THE WATER-CURE JOURNAL. THE ART OF HEALING : erally, for the goodness of their intentions. They are really doing what they believe to be their All INQUIBY INTO THE INFLUENCE OF MEDICAL duty, according to the light they have. Day and SCIENCE UPON THE PUBLIC HEALTH. night, summer and winter, they drive round the city, visiting patients, writing prescriptions, and BT THOMAS L. NICHOLS, M.D. trying to cure the sick. They order medicines The Art of Healing, as taught and practiced without stint. No new remedy, no promising ex in this middle of the nineteenth century, professes periment, escapes them. Every few months they to be the result of the accumulated wisdom of bring ont some new preparation. Now it is qui three thousand years. During all this period, a nine, now morphine, now the hydriodate of po- privileged profession has been engaged in invest tassia, now cod-liver oil. They are indefatigable. igating the science of life, the conditions of health, Their dispensatories contain thousands of reme the causes of disease, and the means of cure. dies — and four hundred druggists, with their assist Many thousands of men, in many countries, and ants, are employed the year round, in preparing in all these ages, have made this the business of and dealing out these medicines. We pay two their lives ; and, in consideration of their devoted- millions of dollars a year in doctors' bills, and cer ness to this great work, they have been honored tainly not less than a million more for drugs. and rewarded ; they have been considered the Let us now turn for a moment to the result. benefactors of the race, and their calling is often Let us ask what might naturally be expected of connected with the attributes of divinity. Medi such a body of men — so learned, so wise, so be cine is said to be a noble profession, a divine art, nevolent, so well organized, and so powerful? a glorious science 1 Might we not expect to find the population of this I propose to briefly examine into the claims of city surrounded with all the conditions of health, this calling upon the gratitude of mankind, and fully instructed in hygienic principles, and never the high respect, often approaching to adoration, ignorantly violating the laws of life f Might we with which its professors have been treated in all not expect a pure and healthy atmosphere, free ages of the world. from all pestilential nuisances ; perfect ventila In pursuing this inquiry, I shall not examine tion in all our public edifices and private dwell the medical history or sanatary condition of other ings; markets carefully inspected and supplied countries and times. A wide and open field is with none but healthy food ; all diseasing adulter presented in our own city, and I shall need to ations in commerce suppressed ? Might we not go no further. No where is the medical profes expect to find a general state of health, in the sion more numerous or more respectable. We young and middle-aged, and death the result, with have over six hundred regular physicians, and rare exceptions, of a gradual wearing out of the some hundreds who are considered irregular. We vital forces : Such a state of things would be have two medical colleges, of high standing, con worthy of the medical profession, and such must nected with our two universities ; and a third is be the natural result of true medical science. just going into operation. We have an Academy It is time now to come to the facts. We have of medicine, intended to collect into one burning intimated what might and ought to be — let us focus all the medical learning and skill of the turn to the public records of the city — to the Re city. We have hospitals, cliniques, infirmaries, port of the City Inspector to ascertain what real ana dispensaries. In a word, there is nothing' ly it. In that report, I find that during the year wanting, by which medical science can produce 1849, there die 1 of various diseases in this city, its legitimate effects upon the public health. over twenty-two thousand persons, and that of Never had a profession greater advantages. all that number, only two hundred and twenty- No greater could be desired. Its members are four died a natural death — the only truly natural of the highest social rank; many of them are death of old age. I find that of that twenty-two looked up to and reverenced; they possess un thousand, twelve thousand, or more than one- bounded influence, both with individuals and leg half, were children, of whom far the greater num islative bodies. Whatever law they recommend ber died before they were five years old. Here is passed — whatever they advise is speedily ac begins the contrast between what is and what complished. There is, therefore, no lack of power ought to be — between our reasonable expecta to carry out the dictates of their wisdom. tions and the terrible reality. And these doctors mean well. They are not We may estimate the amount of sickness from wanting in zeal or benevolence. I cordially es the number of deaths. If we allow that one case teem the members of the medical profession gen- of sickness in ten is fatal, we have an aggregate VOL. X. NO. I. JULY. 2 WATER-CURE JOURNAL, AND of two hundred and twenty thousand cases of | by giving them confidence in the power of medi sickness in New York in a single year, case9 cines ; and after neglecting the public health, which it ought to be the business of medical sci they have increased the number and the mortali ence to prevent. All this sickness, pain, and dis ty of diseases, by the administration of poisons, tress, must be the result of causes, which it is the in a thousand deadly combinations. province of medical science to remove. But the On these high grounds, I arraign the science of causes remain, and here are the melancholv — the medicine, as taught in the schools, and the pro terrible consequences. We are surrounded by fession of medicine, as self-constituted regular, death-dealing nuisances ; there is almost univer as potent causes of the pervading disease and sal ignorance of the laws of health ; sickness is premature mortality that afflicts this community. in all our dwellings, and death cuts off half of all I charge upon the medical profession, as sanc that are born in the very flower of existence ; tioned by our legislatures and fostered by our while barely one in a hundred lives to the natural universities, the diseases which fill our city with age of man, and dies a natural death. And this tribulation, and this frightful array of premature is the result of our boasted medical science, our I mortality, which makes our dwellings resound noble profession, and the accumulated wisdom of | with lamentation and woe. Where all might be three thousand years ! joy, and comfort, and health, medicine, by its I shall go into no argument to prove that chil acts and its neglects, brings sorrow and desola dren are born — that they may grow up, become tion, and spreads the pall of mourning over the healthy, well-developed men and women, live to innocence of childhood, the loveliness of budding a good old age, and go down to the grave like a womanhood, and the strength and maturity of shock of corn fully ripe. This is the natural des man. tiny of man, and it is the object of medical sci The reform, so long needed, so loudly demand ence to enable him to accomplish that destiny. ed, has at last begun. We have at length a We see how medicine fulfills its objecta This is science of medicine, that is founded on hygiene, the way — of the children who died in this city in a science for the preservation of health, as well 1849, there were 4452 of one year old and under, as for the cure of disease. We have at length and nearly ten thousand under five years of age. the germ of a medical profession, which must do Bead this, professors of our two medical colleges ; its proper duty to mankind — which has already read this, ye six hundred regular physicians and begun, and is earnestly engaged in public en four hundred druggists ; ponder this, Academy lightenment. I need not say that I mean the of Medicine ! Look into the little graves of ten wateb-cube, and its teachers and practitioners. thousand innocents, in one single year the victims The regular profession of medicine, from its sins of your ignorance, your mal practice, or your of omission and of commission, its neglect of neglect. I charge upon you this terrible mortal duty, its intolerance, its baseless pretension, and ity. But for you, and the trust reposed in you, its utter hopelessness and worthlcssness, i9 every it would have been prevented. You have kept da}' sinking lower in the public estimation ; while the people in ignorance — you have taught them that system of nature which we term the water- to place a blind trust in your science and skill ; cure is rising every day higher and higher in the and here is the awful result. The time has come approbation of intelligent minds, and the just when you must answer for this at the bar of pub appreciation of a long-abused, but now awakened lic opinion. This is no idle declamation. Here public. are the facts and the figures, and there is no get 87 West lid street, New Yorl: ting away from their purport.