"Well, I say that there is a sufficient disorder of your digestive organs to maintain the annoyances of which you complain; and I should confine my attention to endeavour to put that disorder right. Mr. —— seems to think that, in adding to this treatment the plan he proposes, he will shorten the case. Well, that may be so; he has paid, I know, a good deal of attention to this subject; and if I had one of my own family ill with this complaint, I should feel perfectly satisfied, if they were under his care. At the same time, I say what I think; and if you do not find the general plan successful, then the means he proposes might with propriety be added." No harm resulted from this difference of opinion; but much benefit. The patient was not pleased with Abernethy; but he thought him very skilful and very honest. One day, a surgeon went to him under the following circumstances. A patient who had recently recovered from a lameness, which, as alleged, had its cause in the foot, on a relapse went to another surgeon. This gentleman had, as it ultimately appeared, hastily decided that the lady had a complaint in the hip; she was therefore consigned to bed, and treated for disease of that part. After about three months, feeling no better, she desired to see the surgeon under whose care she had formerly been. The surgeon was now very much annoyed; for he found that he had been by many persons charged with having mistaken the case, which he had never even seen on the second attack, and which now presented a phase in which disease of the hip, to a hasty examiner, might easily be suggested. He was not much better satisfied, when, after a careful examination of the case, he felt convinced that there was no disease in the hip, although the symptoms were more severe than ever. He declined undertaking the case without a previous consultation with the surgeon who had decided it to be a disease of the hip; but the patient being immoveable in her opposition to this request, and offering any other surgeon, or more, if required, her wishes were acceded to, and Mr. Abernethy requested to visit the case. On going to the patient, the surgeon explained to Mr. Abernethy the points at issue, but without telling him to which view his own opinion inclined, or the positive _dictum_ of his senior brother, a very eminent surgeon. "I shall, therefore," said he to Abernethy, "feel particularly obliged to you, sir, if you will examine the case for yourself."