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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    come to pass? Has it been our fault or theirs? Alas, gentle- men, we must take half the blame to ourselves! Faults lie on either side of the Trojan walls. Iliacos intra muros peccatur et extra. But they have an audacity in demanding and an ingra- titude in receiving, which may sometimes lead us into irresist- ible temptation. In the Episcopal Recorder, a very popular periodical, edited by a clergyman, physicians have been threat- ened with the loss of public favor if they dare to charge a clergyman whether rich or poor. In the number for January 8, 1848, a clergyman, after much bravado concerning the exemp- tion of his order, and much threatening if we dare to charge them, uses these remarkable and even portentous words: The physician who charges any minister whose circumstances are good or bad, is blind to the position he holds in the estimation of the worthy of his church and communion. This is not spoken at random, for often we hear the contemptuous epithet applied to the medical man who has so far forgotten himself and his noble science as to ask pay for the advice he should have gladly and freely given. And in the number for March 4, 1848, he says further: I believe the time is near when the medical man will scorn to tax him whom God has commissioned to aid in removing the diseases of our spiritual nature. He will view it as a privi- lege to administer to his necessities, who has been separated to minister to him in holy things. Physicians are greatly to blame for this very troublesome state of their affairs. They have yielded to the temptation of seeking favor from the clergy, and dearly have they paid for what little they have received. Dr. Percival, more than fifty years ago, laid it down as a rule, that such of the clergy as are qualified, either from their stipends or fortunes, to make a reasonable remu- neration, are not more privileged than any other order of pa- tients. But he says, that those who experience the res angusta domi, should be visited gratuitously. He alludes to the poor clergy of England, many of whom lived, as Goldsmith says, passing rich on £40 a year.'' Dr. Rush says, the pious clergyman who lives on a scanty salary, and the hired servants in families that we regularly attend, must never know the amount of their obligations to us. Rush