No class of men, not even the professors of the wrangling art, are, and ever have been, more universally used and abused, than the members of the medical profession. It has always appeared to me, that this abuse has been occasioned, in some degree, by the pompous air and Papal pretensions of certain members of the faculty; for the irritation of disappointment is, in the ratio of encouragement and hope; and the tongue of experience can have little to say of the infallibility of the medical art. The candid admission of its uncertainty, by Dr. Shattuck, in his dissertation, to which I have referred, is the true mode of erecting a barrier, between honorable and intelligent practitioners, and charlatans.

The opinion of Cato and of Pliny, in regard to the art is, of course, to be construed, with an allowance, for its humble condition, in their day. With the exception of the superstitious, and even magical, employment of roots and herbs, it consisted, essentially, in externals. There was nothing like a systematic nosology. The ?at??? of Athens, and the medici of Rome were vulnerarii, or surgeons. Cato, who died at the age of 85, U. C. 605, is reported, by Pliny, lib. xxix. cap. 7, to have said of the doctors, in a letter to his son Marcus—Jurarunt inter se, barbaros, necare omnes, medicina. They have sworn among themselves, barbarians as they are, to kill us all with their physic. In cap. 5 of the same book, he thus expresses his opinion—mutatur ars quotidie, toties interpolis, et ingeniorum GreciÆ flatu impellimur: palamque est, ut quisque inter istos loquendo polleat, imperatorem illico vitÆ nostrÆ necisque fieri: ceu vero non millia gentium sine medicis degant. The art is varying, from day to day: as often as a change takes place, we are driven along, by some new wind of doctrine from Greece. When it becomes manifest, that one of these doctors gains the ascendency, by his harangues, he becomes, upon the spot, the arbiter of our life and death; as though there were not thousands of the nations, who got along without doctors. In the same passage he says, the art was not practised, among the Romans, until the sixth hundredth year, from the building of the city.

The healing art seems to have been carried on, in those days, with fire and sword, that is, with the knife and the cautery. In cap. 6, of the same book, Pliny tells us, that, U. C. 535, Romam venisse—vulnerarium—mireque gratum adventum ejus initio: mox a sÆvitia secandi urendique transisse nomen in carnificem, et in tÆdium artem—there came to Rome a surgeon, who was, at first, cordially received, but, shortly, on account of his cuttings and burnings, they called him a butcher, and his art a nuisance.

A professional wrestler, who was unsuccessful, in his profession, met Diogenes, the cynic, as we are told, by Diog. Laertius, in Vita, lib. vi. p. 60, and told him, that he had given up wrestling, and taken to physic—“Well done,” said the philosopher, “now thou wilt be able to throw those, who have thrown thee.”

The revolutions, which took place, in the practice of the healing art, previously to the period, when Pliny composed his Natural History, are certainly remarkable. Chrysippus, as far as he was able, overthrew the system of Hippocrates; Erasistratus overthrew the system of Chrysippus; the Empirics, or experimentalists, overthrew, to the best of their ability, the system of Erasistratus; Herophilus did the very same thing, for the Empirics; Asclepiades turned the tables, upon Herophilus; Vexius Valens next came into vogue, as the leader of a sect; then Thessalus, in Nero’s age, opposed all previous systems; the system of Thessalus was overthrown by Crinas of Marseilles; and so on, to the end of the chapter—which chapter, by the way, somewhat resembles the first chapter of Matthew, substituting the word overthrew for the word begat.

Water doctors certainly existed, in those ancient days. After Crinas, says Pliny, cap. 5, of the same book, there came along one—damnatis non solum prioribus medicis, verum, et balineis; frigidaque etiam hibernis algoribus lavari persuasit. Mergit Ægros in lacus. Videbamus senes consulares usque in ostentationem rigentes. Qua de re exstat etiam AnnÆi SenecÆ stipulatio. Nec dubium est omnes istos famam novitate aliqua aucupantes anima statim nostra negotiari. Condemning not only all former physicians, but the baths, then in use, he persuaded his patients to use cold water, during the rigors of winter. He plunged sick folks in ponds. We have seen certain aged, consular gentlemen, freezing themselves, from sheer ostentation. We have the personal statement of AnnÆus Seneca, in proof of this practice. Nor can it be doubted, that those quacks, greedily seeking fame, by the production of some novelty, would readily bargain away any man’s life, for lucre. The statement of Seneca, to which Pliny refers, may be found in Seneca’s letters, 53, and 83, both to Lucilius; in which he tells his friend, that, according to his old usage, he bathed in the Eurypus, upon the Kalends of January.

