HINTS TO THE PEOPLE UPON THE PROFESSION OF MEDICINE. It is told of an ignorant, but shrewd and impudent individual, who became a wealthy and successful quack, that upon being called upon by a wondering friend who had known him in his lowly estate, and asked how, with so few claims, he had risen to fame and fortune, he took his friend to the window which looked out upon a crowded London street, and asked how many wise or sensible men might be in the passing crowd? "Not more than one in a hundred,” was the reply. "The remainder are mine." The success of quackery, and the popular obstacles thrown in the way of true medical science being based upon those deficiencies of human judgment which are generally called human folly, and which, proverbially, form so large a portion of human nature, it is almost a hopeless task to correct the evil, and the attempt to do so may be only another manifestation of the general infirmity. Individuals who occupy positions of learning and influence, theologians and lawyers, and who in their general character have not the reputation of being either arrogant or conceited, constantly and confidently place their own views and opinions in opposition to those of the whole medical profession, and lend the influence of their names and position to the support of opinions which have not been to them a study, in opposition to the judgment of that profession which has made them a matter of most careful investigation. This fact proves that folly is not confined to the illiterate or to those who are marked specimens of imbecility, but that it pervades all classes, dilutes learning, and humiliates station. It shows also that the nature of the profession of medicine is not understood, and that the popular ideas in regard to it are formed from a most narrow and limited view of what constitutes the profession. These ideas are most probably |