Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 1: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the AuthorRush, Benjamin
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Medical Inquiries and Observations, Vol. 1: The Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by the Author
Rush, Benjamin
Medicine; Yellow fever -- Pennsylvania -- Philadelphia
5. The exigencies and wants of a farm in _stock_ and _labour_ of all
kinds, will enable you to obtain from your patients a compensation for
your services in those articles. They all possess them, and men part
with that of which money is only the sign, much more readily than they
do with money itself.
6. The resources of a farm will prevent your cherishing, for a moment,
an impious wish for the prevalence of sickness in your neighbourhood.
A healthy season will enable you to add to the produce of your farm,
while the rewards of an unhealthy season will enable you to repair the
inconvenience of your necessary absence from it. By these means your
pursuits will be marked by that _variety_ and _integrity_, in which true
happiness is said to consist.
7. Let your farms be small, and let your _principal_ attention be
directed to grass and horticulture. These afford most amusement, require
only moderate labour, and will interfere least with your duties to your
profession.
II. Avoid singularities of every kind in your manners, dress,
and general conduct. Sir Isaac Newton, it is said, could not be
distinguished in company, by any peculiarity, from a common well-bred
gentleman. Singularity in any thing, is a substitute for such great or
useful qualities as command respect; and hence we find it chiefly in
little minds. The profane and indelicate combination of extravagant
ideas, improperly called wit, and the formal and pompous manner, whether
accompanied by a wig, a cane, or a ring, should be all avoided, as
incompatible with the simplicity of science, and the real dignity of
physic. There is more than one way of playing the quack. It is not
necessary, for this purpose, that a man should advertise his skill, or
his cures, or that he should mount a phaeton and display his dexterity
in operating, to an ignorant and gaping multitude. A physician acts the
same part in a different way, who assumes the character of a madman or
a brute in his manners, or who conceals his fallibility by an affected
gravity and taciturnity in his intercourse with his patients. Both
characters, like the quack, impose upon the public. It is true, they
deceive different ranks of people; but we must remember that there
are two kinds of vulgar, viz. the rich and the poor; and that the
rich vulgar are often upon a footing with the poor, in ignorance and
credulity.
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