566 
EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
occurred* arrives at the conclusion that the disease which 
produced such alterations must have existed for a week prior 
to the animal’s death, he only enunciates an opinion : the 
pretender who contents himself with a glance at the parts, 
and states his conviction that the disease must have existed 
for at least three months does the same thing, he gives his 
opinion ; hut in the one case the evidence is that of a philo- 
sophic inquirer, and is valuable accordingly, while in the 
other it is the meaningless utterance of an ignoramus ; and 
if the matter in dispute is susceptible of proof, and it trans- 
pires that the philosopher was right, no one is surprised. 
Opinions quite as widely discrepant, however, are con- 
stantly given by men in our profession of equal professional 
qualification and experience, and it is this circumstance 
which is so deplorable and so unnecessary, because, admitting 
that every man has a right to enjoy an opinion, no one is 
bound to utter an opinion until he has taken every means to 
insure that it shall be in all particulars worthy of being 
uttered and defended. Many products of disease are pre- 
sented to the notice of the morbid anatomist, characterised 
by no definite indications of age, and in respect of their dura- 
tion he would often find it impossible to form any opinion. 
In this category, for example, may he placed fibrous and fatty tu- 
mours, bony deposits, calcareous degeneration of textures, all 
which morbid conditions, when fully developed, remain for 
long periods quite unchanged in character, and afford to the 
most careful investigator no evidence of the passage of time. 
Other phenomena of an active kind are less persistent, such 
as suppuration, plastic exudation, serous effusion, all of which 
depend, in their origin and duration, upon a combination of 
conditions, and can only he correctly appreciated in the light 
of the knowledge of all the circumstances, — upon all these 
points, and upon many others more obscure, what are by 
courtesy termed “ opinions ” are frequently volunteered by 
men who, if fairly put to the test, are quite incapable of 
determining the character of the most common morbid pro- 
ducts, and whose great error is the weak adherence to the 
belief that to all questions some kind of answer, right or 
Wrong, must be given. If we all of us were content to 
