its extreme illiberality. Can it be for one moment entertained, that the physician who gives his care to every class of society and at all ages "exists in an infected moral atmosphere?" Supposing that he is not fortunate enough to attend upon the opulent and the great, and is limited to a pauper or an hospital practice, does Mr. St. John mean to say that instances of intemperance and vice are confined to the indigent, although want of education, and poverty may degrade them in crapulous pursuits? If there does exist a profession pre-eminent for its philanthropic character, and the power of discrimination between good and evil, and right and wrong, it is undoubtedly that of medicine. The finest feelings of humanity are constantly brought to bear, both in seeking to relieve bodily sufferings and solacing an afflicted mind—whether it be with the scalpel in hand in an anatomical theatre, or by the bedside of an agonized sufferer, whom he hopes, under Providence, to restore to health and to his family, the physician has daily opportunities of beholding the wonders of the creation and the benevolence of the Creator-he is a constant witness of the fervent supplication of the unfortunate and the heartfelt gratitude of those suppliants at the throne of mercy, whose prayers have been heard. A man of exalted benevolence (and such a physician ought to be), he must be alive to all the generous feelings of humanity, and he is doomed more frequently to move in an infected moral atmosphere, when gratuitously attending some of the troublesome and pedantic legislators of the republic of letters, than when exerting his skill to relieve the grateful poor who may fall under his care. It has been maintained that the physician seeking in the arcana of nature the causes of every vital phenomenon becomes a materialist: nothing can be more unjust, nay, more absurd, than such a supposition. The study of physiology teaches us, more perhaps then any other pursuit, to admire the wonderful works of our Creator, and Voltaire has beautifully illustrated the fact in the following lines: Demandez à Sylva par quel secret mystère En longs ruisseaux de pourpre il court enfler mes veines; Broëseche has justly said, Tanta est inter deum, religionem, et medicum connexio, ut sine Deo et religione nullus exactus medicus esse queat; and it has truly been said by a later writer, "that a philosophic physician must seek in religion, strength of mind to support the painful exertions of his profession, and some consolation for the ingratitude of mankind." Amongst the many glaring absurdities which retarded the progress of medical studies, one cannot but notice the presumptuous claims of the physicians to the exclusive privilege of teaching surgery to their pupils, while anatomy was solely professed by surgeons, and not considered necessary in the instruction of a physician. All these anomalies can be easily traced to that spirit of dominion, exclusion, and monopoly, which invariably characterized clerical bodies. To such a pitch was this destructive practice carried, that surgeons were only allowed to perform operations in the presence of one or more physicians: nor were they permitted to publish any work on their profession until it had been licensed by a faculty who were utterly ignorant of the matter of which it treated. The celebrated Ambrose Paré could only obtain as a special favour from his sovereign, the permission to give to the world one of its most valuable sources of information. So late as 1726 we find the medical faculty of Paris making a formal representation to Cardinal de Noailles and the curates of that capital to prevent surgeons from granting certificates of health or of disease, and this application was grounded on the pious motive of enforcing a more rigid observance of Lent! They further insisted that this indispensable mortification was eluded in consequence of the facility of obtaining certificates that permitted persons stated to be indisposed to eat animal food, eggs, and butter, whence infidelity was making a most alarming progress, threatening the very existence of church and state, and the overthrow of every ancient and glorious institution. The faculty were formally thanked for their pious zeal in the true interests of religion, and the spiritual welfare of their patients; and orders were affixed upon the door of every church, anathematizing all certificates that emanated from the unholy hands of surgeons and barbers. These unfortunate barbers, although they humbly submitted to the sway of both physicians and surgeons when it suited their purpose, were in turn persecuted by both their allies and alternate protectors; so much so, that the clerical practitioners at one time prohibited them from bleeding, and conferred this privilege upon the bagnio-keepers. From the well-known nature of these establishments, various may be the reasons that led to this patronage, which was clearly an attempt to qualify bagnio-keepers to extend their convenient trade. At last, in the year 1505, barbers were dignified with the name of surgeons. Their instructions were delivered in their vernacular tongue, until the university again interfered, and ordered that lectures should be delivered in Latin; once more closing alma-mater against illiterate shavers, who were, however, obliged to give a smattering of classical education to their sons destined to wield alternately the razor and the lancet. In 1655, surgeons and barber-surgeons were incorporated in one college; a union which was further confirmed, in 1660, by royal ordonnance, under some limitations, whereby the barbers should not assume the title of licentiates, bachelors, or professors, nor be allowed to wear the honourable gown and cap that distinguished the higher grades of learning. Red caps were in former times given by each barber to his teacher on his being qualified, and gloves to all his fellow-students. Thus we find that the high state of perfection which the surgical art has attained is solely due to the efforts of industry to free itself from the ignoble