Waller wrote a poem on the occasion of the restoration of Charles II, in which he speaks of the marvelous change that would be caused by the event upon the views and conduct of the former enemies of his royal master. He thus addresses the king: "Offenders now, the chiefest, do begin To strive for grace and expiate their sin; All winds blow fair that did the world embroil, As if he had said in plain prose, that even those who had slain the king's father, had now repented of their sin and become loyal to the son, like vipers which had inflicted a painful wound, but now yielded by their flesh a medicine to heal it. Milton, too, who made everything subservient to his purpose, employed this curious old legend to point his language, for he speaks of "the sovran treacle of sound doctrine." Many other instances might be quoted; but these are sufficient to show how familiar the early English writers were with the symbolical use of treacle, and how admirably they extracted the moral from the once popular superstition contained in it. The fundamental principle that gave origin to treacle, was one that was extensively adopted and acted upon in ancient times. Simila simil ibus curantur "Like cures like"-was the motto of nearly all the medical practitioners from Galen downwards. What were called sympathetic ointments, supposed to cure wounds if the weapon that inflicted them were smeared with them, without any application to the wounds themselves were everywhere greatly in request. Prescriptions, as a rule, were founded upon some real or fancied resemblance between the remedy prescribed and the organ diseased-almost never upon its own inherent curative property. Lichens, which lead a mysterious mesmerized or suspended existence, and growing in curious situations where enchantors might weave their unhallowed spells, were favorite remedies for mysterious complaints. The lung-wort, a kind of lichen which grows in immense shaggy masses on trees and rocks in subalpine woods, was highly recommended as an infallible cure for all diseases of the lungs, owing to the resemblance between its reticulated and lobed upper surface, of a greyish brown color, and these delicate human organs. Hundreds of similar instances might be given, in which the color and shape of a remedy was everything, and its medicinal virtue nothing. The object, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral, that caused the disorder, contributed the proper medicament for its cure. In the writings of Paracelsus and Aldrovandus, who combined the study of alchemy and other occult sciences with that of medicine, we find constant reference to such nostrums; and numerous recipes are given for ointments, draughts, and applications made up according to this rule of the most extraordinary substances, which were sold for very large sums, and were said to have effected remarkable cures. In short, almost all the drugs of the medieval pharmacopæia, were selected and administered entirely upon this principle of mutual similarity and disease. A perusal of the medical treatises of our ancestors, leaves upon our minds a very decided impression of the power of the human imagination, and the strength of the human constitution, as well as quickens our gratitude that we live in times when treacle is given as treacle, and not as viper's flesh, or some abomination more disgusting still. The only relic of the old superstition that survives now, may be recognized in the well known advice frequently given by the seasoned topers to those who are suffering from the effects of their first drunken excess, "Take a hair of the dog that bit you." THE O. Æ. SOCIETY OF BELLEVUE HOSPITAL COLLEGE.-The numerous members of this society throughout the country will be pleased to learn that the last annual reunion, held on the 26th of February, was more than usually brilliant and successful. The addresses were peculiarly appropriate to the occasion, and were received with marked satisfaction by the audience. We give below Professor Elliott's reply to the toast of "Woman," which strikes us as a peculiarly happy handling of so delicate a subject: A sincere friend said to me to-day: "My dear fellow, I hear that you are to respond for the ladies this evening. You have my sympathy." I thanked him, and acknowledged that I needed it; and so do I confess, confidentially, to you all, that I have need of yours, and especially now when my friend Sayre has included my toast with his own in his comprehensive grasp. It is a serious thing to speak for woman just when she is about to break that long silence which has distingushed her through the lapse of ages, and to speak for herself. Let us hope that, if she bring to future discussions the terrible earnestness and directness of purpose which she displayed in the apple question, at least she