fence.

This can hardly be said of the chapter of Dr. Meigs's volume which treats
of Contagion in Childbed Fever. There are expressions used in it which
might well put a stop to all scientific discussions, were they to form
the current coin in our exchange of opinions. I leave the "very young
gentlemen," whose careful expositions of the results of practice in more
than six thousand cases are characterized as "the jejune and fizenless
dreamings of sophomore writers," to the sympathies of those "dear young
friends," and "dear young gentlemen," who will judge how much to value
their instructor's counsel to think for themselves, knowing what they are
to expect if they happen not to think as he does.

One unpalatable expression I suppose the laws of construction oblige me
to appropriate to myself, as my reward for a certain amount of labor
bestowed on the investigation of a very important question of evidence,
and a statement of my own practical conclusions. I take no offence, and
attempt no retort. No man makes a quarrel with me over the counterpane
that covers a mother, with her new-born infant at her breast. There is
no epithet in the vocabulary of slight and sarcasm that can reach my
personal sensibilities in such a controversy. Only just so far as a
disrespectful phrase may turn the student aside from the examination of
the evidence, by discrediting or dishonoring the witness, does it call
for any word of notice.

I appeal from the disparaging language by which the Professor in the
Jefferson School of Philadelphia world dispose of my claims to be
listened to. I appeal, not to the vote of the Society for Medical
Improvement, although this was an unusual evidence of interest in the
paper in question, for it was a vote passed among my own townsmen; nor to
the opinion of any American, for none know better than the Professors in
the great Schools of Philadelphia how cheaply the praise of native
contemporary criticism is obtained. I appeal to the recorded opinions of
those whom I do not know, and who do not know me, nor care for me, except
for the truth that I may have uttered; to Copland, in his "Medical
Dictionary," who has spoken of my Essay in phrases to which the pamphlets
of American "scribblers" are seldom used from European authorities; to
Ramsbotham, whose compendious eulogy is all that self-love could ask; to
the "Fifth Annual Report" of the Registrar-General of England, in which
the second-hand abstract of my Ess