Had he dreamed of what materials was made that young compounder of doses at Greshamsbury he would have met him in consultation, morning, noon, and night, without objection; but having begun the war, he was constrained to go on with it: his brethren would allow him no alternative.

Thus he was continually being brought up to the fight, as a prize-fighter may be seen to be, who is carried up round after round, without any hope on his own part, and who, in each round, drops to the ground before the very wind of his opponent's blows.
But Dr Fillgrave, though thus weak himself, was backed in practice and in countenance by nearly all his brethren in the county.

The guinea fee, the principle of _giving_ advice and of selling no medicine, the great resolve to keep a distinct barrier between the physician and the apothecary, and, above all, the hatred of the contamination of a bill, were strong in the medical mind of Barsetshire.

Dr Thorne had the provincial medical world against him, and so he appealed to the metropolis.

The _Lancet_ took the matter up in his favour, but the _Journal of Medical Science_ was against him; the _Weekly Chirurgeon_, noted for its medical democracy, upheld him as a medical prophet, but the _Scalping Knife_, a monthly periodical got up in dead opposition to the _Lancet_, showed him no mercy.