not less important to the comfort and relief of the sick poor, than of the rich under similar circumstances; and it would be equally just and humane to enquire into and to indulge their partialities, by occasionally calling into consultation the favourite practitioner. The rectitude and wisdom of this conduct will be still more apparent, when it is recollected, that patients in hospitals not unfrequently request their discharge on a deceitful plea of having received relief, and afterwards procure another recommendation, that they may be admitted under the Physician or Surgeon of their choice. Such practices involve in them a degree of falsehood, produce unnecessary trouble, and may be the occasion of irreparable loss of time in the treatment of diseases.

§ 3. The feelings and emotions of the patients, under critical circumstances, require to be known and to be attended to, no less than the symptoms of their diseases: thus, extreme timidity with respect to venesection contra-indicates its use in certain cases and constitutions. Even the prejudices of the sick are not to be contemned, or opposed with harshness; for, though silenced by authority, they will operate secretly and forcibly on the mind, creating fear, anxiety, and watchfulness.

§ 4. As misapprehension may magnify real

evils, or create imaginary ones, no discussion concerning the nature of the case should be entered into before the patients, either with the HouseSurgeon, the pupils of the hospital, or any medical visitor.

§ 5. In the large wards of an infirmary the patients should be interrogated concerning their complaints in a tone of voice which cannot be overheard. Secrecy, also, when required by peculiar circumstances, should be strictly observed. And females should always be treated with the most scrupulous delicacy. To neglect or to sport with their feelings is cruelty; and every wound thus inflicted tends to produce a callousness of mind, a contempt of decorum, and an insensibility to modesty and virtue. Let these considerations be forcibly and repeatedly urged on the hospital pupils.

§ 6. The moral and religious influence of sickness is so favourable to the best interests of men and of society, that it is justly regarded as an important object in the establishment of every hospital. The institutions for promoting it should therefore be encouraged by the Physicians and Surgeons, whenever seasonable opportunities occur; and, by pointing out these to the officiating clergyman, the sacred offices will be performed with propriety, discrimination, and greater cer

tainty of success. The character of a Physician is usually remote either from superstition or enthusiasm; and the aid, which he is now exhorted to give, will tend to their exclusion from the sick wards of the hospital, where their effects have often been known to be not only baneful, but even fatal.

§ 7. It is one of the circumstances which softens the lot of the poor, that they are exempt from the solicitudes attendant on the disposal of property. Yet there are exceptions to this observation; and it may be necessary that an hospital patient, on the bed of sickness and death, should be reminded by some friendly monitor of the importance of a last will and testament to his wife, children, or relatives, who otherwise might be deprived of his effects, of his expected prize-money, or of some future residuary legacy. This kind

office will be best performed by the House-Surgeon, whose frequent attendance on the sick diminishes their reserve, and entitles him to their familiar confidence. And he will doubtless regard the performance of it as a duty; for whatever is right to be done, and cannot by another be so well done, has the full force of moral and personal obligation.

§ 8. The Physicians and Surgeons should not suffer themselves to be restrained by parsimonious

considerations from prescribing wine, and drugs even of high price, when required in diseases of extraordinary malignity and danger. The efficacy of every medicine is proportionate to its purity and goodness; and on the degree of these properties, caeteris paribus, both the cure of the sick and the speediness of its accomplishment must depend. But, when drugs of inferior quality are employed, it is requisite to administer them in larger doses, and to continue the use of them a longer period of time; circumstances which probably more than counterbalance any savings in their original price. If the case, however, were far otherwise, no economy of a fatal tendency ought to be admitted into institutions, founded on principles of the purest beneficence, and which, in this age and country, when well conducted, can never want contributions adequate to their liberal support.

§ 9. The Medical gentlemen of every charitable institution are in some degree responsible for, and the guardians of, the honour of each other. No Physician or Surgeon, therefore, should reveal occurrences in the hospital, which may injure the reputation of any one of his colleagues; except under the restriction contained in the succeeding article.

§ 10. No professional charge should be made by a Physician or Surgeon, either publicly or pri

vately, against any associate, without previously laying the complaint before the gentlemen of the Faculty belonging to the institution, that they may judge concerning the reasonableness of its grounds, and the measures to be adopted.

§ 11. A proper discrimination being established in all hospitals between the Medical and Chirurgical cases, it should be faithfully adhered to by the Physicians and Surgeons on the admission of patients.

§ 12. Whenever cases occur, attended with circumstances not heretofore observed, or in which the ordinary modes of practice have been attempted without success, it is for the public good, and in an especial degree advantageous to the poor, (who, being the most numerous class of society, are the greatest beneficiaries of the healing art,) that new remedies and new methods of Chirurgical treatment should be devised. But in the accomplishment of this salutary purpose the gentlemen of the Faculty should be scrupulously and conscientiously governed by sound reason, just analogy, or well authenticated facts. And no such trials should be instituted without a previous consultation of the Physicians or Surgeons, according to the nature of the case.

§ 13. To advance professional improvement, a friendly and unreserved intercourse should subsist