{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_36926/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_36926","id":"gutenberg_36926","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36926","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Health & Medicine","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Medicine"],"text":"</pre>\n\n\n\nProduced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMAN'S\n\nREDEMPTION\n\nOF MAN\n\n\n  _A Lay Sermon,\n  McEwan Hall Edinburgh,\n  Sunday July_ 2_nd_\n  1910\n\n\nBY\n\nWILLIAM OSLER\n\n\n\nLONDON\n\nCONSTABLE & CO. LTD\n\n1913\n\n\n\n\n{4}\n\nNote.--This address was delivered at a service held for the students of\nthe University of Edinburgh, in connection with the Edinburgh meeting\nof the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis.\n\n\n\n\n{5}\n\nAnd a man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from\nthe tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place; as the shadow of a\ngreat rock in a weary land.\n\nAnd the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice\nof crying.  There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old\nman that has not filled his days.\n\n(Isaiah.)\n\n\nTo man there has been published a triple gospel--of his soul, of his\ngoods, of his body.  Growing with his growth, preached and professed in\na hundred different ways in various ages of the world, these gospels\nrepresent the unceasing purpose of his widening thoughts.\n\nThe gospel of his relation to the powers unseen has brought sometimes\nhope, too often despair.  In a wide outlook on the immediate and remote\neffects of the attempts to establish this relation, one event\ndiscredits the great counsel of Confucius (who realized what a heavy\nyoke religion might be) to keep aloof from spiritual beings.  Surviving\nthe accretions of twenty centuries, the life and immortality brought to\nlight by the gospel of Christ, remain the earnest desire of the best\nportion of the race.\n\nThe gospel of his goods--of man's relation to his fellow men, is\nwritten in blood on every page of history.  Quietly and slowly the\nrighteousness that exalteth a nation, the principles of eternal\njustice, have won acquiescence, at any rate in theory, though as\nnations and individuals we are still far from carrying them into\npractice.\n\nAnd the third gospel, the gospel of his body, which brings man into\nrelation with nature,--a true _evangelion_, the glad tidings of a\nconquest beside which all others sink into insignificance--is the final\nconquest of nature, out of which has come man's redemption of man, the\nsubject to which I am desirous of directing your attention.\n\nIn the struggle for existence in which all life is engaged, disease and\npain loom large as fundamental facts.  The whole creation groaneth and\ntravaileth, and so red in tooth and claw with ravin is Nature, that, it\nis said, no animal in a wild state dies a natural death.  The history\nof man is the story of a great martyrdom--plague, pestilence and\nfamine, battle and murder, crimes unspeakable, tortures inconceivable,\nand the inhumanity of man to man has even outdone what appear to be\natrocities in nature.  In the _Grammar of Assent_ (chap. x) Cardinal\nNewman has an interesting paragraph on this great mystery of the\nphysical world.  Speaking of the amount of suffering bodily and mental\nwhich is our lot and heritage, he says: \"Not only is the Creator far\noff, but some being of malignant nature seems to have got hold of us,\nand to be making us his sport.  Let us say that there are a thousand\nmillions of men on the earth at this time; who can weigh and measure\nthe aggregate of pain which this one generation has endured, and will\nendure from birth to death?  Then add to this all the pain which has\nfallen and will fall upon our race through generations past and to\ncome.  Is there not then some great gulf fixed between us and the good\nGod?\"\n\nDwelling too exclusively on this aspect of life, who does not echo the\nwish of Euripides: \"Not to be born is the best, and next to die as soon\nas possible.\"\n\nSome of you may remember Edwin Markham's poem, \"The Man with the Hoe,\"\nbased on Millet's famous picture.\n\n  Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans\n  Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,\n  The emptiness of ages in his face,\n  And on his back the burden of the world.\n  Who made him dead to rapture and despair,\n  A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,\n  Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?