and Greek have furnished the materials for building up the language of the various sciences for more than two thousand years. The meaning of the terms semi-lunar and dys-uria are as plain and descriptive to those who understand Latin and Greek as the words milk-pail and steam-boat are to those who understand English.

Make yourself master of the current technical terms, and their true pronunciation. In pronouncing the Latin names of medicines, diseases, bones, nerves, veins, muscles, etc., be consistent. Adopt either medical English and invariably pronounce the i in the terminal denoting inflammation as i in ice: bronch-i-tis, appendic-i-tis, etc.; else use the Roman pronunciation and sound the i in all these words like e in eel. The former is now more frequently used. You can acquire a correct pronunciation of the various medical terms by frequently consulting any good medical dictionary.

German is another of the useful languages, and an acquaintance with it is not only pleasurable and a means of intellectual improvement, but it will assist you greatly with the industrious, faithful, and thrifty Germans, among whom you will find many of your most honest and grateful patients. Determine to get at least a smattering of it from teacher, neighbor, book, or otherwise early in your career.

Remember that no one can learn to speak the German or any other language unless conversation enters largely into his teaching; one who cannot read may learn it through his ears only, but no one can learn it through his eyes only.

Foreigners are not as clannish as you might suppose, and many of them prefer an American physician who can speak their language to one who has come here from their own country, and have more confidence in him, because they know that, being a native, he has spent his whole lifetime here, and they reason that, although the great principles of medicine may be taught and learned anywhere, he is by experience more fa

miliar with the diseases that exist in this, his native climate, and with the peculiarities of the vicinity, and the modifying influences of our latitude, seasons, diet, and modes of living.

If you speak French, Italian, Spanish, Bohemian, German, or any other foreign language, it is well to state it on your cards and signs, and such a statement should be in the language of the people for whom it is intended.

A German, Frenchman, Spaniard, Italian, or Bohemian is often delighted to find a physician in an English-speaking community with whom he can converse in his own tongue. Foreigners often pay the physician more promptly than natives, and usually treat him with much greater respect.

Accustom yourself to use correct orthography, and to write, not with a scrawling hand, in a zigzag or the wormfence style, but in a good, distinct, school-day hand. Also cultivate the habit of accuracy in writing. Write every prescription as though critics were to judge your mind and your penmanship by it; each ingredient on a separate line; the principal article, or the strongest drug on the first, adjuvant on the next, and vehicle on the last, unless you have some special reason for transposing them. Such methodical system insures well-balanced prescriptions, and engenders the respect and favorable criticism of all into whose hands they chance to fall. Also take care to conform your prescriptions to the changes that are, from time to time, made in the names of the officinal articles of the United States Pharmacopeia.

Strictly avoid prescribing incompatibles, both chemical and physiological, such as the combination of chlorate of potassium with tannic acid or with sulphur; nitrate of silver with creosote, etc., which are explosives, and may blow up either the dispenser or the patient. Charcoal is a simple thing, sulphur is another, and saltpeter is still another, but put them together and you have gunpowder, which is not simple, and, unless that potent agent is intended, look out! Although the

list of incompatibles is a long one, you will do well to study it thoroughly, otherwise you will subject yourself to the unpleasant, but necessary, interview and the unfavorable judgment of the pharmacist, and possibly to whispering doubts and disparaging innuendoes of others outside. Remember, however, that some medicines, though physiologically incompatible, are not therapeutically so, and under certain circumstances you may actually combine them so that they may favorably modify each other, as morphine and belladonna, acetate of lead and sulphate of zinc, etc.

Instead of writing thirteen-article prescriptions, it is far better to use a single remedy, or, if two are indicated, to alternate them, unless you know that they are compatible and will not make an unsightly mixture.

Again, your prescription is always the expression of your opinion and also of your skill in a case, because :

The mind is the man.

Therefore try to make every one you write show on its face that you have prescribed it with a definite purpose, to meet some clear therapeutic indication.

Be careful that abbreviations of names, manner of writing quantities, etc., leave no room for mistake in dispensing, and make it a rule to read carefully every prescription after you finish writing it.

It is scarcely necessary to add that, while the distinctive names of the several ingredients in a prescription should be written in Latin, the directions for use-i.e., all that follows the S. (signa)—should be in English, as it is intended for the guidance of the patient.

Remember that the cloven-foot B that is placed at the top of each prescription (præ, beforehand; scribere, to write) was originally the astrological sign for Jupiter (24), placed by the ancients at the head of each and every prescription, to

invoke the aid of the God of Thunder, but now used merely as a symbol to represent the Latin word Recipe (take thou).

While it is proper, strictly speaking, to commence every word, after the first, in the names of the articles in your prescription with a small letter,-i.e., Liquor potassii arsenitis,— yet many physicians, in whom it has nothing to do with lack of education, purposely begin each with a capital, Liquor Potassii Arsenitis, chiefly because it looks well, and also renders the words less mistakable.

Sign either your name or initials to every prescription you write, that the pharmacist may recognize you as its writer. To such as are likely to be compounded by pharmacists who know you the initials will be sufficient, but, to all that are likely to go to others who know you not, put your full name.

In prescribing, it is injudicious to follow a routine practice, by prescribing your own or anybody else's stereotyped formulas for certain diseases. You should invariably adapt your remedies to the case, instead of merely picking out a ready-made formula from your collection as you would a hat in a hat-store. One formula, for instance, for the several forms of diarrhea is about as apt to suit every case of relaxed bowels as one coat is to fit every soldier in a regiment.

Remember that medicine is a vast mass of facts, and that he who best interprets and applies these facts is the best physician, and that skill in practice consists not only in diagnosis, prognosis, and prescribing medicine, and in knowing what can and what cannot be done, but is the combined result of all the powers that the physician legitimately brings into the management of cases. In other words, the skillful use of drugs is but one of many elements that make the unit of medical skill. You must study:

The great book of the world,

mankind as well as medicine, and remember, when working on diseased bodies, that they are inhabited by minds that have

variable emotions, strong passions, and vivid imaginations which sway them powerfully, both in health and disease. To be successful you should fathom each patient's mind, discover its peculiarities, and conduct your efforts in harmony with its conditions. Let hope, expectation, contentment, fear, resolution, that mysterious and powerful force called faith, and other psychological agents be your constant aids, for they may each at times exercise legitimate power, and may each impart the greatest amount of benefit to the sick. It is not length of time in practice, but observation and reflection, that will teach you to measure the various human passions and emotions; and if you are not a keen observer of men and things, if you cannot read the book of human nature correctly, and unite knowledge of physic with an understanding of the effects of love, fear, grief, anger, malice, envy, lust, hope, and other hidden, but strong, passions that govern our race, you will be sadly deficient even after forty years' experience:

Hair gray, and no brains yet.

Professional reputation is a physician's chief capital; ambition to increase this by all legitimate means is not only fair, but commendable. After you attain this by individual worth and the gradual accumulation of successes and advantages, you will not be apt to lose either it or the practice it insures, so long as you are sober, decent, and discreet in conduct, and have the physical health to endure the work and the exposure incident to our calling.

There are two kinds of legitimate reputation a physician may acquire: a popular or common one with the people and a higher professional one with his brethren. These are often based on entirely different grounds, and are usually no measure of each other. A few of the most excellent, with loftier ambition, struggle earnestly for the latter, while the majority are striving for the former, chiefly because, being altogether