ly to be sick, and who with their sali vated mouths curse tho doctor, giving him his duee, us they say—about tho only dues be will iu that cane collect. The last bill that is paid is the doctor’s bill. It seems so incoherent for a re stored patient, with ruddy cheeks and rotund form, to be bothered with a hill charging him for old calomel and jalap. The physicians of this country do more missionary work without charge than all the other professionals put together. From tho concert room, from the merry party, from the comfortable couch on a cohl night, when the thermometer is fl *c dc giccs below zero, the doctor must go right away—he always must go right away. To keep up under tins ner vous strain, to go through this night work, to bear all those annoyances, many physician* have resorted to strong drink and perished. Others have appeal ed to God for sympathy and help and have lived. Which wore tho wise doc tors, judge ye? A^uiii, iuu iin-iiirni iinnYssiou ought to be Christians because there are pro fessional exigencies when they need God. Asa’s destruction by unblessed physicians was a warning. There are awful crises in every medical practice when a doctor ought to know how 4o pray. All the hosts of ills w ill some times hurl themselves on the weak points of the physical organism, or with equal ferocity will assault the entire line of susceptibility to suffering. Tho next close of medicine will decide whether or not the happy honTe shall be broken up. Shall it ho this medicine or that medicine? God help the doctor! Between the five drops and the ten drops may be tho question of life or death. Shill ; t be the five or the ten drops? Be car fful how you put that knife through those delicate portions of the body, for if it swing out of the way the sixth part of an inch the patient perishes. Under such circumstances a physician needs not so much consulta tion with men of his own calling as he needs consultation with 'that God who strung the nerves and built the cells and swung tin-crimson tide through the arteries. You wonder why the heart throbs, why it seems to open and shut. There is no wonder about it. It is God’s- hand, shutting, opening, shutting, open ing, on every heart. When a man comes to doctor the eye, he ought Lo iu com munication with him who said to the blind, “Receive tby sight.” When a doctor onmcfl to treat a paralytic arm, he ought to be in communication with him w ho said, “Stretch forth tby hand, and he stretched it forth. ” When a man comes to doctor a had case of hemor rhage, he needs to be iu communication with him who cured tho issue of blood, saying, “Thy faith hath saved thee.” Piety unit Medical SR ill. I do not mean to say that piety will make up for medical skill. A bungling doctor, confounded with what was not a very bad case, went into the next room to pray. A skilled physician was called in. He asked for the first practitioner. “Oh,” they said, “he’ain iho next room praying.” “Well,” said the skilled doc tor, "tell him to como out here and help. Ho can pray and work at the same time.” It was all in that sen tence. Do the best we can and ask (Tod to help us. There are no two men iu all tho world, it seems to me, that so much need the grace of God as the minister who doctors the sick soul and tho phy sician who prescribes for the diseased body. Another reason why tho medical pro fession ought to be Christian* is because there opens before them such a grand field for Christian usefulness. You see so many people iu pain, iu trouble, in bereavement. You ought to be the voice of heaven to their souls. Old Dr. Gush- erio Do Witt, a practitioner of New’ York, told mo iu his last days, “I al ways present tho religion of Christ to my patients, either directly or indirect ly, and I find it is almost alw’ays accept able. ” Drs. AL'Tcroinbio and Brown of Scotland, Drs. Hey and Fothergill of England and Dr. Rush of our own coun try were celebrated for their faithful ness in that direction. “Oh,” says tho medical profession, “that is your occu pation. That belong* to the clergy, not to us.” My brother, there aro severe ill nesses iu which you will not admit even tho clergy, and that patient’s salvation will depend upon your faithfulness. With tho medicine for tho body in one hand, the medicine for tho soul in the other, oh, what a chancel There lies a dying Christian on the pillow. You need to hold over him the lantern of the gospel until its light streams across the pathway of the departing pilgrim, and you need to cry into tho dull ear of death, “Hark to the song of heaven’s welcome that comes stealing over tho vvatersl” There lies on the pillow a dy ing sinner. All the morphine that you brought with you cannot quiet him. Terror in tho face. Terror iu the heart. How ho jerks himself up on one elbqw and look* wildly into your face and says: “Doctor, I can’t die. I am nut ready to die. What makes it so dark? Doctor, can you pray?” Blessed for you and "blessed for him if then you can kneel down and say: “O God, I have done the best I could to cure this man’s body, and