\n\n\nIt is a world-old tale, this of the trembling heart, the failing eyes,\nthe desponding mind of the natural man.  \"And thy life shall hang in\ndoubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have\nnone assurance of thy life: In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it\nwere even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for\nthe fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of\nthine eyes which thou shalt see\" (Deut. xxviii.).\n\nThe condition of Hopeful and Christian put by Giant Despair into \"a\nvery dark dungeon, nasty and stinking to their spirits,\" and beaten\nwith stripes, and made to feel that the bitterness of death was as\nnothing to the bitterness of life, illustrates in allegory the state of\nman for countless centuries.  In darkness and in the shadow of death he\nlay helpless, singing like the prisoners vain hymns of hope, and\npraying vain prayers of patience, yet having all the while in his\nbosom, like Christian, a key called Promise, capable of unlocking the\ndoors of his dungeon.  Groping between what Sir Thomas Browne so finely\ncalls \"the night of our forebeing\" and the unknown future--the dark\nbefore and after, he at last came to himself, and with the help of this\nkey unlocked the mysteries of Nature, and found a way of physical\nsalvation.\n\nMan's redemption of man is the great triumph of Greek thought.  The\ntap-root of modern science sinks deep in Greek soil, the astounding\nfertility of which is one of the out-standing facts of history.  As Sir\nHenry Maine says: \"To one small people ... it was given to create the\nprinciple of progress.  That people was the Greek.  Except the blind\nforces of Nature nothing moves in this world which is not Greek in its\norigin.\"  Though not always recognized, the controlling principles of\nour art, literature and philosophy, as well as those of science, are\nHellenic.  We still think in certain levels only with the help of\nPlato, and there is not a lecture room of this university[1] in which\nthe trained ear may not catch echoes of the Lyceum.  In his\nintroductory chapter of his _Rise of the Greek Epic_, Professor Murray\ndwells on the keen desire of the Greeks to make life a better thing\nthan it is, and to help in the service of man, a thought that pervades\nGreek life like an aroma.  From Homer to Lucian there is one\nrefrain--the pride in the body as a whole; and in the strong conviction\nthat \"our soul in its rose-mesh\" is quite as much helped by flesh as\nflesh is by soul, the Greek sang his song \"For pleasant is this flesh.\"\nThe beautiful soul harmonizing with a beautiful body is as much the\nglorious ideal of Plato as it is the end of the education of Aristotle.\nWhat a splendid picture in Book III of the _Republic_, of the day when\n\"our youth will dwell in a land of health, amid fair sights and sounds\nand receive the good in everything; and beauty, the effluence of fair\nworks, shall flow into the eye and ear like a health-giving breeze from\na purer region, and insensibly draw the soul from earliest years into\nlikeness and sympathy with the beauty of reason.\"  The glory of this\nzeal for the enrichment of the present life was revealed to the Greeks\nas to no other people, but in respect to care for the body of the\ncommon man, we have only seen its fulfilment in our own day, but as a\ndirect result of methods of research initiated by them.\n\nPhilosophy, as Plato tells us, begins with wonder; and, staring\nopen-eyed at the starry heavens on the plains of Mesopotamia, man took\na first step in the careful observation of Nature, which carried him a\nlong way in his career.  But he was very slow to learn the second\nstep--how to interrogate Nature, to search out her secrets, as Harvey\nputs it, by way of experiment.  The Chaldeans, who invented gnomons,\nand predicted eclipses, made a good beginning.  The Greeks did not get\nmuch beyond trained observation, though Pythagoras made one fundamental\nexperiment when he determined the dependence of the pitch of sound on\nthe length of the vibrating cord.  So far did unaided observation and\nbrilliant generalization carry Greek thinkers, that there is scarcely a\nmodern discovery which by anticipation cannot be found in their\nwritings.  Indeed one is staggered at their grasp of great principles.\nMan can do a great deal by observation and thinking, but with them\nalone he cannot unravel the mysteries of Nature.  