An inaugural address delivered before the Medical Society of the State of New York : at the Capitol in the city of Albany, on the 8th day of February, 1826 / by James R. Manley.

  • Manley, James R., 1781-1851.
Date:
1826
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inaugural address delivered before the Medical Society of the State of New York : at the Capitol in the city of Albany, on the 8th day of February, 1826 / by James R. Manley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    where shall the half-educated or the imprudent physician be found ? When the files of recorded fact afford no prece- dent :—when, if they did, the disastrous issues which await a moment of indecision forbid a reference : when the im- pending gloom of the grave affrights from their wonted ex- ercise the kindliest affections of the heart, and death, clothed with all the terrors which its realities possess and its fears can borrow, oppresses with heartless despair both the patient and his attendants:—then it is, that the intelligent physician stands, as it were, between the living and the dead, the honoured in- strument of blessing, qualified alike to dispel the distracting doubts of friends, and to calm the anxieties of the suffering victim of disease ; or, in failure of success, to justify himself before God, his conscience, and the sorrowing family : while the ignorant practitioner, affecting, for the first time, to have been made sensible of his deficiencies, contemplates in stupid amazement, the event which he can neither avert or control, and is too happy if peradventure he can solace himself with the reflection, that the distress which he witnesses he had no agency in creating. But there is one other view in which the subject of educa- tion presents, which is peculiarly interesting. Other things being equal, those who are best educated are those who pos- sess the best practical moral: the man of letters, for iustance, is rarely found to indulge that mercenary disposition which lies at the foundation of almost all the petty vices which mar the pleasures and interrupt the harmony of social life. The first lesson of avarice is always taught by poverty, or the fear of it, and the second by pride ; but its pupils are those who will learn nothing else so readily. The scholar, elevated above the reach of the one by his capacity to render himself useful, and building his hopes of distinction upon the powers of his'mind rather than the influence of his wealth, is free to exercise the kindly sympathies of his nature without danger of rebuke from selfishness, although the price he pays for the satisfaction may ill suit his convenience ; if peradventure he is in straitened circumstances, his poverty is without mean- ness ; if otherwise, his affluence is without ostentation. It i<