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m 
 
                   A COURSE

                         OF

          FIFTEEN LECTURES,

                         ON


   MEDICAL   BOTANY,

                     DENOMINATED

THOMSON'S NEW THEORY OF MEDICAL PRACTICE;

   IN WHICH THE VARIOUS THEORIES THAT  HAVE

         PRECEDED IT, ARE REVIEWED AND

                     COMPARED;

         DELIVERED IX CINCINNATI, OHIO.  . (\ »,,,.    -\



             BY SAMUEL ROBINSON.   Jj[<g%f> ']■■'
          ----------------------------------------------—■ ■•».uu-

There are herbs to oure all diseases, though not every where known.
                                         Dr. Ray.
Tfce Flori of our country will yet so enlarge and establish her domin-
     ion, as to supercede the uecessitj' of all other remedies.
                                  Dr. Waterhotjse.
      Omnibus in terris, quae sunt a Gadibus usque—
      Auroram et Gangem, pauci dignoscere possunt
      Vera bona, atqueillis rcultum diversa remota
      Erroris nebula.—Juv. Sat.
             COLUMBUS:

PRINTED AND PUBLISHEp BY HORT0N HOWARD*


                 1829. 

DISTRICT OF«iriO, SCT:
            T   BE  IT REMEMBERED, That on the s^nte* ,,,*.
         S'«||day of September, in the year  of  our Lord one thous-
         ..-, gf and eight hundred and  twenty-nine, smd in the fity-
fourth yearol the American Independence, Horton Hcwabd, ol said
District,  hath deposited in  this Office the title  of a book, the right
whereof he claims  as proprietor, in the words following, to wit:
  "A Couree of Fifteen Lectures, on  Medical Botany, denominated
Thomson's New  Theory of Medical Practice; in which the various
theories that have preceded it, an  n viewed and compared;  delivered
in Cincinnati, Ohio, by Samuel Robinson."

  In "conformity to the act of the Congress of the United  States of
America,  entitled  "An act for  the encouragement <>f learning, by se-
cur n  the copies of Maps, Charts and Books, to  the authors and | ro-
pnetors of such 'opies, durinc the times therein mentioned ;" and also
of the act. entitled " An act  supulementary to an act, entitled An act
for^he encoura: ernent ol  learning,  by securing the copies  of Maps,
Charts, and Books, to the authors and proi rietorsot such copies, dur-
ing  the times therein  mentioned, and extending the benefit  thereof ta
the arts of Designing, Engraving and Etching,  Historical and other
Prints."
            Attest,
                              WILLIAM MINER, Clerk
                                           rtf  the Di'''irt Court. 
TO  THE READER.
   A combintaiiuxn  w.  o _.~_.  .  i.t____ ..,•= to examine the
 System of Me.lic.nl Botany, and deliver this course of Lec-
 tures.   Of the character of an author, I am'neither ambi-
 tious nor  repugnant.  Were the items summed together,
 "of all  that creep aid all that soar," in this department of
 Literature, the amount of re na ieration might not be very
 seductive.  I  am but a pioneer in a pith unknown, and may
 have stumble! i:i  inv   coirse,  or  ftihvl  t>  clear  the
 way; still I ,m njisiadel eno'i ;'i has been done, to excite
 the attention  of toe curious, and rouse t \e penetration of
 the profound.   Of  all the interests of  this  mortal life, the
 preservation and the  care of  health,  is  one of the most im-
 portant and absorbing.   Without it,  existence is a burthen;
 days and nights, and times and seasons, j erform  their revo-
 lutions, spread abroad their beauties, md exhibit their vari-
 eties, in vain.   If,  in a-<v thing, therefore, I hive contribu-
ted,  to relieve the maladies of the human  race, by direct-
 ing them to a mode of practice safe and salutary, at once
 within the reach of their attainments and pecuniary resour-
 ces, I shall feel the highest gratification.
   I know the v subject on which I have discoursed, is one
 highly unpopular; and may subject me to the repronrh of
 some of my best friends:  But  the  die  is cast, and  the ordeal
 I am willing to encounter.  From the co ivic'ion, that even
 though  I should have  failed, lh~ cause  it.srl.' is suxer^iMe
 ©f vast  improvement, and progressive elevation, I shall de* 
n
  rive a solace which cannot be taken away.   The prospects
  of ultimate success, and the view of conferring future bene-
  iitsonsociety will fortify the mind against tlie dangerof many
  evils, and the apprehension of the bitterness of censure.  It
  will obtund the keen edg? of sarcasm, and defeat the pur-
 poses of malignity, to know that we arc serving the cause
 of humanity and truth:  For though the lip of scorn is hard
 to bear; as we instinctively love fame, and desire  to stand
 high in public estimation; yet  there is a higher source of
 happiness than the applaus s of the world.   With a mind
 perhaps as deeply imbued with sensibility as generally falls
 to the lot of mortals, 1 was never  much  afrai 1  of any thing
 but the reproaches of my 0:01 heart.  Let me have but the ap-
 probation  of that invisible  tribunal, and  I feel  as secure
 from every pointed dart, as the Grecian warrior under the
 shield and armor of Achilles.
   The physician-, of whom I was obliged to speak, I have
 spoken with kindness  and  candor.  I have treated them
 with much more deference than they have accorded to each
 other.  To reflect on a whole community and succession of
 learned and eminent men, might appear to the  inconsider-
 ate, as the very essence  of madness and folly.   And so it
 was said, when Galileo attacked  the Ptolemaic system of
 the heavens, and Lord Bacox the dialectics of Aristotle.__
 Great names may give   splendor to error, but cannot trans-
 form it into truth.   And  let it  be remembered,  I have  not
 made an attack upon the  Faculty; they, themselves, have*
 alternately  made  it on  each  other.  I have merely intro-
 duced passages from their own writings for the sake  of argu-
 ment and illustration.   They have all a Imitted  the uncer-
 tainty of medical practice, and its great susceptibility of
improvement and  reduction.  To spurn the humble efforts
 of a fellow  laborer, willing to toil in removing the  rubbish
and re-edifying the superstructure, would neither be patri-
otic nor philosophical.   Let every ray of truth shine upo* 
t
a subject confessedly obscure—let every improvement and
discovery be cast into the balance, so long and fatally found
wanting—let all come forward, from every corner of the
land, to aid in  the  reduction of the great sum of human
misery suffered by disease; and close up,by all the powere
of human skill, the avenues of death.
  In this cause I have been laboring, and to this end I have
directed my efforts;  with what access let others testify.   I
now bid the reader fare vol!—wi'h this si ,rr\e assurance, that
if in any thing I iave <-rred, or have been mistaken or de-
ceived, or  have  set down  au.*ht in  malice, let  it be
shown; let any point it out w th kindness and candor, and
     "Cuncta recantabo maledicta, priorarependam
     Laudibus, et Testrum nomen in astra feram.-'
                                     S. ROBINSON.
H*] 
 
COURSE OF  LECTURES.
                 LECTURE  I.

                  INTRODUCTOllY.

