258 Dr, MayOy on the Relations of the Public [May 11, 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, May 11, 1860. 



The Duke of Wellington, K.G. D.C.L. Vice-President, 

 in the Chair. 



Thomas Mayo, M.D. F.R.S. 



PEESIDENT Off THB EOTAL COLLEGE OF PHTSICLANS. 



On the relations of the Public to the Science and Practice of 

 Medicine, 



The speaker opened his discourse with remarks on some peculiarities 

 in the relations of society to the medical profession. The business of 

 the profession is conducted among perturbations varying in kind and 

 intensity. The medical practitioner depends upon his skill and success 

 in dealing with a commodity, in relation to which the emotions of his 

 heart and the exertions of his intellect are largely called forth, while 

 the recipient of the supposed or hoped for benefit is with different de- 

 grees of intensity pained and annoyed by having to apply for it. And 

 the relation of the practitioner to society is thus rendered more peculiar 

 by his having to give a certain amount of satisfaction, where all those 

 feelings of the human mind are actively at work, the most calculated 

 to confound the judgment of those whom he has to satisfy. He is 

 tried, coram nonjudice. 



There is thus, the speaker observed, a sort of atmosphere of repug- 

 nance generated by the very nature of the case, between the profession 

 which is presumed to confer the benefit of health, and the public 

 which is presumed to receive it. It was one main object of this discourse 

 to point out, that in spite of these points of antagonism, they have to 

 co-operate, with a view to success ; to co-ordinate their eiforts ; and that 

 the public cannot divest itself of responsibility by placing a case in the 

 hands of the physician, as it can, when dealing with an advocate under 

 analogous circumstances. There are certain great physiological truths, 

 lending themselves both to hygiene and to medicine, which it is incum- 

 bent on the public to acquire as a part of education. " If men," says 

 M. Auguste Comte, " do not confide the study of astronomy to 

 navigators, neither should they leave physiology to the leisure of 

 physicians." 



In this way, the public may attain another very important object. 

 It claims, and justly claims, a right to choose between conflicting 

 schools of medicine. This right it may exercise with more safety and 