I have failed. Now I commit to thee his poor, suffering und affright ed soul. Open Paradise to his departing spirit.” The bicRncss. But I must close, for there may he suffering men and wome n waiting in your office, or on the hot pillow, won dering why you don’t come. But before you go, O doctors, heap my prayer for your eternal salvation. Blessed will be the reward in heaven for the faithful Christian physician. Someday, through overwork or from bending over a pa tient and catching hi*contagious breath, the doctor comes home, and he lies down faint and sick. He i* too weary to feel his own pulse or take the- diag nosis of his own complaint. He is worn out. The fact is, his work on earth is ended. Tell those people iu the office there they need not wait any longer. Tho doctor w ill never go there again. Hu has written his last prescription for the alleviation of human pain. Tho people will run up his front steps and inquire, “How is the doctor today?” All the sympathies of the neighborhood will be aroused and there will be many prayers that lie who has been so kind to the sick may be comforted iu his last pang. It is all over now. In two or three days Ids convalescent patients, with shawl wrapped around them, will come to the front window and look out at the passing hearse, and the poonof tho city, barefooted and bare beaded, will stand on the street corner, saying, "Oh, how good lie wa* to us all!” But on the other side of the riv< r of death some of his old patients who are for ever cured, will como out to welcome him, and the physieiali of heaven, wit It ItM-k* a*white a* snow, according to the Apocalyptic vision, will come out and say: “Come in, como iu. 1 wa* Hiek und ye visited me.” If You Are A Doubting Thomas as to whether we do what we advertise or not, call at once and we will prove to the most fastidious that we keep A A the most complete line to he found in the city. Yours Truly, BYARS & SPARKS, Exclusive Grocers. Fresh Bread and Cakes from Fincken’s Bakerv dailv. V *• Fresh Groceries well selected always on hand- Meals at All Hours at WARREN & MORGANS, In I. E. Webster’s old ofliee. "I Iio ii living AI v HcxDi T^oiiiitn in. lie makes people so thirsty I couldn’t sell stale soda if I want ed to. There is nothing so refreshing on a hot day as a gla-- of soda—if it’s good. What good soda is you’ll never know until you’re tried mine. Yours Truly, Chas. G. Ervin. LIMESTONE * SPRINGS * LIME * WORKS, CARROLL & CO., Lessees. Manufacturers of BUILDING, * PLASTERING * AND * . * LIME And Dealers In Coal, Shingles, Lathes and Plater Hair, Ovmamite. Blastinp Powder. Fuse and Dynamite Caps. The ” f f Bank of Gaffney. CL\i»nwu sno.ooo. This hunk is now opi-n fur )>iislm-ss und snlii-lts (hr patMniinri'of tin-poopli-oV unci surroiinclitiK Ii will <-.\t«-iiil to its i-iistonn-rs » v*-ry : . u- sisti nt w it li safely. .Mom y to loan on apptovi il si-i-urity. 1>. C\ Cusdiior. I-'. G. K’rwCV, . G. \V I< I )I <..\ W’", Vice-I*rc»sitU*iit. i>n< hccrrows. .1. A. C'.\|(ltol,|,. I'l-fshli-nt. Cherokee-I'nlls I ,1. I. '■‘AKKATT. Mcri-li.-mt ; .ii I' .- Mf|{. t o. i lion. U.M. .iKFl'KKIKS. i-'.-mmT. lloim > c* II. 0. U III. AT. Treasure! (m ft in-y .Mfi;. Co. Illon.r.U WIIISN A NT. Merel,:, r ■ . ,i i K. M. W I LK1 NS. bate of Wilkins Uros.. Mer- 1 i r. Wilklnsvllle. S. C. chants. ; IIK.NUY M. MeADKN. Capitalist. *- \\. o. CARI'KNTI.K. of Carroll .V Carpenter, , ville. N. C. Meri-hants «>. K. WI l.K INS, of o. E. Wilkins & Hr-. .t. G. H AltDI.A \\ . See ry, Galt ney M.inf. t o. j -ley. S. (’. Gaffney. I F. G. STACY. Carroll & Staey, (. iV. • . - CL The Gaffney City Land and Improvement Company, Offer for Sale Building Lots in this Flourishing Town, LiririVISY CITY. Also Farms near by and in reach of the schools of Limestone Spring* and of this place in lots of from 30 to J00 acres on liberal time rates. A1 o Agricultural Lands to rent for farm purposes. For full particulars ap;ly te MOSES WOOD, Agent. X. B.—All trespassing on lands of this Company cutting and removia* timber, fishing or hunting an- forbidden under penalty of law. vJ'V' 1 .X ■Zr N--. y" L -,- w rife. -S A Vi ■y/i 'f i§fe¥ 'ox r-c- Finn DUtlnctlon. •’What i* tho ciiiterenco between an alia* and un incognito?” aitkcd tho ex aminer. "About the same u* the difference lie- tween kleptomania and theft,” said the vtudent. —Typographical Journal. Say the iniin thing^to do is to keep the stutrac!-, liver tk .J how.!, in order if you want to live long and keep well. Good phyaieiau . ay the same thing, tco. '1 lie remedy called RIP/.NS TABILES wli.lc not mysteri ns or n r,-a in i: <u::.‘ive m :d!t’e«, L a ; formula prescrilx‘1 by the l < p'.ysiei.n » for di->o;*iei'i f ili.i-in organs. Just little tablets, easy to take, ease to luy ai 3 c;uak tnac:. If Vourtrouble is 1 (ysjieps .., Bill usness, Pir/iness. Iliadat In , (’> nstip.v lleaitburn, and tie like, no need of calling a phvsid n. Kipan* Tabui > contain exactly what he would tell )ou to taL. ONC 1ABIILC Gives RCLItr. PtllMAM.X r CURE roixow* A FAIR Till At,. NO CNCt.HTAl.NTY AUOCT IT.