The annual discourse before the Philadelphia County Medical Society : delivered February 10, 1852 / by the President, Samuel Jackson.

  • Jackson, Samuel, 1787-1872.
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The annual discourse before the Philadelphia County Medical Society : delivered February 10, 1852 / by the President, Samuel Jackson. 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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    months afterward, I had occasion to look into the upper shelf of her chamber closet, when I had the mortification to see all my powders with the strings uncut. Even among many who are desirous of telling the truth, there is an irresistible propensity to exaggeration almost as blamable and mischievous as falsehood itself. They magnify, or diminish, or conceal their diseases and symptoms, to the great injury of themselves and the practice of medicine. Intolerance in religion is often one of the hardest difficulties that a young man has to encounter, and particularly if he has moved to a small town. Each sect would gladly have the village doctor for their fellow worshipper and coadjutor in their cause, hence disappointments and animosities arise. Each desires to have the advantage of his countenance and general influence. Thus, when President Monroe, making a tour through the States, arrived on a Saturday in a respectable city, he was assailed by deputations from various churches to invite him to their worship on the following day. In a small town, there is always to be found a hot-bed of polemic theology. If the doctor be a Catholic, he believes too much; if he be a Unitarian, he believes too little ; if he be a Quaker, he is a Pagan unbaptized. Well might M. De Tocqueville say, that we have more religious persecution in America than is to be found in any nation of Europe. Let the poor village doctor, then, prepare his soul for temptation, for he will not be permitted to love his own church in peace, though Jesus Christ had one disciple whom he particularly loved. To fall under the influence of a patron, is probably one of the greatest evils that can happen to a young plrysician, or to an old one who has moved into a new situation. The mischief he does you, is generally in proportion to his ardor in serving you ; if this be intense, he is sure to make you enemies, and finally to become one himself. A female patron is the more dangerous, inasmuch as her sex are more ardent in all their undertakings, and finally more bitter in all their resentments. Be not tempted then by the allurements of patronage. So sensible Vas Dr. Johnson on this point, that he considered it as one of the greatest evils that could befall a literary man— Then mark what ills the scholar's life assail, Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.