added. Wines are gustible by reason of the sugar or other sapid principles therein contained; it is their aroma that gives the greater pleasure, through olfaction. Very dry wines and spirits act mechanically upon the papillæ, and their ethers are enjoyed by olfaction. Rum is gustible owing to its sweetness. Beer would be insipid but for its bitterness.

Taste then, with its closely associated olfactive and tactile senses, is regarded, gastronomicly, as the special and general pleasure evoked by the perception and specialisation of the crispness, of the succulence, sapidity, and perfume of aliments; and figuratively as a judgment of the beautiful, the sublime and the picturesque.

The physician should familiarise himself with the taste, smell, consistence, and other characters, not only of the substances just mentioned but of the majority of the drugs which he may have to prescribe. High cultivation of the sense of taste is of imperative necessity to him, that he may know the true value as well as the dangerously enticing qualities of the dainty dietary of his convalescing patients, and that he may authoritatively impress upon them the importance of temperate use of delicacies, and give them due warning of the ill effects of indulging their appetite to excess.

The interdependence of the senses is such that they should all be under constant exercise, but to touch, the chief of the whole brigade, the greatest share of attention should be bestowed.

The impossibility to do justice to the very interesting

subject of sense culture, in its divers aspects, through two brief conferences, must have been fully realised by the auditors. But there is a lingering hope that these short sketches may evoke general attention to the importance of long continued sense exercise, and induce all physicians to examine at leisure the many questions which it involves.

IX

EVOLUTION OF MEDICAL MORALS

A summary of the history of the evolution of medical morals— Beginning of the indoctrination of individual obligationsReciprocity a word of command-Justice, mercy, generosity, hope, faith, and charity the fundamental maxim of all systems of good morals—Á glance at the Hippocratic oath, law, iatrium, aphorisms, and prognostics-Collocation of moral precepts by Doctor Thomas Percival-The American system of medical morals, its origin.

THE student, being desirous to learn certain special rules of conduct adapted to his future labors in the practice of medicine, will better understand and appreciate their import by giving heed to a statement of the source of these rules and of their early observation. For this end, a brief exposition of the history of the evolution of medical morals will be offered as a preliminary answer to his queries. This history, traced from the inception of the indoctrination of individual obligations, and of the great principle of reciprocity which is the very nucleus of every system of good morals, supplies a vast abundance of materials for serious thought; hence the following summary thereof intended as a mere suggestion of the direction which may be taken in the investigation of the subject by earnest students of the moral philosophy of medicine.

It was probably long after man emerged from his state of savagery that some sage began to promulgate the maxim that great happiness is attainable only through good deeds, and it is likely that he told, with illustrative examples, what acts were to be regarded as good, and what as evil. Having thus established a standard of judgment, it is more than likely that this same sage, by eloquent preachments, attracted great crowds of people and succeeded in impressing his criterion and some salutary precepts upon the minds of his closer followers who, with additions, transmitted them to new disciples who, in turn, promulgated them, and so from generation to generation, ages before the time of Confucius who recorded many of them among which was the maxim relating to reciprocity.

"Tsze-Kung asked, saying, 'is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's life?' The master said, 'is not reciprocity such a word?' What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others." This negative mode of expression in the Confucian Analects is a mere suggestion of reciprocity which is also distinctly implied a century later, in the oath and law of Hippocrates, while it appears in the form of a positive, divine command in the Sermon on the Mount "Therefore all things whatsoever that ye would that men should do to you, do ye so to them: for this is the law and the Prophets." It is plain that reciprocity, used in this sense, is a word of command, and that it necessarily involves justice, mercy, generosity, good faith, much hope, and great charity. It is equally

plain that the present moral laws, based, as they are, upon these virtues, were not made by any single individual, but are the results of the researches of many moralists who have added to the records of good actions, good customs, which, by others, have been collated systematically, and finally adopted as a whole by associations of men, just as civil laws have been thus compiled from the most ancient usages, and moral laws from good customary practices of men; the word morals being derived from mores, customs.

Justice, mercy, generosity, hope, faith, and charity, constituting, as they do, the broad basis of good morals, need constant cultivation by all who love to labor for the weal of humanity. Those assuredly enjoy the fullest measure of happiness who are scrupulously just, ever merciful, and always generous; hopeful of the good to come of justice when faithfully tempered with mercy, generous in its interpretation, and charitable in its administration. Be just, merciful, generous, hopeful, faithful, charitable, may well stand as a fundamental maxim of any system of good morals. Any deviation from this sublime maxim must resolve itself inevitably into be unjust, unmerciful, ungenerous, hopeless, faithless, uncharitable, which is the creed of the wicked.

The earliest principles of conduct of the physician known to have been reduced to writing are those set forth by the Father of Medicine in his Oath, Law, Iatrium, Aphorisms, and Prognostics. They were the precursors of the many excellent precepts that have been expounded by modern medical moralists, and that have served so well in the