re than a new dog would begin without there having been a
parent dog.

Since then I have seen with my eyes and smelt with my nose small-pox
growing up in first specimens, either in close rooms or in overcrowded
wards, where it could not by any possibility have been "caught," but
must have begun.

Nay, more, I have seen diseases begin, grow up, and pass into one
another. Now, dogs do not pass into cats.

I have seen, for instance, with a little overcrowding, continued fever
grow up; and with a little more, typhoid fever; and with a little more,
typhus, and all in the same ward or hut.

Would it not be far better, truer, and more practical, if we looked upon
disease in this light?

For diseases, as all experience shows, are adjectives, not noun
substantives.

[11]

[Sidenote: Lingering smell of paint a want of care.]

That excellent paper, the _Builder_, mentions the lingering of the smell
of paint for a month about a house as a proof of want of ventilation.
Certainly--and, where there are ample windows to open, and these are
never opened to get rid of the smell of paint, it is a proof of want of
management in using the means of ventilation. Of course the smell will
then remain for months. Why should it go?

[12]

[Sidenote: Why let your patient ever be surprised?]

Why should you let your patient ever be surprised, except by thieves? I
do not know. In England, people do not come down the chimney, or through
the window, unless they are thieves. They come in by the door, and
somebody must open the door to them. The "somebody" charged with opening
the door is one of two, three, or at most four persons. Why cannot
these, at most, four persons be put in charge as to what is to be done
when there is a ring at the door bell?

The sentry at a post is changed much oftener than any servant at a
private house or institution can possibly be. But what should we think
of such an excuse as this: that the enemy had entered such a post
because A and not B had been on guard? Yet I have constantly heard such
an excuse made in the private house or institution and accepted: viz.,
that such a person had been "let in" or _not_ "let in," and such a
parcel had been wrongly delivered or lost because A and not B had opened
the door!

[13] There are many physical operations where _coeteris paribus_ the
danger is in a direct ratio to the time the operation lasts; and
_coeteris paribus_ the operator's success will be in direct ratio