trammels of bigotry and prejudice. Intellectual progress has invariably been opposed in every country by those powerful and interested individuals who derived their wealth and influence from the ignorance of society. Corporate bodies monopolizing the exercise of any profession will invariably retard instruction and shackle the energies of the student. It is, no doubt, indispensable that the practice of medicine in all its branches should only be allowed to such persons as are duly qualified; but whenever pecuniary advantages are derived from the grant of the permission, abuses as dishonourable as they are injurious to society will infallibly prevail. In Great Britain the period of study required in medical candidates is by no means sufficient. Five or six years is the very lowest period that should be insisted on; and, when duly instructed, degrees and licences should be conferred without fee, on all applicants, by a board of examiners unprejudiced and disinterested. This mode of granting licences would add to the respectability of the profession, while it would ensure proper attendance to the public. Physicians and surgeons would then become (what to a certain extent the latter are at present, though illegally as far as the laws of the college go), general practitioners, and society would no longer be infested by the swarms of practising apothecaries, who, from the very nature of their education, can only be skilled in making up medi cines, or who must have obtained experience in the lessons taught by repeated failures in their early practice, unless perchance they have stepped beyond the usual confined instruction of their class. The consequences that arise from this fatal system are but too obvious. These men live by selling drugs, which they unmercifully supply, to the material injury of the patient's constitution. If, after ringing all the changes of their materia medica without causing the church-bell to toll, they find themselves puzzled and bewildered, a physician or a surgeon is called in, and too frequently these practitioners are bound by tacit agreement not to diminish the revenue that the shop produces. If it were necessary to prove the evils that result from the monopolizing powers vested in corporate institutions, the proof might be sought and found in the virulence and jealousy which they evince in resisting reform, from whatever quarter it may be dreaded; and it may be said that too many of the practising apothecaries of the present day stand in the same relative situation in the medical profession as the barbers of olden times. This faculty of exercising every branch of the profession, however qualified, is of olden date, and we find on the subject the following lines in the writings of Alcuin in the time of Charlemagne : Accurrunt medici mox Hippocratica tecta : ON DREAMS. PHILOSOPHICAL ingenuity has long been displayed in the most learned disquisitions in an endeavour to account for the nature of these phenomena. The strangeness of these visionary perturbations of our rest-their supposed influence on our destinies their frequent verification by subsequent events-have always shed a mystic prestige around them; and superstition, ignorance, and craft, have in turns characterized them as the warnings of the Divine will, or the machinations of an evil spirit. Macrobius divided them into various categories. The first, the mere dream, somnium, he considers a figurative and mysterious representation that requires to be interpreted. Dion Cassius gives an example of this in the case of Nero, who dreamt that he saw the chair of Jupiter pass into the palace of Vespasian, which was considered as emblematical of his translation to the empire. The second distinction he terms a vision, visio, or a foreboding of future events. The third he deemed oracular, oraculum, and this was the case when a priest, or a relative, a deity, a hero, or some venerable person, denounced what was to happen, or warned us against it. As an example of this inspiration, for such it was considered, an anecdote of Vespasian is related. Having heard that a man in Achaia had dreamt that a person unknown to him had assured him that he should date his prosperity from the moment that Nero should lose a tooth,-a tooth just drawn from that emperor being shown to him the following day, he foresaw his destinies soon after Nero died, Galba did not long survive him, and the discord that reigned between Otho and Vitellius ultimately placed the diadem on his brow. These inspirations were considered by Cicero, and various philosophers, as particularly appertaining to the shrine of the gods; those who sought that heavenly admonition were therefore recommended to lie down in temples. The Lacedæmonians sought slumber in the temple of Pasithea; Brizo, the goddess of sleep and dreams, was worshipped at Delos, and her votaries slept before her altars with their heads bound with laurel, and other fatidical symbols; hence divination by dreams was called Brizomantia. Supplications were offered up to Mercury for propitious visions, and a caduceus was placed for that purpose at the feet of beds; hence was it called ερμῖες. Diodorus informs us that dreams were regarded in Egypt with religious reverence, and the prayers of the devout were often rewarded by the gods with an indication of appropriate remedies. But the confidence in supernatural agency and the power of magic, was only deemed a last resource, when human skill had been baffled. Some persons promised a certain sum of money for the maintenance of sacred animals, consecrated to the divinity whose aid they implored. In the case of infants, a certain portion of their hair was cut off and weighed, and when the cure was effected an equal quantity of gold was given to the successful intermediator. The fourth division was insomny, insomnium, which was characterized by a disturbed repose, caused either by mental or bodily oppression, or solicitude. The fifth class of dreams was the phantasm or visus, which takes place between sleeping and waking, in a dozing and broken slumber, when |