That learn'd physicians pine with hunger, 72 cumstances. which its importance claims, under existing cirA great hue and cry has been raised by the Perkinites, by which some of the less penetrating part of the profession have been awed into silence, respecting the duty of medical practitioners. They say that it is the duty of a Medical Man to employ only such means as will cure his patient in the most safe, cheap, and expeditious manner. This infamous pretension takes its origin from no other person than Perkins himself. That you may individually be aware of the effrontery with which it is brought forward, I shall, in this note, copy from Perkins's book his manner of treating the subject. Your Worships will form some idea of the magnitude of this objection of our adversaries, in their own estimation, and the mischief it has already occasioned, not only in Great Britain, but abroad, when I inform you that it has been echoed in both the English and foreign Journals, and in many of them treated as a complete refutation of the arguments of Dr. Haygarth, and of all who object against the Tractors, on account of their curing diseases merely by operating on the imagination. Among other foreign publications, I observe that the 21st volume of the Bibliotheque Britannique, printed at Geneva, closes a long account (40 pages) of Perkinisme with this petite histoire de Mr. Perkins.' 1 Contrives to wheedle simple ninnies, 'A gentleman came from the country to London, for the advantage of Medical assistance, in a complaint of peculiar obstinacy and distress. 'After being under the care of an eminent phy'sician several weeks, and paying him upwards of thirty guineas, without any relief, he was 'induced to try the Tractors. To be short, they ( performed a remarkable cure; the person was 'perfectly restored in about ten days. The phy sician calling soon after, was informed of the 'circumstance. He began lamenting that so sen'sible a person as the patient should be caught in the use of so contemptible a piece of quackery as the Tractors. After assuring the patient that ' he had thrown away his five guineas, for that it 6 was well established by Dr. Haygarth, that a brick-bat, tobacco-pipe, goose-quill, or even the 'bare finger, would perform the same cures, he ' was interrupted by his patient: "And are you "sincere in your belief that you could have pro"duced, by those means, the same effects upon "me, which I have experienced from the Trac❝tors?" "Do I believe it? Ay, I know it; and "that a thousand similar cures might be effected "by means equally simple and ridiculous.""And Sir," interrupted the gentleman again, in a more stern and serious tone, (( why did you "not cure me then by those simple means? "Remember I have paid you thirty guineas, un"der the supposition that you were exerting "your utmost endeavours to cure me, and that "in the most safe, cheap, and expeditious manner. That many thousand cures attested Show death's cold hand full oft arrested; "You now in substance acknowledge, that, al"though in possession of the means of restoring me to health, for the dishonourable purpose of picking my pocket, you continued me upon the "bed of sickness! Who turns out to be the impostor. Let your own conscience answer." 'The justness of the retort, it will be easily believed, precluded the possibility of an exculpa❝tion.' Perkins's New Cases, p. 145. 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, that they were created in America, a country, whose natives are Indians, an inferior 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 popu But those who from his prey would part him, larity, 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 cowpox, 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 cannot but conceive that our bishops and clergy are very remiss in not endeavouring to dissuade from such enormous, innovating practices. 72 That learn'd Physicians pine with hunger. No man who possesses a heart, certainly none who possesses bowels, can view us reduced to this deplorable condition, and hear this pathetic 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 public 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 That none should ancient customs vary, And thus to gain a cure unlook'd for. ' out a reason why the northern hive, as he calls ' it, does not send such prodigious swarms, and 6 overrun the world with Goths and Vandals, as it 'did formerly; but had that excellent author ob'served that there were no students in physic 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. 2i. 73 The patient save, but starve the doctor. This would be abominable. Physicians, in general, are a hale hearty race of men, as, indeed, must be readily conceived from their prudentmaxims in regard to the preservation of their own health-they take no physic. 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 Bonaparte, 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. |
