Whatever cases are submitted to your opinion, be always prepared to represent them _worse_ than they really _are_; making by your technical terms, and political doubts, _bad worse_ upon every possible occasion. Let all your proceedings have a peculiar and commanding dignity annexed to the execution; by assuming a want of feeling, even to _ferocity_, you will be termed a practitioner of _spirit_, and become properly distinguished for your professional _fortitude_. No tender sensations must be permitted to influence your feelings during any operation, however tedious, or painful to the patient; they are an ornament to human nature, and beneath your consideration _as one of the faculty_.—Custom has rendered you ineligible to a place in the _jury box_, as an evident proof of your professional _brutality_; by therefore turning “their pains to laughter and contempt,” you only justify the character you are already in possession of. In the most trifling operations (even phlebotomy) descend to the very minutiæ of medical consequence, not only making the ceremony _long_, but _serious_, that you may be the better entitled to personal respect and pecuniary compensation. In all those dreadful accidents that alarm friends and distress families, take care to throw out (during your apparent care and attention) a variety of observations that convey _large sounds_ with _little meaning_; by such ambiguous expressions you render the cure more extraordinary, whenever it happens, and is no bad preparative for the procrastination of it to your own emolument. In all cases requiring the interposition of instruments, take great care that you produce them with mysterious solemnity, impressing the spectators and assistants, with equal _awe_ and _fear_ of your abilities; if _incisions_, or _separation_ of the _soft parts_, become necessary, be sure, like “old Renault,” to “shed blood enough;” it will be attended with a double advantage; first in the appearance of business, and the more _pleasing consideration_, that the _larger_ and _deeper_ the wound, the longer time will be necessary for _incarnation_; during the course of which, your personal attendance and daily _epithemas_ cannot be dispensed with. The _greater operations_ do not occur every day, therefore tedious _cicatrizations_, in addition to _simple_ and _compound fractures_, are comfortable aids to fill up the spaces of intervention. Fractures of the _lower extremities_ are exceedingly favourable, for you may then exert proper authority; it becomes your duty to keep _them down_ when they _are so_, for surely you may take upon you to know (with propriety and professional privilege) when they are capable of _standing_ and _walking_, better than they can _themselves_.—Tho’ one exception to this rule has fallen within my knowledge, and nearly set aside the privilege of the practice in the neighbourhood where it happened.