Medical Ignoramuses

The oyes of all the world have been directeci to the case of Gen. Grant. It will ery seriously impair public con fidence in medical scienco and skill. At the same time it will encourago afflicted people not to abandon hope of life because the most learned doctors pronounce their malady incurable. When their doctors give them up they need not give up themseh es. Tliat is the moral of Gen. Grant's case. It encourages the sick and suflering to hope lor recovci'y froin their diseaso, howover sad the croakings of tlieir medical adyisers, provided they have the constitution to recover trom their doctors and the good fortuue to escape "heroio treatmeut." Dr. Fordyce Barker, one of the consulting physician.s, still adberea to tlie cáncer theory. Uut it is in the teeth of othei medical opinión and is refuted by the fact that Gen. Grant is recovering rapidly. It is not a feature of cáncer that as soon as doctoring i ceases convalescence begins. The learned doctors who hacked and tortured poor Garheld to get out of the front of hls body a bullet which had buried in his back and released itself, kept persisting that the lead had in sorue niysterious maaner found its way from his groin, wliero their wonderful skill had mislocated it. "Throw physic to the dogs!" was ! the cxclaruation of Macbeth. J'robably if all the physic tho cancer-credulous doctors gavo to Gen. Grant had been thrown to the dogs and all their heroic treatment had been practisea on cats the distinguished patiënt would beforo now have been tlriving in the Park and indulging in the luxury of a Reina Victoria. Tho whole of this prolonsred case is anything but creditable to medical Science. We cannot forget that ut a consultation Gen. Grant barely escaped by his physical weakness from a painful and terrible surgical operation for cáncer, which would have left him speechless for the rest of his life, and it is now acknowledged by some of these same experts that his is not a case of cáncer at all. However, if our confidence in tho doctors has been irnpaired, our fear of cáncer has also boen shaken. It is not wilhin the power of the physicians to teil U8 how many cases of so-called cáncer havo been heroically treated to death, which, had thev been as publicly watched as this, mighthave turned out to bo simóle cases of ulcerated throat. -