£'(/  ^    £T^
 
; 
THE
RECIPROCAL  RELATIONS
PHYSICIANS  AND  CLERGYMEN
>!>***!!)*
DELIVERED AT THE ANNIVERSARY DINNER OF THE
" tfeto^orft Soctetg for tje 3£telfef of W&iotftos antr ©rjJans of iWrtfcal iWen,"
On "Wednesday, Nov. 17th, 1847.
BY  THE KEY.  JOHN M.  KREBS,  D.D.
Published- bjr the stewards.
               N E W - Y O R K :
PRINTED BY HENRY LUDWIG, 70 YESEY-STREET.
                      1847. 
 
ADDRESS.
  The following sentiment having been offered,
     "7. The kindred  professions, Divinity,  Law, and  Physic,  alike
  founded for the protection and  advancement of human welfare ; may
  they never be diverted from their true and holy calling."
    Dr.  Keebs arose and said,

      Mh. President, and Gentlemen :
    In rising to  respond to the generous sentiment to which you  have
  just given expression, I find  myself in a position which may be best
  defined by one  half of a familiar  anecdote.   Charles  II.  one day
  inquired of Dr. South, how it  happened that he who preached so much
  elsewhere, without notes,  always read his sermons before  the Court 1
  The reply was to the effect that he  felt embarrassed by  the  presence
  of such an august assembly, and therefore needed the help of his ma-
  nuscript.  I need not recite the counterpart of the story.
   In the midst of such an intelligent  assembly  of  professional men as
  this, I will not attempt  to speak  entirely impromptu, especially if  I
  should enter upon the graver themes suggested by your toast, on which
  the Committee have requested me to say  something.  Not that I am
  conscious of any  mere, ordinary, post-prandial restraints upon the " li-
  berty of speech:"  for notwithstanding the abundant provocations to
  appetite, furnished by  your hospitable board,  there is to me a greater
 attraction  still, in  this opportunity, if I may use a hackneyed quota-
 tion, of " the feast of reason and the  flow of soul."   Apropos to which
 however, I may observe, Mr. President, that  the present  practical il-
 lustration  of the comprehensiveness of your dietetics, and  of the range
 and resources of the materia medica, is much more palatable than your
 prescriptions commonly prove.   Indeed, laymen, in which class I must
 include myself in relation to your profession, on  being first initiated
 into this department  of the  mysteries of the ars  medicandi,  and
 instructed  in these  esoterics  of the  penetralia,  might  almost sus-
 pect that that  proverb is true, " Physicians are shy of taking their
 own medicines."  And we might farther apprehend that, as the acqui-
sition of knowledge is often attended  with penalties, so our mingling
with you to-night, upon your invitation, may, in turn, be  followed to- 
4
ADDRESS.
morrow,  by the very unpleasant necessity of inviting  you to  return
our visit, in a considerably less attractive  capacity than that  in which
you  now appear.
  But to return to my purpose.   Shielding myself, for the first time in
my life, under the authority of a " Churchman,''—lest  I should be  in
the predicament of that unlucky scholar, who,  in  losing his  library,
lost all his  learning,—I shall take the liberty, awkward as it may seem,
to refer, as far as I may have  need,  to  some  notes of deliberate  opi-
nions which I have jotted down, in anticipation of this occasion.
  Mr. President :  It becomes  me hardly more to acknowledge, on
behalf of the profession to which I belong, the tribute you  have  ren-
dered, than to recognise, as to your own honor, your just  appreciation of
the kinsmanship of these professions, and of the position we occupy,
in the relations we sustain to medical men.   You are professors of
the healing art.   We also are  physicians, graduates of a high school.
Yours, prominently, is the aim and duty of relieving the  pains and sick-
nesses of the body.   Ours, prominently, is the aim and duty of heal-
ing the maladies of the' soul,  applying a salutary balm to the wounded
conscience, binding  up the broken-hearted, and comforting all  that
mourn.   With remedies prescribed and  furnished by the  Great Phy-
sician, we dare to undertake  even such desperate cases as  the physi-
cian, in Macbeth, confessed were immedicable by him,—
            " —— to minister to minds diseased ;
             Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow ;
            Rase out the written troubles of the brain ;
            And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,
            Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff,
            Which weighs upon the heart."

