UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
V .  .
FOUNDED  1836
WASHINGTON, D. C,
OPO  16—67244-1 
 
 
-d
DISCOURSE
READ  BEFORE
The Rhode-Island  Medical

            Society,

               O N
     €fttir  %nni\itt$atp,
         September, A.D. 1813.
By  Juenru C.  fJurncr.
;f Vitamt artemque meant caste iSf sancte ducam**

                  Trans. Hippocrates.
       NEWPORT:

?'il\li:D AT THE MERCURY OFFICE.

          1813. 
 
DISCOURSE,   &c.
       Vitam artemque meam caste  iff sancte ducam.

                                          Trans. Hip.

Jj ROM  the real necessities, or the imaginary vrants of man,
is derived every Art that adorns, every Science that ennobles
humanity—As they relieve these necessities, or contribute
to  his pleasures,  is their importance to be estimated ;  but by
their effects in enlightening the mind, and purifying the heart,
must we appreciate  their dignity.  How noble, and how  ne-
cessary then, is that profession,  to which, many of the arts
owe their origin,  and most of the sciences are subservient:
—A profession, whose object  is Health, that  inestimable
blessing, which alone gives zest to the pleasures of life;
without which, wealth and power are even to their votaries
contemptible ;—science loses its charm, and life  itself  be-
comes a burthen.
   To the Science of Medicine, civilized man is indebted, as
well for the sources, as for the  power  of enjoyment;  for
without her fostering hand, the arts  and sciences would  dis-
appear;—the social compact would  be dissolved; instead of
happy villages,  flourishing  towns,  and opulent cities, this
earth would exhibit nothing, but the lonely wildness of pris-
tine desolation ;  and man  himself, in worse than  a savage
state, the wretched victim of disease or accident, would wan-
der through the world, a prey to hopeless despondency.
   The profession of Medicine teaches its members, to substi-
tute,  for the natural cruelty and selfishness of man's charac-
ter, a benevolence  and an humanity  truly God-like.  By
her requirements, their souls should be  occupied by  one
principle  alone ;—the love  of  doing good.—Their  lives,
the extension of a single action—the relief of the distressed.
   Whoever ventures to approach  the  Temple, where  the
Deity of medicine presides,  should tear from  his heart,  the
passions that degrade his nature.—He should rigidly observe
the rule engraven on its portal,  " Entrance here is only per-
mitted to pure souls."  Should he violate it, should he steal
a spark from the sacred fire of its altars, it would  prove to
the world,  the destructive blaze of a baleful meteor, not  the
mild effulgence of a benignant star.—Her  requirements  are
great, and high are the responsibilities of her votary.—To
4CL 2- ? ' 
                           4
                                i
him, the miserable victim of disease, looks for safety, with a
confidence almost too great for human frailty  to sustain ;—
to him, in the fulness of his zeal,  the seasons have ceased to
change ;—his frame is insensible to  the scorching blaze of a
summer sun ;—the freezing blast of winter,  cannot chill the
current of a heart, warmed by active benevolence.—The day
is occupied by his labours,  the night brings  not to him the
blessings of repose.—However great may  seem these re-
quirements*  however important these responsibilities ;  how-
ever extensive these privations, his  reward is  ascertain, as
it is ample—Fortune may, perhaps,  elude  his grasp; but
the esteem, the veneration, which always court  the accept-
tance of worth and talents,  afford him  a joy, than which, in
this world, there is but  one greater—This also is so surely
his, that it is beyond the reach of power, or accident;—it is
the blessed consciousness of doing good.—It is this  alone,
which enables him to sustain hunger and thirst,  and the pri-
vations of repose, and of domestic  felicity;—this alone sup-
ports him, through the heart-rending scenes his duty  com-
pels him to witness.
   Such is the dignity  and importance of the profession  we
have adopted. —That it is far from  having attained  the per-
fection of which it is susceptible, we fondly hope ; since pre-
mature death,  still defies the boasted power  of the Physi-
cian ; disease still baffles his utmost skill.—That it is imper-
fect, we cannot but believe ; since discoveries are daily mak-
ing, which open the way to new and to more important ones ;
—since diseases, which were formerly considered incurable,
now readily yield to a more skilful method of treatment; and
