22 PROLEGOMENON. 



only the country doctor knows : midnight rides of dreary 

 miles in snow and rain storms; lonely struggling with the 

 disorganizing powers of the world; the mournful tragedy 

 of "death life overtaking" in the woodman's lonely cabin, 

 in the ploughman's lowly cot, and the beggar's filthy sty ; 

 also, of course, the constant single-hand fight with the de- 

 stroying angel, with none of the band of true brothers 

 near, and the fearful responsibility of the contract to 

 preserve life in all the details of the profession, repre- 

 senting every department, as the country doctor must, and 

 be veritable factotum in the profession, executing the insti- 

 tutes of surgery, midwifery, and practice, including, at the 

 same time, the arts of the druggist, dentist, and veterinary 

 surgeon. With hard work, suffering, distractions, and ago- 

 nies, and perhaps the worst of all experiences to bear, might 

 be included the angry and averted face when asked for the 

 " quid pro quo" for saving life, or the FEE for services 

 money could never pay for executing, and which only a 

 sense of duty could command any man to execute at all. 

 To escape in some way the FULL MEASURE of suffering 

 of a country practice, the extreme agonies and dreary 

 wastes of horror of a country doctor's life, and at the same 

 time to attain the clear mountain-top of a higher force 

 professional, a larger range of power, a more extensive 

 sphere in which to develop the heavenly functions of the 

 art of healing; in short, from its inception the enterprise 

 has been nothing but an enlarged projection of the country 

 physician 's power in the relief of suffering, and the creation of 

 health and happiness. A doctorial project in toto, nursed 

 in the heart and brain for years of patient vigilance and 

 solicitude, not unmingled (as has been adverted to and 

 acknowledged, with a sense of shame) with the more 

 terrestrial visions of a better way to the dollar, a clearer 

 track than the thumb-screw or torture process of extract- 

 ing cents by forceps from the pockets of patients, and 

 presenting a more direct route, as was hoped, to compe- 

 tency, (for here it must be acknowledged, with sorrow for 