Yea, in that inevitable hour which  comes to all, when a higher Wis-
dom and Omnipotence baffles  all the wisdom and the skill of man, it
is ours still, to stand by the bier and the tomb, and to check the prema-
ture boasting of  death  and the grave,  by suggesting and  cherishing
the hope that, even
                 " Those ruins shall be built again,
                  And all that dust shall rise."

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put
on immortality, and  then shall be brought to pass the  saying that is
written,  Death  is swallowed  up in victory!    Sir, that is  a noble
illustration and magnificent triumph of this higher medicine,  that as
sin brought death into the world, so there is a remedy for  death itself
and a victory even over the devouring grave!
   In these kindred pursuits, we are often  associated with you,  as  it is
meet, in the chambers of sickness  and the house of mourning.  And,
it is appropriate to meet you here, amid festivities which relate to that
most important part  of pure  and  undefiled religion, which is to visit
the fatherless children and widows in their affliction.   We are related
to you also, as members respectively of professions, which  are bound
in mutual  sympathy,  by the  ties of that liberal education  and those
comprehensive  studies,  which so indispensably  subserve  the  highest
purposes of both. 
ADDRESS.                         5
  And here now, perhaps, I ought to stop.  And I will stop, unless it
shall be perfectly agreeable to  you, that I should claim your attention
for a little longer than has sufficed for the mere  exchange of courte-
sies, and the acknowledgment of a complimentary toast, while I would
offer some remarks at which I hinted, growing out of the  relations of
the professions to each other, and which are suggested by the expres-
sive sentiment to which I have risen to respond.
  And now, sir, since  you so cordially consent  to my holding you by
the button, our salutations being  exchanged, I propose that  the physi-
cians and the clergymen  shall hold a little free and friendly conversa-
tion together.   And it is pertinent to the relation in which we  stand to
each other, and to our association with you to-night, to  refer to the
distinctiveness of our respective spheres, and to notice some points, in
which we are equally in danger of intruding  or trenching upon the
province of the other.
  Let me allude, in the first place, and with all candor and  respect, to
this liability on the part of the physicians.
  It has sometimes occurred, for example,  that from gentlemen of the
medical  profession, (as  indeed  of  other  pursuits,) there  has  ema-
nated an influence—not always designed, indeed,  but  possibly the
contrary—an  influence which has tended to undermine the authority,
and to undervalue the importance, of divine revealed truths.   I do not
refer  to  the insidious  attacks which have sometimes been made, in
scientific  works, upon  the divine  authority of the Holy Scriptures;
nor yet to the  alleged tendency of your studies to  materialism  and
infidelity.  Sir, if it be  true that " an undevout astronomer is mad,"
it is equally true, that an undevout physician is mad also.   And,  how-
ever it may be with some, who would gladly shield  their  infidelity by
pleading  the  character or sentiments  of the  medical profession, as
such, I deem  such  an allegation to be a slander upon your body.  I
will not,  I cannot believe that this is a necessary characteristic of the
pursuits of the men of your profession.  There is  no such right ten-
dency in  your researches into nature, but  the contrary.   How can it
be that, in exploring the construction of this frame, so " fearfully and
wonderfully made," any man  should  not find in it the handiwork of
that  God whom His word reveals as its Creator,  and even in the
total cessation of all the life and functions of that curious machinery,
which the knife reveals in the exanimate form,  the  irresistible proof
that it must once have been instinct with a spiritual soul ?  There are
too many, both among  dead and living physicians, who have  both
submitted themselves fully to the authority of the Divine word, and
contributed  to illustrate  it by direct labors, and by the  cordial and
constant recognition of it in  all their investigations, and  too many
of kindred spirit here this night, I trust, to allow the calumnious alle-
gation to live.  We, sir, feel our indebtedness to the researches of men
of scientific pursuits, not only for the materials  they have furnished
us, for the illustration of divine truth, but for the  direct aid  they  have
given us, when  they rallied by  our side, in repelling,  avowedly and
successfully,  "the  oppositions  of  science, falsely  so-called."  Sir,
can we ever forget such names as Cuvier, and Davy, and John Mason
Good ?  And  we freely  acknowledge and hail, as we profoundly ap- 
6
ADDRESS.
