bility may be removed, if he acquiefces in their defire after this declaration; he is as truly refponfible for the confequences of a mode of treatment fuggefted by another, and adopted by him without any intimation of its probable effects, as he would have been had it originated with himself. He will not become boaftful and arrogant when his exertions are crowned with fuccefs; but will recollect that he is an humble inftrument in the hands of that Being, who gives knowledge to the Physician and health to the fick. Neither will he defert his patient when there are no longer any remaining hopes of recovery. Though life cannot be retained, pain may be mitigated. Even if the patient seems beyond the reach of me dicine, the prefence of the Physician will compofe the minds and alleviate the forrow of friends and relations. But in those circumstances a man of liberality will be anxious to evince, by moderation in the receipt of fees, that compaffion and gratitude, not avarice and deceit, prompt his attendance.

Continual intercourse with disease, and the habit of breathing in morbid atmospheres,

seem, through the wife and merciful appointment of Providence, commonly to fecure the Phyfician from infection. Hence cafes of contagion can rarely arife, in which these confiderations, joined to a fenfe of the duties impofed on him by the profeffion into which he has entered, will not bind him calmly to obey the fummons of the afflicted, and encounter all perfonal hazard. Experience however has proved, that a Physician may convey to others a diftemper, which is unable to faften upon himself. himself. In paffing therefore from one family to another, when the former is vifited with a malady cafily communicable, as a putrid fever, to people in general; or as the fmall-pox, to thofe whom it has not heretofore attacked; let him guard by all requifite precautions against introducing into the latter houfe an inmate more formidable than that which he comes to expel.

Though fome of the obfervations, which have been made under the prefent head, are applicable to the Physician only when attending on patients in the upper and middle ranks of fociety; the greater number have likewife

likewise an obvious reference to his duty when yifiting the poor. Perfons of the latter description will principally come under his care in his capacity as Physician to an hospital, or to fome other medical charity. On the subject of hospital practice it may not be improper to fubjoin a caution against making unneceffary or rafh experiments in the treatment of the patients. The fcience of medicine undoubtedly derives continual acceffions of improvement from the inventive genius of its followers, New fubftances are introduced into the materia medica ; new modes are discovered of preparing and of combining drugs already in use; and new applications of antient remedies to the cure of diseases, in which recourfe was never had to them before. In many respects an hofpital presents a field peculiarly inviting for pushing these discoveries. Inftances may there be found at hand of almost every complaint; many experiments may there be going on at once, and be inspected in their feveral stages with a fingle glance of the eye. To these inducements we may add another, though it will operate only on unprincipled men, who however will occafionally find their

way

way into the medical as into every other profeffion; that in the populous wards of an infirmary the ill fuccefs of an adventurous trial is loft in the crowd of fortunate and unfortunate events; and even if it fhould terminate in the death of an obfcure, indigent, and quickly forgotten individual, little if any disadvantage results to the credit and interest of the Physician among his wealthy employers. It is not meant by these remarks to cenfure experiments defigned to leffen the danger, or the fufferings, of the individual, when founded on rational analogies; commenced after mature deliberation; conducted by upright and skilful men; watched during the whole progress with circumfpect attention; and abandoned in time when unfavourable appearances take place. But it is meant ftrongly to reprobate every experiment (k) rafhly or haftily adopted;

(k) Experiments are not unfrequently made upon living animals by Physicians, in the course of their private refearches, for the purpofe of afcertaining the properties of drugs, or other facts of importance in medical and anatomical science. Neither the right nor the propriety of making thefe experiments on reasonable occafions can be difputed: but every degree of needlefs and inconfiderate

cruelty

ed; or carried on by the selfish, the ignorant, the careless, or the obftinate. Proceedings of

this nature are highly criminal, partly because they involve the health and life of the sufferers in great and needlefs hazards; and partly be cause they tend to confirm an opinion already too prevalent in fome places in the minds of the poor, that fuch is the general conduct of Hofpital Physicians: an opinion which, whereever it exifts, ftrikes at the root of the chief advantages to be derived from one of the moft excellent of charitable inftitutions, by deterring perfons for whofe benefit infirmaries are particularly defigned from entering within their walls except in the utmoft emergency; and filling them with gloomy appre

cruelty in profecuting them will be avoided with fcrupulous care by men of feeling and reflection. And whenever they are painful and shocking in the execution, they ought not to be made to develop proceffes of nature, from the knowledge of which no benefit feems likely to refult; to fupport and elucidate unimportant opinions in comparative anatomy; or in any way to gratify idle curiofity: nor fhould they be repeated, though originally useful, after they have proved all that is expected from them; and when the refults have been fo carefully ascertained, that they may received as data already established.

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