ch time they
assail their neighbors. In my student days I remember a good deal of
this Donnybrook-Fair style of quarrelling, more especially in Paris,
where some of the noted surgeons were always at loggerheads, and in one
of our lively Western cities. Soon after I had set up an office, I had a
trifling experience which may serve to point a moral in this direction.
I had placed a lamp behind the glass in the entry to indicate to the
passer-by where relief from all curable infirmities was to be sought and
found. Its brilliancy attracted the attention of a devious youth, who
dashed his fist through the glass and upset my modest luminary. All he
got by his vivacious assault was that he left portions of integument from
his knuckles upon the glass, had a lame hand, was very easily identified,
and had to pay the glazier's bill. The moral is that, if the brilliancy
of another's reputation excites your belligerent instincts, it is not
worth your while to strike at it, without calculating which of you is
likely to suffer most, if you do.

You may be assured that when an ill-conditioned neighbor is always
complaining of a bad taste in his mouth and an evil atmosphere about him,
there is something wrong about his own secretions. In such cases there
is an alterative regimen of remarkable efficacy: it is a starvation-diet
of letting alone. The great majority of the profession are peacefully
inclined. Their pursuits are eminently humanizing, and they look with
disgust on the personalities which intrude themselves into the placid
domain of an art whose province it is to heal and not to wound.

The intercourse of teacher and student in a large school is necessarily
limited, but it should be, and, so far as my experience goes, it is,
eminently cordial and kindly. You will leave with regret, and hold in
tender remembrance, those who have taken you by the hand at your entrance
on your chosen path, and led you patiently and faithfully, until the
great gates at its end have swung upon their hinges, and the world lies
open before you. That venerable oath to which I have before referred
bound the student to regard his instructor in the light of a parent, to
treat his children like brothers, to succor him in his day of need. I
trust the spirit of the oath of Hippocrates is not dead in the hearts of
the students of to-day. They will remember with gratitude every earnest
effort, every encouraging word, which has helped them in their difficult
a