 predate, the. minute researches and the testimonies which have been
 unfolded for our appreciation and employment too, by the distinguished
 philosopher* whom I see before me, whose interesting lectures are now
 instructing our citizens—whom we were glad to welcome to our shores,
 when we  expected him but as a visitor,  and whom, now announcing
 his intention  to become a denizen of our country, we the more cor-
 dially welcome, not only as reflecting honor  upon his native  land, and
 conferring honor upon this land of his adoption, but as  belonging  to
 the world and to mankind.
   I have rather intended, in my thoughts, to refer  to those occasional
 instances, even in accomplished authorship, of the semi-professional ut-
 terances of sentiments  that tended to the  disparagement of the  su-
 premacy and  sufficiency of the  Divine word,  and to the practical
 undervaluing otherwise, of the great and solemn truths which are its
 peculiar theme.  That injustice has sometimes been done, in  making
 free with great names, is less serious than the injustice to great truths
with which those names are identified.   Now, sir, your opinions  have
 deserved influence.   How important is it, in such a day as this, of the
 wild vagaries  of sciolism, the cunning artifices  of imposture, the
charlatan impudence of  empiricism in all the  departments and pro-
fessions of human life, and the  fanaticism of obstinate error and of
rampant infidelity,  that  your  influence should  all be on the side of
sound doctrine and  saving knowledge.   I by no means object against
men, of other  professions, investigating even the most sacred truths of
that word, with whose  dispensation and exposition  we are specially
intrusted ; nor examining  into the principles,  nature, and  power of
its precepts.   We invite  inquiry.    We dread  far  more  men's  in-
difference  than their keenest inspection, and,  least of all, the disco-
veries of true science.   Whatever  she discloses we hail,  and,  fearing
nothing, appropriate it all.  We claim no monopoly ; we assert no arro-
gant pretensions; we would  assume no ex cathedra  airs ; we would
cherish  no superstition that shuns the light; we approve of no  blind
submission of mental indolence and apathy ; and we repudiate all impu-
tations of bigotry, while we would stand unflinching by the standard of
Eternal Truth, and hold  fast, as with the grasp of death, to that which
has been tried  and found good, and established on impregnable  founda-
tions ; and would  warn  all men to beware, with what intent  they
touch our  holy things, that they may lay no profane hand  upon the
ark of God.
  Is this bigotry ?   Is it indolent hatred of the light ?  Is it  hostility
to active thought and  free  inquiry 1   And is a certain jealous exclu-
siveness, with respect to the forms and  agencies of error,  nothing but
a fit theme for the thread-bare sneer,  that " orthodoxy is my doxv and
heterodoxy is  other men's doxy V   Sir, there  is such a  thing as  or-
thodoxy, as  there  ought to be, elsewhere than in the pulpit; and it
is upheld and guarded by a conservatism as jealous as any you see at
church.   Mr.  President, I appeal to you and  to the honorable members
of the  medical profession.   You will  not acknowledge  empiricism ;
* Professor Agassiz, 
ADDRESS.
7
you will not surrender the truths which have  been established by the
experience of ages of trial, and are strengthened  and defended by the
monuments which  every generation of skill in medical practice  has
reared around them, to the  first  summons of rash innovation, and to
the clamors of insolent adventure and  hazardous pretence ;  notwith-
standing, though you need not this vindication from me, you  welcome
all true discoveries of true science,  and  all the accumulating  results
of patient  experiment, and  daily pursue  that  experiment yourselves,
and  adopt them into your systems of well-proved  rules of  practice.
