Excerpt from The Canadian Journal of Medicine and Surgery, 1907, Vol. 21

With unexpected tenderness; this may, however, be in the spirit of Izaak Walton's advice to the angler, that he should deal with the worm gently as though he loved him. He points out the vast difference between the doctor who takes our temperature to-day and the doctor whom Dickens drew. The change, he says, is not so noticeable on the higher rungs of the professional ladder. In Harley Street and Grosvenor' Street, and Brook Street, where dwell the medical baronet and the F solemn plausi bility still-holds its own. The oracle of Cavendish Square, hav ing to wean a dyspeptic patient from a breakfast of curried lob ster, said in an aphorism of almost Pauline dignity, I seek to impose a yoke upon you that you may be truly free. Still, we are told, the great men of the profession maintain the grand manner and impressive devices of the past. Still they recom mend a diet at once light and nutritious; still they prescribe change of air, gentle exercise, a complete freedom from anxiety, and a winter in the South of France. Still they assure 1is that there is no appearance of danger, and when the patient dies, murmur with the most magnificent gravity, Of course, after what I said at my last visit, this catastrophe has not taken you by surprise. All this, says Mr. Russell, goes on every day as it has gone on from immemorial time, and will go on as long as human nature is subject to illness and amenable to humbug. We hasten to explain that the word humbug used in connection with consultants is not ours but Mr. Russell's. It may be pleaded in excuse for him that rien n'est sacre' pour un sapeur. Sir William Broadbent once said, in a magazine article, that a touch of charlatanism goes far to constitute the fashionable family doctor. If the family doctor cared to retaliate, he might quote Mr. Russell, but the controversy would scarcely be edifying. It is in the lower orders of the professional hierarchy that, accord ing to the author, the greatest changes are seen. Bob Sawyer and Ben Allen and their kind have disappeared. The young medico of the present day is a pleasant youth of gentlemanlike manners. With a moustache, frock coat, and patent leather boots; or, when he is off duty, a pink shirt, a parti - colored suit, and tan shoes. As likely as not, he is a graduate of Oxford or Cambridge, and collects prints or china, paints in water colors, or sings in a choir, and' takes his blameless recreation at golf or lawn tennis. Often he is a vigorous athlete; not seldom he is a sportsman. Not for our budding doctors are the joys of beer and All - Fours, which delighted Dr. Haggage (of Little Dorrit the pork chops and brandy on which Bob Sawyer feasted. Or the 'stunning gin punch which Sam Huxter proffered to Arthur Pendennis. They are smart, well-mannered. And well - educated young men, who.

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