Remember in all cases of difficulty and danger to be mindful of the _emplastrum adhæsivum_ of connexion, by which every branch of the faculty should be united for the preservation of the whole; advise (without the least reference to the enormity of expence) a consultation of the most eminent; this renders the case of your patient more serious and alarming, and you oblige your brethren by the recommendation; first of a physician, whose _prescription_ introduces the _apothecary_; and you then proceed _physically_ and _systematically_ in the joint depredation and cure; your two friends, by the law of retribution, gratefully recommending your inspection of every simple _laceration_ upon all similar occasions. These are maxims that may at first sight seem beneath the attention of a young and _brilliant_ practitioner, who erroneously conceiving _merit_ a sufficient recommendation, requires no other conductor; but they are so evidently an absolute part of his necessary study, that unless such _mutual arts_ are occasionally put in practice, he can never (in the present multiplied state of practitioners) expect to derive the common necessaries of life from a fair and generous practice of his profession. Men of understanding, experience, and observation, know, that the benignant hand of providence continues to anticipate in a variety of instances the interpositions of _art_; and _nature_ would, upon many occasions, entirely effect her own work, if not so frequently interrupted and retarded by the officious hands and interested experiments of professional jugglers. TO THE ACCOUCHER, OR, MAN-MIDWIFE. You fortunately make your appearance upon the boards of public patronage, under the most striking advantages; the prevalence of _fashion_ has exceeded every consideration of _decency_ and _discretion_, and you are become (by the influence of pride and imitation) as necessary to the comfort of a cottage, as the happiness of a court. From the nature of your professional destination, a pleasing exterior, and an accomplished person, are invariably expected; necessarily blending (from your intended intercourse with the _purer_ part of the creation) the precision of taste, with the perfection of the scholar. The certificate granted you by that elaborate lecturer, the _obstetric professor_, proclaims you qualified in the very minutiæ of this mysterious art. The parts, externally and internally, necessary to generation, are so perfectly familiar to your “mind’s eye,” that you can extemporaneously delineate the _ovariæ_, the “_fallopian_ tubes,” the _fimbriæ_, and the very act of _conception_, from the “_animalculæ_” in “_semen masculino_,” to the last stage of _gestation_; the gradual expansion of the _uterus_, the dilatation of the _os uteri_, the progress of _labour_, and all the methods of extraction.