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THE PHYSICIAN;
A POEM ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE MEDICAL CHARACTER.
Struck to deep tones of scorn the lyre,
While every chord expressed her rage,
To check that mania of the age,
Which gives a dark insidious band
To deal destruction round the land;
The licens'd murderers, who kill
With magic drug or mystic pill;
With compounds villanous and base,
E'en till they thin the human race!
She aim'd at that fell tribe her song,
Who make the credulous their prey,
Lead fashion, sense, and worth, astray;
Then wanton with a nation's health,
And by imposture rise to wealth:
Thrive on the mischiefs they create,
And multiply the shafts of Fate!
The Muse to genuine Science blind,
Or that the Bard's enraptur'd lay
Twines not for those the choicest bay,
To aid, like thee, the work of Heaven;
Man's ever-trembling frame to save
From those dire agents of the grave,
Who, as in contract foul with Death,
Stop, ere its time, the fleeting breath,
And each fine spring of life invade
With evils Nature never made.
Of sacred Truth's capacious round,
Wherever Genius wings his way,
And seems to lend a beam to day,
Tints every cloud with softer hue,
And gives the sphere a brighter blue;
Wherever Science may reside,
Whether in caves she seems to hide,
Or climbs the mountain topp'd with snow,
Where only Science learns to glow;
Where'er the lovely or the grand,
The mild or the terrific band,
Wherever nature can be trac'd,
In the gay field or thistled waste,
In manhood's strength, in woman's form,
In summer's calm, in winter's storm;
Where'er the goddess moves the heart,
Wherever follows useful Art;
On earth, on ocean, or in air,
With these the Muse her wreath shall share.
This vast and never-ending round,
Demand the tributary strain
Like those, to whom the healing Mind
And healing Virtues are assign'd?
Had lost the attributes of Heaven,
The awful front, the radiant eye,
That commun'd with its native sky;
The angel form, the cherub soul,
And all that mark'd a perfect whole;
When scarce a trace of seraph birth
Was left this Paragon of earth,
Whose own frail fragments but declare
Himself the greatest ruin there;
Depriv'd of his immortal bloom,
And destin'd to an early tomb!
Ah see! to mark his lasting shame,
What hosts of dire Diseases came!
Behold, his foul offence to strike,
His body and his mind alike,
The evil-genii seem'd to meet,
In fierce extremes of cold and heat,
And, muttering a witch's spell—
In thoughts more foul, in deeds more fell,
Or cas'd in ice, or scorch'd in flame,
Some seiz'd his spirit, some his frame;
Some pierc'd him with a fiery dart,
Some froze the life-blood at his heart;
And some dread ministers of fate
On all his “days of nature” wait.
A fall from Heaven to Earth declare!
In waking sport, or slumber smil'd:
E'en on the down that form'd its bed,
Some venom of the serpent spread.
The matron who the smiler bore,
With labour-tears was cover'd o'er;
Polluted Being, in each stage,
Like a wide pest, smote youth and age;
Canker'd the rose on beauty's cheek,
Or lurk'd within the dimple sleek,
And all man's relicks were at strife
To blast the blooms and fruits of life.
To drop some balm on human kind.
At length—and blessed be her name,
A Phœnix from the ashes came!
Wisdom was suffer'd to illume
The deep and universal gloom;
For, guided by the spark divine,
Fair Wisdom bow'd at Nature's shrine;
By Nature aided, Wisdom drew
E'en from those poisons as they grew,
From wounding thorn, and noxious weed,
From stubborn roots, and latent seed,
From various bodies harsh and rude,
From metals dark and minerals crude,
Some principle of life, to save
The lorn offender from the grave:
A chosen few, whom Wisdom bless'd,
Skilful and sage, reliev'd the rest.
To here and there a sapient mind.
The “skyey influence” of the air;
Long time the sick ill-shelter'd lay
If we look back to the origin of Medicine, we shall find its first foundations to be owing to mere chance, unforeseen events, and natural instinct. In the early ages the sick were placed in cross-ways, and in other public places, to receive the advice of those passengers who knew an efficacious remedy suitable to their disorder; and the better to preserve the memory of a remarkable cure, both the disease and the remedy were engraven on pillars, or written on the walls of temples, that patients in the like cases might have recourse to them for instruction and relief. Thus, what mere accident had discovered, was registered in those chronicles of health. This art arose from repeated trials and long experience, which gave an insight into the virtues of herbs and plants, metals and minerals.
