ners, and it is too possible that a hungry practitioner
may be warped by his interest in fastening on a patient who, as he
persuades himself, comes under his medical jurisdiction. The specialist
has but one fang with which to seize and bold his prey, but that fang is
a fearfully long and sharp canine. Being confined to a narrow field of
observation and practice, he is apt to give much of his time to curious
study, which may be magnifique, but is not exactly la guerre against the
patient's malady. He divides and subdivides, and gets many varieties of
diseases, in most respects similar. These he equips with new names, and
thus we have those terrific nomenclatures which are enough to frighten
the medical student, to say nothing of the sufferers staggering under
this long catalogue of local infirmities. The 'old-fogy' doctor,
who knows the family tendencies of his patient, who 'understands his
constitution,' will often treat him better than the famous specialist,
who sees him for the first time, and has to guess at many things 'the
old doctor' knows from his previous experience with the same patient and
the family to which he belongs.

"It is a great luxury to practise as a specialist in almost any class
of diseases. The special practitioner has his own hours, hardly needs a
night-bell, can have his residence out of the town in which he exercises
his calling, in short, lives like a gentleman; while the hard-worked
general practitioner submits to a servitude more exacting than that of
the man who is employed in his stable or in his kitchen. That is the
kind of life I have made up my mind to."

The teaspoons tinkled all round the table. This was the usual sign of
approbation, instead of the clapping of hands.

The young Doctor paused, and looked round among The Teacups. "I beg your
pardon," he said, "for taking up so much of your time with medicine.
It is a subject that a good many persons, especially ladies, take an
interest in and have a curiosity about, but I have no right to turn this
tea-table into a lecture platform."

"We should like to hear you talk longer about it," said the English
Annex. "One of us has thought of devoting herself to the practice of
medicine. Would you lecture to us; if you were a professor in one of the
great medical schools?"

"Lecture to students of your sex? Why not, I should like to know? I
don't think it is the calling for which the average woman is especially
adapted, but my teacher got