Dr. James H. Miller's "Thompsonalgia" report to the trustees of the Baltimore County Alms House, with comments : preceded by a few introductory remarks relating to the same / by the Committee of Correspondence of the Thomsonian Friendly Botanic Society of Maryland.

  • Miller, J. H. (James Henry), 1788-1853.
Date:
[1836?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. James H. Miller's "Thompsonalgia" report to the trustees of the Baltimore County Alms House, with comments : preceded by a few introductory remarks relating to the same / by the Committee of Correspondence of the Thomsonian Friendly Botanic Society of Maryland. 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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    and practice of medicine,—that of referring every act of the animal economy to some general and exclusive principle. They insist that heat is life, and that the more heat the more life *, and in their zeal to generate heat, they oftentimes sublimate life into immortality. [On the subject of steam we will only remark, in addition to what has already been said, that the Russians undergo the operation of steaming at a very high temperature, and immediately plunge into or roll in the snow with impunity. They are a hardy and long-lived people, almost entirely free from rheumatic af- fections. The Doctor belongs to an antiquated school of medicine, judging from his assertion that fever constitutes nine-tenths of our maladies. Such may be the case at the Alms House; but if fever is a disease, it is one, frequent- ly manufactured by the quackeries of the doctors, by giving, in slight inconve- niences, or trifling colds, medicines eminently calculated to derange the whole system, and then call in the healing power of nature to resist their quackeries. We view fever as a friend not as a foe—we cherish, aid and support him, in- stead of endeavouring to kill him with refrigerants. Such was the opinion of Cullen, Hunter, Johnson, Gregory, Terry, Ripley, and many of the most enlight- ened medical men of the age. The Thompsonian. delusion is certainly a very agreeable and desirable one, if they judge from the result of their family prac- tice as noted in a preceding page. We shall not contend with him about the ex- pression heat is iife—but simply remark that where there is no heat life must be extinct. Will Dr. Miller oblige us by a single example wherein Thomsonians, in their zeal to generate heat, oftentimes sublimate life into immortality. One case, Doctor, if you please; your reputation as a man of truth, demands a com- pliance. It wont do to say it was a mere figure of speech—for that might be ap- plied with great force and truth to your whole report. 12. The practice of medicine at best, must always be imperfect, because it must be an exer- cise of human mind and skill, it must necessarily be in just accordance with the judgment and tact of the practitioner; and as in every other human art, he will practice best who has the most knowledge, familiarized by frequent and continued application. Hence then, every phi- lanthropist will encourage assiduity in the acquisition of all the literature and science which can enrich the mind, clear the judgment, and facilitate the practical talents of those members of society, who in the exuberance of human sensibility and virtue, forego the pleasurable and pro- fitable paths of life, and volunteer to seclude themselves in the dark chambers of affliction, for no other reward than the pleasure arising from the consciousness of alleviating the misery and woes of suffering fellow beings; whilst they must frown indignantly upon any attempt to destroy the science that already extsts, arrest all further inquiry and improvement, and throw the most refined and benevolent profession into the hands of illiterate unscientific men, who are so ignorant as not to know their own incompetency, or who are so reckless as to jeopardize hu- man life for sake of a compensation, no greater than they could obtain for cobbling old shoes. [We shall at some future period notice the imperfect practice of medicine— the skill with which poisons are given, as though arsenic were more poison- ous, and apter to kill, if given by a fool than by a diplomatised physician—and the great sacrifices the faculty make in foregoing the pleasurable and profitable paths cf life—the assumption that Paracelsian chemical quackery is a science, and the frowns Dr. Miller bespeaks for those who dare question its absolute un- certainty, besides sundry other matters, not forgetting, that although physicians forego the pleasurable paths of life, Dr. Miller's severe duties among the in- mates of '■''humanity'>s common, has been quite a pleasurable recreation. [See paragraph 15.] 13. Excuse me for descending to notice this popular infatuation ; that it will be short lived as its compeers there is no doubt; but it is to be feared that the habits it will form will long out- live even its memory. [ Excuse me, says Dr. Miller, for noticing this popular infatuation. This is one of the most vain and arrogant efforts of mock dignity, perhaps ever perpetra- ted in the annals of medicine. Here, we find Dr. Miller as the pauper physician in the Alms House; and as such affects having made a most important dis- covery, which had eluded the vigilance and keen researches of the whole medical faculty of the United States; notwithstanding, they had unceasingly had their noses in the wind, like blood-hounds on the scent for game, to find something by