THE Louisville Medical News “NEC TENUI PENNA.” Saturday, May 5, 1883. (OvunuuvL lution that any object will be sufficient to determine their crystallization. “We have all a vast amount of disposable emotion: we all long to admire and be admired; we are grateful for compliments; we want our sen- timents to be confirmed by sympathy, and therefore, when an accident has drawn the sluices, a whole torrent of emotions rushes into the channel provided for it.” Angels and ministers of grace, however, will defend me from coquetting with this coterie of med- ical gentlemen, who vary in age from the gray-haired veteran, upon whom Time, the thief, is stealing (but let us hope that age will not wither nor custom stale his infinite variety), to the young man who is radiant, daftly enthusiastic, and who is, as Burns says, “Blithe, fou, and unco happy.” To trifle would be unbecoming, undignified, and have neither pleasure nor sense in it. These things being true, I will not shiver longer on the brink, but present to you at once, and as he is, the typical country doctor. To define him; The country doctor is gen- erally understood to be a personage who has a rational appetite, which moves him to do good, or to do bad—to do good the pub- lic commonly expects. It is also expected that he will seek no revenge, or be mindful of wrong; that he will bring home his broth- er’s ox if he go astray, as it is commanded; that he will give to him that asketh, and not turn from him that borroweth; that he will bless them that curse him; love his enemy; make himself equal to them of the lower sort; rejoice with them that rejoice, weep with them that weep; speak truth to his neighbor, be courteous and tender hearted, be hospit- able and, withal, dispense the necessities to the saints. Pegasus must show the stuff that is in him by pulling a cart as well as in any other way. If to fulfill these expectations be not in him naturally, it must be acquired, that he may be on terms of good will with the pop- THE OOUHTEY DOOTOE. An Address delivered before the Centra! Kentucky Medical Association. BY STEELE BAILEY, M.D. Gentlemen : I will not attempt this morn- ing an elaborate address, because I do not want to infringe upon good nature by dis- turbing its equilibrium, or give “airy noth- ings a local habitation and a name.” I bear in mind fully Chomel’s first law in thera- peutics, which is, to do no harm; the second rule is, to do good. If I were trained in the accomplishment of writing, it would be a pleasure indefinable to give you a general survey of the position occupied by medi- cine as a branch of human knowledge at the present time in relation to other branches of knowledge; but I am not. Besides, it has been wisely said that one chief art in a president’s address is to advance no serious opinions and to provoke no criticisms. I shall, at a venture, talk about him for whom I entertain very kind feelings; he is a part of the body politic, cosmopolitan are his hab- its, a necessity in every enlightened com- munity, and will so continue until the medi- cal mills cease their grinding; which happy event is to occur when chaos shall come again. I refer to “ The Country Doctor. ” In considering, seriatim, this specimen of the genus homo, shall I be serious or shall I handle him with a tender kid-glove care, al- lowing you to remark, if I am particularly dull, that there is a design under it. Young doctors, and some middle-aged unmarried fellows too, for that matter, understand there are circumstances under which it would be a breach of good manners not to indulge in a little flirtation. A human being has such a variety of strong feelings in a state of so- President. Vol. XV.—No. 18. 274 LOUISVILLE MEDICAL NEWS. ulace, without reckoning once that he has an existence to support. The “fresh” coun- try doctor is regarded as one freighted with philanthropy; he is expected to work from early morn till dewy eve, dispense charity in every'quarter—and to charge would be mer- cenary and base; only fiddlers playfor reward. At the tip of his career, if he is impecunious —and ninety in a hundred are in this calam- itous condition, believing the illusion that medicine is a profitable investment—and he casts his lines among a strange people, he will oftener than not meet men who seem impres- sively clever, who will proffer him that of which they have most to dispose, not silver and gold by any means, but good advice. They always begin: Be charitable to the poor, never refuse a call to white or black for the sake of experience; they suggest with whom he must curry favor; he must be moral, industrious, agreeable, social, at- tend church, and from this consecrated house “ play the phantom,” if it needs be, to win, and in this way work from the hovel in the knobs to the man who has cat- tle on a half dozen hills. Indiscriminate advice to a sensitive man is, like indiscrim- inate alms-giving, disgusting; but our sub- ject is inexperienced, timid, and Hope, the an- chor of the soul, bids him do nothing rashly. He plods along quietly yet actively, and alive to the exigencies of life, and very thankful for small favors. He lives stingily, the fees come in slowly, and his landlord, who sup- plied the inner man for several months may- be, becomes importunate. Then it will be that Esculapius will rise in the morning but little refreshed by the chief nourisher in life’s feast; matters look gloomy, but he thinks, philo- sophically, “Into each life some