will select topics less fraught with woe to man. Perhaps this may be one of the last toasts to woman to which a man may respond. The time may be at hand when this is to be superseded by one which will even now, we trust, cause their veins to tingle, and when we may hear, in soft, melodious cadence, from the lips of beauty-"The gentlemen, God bless them!" With woman arguing metaphysics in the pulpit, managing political majorities, directing the press, and wielding the scalpel in sick-rooms there is but a step to the remaining fields of labor, and there may be some girlish face here present, covered only with mantling blushes, which may groove its furrows amid the responsibilities of the senate chamber, or in expounding the majesty of the law. Who shall paint the dawn of this era, so full of the fruition of woman's joys and privileges? The palette of another Guido must furnish the brilliant colors. Still Aurora, with rosy-tipped fingers, will marshal the procession; still the feminine encircling hours will keep their accustomed places, but the male Apollo will be hurled from the central place of honor, and some bright eyed goddess, typical of woman's future, will seize the reins with no reluctant hand. Love will reign supreme. A new millenium will shed its benignant rays upon the land. Man, shorn of his supremacy, and abnegating even claims to military distinction, will still, we trust, bask in the sunshine of woman's favor, and wish that all the Venuses shall enjoy the rights and privileges of Mars. With such a future, well may a man shrink from responding to-night to such a toast. But I am here with a herald's privileges, though not in a herald's garb. I am in a representative capacity; I speak for my constituents. Four hundred manly hearts, not satisfied with hearing me lecture on woman for five or six months, demand a final word before we part. Ladies, I present these four hundred hearts for your most distinguished consideration. Four hundred, did I say? Just as in that suffrage, soon to be abolished by woman, the male voter deposits a ballot that represents the united wishes and convictions of himself and wife, and daughters, so do these four hundred hearts have each four separate pulsating chambers, throbbing so harmoniously now that methinks you must all be able to hear them. And so, instead of four hundred, do I present sixteen hundred palpitating candidates for favor. What aspirations does my feeble advocacy present! What longings for homes and firesides are interlinked with these emotions! What delicious courtships, what rapt elysium of engagements, what calm enduring matrimonial joys do these longings prefigure! Let us hope that four hundred girlish hearts awaken in hastening rhythm to respond to the tumultuous beatings of my constituents. What matters the language in which these longings are conveyed? What matters the man who presents them? Doremus brings from the mystic arcana of his labratory a long black wire to meet another long black wire. Who can foretell the wondrous result? At once, on meeting, an intense flame starts into being, in which solid bars of iron melt in fervent heat and illumine the hall with lurid glare and iridescent sparkles. Why may I not do as well as a long piece of black wire-I, who bring into this arena the concentrated heat of four hundred manly hearts? The result will not astonish the world, but will sparkle in separate matrimonial paragraphs in the daily papers, and light up many a happy home. For the enduring comfort of these happy homes, I must say that, although my four hundred have no Tenny. son to hymn their praises in stately stanzas, yet, in the simplest and sternest prose do I declare that the immortal six hundred at Balaklava never charged as my four hundred will.-New York Medical Journal, April, 1869. EDITORIAL AND MEDICAL NEWS. *ONE OF THE ablest contributors to the Western Journal of Medicine, appears in a new role. He is to be congratulated upon having won an honorable prize; but still more, upon having written an essay well deserving such recognition. Within a few days, we have been reading a review in a French journal of Thesès Prsentées et Soutennes au Concours d'Agreation pour la Médecine, en 1868-9, in which the writer, referring to their authors The part taken by Nature and Time in the Cure of Diseases. A dissertation for which a prize was awarded to James F. Hibberd, M. D., by the Massachusetts Medical Society. Boston: David Clapp & Son, 344 Washington Street, 1868. in general terms, says: Youthful in years, youthful in scientific ardor, the candidates à l'agrégation represent, in a degree almost extreme, the tendencies of their times. And thus it seems to us in reference to Dr. Hibberd's essay-it represents the tendencies of our epoch; nay, it is more than a sign of the course toward