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IN INDIA. 141 |
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cause surgeons are put down as non-combatants, they get no credit for such exposure. Even their attendance upon their patients, labouring under malignant contagious diseases, is not appreciated. No small share of moral courage is necessary to approach the bed side of a patient suffering from confluent small-pox, or typhus, or yellow fever, and administer to his wants. I have known officers who would have led their companies into action with the greatest heroism, shrink from the contagion of a sick room, and even dread coming in contact with a Doctor after such a visit,through fear of contagion. 15. NEGLECT OF SURGEONS.—'Tis strange, but no less true, that the world is unjust to the medical profession; of all the most difficult. A soldier may sacrifice thousands of lives by his ignorance and incapacity, yet no tribunal awaits him. A judge may pass the most unjust sentence, and be convicted of having done so by his superior judges reversing his sentence; yet the world think nought the worse of him for his want of skill. Even in the Church, the greatest heresies are introduced, but the reverend apostate only becomes more popular, and rejoices in his converts; but if a physician makes a mistake, and prescribes a wrong medicine, or an over-dose, or is unsuccessful in the reduction of a dislocation, or the union of a fractured limb, though from no fault of his, but |
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