OM^y^iA^,
INTRODUCTORY
LECTURE
DELIVERED AT THE
Hahnemann Medical College,
OF PHILADELPHIA;
BY
JOHN C. MORGAN, M. D.,
PROFESSOR OF SURGERY.
(PUgLISHEQ) §Y THE CLjlSS OF 1867-6$.
Wilmington, Del. ;
ii. & e. v. james, book and job printers.
1867.
INTRODUCTORY
LECTURE,
DELIVERED AT THE
Hahnemann Medical College,
OF PHILADELPHIA;
BY
JOHN C. MORGAN, M. D.
PROFESSOR OF SURGERY.
(PUBLISHEQ BY THE-Q£jl88 OF l$67-6#.
Wilmington, Del. ;
h. & e. f. james, book and job printers.
186 7 .
CORRESPONDENCE.
Philadelphia November 6th, 1867.
PROF. JOHN C. MORGAN, M. D.
Dear Sir:
At a meeting of the Students of the Hahne-
mann Medical College of Philadelphia, it was resolved
that a Committee he appointed to solicit for publication,
a copy of your Lecture, delivered hefore us, October 15th,
1867.
We therefore respectfully request, that the same may
be furnished us, that ive may lay befoi^e our friends and
the profession, as well as treasure up for ourselves, the
material you gave us-; hoping thereby to call renewed
attention to that import-unit branch of our Science--
Homceopathic Surgery.
B. FRANK BELTS, Chairman, "1
TSAAC COOPER, „
A. M. STACKHOUSE, \ Committee.
\VM. BUDD TRLTES. J
Philadelphia, November 7th, 1867.
Gentlemen :
Your communication of the 6th inst. is received.
In reply, I have to say that while I appreciate most highly
your request, I regret that my leisure ivill not suffice to
enable me to amend my Lecture, as I should desire. Such
as it is, however, I cheerfully commit it to your hands;
and to the indnilgent criticism of our friends.
Please convey to the Class my cordial acknowledge-
ment of their courtesy ; and believe me,
Very Truly, Your Friend,
JOHN C. MORGAN.
MESSRS.
B. FRANK BETTS, Chairman, i
ISAAC COOPER, ' I _
A. M. STACKHOUSE. ,-Committee.
WM. BUDD TRITES.
LEC TURE.
Gentlemen:
It is trulv said that he who would iudo;e the
i *•■■■ o o
present and the future, must study well the examples of the j
past. Tracing the threads of history, he shall find where j
each began, by whom, and for what laid down; he will esti-
mate their mutual bearing and effect thenceforward, and cal- j
culating for the present and the future, see what other in- I
i fluences, necessarily co-operating with, or else destroying
| those older agencies must be put forth to modify and im- I
j prove the whole.
The history of our Profession is that of Humanity in j
general. Virtue and vice, generosity and selfishness, devo-
tion and corruption, science and ignorance, progress and stag-
nation, servility and independence, benevolence and murder-
ous passions, are by turns, in, as well as out of the medical ranks
—among physicians no more and no less than among others
—the revelation of history. ISTo worse have they proved than
mankind in general when cultivated by learning, no better
than any others with the same culture of mind and taste.—
Not the ogres which superstition would call them, medical
men have not been more God-like than their neighbors,—
have, in short, no real claim to the position, too often claimed
by those who would build up the profession into an over-
shadowing body, with a few powerful leaders, able to control,
awe and punish its individual members, and coercing to its
ends mankind at large. In a word, it may not be pretended,
with the heathen, that "the profession" is a caste, born of the
head of Deity, while all common people come from his feet;
breakers of caste, as homoeopathists, being mere Pariahs,
whom it were pollution, even for the lowest to touch.
In the profession, and out of it, this self-arrogated su-
periority of classes, (especially educated classes,) has ever been
and yet is, the fountain of all the oppression under which the
human race has been for ages groaning. The history of human
4
progress is a history, wavering indeed, and with irregular,
remittent tide—of solemn protest, of indignant resistance, of
gradual subversion of class-privileges.