 LADIES AND  GENTLEMEN,
       We have assembled on this  evening, for  the pur-
 pose of introducing a course of Lectures on Medical Bota-
 ny—generally denominated Thomson's System of Medicine.
   lam well aware that the prejudices  existing against it
 are numerous and strong: and so they have been againstevery
 new discovery, or invention,since the beginning of the world.
 Since the day  that Noah built the ark, and had to encoun-
 ter the mockery and scorn of the Antideluvian race, till the
 present hour, obloquy and proscription have assailed every
 new and untried experiment of man.
   This spirit forms one of the most unseemly traits in  the
 human character.   It indicates a state of mind, neither rest-
 ing for success on the resources of its own power, nor re-
 lying on the superintending care of a just, a wise, and holy
 Providence.   Because we ourselves are not first in the dis-
 covery—or because it might militate against our interests—we
 would wish it buried—yes!—no matter how useful or benev-
 olent!—we would wish it forever buried in the cave of  the
 Cyclopes.
   Pride and presumption lie at the  foundation of all this
hostility.   It presumes, either that all which can be known 
8
is already discovered; or'that our own fair fame must not
be tarnished by the  superior penetration of exalted minds.
If we had humility to remember, that the progress" of mind
is endless as  duration—and the  question of the inspired
Elihu. '-who hath searched out the works of the Almighty
to perfection ?"" we might  be willing to  concede to others,
with all complacency, the signal  honor of having added
one single item to the great sum of human knowledge.
   Let us remember, in the language of an eloquent writer,
that pride is unstable  and seldom  the same.   That she
feeds upon opinion,  and is fnk'p as her food.  She builds
her lofty structuies o" a sa) dy fou.idatio'—Ihe applause of
beings every  moment liab!.' to change.  But virtue is uni-
form and permanent; and fixed upon a  rock are the towers
of her habitation: For she  looks  for  approbation only to
him, who is the samp, yesterday, to-day, and  forever.
 Ti'C road to glory would  cease to be arduous if V uere trite
and trodden.  Great minds are not o.ily ready to seize" upon
opportunities, but they make  them for  themselves.   Alex-
ander forced the Pythian Priestess on the Tripod, on  a for-
bidden day—the Pythia exclaimed "my son,  thou art invin*
eible."   It was all the Oracle  the warrior desired!  On an-
other occasion, he cut the Gordian knot, which others had
endeavored to untie in vain—a"d  thus accomplished the or-
acle which ascribed  to him the Empire of Asia.  Nelson,
when the statu ' of  Victory was holding her laurel wreaths
in either hand, uncertain  whereto bestow  them—Nelsos
seized upon both!  Those who start in  the career of  glory
 must, like the mettled steeds of Action, pursue the  game
 not only where there are  paths, but where there are none.
   For it is given to man, and  is the high  distinction  o.' his
 mental  powers,  not  only to explore the whole circle of hu-
 man >cience—but passing that awful and venerable limit__
 bearing ii his hand the torch  of intellect—enter, alone, the
 trackless wilderness, untrodden by mortal feet—to travel 
9
on a path which the zuhuns eye hath not seen, nor the lion's
whelps troiden, ho-' hath thefhrce lion passed thereon.   Enclos-
ed on every side by the magnificent scenery of Jehovah's
works—he may exclaim with the  Piophet, lie war's of the
Lord are great, and sought out by all that take pleasure in them!
   It is sweet and dear  to  the mind, the  acquirement of
knowledge.  Bat in the acquisiton of a n-ew truth, gained by
the efforts of our own industry, there is a sort of holy  and
divine unction, which is not to be obtained by wisdom de-
rived from the labor of others.
   From the very  nature of our immaterial structure, and
every  thing'gleaned from its operations, we are well assur-
ed that wisdom is progressive ard  eternal: That  our high-
est attainments are but as the perceptions of isfants, crawl-
ing on  the very threshold of being, in comparison  of  that
knowledge of Jehovah,  his works and ways, that shall pour
its radiance on the unclouded  intellect of man, as he rises
from the blow of death,  and wings his  mighty and majes-
tic flight amidst the boundless splendors of eternal worlds;
where  he shall look on  that ineffible  glory,  of which
eye hath not seen,  nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the
heart of man  to conceive  the magnifheence of its uncreated
beams!  The inspired writer, fromtle awful elevation of the
third heaven, suddenly dropt his  wing, and cut short the
history of his visions, at the  awful remembrance  of that
overwhelming sight of dazzling  splendor,  which filled his
soul with silence and adoration!
   If the wise and learned only were to make discoveries, it
could he borne—a strong prejudice and opposition  would be
rcoted from the mind.  But that  the illiterate, the mere
plough-boy, and the peasant—a man like Samuel Thomson,
who had spent his life among the clods of the valley—and
himself but little superior to the dust he walked on—that he
should pretend to make discoveries in  the science  of medi-
cine;  and invent forms, and medicines, and rules, to enlighten 
10
 its exclusive and profound professoYs—is not to W'endured
 b>  me. , proud of nheir high  attainment?, and  fortified
 b) all the tenacity o: system!
   If I :nij'i) iiote the p>et  Bjrvs, in this serious discourse,
 it might be of service to them who think more highly of them-
 selves than the>./ ought In  think.  In his address to the unco
 guid an: tve rigid  righteous, the poet was- endeavoring to
 cast, the ma.itle of his charity over the  poor, fallen daugh-
 ter- of  misfortune—and  thus addresses the proud matrons of
 Scotland:
           "Ye hisjh exalted vi'rtnons dames,       ^
             I'^'d uii in goilj laces,            ^F
           Before ye t>ie poor frailty name?,
            Su;>po*e a change of' cases.
           A dear lov'd lad"------
 But I desist—you may  read  for yourselves.
   Let the  brightest son of m.-Jical science,  suppose a
 change of cases  with Dr. Thomson, and but for t'e  care
 of that g  od :ind h>ly P ov dencc. ef whom, perhaps, he has
 never acknowledged the existence, ae  in:gnt have been
 consigned to the plough-tail, and, Lr. Thomson to the wis-
 dom of the schools.   And thus situated would he have con-
 sidered  it a crime in himself to have forced his way through
 all the asperities ol  nilnre, the obstructions of poverty,  the ab-
sence of  e/ueation,arnl tie iron and  heavy hand—the  combi-
ned phalanx—of sciei.ee, of wealth, and power, and pop-
ular!  \, arrayed again-t him, to spurn, to trample him down,
and crush him to the earth, and  plunge him in oblivion for-
ever!—would he have thoirht it criminal in him>elf to re-
sist thisterrible array, to rise superior to the blow that would
have  cloven his fortunes  down; and  by t.ie unaided  innate
vigor of his own intellect, have  forced his way, in  despite
of  enemies to wealth, and ran!;, and fame, and taken his sta-
tion amongst the benefactors of the l.tivan race? Nc, I nra
persuaded he would not;  for it; < the very path in which su- 
.      "
perior minds ilo most delight to travel—the untried, stormy
journey of perilous adventure—according  to the saying of
that modern sage, Dr.  Johnson, "The man that can  sub-
mit to trudge behind, was never made  to walk before."
   Bevo »d all this, we are presented with solemn facts from
history, to shew us that, perhaps, the  learned are as much
indebted to the illiterate, for their observations, as the latter
to the former for their science.  They are equally necessary
to each other, in forming the sum of human things__from
          "The poor Indian who«e untutored mind,
          Sees God in clouds, and hears him in the wind "
to the soaring spirit of the philosopher, traversing the starry
sky.                   '
   In vain  do  enlightened  nations  boast, that  they  have
gathered  w iihin themselves  all the arts and sciences.   The
earth is cov  red over with vegetables and  ai imals, the sim-
ple vocabulary of  which, no scholar, no academy, no nalion
whatever, will ever be able perfectly to acquire.  No nor
all the human race, in their united wisdom, shall be ever
a  le to tind out the limits, the name a.id nature of her innu-
merable  mhlions!
   We, therefore, with all humility, in consideration of our
profound  ignorance, should  be willing  to glean  from every
source, which promises an  accession  to the stock 01 our
materials.
 "And it is to savages,—to men utterly unknown,—that we
are indebted for the first observations which are the soui ces
of all science.  It wasjieither to the witty and the p<dished
Greeks, nor the grave and stately Romans,—but to rations
which we denominate barbarous, that we are indebted for
the  use of simples, of bread, of wine, of domestic animals,
of cloths, of dyes for cloths,of metals;  and for every thing
most useful and most agreeable for human  life.  Modern
Europe may glory in  her  Jiscoveries;  but the Art of Print-
ing, which ought to immortalize the  inventor, haft beea 
  ascribed  to a  person  so  obscure,  thai  the world  cctald
  scarcely fix upon his name, or ascertain his identity; so that
  several cities of Holland, of Germany, and even China, laid
  claim to the discovery as their own!
    Galileo would have never weighed and calculated  the
  gravity of the air, but for the casual observation of a foun-
  tain-player, who observed in his presence, that water could
  only rise thirty-two  feet in a forcing engine.  And the sub-
  lime Newton would have never read these heavens, but for
  the occurrence of some children, in  the isle of Zealand,
  playing with the glasses of a spectacle-maker;  which first
  suggested  to him the idea of the telescopic cylinder:  And
  perhaps the arms of Europe would have never been able to
  have subdued America, had not  an obscure monk made the
 discovery of gunpowder.
   And  whatever glory  Spain may attribute  to herself for
 that discovery—the nations  of  the East,—the  savages of
 Asia,—had founded mighty  empires, of splendor aid  re-
 nown, over that  vast continent,  whidi S[ ain could never
 rival, notwithstanding  her  boasted  wisdom and  erudition!
 And the great  discoverer  himself, Christopher  Colum-
 bus,—whose name  this vast  portion  of  the globe shall
 bear upon  its bosom  to immortality,—wou'J have perished
 with all his followers—and his discoveries perished in the
 ocean with him,—had not the kind hospitality of the  sim-
 ple aborigines furnished him with food." -Ft was the 'brtui-
 tous observation of  the  Colonel  of a  marching  regiment,
 which instructed the great Sydenham in the utility of bleed-
 ing in inflammatory fevers!"
  Let, then, academies and schools accumulate  their  ma-
 chines, and models, and books, and systems, a-d eulogiums-
 the chief praise of all is due to the ignorant who  furnished
 the first materials!
  And Jet those  who have  reached a boundary  at which
they kave designed to stop, not envy, nor impede the pro 
13
gress of him, who is determined fo press forward till his
journey shall end in the dark valley of the shadow of death.
   Amidst all the innumerable branches of knowledge, which
solicit the attention of the human mind, there can be none
of so much importance,  religion only excepted,  as  that
which shall constitute the subject of the following Lectures
—the Healing Art. For the soul in a diseased body, like
the martyr in his dungeon, may retain its value, but has lest
its usefulness!
   Such is the  nature of man, under the strong power of
sense and sympathy; influenced by all  the elements aroud
him, and the energies of thought  within him—wearing out
his mortal covering—sapping  the foundations of his hou e
of clay—while the passions pour a continual storm upon
the wheels of  life.  Thus circumstanced, and impelled for-
ward by  the  combined action of so many agents, to that
"bourne from whence no traveller returns"—it is not aston-
ishing if man, although the soul is so much superior to the
body, should bestow upon the care of the latter, the  prin-
cipal portion of his labors and his life.
   Medicine is therefore a study, not only of curious inquiry,
but of deep interest, to families and individuals, who,  after
all that has been done by  its professors, ought, in fac% to ' e
their own physicians.   Aid  this great desideratum  Dr.
Thomson professes to aid and  establish, by his  own dis-
coveries.
   To promote health of body ard tranquillity of mind,
the  sages of  antiquity labored  with the most  severe  and
incessant toil.  They studied  the constitution of man, that
they might find out the seat of his maladies, and the sources
Of his misery.
   To assuage the sorrows of the heart, and lift the load of
melancholy from  the  desponding mind; to restore to the
wounded spirit its  elasticity and  vhror; they exhausted all
(hepowers of reason, and all the arguments and arts of  their
        m 
14
  divine philosophy.   Sometimes  they succeeded, hut they
  often failed.   It was from a deep sense of the inadequacy of
  their feeble powers to eralicate the disorders of the mind,
  that led them to look for divine succor, to that benevolent
  Be;ng, who sits upon the circle of the heavens, and showers
  his mercies down upon the  world.   And this aid was not
  implored  in vain.  The day arrived.  The  veil of super-
  stition was rent in fragments.   The  Apostle, from the hill
  of Mars, led them to the knowledge of their unknown God.
 He conducted them  to the infinite sources of wisdom  and
 consolation, in Him in whom there is  fulness of joy, and at
 whose right hand are pleasures forever more.
   In their application  to  the  diseases of the  body,  the
 Greeks were more successful than in the'r applications to
 the mind.  And if we may believe the  current testimony
 of ancient writers, they had more power over their patients,
 in  stemming the inroads of dissolution, than  the moderns
 have obtained  after  all the improvements of advancing
 science.   It is certain, they  often arrested the  career of
 death when he appeared in  his most awful and terrific forms.
 Athens was restued from the  plague by the skill of a single
 man!
   It was in the commencement of the second year of  the
 Peloponnesian war, that the  plague broke out in Athens;
 and never  before had this  dreadful scourge of the human
 race, ravaged so many countries and climes.   Rising on  the
