150 TRUTH, PATHOLOGY, AND PUBLIC. 



what happens when verification of diagnosis is 

 neglected. Let us try to trace the history of a 

 medical career in which this fault is committed. A 

 graduate has been accustomed in his studies to 

 have series of cases brought before his notice, of 

 which the most prominently impressed on him have 

 got well, and have seemed thereby to show that the 

 evil had been accurately recognized and successfully 

 combated. Others, likewise distinctly remembered, 

 have got worse and worse, till they have ended 

 fatally ; and in those cases a proper investigation 

 afterwards has taught numerous lessons v/hich 

 could not fail to impress the thoughtful observer. 

 And if, besides all those, there have been, as there 

 must be, numerous other cases which have not been 

 rounded off to a dramatic conclusion of success or 

 tragic close, but have lingered on in an unsatisfac- 

 tory way, or disappeared from observation none the 

 better ; the exigencies of teaching, apart from the 

 operation of any subtle and unconscious instinct of 

 human nature in the mind of the teacher, tend 

 often to throw such cases into the background, while 

 their absence of sensational interest leads the 

 student to leave them there to be forgotten. The 

 graduate passes, as many of you are about to do, 

 into general practice on his own account. Then 

 how great is the change ! The acute cases which 



