On the other hand, he never failed to give the warmest and most efficient sanction he could to what he conceived to be judicious treatment on the part of a practitioner with whom he was in consultation. Mr. Stowe has kindly sent me a very good example of this; and it illustrates also another very valuable feature in a consultant: the forbearance from _doing anything_ where nothing is necessary. A gentleman had met with a severe accident, a compound dislocation of the ankle, an accident that Abernethy was the chief means of redeeming from habitual amputation. The accident happened near Winterslow Hut, on the road between Andover and Salisbury, and Mr. Davis of Andover was called in. Mr. Davis placed the parts right, and then said to the patient, "Now, when you get well, and have, as you most likely will, a stiff joint, your friends will tell you— 'Ah! you had a country doctor.' So, sir, I would advise you to send for a London surgeon to confirm or correct what I have done." The patient consented, and sent to London for Abernethy, who reached the spot by the mail about two in the morning. He looked carefully at the limb, and saw that it was in a good position, and was told what had been done. He then said, "I am come a long way, sir, to do nothing. I might indeed pretend to do something; but as any avoidable motion of the limb must necessarily be mischievous, I should only do harm. You are in very good hands, and I dare say will do very well. You may indeed come home with a stiff joint; but that is better than a wooden leg." He took a cheque for his fee (sixty guineas), and made his way back to London. Soon after this, an old clergyman, in the same neighbourhood, had a violent attack of erysipelas in the head and arm. His family, becoming alarmed, wrote up to his brother, who resided near Bedford Row, to request Mr. Abernethy to go down and visit the patient. Abernethy said, "Who attends your brother?" "Mr. Davis[69], of Andover." "Well, I told him all I knew about surgery, and I _know_ he has not forgotten it. You may be perfectly satisfied. I shall not go." Here, as Mr. Stowe observes, he might have had another sixty guineas.