L. Hodge, M. D., Professor of Obstetrics in the
University of Pennsylvania. Delivered Monday, October 11, 1852.
Philadelphia, 1852.

On the Nature, Signs, and Treatment of Childbed Fevers: in a Series of
Letters addressed to the Students of his Class. By Charles D. Meigs,
M. D., Professor of Midwifery and the Diseases of Women and Children in
Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, etc., etc. Philadelphia, 1854.
Letter VI.

The first of the two publications, Dr. Hodge's Lecture, while its
theoretical considerations and negative experiences do not seem to me to
require any further notice than such as lay ready for them in my Essay
written long before, is, I am pleased to say, unobjectionable in tone
and language, and may be read without offence.

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