THE RELATIONS OF LAW AND MEDICINE. 719 
though far short of what the pubHc welfare required, yet made a wide difference 
between the new and the old London, and probably put a final close to ravages 
of pestilence " in that country. 
Very much of the serious and earnest labor of the lawyer of to-day is in so 
guiding the complex business of his clients, notably great mercantile establish- 
ments, companies and partnerships as to protect them from litigation and ensphere 
their rights in impregnable contracts and instruments. The law has its prophy- 
lactics as well as medicine. But not alone in these general features do these 
professions have analogies ; they have always had intimate relations along that 
ever widening and extending territory we call medical jurisprudence. 
Of course, I do not now allude to the help which now and then the lawyer 
renders to the doctor when a convalescent patient forgets to pay his bill, being 
in that regard under the influence or example of that important personage of 
whom the couplet runs : 
" When the devil was sick the devil a monk would be, 
When the devil was well the devil a monk was he." 
Indeed there are quite a large number of persons in all commuities who do 
not look upon lawyers' fees or doctor's bills as a superlative means of grace. A 
sermon to such once in a while from the pulpit might do them good, at least it 
would give them the "benefit of the clergy." The growth, extent and variety 
of the questions which the student of medicine and the student of law must now 
master well illustrates and justifies the optimists' belief in the forward and up- 
ward struggle of the race. 
The educated physician and the well read lawyer find the common problems 
of their callings increasing in number, complexity and refinement. The volumes 
on these questions yearly grow apace and fill ampler shelves in the library of the 
professions. In our day law and medicine are often deeply absorbed with inves- 
tigations of cerebration. Human law, if not all law as applied to humanity, is 
pivoted upon the action and motive of beings capable of determining the boun- 
daries of right and wrong and possessing the will to obey the one and reject the 
other. 
The intimate yet veiled connection between the brain and the spirit, a rela- 
tionship once so unknown that the presence of demoniacal agency was conjured 
up to account for actions which the science of to-day ascribes to a diseased sen- 
sorium, is ever presenting startling or tragic phases. 
While yet at the bar it fell to the lot of William H. Seward to show alike 
his zeal for learning and his devotion to duty when he voluntarily took up the 
defense of the man Freeman, who had horribly put to death the Van Ness fam- 
ily. The whole region was shaken with horror over the event, and on its being 
known that the poor wretch whose bloody hand had perpetrated the deed was 
to be defended by the young and eloquent advocate, who believed the act that 
ol a madman, many of Mr, Seward's best friends tried to dissuade him from ap- 
pearing in a case whose outcome could only bring down upon his head calumny 