You will not countenance quackery, in any form, not even by con-
descending to hold consultations with its practitioners.  Why, then,
should we be deemed  guilty, if we are equally  firm in  our adherence
to a system of truths, which have relation to the highest  destinies of
men ; which are not the result of  human excogitations, the elaborations
and developments of slow, and oft uncertain, inquiry in the dissecting-
room, the  laboratory, or the mine; but which  sprung forth,  complete
and sure, from  the radiant  throne  of the Eternal Light,  all  fitted to
become the guide of our footsteps, and the lamp to illumine' our path,
by the appointment of the God of Heaven himself!
  And, as  for intellectual sluggishness, for lethargic,  credulous sub-
mission to  stereotyped opinions and worn-out creeds,  and  for hostility
to free and active  thought, we appeal to the  books we have written,
and to the  constant activity and mental efforts of unremitted public
instructions, and to the " midnight lamp," which symbolizes  our vigils
too,  parallel with  your frequent discomfort, in being  interrupted of
sleep and called  untimely from your slumbers, by the  sudden but irre-
sistible appeal of them that suffer  on the bed of disease.  And what
themes are those which stimulate us to intellectual industry, and serve
us in stimulating the minds of our hearers to the  same  healthful  acti-
vity—which require of us to ransack all nature, and to appropriate all
science for their illustration—which involve the  most amazing inter-
ests—and that, in their own intrinsic dignity, justify, as they claim and
receive, the lofty meditations  of the  angels of God,  who "  desire to
look into these things V   No, sir ! the sublime theology and anthropo-
logy  of the  Bible  makes thinkers  of the men who  grapple with it,
and meditate upon its awful mysteries.  And it is this which has  dis-
persed the darkness, and taken off the chain that restrained  the  human
mind.   If  there is intellectual or  civil freedom  in the world, it is the
Truth which has made men free.
   I would  but advert again to the  tendency to undervalue the great
interests with which we are charged, which I find in a rule of medical
ethics adopted by some physicians, whereby ministers  are  excluded or
restrained in our intercourse with the sick.  They would not have us
to discharge our office fully, just when it becomes most pressingly im-
portant, lest, implying the actual  danger, we should produce  injurious
excitement, and retard or utterly prevent the possible recovery of the
patient.  And they will not themselves  disclose  the  certainty of im-
pending death, nor allow us to do so.   Is  this right 1  is it honest ?  is it
kind 1   And are we cruel, if we would tell the truth to the dying man,
when it may be,  that that truth involves his only  hope of dying in peace ?
I know the importance of sustaining  the sick with  the  influence of 
8
ADDRESS.
that hope which, though  it may be but as a spider's web, may be che-
rished while there is life :  but something must be left to our prudence,
and something, too, accorded to our experience.   We have seen the
sick and the dying soothed, and the work of the medical man  helped,
by the introduction into the sick room, of the themes of the  gospel,
in religious conversations  and prayers, and the enlivening influences
of  that hope which maketh not ashamed.   And doubly useful and
doubly happy is that physician who, like some that I have known, can
do the work of  a minister in the chambers of disease ; and  often,  in
circumstances where ministers could not gain access at all.   This is no
intrusion into our sphere.
