in cold damp air, without sun-light, will soon take on a tubercular disease, and, if confined with cases of tuberculosis under such unsanitary surroundings, the progress of the disease is very rapid. Many individuals are born with such weak lungs that when by some unfortunate exposure an inflammation is once set up in them they have not the powers of resistance to remove and repair the injury, even under good sanitary conditions, and death is the result, where some other individual would have repaired a similar injury without either medicine or care. This demonstrates the fallacy of depending too much upon local medication in tuberculosis. You must fortify your patient with an improved general condition under more favorable sanitary surroundings. Why is it a fact that confined damp air will produce or generate tubercule baccilli in the human system, when the same individual, suffering from the same trouble in an elevation twenty-two or twenty-five hundred feet above the level of the sea, in a wild mountainous region, will eliminate the tubercule baccelli, take on flesh and get well? But such is the fact. Again, the same individual returning to the same lower stratas of damp air takes on the same tuberculous condition, and by again repairing to the above named altitude and locality regains vigor and health. Why is one locality so much more conducive to diseases of any kind than another, unless it be the fact that in certain localities certain poisonous germs exist, that, when brought in contact with certain individuals, under certain conditions, produce a certain disease as the usual result? Is there any other reasonable explanation than that this disease, like many other contagious diseases, is produced from poisonous germs that have been produced and are being produced every day by conditions from other germs? Otherwise, they are of Divine origin, and the " germ theory" is not true.

In conclusion, allow me to raise a few questions and state a few facts. Science has proved beyond a doubt that there is no such thing as spontaneous generation of life. In other words, the dead produce nothing; only the living germs can produce more living germs. Therefore I assume that all life must be of Divine origin. Yet the germs of contagious diseases are living organisms, have life, and reproduce more germ life. If the "germ theory" is true, contagious germs must be produced from certain conditions and from original germ life which was of Divine origin. If this were not the case, when one class of contagious germs was once exhausted, there would be an end of that disease for ever. Science has also settled the fact that we are surrounded by germ life. There can be no question about their being in the air we breathe, in the water we drink, and in the food we eat; they permeate the most vital parts of our system. If the "germ theory" is true there can be no doubt that contagious germs travel or are conveyed in some way through this medium in which we live, called air. This being the fact they must be our companions in health and disease, and our only safety is in guard. ing ourselves by proper sanitary surroundings.

THE OATH OF HIPPOCRATES.

BY DR. J. DRAPER, BRATTLEBORO, VT.

When Daniel Webster commenced his famous reply to Hayne, he prefaced it by remarking that—“ When the mariner has been tossed for many days, in thick weather and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his latitude and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his true course. Let us imitate this prudence,” said he, “and before we float further, refer to the point from which we departed, that we may at least conjecture where we now are."

In a survey of the medical profession, I conceive some such point must be taken to enable us to make out our present position; and it has occurred to me that it can do us no harm, at least for a brief half hour, to swing back to Hippocrates, and stand with him at the open gateway to our sacred profession.

Hippocrates is not like Esculapius, a mythical character. The latter, living in the shadowy age of history, is a deified being. Hippocrates was one of those who stand out in the light of ages as an embodiment of the possibilities of which man is capable. Few there are in any age who are thus endowed; but few as they are, they stand as witnesses to human capabilities-that the world as yet is far from realizing. The aphorisms of this Father of our profession still cover in their scope all that the intervening 2200 years have developed, and likewise project their author to the extreme limit of our present professional horizon. In evidence of this far-sightedness, it is sufficient to note one or two of those concentrated maxims which show him to have been no empiric, but the true hand-maid of nature, as the true physician of modern times is proud to acknowledge himself to be.

1." Those things that are or have been determined by nature, ought not to be moved or altered; but should be left alone."

Here is recognized in full the doctrine of self-limited disease, and full faith in the vis medicatrix natural to which such maladies may be safely intrusted. We venture to say he was not the man to talk of the breaking up of a fever of zymotic disorder, or to instruct his pupils in any tricks of practice. We can rather picture him calmly observant, philosophical and sagacious, pointing out to them its origin, and dictating preventive means, while simply directing the comfort and proper nursing of the victim with such remedies as the violence of the disease demanded in its acute stage, and such supports in the convalescent as might be indicated. Particularly did he embody our ideal of the sanitary physi

cian of to day; directing steps for the prevention of pestilences, while meeting with vigilant eye and skilful hand, the wants of the plague struck and the panic stricken.

2.-Again, "Those who are grieved in any part of the body, and are scarce sensible of their grief, have a distempered mind." This is a remarkable observation, recognizing a disordered mind by the only means we now possess, that of observation, and seemingly not connecting such disorder with supernatural causes; as seems to have been common at the beginning of the Christian era, and indeed for many subsequent centuries. These, no less than the memorable first aphorism, mark not alone, far seeing but correct sight. From his time to our own, it has been held true that "Life is short, and Art long, the occasion fleeting; experience fallacious, and judgment difficult. The physician must not only be prepared to do what is right himself, but also to make the patient, the attendants, and externals co-operate." The oath of Hippocrates lets us more deeply into the man, and the physician, than even his aphorisms.

