text:  Whatever may be said of the French practitioners as a body--and my professional brethren I know bring against them as a national reproach the charge of inefficiency in the _treatment_ of disease (remarkable for acuteness and truth as their _diagnosis_ is allowed to be)--still I think it will not be denied that chiefly to the Parisian physicians and to the untiring energy of particular individuals amongst them whom it would not be difficult to name are we indebted at this moment for some of the most important knowledge that we possess--knowledge be it understood derived altogether from investigations diligently pursued at the patient's bedside and obtained with the greatest judgment difficulty and pains