barrister. But let him reflect that the integrity, diligence, and knowledge of him who aspires to this exalted station, are required to be pre-eminent. The welfare, good order, and due regulation of all ranks of the community are intimately connected with, or more properly may be said principally to depend upon, the qualifications of him who sustains one of the most important characters in the state, as the interpreter of the laws, the punisher of vice, the guardian of innocence, and the dispenser of justice.*

II. THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.

The profession of a physician has in all ages and countries been held in great estimation, by reason of its intimate connexion with the welfare of mankind. The cure of diseases, the restoration of health, and the continuance of life, are the objects to which the attention of the physician is directed: and he cannot fulfil his important duties, without possessing requisite knowledge, and exercising a due degree of judgment and sagacity. Destitute of the aids which books, lectures, and observations afford, he can never acquire the principles of physic, understand the structure of the human frame, develope the causes and the seats of disorders, and become acquainted with proper remedies to remove them.

* For a full account of the duties and qualifications of a lawyer I recommend a very valuable book titled Letters on the Study and Practice of the Law, 8vo. Editor.

He will apply not only to the public lectures, delivered by eminent professors in anatomy, chemistry, and the materia medica, but will examine with accuracy the various cases presented to observation by patients in the hospitals. There he will observe the different modes in which those unhappy objects are treated, who labour under different diseases, as well as those, who are afflicted by various degrees of the same disorder. And he will remark with attention, and note with accuracy, the opinions given, and the particular observations made by the clinical lecturer.

A hospital opens the most extensive and useful field of observation to the medical student. It is the school in which he may learn the most instructive lessons, and train himself for his general practice. He may there follow every complaint through its various stages, and contemplate all the maladies of suffering man. There he may remark various experiments tried, new combinations of medicines formed, and new ingredients introduced into the materia medica. Giving way to feelings of humanity, he may learn to appreciate the life and the health of the poorer members of the community at their due value, and consider the importance of restoring them in perfect health to their families and their country.

"By thus frequenting the hospital he will see every moment some point illustrated, some doctrine confirm ́ed, or some rule of practice established; at the same time almost every occurrence will serve to deepen the impression of those ideas, which it has been the endea vour of his teachers to imprint on his mind. He ought not to lose the least opportunity of acquiring clinical instruction. Clinical lectures are to the practice of medicine what dissection is to anatomy-it is demonstration. By them disease is as it were embo

died and brought before the student, as a subject for his leisure examination. By them the tutor is enabled to illustrate the nature of diseases; to teach their various differences by actual comparison of those which approximate in appearance, and to impress their several characters upon the mind of his pupil; to make him mark their growth and declension, to call on him to compare the ideas he has formed of disease with disease actually in existence, to render him conversant with the use of medicines, and with their various effects. He who engages in practice without this species of instruction must be supposed to know disease only by description; and when the fallacious appearances and variable forms which they assume are considered, it is to be apprehended that consequences too unpleasant to dwell on must succeed.*"

Medical men have been justly celebrated for their learning and abilities. To adduce no other proofs, many of the orations pronounced at the College of Physicians in London are as remarkable for purity of style as for solidity and ingenuity of observation.

The effects of medicine upon the human body are sometimes explicable upon mechanical, and sometimes upon chemical principles: an accurate and enlarged knowledge therefore of mechanics, chemistry, and physiology appears necessary for a physician, in order that he may understand the appearances of the animal economy, both in its sound and morbid state, and likewise explain the operation of remedies.

The science of botany is likewise useful, so far as it facilitates the knowledge of plants, by reducing them

* Parkinson's Hospital Pupil, p. 53, 56, &c.

into the most commodious system; and although it is not necessary for a physician to be acquainted with the name and history of every plant he may meet with; yet he ought not to be ignorant of any material circumstance relative to vegetables, either used in diet, or as médicines. The remarks respecting botany are equally applicable to every other branch of natural philosophy, and more particularly to the researches of comparative anatomy and general physiology. Gregory, p. 67, 75,

So much anxiety has been upon some occasions ex'pressed to vindicate physicians from the imputation of infidelity and a disregard to religion, that it looks as if this charge was not entirely destitute of foundation. Perhaps their candour and moderation with respect to the different sects of christians may have been ascribed by the narrow minded to wrong motives; and those physicians who were in reality sincere believers, offended by the groundless imputations of scepticism and infidelity, have expressed themselves in an unguarded manner, and thus have given their enemies a pretext for raising a clamour against them. For the honour of the profession it must be observed that some of its greatest ornaments, Harvey, Sydenham, Arbuthnot, Meade, Boerhaave, Stahl, Haller, and Hoffman, have been distinguished by their piety and firm belief in christianity.

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As the knowledge of diseases, their causes, symptoms, tendencies, and effects, constitutes the most important and difficult parts of professional study, the observations, which have been made by the most able and experienced physicians will claim the peculiar care of the student. He will read with close attention the curious dissertations of Stahl, the works of Boerhaave,

Hoffman, Sydenham, and Helmont, and thus will be furnished with lights to guide his inexperience, which are not accessible to the unlearned empiric.

To complete the ground work of his professional studies and observations he may repair to those places which are most celebrated for medical pursuits. But it seems to be a received opinion that London, from the skill and celebrity of the faculty who read lectures there, will render it unnecessary to visit other places. If he has sufficient leisure to extend the sphere of his observation he may visit Edinburgh, and those cites upon the continent most celebrated for medical pursuits and establishments. He may thus free his mind from too great predilection to particular theories, and local modes of practice. He will survey the cultivation of those branches of the art, which are imperfectly, or perhaps not at all regarded in some particular places. And thus he will collect a useful store of observations for the direction of his future practice.

He will not commence his medical career before his observations have taken an extensive range, his reading is well digested, and his judgment is mature. Too great eagerness to begin his practice may prove injurious to his reputation, and the source of his own future regret. Nothing seems so well calculated to establish his character as care and attention to his patients of whatever condition. A tender solicitude for their welfare, diligence and punctuality in visiting them, and the exertion of his best abilities for their recovery, will not fail to obtain their reward. Who has it so much in his power to make the sick man his warm and constant friend as the physician? If he be distinguished by mild and amiable manners a patient feels his approach like that of a guardian angel, who comes