OUR GIDEON GRAYS.

"Agricolam laudat

Sub galli cantum consultor ubi ostia pulsat."

"I would rather go back to Africa than practise again at Peebles."-MUNGO PARK.

T might perhaps have been better, if our hard-headed, hard-hitting, clever, and not

over-mansuete friend "Fuge Medicos" had never allowed those "wild and stormy writings" of his to come into print, and it might perhaps also have been as well, had we told him so at once; but as we are inclined to be optimists when a thing is past, we think more good than evil has come out of his assault and its repulse. "F. M." (we cannot be always giving at full length his uncouth Hoffmannism) has, in fact, in his second

1 The following short paper from the Scotsman was occasioned by a correspondence in that newspaper, in which doctors in general, and country doctors in particular, were attacked and defended. It is reprinted here as a record of the amazing facts brought out by Dr. Alison's Association. In the attack by Fuge Medicos,” consisting of two long letters, there was much ability with not much fairness, and not a little misapplied energy of language, and sharpness of invective.

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letter, which is much the better, answered his first, and turned his back considerably upon himself, by abating some of his most offensive charges; and our country doctors in their replies have shown that they have sense as well as spirit, and can write like gentlemen, while they of the town have cordially and to good purpose spoken up for their hardworking country brethren.

We are not now going to adjudicate upon the strictly professional points raised by "F. M.," whether, for instance, bleeding is ever anything but mischievous; whether the constitution, or type of disease, changes or not; whether Dr. Samuel Dickson of "the Fallacies" is an impudent quack or the Newton of medicine; whether Dr. Wilkinson is an amiable and bewildered Swedenborgian, with much imagination, little logic, and less knowledge, and a wonderful power of beautiful writing, or the herald of a new gospel of health. We may have our own opinions on these subjects, but their discussion lies out of our beat; they are strictly professional in their essence, and ought to remain so in their treatment. We are by no means inclined to deny that there are ignorant and dangerous practitioners in the country, as well as in the city. What we have to say against "F. M." and in favour of the class he has attacked is, that no man should

bring such charges against any large body of men, without offering such an amount and kind of proof of their truth, as, it is not too much to say, it is impossible for any mere amateur to produce, even though that amateur were as full of will and energy as "F. M. ;" and unless he can do so, he stands convicted of something very like what he himself calls "reckless, maleficent stupidity." It is true, "F. M." speaks of "ignorant country doctors ;" but his general charges against the profession have little meaning, and his Latin motto still less, if ignorance be not predicated of country doctors in general. One, or even half a dozen worthless, mischievous country doctors, is too small an induction of particulars, to warrant " F. M." in inferring the same qualities of some 500 or more unknown men. But we are not content with proving the negative we speak not without long, intimate, and extensive knowledge of the men who have the charge of the lives of our country population, when we assert, that not only are they as a class fully equal to other rural professional men in intelligence, humanity, and skill, and in all that constitutes what we call worth, but that, take them all in all, they are the best educated, the most useful, the most enlightened, as they certainly are the worst paid and hardest-worked country doctors in Christendom.