Responsibilities of the Physician
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In this age of the world the use of tobacco is almost universal.
Women and children suffer from having to breathe the atmosphere
that has been polluted by the pipe, the cigar, or the foul breath of the
tobacco user. Those who live in this atmosphere will always be ailing,
and the smoking physician is always prescribing some drug to cure
ailments which could be best remedied by throwing away tobacco.
Physicians cannot perform their duties with fidelity to God or
to their fellow men while they are worshiping an idol in the form
of tobacco. How offensive to the sick is the breath of the tobacco
user! How they shrink from him! How inconsistent for men who have
graduated from medical colleges and claim to be capable of ministering
to suffering humanity, to constantly carry a poisonous narcotic with
them into the sickrooms of their patients. And yet many chew and
smoke until the blood is corrupted and the nervous system undermined.
It is especially offensive in the sight of God for physicians who are
capable of doing great good, and who profess to believe the truth of
God for this time, to indulge in this disgusting habit. The words of the
apostle Paul are applicable to them: “Having therefore these promises,
dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh
and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” “I beseech you
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therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies
a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable
service.”
Tobacco users cannot be acceptable workers in the temperance
cause, for there is no consistency in their profession to be temperance
men. How can they talk to the man who is destroying reason and
life by liquor drinking, when their pockets are filled with tobacco,
and they long to be free to chew and smoke and spit all they please?
How can they with any degree of consistency plead for moral reforms
before boards of health and from temperance platforms while they
themselves are under the stimulus of tobacco? If they would have
power to influence the people to overcome their love for stimulants,
their words must come forth with pure breath and from clean lips.
Of all men in the world, the physician and the minister should
have strictly temperate habits. The welfare of society demands total
abstinence of them, for their influence is constantly telling for or
against moral reform and the improvement of society. It is willful sin
in them to be ignorant of the laws of health or indifferent to them, for