pass out again as indifferent as he
entered. The profession has moral relations and moral duties.
We should serve our patients with all our heart and soul;
and they should know that we do it not merely because it is
our business, or because we expect to be supported or to grow
rich by the occupation, but because we feel for their welfare
as friends, and as friends will strive for their advantage.
To the existence of these
mutual feelings, nothing contributes more than the attendance
of physicians in cases of midwifery. The interest excited
in these cases is strong. Women seldom forget a practitioner
who has conducted them tenderly and safely through parturition
-they feel a familiarity with him, a confidence and reliance
upon him, which are of the most essential mutual advantage
in all their subsequent intercourse as physician and patient.
On the other hand, the physician takes a deeper interest and
feels a more intimate and personal connexion with those, whom
he has attended in this scene of suffering and danger, than
with patients of any other description.
It is principally on this
account that the practice of midwifery becomes desirable to
physicians. It is this which ensures to them the permanency
and security of all their other business. There are
few men in good practice, especially those who have any inclination
for literary pursuits, who would not be glad to relinquish
the pecuniary emoluments of this department of business, for
the comparative leisure and tranquillity they would enjoy,
provided they could at the same time retain all the other
advantages derived from this source. Simply in a lucrative
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