The history of medicine, like all other special annals, is
a mere part of the general record of human development.—
Only where Liberty is the staple of the social atmosphere,
has the light of true science any penetrating power. Just so
far as man may dare be true to his every conviction, to his
individual conscience, rather than to that of professional
classes, can the car of progress keep to its broad and firm
highway. If a medical or other hierarchy have power to
turn it out into their own by-paths, unharness its steeds, and
put them to feed in their own stubble-field, science must go
afoot, and painfully.
Class-privileges! a medical caste ! doctor-craft! what bet-
ter are these than are like assumptions of any other combi-
nation of human frailty and pride? Where are the Luthers
of Medicine? Who shall tear the mask from the medical
church—make effective protest against the domination of its
apostolic succession—expose the fallacy of its dogmas, the
blasphemy of its hierarchy, the emptiness of its pretences ?
Am I answered that "of its communion are all the apos-
tles of true science?" It is sufficient to meet assertion with
denial. No man can long converse with Nature, none can be
her priest, who bows his intellect and heart to a narrow dom-
ination. Conform, he may, to that which he knows not how
to mend, but the soul which learns of Nature, the only teacher
of true science, is as the eagle, soaring undismayed above the
grovelling worms, and gazing only at the glowing sun !
The pretenders to religious prerogative tell us that there
has always been a Church in the world, vested with Divine
authority over individual opinion and conscience. The pre-
tenders to medical prerogative, once a part of this same re-
ligious priesthood, still employ like phrases to sustain their
position. Both have their interested partizans, both, their
dupes. "There has always been a Medical Profession," with
a Divine right of censorship—as real, doubtless, as the Di-
vine right of Kings, to rule the common herd.
5
Whence such magnificent pretensions ? Where was the
birth-place of this divine being—"the medical profession?—
Whence the purple and fine linen, the frankincense and
I myrrh, the bed of ivory, whereon it first saw the light of an
unworthy world? What constellation first shone in heaven
in honor of its nativity? Where is the legend of its advent?
On what tables of stone did the All-Wise write its charter?
What Moses received them, and in the presence of what
august witnesses ? Or, if its claims be, alas ! but those of ar-
rogance and pride, what has it to show of the Divine power,
save the leprosy of those, who, not content to minister in the
tabernacle and at the altar, would be also rulers and lords of
God's people ? Let all true men—all good physicians—all
real priests of Nature, beware of the leprosy of pride—the
plagae of medical caste!
I need scarcely add to the indignant and hearty denun-
ciation of a great counterfeit and sham, any apology for the
genuine priesthood of Nature, either religious or medical;
the lovers of humanity, the devotees of true science. I am
I free to say, that not all such can be found in our own or in
any other ranks. Many, indeed, have we; but whatever
be his name, he is the true physician who, with zealous
devotion, followeth the light vouchsafed from Deity to
),
the origin of disease. His spiritual pathology, however, led
him away, far away from both the "single remedy," and the
"minimum dose;" so that we may easily see the fallacy of
the argument that spiritual pathology leads to refined practice,
and materialized views to crudity, as some pseudo-prophets
of Homoeopathy would have us believe.
Five hundred years after the Christian Era, Alexander,
of Tralles, was distinguished for the treatment of fractures,
and affections of the eye. His use of charms, in accordance
with the spirit of his age, is illustrated by one given for
quotidian ague. This was an olive leaf inscribed thus,
"KA. POJ. A."—to be worn by the patient.
I am reminded by this of a woman whom I once met,
and who got well of ague, after a similar expedient. With
some persuasion, she informed me that she counted the
number of chills she had had, and going into her garden,
dug a little hole, held her hands over it, pronounced the
12
word "chills," once for every time she had suffered a parox-
ysm, and finally refilled the hole with earth, as if burying her
ague in it.
