a solemn and sacred fact, and, like infancy, which it
resembles, should be respected. Once in a while you will have a patient
of sense, born with the gift of observation, from whom you may learn
something. When you find yourself in the presence of one who is fertile
of medical opinions, and affluent in stories of marvellous cures,--of a
member of Congress whose name figures in certificates to the value of
patent medicines, of a voluble dame who discourses on the miracles she
has wrought or seen wrought with the little jokers of the sugar-of-milk
globule-box, take out your watch and count the pulse; also note the time
of day, and charge the price of a visit for every extra fifteen, or, if
you are not very busy, every twenty minutes. In this way you will turn
what seems a serious dispensation into a double blessing, for this class
of patients loves dearly to talk, and it does them a deal of good, and
you feel as if you had earned your money by the dose you have taken,
quite as honestly as by any dose you may have ordered.

You must take the community just as it is, and make the best of it. You
wish to obtain its confidence; there is a short rule for doing this which
you will find useful,--deserve it. But, to deserve it in full measure,
you must unite many excellences, natural and acquired.

As the basis of all the rest, you must have all those traits of character
which fit you to enter into the most intimate and confidential relations
with the families of which you are the privileged friend and counsellor.
Medical Christianity, if I may use such a term, is of very early date.
By the oath of Hippocrates, the practitioner of ancient times bound
himself to enter his patient's house with the sole purpose of doing him
good, and so to conduct himself as to avoid the very appearance of evil.
Let the physician of to-day begin by coming up to this standard, and add
to it all the more recently discovered virtues and graces.

A certain amount of natural ability is requisite to make you a good
physician, but by no means that disproportionate development of some
special faculty which goes by the name of genius. A just balance of the
mental powers is a great deal more likely to be useful than any single
talent, even were it the power of observation; in excess. For a mere
observer is liable to be too fond of facts for their own sake, so that,
if he told the real truth, he would confess that he takes more pleasure
in a post-mortem exami