The old hospital, and other papers

Front matter

I

Chap.

Eji_

Preface

From time to time in the course of his professional life, the author of the following pages beside his regular professional work has had occasion to write upon subjects not technical, but of interest to the community at large. The papers and addresses in which these subjects are discussed, with a few exceptions have been published in an isolated form and have been more or less widely circulated. Some of them have even had a large audience, but others have reached only those for whom they were originally prepared. Occasional and continued inquiries for certain of these articles have induced the author to venture upon the publication of all of them in a volume.

The central idea of the papers is an attempt to define and adjust the relations of the medical profession to the community which it serves. It is hoped however that this idea is not so prominent as to prevent the papers from being of some interest to all educated people, even if they do not

PREFACE.

feel themselves particularly concerned in the main topic. Indeed the writer will have attained at least a part of his purpose in issuing this little book, if he shall succeed in securing readers who have hitherto believed that a doctor's point of view of affairs in general is necessarily a narrow one. It is true that our chief functions are to avert disease, and when this is impossible, to administer drugs and use the knife, but we are still men and brethren equally interested with our fellows of other callings in all that concerns the welfare of the community at large.

New York, August, 1880.

James Lawrence Little, M.D., . . . 257