Surgical mechanics made in these early days slow
progress; but its advances were much more rapid, than
were those of Therapeutics. Indeed, I have not the least
doubt, that the 3Iethodies were the most successful of ancient
physicians, and far superior to the Galenists; and that Galen
is entitled to reprobation only, for his influence in subverting
the school of Themison. Crude as was his doctrine, it yet
contained the germ of an indispensable truth, viz : that special
diseases exist only by permission of the status of the general
system in its totality—which, corrected, the disease must
vanish—the same idea which pervades the practice of pure
Homoeopathy. And again, the classification of those morbid
states by Themison, corresponds quite nearly with those
which we all recognize as distinguishing otherwise similar
cases, in which we use such drugs as Nux Vomica and Pul-
satilla, to wit, "Constriction" and "Relaxation" of the mus-
cular fibre, etc. Brown, Rasori, Dickson, and others, evident-
ly are the modern imitators of Themison.
After Alexander of Tralles, we find Paul of JEgina
employing his finger, passed into the rectum, as a sound for
the detection of stone in the bladder—removing cancerous
disease of the breast by crucial incision, and performing
embryotomy, as well as treating fracture of the patella.
At the close of the 8th century, the middle ages are
fairly brought to view. Then, a hospital existed at Bagdad,
which boasted 6000 persons who sought instruction, in-
cluding many Christians. Its governor was Caliph Haroun.
Medicine and surges now passed into the hands of
Musselmen—of whom several achieved lasting fame. Rhazes,
who commenced the study of medicine when past forty years
of age, described and treated spina bifida and spina ventosa,
and recommended the cautery in poisoned wounds.
Avicenna, A. D. 1000, employed the flexible catheter.
and the metacarpal saw ; and distinguished between true and
false cataract. A century later, Albucasis pointed out the
13
effect of blood-clotting in arrest of hemorrhage, wrote of
venereal diseases, etc., treated fistula lachrymalis, introduced
the cataract-needle, the suture in wounds of the intestines,
the excision of tonsils, the removal of polypi, female lithotomy,
the lateral operation on the male, and the operation for chronic
hydrocephalus ; and practiced obstetrics after a fashion. Not
being permitted by custom to touch a woman himself, he
employed the hand of a midwife to do his bidding.
The Arab school made no progress in anatomy and
physiology,—rather retrograding. Medicine and surgery
found their way gradually into the monasteries of Christendom,
and each cathedral had its hospital and botanical garden.
Both Mohammedan and Christian hospitals were sustained by
the offerings of the wealthy, who sought! thus to expiate their
crimes. Before the end of the twelfth century, the profession
of medicine and the church had become one, so far as
Christendom was concerned. But now they were divorced
by the council of Montpellier. The ascendancy of ecclesias-
tical influence was, however, in no wise relaxed—and medical
practitioners were little else than another order of priests.
The popes founded universities upon the pre-existing episcopal
schools, and the majority of the present European Universities
had such an origin.
An interesting feature of progress in this age was the
introduction by Theodoric, of anaesthesia by narcotic juices,
inhaled from a sponge, and the use of vinegar as an (homoeo-
pathic) antidote.
The College of Surgeons, of Paris, was founded in 1270,
under the guidance of Pitard. Near this time lived two noted
surgeons, John of Gaddesden, and Gilbertus Anglicanus.
And now the Cesarean section for removing the foetus in
difficult cases, came prominently into notice.
Ecclesiastics, even of the medical sect, although the only
learned men, to a great extent eschewed surgery. Thus it
degenerated, and largely fell into the hands of the barbers.
So late a directory of this city as that for 1830, records the
name and address of more than one of these so-called "barber
14
surgeons," and to this day, many barbers are also cuppers,
bleeders, and leechers.
In 1350, Guy de Chauliac was the author of a work
which became the surgical code of Europe.
Ambrose Pare, in the 15th century, was a most noted
military surgeon. He wrrote on gunshot-wrounds, and the
twisted suture for hare-lip, and introduced the ligature for
wounded arteries. Such was his reputation, that it is said his
appearance among the soldiers was worth as much as that of
a favorite general; "for," said they, "now we shall not die
—Pare is here!"