rain must fall, some days be dark and dreary;” the creditor is appeased the toiler is ready to fight his battles, he believes in himself and that a good day is coming. Regardless of minor interruptions, he is stimulated by an ardent desire to forward the improvement of his profession; he devotes to study every hour he can spare from his daily vocations or snatch from the time allotted others to sleep, and to advance this end he is as ready as was John Hunter to sacrifice the claims of worldly prudence and self-interest. . . . It must be agreed that, of all men, the country doctor does the most wearing work, his mode of life is at high pressure. He is exposed to the inclemency of every weather, to the cold blasts and rain of winter, to the shimmering heat and dust of summer; in sunshine and in shadow he must go. The holy hour of midnight often catches him on the road, going forth as the good Samaritan, and, forgetful of self, he hastens that he may relieve some poor soul of an inward grief or peristaltic woe. “The portals of the conta- gious chamber which none dare enter are passed by him without a moment’s hesita- tion; and fortunate is he who goes through life without disease directly incurred in his line of duty.” Yet, as he passes along, he is slowly gathering about him that bitter lore of life, experience, which shows him the futil- ity of tricks of semi-professional tactics; which tells him how careful he must be in his ministrations to the sick; how chary, as wise as a serpent and as guileless as a dove. His developed condition, the sense of the innate, tells him to appreciate the endear- ing elegance of female friendship, to exer- cise that tact which beats genius, to agree in many things with the old ladies, and be cheek by jowl with that influential but an- cient miss, whose poor sad heart may yet be dreaming. Under certain circumstances, and with some pretty good people, he must not be bold enough to assert that a roasted mouse is not a sovereign cure for gun-shot wounds, that cobwebs boiled with the chamomile are silly things for an indigestion, and that no- body had ever been cured of jaundice by swallowing the yelk of an egg with a flea in it, for fear that he may be accused of here- sies which would subject him to bitter as- saults. On occasions he must have nothing original about him, “except original sin.” What a character he is! how sweet, how ac- commodating, how generous!!! After obeying for a long time the behests of worldly imprudence, by patience, econo- my, work, flexible hope and good humor, with perhaps a semi-occasional churlish apos- trophe after the famous Sam Johnson, that medicine is a melancholy attendance on mis- ery, a mean submission to peevishness, and a continual interruption to pleasure, Time, the great admonisher, whispers that he is not being requited according to his deserts. Others who commenced life after himself, in other pursuits, are climbing the ladder to competency; can travel, own houses and lands, and dress in purple and fine linen daily. He may not know that crow’s feet are multiplying, or his hair frosting, unless his glass is consulted or the fact communi- cated by some kind friend. His feelings yet are tonic, vigorous, need no constructives; but, in spite of this, the record of the family Bible tells him he is nearing forty, and he LOUISVILLE MEDICAL NEWS. 275 knows there is but little of the sine qua ?ion laid up for a rainy day. Amid all discour- agements and disappointments, he has per- formed his whole duty. He has purchased medicines which he has given freely to prince and peasant; he has sacrificed men- tal labor and time; he has brought many sick back to health; he has preached the gospel of preventive medicine, the gospel of fat- ness, of temperance and repose; he has done, in a word, every thing which would cause him to be called a good country doctor. By his pen he has contributed his mite to the progress of his profession, he has watched jealously its interests, he has charged fees ac- £o?'ding to the scale of his worthy neighbor, knowing that downward pecuniary compe- tition in ordinary course of private practice is every where reprobated and condemned. He has tried to be the gentleman, and his conduct taught him that in any community, in this or in any other civilized country, the practitioner of medicine who dares watch at the door of a professional neighbor, and tempts his patients by an offer to practice at lower fees, is at once stricken from the roll of honor and consigned to merited ig- nominy and disgrace. Ambitious of attaining a standard of ex- cellence and success in his profession, every instrument of precision has been employed. The clinical thermometer, the microscope, the rhinoscope, the ophthalmoscope, in fact all the “scopes” have contributed to the wel- fare of the sick placed in his hands; and yet there is something lacking. Again, as the pan- orama of life is unvailed before him, he sees beauty and joy in nature, he feels that this world is a good one to live in; the people are cheerful, sunny-natured, polite, urbane, com- paratively prosperous and contented. He bimself has had many pleasures, some frolic, and some fun. His social and professional life has manifested itself in many charming ways; his intercourse with congenial per- sons, the growth and cultivation of their friendship, have been a balsam and a nectar. Another, and not the least of his phys- ical delights, he has ridden the same horse