body--the house in which he lives: he should know
the conditions of health, and the causes of the numerous diseases that
flesh is heir to, in order to avoid them, prolong his life, and multiply
his means of usefulness. If these things are not otherwise learned, they
should be taught--the elements of them at least--in our primary schools.
This instruction would come, perhaps, most appropriately from the
members of the medical profession. But either society generally, or
physicians themselves, or both, have mistaken the true sphere of a
physician's usefulness, and what ought to constitute the grand object of
his profession, namely, the _prevention of disease_, and the _general
improvement of the health_, and not the CURING of diseases merely. The
physician, like the clergyman in his parish, should receive a salary;
and he should be occupied, chiefly, in teaching the laws of health to
his employers; in imparting to them instruction in relation to the means
of avoiding the diseases to which they are more particularly exposed,
and in laying before them such information as shall be needful, in order
to the highest improvement of their physical organization, and the
transmission to posterity of unimpaired constitutions. This he may do by
public lectures, at suitable seasons of the year; and by visiting from
house to house, and imparting such information as may be particularly
needed. The physician should not allow any of his employers blindly to
disregard the laws of health, or, knowing them, to violate them
unreproved. _He_ should be accounted the _best physician_, other things
being equal, whose employers have the _least sickness_, and uniformly
enjoy the _best health_. When the relation existing between the members
of the medical profession and the well-being of society generally comes
to be better understood, and physicians are employed in accordance with
the principles just stated, their greatest usefulness to the communities
they serve will be found to consist in teaching well men and women how
to retain and improve their health, and rear a healthy offspring, and
not in partially curing diseased persons who are constantly violating
the laws of health. These views will doubtless be new to many of my
readers, and seem to them very strange! But let me inquire of such what
they would think of the clergyman who should neglect to instruct his
parishioners in the ennobling doctrines of morality and religion, and
should suffer th