will be eclipsed by American loathsomeness and corruption; need I say that I refer to that most detestable and criminal practice of artificial abortion. This damnable practice, this offshoot of European profligacy, is sapping the foundation of the health and morals of American society. It is an imported vice, and like other imported fashions, vanities and immoralities is eagerly adopted and naturalized by the wealth and fashion of the land; herein lies its danger; its popularization places it beyond the reach of moral condemnation or legal responsibility; from this high eminence its descent through the lower grades of society is easy and rapid. Every city has its Restells, revelling on the price of blood. A few years ago this vile practice was unknown in the rural districts; now it is the rule instead of the exception. We are importuned daily by all classes to perform this operation. It has become a mania in the community. The highest and the lowest, not only those who would hide shame and escape disgrace, but those who would avoid the penalty of legitimate indulgence. We are as often applied to by the moral and religious Mrs. Prims as by any other class. I envy not conscience that yields to the importunity, or the man that defends or excuses it. The act will be called by the name it deserves, murder. Of all the causes of physical and moral declension none is more blasting in its results. It is estimated that one-eighth of the cases of pregnancy in our land are disposed of in this manner, astounding as this fact is. Where will another decade find us? If the moral indignation of our country is not aroused, the legal power enforced, we shall be demoralized, depraved and degraded, the reproach of the world; all other vices will keep pace. We witness the effect of this prac tice upon the poor pale faces and tottering limbs we meet at every turn, in the cases of leucorrhoea, prolapsus and ulceration we are called upon to treat, in the water-cures and other kindred institutions that spring up all over the country, devoted to the treatment of this special class of diseases. From this practice and the excess I have mentioned, we can scarcely find a well woman in the community. But this is the least gloomy side of the picture. Could the evil be suppressed, the sick might be healed, the next generation saved, and hope again dawn upon the world. It is the moral aspect of this practice that causes every lover of his race and his country to tremble. The tendency is downward, the end total depravity and ultimate ruin. The woman who solicits and submits to the operation to produce abortion, takes a step in the

downward course that is seldom retrieved. The moral purity is destroyed; vice is no longer odious. It begets a laxity of moral principle that too often terminates in the indulgence of unbridled passion. The next step is infidelity to the marriage vow. The utter wreck of all moral and religious responsibilities, and the horrors of atheism.

Gentleman, we have a duty to perform, I call upon you as philanthropists, as fathers, husbands, brothers, as physicans, as men, proud of your high position, to set your faces against this horrid practice; I appeal to you by the purity of your wives and your affection for your daughters, to discountenance this abominable evil. Through this more than all other causes combined, the profession of medicine is losing the confidence of the people. That profession must become disgraced, whose members commit or countenance the commission of crime, and the guilty member soon finds his level in the estimation of all honorable and high-minded men. Are we less successful than formerly? has scientific research ceased? is investigation less persevering? that the time-honored profession of medicine is becoming a by-word and reproach among men ? none of these. It is because we are temporizing with a vitiated public sentiment. When we doubt a man's moral purity we no longer trust :—so with parties, communities or professions; destroy the foundation upon which confidence rests, and confidence and respect are annihilated.

If we would retain our high, social, moral and professional position, there must be no smell of fire on our garments. We must be above suspicion. We have the entry to the privacy of the domestic circle; but let the doubt once arise of our moral purity, and our influence is gone, the confidence, the trust, the respect a long professional lifetime has acquired, vanish in an hour.

The country is getting alarmed and aroused upon this subject; we already here the mutterings of the press, and the feeble warnings from the sacred desk, the rumbling that precedes an earthquake. Shall we be the last in the field? We wield more influence than all others combined: to us are entrusted the lives of the people; we are the conservators, the guardians of the public health, the sentinels upon the watch-towers; shall we witness the approaches of the enemy and not sound the alarm? If the effort feebly inaugurated shall fail, the sin lies at our door; on us the odium rests.

If we would place our profession upon the high eminence of moral confidence and respect, we will enter into this warfare we will exert the influence we possess, and future generations will bestow upon us their blessings.