It would be easy to fill a volume, with the railings of such peevish philosophers, as Michael De Montaigne, against all sorts of physic and physicians. We are very apt to treat doctors and deities, in the same way—to scoff at them, in health, and fly to them, in sickness.

That was a pertinent question of Cicero’s, lib. i. de Divinatione, 14. An Medicina, ars non putanda est, quam tamen multa fallunt? * * * num imperatorum scientia nihil est, quia summus imperator nuper fugit, amisso exercitu? Aut num propterea nulla est reipublicÆ gerendÆ ratio atque, prudentia, quia multa Cn. Pompeium, quÆdam Catonem, nonnulla etiam te ipsum fe fellerunt? As to medicine shall it be accounted not an art, because of the great uncertainty therein? What, then, is there no such thing as military skill, because a great commander lately fled, and lost his army? Can there be no such thing as a wise and prudent government, because Pompey has been often mistaken, even Cato sometimes, and yourself, now and then?

If much more than all, that has been proclaimed, were true, in regard to the uncertainty of the healing art, still the practice of seeking some kind of counsel and assistance, whenever a screw gets loose, in our tabernacle of the flesh, is not likely to go out of fashion. What shall we do? Follow the tetotum doctor, and swallow a purge, if P. come uppermost? This is good evidence of our faith, in the doctrine of uncertainty. Or shall we go for the doctor, who works the cheapest? There is no reason, why we should not cheapen our physic, if we cheapen our salvation; for pack horses of all sorts, lay and clerical, are accounted the better workers, when they are rather low in flesh. Or shall we follow the example of the mutual admiration society, and get up a mutual physicking association? Most men are pathologists, by intuition. I have been perfectly astonished to find how many persons, especially females and root doctors, know just what ails their neighbors, upon the very first hint of their being out of order, without even seeing them.

It is a curious fact, that, while men of honor, thoroughly educated, and who have devoted their whole lives, to the study and practice of the healing art, candidly admit its uncertainty, the ignorant and unprincipled of the earth alone, who have impudently resorted to the vocation, suddenly, and as an antidote to absolute starvation, boast of their infallibility, and deal in nothing, but panaceas. The fools, in this pleasant world, are such a respectable and wealthy minority, that the charlatan will not cease from among us, until the last of mortals shall have put on immortality: and then, like the fellow, who entered Charon’s boat, with his commodities, he will try to smuggle some of his patent medicines, or leetil doshes, into the other world.

A curious illustration of the popular notion, that no man is guilty of any presumptuous sin, merely because, after lying down, at night, a notorious pedler or tinker, he rises, in the morning, a physician, may be found, in the fact, that a watchmaker, who would laugh at a tailor, should he offer to repair a timekeeper, will readily confide in him, as a physician, for himself, his wife, or his child.

The most delicate female will sometimes submit her person, to the rubbings and manipulations of a blacksmith, in preference to following the prescriptions of a regular physician. A respectable citizen, with a pimple on the end of his nose, resembling, upon the testimony of a dozen old ladies, in the neighborhood, the identical cancer, of which every one of them was cured, by the famous Indian doctress, in Puzzlepot Alley, will, now and then, give his confidence to a lying, ignorant, half-drunken squaw, rather than to the most experienced member of the medical profession.

Suffer me to close this imperfect sketch, with the words of Lord Bacon, vol. i. page 120, Lond. 1824. “We see the weakness and credulity of men is such, as they will often prefer a mountebank or witch, before a learned physician. And therefore the poets were clear-sighted, in discerning this extreme folly, when they made Æsculapius and Circe brother and sister. For, in all times, in the opinion of the multitude, witches, and old women, and impostors have had a competition with physicians. And what followeth? Even this, that physicians say, to themselves, as Solomon expresseth it, upon a higher occasion, If it befall to me, as befalleth to the fools, why should I labor to be more wise?”