164 
EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
scepticism and credulity. The great desire of the third class is something 
new, something they can talk largely about and ‘ do a little bit of * them¬ 
selves; and there is always plenty of novelty for their amusement or their 
injury. These people are eccentric, and often pride themselves in ‘ free 
thinking’ and in knowing a little—I beg their pardon—a great deal of 
physiology and pathology. They have generally got hold of some * wonder¬ 
ful man,’ who knows everything ; and they regard the orthodox practition¬ 
ers as bigoted old men, who know less than themselves. 
“ These patients know what symptoms to have, and generally have them, 
and if you do not cure them immediately they go to some one else, who 
cured their first cousin of a similar attack; they know it was precisely 
similar, and what was done in his case was so-and-so. They always ask 
what you are going to give them, because generally they cannot bear the 
slightest grain of some half dozen most ordinary drugs. They are always 
taking medicine, and recommending others to do the same. They travel to 
Germany to drink the waters there; go to Harrogate, and rejoice in the 
odour of antiquated eggs. They try globules for a time, and carry about 
them most tempting little cases of bottles, from which they regale them¬ 
selves with grain doses of differently named samples of sugar of milk, aud 
all this in accordance with their little books. Hydropathy, compressed air 
baths, quack medicines, revalenta arabica, galvanism, mesmerism, spirit- 
rapping, and the like, are all tried, and one and another for the time extolled; 
then they go their backsliding ways to ‘ antibilious pills;’ have a fit of 
claret; then an attack of ‘old dry Lisbon;’ become teetotallers, vegetarians, 
great walkers, and carry pedometers; wear ventilating hats, try brandy aud 
salt, and give up coffee, find out ‘ it’s all the stomach,’ and take pepsine; 
break their legs, and go to a ‘bone-setter’ to have them mended. They 
wish they had been doctors themselves; they think their own case the most 
-extraordinary upon earth; they believe to the full in physic of all kinds, 
but they as potently believe that no one understands it but themselves; 
and when they are about to die, they always think that it is because they did 
not do something else, or ‘ drink some waters ’ for a month longer three 
years ago. 
“Thus there are—1st, The old orthodox believers in institutions, and the 
ways of their grandfathers; 2nd, the believers in themselves, in the next 
generation, in novelty, or at all events disbelievers in the old; aud 3rd, a 
certain middle class of sceptics, eclectics, and the like, often very foolish in 
their conduct, although priding themselves upon superior judgment. And 
it is owing to the numerical and social predominance of one or the other of 
these three classes that the regular orthodox profession has its position of 
affluence, respect, or ignoring; but the distribution of these classes, and 
the influences they exert, are in great measure due to the bearing of the 
profession itself.” 
Dr. Reynolds, having adverted to medical literature, and 
the causes that militate against scientific progress, closes 
his essay with the following remarks—a panegyric on medi¬ 
cine not greater than it merits. 
“ The real advance of practical medicine is not determined solely by the 
position it takes among the sciences, or by the success which attends its 
therapeutic efforts, but by the elevation of its moral and social character, 
and to this real advance all may, in their proper sphere, contribute. There 
is scarcely any imaginable limit to the influence for good which our profes¬ 
sion may exert. To it are entrusted all the capacities for suffering or for 
pleasure with which our mysterious organisms are endowed; life, with all 
its manifold changes, its bodily infirmities, its subtleties of mind, is com- 