which the advance guard of Medicine is moving, more than a piece of drift-wood upon the current of medical progress-it moves with that guard, it contributes to that current. Greater praise we could not bestow; less would fall below desert. And now, while admitting, as all must, the inevitable tendencies of this age of Medicine-whether we lament or rejoice, whether we endeavor to promote or to retard such tendencies-we give ourselves briefly to some particular observations upon this essay. On many points, we shall be fully in accord with its esteemed author; in regard to others, we shall entirely dissent from his views. In the first place, we object to the introduction of Time as one of the factors in the cure of disease. He seems to make of it an entity, a positive force quite as much as any of those that have thus considered disease. What is time? Simply measured duration. During its flow certain events can transpire, certain processes be completed; but per se it has nothing to do with such events or processesno more to do in itself with the recovery of a man from rheumatism in six weeks, than with the hatching of a hen's egg in three weeks, no more to do with either than with the Declaration of Independence on the 4th of July, 1776. The Cunard Steamer which takes our friend to Europe, will require a certain number of days in which to cross the Atlantic; but those days simply constitute a period during which the mighty power of steam, guided by the genius of man, can do a certain work. A boy learns a lesson in an hour, but the hour has no influence upon his mental processes. We would not esteem it a judicious title for a thesis upon the action of aloes-Aloes and Time as a Cathartic. We would rather have written the title of Dr. K.'s Essay, Nature in the Cure, Time for the Cure of Disease. One thought in reference to the etymology of the word cure-a word so often upon our lips that we sometimes forget its true meaning. One who cures, simply takes care of his patient. Cure is from curo, to take care of, to see to, to look after, etc. On page eight of the essay, we read, "when a surgeon has distorted embers of the body to restore, nature and time must be his chief reliance, and his appliances, whatever they may be, only serve to guide and encourage the physiological forces." As Tennyson sings "What drug can make The withered palsy cease to shake?" So we ask, what amount of physiological forces will restore a limb flexed from anchylosis? Here we beg leave to claim that a Stromeyer's screw or gum elastic bands are worth more than nature. So too, the cicatrices from burns, causing deformity and hindering the usefulness of a member, frequently may be removed, and healthy integuments placed upon the denuded surface. Here the surgeon's art is of primary importance-nature and time but secondary, only capable of accomplishing what he gives them the opportunity of doing. It does seem to us, and we say this with becoming hesitation, for we freely concede Dr. Hibberd's superior ability, he pushes his views too far, makes too wide, too universal a generalization as to the respective parts taken by nature and art in the cure of disease. When he lays it down as a universal law, that a pathological stimulant being withdrawn pathological activity ceases, does he not go too far? Has every case of conjunctivitis subsided upon the removal of the foreign body, for example, which excited it? Nay, may not some such cases go on to incurable blindness, without intelligent intervention? Our author asserts that "generally the cause of disease is unknown." True, undoubtedly, that we do not know the causes of very many diseases; but on the other hand, the physician daily sees cases of disease of which he does know the cause. For example, he meets with a case of convulsions in a child, which he traces to indigestible food in the stomach or intestines; or again, a case of epilepsy dependent upon chlorosis; or a case of cirrhosis resulting from the use of alcoholic liquors; or a case of menorrhagia from sexual excess, &c., &c. Now, will the good dame Nature with her faithful attendant, Time, see to the removal of the offending matter from the child's gastro-intestinal canal? She probably will in five cases, but in the sixth the sufferer may die before the process is completed; and the physician does wisely who administers what our friend would call a perturbating medicine, an emetic or a cathartic, under such circumstances. In the second case, we remove the epilepsy by restoring the blood to its normal condition. In the third, we interdict the use of the agent which has produced the trouble, and endeavor to supplement at least a part of the hepatic function by ox-gall, et cet., and we at least prolong the patient's days. In addition to the removal of the cause in the fourth |