[ xi ]
I think incompatible with them, at least according to the plan of education I have followed, by the advice of some of the most eminent and skillful judges of medical science of any in Great Britain.
What reasonable objection can be then offered against an improvement in the present method of the practice of physic, which, to a man in great business, is by every one allowed to be the most slavish profession known in this part of the world.
Every mechanic has a certain portion of time allotted to him for a relaxation from business, and for the enjoyment of social happiness. Physicians have next to none, but they are obliged to be at the call of the sick, every hour in the night as well as of the day. Were they born slaves to the public and not children? or, for such a voluntary surrender of their liberty and ease as is necessary to practise conscientiously, are they to have no compensation? Is it thought an unreasonable demand to be paid for a toilsome, but necessary attendance, amidst objects of the most moving distress, which deprives them much of the company of their own family and of a number of gratifications, which every other profession allows of without detriment? Where is the encouragement for a man to banish himself from all the endearing tyes of friends and relations, to spend the prime of
