tween his medical brethren and himself, which may lead to an habitual, free, and mutually beneficial communication of interefting facts, which may occur to them in the circle of their practice. He will refrain from every approach towards obtrusive interference with respect to a cafe already under the management of another. And if extraordinary or peculiar circumstances should in any instance lead him to conclude on mature deliberation that fome interference on his part is an act of indifpenfable duty; he will discharge that duty in fuch a manner as to refute, if it be poffible, the suspicions which he must expect to incur of having been impelled by selfish considerations, or by other motives equally unwarrantable. He will affift his competitors, when abfent or out of health, with promptitude and with evident difinterestedness; and will at all times be juft in his representations of their merits. He will not attempt to bring forward ignorant or worthless Physicians, because they happen to be his relations or his countrymen; to have been educated at the same school with himself; to have been students at the fame college; or to be recommended to him by his particular friends. He VOL. II.. N will will not entertain abfurd prejudices against any of his rivals, on account of having an unfavourable opinion of the university from which they received their degrees. Nor will he fcornfully exclude from all the privileges of fellowship intelligent medical practitioners, who have not been fortunate enough to receive a degree from any univerfity; when they give proofs of actually poffeffing those attainments, of which an academical education is confidered as the bafis, and a degree regarded as prefumptive evidence. To poffefs the countenance and recommendation of an eminent Apothecary is frequently of no small service to a Physician, not merely at his outfet in life, but even when he is eftablished in practice. Hence mean and interefted men have been known to refort to moft unworthy methods of fecuring this affiftance. "It is a known (2) fact, that, in many parts "of Europe, Phyficians who have the best "parts and beft education must yet depend for "their fuccefs in life upon Apothecaries who (") Gregory's Lectures, p. 45. "have no pretenfions either to the one or to "the other; and that this obligation is too "often repaid by what every one who is "concerned for the honour of medicine muft "reflect on with pain and indignation." In this country, it may be prefumed, examples of Physicians, who would contract that obligation on the terms of repaying it in the manner here alluded to, or in any fimilar way, are so rare (o), that it is unneceffary to dwell on the subject. It may be added, however, that a Phyfician who pushes into bufinefs ignorant and undeferving Surgeons and Apothecaries from motives of groundless partiality, or from the impulfe of private friendship without refpect to perfonal merit; acts a part lefs culpable indeed in itself, but not lefs detrimental to the public, than if his conduct had originated in a fecret understanding between himself and them, founded on views of base and fraudulent advantage. And on the other hand, to employ his influence with his pa (0) Yet it is faid to have happened more than once in London, that an old and established Apothecary has received half of a Physician's fees in return for his indifcri minate recommendation. N 2 tients tients to the prejudice of skilful and merito rious men, in confequence of rash and ungenerous furmises, would be a proceeding highly to be condemned: to employ it thus through à private grudge would be the extreme of baseness. The nature of the medical profeffion admits the Physician to fuch a degree of private and unreserved intercourfe with the families which he attends, as is capable either of being grofsly abused, or of being turned to purposes of great and general utility. If he divulges those personal weakneffes, or betrays those domestic fecrets, which come to his knowledge in the course of his employment; if he bears tales of flander from houfe to house; if he foments quarrels and aggravates misunderstandings; he is deferving of feverer cenfure than words can convey. Whatever he witneffes humiliating and difgraceful in the habitation of one patient, he should wish to forget before he enters that of another. He ought to watch for opportunities, and embrace them, though with prudence yet with alacrity, of removing prejudices, and obviating differences between neighbours; neighbours; whether arifing from private difputes, from religious bigotry, or from the violence of political oppofition. He He may thus be the happy inftrument of allaying those mental irritations, which difturb focial peace; and confer by his benevolent mediation a more important fervice on the parties whom he leads to a renewal of cordiality, than if he had relieved them by his skill from an afflicting bodily disease. He may also contribute to diffufe juft fentiments on a great variety of fubjects, and to excite a tafte for useful and liberal knowledge among thofe with whom he is in habits of familiarity as a friend or as a Physician, by ftudying to render his converfation generally improving; by discreetly introducing topics adapted for calm and rational difcuffion; and by occasionally bringing forward without parade or oftentation facts in natural history and discoveries in science, sufficiently interesting to awaken the curiosity of his hearers, yet not so abstruse as to perplex their understandings. Finally, let the Physician fcrupulously continue to avoid, when he feels himself firmly N 3 established |