DURING A PORTION of the first half of the present century, and more particularly during the latter part of it, there flourished and practiced in the city of New York a physician who enjoyed perhaps an exceptional share of the consideration which, in the United States, has always been bestowed upon distinguished members of the medical profession.This profession in America has constantly been held in honor, and more successfully than elsewhere has put forward a claim to the epithet of "liberal." In a country in which, to play a social part, you must either earn your income or make believe that you earn it, the healing art has appeared in a high degree to combine two recognized sources of credit.It belongs to the realm of the practical, which in the United States is a great recommendation; and it is touched by the light of science- a merit appreciated in a community in which the love of knowledge has not always been accompanied by leisure and opportunity.
It was an element in Doctor Sloper's reputation that his learning and his skill were very evenly balanced; he was what you might call a scholarly doctor, and yet there was nothing abstract in his remedies- he always ordered you to take something.Though he was felt to be extremely thorough, he was not uncomfortably theoretic; and if he sometimes explained matters rather more minutely than might seem of use to the patient, he never went so far (like some practitioners one had heard of) as to trust to the explanation alone, but always left behind him an inscrutable prescription.There were some doctors that left the prescription without offering any explanation at all;and he did not belong to that class either, which was after all the most vulgar.It will be seen that I am describing a clever man; and this is really the reason why Doctor Sloper had become a local celebrity.
