body corporate of physicians is forbidden in this the nineteenth century.

Surely the "dust of the schools" had blinded men highest in authority. Whilst poring over the casket, they had forgotten the jewel within; whilst scraping at the shell, they never reached the kernel; whilst devouring the language, they ignored the truths it conveyed. So that their Charter and their practice, their Acts of Parliament and their bye-laws, their precepts and their example, only affix to them the stigma, "video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor." They speak only of ancient medicine, whilst they represent its mediæval corruptions and divisions.

It must be allowed that the time has arrived when each and all should contend for our dignity and our desert by combining to effect one object, the elevation of our common profession. Each individual can, by this method alone, advance himself and his vocation in the opinion of his fellow-practitioner and of the public.

How many of the latter now endure their sufferings or their fears in suspense rather than submit to a disproportionate fee on the one hand, or unnecessary medicines on the other; and how great are the evils hence arising to the profession as well as the public! How many are thus driven to the various forms of quackery! How often is the mind, when weakened by anxiety and suspense-it may be by disease

con

pleasingly diverted with some interesting toy in the shape of theory; whilst the means of cure, so neglected in the last century, the "Airs, Waters, and Places" of Hippocrates, the "Dietetics tained in the first four books of Celsus, stealthily produce their marvellous and curative effects; whereby truth is again obscured and imposture strengthened.*

It is impossible that the great mass of our profession can pretend, in one short life, to do the work of two. "The art we exercise is long, opportunities rare, experience deceitful, judgment difficult;" therefore must the part so abnormally united to the physician's office, which has never flourished in their hands, which was never sanctioned by any other age or state, be consigned to those so well prepared to receive it, with honour to themselves and the profession, and with advantage to all; whilst the 'pure physician shall traverse the same path, attain the one necessary qualification for the exercise of medicine "in all and every its members and parts," enter at the one portal, and thus join that "unum corpus in re et nomine" which shall array truth and honesty against quackery and imposture,

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* If a professor of hygiene (or dietetics in its comprehensive sense) were appointed to every school in the kingdom, he may soon take the wind out of the sails of the chief quackeries of the present day.

† The Pharmaceutical Society with compulsory instead of voluntary examinations, and with the exclusive privileges accorded to the Society of Apothecaries in 1616. See Appendix 23.

reason and experience against mystery and novelty, purity and unity against corruption and division.*

If thus combined, what would withstand its regenerated powers? Might not the medical profession thus dare to efface prejudices long existing and pertinaciously adhered to, instead of echoing to the destruction of each other, the modes of practice and remuneration adopted from the three successive usurpers of their office? Might not the public be taught with one voice that our duty is to guard their health and life so as by any or by all means to resist or repel the invasions of disease and death? Might we not, as skilful pilots, when the elements of man's frail bark are disarranged, or it may be threaten dissolution, hold fast the helm, and, with vigilant eye, watch for indications to correct the one or to avert the other? Let careful observation, quick perception, calm reflection, prompt and decisive action, persevering unremitting efforts, be combined for one purpose, to detect and to destroy disease, to release from, or at least relieve, all suffering. Let these be the valued instruments in the physician's armoury, rather than the coloured syrups and the perfumed waters, and how glorious the prospect !

*The passage quoted from the only work extant of Scribonius Largus (see note, antè, p. 18), was written by him at a time when he was absent from Rome with the Emperor Claudius, and probably during his expedition to these shores. (See Smith's 'Biographical Dictionary,' "Largus Scribonius.") How well may this true definition of the physician's office return hither in the nineteenth century.

But now how different when quackery within only competes with quackery from without; when the legalized growth of corruption and division only offers the widest field for duplicity and deceit, so fatal to the lofty and ennobling purposes for which "medicine was created."

It has been asked, why do not men of rank and influence enter a profession so inviting for its intellectual pursuits, so elevating, so godlike in its better offices? They would-as they do the sister professions of divinity and law-but for its social position, its moral degradation. It is not that the laws of nature are second to the laws of man in their study or their application; it is not that the health and life of man are of less value than his peace and property; yet how great the honour and emolument accruing to him who devotes himself to the one! how opposite the fate of him who enlists in the service of the other! It is not that he who wars beneath the banner of health and life against disease and death is less honorably engaged than he "who slays his thousands;" yet how great the contrast of their relative position at the present day, and that which they held in olden times!*

The fact is, that the profession, second to one only, has, by weakness and division within, opened wide the flood-gates to corruption from without.

* See antè, p. 143; also, Rev. Robert Hall's Works,' vol. iv, p. 500.

Why have law, physic, and divinity held such relative positions in the world's estimation-as witness their respective honours and rewards—but for the causes assigned? Are not the laws of God, of nature, and of man, physiologically and pathologically considered, the study of the three learned professions? Can there be subjects more worthy the highest intellect, the purest morality? Surely, then, the honour attaching to each should be in an inverse ratio to that so usually assigned them, inasmuch as the laws of God in Revelation and in Nature are superior to the laws of man. The study of nature, with all her varied phenomena, her history and philosophy, even when in its relation to the health and life of man, may confess its place second to one, but to this one only, either in its subject-matter or its purpose. How are these high and holy objects lost sight of by the struggles and contentions herein depicted! In this medical vivarium, each is seeking by selfish and personal aggrandisement to eclipse his brethren, and hence their general obscuration; whereas, by a right distribution of all for their several and distinct offices, each might, in submission to nature's laws, correct the interruption of those laws which civilisation with all its boasting has effected, especially by the concentration of masses, in the present day.

In a recent translation by the Sydenham Society Oesterlen thus speaks :* " Unprofessional people are *Medical Logic,' translated by G. Whitley, p. 434.