Sad victims in the public way;
Their litters scatter'd o'er the grass,
Till some Samaritan might pass;
Some seer, whose knowledge might impart
The succour of the healing art.
But oft the rigours of the sky
Prov'd mortal ere relief was nigh.
Her sage pursuit unwearied bore;
Till, leagued with Science in the chace,
They half redeem'd our fallen race.
Blithe health they drew from noxious powers,
And remedies from fruits and flowers.
From lowly, mounting to sublime,
Ardent they measur'd space and time;
And onward press'd with patient toil,
Explor'd the sea, and tam'd the soil;
With wondrous art they knew to bring
A virtue from the serpent's sting;
The force of medicine chang'd the earth,
Gave fruits and flowers a second birth:
And thus—tho' Sin and Death still reign'd—
Man something of his God regain'd.
An honour'd and a sacred name!
His office hallow'd, and his power
Of magic use in life's brief hour.
But not to words of solemn sound,
Nor gait austere, nor look profound;
While life and death were thought to wait
The fiat of his dreadful nod,
That symbol of this wig-veil'd God:
Nor to imposing dress or show,
That marks the medicinal beau;
Nor yet to modern medic prigs,
Disguis'd in crops instead of wigs;
Who, with a tyro-coxcomb's phrase,
Betwixt a fop and pedant's pace,
With voluble routine of face,
Descant on politics and plays,
On weather, Pitt's and Fox's speeches,
And ladies in their muslin breeches;
With statement of effects and causes—
Divided properly by pauses—
And many a hem! and many a ha!
Of use in physic as in law,
A whisper now, and now a smile,
Feeling, so wise, the pulse the while,
The fee in sight, prescriptions wrote,
To drug the patient to the throat.
To coxcomb old or coxcomb new,
Belongs the true Physician's praise:
He, vers'd in Wisdom's various ways,
Devotes what many an aching thought,
And many a midnight hour has taught,
And what the precepts of the sage,
And practice of experienc'd age,
And many an agonizing sight,
That might the stoutest heart affright,
The husband's gasp, the widow's moan,
The miser, when his world recedes,
The wild self-murderer when he bleeds,—
All these, with many a fate beside,
The fall of youth in beauty's pride,
The pangs that rend the manly frame,
And rack the joints—too dread to name,
The true Physician must endure,
And bear the shock and try the cure:
Nor bear alone, but seem to be
Part of the sick man's family!
Amongst this number are to be reckoned Baillie, Pepys, Saunders, and Latham, Vaughan, Pincard, Heberden, Sims, Rowley, and many others of established reputation or rising celebrity, in that great centre of genius and science, the metropolis. Likewise those ornaments of the country, Parry and Haygarth, of Bath; Bree, Carmichael, Gilby, the Johnstones, &c. of Birmingham; Page and Wall, of Oxford; Lubbock, of Norwich; Wilson, of Worcester; Currie, of Liverpool; Baddeley, of Chelmsford; Mackie, Hacket, and Whiteman, of Southampton.
Who own of such the gentle sway.
Oh ye! whom dire Disease has torn
Far from the cheering eye of morn;
And ye, who, when your hearts beat high,
And Fancy painted rapture nigh,
And Hope, to charm those hearts, had wove
The choicest wreaths of tender love;
When Truth had nam'd the bridal day,
And Hymen met you on the way;
Ah! when from these pale Sickness led
Your fainting footsteps to the bed,
And bore you to the chilling glooms
Deep-gathering in your prison-rooms;
And fell Distemper seem'd to twine
Those wither'd wreaths round Sorrow's shrine!
And ye, who saw the powers of Death
Stand ready to arrest the breath,
E'en just as fades the half-glaz'd eye,
And love prepares to catch the sigh,
While grief-wrung friends in stupor wait
The last deep groan, and think they hear
The passing-bell assail the ear . . . .