  But now, sir, though I fear I  have trespassed too long already, allow
me to turn, on the other hand, to some of the instances  in which  the
clergyman may trench upon the sphere of the physician.   I select but
two for a few more minutes' animadversion.   One is where the clergy-
man undertakes to play the physician's part.  We are benevolent and
wish to do good.  A kindly nature sympathizes with the suffering ; and
everybody has a propensity, as  strong as original  sin, to prescribe for
the sick.   It is a hazardous business,  even  when suggesting " old
women's remedies."  It is the physician's  business to prescribe ; and
he is often needed, if it be but to tell us that  we do not need him—a
piece of advice as worthy of a fee,  as when we " pay the doctor for a
nauseous draught."  And when he is in attendance,  our  unwise zeal
to do good may lead us to the violation of all etiquette, I ought rather
to say all decency, like thrusting our  opinion into a consultation \o
which we were not invited, by injurious interference, by disparaging
suggestions and criticisms ; and I have even heard of clergymen pro-
posing a substitute for the family physician ! !  And even if this length
be not reached, it is quite  possible  to do much  harm, by a bare omi-
nous shake of the  head,  which, like Lord Burleigh's, often means a
great deal, and  in  performing which, the clergyman looks almost aa
sagacious as the doctor, when he shakes his head, or sniffs the perfume
of his gold-headed cane, and looks wise.   When my physician is called
in to me, or to mine, we are in his hands.  I allow no interference  of
nurse or visitor.  And, as I would  not detract from the  confidence
with which I employ him, so should no man, whether layman or cler-
gyman,  do aught that may hinder  the  practice, or weaken the confi-
dence of a patient or his friends in an attending physician, especially
when, perhaps, for aught we know, life and death are  trembling on
their most critical poise.
  The other point is  akin to that just  noticed.  I refer to the ready
endorsement, by clergymen, of  puffed specifics, panaceas, and  legions
of various inventions, surpassing all  the marvels of that most  marvel-
lous inventor, Ferdinand Mendez Pinto.  Truly, if we are to  believe
all that is certified to us every day,  the doctors may sjiut up shop,  the
undertakers will soon be bankrupt, and the world will have no occasion
to deplore the failure of that romantic expedition of Ponce  de Leon to
Florida,  in  search of  the " Fountain of Youth;" nor the fruitless
search of  the  alchemists for  the " Philosopher's Stone," and  the
" Elixir of Immortal Life."  I have seen a string of ministers' names
appended to recommendations and certificates, in newspapers and pam- 
ADDRESS.
9
 phlets,  thrust in at your doors, of all sorts of healing inventions, of
 which they could know little or nothing, but from some superficial ob-
 servation, some isolated case, some report of others, or some mere in-
 tuition of credulity.  Perhaps somebody, unable  to pen a decent ad-
 vertisement,  has sent a box of patent pills, or a bottle of some harmless-
 looking syrup,  compounded of we know not what, nor in what pro-
 portions, nor  by whom, or what his qualifications are ; but it is tried—the
 dernier ressort; and, presto—it worked like a charm !  The disease is
 gone ! !—and forthwith comes forth  an endorsement of—what  not ?
 " But,"  some one will say, " have we not read the pamphlet ? and did
 we not see the cure I and must we not trust the  evidence  of our own
 eyes V—No  ; not always.  Sometimes the liberal gullet will take in
 not only one little  " powder, pill,  or  potion," but with equal facility,
 will swallow  a whole system !   Any new thing, though it would  seem
 the veriest charlatanry, and  its caveat, " Beware of Counterfeits,"
 is too often a warning advertisement of its  own  imposture, while,  at
 best, it is sustained by too few and  distant cures to give it claim to
 confidence, and  the scores of injuries  and failures which belong  to
 its unwritten history, are kept out of view,  or hid in  the  grave,—no
 matter what  it is,  or whence it is, may come up, and you will find
 some good  man  or good minister to endorse it.  Now  I object  to
 this, and  protest  against it:  not because I would here  pronounce
 for  or  against rival pills  or rival  systems,  but  simply  because
 the  questions of life and health  are too important to be tampered
 with, on the mere  recommendations of those  whose  studies  have
 not  embraced these things, and demand  the highest prudence and
 caution, even of those who have  been bred up to these delicate  deci-
sions.  Once, our Master  gave the gift of healing to his  ministers:
but they have not  got it now.   And primitive antiquity is no more to
 be  plead here,  than it is in  some  other things which  belong  to no
 permanent arrangement, and are left to occasions and emergencies.
   Sir, the people confide in our prudence and intelligence.  We have
 great influence.   Our very choice of a physician will sometimes guide
 their choice.  Hence there is  need of the  greatest caution  how we
 recommend anything, or man, or book, or system of medicine,  of
 which we are so likely to be the most incompetent judges in the world.