 burning brow of Africa,  through Ethiopia, Egypt, Lybia,
 n 1 Persia, Syria and  Cyprus, and Lemnos, together with
 many other places of  Asia  and  isles of the  iEgean sea  it
held its dreadful and desolating course.   The nations stood
appalled in its presence, and thousands perished by  its
breath!  A merchant vessel landing in  the Piraeus, brought
the disease to Athens; and this fell destroyer rao-ed with a
furv before unknown, over that celebrated city of Minerva.
.'t,s fearful and rapid progress seemed to bid defiance to all 
15
 mortal skill.  From the first attack of the disease, the powers
 of the mipd  seemed blotted out, while the body acquired
 new and  additional strength; as if the enemy, on purpose,
 had augmented the power to suffer.  The torment was ter-
 rible.   The  sick were seized  with  despair,  and the sound
 confounded with madness.  All the laws of equity and sociaj
 order  were trampled down.  Scenes of riot  and confusion,
 and reckless tumult, surrounded the march of Death!  The
 diseased were first smitten in the head; from this the malady
 passed down through the whole body, leaving in one shape-
 less, ruined mass, that noble form divine.   But the sufferers
 seldom waited for this terrible catastrophe; but, in the be-
 ginning, in the fury of distraction, plunged into wells, rivers,
 and the sea,  to quench the consuming fire that devoured
 Within them!
   It was in this awful crisis of her ruin, that one man—one
 single  man—skilled in  the use of those  divine remedies,
 which the God of  Nature has lodged in the  herbs  and
 flowers of the field, entered the devoted city, and shook off,
 with a giant's strength, the deadly grasp of  the destroyer.
 The sound of his very name poured hope and consolation
 through the torn bosom, filled with the agonies of despair!
 This man was the far famed Hippocrates.  He dwelt in
 the island of Cos.  At the breaking out of the plague in
 Persia, Artaxerxes the great, king of the empire, wrote to
 the physician to hasten to the relief of his  dominions.   He
 allured him  by the most magnificent promises; the'most
 splendid offers of wealth and  honors.  But  the physician
 replied to the great king, that he had neither wants  nor
 desires; and he owed his service, and his  skill, whatever
they might be, to his country, rather  than  to  her enemies!
This magnanimous reply so enraged the monarch, that he
sent a  squadron to bring him by force of arms;  but Hippo-
crates had sailed for Athens.  And the power of his fame
upon the mind, and his skill over the body,  scattered the 
16
shadows of death, and shed around him a radiance of joy
and hope, as if an angel's visit had lighted upon the City.
  To purify the air, he caused large fires to be kindled iu
«M  the streets and  lanes of Athens.   And to relieve the
suffering  from the consuming  heat which devoured  their
entrails, he placed them in warm baths, to expel the infec-
tion by the surface of the skin; and, to support their weak-
ness,  caused  them  to drink of the rich  wines of Naxos.
  These  great examples of success and  diligence in the
healing art, to discover and apply new modes of  cure,
when we find  all the common and established  forms baffled
and confounded, should dispose us to cherish, as the martyr
would his faith,  whatever  discovery may be  calculated to
deliver us, by a short and simple process, from the long
train  of diseases entailed  upon  our  fallen race.   Before
Hippocrates  arrived, all  the  physicians  of  Athens  had
either fled, or  fallen with their victims.  They had no suc-
cess.   Their practice seemed  rather  to aggravate than to
remedy the miseries of the dying.  Why had  Hippocrates
so much control over the pestilence?   Because he applied
a new method of relief;  one that seemed to strike down, at
once, the strong hold of the destroyer!
  From all these considerations, and from the  fact, that the
healing art is yet in its infancy, by  the confession  of its
most successful and celebrated  practitioners; the great and
venerable  Dr. Rush compares it to an unroofed temple:—
Uncovered at the top, and cracked  at the foundations—
unless you admit his own theory of animal life, as a sure
 and solid basis—for he scatters, like atoms in the sun beam
all the systems of pathology,  that have gone before him;
from all these, we ought to deeply ponder the peradven-
tures which Providence may elicit, by  any means, to dimin-
ish the sum of misery, before we spurn from-us, what has
been discovered, tried, and found effectual.
   After  bewailing the  defects  and  disasters of medical
science,  Dr.  Rush  consoled  himself with the animating 
11
 prospects of that hope, which  he often proclaimed from his
 desk—that the day would arrive, when medical knowledge
 should  have attained  to that apex of perfection, that  it
 would be able to remove all the diseases of man; and leave
 not for life a single outlet, a single door of retreat, but old
 age; for such  is my confidence, said he, in the  benevc
 lence of the  Deity, that  he has placed on earth  remedies
 for all the maladies of man.  I remember still, with a thrill
 of love and gratitude,  to that admired and venerable  pre
 fessor, with what enthusiasm and transport^ and prophetic
 vehemence,  he used to  pronounce that sentiment at the
 close of his lectures.  His confidence in  the benevolence
 of the Deity was boundless;  and his  own soul largely  pa;
 took of that  divine character of the Almighty!  We sha
 not,  shortly,  look upon his like again.  Quam de invemei
parem ?
   The  influence of this hope, so feelingly expressed  and
 deeply felt, by every noble mind, that all diseases shall yet
 yield to the  power of medicine, in its perfect state, ought
 to be abundantly sufficient to determine us to examine wit \
 candour, every new discovery, that is presented by the car j
 and  experience of man,  whatever  may be his state or con-
 dition in life.   Great men are not always wise; and the vei,
 meanest is not beneath the car'e of a kind Providence,  l.Ci
 the influence of his holy spirit.
           "For thv kind heavenly father bends h;s eye,
           On the Jeast wing that flits across the sky."
  And if, perchance, the grand Panacea shall be at  las;
 found,—that Moly  of the  Egyptians, and  Elixir of  th •.
Greeks,—who would not deem  himself more honored !>■■
contributing  the smallest item to  the  great  discovery ft-:
relieving the  wretchedness of the human  race, than if he
had  bestowed upon him  the Empire of the world?  I saw
one fever rage, and prostrate its victim, oveTf which the phy-
sician's skill had no influence.  To have saved that life, to
       [2*] 
13
 me so precious, I would have given the universe, had I pos-
 sessed it, and would have  considered it but as dust in the
 balance.  No doubt others feel "as I do.   Ar.d  if the period
 shall arrive, wdien the heart strings shall no more be torn,
 and lacerated, who would  not exalt in the joyful anticipa-
 tions of that coming day ?  And  this dream of a universal
 medicine, which has pervaded  the nations of the Earth,
 since the days of Isis and Osiris, is not ail a dream—-for the
 days shall conir. sailh the Lord, when there shall be nothing to
 hurt, or annoy, in my holy mountain.  No pain to hurt, nor
 sickness  to annoy.
   But whether  diseases  shall be banished from the globe,
 in that glorious  "period  of the  Millenium; or the grand
 catliolicon be discovered, to remove them, the data do not
 determine.  But this we know the earth shall have health
 and peace; and Dr. Rush's hope will be fulfilled, even be-
 yond the limits of his most sanguine expectations; for  the
 child shall die  an hundred years old.
   It is the purpose of this course of lectures to lay before
 the people, a succinct account of  Thomson's System of Me-
 dicine, that they  may judge  from the mode and the results of
 this new practice, of its fair and honest claims to the public
 confidence  and  admiration.  There is  no design to  o-ild
 over erroi", nor to mislead the minds of the unwary.  We
 shall submit it. simply, in  its own merits, to *he grand crite-
 rion of all new discevciies—the  understanding ard reason
of man.  /Whatever i* true and valuable, ]• t it be retained •
but if there be any thing false or pernicious, let it be given
 to the winds; or discarded  to that oblivion, where all have
 perished that cou! I  not brook the light!
   And in thus submitting the "jlcro Guide to Health,''' to the
 public  scrutiny of their fellow citizens, the friends and fol-
 lower* of Dr. Thomson, have pursued the path marked  out
 to thruj  by mn v of the greatest men of a  tiquiiv;  who
 often turned aside from the forms and dogmas of the schools, 
19
of submit their  cause to the tribunal of  public opinion.
And they were never deceived:  For God has lodged the
fund of common sense in the mass of the assembled multi-
tude.   These assemblies were dear to every land of liberty;
and it was on the appeal to that assembly, and its decisions,
that the ancients established  the  maxim, so  often in  their
mouth,  Vox populi, vox Dei.   The voice of the people is
the voice of God.
   Dr. Thomson says, "It has long been a subject in*which
I have taken a deep interest, to publish something not only
useful to the world, but also, that would convey to them my
system of practice; in order that they might reap the advan-
tage of curing disease, by a safe and simple method of my
own invention."   "One  other object, also, I have had in
view; that is  to lay before the  public a fair statement of
facts; that they may have a correct knowledge of the trials
and persecutions  which I  had to endure,  in bringing my
system  of medicine into use among the people."
   Dr. Thomson was not brought  up in the schools and col-
leges of the learned.  But he was trained in one far supe-
rior,  for  eliciting  the  powers of an  original  mind—the
severe school of adversity—that  perilous ordeal where the
feeble minded perish; but the  great of heart come out of
the  fires, purified and resplendent in tenfold  brightness.
They  rebound  bv the very impulse  and pressure of the
blow, that was designed to  crush them, and  reach their ele-
vation in the sky; to refute an objection made  against the
goodness of divine Providence—that the virtuous were often,
not only destitute of the blessingsof fortune, but of nature,
and even the necessaries of life.
   To this objection St. Pierre returns the  following beau-
tiful and profound answer:  To this, said he, I  reply—The
misfortunes of the virtuous often turn to their advantage.
When the world persecutes them, they are generally driven
into some illustrious career.  Misfortunes are the road to 
20
great talents; or, at least, to great virtues, which are far
preferable,
  It is not in your power, said Marcus AuRELiusto a friend
who was exhausting his breath  upon the unequal distribu-
tion of the favors of the  gods—it is not in your power to
become a great natural philosopher, a poet, a rnathemati-
cian, an orator, or an historian—but it is in your power to
be an honest and  a virtuous man, which is far superior to
them all I  Use well the gifts the gods have given thee, and
leave off repining at the  good they have denied.  For the
very talents thou sighest  after are far from conferring hap-
piness on their possessors.
  Tne splendor derived from  successful studies, seldom
repay the occupant for the lassitude and exhaustion of the
mind; the feverish  debility and throb  of nervous excite-
ment which thrill throughaall his frame.
  The peasant' in his cot, perhaps has more real enjoy.
ment—and certainly has  more peace, and calm contented-
ncss, than the philosopher, crushed  to an untimely grave by
the very magnitude of his studies.
  Inter silvas academi qucerere verum—as the poet says: To
search out truth through academic groves may  be a  very
pleasing, but often is a very unprofitable occupation.   You
may behold the scholar, pale, over  his mid light lamp, and
far  distant the golden dreams of honor and applause, which
he is never destined to realize.  How  disconsolate, is the
condition of an intellectual heh.g.  who thus suspends his
happiness on the praise and glory of the  world?   The  good
Aurelius gave an advice, worthy of being inscribed in let-
ters of gold.   He who places his heart on material objeclsi
or expects to draw the streams of consolation from the re-
sources of the world, must be exposed, in every vicissitude,
to the keen pangs of anguish.  The slightest  calamities
will disquiet and  trouble his soul.   In adversity he is cast
down, and every stay,  on which he leaned for succor, like 
21
the infidelity of Egypt—as a broken reed—will pierce him
to the heait.  From the gay and lofty summit of his pride,
and  presumptive daring, he sinks to the deplorable level
of his  own weak and  worthless piesumption.  Quantum
mutatusab illo—is that sunken, hopeless condition.
   This glory of the world, uncertain as it L, is not within
the grasp of many minds.   And even those who are able
to seize the gay and gilded prize, it stings in the very em-
brace, and perishes in the enjoyment.  But the path of vir-
tue, that leads  to happiness on high, lies open to every
traveller; and  he can neither be  mistaken in his course,
nor disappointed in his acquisition.  He has with him, and
around him, in the darkest hour, in the lone desert or the
crowded city, a Being who knows his pain, and hears every
sigh of his complaints.   He made the soul, and is able  to
delight and ravish its inmost faculties, with the communica-
tion of joys unspeakable.
   How  noble  was the sentiment  expressed by Sir  Isaac
Newtow: Speaking of  infinite space, he  said "it was the
sensorium of the Deity;" as if a fibre touched, in the most
minute, remote, or worthless of all his creatures, could move
the spirit of the eternal Godhead.  This view of his power
and his providence, inspires the heart with a holy hope, and
high dependence, far above the influence of a troubled and
a fleeting world.
   Queen Elizabeth, when her triumphant fleet had swept
fiom the ocean the invincible armada of Spain, had medals
struck, with this most beautiful and appropriate motto: Affla-
vit Deus, et dissipantur.  "He blew with his wind, and they
were scattered."  How exalted the thought!   The belief
of a divine and  superintending  Providence, taking care of
us and our concerns, elevates and ennobles the mind.  It
transports a mortal creature to the high and holy medita-
tions of angelic beings, and fills the soul with th/ —-»«tv
 and peace of heaven.                          / 
 
