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THE PROPER DEFINITION OF  THE AVORD CUBE,
             AS APPLIED  TO  MEDICJNfi.6cfl/'*^


                  BY PAUL F.  EVE, M. Dv.'-'c3ff  /'/c\^>"
       Profnuor of Operative and Clinical Surgery in the University of •NfiehriHt.
  To the unprofessional, the science of medicine consists in
studying names for diseases, and prescribing remedies.  People
come to us to find out what ails them, and to obtain what they
believe  will cure  them.   They never consider that every case
is a problem to be solved for itself, requiring special examina-
tion, due deliberation,  and study ; and then, after all, it may
embarrass  the most skilful,  demanding consultation to deter-
mine what is best  to be done.  A doctor versed in the nomen-
clature of his profession is always preferred to  one familiar
only with  its  therapeutics, as  everybody  is ready to prescribe
the well-known  remedies for any disease, however obscure or
formidable.
  A morbid condition  is never considered to be a  modification
of the natural phenomena of life—simply a  perversion of  the
healthy functions—but is  attributed to some noxious agent in
the system, a certain  something  superadded, which must be
removed, or counteracted by appropriate medicines,  before
health can be restored.   For instance, an inflamed finger sug-
gests the name of  whitlow, and, without inquiring into the
cause producing it—alike regardless, too. of constitutional pe-
culiarity, the age, sex, habits,  season, state of health, stage of
inflammatory action, or  what  tissue  may be affected, whether
the skin, the cellular tissue, sheath of the tendons or the perios-
teum, AJc, simply because  it once did  good in a rase, a small
flv-blister (it may be) is  recommended, with the most positive 
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assurance that, in six hours, tho/r/oM, the source of all the jwin,
may be taken out with the point of a needle or scalpel.
  The less medicine a physician proscribes the more unpopular
he becomes;  the more he trusts to the efforts of nature, in re-
lieving his  patients, the loss  will he bo appreciated ; and he
who ventures to  decide, in any case, that  the best thing to be
done for it is nothing  at  all,  may as well at once retire from
practice.  Yet  is the  assertion most true, the older a practi-
tioner  becomes, the  loss  confidence has  he in medicines; and,
as a class, it is proverbial how  little  physic doctors take them-
selves.
  In a recent discourse to his church, a minister of this city,
and he holding a medical diploma, made the ungracious impu-
tation  upon us  for attending calls on the Sabbath, because, said
he,  such  patients ought  not to bo indulged on that day ; but
even he  writes: "The doctor cannot always diagnosticate a
cure"   Again, he has " devoted years accumulating knowledge
on the subject of curiruj  ilixeuxex"
  That this is a true description of medicine in the  estimation
of the public, no one, we think, will deny.  The whole of our
science, if they admit  we have any at all, consists simplv in
finding out what ails the sick,  and then  trying to cure him bv
remedies for his disease.
  In  yielding  to popular prejudice, our  profession has been
placed in a  false  position, for which  we ourselves  are not
wholly blameless.    Practitioners of medicine are looked upon
as curers of diseases and  healers of  wounds; and if we fail—
as assuredly  we must, and ever  will,  in  the very nature of
things,—we ought  not to complain  that  efforts are occasion-
ally made to  hold  us  responsible for bad results in  practice.
It is certainly the interest of our  patients  to do so,  and as the
world  is now  estimated  by  a moneyed valuation,  these suits
must  be expected.   Counting, then, the  number of  cases of
alleged mal-practice, the question naturally arises if  the time
has not  come  for us to  take  the true  position, that one by
which  this unpleasantness can  be  prevented,  sustained,  too, as
it is, by truth,  the aim of all  honest men, and sanctioned, by
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the highest of all authority, viz., that in earing for the sick we
do  not jji'of<:<i.s to  cure them.   No minister of the gospel pro-
mises to save the souls of his  hearers  by his preaching, or by
any other human  means;  nor can any surgeon produce the
plasma to heal the7 slightest wound, no obstetrician deliver a
woman, nor any physician restore a patient to health, without
the vis medicatrix nalurcr, or what we more familiarly term na-
ture.   If the patient have not  the  constitution, the power
within himself, to resist morbid action, no man living can give
it to him.  Then why shall we  assume,  or  encourage the pre-
vailing opinion that we cure—we heal!  Away with all false
pretentions—the arrogant assumption of functions beyond the
power of man;  and let us be thankful that we are even hum-
ble instruments  in  the great  and  good work of promoting
health and prolonging life; ever acknowledging, as we should,
that it is God alone who healeth all our  diseases.
