Appeal to husbands and wives in favor of female physicians / by Rev. William Hosmer.

  • William Hosmer
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Appeal to husbands and wives in favor of female physicians / by Rev. William Hosmer. 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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    There are a great many considerations which render the study of medicine by every individual, and by females particularly, essential to the happiness of society. Some of these we shall name: — 1. Medicine is just as much within the reach of people generally as any other science whatever. There is not a science taught in our common schools that requires less intellectual power. We do not mean by this that medicine is inferior to other sciences, but simply that it is not superior to them — on the same level. Hence it is quite as available as the common acquisitions of knowledge. 2. An almost total ignorance on this subject having long pervaded the public mind, physicians have had too much power over the lives and morals of community. People have been helpless in consequence of their ignorance, and in this helplessness they have suffered greatly by the encroachments of the medical profession. 3. To the physician, medicine is only a means of livelihood ; he has no interest in the profession beyond its pecuniary advantages. But the community have a vastly higher concern in the results of medical practice. To the physician, the practice of his art is a fee; to the patient, it is life or death. This difference is of itself quite sufficient to show how greatly each person is interested in the science of med- icine, and how comparatively trifling are mere professional interests. And yet physicians have not unfrequently discouraged the study of medicine by the populace ; they have wrung many changes on the dangers of quackery, and of tampering with medicine. The true reason of such caution is, the craft is in danger; if medical knowledge were to become common, the profits of practitioners would cease, and certain pernicious, immoral abuses would be corrected. The fear of exposure has led to the cry of danger ; a wish to perpetuate the help- lessness of ignorance, in order to secure an easier prey, has mainly, if not wholly, induced the desire for darkness.
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