that they almost rejected me; but the scale
turned finally in my favour when I was asked
the quantities of opium put into the several
compounds of the pharmacopoeia that
contained that drug. It was one of the stock
questions of the place, of which my friend
had written down the answer for me on the
back of his visiting card. I had nothing like
an idea on the subject; but I knew the list
by heart, and had it at that moment near my
heart, for it was in my waistcoat pocket. So
I passed, and became licensed to practise.

Immediately afterwards, I took charge of a
large pauper Union. There was no time for
study, and there never has been any since; for
I have prospered, and I should have had no
heart for study had I failed. I look solid and
oracular, deal to a judicious extent in jokes;
which are I find accepted best and repeated
oftenest as mine, when they are not my
own. I understand my patients' characters
and humours; although I do not understand
their maladies so well as I could wish. Of
course I take care not to let that fact be
suspected. Profound in tact, I give to no one
reason for supposing that there can be
anything between consumption and nail-cutting,
that I do not scientifically understand. I am
considered to be especially able in respect to
chest diseases; and I use the stethoscope —by
which I am supposed to hear the sounds that
betray physical order or disorder —with much
grace and gravity. I never yet heard
anything more than a general bumping, which I
take to be produced by the patient's heart,
and a crepitation which I believe to be
caused by the hairs of my whiskers rubbing
against the wood. Nobody knows that,
however. All that is known about me is that I
am, as before confessed, a respectable
practitioner in the world's esteem, grave and a little
bald, and that I keep a brougham. Ladies
and gentlemen, I may this very day have
written out my fiat for six draughts for one
of you. Nevertheless, let no one tremble;
for if it should be so, the chances are
nineteen to one that I have ordered you a little
harmless effervescent, or a draught coloured
with T. Card. Co., which is something
innocent and aromatic. I do not prescribe
savagely. I live in fear of my own ignorance
and do no active harm.

Permit me now, ladies and gentlemen of
the world, as an apothecary of the world,
gravely to call your attention to the very
large number of young men who have
recently been exhorted on the subject of the
studies upon which they enter, and the duties
they will have to undertake. Between thirty
and seventy fresh youths enter every October
at each hospital as recruits to the ranks of
the Medical army. They believe themselves
to be committed to an honest calling —as
indeed there is none in the world honester or
worthier of general respect —to embark on a
wide ocean of knowledge. If they are
themselves honest and high-minded, they will do
so; but, if they look at me and think much
of my brougham, it may possibly come into
their heads that it is not worth their while
to venture very far to sea. The studies
connected with the practice of medicine have so
much in them of truth and vitality, of real
and deep philosophy, that it is impossible for
them not more or less to enlarge, strengthen,
and at the same time refine the mind. They
produce, therefore, a body of men, even at
this day, second to no other class in its
collective dignity; but the profession is not
what it ought to be. The dim shadow of their
future careers —felt alike by the students and
by their teachers, when introductory orations
open the campaign of study with allusions to
the work that is before them —sends a touch
of sadness to the mind of a pound, shilling, and
pence surgeon like me. I am a sham myself,
but I can respect what is genuine in others;
and I have very good reason to know that
the profession would shine more than it does,
if public ignorance did not eat into it like a
rust.

Is this right, for example? An old lady
came under my care who would have none of
my physic. She had a prescription from the
great Dr. Podgy, which she wished me to
make up. She was absolutely in love with
Dr. Podgy, and told me so much about his
ways and manners, that I, in my comparative
humility and innocence, administered the
humbug he prescribed in stronger doses
than good tact would prompt. Nevertheless
Dr. Podgy seemed not to have erred in the
low estimate he put upon the public
understanding. He was the king of a provincial
town; and, although he had written nothing
and had done nothing to obtain the shadow
of a name among his brethren who were
qualified to understand his merits, he had one
of the most profitable medical practices in
Europe. I doubt whether there was its equal
out of London. Very well. The invaluable
prescription of Dr. Podgy (which consisted of
Epsom salts diffused in an infusion of roses) I
made up several times. Some sudden notion
of weakness caused the old lady to travel off
one day to see the great man and consult
with him once more. He told her he would
add something strengthening to her prescription.
He did so, and the learned recipe came
back to me to be made up. Dr. Podgy
resolved to strengthen the old lady with a
little steel, and had accordingly added some
sulphate of iron to the salts and the roses.
By so doing, in ignorance of a chemical fact
known even among druggist's boys, he spoilt
his pretty roses altogether, and caused the
mixture to look like a bottle of bad ink. " I
cannot take that filthy mess," said my good
lady. " You have made some mistake." Dr.
Podgy could not be wrong and she had no
more to do with me; I was summarily
dismissed. Now, does it speak well for the good
sense of the public, when it is stated that
to this Dr. Podgy there have been decreed,