Say, what you felt while flitting life
With death and nature was at strife,
When, ere th'affrighted spirit flew,
The grave wide opening to your view,
The Man of Science eas'd your pain,
And charm'd the spirit back again?
When he, with more than guardian's care,
Those grief-stunn'd friends from dumb despair
Raised to new hope, as fix'd he sat
To watch the awful turns of fate;
The fearful changes to descry,
That flush the cheek or tinge the eye,
Then, as the vital powers return'd,
And nature's fires rekindled, burn'd
Nor here too weak, nor there too strong,
Bearing the ruddy tide along;
Ah! if you can, ye rescu'd train
It has been elsewhere observed, by the Author of the preceding Poem, that it should always be considered as amongst the foremost of the duties of a Physician to assuage the mind, as well as relieve the person of his patient; and although a press of daily practice makes it necessary that he should set a just value upon time, he should never be governed by the stop-watch, to hurry away from the invalid, who he believes might be as much assisted by his Physician's society as by his prescription. On the contrary, it should be his constant practice to solace and cheer, by the prevailing aids of gentle and encouraging conversation, as much as by medicine; and if he really feels for the sufferings of man in general, and of his patient in particular, he would be disposed to devote many of those minutes not seized upon by other engagements, to quiet the throbbing pulse, and incline the wakeful eye to that sleep which, indeed, “ministers to both a body and a mind diseased,” and so often really “knits up the ravelled sleeve of care.” An apparently slight, but in truth a most important office! Few, it is presumed, of the readers of the poem before them, who have not, at one time or another, by some one of the innumerable maladies “to which our flesh is heir,” been consigned to the chamber of disease; and of these, we will venture to say, there is not a single being who has not felt his languor of body and misery of mind gain somewhat of strength and ease, or additionally to groan under the aggravation of both, as the medical gentleman called in, whether physician, surgeon, or apothecary, has been of a courteous or stern demeanour. The failing frame and the desolated spirit are as much raised by the one as sunk by the other. A kind look, a soft word, is sometimes of the utmost consequence: and the breath of hope in life, or of a happy reception in heaven after death, though conveyed in whispers to the ear and heart of a sick person, has done more than all the nostrums of the Materia Medica. The Author has been the more earnest to bring forward this quality, because, having been often a nurse and companion of the sick and sorrowful, he has sometimes seen in medical practitioners the very reverse of this amiable conduct adopted—a fundamental, and not unfrequently a fatal error. He hesitates not, finally, to say on this subject, that next to professional skill, the modes and manners of applying it, of addressing and conversing with the valetudinary, whatever be their disorder, should be relied upon as much as the most salutary medicines he can give: they are the best lenitives of pain; they are the soft balms of a distempered imagination, and most potent cathartics of the body and soul of man.
Redeem'd from agonizing pain,
Say what to his blest skill ye owe,
Who freed you from the realms of woe?
For, who but patients can reveal
The hopes and fears that patients feel?
Can bring these touching scenes to view;
Can speak the bliss of friend restor'd,
And paint the pangs of friend deplor'd;
Can tell the gratitude that springs
To greet the man, whom Science brings,
To pour a balm upon the heart.
To part their consecrated tree,
Of deep and venerable root,
Into three mighty arms, whence shoot
Branches innumerous, which bear
Unfading leaf and fruitage fair:
Those mighty arms, august and strong,
The gaze and wonder of the throng,
The nation's proud supporters rise,
And lift their tops from earth to skies!
Is marked the letter of the Law!
And one our holy Church sustains!
A prop of Life! the third remains;
The last, in deep utility,
Not the least potent of the three.
And ye in sweeping sables drest:
Great tho' your office, and sublime,
Beyond the praise of loftiest rhyme,
Think not the Muse at random sings,
Or partial strikes the plausive strings,
If, while with reverence she deems
Of spiritual and legal themes,
She places equal by your side,
Our equal boast and equal pride,
The men who often give to you
The powers improv'd of judgment true,
The pleader's cause, the preacher's care;
The eye to see, the voice to teach,
The noblest aims of lofty speech!
For, ah! how soon the vigorous mind
The frailty such of human kind,
Loses the vital springs of thought,
And is to infant weakness brought!
