Health: Five Lay Sermons to Working-PeopleBrown, John
Science
Health: Five Lay Sermons to Working-People
Brown, John
Child rearing; Health; Hygiene; Physician and patient
Now, I want you to consider how important the Doctor is to you. Nobody
needs him so much as the poor and laboring man. He is often ill. He is
exposed to hunger and wet and cold, and to fever, and to all the
diseases of hard labor and poverty. His work is heavy, and his heart is
often heavy, too, with misery of all kinds,--his heart weary with its
burden,--his hands and limbs often meeting with accidents,--and you know
if the poor man, if one of you falls ill and takes fever, or breaks his
leg, it is a far more serious thing than with a richer man. Your health
and strength are all you have to depend on; they are your
stock-in-trade, your capital. Therefore I shall ask you to remember
_four things_ about your duty to the Doctor, so as to get the most good
out of him, and do the most good to him too.
_1st_, It is your duty to trust the Doctor;
_2dly_, It is your duty to obey the Doctor;
_3dly_, It is your duty to speak the truth to the Doctor, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth; and,
_4thly_, It is your duty to reward the Doctor.
And so now for the _first_. It is your duty to _trust_ the Doctor, that
is, to believe in him. If you were in a ship, in a wild storm, and among
dangerous rocks, and if you took a pilot on board, who knew all the
coast and all the breakers, and had a clear eye, and a firm heart, and a
practised hand, would you not let him have his own way? would you think
of giving him your poor advice, or keep his hand from its work at the
helm? You would not be such a fool, or so uncivil, or so mad. And yet
many people do this very same sort of thing, just because they don't
really trust their Doctor; and a doctor is a pilot for your bodies when
they are in a storm and in distress. He takes the helm, and does his
best to guide you through a fever; but he must have fair play; he must
be trusted even in the dark. It is wonderful what cures the very sight
of a doctor will work, if the patient believes in him; it is half the
battle. His very face is as good as a medicine, and sometimes
better,--and much pleasanter too.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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