The duties of physicians in relation to popular medical delusions : an address delivered before the Covington and Newport Medical Society, June 14, 1859 / by Charles S. Tripler.

  • Tripler, Chas. S. (Charles Stuart), 1806-1866.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The duties of physicians in relation to popular medical delusions : an address delivered before the Covington and Newport Medical Society, June 14, 1859 / by Charles S. Tripler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    It was a remark of Napoleon that every man had his moment of cowardice, and we may add that every man has his moments of credulity. We are all apt to receive, without due examination, things novel and marvellous—things that strike our fancy and excite in us surprise and admiration. We do not stop to be con- vinced the things are true, but frequently plunge at once in me- dias res, and puzzle ourselves in trying to account for supposed facts that a few moments' investigation in the right direction would show to be absurdities. For what stronger pleasure is there with mankind, or what do they earlier learn or longer retain than the love of hearing and relating things strange and incredible ? How wonderful a thing is the love of wondering and of raising wonder ! 'Tis the delight of children to hear tales they shiver at, and the vice of old age to abound in strange stories of times past. We come into the world wondering at everything ; and when our wonder about common things is over, we seek some- thing new to wonder at. Our last scene is to tell wonders of our own to all who will believe them. And amidst all this 'tis well if truth comes off but moderately tainted.—Shqftsbury. An occupation in itself dangerous, and presenting to the igno- rant mind objects of sublimity for which it can not account upon rational principles, naturally fosters superstitious habits of think- ing, and begets a degree of credulity totally incomprehensible to people educated and living under different circumstances. Hence Ave find the gallant sailor, ready to meet anything human in any way and at any time, the prey to superstition the most abject and credulity the most absurd. Dreams and ghosts torture his imagination and alarm his spirit, while the Flying Dutchman once seen so paralyzes his arm and appals his heart that he yields un- resistingly to the fate his phantom ship foreshadows. Had he known how dreams are engendered, how ghosts may be seen in functional disorders of the organ of vision, how phantom ships may and must appear in certain states of the atmosphere, all these phenomena would be suffered to pass unnoticed, or be looked upon as interesting scientific objects. But in his ignorance of all this he can not rise above his omens, and the man who has en- countered again and again the storms of ocean in their full fury, suffers himself and his ship to founder in a sea hardly sufficient to swamp a pinnace. This proneness to credulity, this readiness to believe things novel, marvellous or mysterious, has always been made use of by