THE BOROUGH.

LETTER VII.

PROFESSIONS -PHYSIC.

Finirent multi letho mala; credula vitam

Spes alit, et melius cras fore semper ait. - TIBULLUS.

He fell to juggle, cant, and cheat....

For as those fowls that live in water

Are never wet, he did but smatter;
Whate'er he labour'd to appear,
His understanding still was clear.
A paltry wretch he had, half-starved,

That him in place of zany served. BUTLER's Hudibras.

The Worth and Excellence of the true Physician- Merit, not the sole Cause of Success Modes of advancing Reputation

Motives of medical Men for publishing their Works The great Evil of Quackery - Present State of advertising Quacks-Their Hazard - Some fail, and why - Causes of Success How Men of understanding are prevailed upon to have Recourse to Empirics, and to permit their Names to be advertised-Evils of Quackery: to nervous Females: to Youth to Infants History of an advertising Empiric,

&c.

129

THE BOROUGH.

LETTER VII.

PROFESSIONS-PHYSIC.

NEXT, to a graver tribe we turn our view,
And yield the praise to worth and science due;
But this with serious words and sober style,
For these are friends with whom we seldom smile: :(1),
Helpers of Men (2) they're call'd, and we confess
Theirs the deep study, theirs the lucky guess;
We own that numbers join with care and skill,
A temperate judgment, a devoted will;
Men who suppress their feelings, but who feel
The painful symptoms they delight to heal; (3)

(1) [Original edition:

From Law to Physic, stepping at our ease,

We find a way to finish - by degrees;

Forgive the quibble, and in graver style,

We'll sing of these with whom we seldom smile.]

(2) Opiferque per orbem dicor.

(3) ["I feel not in me those sordid and unchristian desires of my profession. I do not secretly implore and wish for plagues, rejoice at famines, revolve ephemerides and almanacks in expectation of malignant effects, fatal conjunctions, and eclipses; I rejoice not at unwholesome springs, nor

Patient in all their trials, they sustain
The starts of passion, the reproach of pain;
With hearts affected, but with looks serene,
Intent they wait through all the solemn scene;
Glad if a hope should rise from nature's strife,
To aid their skill and save the lingering life;
But this must virtue's generous effort be,
And spring from nobler motives than a fee:
To the Physician of the Soul, and these,
Turn the distress'd for safety, hope, and ease. (1)
But as physicians of that nobler kind

Have their warm zealots, and their sectaries blind;
So among these for knowledge most renown'd,
Are dreamers strange, and stubborn bigots found:

unseasonable winters; my prayer goes with the husbandman's. I desire every thing in its proper season, that neither man nor the times be out of temper. Let me be sick myself if sometimes the malady of my patient be not a disease to me. I desire rather to cure his infirmities than my own necessities: where I do him no good, methinks it is no honest gain, though I confess it to be the worthy salary of our well-intended endeavours; I am not only ashamed, but heartily sorry, that, besides death, there are diseases incurable, yet not for mine own sake, but for the general cause and sake of humanity, whose common cause I apprehend as mine own."-SIR THOMAS BROWNE.]

(1) [I esteem it the office of a physician not only to restore health, but to mitigate pain and dolours; and not only when such mitigation may conduce to recovery, but when it may serve to make a fair and easy passage; for it is no small felicity which Augustus Cæsar was wont to wish to himself, that same euthanasia;' and what was specially noted in the death of Antoninus Pius, whose death was after the fashion and semblance of a kindly and pleasant sleep. So it is written of Epicurus, that, after his disease was judged desperate, he drowned his stomach and senses with a large draught and ingurgitation of wine; whereupon the epigram was made:

'Hinc Stygias ebrius hausit aquas.'

He was not sober enough to taste any bitterness of the Stygian water. But the physicians, contrariwise, do make a kind of simple religion to stay with the patient after the disease is disclosed; whereas, in my judgment, they ought both to enquire the skill, and to give the attendances, for the facilitating and assuaging of the pains and agonies of death.- BACON.]

Some, too, admitted to this honour'd name,
Have, without learning, found a way to fame;
And some by learning-young physicians write,
To set their merit in the fairest light;

With them a treatise is a bait that draws
Approving voices-'t is to gain applause,
And to exalt them in the public view,
More than a life of worthy toil could do.
When 't is proposed to make the man renown'd,
In every age, convenient doubts abound;
Convenient themes in every period start,
Which he may treat with all the pomp of art;
Curious conjectures he may always make,
And either side of dubious questions take:
He may a system broach, or, if he please,
Start new opinions of an old disease;
Or may some simple in the woodland trace,
And be its patron, till it runs its race;
As rustic damsels from their woods are won,
And live in splendour till their race be run;
It weighs not much on what their powers be shown,
When all his purpose is to make them known.

To show the world what long experience gains, Requires not courage, though it calls for pains; But at life's outset to inform mankind,

Is a bold effort of a valiant mind. (1)

(1) When I observe, that the young and less experienced physician will write rather with a view of making himself known, than to investigate and publish some useful fact, I would not be thought to extend this remark to all the publications of such men. I could point out a work, containing experiments the most judicious, and conclusions the most interesting, made by a gentleman, then young, which would have given just celebrity to a man after long practice. The observation is nevertheless true: many opinions have been adopted, and many books written, not that the theory