“Do you hear the children crying, O my brothers,.
Ere their sorrow comes with years?.
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, ].
And that cannot stop their tears.”.
Do you question why they have such sad and sunken faces.
Why they weep so bitterly?.
“Tis because the Old-School doctor tends their cases.
And they never tasted Homoeopathy”.
MBS. BROWNING’S part of this poem prompts my almost involuntary continuation for her words so strongly suggest a dearth of Homoeopathy, or ignorance of its efficacy; indeed our School had not at that time attained the reputation in treating the diseases incident to childhood, which is now enjoys. Children were, as Mrs. Browning expressed, “Martyrs by the pang without the palm”.
There is no department in medicine more significant, mine commanding more honest work and study, none where progress is more constant, and where the beneficence of our School is more appreciated by the world, than the department over which you have asked me to preside to-day.
I will not review in detail the progress in literature and scientific research; in the discovery, development, and proving of drugs, and mechanical appliances with which the past year has been pregnant. This advance has been referred to from every bureau since last Monday morning, and at this hour, Saturday afternoon, I feel like the ninth orator at a temperance mass meeting. Everything has been said and well said, and my repetition would only emphasize the old truth that “great minds run in the same canal.”
I cannot, however, forbear mentioning the most notable discoveries in our Materia Medica, which are now being made by the Old-School and are incorporated into their literature as comfortably as the Santwich Islands annexed themselves to our United States. It is but a few years since it was announced in one of their heading journals, that some profound, but perfectly regular thinker had demonstrated that minute doses of Ipecac would arrest vomiting, and that Pulsatilla would correct menstrual irregularities, and later that Gelsemium was relative to hysteria, and many other like discoveries of our proven remedies.
Grasping at these abstract facts, and prescribing the mother tincture in heroic doses, has resulted in much mischief in their hands. Perhaps a few years hence some ambitious Yankee may start out and discover America, and scoff at Columbus because he did not espy Chicago in fact, as seen at the World’s Fair.
The successful persistent advance, which has been our watchword ever since the master expounded our law of cure, is the one cause of jealously to our medical opponents. If we would stand still in the very footprints where Hahnemann left us, and not attempt to further the great truth he discovered and outlined for us, there would be little to disturb their envy, and the field of advance would be left to their own ambition. Did that grand and brave man, with prophetic mind, suppose that we, as physicians, would stand by a case of obstipation, caused by roast clams and old cheese perhaps, and wait for Sulphur or Nux vomica to act; or did he trust that with judgment untrammeled we would use mechanical auxiliaries?
Not Calomel or live frogs perhaps, but whatever the case in hand calls for. Would he have us, in the case of the passage of biliary calculi, with for China to act, or assist nature by the use of Glycerine or Olive oil internally and externally, and possibly to further relax the tubes by anaesthetics? Would be have us satisfied with the provings of his brief life, or develop and enlarge our Materia Medica by annual and faithful work? We want no “nicked in the slot.” physicians, but personal workers every one.
Do our opponents adhere to the superstitions in vague in the days of Hippocrates and Galen, and keep themselves fenced in by the ignorance and delusions of that age? Why no. The lancet and mostrums of the eighteenth century are unknown to the practitioners of to-day, and their pocket cases are filled with our remedies which we have been years in proving. Our modes and medicines are adopted by the advanced minds of the opposing school; and that is right; let them learn of if so be the world is benefited thereby.
To this I must add that some of our own learned physicians “advance backward,” and use the chemical combinations made to simulate our remedies, and which would deceive the very elect by the versi-colored tablets, which are of themselves works of art. “It is easier and quicker,” say they, and if such national calamity ever occurs, as has been predicted by our opponents for half a century, as that Homoeopathy dies, it will be on account of the unfaithful haste of its busy advocates.
Every work done with fidelity needs time and care, and we should aim, when we take a comfortable fee for a visit, that we give in return and equal amount of comfort. With sick children, a prescription of medicine does not end our duty, especially when the mothers are themselves only grown children. We must not ignore the details of the clothing, the food-tray, the sleeping apartment, the play- ground, and even the play-mates. it all takes time and vitality, and we all take pay for just those commodities. We can, with good results, also prescribe for the young mothers that they read Dr. Winterburn’s magazine, Childhood (I do not expect to get a cent for this advertisement!).
Our beloved Dr. Lilienthal once said in a lecture, “When called to see a sick child on general principles, it is always safe no order a bath, because many times it is indicated and many times it is such a treat, as the child never had one before.” That seems exaggeration, but early in my practice I was called to a very comfortable home to see a child 8 months old given up to die of croup by an Old-School doctor; and when I ordered a hot bath the mother, grandmother, and nurse all informed me in a breath that the babe was “not a year old,” and further explained that they had always understood that water must never touch the body of a child under twelve months. I superintended a thorough bath, while the family quaked with fear, but that baby is now alive, and I have taught her to tell this story.
Upon one occasion I was called where two children had malignant diphtheria, the third one having died. The attending physician was himself taken suddenly sick and I did not blame him for so doing), when I was called to take charge of his cases. The family was one of wealth, and their apartments were large and well appointed; still, I could not quiet an odor that rose above all other smells, nor could I quite determine its origin. The closet door was “on a crack” and I peered in. On the floor lay the wearing apparel taken three days previous from the dead child, and which the distracted mother “could not make up her mind to have touched.” Now, I ask, of what avail would medication have been so near communication with this seething heap of germ culture? It all took time, and there was danger of its taking our vitality also.
Again, I believe we are too apt to trust too largely to nurses. I confess a good nurse helps out a poor doctor wonderfully. I have seen it often in my own practice. But nurses are not popes, and they may be human. They expect us to direct them, and if we fail to do so the blame is ours. In prescribing for children, we should always bear in mind any family taint or predisposition to constitutional diseases, and point at the hereditary or congenital diseases by way of the acute malady. Thus we often check serious ills and get no credit for it save on own conscience books, which our accountants never balance.
In the treatment of children’s diseases, Homoeopathy has placed its patrons under lasting obligations by its ability to cope successfully with diseases formerly considered fatal, and an imperishable monument is reared in the hearts of those who witness to the honesty, learning, and industry of the followers of Hahnemann, I say most humbly, “Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory” over disease.
Let us not forget to be humanitarians as well as scientists in our care of the little ones, and never resort to surgery croup or pleuritic effusions until we have conscientiously asked and answered the question: would we risk this little life if it were our won child? It is ours to sacrifice for our clientele, but to sacrifice their lives on the altar of experiment.
The future is ours, and so is the continued labor which alone will keep us moving onward. Intelligence, learning, moral integrity, and personal merit will be recognized.
So tell the children, O my brothers.
To sing like title thrushes in their play,.
For this same school that blesses many others,.
Will bless them another day.