Had it been possible\nthe Greeks would have done it; and could Plato and Aristotle have\ngrasped the value of experiment in the progress of human knowledge, the\ncourse of European history might have been very different.\n\nThis organon was absent, and even in the art of medicine Hippocrates\nwith all his genius did not get beyond highly trained observation, and\na conception of disease as a process of Nature.  The great Pergamite,\nGalen, did indeed realize that the bare fact was only preliminary to\nthe scientific study of disease by experiment, and to the collecting of\ndata, from which principles and laws could be derived.  On the dark\nhorizon of the ancient world shone the brightness of the Grecian dawn\nso clearly that the emancipated mind had an open way.  Then something\nhappened--how, who can tell?  The light failed or flickered almost to\nextinction: Greece died into a mediaevalism that for centuries\nenthralled man in chains, the weary length of which still hampers his\nprogress.  The revival of learning awakened at first a suspicion and\nthen a conviction that salvation lay in a return to the old Greek\nfathers who had set man's feet in the right path, and so it came about\nthat in the study of chemistry, and in the inventions of Copernicus,\nKepler and Galileo, modern science took its origin.  The growth of the\nexperimental method changed the outlook of mankind, and led directly to\nthe development of the physical and biological sciences by which the\nmodern world has been transformed.\n\nA slow, painful progress, through three centuries, science crept on\nfrom point to point, with many mistakes and many failures, a progress\noften marked and flecked with the stains of human effort, but all the\nsame the most revolutionary and far-reaching advance ever made by man's\nintellect.  We are too close to the events to appreciate fully the\nchanges which it has wrought in man's relation to the world; and the\nmarvellous thing is that the most important of these changes have been\neffected within the memory of those living.  Three stand out as of the\nfirst importance.\n\nMy generation was brought up in the belief that \"Man was in his\noriginal state a very noble and exalted creature, being placed as the\nhead and lord of this world, having all the creatures in subjection to\nhim.  The powers and operations of his mind were extensive, capacious\nand perfect\"--to quote the words of one of my old Sunday-school\nlessons.  It is not too much to say that Charles Darwin has so turned\nman right-about-face that, no longer looking back with regret upon a\nParadise Lost, he feels already within the gates of a Paradise Regained.\n\nSecondly, Chemistry and Physics have at last given him control of the\nfour elements, and he has harnessed the forces of Nature.  As usual\nKipling touches the very heart of the matter in his poem on \"The Four\nAngels,\" who in succession offered to Adam fire, air, earth and water.\nHappy in the garden, watching the apple tree in bud, in leaf, in\nblossom and in fruit, he had no use for them; but when the apple tree\nwas cut down, and he had to work outside of Eden wall,--then--\n\n      out of black disaster\n  He arose to be the master\n  Of Earth and Water, Air and Fire.\n\nAnd this mastery, won in our day, has made the man with the hoe look up.\n\nBut the third and greatest glory is that the leaves of the tree of\nscience have availed for the healing of the nations.  Measure as we may\nthe progress of the world--intellectually in the growth and spread of\neducation, materially in the application to life of all mechanical\nappliances, and morally in a higher standard of ethics between nation\nand nation, and between individuals, there is no one measure which can\ncompare with the decrease of disease and suffering in man, woman and\nchild.  The Psalmist will have it that no man may redeem his brother,\nbut this redemption of his body has been bought at a price of the lives\nof those who have sought out Nature's processes by study and\nexperiment.  Silent workers, often unknown and neglected by their\ngeneration, these men have kept alive the fires on the altars of\nscience, and have so opened the doors of knowledge that we now know the\nlaws of health and disease.  Time will only permit me to refer to a few\nof the more important of the measures of man's physical redemption.\n\nWithin the life-time of some of us a strange and wonderful thing\nhappened on the earth--something of which no prophet foretold, of which\nno seer dreamt, nor is it among the beatitudes of Christ Himself; only\nSt. John seems to have had an inkling of it in that splendid chapter in\nwhich he describes the new heaven and the new earth, when the former\nthings should pass away, when all tears should be wiped away, and there\nshould be no more crying nor sorrow.  