But how is this to be, when men and women who _do_ think will dive into all other branches of knowledge, more or less, and neglect all inquiry into laws, a _general_ knowledge of which may easily be acquired, and of which ignorance is so frequently visited by no less punishment than the premature separation of our dearest ties, and the loss or impairment of that which is acknowledged to be the first of temporal blessings. There are many things in consultations, which require putting right, which do not depend on any one man, or on any one class. What are we to say to a man who admits the ability, and approves of the investigative power and practice of another, but who cannot call him in because he _orders so little medicine_? Or of the mode in which the public treat another, who, wishing to practise as a gentleman, and to be paid for his brains rather than his bottles, makes no charge for the latter; and yet who informed us that, having tried this for three years, he lost so many families by it, that if he had not relinquished the plan, he should have wanted bread for his own? Or who shall we blame, when one man, calling in another to a patient, finds that the other feels no scruple in repaying the _prestige_ which he thus owes to his confiding brother by taking the patient from him the first opportunity; albeit that he occupies what should be, and, we trust, as the rule is, a higher walk in the profession. We have seen so much feeling arising from this practice, and we hold it as so serious an error, that we regard it as _tending more than any one thing whatever_ to injure the position and character of the consulting branches of the profession. Again, how inconsiderate must be the adoption of that custom which first of all institutes an inquiry to ascertain whether there is any difference of opinion, and yet accompanies it with trammels, the tendency of which is to oblige men to _appear_ to agree. When coincidence of opinion is _alone safe_, who can be expected to differ? The public have allowed lawyers to differ without that difference involving any reproach. They have also proverbially determined that "doctors do." Yet that which they consider as an almost necessary rule in the one case, in the other they are very prone to visit, in regard to some one of the dissentients, as a proof of professional inferiority. A great deal of mischief results from this state of things; it indefinitely increases the difficulty of obtaining a _really honest_ and unreserved opinion, and leads to other consequences which tend to impair that mutual confidence between man and man, which should be the very life-blood of a fine profession.