Taliacotius also was distinguished for plastic surgery,—
especially rhinoplasty—the formation of a nose from the skin
of the arm, being known as the Taliacotian operation, because
resorted to by him to obviate the loss of that organ.
At the beginning of the 16th century, flourished the
celebrated Paracelsus. His family name was Hohenheim,
and by this he is sometimes spoken of. Professor Hering
differs essentially from most other authors (admirers of Galen),
concerning this undoubtedly great man. No name is too
harsh to be applied to him in "respectable" medical circles;
but Dr. Hering, who has collected immense materials for a
biography on which he has been employed, believes that he can
prove that he was a genuine improver, as well as reformer
of medicine, with no vices that were not in his day universal.
He was an alchemist, and seemed to possess some inkling of
Homoeopathy. He was both a surgeon and a surgical author.
About this time also appears Fabricius—later, Harvey,
his pupil, who demonstrated the circulation of the blood.
Fabricius was a noted surgeon, and made important im-
provements in surgical instruments.
In the middle of the 17th century, we find the great
eclectic, Sydenham, with learning and patience, collecting the
scattered literature, remodelling and systematizing, and gain-
ing for himself enduring fame. Improvement now becomes
rapid, at least in comparison with that before Paracelsus. In
1730, Desault published a work on Surgical Anatomy. In
1752, the Pennsylvania Hospital of this city, was instituted.
15
Its earliest surgeons were Physick, Parrish, Hartshorne and
Barton. In 1765, the University of Pennsylvania was
founded.
In Great Britain and France, as well as Germany, etc.,
great names have arisen in surgery; as the Coopers, the Hun-
ters, Liston, Fergusson, Simpson, Larrey, Dupivytren, Vel-
peau, etc. On this side the ocean, Physick, Barton, Warren,
Post, Mott, (Gibson, McClellan, Mutter, etc., and in our own
school, Gardiner, Beebe, Franklin, Helmuth, and. many
others, have adorned the surgical profession. As for John
Hunter, wTho does not know the story of his surgical life?
Yet his advice to Jenner, on love-sickness, is a specimen of
practical sense, less known. He diverted him by inducing
him to dissect hedge-hogs !
In our own day, various systems of therapeutics have
been promulgated. The principal of these is, I need not in-
form you, Homoeopathy, which, year by year, decade by
decade, has been gathering force in Christendom, in arith-
metical ratio, altogether in excess of increase of population,
until now our physicians have come to be counted by
thousands, and our supporters by millions; and only needing
to be a little more elaborated for the comprehension of the
liberal-minded, in order to become an accepted medical
doctrine everywhere. Hereafter it must rapidly become
dominant.
The doctrine of the Chrono-Thermalists, as stated by
their leader, Dickson of London, declares that all disease is
Intermittent Fever, and is to be treated in like manner,
(as in the practice of the ancient Methodics) with relaxents
in "paroxysmal" conditions, ("constriction,") and with tonics
in "apyrexial" conditions—("relaxation.") To watch perio-
dicity, they hold to be therefore the prime duty of the
practitioner—giving the remedies as stated. Homoeopathy
has also its attention most carefully directed to not only
periodicity, but also many other equally important minutiae,
having to do with the states of the general system which
may co-exist with, and assist in maintaining local disease.
16
The Water-Cure. the Movement-Cure, the educated
Thomsonianism, called Eclecticism, all have arisen in our
time, and deeply affected the art. Even the am-ien regime,
yielding inch by inch, is no longer the bold supporter of
Galenic absurdities, but seeks a more positive foundation in
physiology.
Homoeopathy meets Alloeopathy on this ground. Here
she demands and will receive a rigorous and scientific scru-
tiny; . and she will triumph—aye, conquer and rule in this
domain, the undisputed expounder of the mystery of life !
Nay, more; it is not mere vaporing to say, that the future
Newton of Medicine, so eloquently - promised by a recent
teacher, must of necessity be a homoeopathist!
As yet, however, the medical guild would fain with
bonds constrain her fair limbs, and impede her progress.
