his strictures on your "invariable principles," by a defence of Mr. Campbell's "Ship of the Line," which you say "totally failed as described by himself," and as defended by his Lordship; but though you imagine you have proved your proposition, to use your own expression, "to the right and to the left," and "blown away" his Lordship's argument "to the winds," the public will have little difficulty in perceiving, by what masterly evolutions and involutions of argument you have justified your boast.

THE

RETURN TO NATURE;

OR,

A DEFENCE

OF THE

VEGETABLE REGIMEN;

WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF AN EXPERIMENT MADE DURING THE LAST THREE OR FOUR YEARS IN THE AUTHOR'S FAMILY.

Man, only man, Creation's Lord confess'd,
Amidst his happy realm remains unbless'd;

On the bright earth, his flow'r-embroider'd throne,

Th' imperial mourner reigns and weeps alone.

SPENCER'S YEAR OF SORROW.

BY JOHN FRANK NEWTON, Esq.

[Concluded from No. XXXIX.]

LONDON:

DEFENCE, &c.

THE fallacy which, whether advisedly or not, is carried on by the faculty, resembles what took place in this country three or four hundred years ago, when all England was Roman Catholic in its religious faith. As a man then retired with his confessor to receive from him such absolutions and promises as we have since discovered the priest had no divine commission to dispense; so now, the physician is resorted to for consolations of another kind, which, God knows, it is as little in the good man's power to realise. These wretched deceits will probably at some future day be regarded in the same light.

It would be an almost endless task to repeat the just sarcasms that have been printed, from Garth to Gregory, on the arrogant pretensions, or rather the legitimate practice of the learned in physic. I have for them neither room nor inclination; but so deep an impression must they, I conceive, have left on the minds of those who have had the amusement of perusing them, that the professors of medicine, as of magic, ought in their modesty to excuse it, if, after a long experience and exposure of the impotence of their respective arts, the thinking part of mankind should no longer consider such proficients as holding, like the Fates, the threads of life and death in their unhallowed hands. Great reason there is indeed to suspect, and I willingly state it in justice to the faculty, that many among them, whose judgment has been much looked up to, have had no very sanguine faith in the power of medicine. It would scarcely be going too far to assert, that there never lived any physician of high repute who was not a sceptic in

his science. The exhibitions which have maintained the fame of medical skill have been those of opium, sulphur, and mercury: how much they have contributed to preserve life where it would otherwise have been sacrificed, shall be left to those whose practical experience better qualifies them to decide the point; but I have heard it confidently asserted that the bills of mortality in a given population, I speak of that of Spain and Portugal for example, have been nearly the same under the bleeding system which once prevailed so extensively in Europe, as they now are under a comparative abolition of that innocent practice. I was thus proceeding to examine how far what are called improvements in medicine had substantially contributed to the prolongation of life, when the postman rapped at my door with a letter from a country cousin of mine, of whom I had little idea that she ever turned her thoughts to these serious subjects. The reader will, I trust, have some indulgence for an unpractised pen, and under that impression, I venture to give my fair friend's composition just as it came to my hands.

"DEAR COUSIN,

"As you reside in London, I will make no apology for giving you the trouble of delivering the inclosed letter to some members of the learned bodies to whom it is addressed; and if a satisfactory answer can be obtained, pray lose no time in forwarding it to

66

"Your's," &c.

To the learned Members of the College of Physicians, the
College of Surgeons, and Apothecaries of Great Britain.

"GENTLEMEN,

Having read with some attention Dr. Lambe's works on Constitutional Diseases and on Cancer, I candidly confess that the novelty of his theory, unsupported by a sufficient number of successful cases, puzzled my poor understanding. Feeling, however, favorably disposed towards a system so simple, and apparently so innocent, I looked with considerable anxiety for a solution of my doubts to your respectable body, whose opinions on the subject I am at length happy to find pretty widely circulated. You will readily believe that the veneration, I may almost.

With due deference to my pleasant relation under Dover Cliff, I conceive that Dr. Lambe's success in arresting the progress of cancer, as detailed in the cases which he has given to the public, was such as to impress every understanding.

say the prejudice, which prevails in favor of your learning and devotion to the public weal even when opposed to your interests, could not fail to influence my judgment in an appeal to your's. Imagine then the dilemma in which I was placed on recalling to mind the opposition which inoculation for the small pox received about a century ago, and also that which vaccination has encountered during the last ten years, not only from the unlettered part of the community, but from some respected names on your lists. Unwilling to attribute this opposition to any other motive than a love of truth, I was compelled to suspect the soundness of your judgment; for inoculation, after severe struggles, conquered all its adversaries, and vaccination was unfortunately supported by thousands of successful experiments, and eagerly adopted on the continent of Europe, while it was still controverted here.

"Unable to solve my difficulties through the assistance of your learned colleges, and being myself wholly ignorant of medicine, I enquired whether cancer was generally thought a fatal disease; or whether any mode of cure had hitherto been discovered? I was answered that there had not. I then asked whether any cancerpatients in the hospitals had been treated by the faculty on Dr. Lambe's system? Another negative confirmed my surprise. Bewildered in my inquiries, I sought in vain for a justification of the inveterate hostility, contempt, and ridicule, both written and verbal, with which Dr. Lambe's theory has been assailed. Is there a suspicion, said I, that pure water can add to the catalogue of our diseases? Or can a vegetable diet, which has carried so many men to an age exceeding a century, be dreaded as having a tendency to curtail our existence ? In this embarrassment, an evil spirit approached my ear, and whispered these unwelcome words. Vain mortal! dismiss your doubts: the faculty neither wish to kill nor cure. The diseases, the ignorance, the prejudices of the mass, are essential to their prosperity; and woe to him who should attempt to dispel either. He shall suffer a permanent crucifixion, if his philosophy place him not beyond the reach of their vengeance. As reasonably might you expect a modern lawyer to imitate the immortal Sir Thomas More, and dissuade his client from entering into a chancery-suit; or a nobleman to strip himself of his trappings, and descend to the condition of a peasant, as a sane physician' to become an honest man.'

"Awakened from a dream in which I had at least the consola

'Right, right, my good cousin! He knows perfectly well, when he advises his luxurious patient not to live too low, the complacency with which his prescription is received; and that to divulge the secret and become a propagator of truth, might cost him his carriage, his wines, his abundant table, and his liveried servants.