   In this definition of the word  cure, as applied to medicine,
it is not denied but that  there  are therapeutic agents much
better adapted to relieve  certain affections, or morbid condi-
tions of the body, than are others ; or that it is wrong to search
after, or to engage in preparing such  medicines.  The great
probability, however,  is, that there are no specifics.  Mercury,
we admit, is apt to salivate; sulphur to  destroy the  source of
the itch ; atropia to dilate  the  pupil;  acids to neutralise alka-
lies, and quinine to prevent chills  and fever, &e, but as dis-
eases, some of which are self-limited, vary according to season,
latitude, condition of  patient,  their progress, etc., so there can
never be a remedy for any one of them, and no  such  thing as
a cure.  The  world is now about six thousand years  old, and
does  not yet  acknowledge one.   The offer of thousands upon
thousands of francs,  by Monsieur Briant, of Paris, for a cure
for cholera,  has not yet been  awarded,  and  it  may safely be
predicted  never  will.  For,  as  every  one  is  recognized  by
his own peculiar countenance, so may it  reasonably be inferred
that he also possesses a special organization, a constitution and
svstem  sui  generis,  distinct, and  different  from all others.
Daily experience teaches that  what is  food for one man may 
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poison another.  No medicine  whatever  will affect any two
persons precisely alike.   Even  the number of actions from a
dose of salts,  the  most astute physician will not venture  to
predict.   How, then, can  it be possible,  from these indisputa-
ble facts, the  idiosyncraeies of individuals, and variability  of
diseases themselves, oven  in  epidemics, to prescribe for the
mere name of an affection.   Yet those who do this are legion,
and  their advertisements alone, independent of the sales  of
proprietary medicines, ought to be sufficient to support a  pretty
strong government.
   By the definition  of the  word " cure," as  applied to medi-
cine proposed and advocated by this communication,  let it not
be inferred that modern practice is a do-nothing system.  By
no means; far different.   It  does not simply amuse while na-
ture cures.  Knowing how little can  be done when the house
is in flames, we are  bestowing more attention to hygiene and
the preservation of health.   Ii'  it cannot cure, it obviates the
necessity for resorting to too much medicine.  Its master-work
is the prevention of diseases, by  investigation  into their causes.
AVlien cholera was  announced, a few years ago, to have boon
imported  into  Blaekwell's Island,  .Now  York harbor, the Fa-
culty of that city proposed  to extinguish it in five davs.  By
disinfectants, cleanliness,  and putting the  patients into tents,
ike., in three days the threatened epidemic was at an end.
   A\Te are aiming, not to cure, as people  will insist we are, but
rather to extinguish  the spark, to cheek the  incipionov of at-
tacks, to cut short, to divert morbid action.  Ohstu jtrinripiis
is  our motto,  and medical  science teaches that we do  abort,
jugulate, arrest, and thus  control, many  ills that flesh is heir to.
Then, by the  more chary  use of the  word  "cure," in its ap-
plication  to the practice  of  medicine,  our profession will  be
better understood, our patients expect  less from  us, we will  be
acting more honestly, and consequently  made happier.   Truth
should ever be our  aim,  and if  in error, a  candid confession
will do us good, and it is no reflection  to acknowledge that the
province  to cure the  body, like the salvation of the soul, be-
longs alone to Him who made them.