The first fact to be noted in this ancient oath is that our art at its birth was wrapped in a blanket of secrecy, to wit:

"I swear by Apollo the physician and Æsculapius, and Health and All-heal, (or in some renderings Hygeia,) and all the Gods and Goddesses that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this oath and this stipulation, to reckon him who taught me this art equally dear to me as my parents, to share my substance with him and relieve his necessities if required; to look upon his offspring in the same footing as my own brothers, and to teach them this art if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation; and that by precept, lecture and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the art to my own sons, and those of my teachers, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine, but to none others."

Waiving in this place critical comments upon that section just read, until the whole may be surveyed, we note a single point upon which the members of the profession in our day have given too little heed. I refer to the extreme care with which entrance to the ranks of the profession was guarded, and the extreme respect, even reverence inculcated for the Masters in the Art. We cannot but feel that this sentiment is too little regarded now. We can indeed understand how such a Master as Hippocrates might have commanded respect, still he doubtless observed, as human nature is the same at all times, that Masters were not always held in the esteem they deserved, and not always respected where they should be, by their pupils. When we recall our College Professors, and the levity with which students were prone to criticise them, we must count it as one evidence of wisdom, at least that respect was enjoined under the solemnity of the professional oath.

The second point always to be remembered, but too often forgotten or unheeded, is the obligation to preserve a consistent correspondence between preaching and practice, to wit :—

"I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischevious."

A third general clause interdicts the prostitution of the Art to other purposes than those for which it was instituted, viz: the healing of the sick and the prolonging of life, to wit:

"I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion."

The fourth general declaration binds the subscriber to the most rigid observation of the rules of morality, to wit:

"With purity and with holiness I will pass my life, and will practice my Art. I will not cut persons laboring under the stone, but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of this work."

"Into whatever homes I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; and further, from the seduction of females or males, of freemen or slaves.

"Whatever, in connection with my professional practice, or not in connection with it, I see or hear in the life of men which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning all such should be kept secret."

The final clause calls down, after the manner of ancient oaths, dire evils upon the head of him who violates it, to wit:

"While I continue to keep this oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the Art respected by all men in all times! But should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the reverse be my lot!"

Only one sentence in this Oath is ambiguous, or of doubtful interpretation, to wit:

:

"I will not cut persons laboring under the stone, but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of this work."

In its literal rendering, in the light of the present time, we should say that it was a recognition of specialists; an operation requiring especial skill, hence not to be attempted by the general practitioner; or belonging to the domain of surgery rather than the practice of medicine. But in the connection in which we find it, a certain obloguy seems to attach to it as to procuring abortion. This has given rise to various conjectures, but with no settled result, and needs not be enlarged upon by us.

Leaving this out of account altogether, the Oath as a whole is remarkable as embodying some of the best and truest ideas of that and later times, even to the present.

We must not forget that since that early time, an Art has been exalted into a profession. With this change, secrecy has been expanded into general knowledge. To-day, he who has acquired highest wisdom in his profession is highest esteemed; while he who conceals or attempts to conceal what he may claim to be a secret in his Art, is justly viewed with suspicion and distrust. The time has come when the liberal professions have no secrets; and he who claims such is an imposter. Still in looking back to the days of Hippocrates, the Medical Art was in the hands of but few true disciples, and those few were intrusted with a heavy responsibility. In the light of two thousand years, we can see abundant reason of the most convincing sort, for the introduction in the oath of the Father of Medicine, of the obligation of secrecy. Himself endowed with a foresight beyond ordinary man, and a sagacity that has hardly since been equalled, he saw danger in openly declaring the truths which, even in that far off time, were clear to his own vision; not danger to the physician, but danger that the principles and germs of the Science of to-day might be dissipated and lost to the generations then unborn. The preservation of these seeds of truth was of first importance; to the coming lives they must be preserved, nursed, developed by those who were destined to be identified with the history of the Medical profession.

The Oath of the Father therefore, preserved, as in a hot-bed, the germs of Medical Science, which had they been sown broadcast would have fallen most probably principally on stony ground, or shallow soil, where with little root they would speedily have withered away.

As a whole, it is well to refer to this Oath. Its principles, barring secrecy, which in our day as earlier tends to clannishness, are still undecayed, and can never become obsolete. They cannot be followers without exaltation of professional character. They cannot be disregarded without deterioration of character, professional and otherwise. Briefly to recapitulate, the novitiate swears by everything holy, he will consecrate his best abilities to his calling, that he will reckon himself bound to him who teaches him, by a tie equal to the filial bond, and regard the children of his preceptor, as those of his own blood, and moreover impart to them in turn, his knowledge of the healing art, if they desire it, freely and independently of reward; that he will moreover, exert and emphasize his knowledge by example as well as precept, pursueing that course of living in his own life which he would advise others; that he will ever bear in mind that his mission is to prolong not to shorten human life, and particularly abstain from all advice tend