When the staff has dined, the house physicians and surgeons, accompanied by their clinical clerks, dressers, and nurses, go their rounds. All the fresh cases that have come in during the day have to be examined. All that Tom Smith has undergone in the out-patient department goes for nothing, and the process is now still more carefully repeated. A minutely exact record of the “physical signs” is made; all that drumming of the fingers on the poor tender chest, that long stethoscoping at the panting lungs, whose every movement causes acute distress, has to be undergone; the heart sounds are scrupulously noted; its size and the line of demarcation of the liver and other organs recorded, not by the qualified doctor temporarily in charge of the case alone, but, by his kind permission, his assistant clerks also, for their education, verify all the recorded facts for themselves. “An ounce of brandy, sister!” and the man suppresses his growing discontent. His night temperature is recorded on the card above his bed, and now, if so disposed, he may say his prayers and compose himself to sleep. At six in the morning he will have to get his breakfast, for work in a hospital must begin early, or the wards will not be scrubbed and tidied up by ten o’clock, when the doctors go their morning rounds. If the gentlemen who examined him overnight have been duly interested in their cases, they will have read them up from the approved text-books; and it will be strange if that reading has not raised questions and points that will necessitate a fresh examination. So the man gets another ounce of brandy, and another knocking about. At three in the afternoon the head physician—a fashionable West-End speciality man for diseases of the chest—goes his rounds, followed by a crowd of students. He makes himself responsible for each of the cases in the beds allotted to him, and naturally wants to know all about them, especially if any of them are likely to make good subjects for elaborate clinical demonstration. So with tenderest grace and the most honied phrases, with every courtly apology to the patient for disturbing him, the great man proceeds _secundem artem_ to teach the young idea how to shoot. The junior in charge of the case, reads his report of the physical signs, family history, diagnosis and prognosis of the case, with the treatment proposed, while the lecturer verifies or objects to the statements of the record. He is so thoughtful, so kind and sympathising with the poor fellow on whom he is going to discourse for the next half-hour, that having noticed he is distressed by the process before it is fairly begun, he, in his most mellifluous tones, asks, “Would you like a little wine or brandy, my friend?” And the poor man thinks he would. Then have at him, lads! for here is a pretty case, a typical text-book case, and all you who are going up for examination had better get all you can out of Tom Smith, for here are