fallen to my sad lot, as to that of many of my
medical brothers, to have to tell a patient that he is to die. Some
isolated man asks it. Some lonely hospital patient has just reasons for
knowing early or late in his disease the truth as the doctor sees it. I
have never been able to feel certain that in any case of acute or
hopeless illness to know surely what lay before a sick man did
distinctly shorten his life. I have seen many people in apparent health
made ill by the shock of emotion,--by fear, grief, anger, jealousy.
Diseased persons feel less, or show less in a physical way, the results
we might expect to see from even the most rudely conveyed intelligence
as to their probable future.

It was not my wish to enter into a long discussion of all the qualities
which go to make up the ideal physician. I desired chiefly to consider
his principal needs, to point out in big defence certain of his
embarrassments, and to leave the reader with some sense of help towards
knowing whether his adviser was such as he should be in the more
important qualities which go to make the true physician. There are other
and minor matters which are not without their relative gravity in his
life. Some are desirable but not truly essential, and yet help or hurt
him much. Whether he is gentle and well-mannered, is socially agreeable,
or as to this negative, influences much the choice of the woman on whom,
as a rule, comes finally the decision of who her family physician shall
be. Too often she is caught by the outside show of manners, and sets
aside an abler and plainer man, who has more really the true manners of
the heart, yet lacks the power to make himself pleasant. Desirable it
is, of course, to be what so many of the best physicians have been,
refined and tactful gentlemen, and also charming companions. But a man
may be a most competent, clear-headed, honest, scrupulously careful
doctor, and yet be plain, ill-dressed, and uninteresting, and all this
it is as well to understand. The mass of professional opinion is not so
easily pleased as are individual patients. It decides pretty early in
any large community, and classifies its members accurately, reversing
very often the verdict of the juries of matrons, who do so much to make
or mar our early fates. Soon or late it sifts the mass, knows who are
the thorough, trustworthy, competent, hard-headed practitioners, who are
the timid, who the too daring, who ride hobbies, and who trust too much