Athothis : a satire on modern medicine / by Thomas C. Minor.

is better drilled and schooled in the requirements of his profession than the physician of fifty years ago. At present, the public requires a highly cultured man as medical attendant, and not the dull and sleepy fel- low who formerly played nurse to his patients, and boasted that all medical wisdom was founded on experi- ence." " How absurd ! " exclaimed Doctor Rusticus. " What ancient statistics have you to prove your wild assertion that the average longevity of man has been increased ? Yet, even granting your proposition, for the sake of ar- gument, do you mean to contend that the institutions and asylums maintained for the care of the maimed, the blind, the deaf, the dumb, and the insane, have not been important factors in securing such a result ? Besides, in ancient times, there were vast losses of human lives from wars and wide-spread famines. No! Religion and human charity have done more to increase longevity, if such increase can be proven, than all your boasted dis- coveries in medicine. Cholera, small-pox, and yellow fever are just as malignant now as they ever were, and only need a start to show how impotent is physic to pre- vent their sway. You allude to the better education and higher mental qualifications of your modern doctor. This is the pretentious claim of the faculty of to-day. Now, I am seventy years of age, and, when a young man, started out in life with a fair classical education, acquired by candle-light, and not under the domes of Starved Uni- versity or Fail College. I read Greek and Latin at sight, and, on graduating at Philadelphia, wrote my thesis in one of the now truly dead languages. At the present day such ancient tongues are mysteries to your average prac- titioner. An amusing instance of this fact fell under my