 some of them have b«en  entirely struck off from the cata-
logue of human ills.   That it is liable to many  and great a-
buses ;—that the profession has been sometimes brought into
disrepute, and the progress of its advancement always great-
 ly retarded by them, the History of Medicine will not permit
 us to deny.  Its  annals furnish too many instances of the in-
juries it has  sustained, from the pernicious theories that have
 from time to time  prevailed ;—too  many instances of the ig-
 norance and depravity  of its members ;—too many instances
 of the successful impostures of artful and designing men.—
 As the prevention of these evils, and thereby  the promotion
 of medical science, constitutes the  principal object of the In-
 stitution  we are assembled to commemorate ; it cannot  be
 deemed improper  to attempt an investigation of their causes ;
 nor  presumptuous to  point out their remedies___In order
 the more effectually to do this, it will be necessary, to  take a
 cursory view of the origin and advancement  of the profeision. 
  The origin of the practice of Physic, is necessarily involv-
ed in great obscurity.  It undoubtedly took its rise, from the
accidental discoveries, made by individuals, of the effects of
remedies on the human body : hence we may safely conclude,
that it was almost coeval  with the admission of diseases into
the world.   So early as the fabulous ages of Greece,  we find
it mentioned as an Art, and jEsculapius honored as its found-
er, with the worship of a God.—It is probable, that he was
the first, who, devoting his life to the pursuit of  medical
knowledge, carefully collected and arranged  the history of
those cases, which the gratitude, or philanthropy of individu-
als, have caused to be inscribed on the pillars of their temples.
l'rom the facts thus collected,  and the result of his own ob-
servations,  he drew certain conclusions of the nature of the
 emedies already known ;  and laid down rules  for regulating
the art, he had thus happily established.
  His  sons Podalirius and Machaon, inherited  the  secrets
of his art,  as well as the spirit of his genius.   They  accom-
panied the  Heroes of Greece,  to the siege of Troy ;  and re-
nowned for their bravery in the field, and venerated for  their
skill in the art they practised, their names have been immor-
talized by the pen of the Divine Homer—Their posterity,
officiating as priests in the temples of their great progenitor,
affected to conceal, under the mysteries of religion, those se-
crets,  which inconsiderable as  they were, had thus  already
become objects  of fraud and avarice.   But the Philoso-
phers of Greece, even at that time, famous for their research-
es, could not pass unregarded the changes,  to which  the hu-
man body is liable ; nor in their enquiries into the nature of
things, forbear attempting the investigation of their causes.
At this time, therefore, the art of healing,  was in the hands
of three distinct classes of men.  The Asclapiadqe, who in
their practice,  were governed by rules derived from  experi-
ence alone, and were in the strictest sense of the word, Em-
pirics ;—the Philosophers, who affected to explain all the
phenomena of disease, solely  by theory ;— the other class,
was composed of those men,  who boasted the possession of
secret remedies ; but who in reality, ignorant of every thing,
but human folly,  presumptuously practised  the greatest im-
positions with success,on the weak and the credulous—These
men, though ever detestable for their vices and impostures;
have in every age of the world been considerable for  their
numbers;  and are the more to be  feared,  because the laws
<lo not reach them,  and .they are insensible  to the mortifica-
tion  of disgrace.
   It v»s this sfcUe of-things,  that prepared  the  way for tl*e 
6
Great Hippocrates ;—a man, who if a life  unparalleled  in
the annals of the world, for its usefulness, and its virtues, can
give claim to greatness, is justly entitled to  the first rank  a-
mong the benefactors of men.—In him, was blended the hap-
piest assemblage  of  the  rarest virtues, and the brightest
talents.—Nations have contended for the honor of his birth ;
but the little Island of Cos, the true place of his nativity, has
derived more glory from his name alone, than Athens, from
all her Statesmen, and all her Heroes.
  A descendant of jEsculapius, he was early instructed in the
knowledge of the Empirics—he was familiar,  not only with
the hypothesis of the Philosophers; but with all the  learning
