In an operation, where the course is doubtful and the opinion various, the choice is left to the patient—that is, the decision of how the surgeon is to act is to be determined by him who is confessedly really least capable of judging. Can it be right to perform a _doubtful_ operation under such circumstances? Should not the patient reflect that the _temptations_ are all on one side? The attempt to dispense with the operation is laborious, time-consuming, anxious, encouraged perhaps only by small, minute accessions of improvement, interspersed with complaints of tedium and delay, and the result admitted to be doubtful; the operation, on the other hand, is a work of a few minutes, the remuneration munificent, the _éclat_ productive, and the labour nothing. All this and much more no man can entirely prevent; the real cause is the ignorance of the public, which a very little of the labour they bestow on many far less important subjects would easily and quickly dispel. If these and multitudes of similar things are evils; if they contribute to debase a profession and to charge the conscientious with unthankful office and unrequited labour, and to confer fame and profit on a triumphant chicanery; we surely must feel indebted—not only as professional men, not merely as patients, but in a far higher and wider sense—to a man who, availing himself of a commanding position for the highest purposes, endeavoured, by precept and example, to oppose all such proceedings, and to cultivate a high _morale_ in the conduct of the profession. Now no one more sedulously aimed at this than John Abernethy. Although we shall not, we trust, be accused of underrating the obligations we owe him in a professional or scientific sense, we think that, great as they are, they are at least equalled by those arising out of that duty-to-your-neighbour spirit which was so universally diffused through every thing he taught, and which, in his intercourse with his pupils, he never on any occasion failed to inculcate. We will endeavour to render what we mean intelligible, and perhaps we cannot do this better than by selecting a few illustrations from observation of "Abernethy in Consultation." CHAPTER XXV. "Hoc autem de quo nunc agimus id ipsum est quod utile appellatur."—CICERO. Consultation. We are to have a consultation! What a sound is that! How many a heart has been set thumping by this one word. We doubt whether there be any in the English language that has more frequently disturbed the current it was intended to calm. But consultations must be. Already the carriage of a physician has arrived, a tremendous rap has been given at the door, the interesting visitor is already in the library.