                 IiECTTOE  II.
      HISTORICAL VIEW OF ANCIENT THEORIES.

  That divine philosopher, PLAT0,said,/?g7i< was the shadow
of the Deity, ar.d truth his soul.   That the wise  and good,
as they approximated to the source of glory and intelligence,
w_*re clothed and animated by i-.at ;ie 'venly essence, which
he poured out from the fountain of his eternal being: That
into  the cup mixed for the  formation of Man,  he poured a
portioa  of his own divinity; that t .is divine principle, ra-
tional and immortal, resides in the brain, the seat  of sublimi-
ty an I great  conceptions; but another soul, which dwells in
the breast, formed by the inferior deities, was mortal, and
destitute of reason; which contracts evil, p in and sorrow,
and involves  all the woes of man, misery and death, and the
despair of Hades!  That  the  gods, not being  under the
influence  of this mortal inferior  soul,  do good  to  man
without  selfish   or  interested  views;   and   man, as  he
aspires to the divine life, acts upon the same principle.
  The admirable saying of Bias, one of the seven sages,
was  greatly esteemed by this philosopher, "Omnia mea me-
cum porta'—I carry with me all my possessions:  Being whol-
ly occupied in promoting the public  good, and laying up the
treasures of the mind, of which neither fate, nor foes,  nor
death, could rob him, he accounted  every thing else as no-

  Those who devote themselves  to a new theory; who have
to stand alone in  the defence of an  unknown truth, and to
combat alone the triumphant pride of an established science,
w. uld require a large portion  of the self-denying spirit of
the Grecian sage.  And Dr. Thomson seems to  have beer* 
24
admirably endued with that supreme devotion to his object,
which brings the martyr to the stake, and the patriot to
pour out his blood on the field of battle.   The loss  of five
thousand dollar*, to a poor man, with a small family,  impris-
onment and chains, and the tribunal of death, are trials which
might shake the fortitude of the firmest nerve.  I cannot
help uniting in his  own sentiment, that  Providence m^st
have presided over his labors, with an especial care, for the
good of society, or  he never would have brought them to
such a triumphant conclusion.
  In order to unfold and display the system  of Dr. Thom.
son more thoroughly, I will take a review of those theories
which  have obtained in the world, and  triumphed in the
schools, until they met the fate of all terrestial things.
  For the origin of medical  science, we aie indebted to
Egypt, that profound and  universal  school of the ancient
world.   There, medical knowledge was famous in the days
of Moses, and her physicians celebrated in his history.
The aliment and ablutions recorded in his books—so con-
genial to the health of an eastern clime—enforced on the
observance of Israel—have been ascribed to his knowledge
of the Egyptian science of medicine,  by those who  have
denied to  him the  high prerogative of having acted under
the inspiration of the Almighty.
  The invention of medicine, is generally ascribed to Toth,
Taautus, or the first Hfrmes.  He was  regent or  king of
Egypt, of the second dynasty of Manetho, and the tutor of
Queen Isis.  Julius Africanus, and Svncellus, make him
the same asSvDic,brother to the Caberri. He published six
books on phy sir; the first treated of anatomy.  The name of
Esculapius  or Asclepeus, was given him. on account of his
great skill inhc di, « diseases, as the terms imports; being a
compound of two Or-^ek words, asclen  and  epeos~Nerci-
ful healer!  And L.^ name he richly merited, according to 
25
.all the history and tradition of these times.  He taught the
healing art to Queen Isis;  who, herself, was the inventor of
several medich.es, and is therefor.: called, by the Egyptians,
the goddess  of health.   She  taught medicine  to  tier son
Orus or Apollo, and  communicated her knowledge in the
writings of the Caberri.
  The distribution of medicine into distinct  departments,
gave rise to avast number of physicians in  Egypt, and would
have been a source of great improvement in the science, had
it not been for the restrictive laws of that ancient kingdom.
Every physician  confined  himself to the cure of one disease
only.   One had the eyes, another the teeth, the head, the belly,
the lungs, the rein*, the viscera, surgery, anatomy, embalming.
Such undivided attention to one object only,  was defeated
in all its beneficial results; by confining the  physicians tofixi d
rules and recipes,  set down in their sacred registers, col.
lectcd from experiments and observations.  So long as the
physician practiced according to those rules, he was safe,
let the effect of his  medicine on  the patient be what it
would; but the moment he dared to depart, and follow his
own judgment, it was at  the hazard of his life; which  he
most assuredly lost if the  patient died!
   Physicians had a provision made them  bylaw, which  re-
quired them to practice in the army, and  on strangers trav-
elling in the country, without fee or reward.   Their medi-
cines were very simple prescriptions, prepared from herbs;
and were generally evacuants—which they effected  by  in-
jections, potations, emetics, fasting, and the waters of the JVile.
These they repeated every day, or every  third day, as the
case might be, until the patient was relieved.
   The physicians, in addition  to  their science, joined the
 studies of astronomy, maSic. and ritual mysteries; believing
 that the influence of a god, a star, or planet, or tutelar de- 
2'J
mon, gave powerful influence and efficacy to their prescrip-
tions, and secured the recovery oi  their patients.   Religion
mingled with all their operation.  Their books were tilled
with recipes founded on  experiments and observations.—
But their^rand discovery—their- Moly—a chimical prepa-
ration, made by the aid of the  philosopher's  stone, or as
others say, a  vegetable remedy—an immortal cathohcon,
which  not  only cured  all ui.eas,-.-, but  restored the  aged
to youth, and the dead to li'le—this grand elixir, their priests
carefully concealed from the Greeks.
  Their kings caused  bodies to  be  dissected, for the pur-
pose of perfecting them in  the art of physic.  In anatomy,
they have left us two  curious observations.  1. A particu-
lar nerve proceeds directly from the heart to the  little fin-
ger of the left hand.  On this finger the Egyptians always
wore rings; and the priests dipped that finger in the perfum*
ed ointments,  to sprinkle the  victim  and the worshippers.
2. That a man cannot live more than an hundred  years, be.
cause they found by experiments, that the heart of a child
of one year old, weighed two drachms;  that it increased by
the ratio of two every  second year, till fifty; when it de-
creased in the same proportion till one hundred; when the
aged actually died for want of heart.
   Chiron.—Medicine w^ brought from Egypt to Greece,
by the sage Chiron, the centaur, and son of Saturn.  He. ac-
companied the Argonautic expedition, and was the most
learned genius of bis time.  He taught Apollo  music, Es.
culapius medicine, and Hercules astronomy.  He was also
the  tutor  of Achilles,  the  instructor  of Jason, Pf.leus,
and jEneas;  and ;>!! the heroes of that celebrated expedi-
 tion.  His knowledge of simples, reduction of fractures, and
 luxations of the bones, prescribed by rule, after the Egyptian
 fashion, is all we have left us of his theory of medicine.  He
 was shot in the heel by a poisoned arrow, and prayed  Jupi-
 ter to take away his life.  The god heard his prayer, and 
                          27

translated him to the heavens, where'he shines in the con-
stellation Sagittarius.
  EscuLAncs, the Greek, and scholar of Chiron, was the
son of Apollo and  Coronis.   He  flourished  before  the
Trojan war.   In his infancy he was exposed on a mountain
of Thessaly, and was suckled by a goat, and defended by a
dog.  The shepherd, having for some time missed his goat
and dog, went to seek them on the mountains, and found the
child  possessed of extraordinary beauty.  The shepherd
brought it up with the greatest care; and when a boy, he
placed him in the bands of the sage  Chiron, by whose in-
structions he so largely profited, that his fame far surpassed
his master.  He taught his two sens his own divine art—-
Machaon and Podalirius, who were afterwards celebrated
in the war of Troy.  He dedicated his days to the relief of
the unhappy, and added his own experience and observations
tothoseof his master Chiron.  The most dangerous wounds,
diseases, and maladies, yielded to his operations, his reme-
dies, his harmonious songs, and his  magical words.   The
gods would have pardoned all this glory, and fame of su-
perior skill—but his great success and daring mind, induc-
ed him to recall the dead to life.   Pluto was so enraged at
this inroad on his dominions, that he struck him dead with
a thunderbolt!  He was  deified by the Greeks, who show-
ed the most  unbounded love to his memory.  Forty stadia
from Epidaunu, you will  find his temple, his statue, and his
sacred grove—to which the sick resort, from every place, to
seek a cure for their various maladies.
   The inscription over the entrance  of his temple, is at once
solemn  and affecting—"Procul esle prophani—fav hence yc
prophane— none  shall enter here but the pure in soul."
The secrets of his art, he communicated to his children; and
they were retained in his family, until they burst forth, with
peculiar splendor, and shone  out  to  the  possession  of the 
                         28

