s 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 out of the lecture-room, if
once the teeming intellect which nourishes theirs has been scared from
its propriety by any misshapen fantasy. Even an impatient or petulant
expression, which to a philosopher would be a mere index of the low
state of amiability of the speaker at the moment of its utterance, may
pass into the young mind as an element of its future constitution, to
injure its temper or corrupt its judgment. It is a duty, therefore,
which we owe to this younger class of students, to clear any important
truth which may have been rendered questionable in their minds by such
language, or any truth-teller against whom they may have been prejudiced
by hasty epithets, from the impressions such words have left. Until this
is done, they are not ready for the question, where there is a question,
for them to decide. Even if we ourselves are the subjects of the
prejudice, there seems to be no impropriety in showing that this
prejudice is local or personal, and not an acknowledged conviction with
the public at large. It may be necessary to break through our usual
habits of reserve to do this, but this is the fault of the position in
which others have placed us.

Two widely-known and highly-esteemed practitioners, Professors in two
of the largest Medical Schools of the Union, teaching the branch of
art which includes the Diseases of Women, and therefore speaking with
authority; addressing in their lectures and printed publications large
numbers of young men, many of them in the tenderest immaturity of
knowledge, have recently taken ground in a formal way against the
doctrine maintained in this paper:

On the Non-Contagious Character of Puerperal Fever: An Introductory
Lecture. By Hugh