fically directed in harmonious concurrence with the principles of Physiology? He cannot be ignorant of the marvellous revelations of modern science concerning the functions of Heat in the Physical World, did it never occur to him to study its action in relation to abnormal conditions of the human body? There is now no justifiable excuse for ignorance or indifference on such subjects. It is the sacred duty of every medical man, who presumes to interfere with the functions of life, to make himself thoroughly acquainted with them, and have a rational opinion one way or the other. If, then, Sir Thomas has not failed in this duty; if he has studied the scientific developments of Hydropathy, why did he not communicate something of his experience, in this direction, to the Clinical Society. He should have been as candid and outspoken as he was about drugs; and no matter what his opinion may be, under no conceivable circumstances, can his silence be deemed creditable to him.

It is thus by examining what may be regarded as the confidential confessions of accredited medical authorities among themselves, that an intelligent public can best arrive at a true knowledge of the character of medical practice, and be enabled most correctly to estimate the degree of confidence that, as rational beings, they ought to repose in the admitted impotency of the Drug School. Further light is thrown on this subject by a very remarkable paper read before the Harveian Society, London, Feb. 6, 1868, by Dr. H. W. Fuller, senior Physician to St. George's Hospital, entitled On Drugs, their Actions and their Doses. Dr. Fuller's object was to obtain the appointment of "a committee to undertake the investigation of Therapeutic subjects;" and the imbecility, impotency, and absolute bewilderment that now characterizes the condition of Drug Practice could not be depicted in livelier colours than he employed.

Investigation was desirable, Dr. Fuller alleged, because of our utter wunt of precise knowledge respecting the action of drugs, and of the doses in which they may be safely administered." He says, "Scepticism as to the curative value of

drugs is the besetting fault (?) of the profession at the present time." "Medicines, consequently, are prescribed which, either in their nature, or mode of administration, are ill-adapted to the exigencies of the case, failure necessarily follows their use, and scepticism as to their curative value is the necessary result." The extraordinary admission is made-"we know little respecting the natural cause of many diseases, and consequently we are in the dark as to what may be effected by the vis medicatrix nature; but observing, as we often do, that patients recover under various, and the most opposite modes of treatment, and even when no medicine is administered, we are naturally inclined to ask whether drugs are of any use, and whether they may not be hurtful."

This exactly corroborates the opinion expressed by Dr. Edward Johnston; and is it not marvellous, that while Drug Doctors are thus confessedly in the dark respecting the value and action of their drugs, they notwithstanding persist in their reckless administration? Dr. Fuller proceeds thus-"Again, it often happens that drugs are given for the relief of disease over which they exercise little or no influence; or appropriate drugs are given when the system is in a condition ill fitted for their reception; or they are given in doses inadequate to restrain the violence of the attack!" This is quoted to show how miserably skilled practitioners are, even in the administration of their own poisons, which Dr. Fuller has yet to learn can never in the nature of things, be "appropriate," in any doses to any form of disease.

Yet, while Dr. Fuller censures the non-appropriateness of drug administration, he makes this astounding confession of professional impotency and imbecility on the subject. "At present we are absolutely without data for the administration of medicine; the profession possesses no authoritative record of ɑ single therapeutic fact; the traditions of our forefathers are handed down to us orally, or in the works of individuals and we have these, together with our own experience, to guide us

nothing more." What the experience of practitioners generally is worth has been already shown. Again:

"There are no authoritative statements as to the influence of any method of treatment, or as to the action of any remedy in the Pharmacopaia; and neither the College of Physicians, nor any of our medical societies, has made the slightest effort to obtain such a record.

We have no public or authoritative statement respecting the doses in which any medicine can be given with impunity, nor the disorders in which it proves useful; and, therefore, most practitioners do as they have been taught, and oftentimes have no knowledge as to its administration in any other doses. No person who has not made inquiries on the subject can have any idea of the wide discrepancy which exists, between the practice of different men, in relation to the doses in which remedies are administered. Ignorance respecting drugs and their actions is so general, that in the absence of authoritative statement on the subject, the vaguest and most groundless fears are entertained respecting their action.”— British Medical Journal, Feb. 26, 1868.

