questions of medical life and science, one desires not only to look at the subject on its abstract and literary side, but to aim at some concrete good. I will propose, lector benevole, that we attempt a compromise; that while, in random, discursive talk, I am permitted, as heretofore, to cull some anecdotes, thoughts, and illustrations, such as outsiders may care to gather from a particular science, I may yet dwell on matters that may be of essential home interest to us, and hope there may be a somewhat serious design and meaning underlying our olla podrida.
In Medicine, the first object of interest and attention is the medical man himself. An author is to me something more interesting than any thing he does in authorship; a great classic's works are only the fossil remains of a vanished world of intelligence. When patients ponder on pills and potions, I the rather wonder why they do not examine into the nature and idiosyncrasy of their medical man. They may depend upon it that, if he is worth much, he will be examining into their nature and idiosyncrasy. The great question for the patient to solve is, whether his doctor has got the mystic gift. He may be chuckful of science; tap him anywhere, and there will be a clear-running stream of fact and comment; but the practical question is, whether he will prove a healer to me. High science may leave a man very stupid for practice. The knowledge of things is but an adjunct to the knowledge of ends. The physician, aware, in the first instance, of all the dangers his patient is liable to, should, then, from his own knowledge, select the best means of obviating them; but, though he had the whole materia medlca by heart, he would not be nearer his mark if he knew nothing of disease; and this is essentially the full-gotten knowledge of good and evil impressed on him through a susceptibility of his mind altogether distinct from the acquisition of natural history and chemistry. To remember well the pains and the moments of relief of all the sufferers he has witnessed is the first requisite of a physician; to couple these with their attendant circumstances, and to store them up too, is a further extension of the practical intelligence. On this foundation he ought to build a store of Nature-knowledge, of book-knowledge, and of logical acumen. As a man, prudent for himself, should remember adequately all his own pains, so a man, skilfully prudent for the sick, should remember all their pains and weaknesses in the first instance; his head should be more full of misery than the box of Pandora, and his only solace should be the hope at the bottom. This is a wise set of sentences, which I have found stored up among my medical notes and reflections, and, I believe, goes pretty deep into the heart of things medical.
If a medical man shows at great advantage in your home or in his own, there is one place in which he is too often uncomfortable, and makes other people uncomfortable as well. This is the witness-box. There is hardly any great trial for murder, but doctors and counsel
