he city, to this subject;
particularly such as may have servants laboring under Surgical
diseases. Such _persons of color_ as may not be able to pay for
Medical advice, will be attended to gratis, at stated hours, as often
as may be necessary.
"The Faculty take this opportunity of soliciting the co-operation of
such of their professional brethren, as are favorable to their
objects."
"The first thing that strikes the reader of the advertisement is, that
this _Surgery_ is established exclusively 'for the treatment of
_negroes_; and, if he knows little of the hearts of slaveholders
towards their slaves, he charitably supposes, that they 'feel the dint
of pity,' for the poor sufferers and have founded this institution as
a special charity for their relief. But the delusion vanishes as he
reads on; the professors take special care that no such derogatory
inference shall be drawn from their advertisement. They give us the
three reasons which have induced them to open this 'Surgery for the
treatment of negroes.' The first and main one is, 'to collect as many
_interesting cases_ as possible for the benefit and instruction of
their _pupils_--another is, 'the hope that it may prove an
_accommodation_,'--and the third, that it may be 'a matter of economy
to the _public_' Another reason, doubtless, and controlling one,
though the professors are silent about it, is that a large collection
of 'interesting surgical cases,' always on hand, would prove a
powerful attraction to students, and greatly increase the popularity
of the institution. In brief, then, the motives of its founders, the
professors, were these, the accommodation of their _students_--the
accommodation of the _public_ (which means, _the whites_)--and the
accommodation of slaveholders who have on their hands disabled slaves,
that would make 'interesting cases,' for surgical operation in the
presence of the pupils--to these reasons we may add the accommodation
of the Medical Institution and the accommodation of _themselves_! Not
a syllable about the _accommodation_ of the hopeless sufferers,
writhing with the agony of those gun shot wounds, fractured sculls,
broken limbs and ulcerated backs which constitute the 'interesting
cases' for the professors to 'show off' before their pupils, and, as
practice makes perfect, for the students themselves to try their hands
at by way of experiment.
Why, we ask, was this surgery established 'for the treatment of
_negroes'_ alon
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