Could there be a more convincing confession of the vain pretensions of the Drug School of Physic than Dr. Fuller thus favored the Harveian Society with? What a sorry burlesque on the grand claims of physic to the exactitude of a science! More than two thousand three hundred years ago, Hippocrates flourished, and laboured to place Therapeutics on a rational and natural basis; yet here we have learned Physicians meeting in solemn conclave, confessing their utter ignorance of Therapeutics, notwithstanding all their boasted "drug remedies," and appointing a committee to investigate the subject!

In the discussion that followed the reading of Dr. Fuller's paper, no two members appeared to have similar ideas about disease, drugs, or therapeutics; yet all seemed to be quite well satisfied with their own practice. Dr. Broadbent thought "the natural history of disease the first great problem to be ascertained." "The majority of men had never seen the natural course of a disease." "As it is, remedies come into fashion, die out, and come in again. Remedies come and go, because men have no guide as to their real value except the opinion of the introducer." Are there not infallible guides to their non-value ?-guides that clearly and unequivocally lead

to the conclusive condemnation of all Drug Medication as worthless and mischievous ?-guides that unmistakably indicate nature and natural agents as alone valuable and reliable in the treatment of disease? But such guides drug practitioners will not follow, although their reckless experimentalism, at the expense of human life, invariably tends to demonstrate the complete fallacy of their drug theories.

Dr. Sutton, who followed Dr. Broadbent, admitted this. "Extensive and valuable experiments," he said, "have often been made with remedies, and certain results arrived at, which have been afterwards completely upset by finding that the disease over which the remedies were supposed to exert an influence ceased just as soon without them. He had seen a very large number of cases of pleurisy with effusion recover without any medicine at all; so with pneumonia; in cholera, too, under the most opposite plans of treatment, a certain number of cases recover"—that is, Nature effects a cure in spite of doctors and their variety of drug remedies!

́But while thus admitting the total uncertainty of Drug remedies-the utter helplessness of Drug practitioners in the presence of serious disease, and indirectly acknowledging the transcendent superiority of Nature-neither Dr. Fuller nor any one of his associates hinted at the propriety of bestowing a thought on natural Therapeutic Agents! Content to continue groping about bewildered in the darkness of their own wilful ignorance, still hoping against hope for some fortuitous gleam of remedial light, there was nothing but a monotonous reiteration of drugs, drugs, drugs, and a piteous bewailment of the want of precise knowledge concerning their actions! What hope can be reasonably entertained of improvement in Medicine while such a spirit of perverse adherence to an irrational system rules in the profession? There are none so blind as those who will not see, and really there is no hope save in the awakened intelligence of the public. Drug Doctors will continue to plod on contentedly, not ashamed to confess utter ignorance about the action of drug poisons administered daily, unconscious, per

haps, if not regardless, of the mischief inflicted-satisfied to do as they were taught, and follow blind-fold in the ways of their predecessors. Verily it would seem that

"Ne'er did old Faith with her smooth bondage bind

Eyes more devoutly willing to be blind."

SECTION VI.-The general character of Medical Practice-High authorities quoted-Successive variations-Conscientiousness no palliation for the evils caused by Drug Practitioners→→ Perversity of medical men in rejecting natural Therapeutic Agents-Their revival and successful progress notwithstanding medical opposition-Honest inquirers become zealous advo

cates-Conclusion.

FROM the evidence which has been adduced-and it could easily be increased to almost any extent-the conclusion is irresistibly forced on the mind, that the general character of medical practice is essentially speculative and necessarily dangerous. As Dr. Bostock, a highly-esteemed authority, has declared:"Every dose of medicine given is a blind experiment upon the vitality of the patient." It becomes, therefore, a serious matter when it is considered that there are some twenty thousand members of the medical profession in the United Kingdom, nineteen-twentieths of whom are actively engaged in the pernicious administration of Physic, or in making blind experiments on the vitality of their patients! Of how many of the twenty thousand could it be truthfully affirmed that they are "duly qualified" to administer physic-poison even with ordinary safety as regards health and life?-of how many would it be calumnious to declare that they are virtually pretenders to knowledge and skill which they do not possess, and in so far rank no higher than veritable empiries in practice-sacrificing to their false system innumerable credulous victims ?

This is not the language of exaggeration, as the evidence