DOCTORS AS MEN OF LETTERS.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sm,—I have just been reading a most interesting article in the last number of the Spectator to reach me. In it the writer asks why it is that doctors do not more often take to literature- But it seems to me that a fairly lengthy list could be made of members of the medical profession who have given us books dealing with subjects other than those immediately related to their own calling. Here are some of the names that occur, chosen almost at random, as a beginning for such a list :— Sir Thomas Browne, Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh, Sir Frederick Treves, Sir William Osler, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, William James, Weir Mitchell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and our French-Canadian dialect poet, William Drummond. We might even include in the list Oliver Goldsmith and Keats. The Gospel, described by Renan as " the most beautiful book that has ever been written," came from the pen of a medical man—St. Luke.—I am, Sir, &e.,
Galt, Ontario. M. B. DAVIDSON.
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