At the same time, priceless and indispensable as are these laboratory methods of investigation, they should not be allowed to make us too scornful and neglectful of the evidence gained by the direct use of our five senses. We should still avail ourselves of every particle of information that can be gained by the trained eye, the educated ear, the expert touch,--the _tactus eruditus_ of the medical classics,--and even the sense of smell. There is, in fact, a general complaint among the older members of the profession that the rising generation is being trained to neglect and even despise the direct evidence of the senses, and to accept no fact as a fact unless it has been seen through the microscope or demonstrated by a reaction in the test-tube. As one of our keenest observers and most philosophic thinkers expressed it a few months ago:-- "I fear that certain physicians on their rounds are most careful to take with them their stethoscope, their thermometer, their hemoglobin papers, their sphygmomanometer, but leave their eyes and their brains at home." And it is certain that the art of sight diagnosis, which seems like half magic, possessed in such a wonderful degree by the older physicians of the passing and past generations, has been almost lost by the new. A healthful reaction has, however, set in; and while we certainly do not love the Caesar of laboratory methods and accuracy the less, we are beginning to have a juster affection for the Rome of the rich harvest that may be gained from the careful, painstaking, detective-like exercise of our eye, ear, and hand. As a matter of fact, the conflict between the two methods is only apparent. Not only is each in its proper sphere indispensable, but they are enormously helpful one to the other. Instead of our being able to tell less by the careful, direct eye-and-hand examination of our patients than the doctor of a century ago, we can tell three to five times as much. Signs that he could interpret only by the slow and painful method of two-thirds of a lifetime of plodding experience, or by occasional flashes of half-inspired insight, we are now able to interpret absolutely upon a physiological--yes, a chemical--basis from the revelations of the microscope, the test-tube, and the culture medium. His only way of determining the meaning of a particular tint of the complexion, or line about the mouth, or eruption on the skin, was by slowly and laboriously accumulating a long series of similar cases in which that particular symptom was found always to occur, and deducing its meaning. Now, we simply take a drop of our patient's blood, a scraping from his throat, a portion of some one of his secretions, a little slice of a tumor or growth, submit them to direct examination in the laboratory, and get a prompt and decisive answer.