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to suppose that this is the case, and it will often befound a very difficult matter to persuade them of thecontrary.

But this custom is not pernicious to child-bed womenonly. It is hurtful in many other cases. When lowfevers, in which it is difficult to support the patient'sspirits, prevail, what must be the effect of a funeral-peal sounding five or six times a day in his ears? Nodoubt his imagination will suggest that dthers died ofthe same disease under which he labours. This appre-hension will have a greater tendency to depress hisspirits, than all the cordials of which, medicine canboast will have to raise them.

If this useless piece of ceremony cannot be abolished,we ought to keep the sick as much from hearing it aspossible, and from every other thing that may tend toalarm them. So far, however, is this from being gene-rally attended to, that many make it their business tovisit the sick, on purpose to whisper dismal stories intheir ears. Such may pass for sympathising friends, but.they ought rather to be considered.as enemies. All whowish well to the sick, ought to keep such persons at thegreatest distance from them.

A custom has long prevailed among physicians, ofprognosticating, as they call it, the patient's fate, orforetelling the issue of the disease. Vanity, no doubt*introduced this practice, and still supports it, in spite ofcommon sense, and the safety of mankind. I have knowna physician barbarous enough to boast, that he pronounced more sentences than all his Majesty's judges,Would to God that such sentences were not often equal-ly fatal? It may indeed be alledged, that the docto*does not declare his opinion before the patient. So muchthe worse. A sensible patient had better hear what thedoctor says, than learn it from the disconsolate looksthe watery eyes, and the broken whispers, of thosabout him. It seldom happens, when the doctor givesan unfavourable opinion, that it can be concealed fromthe patient. The very embarrassment which the friendsand attendants shew in disguising what he has said, isgenerally sufficient to discover the truth.

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