The relation which the physician sustains to the community is a peculiar one. No other man has so free access to so many families among all classes of society. He is admitted into the very bosom of the families upon which he attends, even of those that receive other visitors with a distant formality. So much is this the case, that most persons have the feeling that their physician is a sort of confidant, and on that ground they are willing that he should see and hear, in his daily intercourse with them, what would be improper to be seen and heard without the confidence of intimate friendship. And when that confidence is abused, as it sometimes is by the tattling and the unprincipled physician, how gross the abuse, and how keenly is it felt by those who have, as a matter of necessity, reposed the confidence! I say as a matter of necessity, for the very nature of the intercourse of the physician with his patients is such as to make this confidence necessary. And the necessity is recognised by both parties. The physician knows that it is expected of him, that he will pay the most scrupulous regard to the principles of honor which have relation to this necessity, and that any discovered infraction of them on his part will materially injure his professional character. He feels this instinctively; and it is this feeling which is generally an effectual safeguard against abuse of confidence, when the patient chances to be under the care of a physician who is devoid of moral principle.