conceptions, as in the case of the Sultan described by Byron, who "Saw with his own eyes the moon was round; Dr. Graves, in an introductory lecture on Medical Education, delivered in the Meath Hospital, Dublin, dwelt with freedom and force on this waste of experience on the ordinary run of meHe remarked how all the lessons of experience are thrown away on dical men. 66 "Many an old practitioner, whose errors have grown, and have increased in strength during a long succession of years, because from a defect in his original education, he commenced practice without having acquired the power or habit of accurate observation; because he had not in his youth been taught to reason justly upon the facts presented to his view; because not having learned to think accurately, he contracted a loose and careless mode of examining the progress of disease, and the effects of remedies; and, consequently, the lapse of time has had no other effect upon his errors than that of rendering them more inveterate. Such a man has generally an overweening confidence in his own judgment; he never detects, or is conscious of his own mistakes; and instead of improvement, years bring only an increased attachment to his opinions—a deeper blindness in examining the results of his own practice; and do not such persons abound in every branch of the profession? Believe me, gentlemen, the quacks who cover our walls with their advertisements, vend not annually to the community more poison than is distributed according to the prescriptions of our routine and licensed practitioners." What a fearful description this gives of medical practice, and by a gentleman, too, of the finest character, and most eminent professional repute! It is conclusive, however, on one point-that the most extensive practice, when based on erroneous principles, can never become natural and truthful, nor lead to desirable results; and also, that experience, no matter how enlarged and prolonged, operating on ill-trained, ill-educated minds, warped by prejudice, like seed sown on an arid desert, is never destined to take root and fructify. Just as two parallel lines, though extended into the infinity of space, can never approach nearer to each other than when first projected, so experi ence in the practice of Drug Medication, though extended over thousands of years, if essentially false in its inception, can never approximate the healthful and sanatory from being doggedly adhered to. What then becomes of the experience of physicians who spend their lives in following illusory systems? Yet experience, wisely employed, is invaluable to a medical practitioner, capable of following and profiting by its unerring teaching. It stands in opposition to the speculative theories. and fanciful systems of Physic, which, propagated by schools, have inflicted incalculable misery on mankind, and which are now followed as keenly as ever. "In politics and morality," observes Dr. Heberden, "Experience may be called the teacher of fools; but in the study of nature there is no other guide to true knowledge." But how do practitioners in physic, as a body, follow such a guide? "The Drug-Physician," says Dr. Edward Johnston, "Can never find a reason for the administration of the drug he prescribes. If he be asked for one, his answer is, that his experience has convinced him that it is useful in such cases. Nothing can be more convenient than this answer. silences all further questioning, and admits of no argument. It "But, then, if you walk straight from Physician No. 1 to Physician No. 2, he will, in nine cases out of ten, give you a drug whose nature and effects are as different from that prescribed by the first Physician as any two things can well be. Yet, if you inquire of the second why he orders for your case the particular drug or drugs which he prescribes, he will give you the same answer as the first. He will tell you that his experience has satisfied him that the drug he has ordered for you, is useful in such cases. At this rate, remedies for diseases must be as plentiful as blackberries! "But what possible reliance can be placed upon this sort of experience? What possible reliance can be placed upon the experience of any one out of twenty men, when it is found that the experience of each of the twenty is contradicted by the experience of all the others? Every man prescribes according to his own experience. But the practice of different medical men in the same disease differs as widely as the poles. Their experience therefore, must be equally different and contradictory. What value can be placed on such experience? The truth is, that what they call experience is mere accident. Some two or three patients from some fortuitous combination of circumstances, or other unintelligible cause, have happened to get well of some particular disease, while taking some particular drug.. This, the Physician calls his experience; and he continues all his life afterwards to prescribe that drug for that disease, although, perhaps, he never cures another patient with it. But he goes on hoping and hoping in every fresh case of the same disease, that the same drug will again succeed. A friend of mine once consulted six London physicians in one day, and then brought all their prescriptions to me, and it was most amusing to read over and compare these prescriptions. There were not two which, in the slightest degree, resembled each other. I proposed to my friend that he should take them all six. But he adopted a wiser course, and took none of them. The truth is that, in the treatment of chronic disease at least, the exhibition of drugs is pure speculation. There is nothing certain in the matter, but the certainty of doing mischief. "The result of all this is that an entirely new set of diseases has sprung up among mankind, which have regularly taken their places amongst other ordinary human maladies, and are classed together as drug-diseases, and each is named after the drug that produces it. And we hear medical men talking familiarly together, and as unconcernedly about mercurial tremor, mercurial eythema, arsenical disease, iodism, narcotism, &c., &c., as though these disorders were inflicted upon us by Providence instead of by their own mal-practices! It is by no means uncommon for one medical man to be called in to cure a disease which has been caused by the drugs of his medical brother."