numerous, and unquestionable, and unequivocal in their significance,
theory must follow them as it best may, keeping time with their step, and
not go before them, marching to the sound of its own drum and trumpet.
Having thus narrowed its area to a limited practical platform of
discussion, a matter of life and death, and not of phrases or theories,
it covers every inch of it with a mass of evidence which I conceive a
Committee of Husbands, who can count coincidences and draw conclusions as
well as a Synod of Accoucheurs, would justly consider as affording ample
reasons for an unceremonious dismissal of a practitioner (if it is
conceivable that such a step could be waited for), after five or six
funerals had marked the path of his daily visits, while other
practitioners were not thus escorted. To the Profession, therefore, I
submit the paper in its original form, and leave it to take care of
itself.

To the MEDICAL STUDENTS, into whose hands this Essay may fall, some words
of introduction may be appropriate, and perhaps, to a small number of
them, necessary. There are some among them who, from youth, or want of
training, are easily bewildered and confused in any conflict of opinions
into which their studies lead them. They are liable to lose sight of the
main question in collateral issues, and to be run away with by suggestive
speculations. They confound belief with evidence, often trusting the
first because it is expressed with energy, and slighting the latter
because it is calm and unimpassioned. They are not satisfied with proof;
they cannot believe a point is settled so long as everybody is not
silenced. They have not learned that error is got out of the minds that
cherish it, as the taenia is removed from the body, one joint, or a few
joints at a time, for the most part, rarely the whole evil at once. They
naturally have faith in their instructors, turning to them for truth, and
taking what they may choose to give them; babes in knowledge, not yet
able to tell the breast from the bottle, pumping away for the milk of
truth at all that offers, were it nothing better than a Professor's
shrivelled forefinger.

In the earliest and embryonic stage of professional development, any
violent impression on the instructor's mind is apt to be followed by some
lasting effect on that of the pupil. No mother's mark is more permanent
than the mental naevi and moles, and excrescences, and mutilations, that
students carry with them o