of the time ; and disdained not to profit of the information,
even of the  impostors, who crowded  the cities of Greece.—
" His genius soon led him to conceive one of those great
" and important ideas, which serve as eras  in the history of
"  science :  this was, to enlighten experience by reasoning ;
"  and rectify theory by practice.  Improved by this new me-
"  thod,  the art of physic  exalted to the dignity of a science ;
«  made a more certain progress in the path opened before  it ;
"  and Hippocrates, by the felicity of his genius, effected a  rc-
«  volution,  which  altered the face of medicine."—His works,
of which several  are still extant, astonish, after a  lapse of
more than Two Thousand years, by the accuracy of his de-
scriptions, and the knowledge  he displays  of diseases and
their remedies.  He was particularly distinguished by a taste
and genius for observation;  the faculty of uniting in his  re-
searches, an astonishing activity, with the most indefatigable
constancy;  and a discernment so acute, and a sagacity so
wonderful,  that his mind seemed to act, rather  by  instinct,
than reflection.—The qualities of his heart, were by no means
inferior to those of his head ; and he was idolized for his vir-
tues, long before  he was deified for  his wisdom.   Nothing
can be  more interesting, than the  candour with which he
speaks  of his  errors, and of his failures.——Careless of his
own fame,  his object in his writings, was  evidently the  ad-
vancement  of the  science, and  the establishment of a system
for posterity, built upon  such a theory, as the deductions of
reasoning,  and the result of experience, equally confirmed,
thus laying the foundation of a superstructure, which, having
truth for its basis,  has successfully been raised by his follow-
ers ; and although enlarged in  its dimensions, and beautified
in its finishing, still in its unity, retains the design of its gre^t
projector.
   For several centuries, the world enjoyed the blessings be-
queathed to it  by  Hippocrates,  in their greatest purity ; and 
i
emoluments and honors, were the reward of his disciples.—
These soon offered a temptation to nctdy and avaricious men*
too flattering to be resisted; they, aware of the impositions
to which the  profession of medicine is peculiarly liable, from
the ignorance and credulity of mankind ; too indolent to be-
stow the ipphcaiion necessary  for celebrity,  and too unprin-
cipled to practice the virtues enjoined upon its votaries, form-
ed the design of substituting  artifice for integrity, and myste-
ry  for science ; and thereby ol converting a noble profession,
into a disgraceful traffic.
   These causes, conspired to retard the progress, and some-
times to defeat the benevolent purposes of the art.—But it
was not from the gross impostures of some, or the petty vices
and disgraceful i  norance of others, that  the profession  sus-
tained its greatest injuries—the obstacles they presented were
far from being insurmountable—in the hands of the real dis-
ciples of Hippocrates,  its progress though necessarily slow,
was still certain.   But it was about to receive a check ;—the
glory of that great man was about to be obscured, by the en-
vious clouds of error, controlled and directed by the irresisti-
ble hand of Genius.
   Near six hundred years  after Hippocrates, Galen appeared
in the school of Alexandria.—In the Ptolemsean library,  he
became versed in all the knowledge of the anciehts;  but un-
fortunately for medicine, there also he imbibed the  doctiiae
of the Peripatetics, and in  attempting to confound the obser-
vations of  the " divine  old man," with their  absurdities,  hia
acute and fertile genius—his vivid and frantic imagination—
his pure and elegant style, enabled him  to succeed  too well.
—He extended to medicine a fostering hand—new splendour
seemed to adorn her course—her eye kindled with a brighter
 flame—her  cheek mantled  with a fresher tide ;  but alas !
 contagion  followed his  embrace—that flame, was the consum-
ing fire—that  flash,  the evidence  of disease—His  writings,
 like that stream, which flows from a tainted source, convey no
 salutary draught to the thirsting soul.— They have been pro-
 ductive of more injury to the world, than the skilful practice
 of a long life could ever repair.
   The doctrine of the  Peripatetics—the evil genius of medi-
 cine—seemed destined to hold pcrpetdal sway  over the  sci-
 ence it had subdued.—Not only the Latin, but the Arabian
 school also, «yas poisoned by it,  and for near thirteen centu-
