TRUTH, PATHOLOGY, AND PUBLIC. 149 
without studying morbid conditions after death. 
That is to you self-evident ; but the general public 
have never caught hold of the idea properly, or 
they would take more care that the greatest possi- 
ble facilities should be given for the prosecution of 
inquiries on which their own health ultimately de-— 
pends. But let the public listen to this further 
statement, which you will all recognize as true, 
though some of you will forget it as time rolls on— 
that the practice of each individual practitioner is 
trustworthy only when he makes use of frequent op- 
portunities of examining after death to verify and 
supplement his judgments where they have been 
right, to test his guesses and his suppositions that 
he may see how far they have accorded with fact, 
and most of all to correct the numerous errors into 
which the wisest and the most experienced continu- 
ally fall. 
We talk of the progress of medicine; but what 
an enormous amount of distress might be alleviated 
if that which is known could be brought to bear in 
every instance in which it is applicable, or even in 
the majority of instances. To this end continued 
pathological observation must be conducted by 
every practitioner; and it is because the blame of 
the neglect of this lies much more with the public 
than with the profession that I venture to point out 
