Popular Education. Ira Mayhew
of the nature and extent of the danger, he knows not to which hand to turn, and either lives in the fear of mortal disease, or, in his ignorance, resorts to irrational and hurtful precautions, to the certain neglect of those which he ought to use. It is ignorance, therefore, and not knowledge, which renders an individual full of fancies and apprehensions, and robs him of his usefulness. It would be a stigma on the Creator's wisdom if true knowledge weakened the understanding, and led to injurious results. Those who have had the most extensive opportunities of forming an opinion on this subject from extensive experience, bear unequivocal testimony to the advantages which knowledge confers in saving health and life, time and anxiety.
If, indeed, ignorance were itself a preventive of the danger, or could provide a remedy when it approached, then it might well be said that "ignorance is bliss;" but as it gives only the kind of security which shutting the eyes affords against the dangers of a precipice, and consequently leaves its victim doubly exposed, it is high time to renounce its protection, and to seek those of a more powerful and beneficent ally. Every medical man can testify that, natural character and other circumstances being alike, those whose knowledge is the most limited are the fullest of whims and fancies; the most credulous respecting the efficacy of every senseless and preposterous remedy; the most impatient of restraint, and the most discontented at suffering.
If any of my readers be still doubtful of the propriety or safety of communicating physiological knowledge to the public at large, continues the author from whom we last quoted, and think that ignorance is in all circumstances to be preferred, I would beg leave to ask him whether it was knowledge or ignorance which induced the poorer classes in every country of Asia and Europe to attempt to protect themselves from cholera by committing ravages on the medical attendants of the sick, under the plea of their having poisoned the public fountains? And whether it was ignorance or knowledge which prompted the more rational part of the community to seek safety in increased attention to proper food, warmth, cleanliness, and clothing? In both cases, the desire of safety and sense of danger were the same, but the modes resorted to by each were as different in kind as in result, the efficacy of the one having formed a glaring contrast to the failure of the other.
Dr. Southwood Smith, the able author of a volume entitled "The Philosophy of Health," says, The obvious and peculiar advantages of this kind of knowledge are, that it would enable its possessor to take a more rational care of his health; to perceive why certain circumstances are beneficial or injurious; to understand, in some degree, the nature of disease, and the operation as well of the agents which produce it as of those which counteract it; to observe the first beginnings of deranged function in his own person; to give to his physician a more intelligible account of his train of morbid sensations, as they arise; and, above all, to co-operate with him in removing the morbid state on which they depend, instead of defeating, as is now, through ignorance, constantly the case, the best concerted plans for the renovation of health. It would likewise lay the foundation for the attainment of a more just, accurate, and practical knowledge of our intellectual and moral nature. There is a physiology of the mind as well as of the body, and both are so intimately united that neither can be well understood without the study of the other. The physiology of man comprehends both. Were even what is already known of this science and what might be easily communicated made a part of general education, how many evils would be avoided! how much light would be let in upon the understanding! and how many aids would be afforded to the acquisition of a sound body and a vigorous mind! prerequisites more important than are commonly supposed to the attainment of wisdom and the practice of virtue.
Human physiology, says Dr. Combe, in his admirable treatise on that subject, from which I have already quoted, is as important in its practical consequences as it is attractive to rational curiosity. In its widest sense, it comprehends an exposition of the functions of the various organs of which the human frame is composed; of the mechanism by which they are carried on; of their relations to each other, or the means of improving their development and action; of the purposes to which they ought severally to be directed, and of the manner in which exercise ought to be conducted, so as to secure for the organ the best health, and for the function the highest efficacy. A true system of physiology comes thus to be the proper basis, not only of a sound physical, but of a sound moral and intellectual education, and of a rational hygiene; or, in other words, it is the basis of every thing having for its object the physical and mental health and improvement of man; for, so long as life lasts, the mental and moral powers with which he is endowed manifest themselves through the medium of organization, and no plan which he can devise for their cultivation, that is not in harmony with the laws which regulate that organization, can possibly be successful.
Let it not be said that knowledge of this description is superfluous to the unprofessional reader; for society groans under the load of suffering inflicted by causes susceptible of removal, but left in operation in consequence of our unacquaintance with our own structure, and of the relation of different parts of the system to each other and to external objects. Every medical man must have felt and lamented the ignorance so generally prevalent in regard to the simplest functions of the animal system, and the consequent absence of the judicious co-operation of friends in the care and cure of the sick. From ignorance of the commonest facts in physiology, or from want of ability to appreciate their importance, men of much good sense in every other respect not only subject themselves unwittingly to the active causes of disease, but give their sanction to laws and practices destructive equally to life and to morality, and which, if they saw them in their true light, they would shrink from countenancing in the slightest degree.
Were the intelligent classes of society better acquainted with the functions of the human body and the laws by which they are regulated, continues this judicious writer, the sources of much suffering would be dried up, and the happiness of the community at large would be essentially promoted. Medical men would no longer be consulted so exclusively for the cure of disease, but would be called upon to advise regarding the best means of strengthening the constitution, from an early period, against any accidental or hereditary susceptibility which might be ascertained to exist. More attention would be paid to the preservation of health than is at present practicable, and the medical man would then be able to advise with increased effect, because he would be proportionally well understood, and his counsel, in so far, at least, as it was based on accurate observation and a right application of principles, would be perceived to be, not a mere human opinion, but, in reality, an exposition of the will and intentions of a beneficent Creator, and would therefore be felt as carrying with it an authority to which, as the mere dictum of a fallible fellow-creature, it could never be considered as entitled.
It is true that, as yet, medicine has been turned to little account in the way of directly promoting the physical and mental welfare of man. But the day is, perhaps, not far distant, when, in consequence of the improvements both in professional and general education now in progress, a degree of interest will be attached to this application of its doctrines far surpassing what those who have not reflected on the subject will be able to imagine as justly belonging to it, but by no means exceeding that which it truly deserves.
Every person should be acquainted with the organization, structure, and functions of his own 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