DOCTORS AND DOCTORING.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1168, 5 August 1885, Page 4

DOCTORS AND DOCTORING.

Do we believe in doctors? Whether we do or not we generally send for them when we are ill. Still, if I were asked my opinion, I should say the profession is largely overcrowded. Physic is hugely overdone. Half the complaints people (especially idle people) suffer from are imaginary. Ido not deny that men and women get ill, and occasionally die, but I hold that in a vast number of cases a doctor is unnecessary at first, and quite helpless at last — that is, as far as physic is concerned; and I have pretty good authority for what I say.

Sir William Jenner has the courage to declare that "science of medicine is a barbarous jargon — every dose of medicine is a blind experiment !" When the great Majendie assumed the Professor's chair of Medicine at the Collage of France, he thus addressed the astonished students : — " Gentlemen, medicine is a humbug. Who knows anything about medicine ? I tell you frankly, I don't. Nature does a good deal ; doctors do vpry little — when they don't do harm." Majendio went on to tell the following pungent little professional tale out of school : — " When I was head physician at the Hotel Dieu, I divided the patients into three sections. To one I gave the regulation dispensary medicine in the regulation way ; to another I gave bread, milk, and colored water ; and to the third section I gave nothing at all. Well, gentlomen, every one in the third section got well. Nature invariably came to the rescue." Now, of course we must allow something for the obtrusive ardour of professional confession — which is always apt to overlap the mark and give the opponent a few more points than he asks for, really for the sake of placing him at a disadvantage. Still there is truth in the candid jest, if jest it be ; and the truth is this— the doctor is often superfluous, sometimes mischievous, and occasionally fatal. Physicing, as Sir William Jenner (quoted by Dr Ridge) admits, is largely a speculative operation. The ingenious "dosis," as Arterans Ward would say, has theories about what is the matter with you ; the physic to correct his theory. This he calls " changing the treatment." Wrong again ! Try back ; alter diet. Wrong again ! Patient gets worse. Perhaps it is change of air, not change of food, he wants— bright idea ! send him out of town. Off he goes into the country; forgets to take his physic ; feels better ; gets well ; doctor looks bland, nods his. head and says— "Told you so ; change of air — that's what you wanted." What he really wanted was to bo left alone.—" Truth."

A " sound " business.— Piano tuning.