INTRODUCTION. To MONSIEUR RICORD:— MY DEAR FRIEND: My first expression ought to be one of gratitude. The journal which is intrusted to my care has been fortunate in receiving yonr valuable communications; and I am still confused with the honor you have done me in associating my obscure name with the popularity and glory of yours. Your LETTERS, my dear friend, have obtained a degree of success which is seldom recorded in the annals of our medical literature. I am well aware, and I ought to inform you of the fact, that some persons, who have, alas! very legitimate motives for loving neither wit nor style, blame severely both the wit and the style of your Letters. It is most fortunate that you are not at the commencement of your professional career! You would be dead as a practitioner, my dear friend. There would be an end of a physician, a man of esprit, who dares to write his language correctly and gracefully; who is impertinent enough to give attraction and piquancy to his descriptions; who is so unfortunate as not to recoil at an anecdote; and who is so imprudent as not to fear that he shall make his readers smile ;that is to say, there would be an end of you, my friend, for you have proved yourself to be a writer both spirituel and acute, a critic who possesses a charming atticism, and one who treats grave subjects in an agreeable manner. For the physician who aspires to a practice, there is no worse reputation than that of being a man of wit. At one of the late sessions of the Faculte de Paris, a fortunate candidate, although eminently spirituel, was obliged to receive from a friend, one of the judges, this strange compliment as a home-thrust: "I am satisfied with you; you have shown no esprit." |