world, in the writings and the character of the divine Hip-
pocrates.
  Hippocrates.—He  was horn in the island  of Cos. 80th
Olympiad, 461 A. C. of the family of the Ascleimad^; for
his  lather was the 17th in lineal descent from Esculapius,
and 16th from Podalirius, who dieesed the  wounded be-
fore the walls of Troy, and afterwards reigne 1 over a small
city in Thessaly.  He studied medicine under his grand-
father Nebrus,  and his father  Heraclides—to  which he
added the reading of the  tablets hung up in  the  temples,
describing the nature of diseases, and the mode  of their cure.
This was a custom  among the ancient Greeks, and is still
practised in the East; a custom of great utility  and long
standing.
  The family of the AscLEPiAD.£had carefully preserved the
doctrines of their progenitor  Esculapius,  and had  estab-
lished three Medical schools, in Cos, Cnidus,  and  Rhodes.
Their fame began to spread, when this master spirit of the
hedingart—the Homer of medicine,as he has been called—
appeared, to contend for the prize of victory,  on the great
arena of public effort  and emulation.  His mighty mind
soon perceived the defects in  the system of his progenitors,
and he grappled with its difficulties, and set himself to find
out,andapply a remedy, equal to its vast importance.
  As the grand sum of all medical skill, consists  in  reason
and experience; and as the union of these,  forms the accom-
plished and the successful practitioner, he prepared himself
to add reason and  argument to  the rules of Greece  and
Egypt; and at once exalt medicine to the dignity  of a sci-
ence! And this he accomplished, (notwithstanding he has
been denounced  an  Empiric,) with a perseverance and suc-
cess, which, perhaps, have never since been equalled; nor so
honored and distinguished the labors of any single man.
  Practice and theory were  so remarkably combined and
blended in the character of this profound original sage, that 
20
 liis decisions in medicine were received like the oracles of
 Apollo; not only with confidence but with veneration.
   The improvement of medicine, at this period, depended
 on two classes of philosophers, unknown to each other;  the
 Sophoi—the students of natural philosophy', who comprc*
 hended the  human bodyr as a part of tleir science—and the
 Asclepiadas—who  stud ed the history and cures  of  dis-
 ease; the descendants and disciples of Esculapius.  The
 former examined the functions of the human body, accord-
 ing to the laws of their own  science; while the latter pre-
 scribed for diseases, according to fixed rules,established and
 confirmed by numerous cures and experiments.  The phi-
 losophers reasoned—the Asclepiadae acta'. .
   Hipiocrates, educated  in the art of phy sic, found at once
 the vast advantage that would be gained, by obtaining  the
 knowledge of philosophy', and  thus enrich medicine by a
 union of both sciences.   He applied himself with the ut-
 most vigor  and industry to  philosophy—to penetrate  the
 essences of bodies—and endeavored to ascend to the constit-
 uent principles and powers of the universe.
   He thus conceived one of those grand and original ideas,
 which serves as a new era, in the history of genius.   This
 was to enlighten experience by reasoning, and  to rectify the-
 ory by practice.   In his theory, however, he only admitted
 principles which may explain the phenomena observable in
 the human body,  considered with  respect to sickness or
 health.   Improved and exalted by.this new method, (he sci-
 ence of physic  made a more  sure and certain progress  in
 the path opened before it.   Hippocrates silently effected a
 revolution, which has changed the  face  of  Medicine,
 and caused it to rank with  the sublimest parts  of human
 science.
   It would be equally useless and prolix, to enlarge on the
happy  experiments he made, of the-new remedies he dis-
covered, or the prodigies he wrought, in all the places hon-
       [3*] 
30
ored with his presence; especially in Thessaly, where, after
a lonj, residence, he died, at the advanced age  of ninety-
nine.   From all that has been related concerning him, you
can perceive in his soul but one  sentiment—the love of do-
ing good—and in his long life, but one single act—the reliev-
ing of the sick!
  His remarks on the various stages of disease, and signs of
their  critical events,  are the foundation  on  which physi-
cians act and reason, to thepresent hour. He also takes no-
tice of the motion and circulation of the bloou.   This dis-
covery has been attributed to Dr. Harvey ; but we have the
testimony of his  own works, of his disciples Galen, of Rio-
lan, Drelincourt, Van  Swieten, &c.  that  Hippocrates
undersiood the circulation of the blood, and the nature  of
the sanguiferous system.
  His works are contained  in eight folio volumes. 1. Jour-
nals of the maladies which  he followed through their differ-
ent stages.  2.  Observations on  his own  experience, and
the experience  of preceding ages.  3.  Reasonings on the
causes, cures, and symptoms of diseases.   4.  On airs, wa-
ters, and places.  5. The four last, treat of the duties and
qualifications of a physician, of various paits  of medicine,
and natural philosophy.  His rules for the education  of a
physician are the most admirable that were ever penned.
Perhaps we have no essay  on education to qualify for any
profession, equal to the rules of Hippocratf.■■<.
  "1.  Because our life is short and our art very long, a boy
must be taken in early youth.  2. Examine whether his ge-
nius be adapted  to the art.  3. Has he  received from na-
ture an exquisite discernment, a sound  judgment, a char-
acter  in which mildness and firmness are combined—that he
may sympathise and suffer  with  the sufferings of others__
that he may naturally feel the tenderest  commiseration for
the woes i»cident to his fellow mortals.   4. He must com.
bine the love of labor, with the desire and emulation of all 
31
 that is amiable and praiseworthy.  5. Let him practice the
 manual operations of surgery.  6.  Let him study the whole
 circle of science.   7. Let him travel and extend his know-
 ledge through different countries and  cities—Let him ob-
 serve the difference of airs,  and waters which aro drunk.
 3. The eatables which are the principal food of the inhabit-
 ants! and in one word, all the causes  which may occasion
 disorders in the animal economy.   He must  know by what
 preceding signs, maladies may be known, by what regimen
 they may be avoided, by what remedies cured.
   Experience alone, is less dangerous than theory without
 experience—for  it is not in the dust of the schools, nor
 works  of the  philosophers,  that we can learn the  art of
 interrogating nature—and  the still more difficult art, of
 awaiting her answer.
   You must conduct him to the  abodes of pain, already
 veiled  with the shades of death; when nature, exposed to
 the violent attacks of the enemy, falling, and rising only to
 sink again—displays to the attentive eye  her wants and her
 resources.  The disciple, as  he witnesses this terrible  com-
 bat, shall observe you watch and seize the instant which
 may decide the victory, and save the life of the patient."  In
 this description  of a student's qualifications, he has drawn
 a portrait of himself.
  His style is con i-e and beautiful; but requires attentive
 study to comprehend his force—as  he  scatters the seeds of
 his doctrine with a rapid hand, over the vast volume of his
 works, after  the manner  of the ancients; who were  ever
 prone to disregard trivial  difficulties, while they hastened
 forward to some grand conclusion.  They were more anx-
 ious  to  strike  out new, than to dwell on trite  and trivial
ideas.   And this fact will, no doubt, account for the sublime
and grand, in the  style and  compositions of antiquity—so
rare in modern works.   His death was greatly deplored by
the Greeks, and his memory cherished; and his name feas 
                           32

  been  revered  and venerated by all nations.  The divine
  Hippocrates—the father  <f medicine—are the common
  appellations by which he is distinguished to this hour.
     Celsus was born at Rome or Venice,and flourished under
  the reigns of Augustus, Tiperius, and Claudius Caesar.—
  He was a profound admirer of Ilirrocn vrr.s, ai.d leave? this
  strong testimony to bis memory, and the fame of his works.
  flis doctrine, ?aid Celsis, 1.as spread over every land; and
  when thousands of years shall  have passed away, it shall
  perform thousands of cures, and carry relief and consola-
  tion to the  afflicted race of n.an!   He seems to have  prac-
  tised  on the system of his great predecessor; and to  have
  gained from his discoveries great skill in inflammatory and
*  malignant  fevers, especially the plague.  He wrote  eight
  books 0:1 medicine—the four first on internal diseases, the
  fifth and sixth on external diseases, and the two  last on the
  cases which properly  belong to surgery.  He  was much
  beloved at  Rome, and held in hi^h consideration by the
  Emperors.
     Galen was born at Pergamus—was a most diligent and
  laborious student.  He closely followed his great leader,
  Hippocrates; and wrote a commentary on his works.   He
  confesses, with gratitude, the vast obligations he owed to
  that  father of medicine—mentions his knowledge of the
  motion and circulation of the blood, and great skill in ana-
  tomy.  Galen travelled through many countries  to improve
  his knowledge.  He visited the different schools of Greece
  and Egypt, and the islands of Crete, Cyprus and Rhodes;
  made two  voyages to Lemnos to examine the  Lemnean
  earth, at that time celebrated as a medicine; travelled to
  Palestine, and the Lower Tyrus, to examine the properties
  of the Opobalsamum,orbalmof Gilead.  He at last arrived
  at Rome,  in the reign of Marcus Antoninus, and was at
  first graciously received as a distinguished stranger.   But
   1 is great success and skill in  practice, soon excited the »envy 
33
Of the Rornan  physicians.   They  branded him with  the
name of Theorist, and affirmed that he used magical wordk
in his practice.  He retorted upon them the name of Me-
thodics.  His situation was rendered unpleasant; he found
the opposition was too strong for him.   After a residence
of five years he returned to Pergamus.
   The Dogmatists, says Dr. Ray, are certainly so far right,
that a knowledge of the animal structure is necessary, in
order to know how to repair it;  though this belongs more
properly to surgical  operations.  Yet  the  Empirics,  who
rely on experience and practice exclusively, and are there-
fore called quacks, can retort, with equal justice, upon their
opponents, that there is no relation between the animal eco-
nomy and functions, in a living, sound,and healthful state—
and a diseased or dead body, destitute of these.
   After Galen  had remained some  time at Pergamus, the
plague made  its appearance at Aquilia and Rome, during
the joint reign of Marcus  Aurelius and Lucius Verres.
The fame of Galen, and his skill in curing that  disease,
ind uced the Emperors to send for him.  He arrived; and
had the felicity to cure the two sons of Aurelius, Commo-
dius and Sextus, who had been smitten with the infection*
This event so established his name, that all hostility against
him ceased.   After  the death of Aurelius, he  returned
finally to Pergamus, where he died  at the advanced age of
ninety years.   He was of a delicate and sickly constitution
of body; yet from his great skill in medicine, and the  tem-
perate mode of his life, he reached a happy and  useful old
age, when he slept with his. fathers in his native city, A. D.
200.
   His fame was very great; and he ranks next to Hippo-
crates on the roll of great and splendid men.  He wrote
five hundred volumes on philosophy and medicine.  They
were deposited  in the temple of  Peace  at Rome;  and
destroyed when that  City was burned by the Goths.  The 
34
scattered volume? which still remained in the hands of his
friends and followers, have been collected and published in
five folio  volumes; when his works and Hippocrates were
published together, they amounted to thirteen folio volumes;
a monument of splendor to those distinguished men, which
covers the Egyptian pyramids with contempt and shame.
  A pleasing melancholy pervades the soul, as we trace the
memorials of those devoted and magnanimous benefactors
of the human race.   They seem to redeem the very char-
acter  of man  from all the vile  aspersions, that have been
 cast upon it.   They shine as splendid beacons, on the soli-
tude-  of  time, to point the traveller the road to gk>ry, and
the haven of immortality and peace!  If we were disposed
to hesitate or linger  in  the pursuits of  humanity,  those
bright examples would spur us  on to industry and exertion.
   For a long  period after the days of Hippocrates,  no
eminent physician of Greece, at least none of  known date,
was found worthy to bear the torch of that distinguished
mind  into the  temple of Hygeia.   The pursuits of the
healing art might languish, but did not slumber.   We have
sufficient testimony on the historic page, to medical studies
in the East, in Egypt and in Greece, through the long period
that elapsed between Hippocrates and Galen.   In Greece
the votive tablets suspended in the temple of the gods, dis-
played to the eyes of the .student ol medicine, the disease,
its history, and  the  nature of its cure.   In  India, the  sick
were laid in beds by the way side, that every passenger
might be consulted on the means of their recovery.   These
 cures were ai?o regisU red on the pillars and monuments of
 Eastern  magnificence, lor the benefit of the public.   If any
 discovered a poison, he was obliged to conceal it, till he had
 also found out its antidote, and then they were published
 together.  This was a  part of the code of wise maxims,
 which still distinguish the primitive regions of the human
 ••'-tee.  In Egypt, medical science progressed according to 
So
the prescribed forms, until NECTANEncs,the last of the race
of Misraim, was expelled his throne and kingdom, by Ochus,
the tyrant of Persia, a few years before  Alexander con-
quered the East.
   Erasistratus was celebrated for his skill and  wisdom in
the mode of cure;  his medicines were mild  and simple,
administered with judgment and success.   He was opposed
to mixed and complicated medicines.
   He'-.aphilus  the  anatomist, held a distinguished  rank  v
amongst  the physicians of Greece.  He  was so much de-
voted to  the discovery of specifics, that it gave occasion to
his disciple  Philinus, of Cos, to attach himself wholly to
the practice of empiricism.   The honor of having founded
the sect of empirics, has been contended by their followers,
between Philinus and Serapion, of Alexandria.  It is how-
ever certain, that it arose  immediately  after the  time of
Heraphilus.  And  this period may be  regarded as one of
the most remarkable in the history of general physic.
   Heraclides  of Tarentum, was  of the  empiric  sect;  a
person of great skill and judgment in the study of medi-
cine.  Very remarkable  cures are recorded of  him.   His
writings  being lost,  the world has not been much benefited
by his discoveries.
   The establishment of  medicine as a separate  science, at
Rome, must be ascribed to  the Greeks.   For five hundred
years, according to Cato the censor, it was in a very rude
state, and confided entirely to the women.  A luxation was
reduced  by incantation; and the  brassica accounted an
universal remedy.   Asclepiades was the first of the Grecian
physicians who practised at Rome.  He was not bred to
physic;  but was a professor of  rhetoric.   Not finding suc-
cess in his original  profession, he commenced the practice
of physic, and formed a system for himself.  He established
a mild  practice, employed few medicines,  and strongly
declaimed against compound and complicated medicine. 
36
   Si ribonius Lvrgus treats professedly of the composition
 of medicine;  'iiit in> mtaiciic  a  d mod** cm practice, have
 bee.i cuarged with great u:m er'^intj  and  un;.i-rlection.
   Superstitious foilic- seem to  have distinguished aiany of
 these wrkers, as well as Pliny the elder,aad Am komachus,
 senior: Though, to the present day, the  Theriaca Andro-
 machi is retained ie, systt ms of  medicine.
   Discorides, who wrote  professedly on  the  Materia Me-
 dica, is regarded as one of the best and most judicious of
 ancient times.  Many might be ad .led to  these names, but
jam satis:  These will suffice to show the turmoil and vicissi-
 tudes in the medical science of ancient times. 
LECTURE  III.
AN HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE MODERN SYSTE3IS OF
                     MEDICINE.

