The Profession as Viewed by the Public

Egregious Doctors and Masters of the eximious and arcane Science of Physic of your Urbanitie exasperate not yourselves against me for writing this Boke."I wish I could sustain such an exordium, aud I feel that you will be disappointed that I am con- strained to sink to a colloquial level.As you have appointed me to fill a half-hour of your hard-earned leisure, you must take the consequences while I talk to you in a familiar and rambling manner, with an unavoidable aud cruel abuse of the first person singular about some views which the public holds of the pro- fession.In the set orations and addresses which the year brings round we are generally told of the progress which science has made ; we are reminded of the blessings bestowed on mankind by vaccination, anes- thetics, antiseptics, and bacteriological research, and we complacently dwell on the glory reflected on us, humble practitioners, by the great minds of the profession.All this is very right and very true.It is just and proper that we should feel that our vocation is a noble one, and has numbered in its ranks some of the great ones of the earth.But with this righteous pride it will do none of us harm and some of us good to recall now and then what people say of us, and con- sider if there are any grounds for aspersions on our manuers and customs.By the people I do not allude to the anti-vaccinationists, or the anti-vivisectionists, or the anti-registratiouists, or to the faith-curers in all their branches, including homeopathists, or to the noble army of cranks, or to those of the best educated among us, but to the People with a large P, who send for us wheu they are ill, and who pay, or do not pay, our bills.There is, we all know, a class, not small, who declaim loudly against doctors and their ignorance, and boast that they never need them.These are they who when taken ill want the doctor in the greatest hurry, demand the most attention, and whose recovery is signalized by a woful amnesia in regard to the physician's remuneration.