I am not a reader of that work myself, and but for the disclosures recently made in our courts of justice, together with what I have learned from your own pages, I should know little about it. Some of its early numbers convinced me that it was a production not deserving of support, whatever ability there might be connected with it; subsequent events have amply justified this decision, and I now address these few hasty lines to you, to express my humble hope that all the respectable medical men throughout the kingdom will arise, and with one voice oppose this moral pestilence, which at once corrupts and degrades their profession. The _odium medicum_, bitter and vindictive as it unfortunately has been, never, I believe, appeared in a form so repulsive. Are we living in the nineteenth century? Have arts and sciences, which are asserted of old to soften the manners and temper the violence of our nature, produced no such fruits amongst us? Is serious, and perhaps irremediable injury, to be inflicted on reputation; and is the sufferer thereafter to be dared to mortal combat, and this too by the wrong-doer? Is it thus that professional justice is to be awarded? Is it thus that knowledge is to be advanced, the dignity of our profession to be maintained, its benefits enlarged, and its usefulness transmitted? Is it thus that the young men are to be taught how to acquire an unworthy and discreditable notoriety; to disregard all the decencies, charities, and higher virtues of life; and to bring into the exercise of our art the insidious cunning of the knave, the vulgar dishonesty of the pilferer, and the audacious bearing of the bravo? I know not how others may feel on the present occasion: I am entirely unacquainted with the parties who have been at issue in the late suit--I have no bias of any kind, but what must arise in the mind of every man who has any regard for the profession to which he belongs, or who loves truth and fair dealing--I am sure that it is not less for the interests of society at large than for the advancement of medical science, that just principles should regulate all our dealings, both with the public and with each other. It is manifest that of late we have signally and woefully departed from them; and it is most distressing to know that this departure has been sanctioned by so many members of the profession. I now entertain a confident hope that all who reflect on the character of the late libel will feel that their own _character_ is at stake if they do not mark their disapprobation of it in every possible way. Sure I am that, if the principles which guide the Lancet become generally acceptable, it will mark an æra of moral degradation which no surgical dexterity, no medical acquirements, however eminent, could possibly redeem. VERITAS. DURATION OF HUMAN LIFE IN RUSSIA.