A megrim or a restless night
May cloud, alas! the mental light;
An ague strike some noble part,
And Erskine's self seems cold at heart;
A fever slightly burns the veins,
And Porteus but a clod remains!
In vain their powers, so bright before,
Are urg'd—their occupation's o'er;
Nor equity, nor awful laws,
Nor e'en religion's sacred cause,
Their chosen advocates can find:
The body has dethron'd the mind!
The Pæan art—the megrim flies!
The fever yields to medic aid,
And all the chilling symptoms fade;
Again th'impassion'd periods roll
From their rich source in Erskine's soul;
Again from London's mitred pride
Pours forth devotion's warmest tide.
A healthy frame and mind should meet :
Tho' sometimes they o'erleap the fence
Of ills corporeal, that chain
The feeble body down to pain;
Tho' sometimes soul will buoyant rise,
And spite of clouds attempt the skies;
Traverse in thought the realms of day,
While yet pent up in suffering clay;—
Far more effulgent is their force,
And far more rapid is their course,
When all the energies of mind
Are with the body's functions join'd,
And to preserve of both the play
The true Physician points the way.
Where anguish lays the proud one's head,
Can urge him to unlock his breast,
And make Humility a guest?
Or bid the sinner, as he lies,
Woo sweet Repentance e'er he dies?
Or teach the miser, robb'd of health,
The idle impotence of wealth?
Or the half-ruin'd spendthrift show
He still is rich, who will bestow
On pleasure less, on virtue more,
And gain the blessing of the poor?
Here Turton's maxims, Millman's rules,
Outpreach the wisdom of the schools;
And Farquhar, when the hand he holds,
And the dread line of life unfolds,
The hist'ry of the pulse records
In a few glad or mournful words;
Reviving hope or fixing fear—
The fear that bids the mind prepare
The pang of parting life to bear!
And Reynolds, when his eyes foretell
The knolling of the funeral bell . . . . . .
And Bree , while the obstructed breath
Seems lab'ring at the gasp of death,
And the deep heaving of the sigh
Denotes the fierce convulsion nigh;
When Bree exerts his magic power
O'er Asthma dire at such an hour;
The renovating breath to give,
And the life-weary wretch relieve . . . .
These stronger morals can impart,
And fix them deeper in the heart,
Than judge or bishop e'er attain,
Or from the bar or pulpit's strain.
O'er virtue in her trying hour.
As at the good man's couch he stays,
While pain has fix'd, and reason strays;
Or, in the phrensies of disease
From fiercer throes, the senses seize;
Or yet more dire while thought prevails,
More keen—and more than reason fails:
The sharpest ill that man can know—
The dire effect of various woe,
When the soft charm of hope is o'er,
And spirits sink to rise no more!
Or, if there be a fate more dread,
When e'en a future hope is dead,
Which guides the harass'd soul to Heav'n!
To virtue as to vice assign'd,
The true Physician sees and hears ,
Long ere the summon'd priest appears.
He views the wild and madd'ning eye,
Hears the loud shriek, the piercing sigh;
He knows each harbinger of death,
The livid lip, the catching breath,
The change that mocks the pow'r to save,
Or lift the body from the grave;
He marks the glance of dumb despair,
Or silent tear that melts in pray'r;
E'en here his lenitives avail,
His words may sooth where med'cines fail .
To Nature's wholesome laws than you;
And none who better knows the art
To guide the person or the heart;
With temperate wisdom each to steer,
And with experienc'd skill to clear
Those treach'rous rocks, that smiling lie
Beneath the waves of Luxury!
Oh hasten where the sufferer calls,
Where beauty fades, and sorrow falls;
At once to sickness and to grief
O bring the cordial of relief;
For ev'ry scene of joy and woe,
The Muse has mark'd, full well you know:
Can paint your bounties to the poor;
And well the rich, releas'd from pain,
Can paint the blessings they regain.
That claims the Poet's loftiest strain!
Yet whose the strain, however high,
Can give the husband's, father's sigh?
Or paint the terror-started tear,
That freezes on the cheek of fear;
While life and death alternate seize
That tender victim of disease?
Or who the high-ton'd bliss can speak,
That thaws the tear upon that cheek,
While sister, husband, parent, friend, and wife,
Seem, in Louisa's health, restor'd to second life?
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