  We have already taken, on a former evening, a short and
rapid view of the most celebrated physicians of antiquity—
of Egypt, Greece, and Rome.  They were distinguished
into Theorists  and  Metbodics; as at the present day,  we
have the different sects of Empirics, Dogmatists, Nosologists
and Brunonians, as they may be the followers of Brown or
Cullen, or tin ir predecessors.
   The Metbodics still adhered  to the original forms of prac-
tising by  rule; while the Theorists  united  argument and
observation, after the example of Hippocrates and Galen—
having  still in mind the profound  maxim of the former—
■•To enlighten experience by reason, and to rectify theory by
practice,  belonged  to  men in the pursuit of knowledge,
endowed  with senses and  dignified with soul.'1''
   The  torch of Prometheus  was  not all a fiction;  it  ex-
pressed a profound philosophical truth.  The ancients were
fond of having their sentiments wrapped up  in metaphor
 or clothed in enigma.  That holy light so  feelingly apos-
 trophised by Miltov—
          "Hail holy light, offspring of  Heaven first born!
          Or of the eternal  co-eternal beam!"
 That light was indicated by the flaming torch of Prome-
 theus: For the ancients, however  they  had obtained a
 knowledge of the feet,  knew well that light was the  first
 born of heaven.  Revelation or tradition might have taught
 them this truth; but it  was held  sacred in their mysteries.
 They conceived light to he <he grand pabulum of life, and
 ,vhe great agent which the Deity employed to spread organi- 
38
  zation, sensation, and thought, over the inanimate mass of
  rude and restive matter.   It was also applied to the supe-
  rior splendors of majestic intellect.  "Cui mens dieinior atque
  os magna sanaturum.,'>  Hippocrates had ihe high  privilege
  and distinguished  honor of having first introduced the torch
  of Prometheus into the  leaden  temple of medical Know-
  ledge—scientific invrstigation.
    After the days of Celsus  and Gale\,  medical sriencc
 became stationary.   In the agitation  and  decline of  the
 Roman Empire, all learning  was arrested  in its pn";rc.*>;
 and  when it fell, the  arts and  sciences  perished in  the
 shock.   The few fragments that remained, were concealed
 amongst the fraternities of priests and  moiL-, a 1 secular
 clergy.  But a dreary  desolation and  dark decay spread
 over the universe of mind.   Pro dolor!   The knowledge
 of a few simples  answered all the  wants of the  common
 people.   The  dressing of wounds was  committed to the
 ladies;  the  cure of fractures, luxations, and  broken bones
 the knights took upon themselves.  All was simple  and soqp
 dispatched.   In those awful  scenes of broil and  battle—
 when nothing was to be heard or seen, but the alarm of war,
 and garments rolled  in blood—there was no time to die of
 disease.   No!  it was on the bloody  field of martial strife
 that  Death  reaped  the harvest of his  millions!   All the
 liner sensibilities, and causes of disease, were absorbed and
 swallowed up  in  the  vortex  of war!  Thus, through the
 long and dreary night of a thousand years, a morbid melan-
 c'-oly, and moral death, sat brooding, like an incubus  on
 the nations of Europe.
   At length,—for man  cannot be enslaved forever,__at
 length, superstition broke  her chains—Science, roused her
 gia:-t form, and shook off the slumber of ages!  The spirit
 of man rebounded from the crush of her long depression,
 and took her place on the sublime and awful  elevation of
freedom, and  range of thought! For it is one of the most 
39
 indelible characteristics of her  divine orighi, which the
 Deity has impressed upon the human soul—that she cannot
 be trampled down forever.  In despite of the most formida-
 ble opposition—of the wrath and  rage of  enemies—she
 will arise and reassert the dignity of her own nature, and
 take her mighty and majestic  course along the great ocean
 of being.  Religious liberty,  civil  liberty, the diffusion of
 science, the equity  of laws, and the  amelioration of the
 condition of the  miserable—all!  all! proclaim her bright
 and rapid progress to the uncreated  splendors of eternal
 day!
   After the revival of learning, the  works of the  ancients
 were held in great repute.  They were searched out, and
 sought after, with an avidity,  which shewed how earnestly
 men were bent on the culture and improvement of the mind.
 Sennertus and Riverius  collected, with the greatest  dili-
 gence, the opinions and writings of the ancients; especially
 of Hippocrates, Celsus, and Galen.  Baglivi, another
 faithful laborer in the same good cause, is said to have com-
 mkted  the whole  writings of  Hippocrates to  memory!-—
 Transiat in exemplum.   And all who would succeed in their
 professions, must embue their  very soul with the whole sub-
ject  matter of their vocation.   None can ever rise,to emi-
 nence,  who possesses not  this  enthusiastic devotion to the
 object of his pursuits.
   Baglivi places the principle of animal life, in irritability
 and sy mpathv.  He traces the doctrine vf animal motions
 from Hippocrates down to  his own time—the end of the
 seventeenth century.  His impetus facicns, or to arthe of
 Hippocrates, forms the principle of  his pathology; accounts
 for the  proximate causes and cures of disease.   This  first,
 or  prime mover, he placed in  the dura mater of the brain;
 which propelled its energies along the ligaments and mem-
 branes of the body, to produce motion.  His cures, like his
 great master Hippocrates chiefly consisted in the cold and 
40
hot bath, frictions, cauteries, and epispasticks.  A few medi-
cines, he observes, well directed, are the best evidence and
demonstration of the skill and abilities of the physician.
   The whole of the sixteenth and  part of the seventeenth
centuries, was spent by Sennertus and Riverius, together
with their disciples and predecessors, in teaching, expound-
ing, and commenting on the systems of the ancients.  They
were called  Galcnists; and  their pathology and practice
were conducted on  the same principles and rules.
   Early  in the sixteenth century, the famed  Paracelsus
advanced his chimical  system to the world.   This  was
directly  opposed  to the system of the  Galenists.  They,
however, held  possession of the schools to  the  end of the
seventeenth century.  But  the followers of Paracelsus,
acquired the patronage and were supported by the power
and influence of the learned.  The Galenists were finally
forced to yield; and, the humoral and chimical pathology,
which had agitated and divided the schools for two hundred
years, began to retire to the shades, and  sink under a new
and splendid light, which was just dawning on the world.
   About the  middle of the  seventeenth century, the cir-
culation  of the blood came to be generally known; and
this knowledge together with  that of the discovery of the
receptacle of  the chyle, and of the thoracic duct, combined
finally to explode the Galenic system.   A considerable revo-
lution had now also taken place in the system of natural phi-
losophy.   In the course of the seventeenth century, Galileo
had introduced the  mathematical mode of  reasoning; and
Lord Bacon  had proposed to  the world  his new mode o(
reasoning, by an  induction of  facts.  These new modes of
philosophizing, as might  be supposed, had soon a visible
influence on  the  science of medicine.   A  disposition  to
observe facts,  and make experiments, began to prevail in the
schools, and  to fix  the attention of keen and accurate in-
quirers. 
11
   The clear view of the organic system of animal bodies,
 {resented by ihe knowledge of the circulation of the blood,
 led not only to a deeper acquaintance with the internal
 stiucture; but also, to the  application of mechanical philo-
 sophy, in ex  ainiiig the phenomena of animal  life.   This
 became the fashionable mode of reasoning until a very late
 period.  But it has been found very defective in explaining
 the animal  economy; and,  although it is  still partially in
 use, and may stiil continue  to be used, it would be easy to
 show, that its application must be very limited and partial.
 Still, however, down till this- period, the physician, whether
 Galenist or Chimist, was so accustomed to consider the state
 and condition of the fluids, both as the cause of disease, and
 as the  foundation for explaining the cperation of  medicine
 in its cure, that they were both termed the Humoral patho-
 logy.
   It now soon appeared that  chimistry promised a much
 better  explanation of the sy stem, than the Galenic or Aris-
 totelian  philosophy had  done.  These  were, therefore,
 almost entirely  laid aside,  and chimical reasoning every
 w ere  prevailed.  Lord Bacon, with his usual sagacity, had
early discovered that chimistry promised a  great number
of faets; and he therefore gave it credit, and covered it
with the shadow of his mighty name.
   The Corpuscular philosophy, restored by Gassendi, rea-
dily united with the reasonings of the Chimists;  and the
philosophy of Des Cartes, with great facility, combined and
commingled, with both.  From all these combinations and
affinities, an  Humoral,  but  chiefly a Chimical, pathology
prevailed  down to  the end of the seventeenth, and  even
had great influence on the science of medicine, down to the
end of the last century.  The  history of the human mhui
is to be tiaced in  the language, the science,  the arts, and
the writings of the world.   The study is curious,  but it  is
of nigh aid h-->'v e=timatir>n. 
42
  About the middle of the seventeenth century, arose the
great Sydenham—the  first of the modeiis.  the lather of
medical science, in its present robes of modern  fashion.—
His writings will  be esteemed a standard, says Dr. ( Vllen,
as long ;:s they shall be known, or shall endure.  He did
not entangle him-elf in the thon v paths which lead  to the
mysteries of animal life; his pathologv  was simple and com-
prehensive.   The oppressed and exhausted states  of the sys-
tem, comprised hi.- r.itioi ah  of disease and node of cure.
Trie simplicity of his views seems to have laid the founda-
tion for 'he theories of Pcsh and Brown.  The  morbid ex-
citement of the firs!, and the direct and inelirect  debility of
the latter— with their unity of disease, and classes of sthenic
and  .sthenic diathesis, and mode of cure, appear to have
their origin in the principles of Sydenham.
  To add to the science of medicine, said Sydenhxm, two
facts mu-t be kept in view:  1-t, to <:'ve a full and complete
desciiption or history of disease; and. 2'!, to discover a fixed
aid  perfect remedy, or mode of cure.   A- d  to  these high
objects did Dr.  Sydenham dedicate the labors  of his long
and  useful life; preferring their  great importance. to the
fruitless and u iprotitable speculations, on the principle of
life.   By  neglecting these  desiderata, he  observes, the
Materia  Medica  has been swelled to an uereaso! able size,
filled with great uncertainty!   To these obvious a;.d valua-
ble facts, the doctor would add the knowledge of  specifies—
and in consequence has been called a quack.   But bis fame
s' i ds too high  and 'right, io be tainted  by the breath of
scandal!  He says the only specific we haw-, ;s t'^e Jesuit
b irk.  Calomel and sarsaparilla,  are not specifics: m le<s it
can be shown that the O' e does not produce salivation, and
the other perspiratio-.   He  larre- f« tl at f' e modicrl vir-
tues of plants are so lit'le known, though the most valuable
part of the materia medica. 
4S
  Organized substances are the food of animals,  and as
me Urinal, musi he more congenial to their natures, than the
brute mass 01  inanimated matter.  Dr. Ray observes, we
are sprung from the earth, we feed upon tier bounty, draw
our nourishment from her bosom, and our healmg medicines
from her breast.
  It must be co fessed, says Dr. Sydenham, that although
mineral medicines meet the indications of disease, they are
not to be relied on as specifics, with the s. me entire cov.fi-
de-ice, as the vegetable medicines.  Here is a strong testi-
mony to the theory of Thomson.
   Dr. Glisson, was the first of the moderns who pail any
attention to the vital principle, and the first who mentions
irritability as a property of this vis insita.  He defines it to
be a property,  which, receding in all bodies, can be excited
to action by irritation;  that it resides in a mucus, and is per-
 fected by  heat and blood.   He had  no idea of the distinc-
 tion between  sensibility and irritability, and therefore he
 uses  the old distinctions of animal, vital, and natural func-
 tions.   Because a muscle was seen to contract, when prick-
 ed, although separated from the body, he believed the fibres
 and muscles had perception in themselves.  Here again he
 confounds sensibility and irrita'ulity; and attempts to con-
 firm the hypothesis, by the remark, that there can eothieg
 be, in the intellect, but what we receive by the seises.  Dr.
 Cullen advanced the same maxim one hundred vears after-
 wards.  Baglivi also pursued, to great extent, his  observa-
 tions  on  the  phenomena of the  vital  principle.   Holler
 siys, irritability is independent of sensibi'ify. ar d w>e  versa.
 C.isson thought irritability  denended on volition:  Belloni,
 on the  accelerated  motion  of the blood: B \glivi, on the
 oscillatory motions of the dura mat"r along the membranes:
 S. -ml. and his followers, supposed  irritation to be innate
 an! influenced bv \W  soul.   Dr. Wivter traced all human
 Bjotiousto fibrous irritability  and stimuli; and the younger 
M
 Boerha kvr. to the moving power of animals.  Dr. Whytt
 bei:< veJ irri* iljilit\ essential to motion,and was produced by
 a sentient piinciple resiling iu the medulla of the brain.—
 Dr. Kiukland thought that this medullary substance  was
 conveyed by the neves to the muscular fibres, which cau«ed
 motion.  But  Dr. Whytt  affirmed perception was neces-
 sary in connection • ith  all or any material substance to
 produce  motion:  While  Zimmermw  and  CF.derus demon-
 strated  by e\ eriments,  that irritation was as general in
 the animal fibres, as  attraction  in  the  universe; and  was
 altogether separate from  the mind and  soul.
  You see, my friends, how difficult it has been for the pro-
 fes-ors of this  art, to  fix upon  one  «eheme of principles.
 Well  might Dr. Brown  say, "'the  science was altogether
 un  "tain and  incomprehensible; and could  yield no satis-
 faction  to  his mind."  When  the  principl-s are  so  iar-
 ring and incoherent, the practice founded upon them must
 be defective, and partake, in a great measure, of the uncer-
 tainty of its foundation.  This was perceived and confessed
by all the faculty.
  And the new systems introduced in the beginning of the
eighteenth en tury  by St.vhl, Hoffman-, aid  Boerha we,
were intended to supply' a remedy.   But, alas! they were
equally different as they were new; and instead of remox ing
the disoHc,-. thev only operated to its augmentation, and
inflamed  the wound they were designed to heal.
  Dr. Stahl.—His leading prirciple was, that tl e rational
soul of man governs the whole  economy of his  hod\.   It
was observed at all times in the history of mHicine, that
the animal economy possesses, in itself, a principle or po-ner
o-' resisting injuries, of correcting  or  removing diseases,
 arising in ir, or induced upon it.  Sometimes this has   (.|>n
 called nature's effort to throw off  disease.  This was a-,ej i',-
 c*  by the ancients, to an agent  in ihe  system,  which they
 called the /'/ orche; and from  Hronrn rhe hngmge  p.isscd 
45
into the west, of a vis conservatrix et medicalrix naturce, and
has not only continued in the schools, but has been retained
in the heart of the multitude,  to the present, and from the
most ancient  times; and, perhaps, after all, the doctrine
of dame nature is the truest part of  medical  theory.   Dr.
Stahl supposes, that this power of nature so much talked
of, nothing else but the rational soul; that  when it per-
ceives  noxious powers  threaten the body, it excites such
emotions in the body as shall expel them.   This theory was
greatly opposed by  Dr. Nichols in his Oratio  de Anima Me-
dica; and also by Cullen in his physiology.   Dr. Gaubius,
in his pathology, says it is a capricious government of the
animal economy, and not to be relied on.  Stahl and his
followers, called this the  Hippocratic method of curing
diseases;  but  the Wits called it the Art of curing by expecta-
tion.
   Dr. Hoffman.—He  was professor  in the university of
Halle, when  the doctrines of Stahl prevailed.  But reject-
ing altogether the  Vires naturce medicatrices, of his prede-
cessor, he introduced a new system, in which he blended the
doctrines of nervous spasm, with the mechanical, cartesian,
and chimical doctrines.   These, however, he modified to suit
his leading  principle of disease, or spasm,   evinced  in his
Pathologia medulla cerebri et nervorum. In these Hoffman pla-
ced the primary moving powers; and  by  considering their
state and affections,  he thought he could explain all the phe-
nomena of the animal economy, in health and in sickness.
 Dr. Cullen  says,  we are indebted to Dr. Hoffman for put-
ting us into a  proper train of investigation.   It was this the,
on which induced Dr. K. Boerhaave to publish his works,
entitled Impetum Faciens,and Dr. Gaubius to give his pathol-
ogy of the Solidum Vivum.
   It was objected to Hoffman, that he did not properly ap-
 ply his own  fundamental doctrine, and that  he intermixed
 the humoral pathology of the Galenists, and the plethora 
46
and cacochymia of St-.pl—I wish  I had  done with  these
intolerable names—-De marborum generuttonc, ex rumia san-
guinis quantitatc ct  humorum ii>ipcrrita!c
  Dr.  Boerhaave.—He was a man of general erudition.
In forming his system of physic, he seems to have studied di-
ligently,  all the writings of both ancient and modern  phy.
sicians.   He  intended to be a creful, a candid, and a genu-
ine eclectic.  But,alas! he tejofeii/cd.  He possessed a genius
peculiarly  systematic;  and at first gained high reputation.
His system was more generally received than  any former
had been, since the time ot Galen.
  Cullen objects to this system; 1st, that in the course of
forty years, he  made in it neither  additions nor improve-
ments, except in the 755th Aphorism, where the words forte
et nervosi, tarn cerebri quam cerebelli  cordi destinati inertia;
and these  did hot  appear until the fourth edition; 2d,
he objects to his doctrine of the simple  solid, and its erro-
neous composition of earth and gluten;  3d, Ins  mistake re-
specting  the  structure of the compound  membranes; 4th,
his neglect of the cellular texture.   From all these reasons,
Cullen thought his system very imperfect, and incapable of
expl uning the phenomena of the animal eeonomy in health
or sickness.   Cullen thinks that on very few occasions, the
tim-ple solids  are cither changeable, or actually changed;
and that out of ninety-nine cases in an hundred, the phe-
nomena  attributed to the change  of the  simple solids de-
pends altogether on the state of the solidumvivum.  To all
these, Dr.Cullen  adds, that Dr. Boerhaave's morbid acri-
mony, and lentor of the fluids;  his hypothetical and humor-
al pathology, to the almost total neglect of the state of the
moving powers of  the animal body; arc calculated to mis-
lead in the practice of physic.  In his aphorisms there are
very few pages where error or  defect does not  occur; and
therefore, Dr. Cullen concludes it ought to be set aside. 
47
   Dr. Lieutand, a l-'icnch physician, «,.empted a system
 upon a new plan, which he called the Synopsis universex med-
 ia nee.  It was to consist of a m.-re collection of far... and ob-
 servations from expedience.  But this also failed; and. ac-
 cording to Dr. Cullen, he has only increased the confusion
 of medical   subjects.   These   are  painful premonitions
 to the adventuier in this dark and  doubtful journey of
 physiology and medical science.
   Dr. Cullen remarks—I have endeavored to  form a sys-
 tem of phy>ic  that should comprehend  the whole of the
 facts relating to the science;  and that will, I hope, arrange
 them in better order than has been done heretofore.   The
 affections of the motions and moving powers of  the animal
 economy, must certainly be the leading inquiry, in consider--
 ing the diseases of the human body.   I have assumed, says
 Cullen,  the  general principle  of Hoffman, and  I have
 avoided introducing the many hypothetical  speculations of
 fhe  humoral  pathology,  which have disfigured both  bis,
 and all the other systems which  have hitherto  prevailed.
 There is within us, says the doctor, a strange mixture of the
 material a.id  immaterial part,  evinced by their operations;
 and these are liable to very  great irregularities.  Hence,
 the laws of the nervous system are not even tolerably as-
 certained.  We speak obscurely of it; and shelter our-
 selves under  the general term of sympathy, spasm,  &c.
 which are used with as little precision now, as malignity and
 lentor were employed  of old.
   Van Helmont was the  first who attended  to the nervous
 system, and advanced the  doctrine of  the  Archseus, as the
proximate cause of disease.   Several had  been advancing
the science of the nerves, but he says Dr. Whytt had done
more than all  the rest.  He considered the  subject as still
far from being exhausted, and of the highest consequence
to explain the condition of the body, in sickness or health.
We suppose, says the doctor, that in the phenomena of the. 
18
nervous system, there is a series < f threeconditions:  1st, an
impression  made on the organ 01 sense, or sentient j>art;
2d, in consequence of this, there is a pen eplion created in
the common origin of  sense.sensorium commune; 3d,tlerc
is a motion or contraction excited  in  i\w moving  fibres,
which depend upon the nerves.  We call  these from Gau-
mus,  impression,  perception, irritation.   All phenomena
are comprehended under these thn e.  Of these three condi-
tions, the intermediate link is perception, and on it the other
two depend.   This link, perception, is the  foundation of all
our internal operations; being derived  from the immaterial
power within us, and connected with our material part.
  Tnis immaler'ud power may be left out in medicine; for if
cutact n ' ecess. iiy follows pe ception, and perception
as necessarily follows impression, we have no more occasion
to take notice of itas a sentient principle,  than  if it were a
mechanical cause.  The doctor, howf ver, shews that impres-
sion may excite irritation, and often does without  the in-
tervention of perception; and shows the absurdity  of Stahl
and his followers, by asserting that the soul is conscious  of
every impression.  There are, says the dortor,  a variety  of
impressions, which are not at all attended to by  perception-
or if  we perceive, it is the effects, and not  the  impressions
them-elves.   As to perception,it always depends on impres-
sion; so that the old saying is very true—'-'■nil  in  intefleclu
quod non jicil prius in sensuJ"  These impressions are  vari-
ed by the sensorium commune, or origin of the  nerves. Irrita.
tion depends constantly on perception or impression.
   This system so carefully arranged, and the investigation
 of the nervous system  conducted and investigated  by  him
 with a success which has no parallel,  has nevertheless  been
 denounced uncertain, incomprehensible, and  disasterous.
 He has been charged with overlooking, or but slightly glan-
 cing, at the pathology of the bloodvessels, in his concentrat-
 ed views of the nervous system.  And by adopting the no. 
49
sology of Sauvages^innjEus,and VoGEL,he has, unfortunate-
ly, led physicians, says Dr. Rush, to prescribe for the names
of diseases, instead of their proximate cause.
  It is sufficient to jar the foundations of the firmest confi-
dence in medical skill, to find the professors of that science,
but rising, as it were, to overthrow each other, to show that
a false pathology, or a corrupt practice, had pervaded the
system from the origin of the science.  It is, indeed, melan-
choly to reflect, that the industry and labor of man, should
be thus buried and forgotten with his bones.
       m
                 toe to age, Si.
             accumulation of fat
   ,. ^uiciplcs, I apprehend, will no>
   argument.  Other sciences, as  well
een changed  often; but it was professed). 
         cess
       ced uncertain,
    .ias been charged with
  ng, at the pathology of the blood v
ed views of the nervous system.  Anu 
LECTURE  IV.
     THE THEORIES OF DRS. BROWN, RUSH, AND
                       THOMSON.

