A really serious and national evil results from the thoughtless treatment of the poor. In dispensary and hospital, and wherever medical assistance is rendered to the exposed and helpless classes, the first duty of the physician is to respect personal modesty, or to instil it if the habit has been lost. Every physician, man or woman, is bound to cherish with reverence the great conservative principle of society, personal modesty and self-respect. This is a point on which the medical practitioner cannot avoid a moral responsibility. Physicians are the special guardians of health from infancy onward. They possess the means of acquiring the fullest knowledge of the double elements of human nature--the interaction of mind and body. From their culture, their social position, and the authority which they legitimately exercise, the weighty responsibility of rightly guarding the human faculties rests chiefly upon them. In all those points where the physical health of a nation is inseparably connected with its moral health, they are more responsible than any other class of the community for the moral condition of their country. All medical advice and all medical measures must, therefore, be guided by the positive fact that human sex differs from brute sex in the possession of a mental element which is capable of elevating and controlling it, and which must never be lost sight of in dealing with human beings. To the rising members of our noble profession I earnestly present the foregoing facts for their Christian and patriotic consideration, believing that when they fully realize these great truths they will embrace them with the generous enthusiasm of youth. Thus, while guiding their future practice by sound principles in relation to the care of our human organization, they will enforce these truths by the strongest of all arguments--the true manliness of their own lives. CHAPTER VI _Medical Guidance in Legislation_ All thoughtful members of the medical profession will appreciate the power of education exercised by law, particularly on the rising generation. As students of human physiology, knowing the inseparable connection of mind and body, they can more fully understand how the laws of a country mould social customs, and recognise the gradual but widespread deterioration of social morality resulting from unjust laws.