On October 16, 1846, in the\namphitheatre of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, a new\nPrometheus gave a gift as rich as that of fire, the greatest single\ngift ever made to suffering humanity.  The prophecy was\nfulfilled--_neither shall there be any more pain_; a mystery of the\nages had been solved by a daring experiment by man on man in the\nintroduction of anaesthesia.  As Weir Mitchell sings in his poem, \"The\nDeath of Pain\"--\n\n  Whatever triumphs still shall hold the mind,\n  Whatever gifts shall yet enrich mankind,\n  Ah! here, no hour shall strike through all the years,\n  No hour so sweet as when hope, doubt and fears,\n  'Mid deepening silence watched one eager brain\n  With Godlike will decree the Death of Pain.\n\n\nAt a stroke the curse of Eve was removed, that multiplied sorrow of\nsorrows, representing in all ages the very apotheosis of pain.  The\nknife has been robbed of its terrors, and the hospitals are no longer\nthe scenes of those appalling tragedies that made the stoutest quail.\nTo-day we take for granted the silence of the operating-room, but to\nreach this Elysium we had to travel the slow road of laborious\nresearch, which gave us first the chemical agents; and then brave\nhearts had to risk reputation, and even life itself in experiments, the\nissue of which was for long doubtful.\n\nMore widespread in its benediction, as embracing all races and all\nclasses of society, is the relief of suffering, and the prevention of\ndisease through the growth of modern sanitary science in which has been\nfought out the greatest victory in history.  I can only refer to three\nsubjects which illustrate and lead up to the question which is in the\nminds of all of us to-day.\n\nYou have in Scotland the merit of the practical introduction of a\nmethod which has revolutionized the treatment of wounds, and changed\nthe whole aspect of modern surgery.  I am old enough to have been a\ndresser in a large general hospital in the pre-Listerian days, when it\nwas the rule for wounds to suppurate, and when cases of severe pyaemia\nand septicaemia were so common that surgeons dreaded to make even a\nsimple amputation.  In the wards of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and\nof the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Lord Lister's experimental work on the\nhealing of wounds led to results of the deepest moment to every\nindividual subject to an accident, or who has to submit to an\noperation.  It is not simply that the prospect of recovery is\nenormously enhanced, but Listerian surgery has diminished suffering to\nan extraordinary degree.  In the old days every wound which suppurated\nhad to be dressed, and there was the daily distress and pain, felt\nparticularly by young children.  Now, even after operations of the\nfirst magnitude, the wound may have but a single dressing, and the\nafter-pain is reduced to a minimum.  How well the older ones of us\nrealize that anaesthetics and asepsis between them have wrought a\ncomplete revolution in hospital life.  I asked the Superintendent of\nNurses at the Royal Infirmary to let me know how many patients last\nnight in the wards had actual suffering, and she has sent word that\nabout one in eight had pain, not all of them acute pain.\n\nBut man's redemption of man is nowhere so well known as in the\nabolition and prevention of the group of diseases which we speak of as\nthe fevers, or the acute infections.  This is the glory of the science\nof medicine, and nowhere in the world have its lessons been so\nthoroughly carried out as in this country.  It is too old a story to\nretell in detail, but I may remind you that in this city within fifty\nyears there has been an annual saving of from four to five thousand\nlives, by measures which have directly prevented and limited the spread\nof infectious diseases.  The man is still alive, Sir Henry Little-John,\nwho made the first sanitary survey of the city.  When one reads the\naccount of the condition of the densely crowded districts on the south\nside of the High Street, one is not surprised that the rate of\nmortality was 40 and over per thousand.  That you now enjoy one of the\nlowest death rates in Europe--15.3 per thousand for last year--is due\nto the thoroughness with which measures of recognized efficiency have\nbeen carried out.  