were nearly all of a subjective type. If the mortality attending travel between New York and Chicago amounted to six in every hundred travel would certainly be interdicted by law, as it would be said to constitute wholesale butchery.

This same operator, in a quiet conversation after the meeting, said to me: "I don't suppose, Doctor Leavitt, that I value human life as highly as you do."

Too Little Discrimination.

The faults I have to find with modern surgery are (1) its prevalence and (2) its lack of sober discrimination between simple and grave procedures.

I insist that major surgery should be resorted to for only those ailments that assume grave characters and will not yield to milder measures. But the plea is that one might as well be dead as ill, and with this the surgeon justifies his assumption of the role of contingent executioner.

With the author, surgery is a chosen line of work, and he would love to do more of it, but he cannot accede to jeopardy of life on any but the best pretexts. I hope this will not be taken to represent a Pharisaical spirit. I only mean to say that it is not fair to the confiding patient to subject him to risk of life for the relief of troubles that may be cured in some other way.

The Present Status of Medicine

(CONTINUED)

"When the Spartan son complained that his sword was too short, his father said: Add a step to it, my son.' -Leavitt.

"If I were fishing in a trout hole, and failed for long to get trout, I would either get new bait or find a new hole -Sam Jones.

"It has been said that the world is full of fools who are trying to imitate other fools. Whatever you attempt, be yourself, think your own thoughts, and make up your mind that all you do in the world shall be your own-entirely your own."

CHAPTER IV.

THE PRESENT STATUS OF MEDICINE-CONtinued.

Ordinary Methods

Too Perfunctory.

Modern methods of medical practice are not well calculated to obtain satisfactory results. They are of a character too routine and superficial. The physician in general practice makes his rounds among many patients, allowing but a few minutes to each, and is unable to give much serious thought to a particular case, no matter how desperate. He enters, hastily reviews the symptoms and after making a new prescription, suggested, it may be, by a trivial circumstance or a temporary appearance, leaves the patient to battle with the disease, often handicapped by the depressing effects of the wrongly chosen remedy itself. It were far better to make fewer and longer visits so that the true bent and tendency of the symptoms may be learned and that the patient may have time to obtain the salutary effect of the doctor's personality, which in the case of a true healer counts for much.

The authorities have recently indicted a Mental Science healer for fraud because it was found that she had so many patients that there was not time in the twenty-four hours for each to receive an absent treatment from her. The busy practitioner of medicine might be almost as justly accused of fraud for pretending to give adequate attention to his large list of patients.

The methods of preserving and regaining health have not yet received due attention, though America has a hundred thousand physicians.

Physicians Are Underpaid.

There is no question that the medical practitioner is underpaid for his services. Were his fees larger he could restrict the number of patients accepted and so give to each more acceptable and efficient service.

To make a satisfactory visit one should be able to give variety to one's methods and so to arrange the interview that mental concentration could be given a better opportunity to produce its curative effects. The riveted attention of the patient cannot be secured in a moment, nor can the mind of the physician be at once set upon the case in hand.

This, however, is not the place to pursue this topic further. It will be taken up in Part II.

Service Wrought

by Homeopathy.

The man Hahnemann did a great service in showing not only the needlessness of the massive dosing and the free bloodletting of his day, but the positive harm that they were doing. Even those who are disposed to minimize the effect of his teaching are willing to admit that the results of his practice were an improvement on the results being obtained from the crude methods then in vogue.

His was a process of refining and softening which marked an onward step in the evolutionary movement and better prepared both the pro