MATTER CONCERNING- REV. A. W. HALL OF No. 23 PARK ROW, NEW YORK CITY, WHO CLAIMS TO HAVE MADE A NEW DISCOVERY IN CURING THE MALADIES OF MANKIND. I wrote the following letter to Rev. A. W. Hall, Nov. 18, 1891 : "I read yesterday your four dollar book, given me by a victim who has owned it for a year, and was as near dearth's door, as she could be from the innumerable flushings. If you'll call upon me, I will show you instructions, printed in 1845 on the cover of a syringe box, how to flush the colon, and removes scybalae, etc. Why did you not answer my letter (written some days since) if honest in your professions? Why not print it in your Microcosm? Your ideas are (in the main) based upon wrong conceptions. One of your patrons has given you a certificate of flushings having helped affections of his heart, and upon interviewing him, he could not locate the organ within four inches. If 100 represents health, he is not over 60. I have given you one-eighth of a page in a pamphlet of 75 pages just printed under the head of empiricism. My discovery, viz : The necessity of the use of a rectal injection to dislodge the accumulated faeces (made in 1844 or 1845) was caused by my own constipation. The excrement was so difficult to void, that I was compelled to press upon the lower portion of the rectum to force out the hardened enlarged bodies of excre- mentitious matter, and I used the syringe, and the injection in sufficient quantities to bring about the proper dejection. I never used the syringe only when compelled so to do, as it was extremely unpleasant, and necessarily must be to any human being. I don't know that my ideas were decidedly new. Perhaps some one came to the same conclusion one hundred years before I was born, in Vienna or Cairo. I only am aware of the fact that I did use it in 1845, in the same manner as is now claimed by you as your great discovery, I know it was the result of thinking with my brain and this conception was to all my other alterations, changes, and improvements in the practice of medicine what an inch is to a mile. I am unaware of the locality of any physician or empiric who pretends to cure constipation of longstanding, and yet I can truthfully say, I never knew of a single case that remained uncured after using omnipathic remedies as directed. Out of every hundred cases, I have usually produced a natural movement of the bowels in ninety-five relieving periodically (once a day) the rectum, and colon of all accumulations of ex- crementitious matter. I have in the other five been obliged to have them flush the colon. And I have always found some difficulty in getting them to use the syringe (which I always furnished them) with the printed instructions on the box, how to use and dislodge the scybalae, or impacted foeces retained in the colon. No one can deny that it is disagreeable to the majority of humans to thus operate upon the anal end of the alimentary canal. Hence I say, (advisedly) that the scores of ministers and others, who unwittingly have given the credit of this discovery to you should carefully examine my declarations. See, or correspond with my patients, and give me the credit so wrongly claimed by you, not only for curing constipation without using any cathartics, but for more than a score of other improvements, changes and discoveries, by which I have cured the multitudinous ills of mankind. Even the diagram in your diminutive pamphlet has no existence (as there represented) except in your brain. Come to my office and see the intestinal organs as found in humans. Let me say again (so there can be no misunderstanding), the two or three in a hundred of my patients (that I have given a large male syringe for the purpose of removing retained faeces) have nearly always objected to its use, and only consented to use it after my earnest solicitation, as being absolutely necessary. Read the article under the head of Empiricism on page 7°i' and pages 33 and 52 on constipation in my appendix to a Brief Essay. 2 In the retrospect, running back to the Biblical creation of Adam and Eve, it seems as though the Divine had miscalculated, made a serious error in not producing (at once after the formation of the first man) a few hundred clergymen, who selecting their experts, might have met in some vast HALL in the Garden of Eden, and assisted the Great Magnate in producing in men and women, and the quadrupeds a vent, or contrivance by which the colon could be flooded (at its upper portion) with liquids when the excrement was not properly voided. It is apparent that God did not require their services. To force a gallon of any solution up the anus is as stupid as to eat a second turkey dinner, after being filled to repletion with the first. It injures the organs, prevents assimilations, washes out the very secretions created to assist in the digestion of the food. The judicious use of a male syringe is as proper as eating your regular meals. When a verdant Vermonter, who has never seen a large sheet of water, shall take the captain's position on board of a Cunarder, and steer her successfully across to the European station, then you'll see medical discoveries made by clergymen. He would be far more at home in locating the Orthodox hell, than in making a new discovery in medicine: without having studied attentively for years the various branches appertaining thereto. When the common well-digger can give astronomical points to a constant attendant for years at the Cambridge Observatory, then will non-medical men outstrip the regular graduates in the treatment of diseases. My most prominent discovery, (and the one that physicians for centuries have been looking after, the nearest approach to an "elixir vitae" that has ever been made,) is the production of a natural movement of the bowels without the use of cathartics of any kind, or a resort to the contemptible flushings. A careful scrutiny of my publications and practice will compel the examiner to come to the same conclusion. He or she who will not investigate is a bigot. He or she who dare not examine all novelties which (if true would be beneficial to man is a coward, and he or she who will not so examine, investigate, and reason about is a fool. SALIVATION. One of the common afflictions (which every practitioner sees so often during his practice} is the salivated mouth and throat of the victims who have used mercury, in some form or another as prescribed by the family physician. In the shape of calomel, compound cathartic pill, in the mercurial unctions, and in blue pills, it is found and used so commonly that thousands of persons have had their teeth destroyed and their healths ruined for life by the mercurial experiments of the doctor, whom they had employed. Among the thousands of cases, the declarations made Aug. 8, 1891, by Miss R. S. Givler, of Emery, Ill. plays a prominent part. Twenty-five years back, viz: 1866, she was filled with mercury, and since that time she has suffered unutterable tortures from its destructive power. To fully describe her case would take many pages. She had a horrible throat, and a hole into her nose, the brain diseased so the skull opened. Imagine her condition, (in a country town, with a father and mother bedfast, and compelled to wait upon them.) On the 21st of August, I sent her a three month's course, and the favorable changes which have taken place are marvelous. Let me transcribe a few of her sayings. Remember, the hole in the roof of her mouth, the bridge bone of the nose rotted away, and the absorption of the poisonous pus formed in the mouth, nose and air passage. Sept. 27th she wrote me, "Have been using your remedies nearly one month, am feeling a great deal better every way, appetite better, complexion improved, bowels regular, sleep is much improved; the favorable changes taking place are very rapid. For weeks 1 could hardly lay my head on a soft pillow." Oct. 27th she wrote, " The enlargement of my skull is almost gone. One of my neighbors said, ' I never saw anyone in such a terrible con- dition as you were, improve so rapidly.' " Nov. 26th, she wrote, " I feel as though almost well. My kidneys are all right now, and my bowels like clock-work." Remember she had Bright's disease and chronic inflammation and constipation of the bowels, and that she sometimes spent half the night attending upon her invalid parents, and her household duties during the day. Dec. 13th she wrote, " I am still improving. I have gained in weight, and it is good muscle. On the first of September, I could not have walked one quarter of a mile, and Nov. 30th, I walked seven miles without any extra fatigue. Refer anyone to me, I will gladly write to them. I hope you may establish your college to teach others your wonderful system." See article Calomel on page 54. TUMORS. Mrs. Lawson came to see me Jan. nth, 1892 and stated she had moved to Methuen, Mass. Her case will be found on page 21 of my Brief Essay. She will be glad to see anyone.