Page:Lives of British Physicians.djvu/13



"A PHYSICIAN in a great city (says Johnson in his Life of Akenside) seems to be the mere plaything of Fortune; his degree of reputation is, for the most part, totally casual; they that employ him, know not his excellence; they that reject him, know not his deficience. By any acute observer, who had looked on the transactions of the medical world for half a century, a very curious book might be written on the 'fortune of physicians.' "

There can be no question, that from physic as from every other profession, examples may be brought in which talent has not ensured success, but, on the contrary, the caprice of Fortune been fully shown. In the Lives which follow, however, the celebrity obtained in the world has alone been the guide of selection;—and the perusal of the volume, it is hoped, will satisfy the youthful reader, that the gloomy observation of the great moralist must be received as pointing, not to the rule, but to the exceptions; and that, generally speaking, in this course of active life, as in others, the long labour of preparatory study, anxious diligence of observa-