The assertion, that success in curing disease is worth more than a piece of parchment, is strictly true. But the evidences, on which a correct estimate of success can be formed, are not ordinarily, as the reader has seen in the chapter on Good and Bad Practice, within the reach of the community; and the attempts which it makes to form an estimate from the defective evidence at its command, often result in the bestowment of the praise due to success upon those who are really unsuccessful. As to the use which is made of so great a name as that of Franklin to justify a disregard of education in medicine, I remark, that those who hold such language forget three very plain truths. 1st. That self-education is, after all that can be said, education. It is education acquired in spite of difficulties, and without the aids which men usually have. 2d. That education thus obtained indicates the possession of _uncommon_ power of mind. There are but few Franklins in any profession. It is not common for men to rise to eminence with the small means which he enjoyed, and in face of the difficulties which he encountered. 3d. That Franklin, and all those men who have thus risen to eminence, so far from despising education, made most diligent use of all the means of education which they could command, aspiring all the time to higher and higher advantages; and while they lamented the deficiencies of their own early training, they labored most assiduously to give to others the most extensive means of acquiring knowledge. Very different from this, I cannot avoid remarking in this connexion, is the spirit of those pretenders in medicine, who affect to despise education, and who claim that they have an innate skill, which education can neither impart nor improve. I shall in another chapter maintain, that it is both the duty and the interest of the community, to demand that there shall be a respectable standard of education in the medical profession, and will therefore dismiss this topic for the present. The second source of evidence, in regard to the qualifications of a physician, is to be found in the unbiassed opinion of his medical brethren. I allow that there are difficulties in the way of obtaining such an opinion. There is, on the one hand, the prejudice of rivalry, and, on the other, the partiality arising from mutual interest. Sometimes these influences extend beyond the individual, and arrange medical men in small parties, or cliques; and these often render it exceedingly difficult to discover the standing which any physician has among his brethren. Yet it is true, that every physician has a general estimate put upon him by the profession, _and it is commonly a correct one_. And this estimate can ordinarily be ascertained by any one, who makes due allowance for the influences to which I have alluded.