It is in this facility with which deception can be practiced upon the community, that we find the principal circumstance that fosters the jealousies, the disagreements, and the bickerings which disgrace the medical profession. For it is this facility which tempts to the use of all those arts and manœuvres, that are so common among physicians. If the practice of these were confined to empirics, and to physicians who have an established character as dishonorable and intriguing men, the evil would by no means be as great as it now is. But it is not thus confined. The facility for deception is so great, and the temptations to turn it to profit are so many and constant, that many physicians, who are in the main honorable, occasionally yield to the temptation. This of course begets to some extent a general distrust, and then circumstances from time to time produce jealousy, perhaps disagreement and strife. This state of things is promoted by the peculiar relations which the physician sustains to his employers. They are generally his warm friends, and are ready to act with zeal in his favor, and to recommend him earnestly to those upon whom they have any influence. The attachment of families to their physician is somewhat peculiar, differing essentially from the preferences which are felt in regard to other professional men. The result is, that each physician has a party in the community composed of all classes and ages, and a large portion of that party are active in urging his claims. This of itself so affects the competition in which he is engaged with his brethren, that it is apt to awaken distrust and jealousy. And besides, interferences are sometimes practised which aggravate the difficulty. Some attribute most of the strifes of physicians to these interferences; and assert that if their friends would let them alone, there would generally be no want of harmony among them. Though there is some truth in this remark, yet it is certain that physicians are often the prompters of these interferences. Some physicians always have a troop of busy-bodies trumpeting their fame. They have a tact in drawing such persons into their train, and they do it by precisely the same means by which the quack accomplishes the same object. The quack and the quackish physician are alike in this respect. The prompting influence, thus exerted, may not always be obvious, and sometimes is least so when it is the most effectual. The old adage, that the highest evidence of art is in the concealment of art, is applicable here.