ly to
hundreds of young men, who will carry them to their legitimate results
in practice.

The teachings of the two Professors in the great schools of Philadelphia
are sure to be listened to, not only by their immediate pupils, but by
the Profession at large. I am too much in earnest for either humility
or vanity, but I do entreat those who hold the keys of life and death to
listen to me also for this once. I ask no personal favor; but I beg to
be heard in behalf of the women whose lives are at stake, until some
stronger voice shall plead for them.

I trust that I have made the issue perfectly distinct and intelligible.
And let it be remembered that this is no subject to be smoothed over by
nicely adjusted phrases of half-assent and half-censure divided between
the parties. The balance must be struck boldly and the result declared
plainly. If I have been hasty, presumptuous, ill-informed, illogical; if
my array of facts means nothing; if there is no reason for any caution
in the view of these facts; let me be told so on such authority that I
must believe it, and I will be silent henceforth, recognizing that my
mind is in a state of disorganization. If the doctrine I have maintained
is a mournful truth; if to disbelieve it, and to practise on this
disbelief, and to teach others so to disbelieve and practise, is to
carry desolation, and to charter others to carry it, into confiding
families, let it be proclaimed as plainly what is to be thought of the
teachings of those who sneer at the alleged dangers, and scout the very
idea of precaution. Let it be remembered that persons are nothing in
this matter; better that twenty pamphleteers should be silenced, or as
many professors unseated, than that one mother's life should be
taken. There is no quarrel here between men, but there is deadly
incompatibility and exterminating warfare between doctrines.
Coincidences meaning nothing, though a man have a monopoly of the
disease for weeks or months; or cause and effect, the cause being in
some way connected with the person; this is the question. If I am wrong,
let me be put down by such a rebuke as no rash declaimer has received
since there has been a public opinion in the medical profession of
America; if I am right, let doctrines which lead to professional
homicide be no longer taught from the chairs of those two great
Institutions. Indifference will not do here; our Journalists and
Committees have no right to take up their page