as briefly as possible the truths which Hahnemann postulated, yea, demonstrated, as to the action of medicines under the normal and abnormal conditions of the human economy, the reverse of their action has been demonstrated also under suitable circumstances and conditions; and that therefore it is no subject about which either party to the controversy should dogmatize. It is true to history, likewise, to say that the Homœopathy of Hahnemann has practically ceased to exist; only the skeleton remains as a reminder of what once produced a violent commotion in the profession. If this fact be conceded it is difficult to find an excuse or reason for maintaining separate schools and societies. The Hippocratian School is broad enough to-day to include members of all medical sects who are qualified and duly licensed to practise the art and science of Medicine.

Again we are constrained to say that it may be regarded as almost if not quite a truism, that he who disregards the precepts of his predecessors, of whom he is an evolution, whether he know it or not, is an egoist, of whom Paracelsus, Dover, and Brown were types, as we have seen. When a man vaunts himself above all that has gone before, and claims to possess wisdom and knowledge superior to all the gods in human form that have preceded him, he is, we repeat, an egoist, whether he be a Mohammed, a Paracelsus, a Sextus Empiricus, or a Hahnemann.

Men of science are no longer in leading-strings,

nor are they listening to sirens. We certainly find that Hahnemann's attitude toward his contemporaries, wise men and learned, and the claims he put forth for his discoveries, bring him within the scope of our criticism, in declaring that Homœopathy was "a perfect system of medicine," the "only healing art," etc.

Apart from his discovery of soluble mercury, which was an excellent achievement, and his contributions to specific medication, and the introduction of the single remedy, Hahnemann did little to advance the knowledge of medicine. His physiology was taken from that of Haller and Bichat; his idea of specifics from Boyle; his dynamis from Hippocrates. We cite a paragraph from his "Organon" which gives one a clear insight to his defective knowledge of pathology, and of the relation of mind and body.

In the so-called bodily diseases which are dangerous, such as suppuration of the lungs, or that of any other essential viscera, or other acute disease, viz., in child-bed, etc., where the intensity of the moral symptoms increases rapidly, the disease turns to insanity, melancholy, or madness, which removes the danger arising from the bodily symptoms. The latter improve so far as almost to be restored to a healthy state, or rather they are diminished in such a degree as to be no longer perceptible, except to the eye of the observer gifted with penetration and perseverance. In this manner they degenerate into a partial (einseitig) disease, even as if local, in which

the moral symptoms, very slight in the first instance, assume so great a preponderance that it becomes the most prominent of all, substitutes in a great degree for the others, and subdues their violence by acting on them as a palliative. In short, the disease of the bodily organs, which are grosser in their nature, has been transported to the almost spiritual organs of the mind, which no anatomist ever could or will be able to reach with his scalpel.

I

The judicial observer must admit, we think, with perfect respect to the author of Homœopathy, that he at least discovered an elegant method of applying Suggestive Therapeutics under the guise of medication.

Organon of Medicine, Fourth American Edition, pp. 187, 188.

FIFTH: PERIOD OF THE RENAISSANCE

(Continued)

CHAPTER X

STATE OF MEDICINE IN A.D. 1800

THE century to the end of which we have come

was crowned with a galaxy of great men in every department of science and philosophy. The classical period of English Literature had come and gone. France and Germany were just entering upon theirs. Benjamin Franklin was popular at the French Capital among a brilliant coterie of men and women of genius in Literature, Science, and Art. Germany was hardly second to France in the number of her great poets and philosophers. Goethe was her rising star. For great philosophers and writers England outranked them both. Neither of them had produced a Hume or a Gibbon, a Newton or a Herschel. America had achieved her independence and was coming into notice with the high and distinguished character of her public men. Napoleon had entered upon his career; Frederick the Great had closed his. The influence of the Encyclopedists in France was on the wane; so, also, was statecraft. Statesmanship was, however, in the

ascendancy. From the French Capital were being echoed all over the world sentiments of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. The great Lavoisier, the chemist, had been slain by the Tribune; but Davy, a greater than a Lavoisier, arose in England to carry forward a work so auspiciously begun by him. Priestley, the illustrious chemist and joint discoverer with Lavoisier of oxygen, had taken himself off to the wilds of America, there to enjoy without persecution or molestation the freedom of opinion and conviction denied him in England. The priests of the parent church still discoursed on Christianity in a dead vernacular, of which their auditors were wholly ignorant; but to read the Holy Bible in one's native tongue had ceased to be a crime. Nor was it any longer a crime in Western Europe to teach children to read, or to send them to school, could their parents afford it, or if the workshop and factories had not a more pressing claim upon their services, or their parents for their wages. Men and women, innocent of every sin but delusions, were no longer hung for sorcery or witchcraft; but the insane were kept in chains and dungeons as madfolks, or guilty of obsession. Buffon had written his great work on Natural History; Cuvier had written his; the great Huber had finished his; Dujardin likewise his. The period of the great historians had passed; but the firmament was ablaze with great thinkers and men of science and discovery. The new century