 ries, burthened by useless and. fallacious hypothesis,  it scarce-
 ly experienced any advancement, in consequence of the pride
 of opinion of a single individual.  At length, however, in the
 fifteenth century,  the works of Hippocrates revived in Eu- 
8
rope with the revival of Literature; and  in consequence  o
the discoveries of the  immortal Harvey,  which established
their truth, they obtained that consideration, they so justly de-
serve.   It would be  vain  and fruitless,  to  enumerate the
names of those, who, since that period, have adorned the pro-
fession ;  they have been imitators, with different success,  of
one of the great examples already before us.
   Although from the date of their discoveries to the present
time, Medicine has experienced an advancement, unequalled
in its history—has numbered  many great and illustrious men
among her sons ; although institutions, calculated to promote
her best interests, have, in many pails of the world, been es-
tablished ; still the abuses,  to  which it is  liable, continue  to
exist.   The venders of secret remedies still  continue  their
impostures ; and are as considerable for their numbers,  as
contemptible for their pretensions.  Still  there are men, suffi-
ciently presumptuous and avaricious, to  attempt  to use the
instruments of power, without the knowledge requisite  for
their direction.—Men, who, meriting the indignation and ab-
horrence of all the good, are guilty of the meanest vices, and
the most contemptible practices, to secure  that popularity,
which  they so little  deserve.  Still wild and extravagant
theories, though lees dangerous than formerly, continue to
 deceive and perplex the student in Medicine.
   For the  remedy to the first of these abuses, we must look,
though perhaps in vain, to our own Legislature ; for experi-
ence teaches us, that mankind are ever more prone to  invite,
than to detect imposition.   For the two last, by far the most
 considerable, the remedy  is simple, and  easily attainable  ;. it
 did not escape the wisdom of those, who  framed the institu-
 tions of this  Society ; it is to  be found  in the difficulty of
procuring admission to the practice of Medicine.  But since
 this difficulty, in similar institutions, has frequently been evad-
 ed, by men every way unqualified for the profession,  let those
 to whom is entrusted the momentous charge  of examining
 candidates, most rigidly perform its duties.  But more than
 this, let those who take upon themselves the instruction  of
 pupils in medicine, exercise the utmost caution in  selecting
 the youth, who is to receive so  sacred  a deposit :  let  them
 observe the rules  for forming the Physician, laid down by the
Father of our Profession himself.—" Life is so short, and  the
" art we practice so long, that the study of it should be begun
» in earliest youth.  Have you a pupil you would educate for
« the practice of medicine, examine leisurely  whether  his
" genius be adapted to the art.  Has he received from  nature
" an exquisite discernment, a sound judgment,  a  character 
9
" in which mildness and firmness are combined,  the  love  of
« labour,  and an inclination to what is amiable  and praise-
« worthy,  you will entertain well-founded hopes.  Does he
rt suffer with the sufferings of otheis ; does he naturally feel
" the tenderest sommisseration for the woes  incident to his
» fellow mortals ; you will reasonably infer that  he will be
" passionately devoted to an art that will instruct him in what
" manner to afford them  relief.  It is not enough that you
" initiate  him into  the most profound secrets  of nature and
» art ;  he must swear to preserve in his  manners  and prac-
" tice an incorruptible purity,  and strictly keep  his oath.—
" Without the virtues requisite to his profession, he can nev-
" er discharge its duties—What are these virtues ? I scarce-
<l ly except any one, since his functions are so honorable, that
" they require  almost all the noblest qualities  of  the  mind
«* and heart."—Let these rules be observed, let him be taught
duly  to estimate the gifts of fortune, let him study  rather  to
deserve the approbation  of his own heart,  than  to  court the
praise of others.—In short, let the Practitioners  of  Physic  be
in  reality, what they would wish to appear ;  then shall the
objects of this institution be fully  accomplished ;  then  shall
the Profession of Medicine  prove  to  the world its choicest
blessing,  and its brightest ornament. 
 
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