The Gold-Headed Cane. 285 



panied his announcement of the bequests of Dr. Baillie to 

 the College. 



" His purse and his personal services were always at the com- 

 mand of those who could prefer a proper claim to them ; and every 



branch of the profession met with equal attention la 



consultation he was liberal and candid in the highest degree ; and 

 so industriously gave credit to the previous treatment of the 

 patient (if he could approve of it), that the physician who called 

 him in never failed to find himself in the same possession of the 

 good opinion of the family as he was before the circumstances of 

 the case had made a consultation necessary. His manner of ex- 

 plaining the disease, and tlie remedies recommended, was peculiar 

 to himself, and singularly happy. It was a short, compressed lec- 

 ture Before his time it was not usual for a phy- 

 sician to do much more than prescribe remedies for the malady, 



and to encourage the patient But as the assumed 



gravity and outward signs of the profession were now considered 

 obsolete customs, and were, by general consent, laid aside by the 

 physicians, and as a more curious anxiety began to be observed on 

 the part of the patient, to learn everything connected with his 

 complaint, arising naturally from the improved state of general 

 knowledge, a different conduct became necessary in the sick room. 

 But justice cannot be done to his medical character, unless that 

 important feature in it which appeared in every part of his conduct 

 and demeanour, his religious principle, be distinctly stated and 

 recognized." — (p. 170 — 176.) 



The wood-engravings with which this volume is sprinkled, 

 are not without interest to the physiognomist and the 

 antiquarian. We hope, ere long, again to encounter Dr. 

 Macmichael in the field of anecdote^ where he is so active 

 and cheerful a sportsman; — and that, in a future edition, he 

 will find time to double the number of his pages, and to 

 wander more freely over the deserted, but fertile, territory 

 of medical antiquities. The last hundred years may procure 

 ample exercise for his remark, either in watching the move- 

 ments of the regular service, or in tracing to their secret 

 haunts the guerrilla corps of Magnetism and Metallic Tractor, 

 the poachers on Longevity, or the smugglers of the Tea of 

 Life. His reminiscences of the medical world will be equally 

 pleasing to the veteran who is reposing on his oar, and 

 mstructive to the younger mariner who is about to launch his 

 skiff. England has been stigmatized as the paradise of 

 quackery, — with more justice she might be styled the para- 

 aise of medicine ; and it would be a mark of real ingratitude, 

 if a country, where fame and fortune so largely remunerate 

 the professors, could find no one ambitious of celebrating the 

 progress of the science. 



