Introductory Lecture. 
299 
ing the character, of incapacitating for liberal and impartial 
views of the relative importance and mutual benefit of the 
various occupations of social life, and of producing not un- 
frequently a ludicrous pedantry or offensive contemptuousness 
of manner, that tend very considerably to restrict the limits, 
within which any peculiar skill derived from such exclusive- 
ness of devotion can have the opportunity of displaying itself. 
To our profession the warning suggested by this remark is 
especially applicable. We may be said to live upon opinion. 
In most other occupations confidence in superior skill will go 
far towards counteracting the influence of repulsive traits of 
character and manner; but the physician comes so often into 
contact with those who employ him, enters so intimately into all 
their privacies of feeling, opinion, and social connexion, is so 
blended in the mind of the patient and his friends with their 
hopes and fears, joys and regrets, that the conviction of his 
supremacy in skill must be absolute, and the supposed neces- 
sity for his interference extreme, before persons to whom his 
character and manners are repulsive, can be induced to place 
themselves in his hands. It behoves us, therefore, to cultivate 
all those kinds of knowledge which can enlarge, liberalize, 
and adorn our minds; giving, however, a due preference to 
such as is more especially requisite to qualify us for the prac- 
tice of our art, and taking care that the tracery which we 
throw around the structure of our professional knowledge be 
not so abundant, nor so improperly arranged, as to conceal 
the main edifice from the public eye. 
Harmony in intellectual attainment is always desirable. 
An individual who seeks the public patronage in a certain 
line of occupation, should endeavour, in the acquisition of 
knowledge not strictly connected with his duties, so to shape 
his studies as to maintain some relation between them and 
his chief pursuit; so that his literary or scientific culture may 
not appear too glaringly contrasted with his profession. 
Applying these remarks to the Materia Medica, we shall 
be prepared to admit, that the species of knowledge before 
