Note 2 — HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.

A late foreign writer impressed with this sentiment has given the following flattering definition of our profession. ‘Physic is the art of amusing the patient, while Nature cures the disease.’ This is a sarcasm which can only be equalled by the churlish and ill-humoured apostrophe of our own Dr. Samuel Johnson, who, in speaking of the profession of physic, exclaims ‘It is a melancholy attendance on misery; a mean submission to peevishness; and a continual interruption of pleasure.’