-Practice of Hydropathy, p. 83, &c. Now, what does this diversity of opinion, of experience, of practice import? Is it significant of health or death to patients? Were Physic a science, or possessed of the slightest pretensions to accuracy and certainty in its theories or practices, could such discordant and destructive diversity possibly exist? Anatomists, Physiologists, Pathologists, Botanists, Naturalists, Geologists, Astronomers, Mathematicians-in short, the professors of every scientific pursuit exhibit no such diversity of opinion as the result of their experience. The great book of Nature is open to them all in their several departments of inquiry-they all read and observe, and no matter in what quarter of the globe Nature may be questioned, the result is the same. In the experiences, the observations, the conclusions of all there is a harmonious concurrence--a beautiful uniformity that bears the impress of truth. Is that so with Physicians in the same town or country, let alone in Europe? Physical truth is the same all the world over; but in the Physic of Physicians what is there truthful and certain save-disease and death? What matters it, then, to be told, that there must be some truth in medicine, because many learned men follow it, and because it has been followed so long? Is such an argument Is not great rational ? Is such reasoning philosophical? knowledge quite consistent with the existence of gross ignorance and superstition in one and the same mind? Besides the universality of a belief furnishes no proof of its truth, nor does the general concurrence of medical practitioners in following any system, or of mankind in reposing a blind confidence in it, afford any rational evidence whatever to justify an unreasoning acceptance of it as founded in nature and warranted by truth. For hundreds and hundreds of years the most profound intellects in Europe were enchained by the dreams of the Alchemists, and in the sincerity of conscientious belief engaged in fruitless researches after the "Philosopher's stone," and had faith in the practicability of extorting from Nature the secret of an elixir vitæ, by which all diseases could be cured and life indefinitely prolonged! The universality of a belief in witchcraft, in which the greatest minds participated, though it made the superstition more "respectable," assuredly did not render it one whit more rational and truthful. And so in a multitude of similar instances, which will readily occur to the intelligent reader. Therefore, although medical practitioners, from the days of Hippocrates, have been persistently on the search for some drug preparation with which to cure disease-though the resources of the vegetable and mineral worlds have been exhausted, and the art of chemistry employed to distil, analyse, and sublimate -though plausible theories have been framed, and every hypothesis that could enter the wildest imagination has been recklessly tested regardless of the sacrifice of human life-yet what has come of all such superlative folly? On what foundation has such laborious experience now placed the practice of Physic? Where is the unerring specific for any one form of disease? Where is the single drug whose alleged curative virtues can be confidently relied on? Why, notoriously by the admissions of the highest professional authorities there is no specific-no catholicon-no such thing as medical science in relation to mere Physic! Hence the medical practice of our day is, in the words of Professor Evans, "at the best, a most uncertain and unsatisfactory system; it has neither philosophy nor common sense to commend it to confidence." Experience, therefore, acquired in an illusory pursuit, or in a wrong direction, can never be considered as implying truthful knowledge. As well might it be expected that the constant experience of a pickpocket would end in making him an honest man, as that the experience of the mere practitioner in physic― no matter how extensive or prolonged-could possibly enable him more successfully to combat disease, because, however earnest and conscientious he might be, his system is essentially a false one, and the means he employs are naturally antagonistic to human life. Hence, after the experience of ages has been exhausted in testing all the various forms and resources of Drug Medication, Dr. Sir John Forbes candidly said "There is now no proof whatever that any remedy, administered by the most experienced physician, exercises the slightest influence over disease !" The deliberate and emphatic expression of this significant opinion was made by Sir John Forbes, as Editor of the British and Foreign Medical Review, in an able paper, discussing the merits and pretensions of Homoeopathy, and as Sir John's great eminence in the profession renders his authority indisputable, he can be confidently relied on when he candidly reveals the errors and shortcomings of medical practice. In examining the present state of drug therapeutics, he arrives at the following conclusions :— "1. That in a large proportion of the cases treated by Allopathic (Drug) physicians, the disease is cured by nature, and not by them." 2. That in a lesser, but still not a small proportion, the disease is cured by nature, in spite of them; in other words, their interference opposing, instead of assisting the cure." "3. That, consequently, in a considerable proportion of diseases, it would fare as well, or better, with patients, in the actual condition of the |