Yet as a set off against
these feelings there is the satisfaction experienced when sufferings are
relieved or health restored by the interposition of my aid. The
profession of medicine is potent for good and evil. For good in the
hands of him who makes it his lifelong study; for evil in his hands who
adopts it merely as a respectable means of obtaining his livelihood. It
is noble in the one case; detestable in the other. You do not know how
detestable. If the vail could be raised, if you could see the vast
amount of misery and suffering caused, the many hearts broken that God
would not have made sad; and the many unprepared souls hurried out of
this life into eternity by the ignorance of men who are "licensed to
kill," you would cry out against the whole body of the profession with a
bitter hatred, that even the army of noble and devoted minds amongst us
would be unable to appease. Am I too severe? I fear not. There are
charlatans and know nothings in every pursuit, but in mine they effect
so seriously the temporal and may be eternal welfare of mankind that
their existence is awful to contemplate. Shall I, in conclusion, write
an apology for having nothing better than the foregoing to offer for
your perusal "devil a bit." If I have written folly and you have read it
all, why, you are the greater simpleton.
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