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catheter,—without compensation to be in some degree guaged by the nature and extent of the service he has rendered ? If the law does not award him legitimate compensation, he is necessarily driven to an indirect excuse for subjecting his patient to a course of physic, with a view to prevent the recurrence of the malady.
The objections to this system cannot be overcharged. It is mseparably interwoven with the rank of our profession, with the respectability of our characters, and with the well- being of every station of society.
It upholds the most pernicious doctrine, that medicine is the sole, or at least the primary, antidote against disease. It invites empiricism. It engenders erroncous principles of pathology, and it weakens the allegiance of our profession to nature, as the great author of disease, and the beneficent worker of its treatment. The true principles of the art of healing, consist in the endeavour to develope and awaken the influence of nature, in the cure of disease. By the adoption of the present system, we forget the operation of first causes, in our false reliance on second; we largely circumscribe our curative powers, and we strike a fatal blow at the just rank and respectability of our profession.
If there exist one feature more injurious than another to the rank of the general practitioner of England, and the persistance in which, presents a more fatal obstacle to the success of any attempt to ameliorate his condition, it is that which places a pecuniary value on the drugs he dispenses.
With quite as much reason, might the surgeon claim compensation, in the name of the instruments he employs, for their services, after an operation.