History, it is said, repeats itself. The old intolerance of
cathedral and mosque has had unbroken transmission through
the boasted "regular" succession. The Egyptian bondage of
authority—and the monastic bondage of medical caste, still
envelop the willing souls of the medical leaders, fetter the
unwilling steps of the rising generation of physicians, and
by show of great learning, impose the same chains as of
yore on a too submissive and admiring public. But even as
we speak, the world moves on to the inevitable overthrow of
all tyranny, of all class-privileges. The nineteenth century
teems with startling and rapidly succeeding events. The
history of Homoeopathy is itself a marvel. A hundred years
ago it was not, except in the mind of Deity. It was reserved
for the present century to witness the rise of this, the most
refulgent star that has ever blazed in the medical firmament.
Samuel Hahnemann, only a few years ago announcing the
law of cure, thus illuminated the page of Therapeutics and
brought real and logical order out of a philosphical chaos.
Already, marks of maturity appear. To realize the fulness
of that maturity, we must follow him ; not blindly and credul-
ously, but wisely and logically. As moves the world, so do
we, in all the departments of medical science.
The future of Surgery verges toward the pathway of
Homoeopathy, coincident with the career of the one healing
art. The collateral sciences—Physiology and Pathology, can
surely go no farther in real development, but in harmony
with the prodigious work of our school, Pathogenesis by
drugs! This contribution of positire experiments with the
materia medica, already something magnificent, (if indeed
rather chaotic as to mere arrangement,) this is our charter
to scientific recognition, in an age of scientific experiment
and research. To avoid this conclusion by discrediting the
experiments, is mere supercilious affectation on the part of
any opponent.
Surgery, having its foundation (in common with other
departments of the healing art,) in the collaterals, has there-
fore no future from which Homoeopathy is wanting. In
"medical surgery" she is even now pre-eminent. Operative
surgery must, ere long, in deference to her requirements,
revise its rules, and correct its statistics; must accept her
guidance, and, in both preparatory and after-treatment,
acknowledge the supremacy, as well as the potency, of her
therapeutic law.
The future of Surgery, like all the other medical
sciences, is, I repeat, part and parcel with the future of this
great system of Therapeutics, which, founded on the sure
basis pointed out by Lord Bacon, to wit: that of experimen-
tation and inductive reasoning; already, while its pioneers and
apostles are yet with us, has acquired a force before which
its foes are compelled sometimes to bow, and to which,
ere the lapse of another generation, they will, by the logic
of history, as well as the necessity of science, be obliged to
succumb.
You, gentlemen, must play a part in the history of that
generation. Upon you must fall the mantle of the Fathers;
vou will carry on the struggle—you will participate in the
triumph ! With such a goal, your incentives are unequalled.
With such considerations to urge you forward in your career,
I know you will do your whole duty, both to yourselves and
to Homoeopathy.
c
: 18
The studies on which you now enter, arc the commence-
ment of that career—the inception of the struggle in which
you engage—the foundation of the triumph of which you are
to be a part. I honestly believe that your opportunities in |]
this college, for laying that foundation, arc entirely adequate j
to your need; and thus believing, I confidently say to you
that, with the favor of Divine Providence, the future is !
absolutely at your own disposal.
The arbiters of your own destiny ! Solemn reflection !
You may not, then, idly fioat on the current of life, waiting j'
for fate, the playthings of circumstance ! He is the hero, who
makes his own circumstances .' \
My faith in you is assured—you will do your duty. No
endeavor which may aid you, shall be wanting on our part.
For myself, I may say, my ambition is that when our Alumni
shall leave these halls to assume the responsibilities of practice,
they may have in possession such a knowledge of in v own cho-
sen branch, that the most daring caviller they may meet shall
admit that, they being its representatives, Homoeopathy pro-
duces good and thorough-going, scientific surgeons. This
ambition, it is not I trust, presumptuous to say, I expect to
realize; and if your present zeal be any augury of the result,
the realization will be part of your own future record. j