   It was observed by the ancients, as an argument for the
 duration of the soul, that this state did not appear to be
 the final residence of any portion of its inhabitants: That
 all nature was in progressive motion; evidently hastening
 forward to some far distant  centre, where it should attain
 the  perfection of its being,  and the consummation of that
 excellence for which the Deity had designed it.
   If we apply this argument to the progress and revolutions
 of medicine, we may anticipate, with joyful hearts, that
 that the perfection of its science is nigh at hand.  In tracing
 its history, we  find  that almost every new professor comes
 forward with his new theory; and his proscription of his pre-
 decessors.   Those incessant revolutions must ultimately ter-
 minate: And we most ardently hope, that end, may be per-
 fect  knowledge, in the full completion of the system; that
 simplicity and success, a fixed and permanent mode of prac-
 tice, may be universally  adopted; and the wavering and
 contending systems be banished from the earth.
   I know it has  been  said, in  defence  of this perpetual
change, that every science, around which new facts are daily
accumulating, requires, from time to time, an entire reform
and renovation. But that this  reform and  renewal of the
 whole system of medicine, from age to age, should be  ac-
counted for, merely  by the "accumulation  of facts,1' and
not the perversity ot principles, I apprehend, will not bear
the test of  sound argument.  Other  sciences, as  well as
medicine, have been changed often; but it was  professedly 
53
because their former principles were false, and not derived
from fact-;,  from  experience, and observation; and not on
account of  the accumulation of facts, which only  serve to
confirm right principles.
  The  symptoms of malignant and inflammatory fevers,
appear to be the same  now, that they were in the days of
Hippocrates; and yet how various has been the treatment
since that time.
  There must be first principles in medicine as well as in
philosophy, which are invariable and incontestible; which,
like the stars of the  firmament, in guiding the mariner,  will
conduct the physician, with assured aim, through the deep
ocean of human troubles.
  When learning revived, the physicians of Europe  em-
ployed themselves in  reviving the system of Galen  and
Hippocrates.  During the course of the sixteenth century,
the study of the physicians was almost solely employed in
explaining and confirming that system.  Early in the same
century, the noted Paracelsus had  laid the foundation of a
chimical system, which was in direct opposition to that of
Galen.   This system  finally prevailed over the Galenists.
But though thus opposed and contending, the explanations
of both, of  the phenomena of health and sickness, turned
so entirely  on the state of the fluids of the body, that a
humoral  and chimical pathology prevailed, sometimes toge"
ther, and sometimes apart, down to the end of the seven-
teenth century; and even to the end of the  eighteenth,  had
a great share and influence on the  practice of medicine.
  In the beginning of the eighteenth century, Stahl, Hoff-
man, and Boerhaave, produced three new and different os-
teins of physic, and mixed up their doctrines of spasm, of
morbid acrimonies, of vis natures conscrvatri c, with the humoral
pathology of Riverius, and the chimical affinities and repul-
sions of Paracelsus.  But the Aulocrateia, says Dr. Cullen.
obtained and admitted, in some shape or other, by every sect. 
53
had  corrupted the practice of all physicians, from Hippo-
crates to Stahl.  This is a sweeping sentence, pronounced
upon the anima medica, by the good doctor of Edinburgh.
And his  own  JVosology has received one more severe and
■decisive from the pen of Rush.
   "Sic transit gloria mundi!^ is forced upon  us, as we pass
along this boisterous stream of conflicting pathology.  And
where, alas,shall we find rest! on what  rock shall our feet
settle! where shall the lovely,  fleeting  form  of happiness
be found!   Some of the latter philosophers of Greece, har-
dened and confounded by the disputes of the schools, took
refuge in a universal scepticism.   But let us not, my friends,
despair amidst the glooms of the thickening tempest.  The
day will dawn and brighten, the storm shall pass away, and
the bright sun of healing splendor, shine upon the world.
   From the simple solids, in their state of rigidity or laxity,
as a doctrine accounting for health or disease, by Dr. Boer-
haave,  Dr. Ccllen passes off to the solidum vivum; and
expresses his confidence, that he had seized on a clue  of in-
vestigation, in laying hold of the motions and moving powers
of the animal economy',  more certain to  detect the causes
and phenomena of disease,  than ever had been before dis-
covered; for, although Hoffman had  dipt into this funda-
mental spring of the science, he  had also polluted it  with
his mixture of the humoral pathology.
   The value of Dr. Cullen's researches, we  will soon per-
ceive, in  the investigations of Brown;  and  Dr. Thomson
himself, was never more puzzled and confounded  when he
had to contend alone with the whole faculty, than Dr. Brown
appears to have been, in throwing off the entanglements of
Cullen's system.  He studied under Cullen; he lived in
his family;  and  he  lectured  on his system.  But I  shall
give the history of his scientific progress, in his own words.
t'The author, says Brown in the preface  to his works,—the
author of this  work  has spent  more than twenty  years in
       [5*] 
                              54

