TRUTH, PATHOLOGY, AND PUBLIC. 151 
were so instructive in hospital no longer form the 
staple of his experience, and the chronic cases no 
more like meteors disappear from view. He has 
these disadvantages to cope with—namely, that in 
his successful cases, as will always happen, he is in 
a certain number of instances deceived by the cir- 
cumstance that the fortunate issue has not in reality 
been aided by his treatment, or that the treatment 
has accidentally suited a condition other than the 
presumed lesion against which it was directed ; in 
fatal cases he seldom has the opportunity afforded 
him of proving the opinions on which he has acted, 
and when the opportunity occurs he learns to con- 
sider it a trouble to utilize it; while, as for the vast 
number of cases that seem to get neither greatly 
better nor worse, they become inevitably, as time 
goes on, a lighter burden on his conscience, are set 
down as among the things that “no fellow can find 
out,” and kept as quiet as may be with a variety of 
palliatives. What wonder that such a man falls 
into a humdrum routine ! 
Suppose, in obscure cases, you exercise your 
reasoning powers to the best of your ability; you 
form the theory which seems most probable ; but 
you have no means of testing it ; other cases occur 
similar in much to those which have been already 
seen, and you apply the unproven theory with all 