When we learn that last year there were no deaths\nfrom smallpox, not one from typhus, and only 21 from fevers of the\nzymotic group, it is scarcely credible that all this has been brought\nabout within the memory of living men.  It is not too much to say that\nthe abolition of small-pox, typhus and typhoid fevers have changed the\ncharacter of the medical practice in our hospitals.  In this country\ntyphoid fever is in its last ditch, and though a more subtle and\ndifficult enemy to conquer than typhus, we may confidently hope that\nbefore long it will be as rare.\n\nHere I would like to say a word or two upon one of the most terrible of\nall acute infections, the one of which we first learned the control\nthrough the work of Jenner.  A great deal of literature has been\ndistributed, casting discredit upon the value of vaccination in the\nprevention of small-pox.  I do not see how any one who has gone through\nepidemics as I have, or who is familiar with the history of the\nsubject, and who has any capacity left for clear judgment, can doubt\nits value.  Some months ago I was twitted by the Editor of the Journal\nof the Anti-Vaccination League for maintaining a curious silence on the\nsubject.  I would like to issue a Mount Carmel-like challenge to any\nten unvaccinated priests of Baal.  I will take ten selected vaccinated\npersons, and help in the next severe epidemic, with ten selected\nunvaccinated persons (if available!).  I should choose three members of\nParliament, three anti-vaccination doctors, if they could be found, and\nfour anti-vaccination propagandists.  And I will make this\npromise--neither to jeer nor to jibe when they catch the disease, but\nto look after them as brothers; and for the three or four who are\ncertain to die I will try to arrange the funerals with all the pomp and\nceremony of an anti-vaccination demonstration.\n\nA blundering art until thirty or forty years ago, preventative medicine\nwas made a science by the discovery of the causes of many of the\nserious epidemic diseases.  To any one of you who wishes to know this\nside of science, what it is, what it has done, what it may do, let me\ncommend Radot's _Life of Pasteur_, which reads like a fairy tale.  It\nis more particularly in connection with the great plagues of the world\nthat man's redemption of man may be in the future effected; I say in\nthe future because we have only touched the fringe of the subject.  How\nlittle do we appreciate what even a generation has done.  The man is\nonly just dead, Robert Koch, who gave to his fellow-men the control of\ncholera.  Read the history of yellow fever in Havana and in Brazil if\nyou wish to get an idea of the powers of experimental medicine; there\nis nothing to match it in the history of human achievement.  Before our\neyes to-day the most striking experiment ever made in sanitation is in\nprogress.  The digging of the Panama Canal was acknowledged to be a\nquestion of the health of the workers.  For four centuries the Isthmus\nhad been a white man's grave, and during the French control of the\nCanal the mortality once reached the appalling figure of 170 per\nthousand.  Even under the most favourable circumstances it was\nextraordinarily high.  Month by month I get the _Reports_ which form by\nfar the most interesting sanitary reading of the present day.  Of more\nthan 54,000 employes (about 13,000 of whom are white), the death rate\nper thousand for the month of March was 8.91, a lower percentage, I\nbelieve, than any city in the United States.  It has been brought about\nin great part by researches into the life history of the parasite which\nproduces malaria, and by the effectual measures taken for its\ndestruction.  Here again is a chapter in human achievement for which it\nwould be hard to find a parallel.  But let us not forget that these are\nbut illustrations of wide-spread possibilities of organization on\nmodern lines.  These are sanitary blessings.  To make them available in\nthe Tropics is the heaviest burden of the white man; how heavy you may\nknow from the startling figures which have just been issued from\nBritish India.  Exclusive of the native states for the year 1908, the\ntotal deaths from fever and cholera exceeded 5,000,000, out of a\npopulation of 226,000,000.  The bright spot in the picture is the\ndiminution of the mortality from plague--not fewer than a million fatal\ncases as compared with 1907.\n\nThese are brief indications of the lines along which effective progress\nis being made in man's redemption by man.  