 We can, all of us,  be easily imposed on by cunning, or by impudent
 professional seeming, and by our own honest intentions,  and by the
 impulses of a mercurial temperament, and perhaps,  by the vanity of
 affecting to know a little of everything.  I  have  often thought it very
 desirable, that among the  excellent provisions for instruction in our
 seminaries, there were in each of them—the Law  School, the Medical
 College, and  the Divinity Hall—a special endowment of a professorship
 of Common Sense.   We, of all men,  need to be  wise  as serpents and
 harmless as doves.
   Mr. President, bear with me,  while in conclusion I introduce a little
story I have somewhere read.   There was  once a parish  notoriously
addicted to sleeping  in church.  They might have sat for  Hogarth's
picture.  We ministers are sometimes afflicted  in this way ; but we
are in good company ; for I once  saw a juror with his  head  thrown
back and sound asleep, under the  eloquent  argument,  and full in the 
10
ADDRESS.
eye, of one of the most accomplished lawyers, statesmen and orators of
our  country.   It almost  seemed to me as if I could see him snore.
All the physicians will admit, and I have had your high authority for
it, not an hour ago, sir, and have often had that of my  friend,  over
there,  Dr. Griscom, who, you know, is great on the whole subject,*
—that  this  infirmity of congregations  is  often induced  by many
causes independent of any soporific influence from the  pulpit.  I will
not say, however, that we  may not be  occasionally chargeable  with
administering, in our discourses, a homoeopathic  dose  or  two  of  mor-
phine. But to my story.  There was a half-witted man in the parish,
who had often observed the  indecorous and unseasonable slumbers of
the  congregation.   Accordingly,  one drowsy  summer afternoon, he
posted himself  in  the gallery, opposite  the  pulpit,  armed  with a
hatful of apples, none too  sound,  and therefore not likely  to  hurt
anybody, at  leasts on being administered  externally.   The preacher
looking up, for a moment,  beheld him nicely poising one  of the  mis-
siles, and just ready to let it drop into the open mouth of a sleeper just
below.  Not  approving this  novel and ingenious method of assisting
the " awakening " power of his sermon, notwithstanding the auxiliary
might be justified by the pantomime of classical [times, who stood  upon
the stage and  performed the  appropriate  gesticulation to  the words
of the speaker,  the  preacher interrupted his  discourse, calling the
people to beware of this new appellant for their attention,  and  sharply
rebuked  the  man for his unseemly  behaviour.  The  delinquent,  at
once, bracing himself up, looked full  in the  preacher's face, and  thus
vented his indignation :—" Sir, mind you your preaching, and let me
alone to keep these sleepy dogs awake!"  Mr. President, I do think,
I am verily persuaded, that the intelligent and respectable  members of
the medical profession, might justly say to some of ours, " Gentlemen,
please to mind your preaching, and  do not meddle  with  our work of
healing the sick."
  Sir, at the commencement of these remarks, I said something about
the " feast of reason and  the flow of soul."  I have to apologize for
this  overflow  of mine,  while I thank you for the  patience with which
you have endured it.  And I can only express the hope  that you  may
not have too much  " reason " to complain of it, as " one, weak, washy,
everlasting flood."
  Allow me to offer this sentiment:—
  " The medical profession—which has attained its high eminence by
diligent devotion to science ; and which, by rejecting no  genuine im-
provement, but taking the lead in patient experiment and  intelligent
research, at the same time  stands firm to the principles which  long
experience has proved ; in the hour of sickness, we  turn  to that  tried
integrity  and skill, which,  under  God,  invite our  fullest and safest
confidence."
  * The Doctor's valuable suggestions, and his zeal upon the subject of ventilation,
have exposed him, iu some quarters, to the charge of monomania on that point. If
he is " mad," I wish, with all my heart, he would " bite " some of our ecclesiastical
architects. 
♦
* 
•