284 BRITISH PHYSICIANS. ever, a subject of surprise and admiration, that in the midst of toil and anxiety, in health and in dis- ease, he never deviated from the plan of recording all that was interesting or important in his practice. At the bedside of his patient, in his carriage, in his walks, or at home, he kept a register of all the facts which might be available to the improvement of his knowledge, and to the confirmation of his doc- trines or principles. In the preface to his posthu- mous works, he alludes to this circumstance. " It cannot be denied that the profession of medicine labours under peculiar disadvantages. The very multiplication of the opportunities of knowledge so harasses and fatigues by the practice of the art, as often to afford little leisure or inchnation to cul- tivate and extend the science. If to this rule there occur some exceptions, they depend not on any superiority of mental talents, but on early habits of application, on the force of motives, on the felicity of local situation, and on the capacity of the body to endure privation and labour without suffering that languor which would impair the energy of the naiud. " The business of man is not merely to eat, to drink, to sleep, to enjoy sensual pleasures, and then to lay himself down and die. Exclusively of eternal concerns, every human being should have one great and laudable end in life, which should constitute his chief motive to action, and to which, therefore, all his other occupations should be subservient. Habits of this kind having been long formed, whatever may be the nature of the object in view, or however difficult its attainment, the pursuit is no longer painful. On the contrary.