And all this has a direct\nbearing upon the disease, the fight against which brings us together.\nTuberculosis is one of the great infections of the world, and it has\nbeen one of the triumphs of our generation to determine its cause.\nWith the improvement of sanitation there has been a reduction in its\nmortality, amounting since 1850 to above 40 per cent.  But it still\nremains the most formidable single foe, killing a larger number of\npeople than any other disease--some 60,000 in Great Britain and Ireland\nin 1908, and 589 of this city.  Practically between 10 and 11 per cent.\nof all deaths are due to it.  A plain proposition is before the people.\nWe know the disease--how it is caused, how it is spread, how it should\nbe prevented, how in suitable cases it may be cured.  How to make this\nknowledge effective is the prime reason of this conference.  It is a\ncampaign for the public; past history shows that it is a campaign of\nhope.  The measures for its stamping out, though simple on paper,\npresent difficulties interwoven with the very fabric of society, but\nthey are not insuperable, and are gradually disappearing.  It is for\nthis reason we urge you to join with enthusiasm in the crusade;\nremembering, however, that only the prolonged and united efforts,\ncarried through several generations, can place the disease in the same\ncategory with typhus fever, typhoid and small-pox.\n\nIn the comedies and tragedies of life our immutable human nature reacts\nvery much as in the dawn of science, and yet, with a widening of\nknowledge, the lights and shadows of the landscape have shifted, and\nthe picture is brighter.  Nothing can bring back the hour when sin and\ndisease were correlated as confidently as night and day; and how shall\nwe assess the enormous gain of a new criterion, a new estimate of the\nvalue of man's life!  There are tones in human sentiment to-day which\nthe ancients never heard, which our fathers indeed heard but faintly,\nand that without recognizing their significance.  The human heart by\nwhich we live has been touched as with the wand of a Prospero.  What\navailed the sceptred race! what the glory that was Greece, or the\ngrandeur that was Rome! of what avail even has been the message of the\ngospel, while the people at large were haunted by fear and anxiety,\nstricken by the pestilence of the darkness and the sickness of the\nnoon-day?  The new socialism of Science with its definite mission cares\nnot a rap for the theories of Karl Marx, of Ferdinand Lassalle, or of\nHenry George; still less for the dreams of Plato or of Sir Thomas\nMore--or at least only so far as they help to realize the well-being of\nthe citizen.  Nor is there need to fear that in weighing the world in\nour balance we may drain the sap of its life, so long as we materialize\nin the service of man those eternal principles on which life\nrests--moral fervour, liberty and justice.\n\nThe outlook for the world as represented by Mary and John, and Jennie\nand Tom has never been so hopeful.  There is no place for despondency\nor despair.  As for the dour dyspeptics in mind and morals who sit idly\ncroaking like ravens,--let them come into the arena, let them wrestle\nfor their flesh and blood against the principalities and powers\nrepresented by bad air and worse houses, by drink and disease, by\nneedless pain, and by the loss annually to the state of thousands of\nvaluable lives--let them fight for the day when a man's life shall be\nmore precious than gold.  Now, alas! the cheapness of life is every\nday's tragedy!\n\nIf in the memorable phrase of the Greek philosopher Prodicus, \"That\nwhich benefits human life is God,\" we may see in this new gospel a link\nbetwixt us and the crowning race of those who eye to eye shall look on\nknowledge, and in whose hand Nature shall be an open book, an approach\nto the glorious day of which Shelley sings so gloriously:\n\n          Happiness\n  And Science dawn though late upon the earth;\n  Peace cheers the mind, health renovates the frame;\n  Disease and pleasure cease to mingle here,\n  Reason and passion cease to combat there,\n  Whilst mind unfettered o'er the earth extends\n  Its all-subduing energies, and wields\n  The sceptre of a vast dominion there.\n\n\n\n[1] See note on page 4.\n\n\n\n\nRICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,\n\nBRUNSWICK STREET, STAMFORD STREET, S.E.,\n\nAND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.","title":"Man's Redemption of Man: A Lay Sermon","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":4620}