r body-clothes of a patient. Mentions a new series of cases, one of
which he saw, with the practitioner who had attended them. She was the
sixth he had had within a few days. All died. Dr. Copland insisted that
contagion had caused these cases; advised precautionary measures, and the
practitioner had no other cases for a considerable time. Considers it
criminal, after the evidence adduced,--which he could have
quadrupled,--and the weight of authority brought forward, for a
practitioner to be the medium of transmitting contagion and death to his
patients. Dr. Copland lays down rules similar to those suggested by
myself, and is therefore entitled to the same epithet for so doing.
Medical Dictionary, New York, 1852. Article, Puerperal States and
Diseases.

If there is any appetite for facts so craving as to be yet
unappeased,--Lesotho, necdum satiata,--more can be obtained. Dr. Hodge
remarks that "the frequency and importance of this singular circumstance
(that the disease is occasionally more prevalent with one practitioner
than another) has been exceedingly overrated." More than thirty strings
of cases, more than two hundred and fifty sufferers from puerperal fever,
more than one hundred and thirty deaths appear as the results of a
sparing estimate of such among the facts I have gleaned as could be
numerically valued. These facts constitute, we may take it for granted,
but a small fraction of those that have actually occurred. The number of
them might be greater, but "'t is enough, 't will serve," in Mercutio's
modest phrase, so far as frequency is concerned. For a just estimate of
the importance of the singular circumstance, it might be proper to
consult the languid survivors, the widowed husbands, and the motherless
children, as well as "the unfortunate accoucheur."

III

CURRENTS AND COUNTER-CURRENTS IN MEDICAL SCIENCE

An Address delivered before the Massachusetts Medical Society, at the
Annual Meeting, May 30, 1860.

"Facultate magis quam violentia."
HIPPOCRATES.

Our Annual Meeting never fails to teach us at least one lesson. The art
whose province it is to heal and to save cannot protect its own ranks
from the inroads of disease and the waste of the Destroyer.

Seventeen of our associates have been taken from us since our last
Anniversary. Most of them followed their calling in the villages or
towns that lie among the hills or along the inland streams. Only those
who have l