Essays In Pastoral MedicineWalsh, James J. (James Joseph)
Religion
Essays In Pastoral Medicine
Walsh, James J. (James Joseph)
First aid in illness and injury; Medicine
It has been said over and over again at medical society meetings that
it is a very unfortunate thing that universities in these modern times
are situated in large cities. The young man just freed from the
restraints of home life, or of the seclusion of a college, is at once
without any preliminary training, exposed to all the dangers, moral
and physical, of large city life. Not only is this true, but he is
even not properly warned of the dangers that lie so close to his path.
Our prudery has gone so far that the very names of these {318}
affections are tabooed and above all must not be mentioned before the
young. As to the awful evils that such diseases may cause, as to the
lifelong suffering, even to mental degeneration and early death, that
they may involve, not even a hint is considered to be proper. The
consequence is that young men expose themselves not infrequently to
danger, absolutely unknowing the significance that such diseases have
in recent years acquired in the minds of modern physicians, and it is
usually not until a serious mistake has been made that the young man
is brought in contact with the physician who may be frank in pointing
out evils utterly unknown before.
This state of affairs has come to be considered as so irrational in
many foreign universities that now a special course of lectures is
given every year on the significance of what may be called the social
diseases. The students are told very frankly what the possibilities of
danger for them in certain excesses may be, so that at least the young
man can not say "I knew nothing about it," when the risk becomes an
actual reality of danger. At the University of Berlin the first course
of such lectures was established, and the interest aroused and the
results obtained were such as to make other universities consider the
advisability of such lectures for their students. Even here in prim
and prude America, one or two of the great universities have come to
the realisation that the physical well being of their students is
committed to their care, as well as their intellectual development,
and at least a beginning of that precious wisdom that comes from the
fear of the physical evils of sin has been acquired because of
opportunities provided by the faculty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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