CORRESPONDENCE 
847 
affected, inflated, sonorous and high-sounding - style in defensive 
reply to our published report, the profession may readily gauge 
the intellectual and logical force of even this guileless graduate 
to successfully defend himself and his board when u weighed 
in the balance and found wanting.” The doctor’s defense is 
a sad surprise to us, coming from a source so eminent, as it fur¬ 
nishes us neither literary flowers nor any sort of fruit. It 
actually reminds us of Grover Cleveland’s report to Mrs. Henry 
Ward Beecher with respect to his moral conduct, which was 
cunningly constructed, but when rightly reduced to the last 
analysis it was found to be one-half alibi and the other half con¬ 
fession. But if I may presume to further characterize the 
Doctor’s contribution, it seems to be entirely innocent of ideas, 
of clearness, conciseness and classic culture. It is weak and 
wandering, murky and muddled; it is in the right road only 
when crossing* it, and no sane man can decide what he is aiming 
at, which side it is on or which way it is going. It reminds us 
of the Irishman who followed the winding trail of a serpent till 
it entered its den, and then in bewilderment, Pat declared that: 
“ It so wriggled in and wriggled out 
That it leaves the observer much in doubt 
Whether the snake that made the track 
Was coming out or going back.” 
The truth will appear to all who read the Doctor’s defense, 
that his sympathetic heart and his avarice are entirelv too much 
for his judicial head and sense of moral responsibility. He de¬ 
picts the old illiterate moss-back practitioner coming before his 
board, ignorant of even the rudimentary principles of the 
science or art of our profession, and yet the board arms the in¬ 
competent with a license to prey upon the public and inflict in¬ 
fernal torture upon dumb beasts, because the applicant is poor in 
purse, burdened with children, and because he has the fee. 
Sentiment and twenty silver dollars too often sway the effemi¬ 
nate and unworthy official, but the stalwart soul feels that duty 
is the grandest word in this world. If delegated to perform a 
sacred duty,. sentiment is utterly out of place. If placed upon 
the picket line facing the enemy, the officer has a plain and 
positive duty to perform, and against the law laid down for his 
guidance he is held to be criminal if he exercises any option or 
is influenced in the least by sentiment or sympathy or silver, 
as to whom he shall wrongfully let pass through his lines to 
the injury of the confiding body of nobler men behind him. A 
man who is thus honored with an important position of trust 
must not prostitute it! It is criminal! The Doctor does not 