    learning, teaching, and scrutinizing every part of medicine
    The first five years passed away in hearing others,'in study-
    ing what 1 had heard and implicitly  believing it, and enter-
    ing upon the possession,as a rich and valuable inheritance.
    The next five years I was employed in explaining the seve-
    ral particulars, in refining them, and bestowing on th.em a
    nic r polish.  During the five succeeding years, nothing
    having prospered according to my satisfaction. I grew indif-
    ferent  to the subject; and, with many eminent  men, and
    even the very vulgar, began to deplore the healing art, as
I    altogether uncertain and incomprehensible.'*''  Vou have here,
    my friends, the decision of this original mind, on the imper-
    fection of a system that had been progressing for four thou-
    sand years.   ••All this time passed away, says Dr. Brown,
    without the acquisition of any advantage; and without that,
    which of all things, is the most agreeable to the mind, the
    light of truth: and so great and piecious a  portion of the
    short and perishable life of man was totally lost!  Here I
    was, at this period, in the situation of a traveller in an un-
    known  country, who, after losing every trace of his way,
    wanders in the shades of night.  Nor was it until between
    the fifteenth and twentieth years of  my studies, that a faint
    gleam of light broke in upon my soul."'
       Dr. Brown then proceeds to detail the cause of this new
    beam of light which broke in upon him.   He had an attack
    of the  gout, in the thirty-sixth year of his age; his mode of
    living had been  generous until the  six months previous to
    his fit of the gout, during which time he had  used the most
    sparing diet. The disease spent its  force in six weeks, and
    did not return until after an interval of six years, and an
    abstemious diet of six months.
       The  theory of the physicians was,  that the  gout  was
    caused  by  plethora and excessive vigor. Vegetable ali-
    ment was enjoined as the only mode of cure.   The ration-
    ale fronrthe cure to the proximate cause, was certain; but 
                          55

Brown discovered that the error lay in the proximate cause,
and ef course must defeat the remedy.  For during a whole
year of strict adherence to the prescribed  regimen, he suf-
fered four severe attacks.  In short, he says, the whole year,
except fourteen day s, was spent between limping and excru-
ciating  pain.  Upon this experience, and these  facts, he
constructed his new theory.   Why, when he lived well was
he exempted  from  the disease, and  when dieting himself
was he attacked  in a manner so formidable  and unrelent-
ing?  The solution of these questions opened his eyes, and
led him forward to an inquiry more comprehensive.  What
is the effect of food, drink, and the aliment which support
life?  They produce strength.  What is their effect after-
wards?   Always less and less.  What is it towards the end
of life?   So far from giving strength, they prove weakening.
And finally, the very powers which support life at first, prove
its destruction at  last; but  generally through the interven-
tion of disease.
   From this process of  reasoning, he perceived  that his
disease  was occasioned by a deficiency, and  not a redun-
dancy of blood;  that debility was the cause of his disor-
der, and the remedy must be sought in  a sustaining and
stimulating diet-—this he  called direct debility.  Such was
the success of this new practice, that for two years he had
only a very slight attack; and this soon yielded to increased
stimuli.  He computed  from these data, that the disease
was alleviated in the proportion of forty-eight to  one.   A
young gentleman living with the doctor at the same time,
and suffering  under asthma, in  consequence of the  same
treatment, had only one fit in two  years, instead of one
every day, while  he  pursued the common  practice.   This
mode of practice he found successful, in the putrid  and gan-
grenous sore throat, in  rheumatalgia, inflammation of the
joints, and all chronic rheumatism,  a-^d^the inflammatjpn
which attacks the brain after typhus fevers; dispepsia, eon- 
56
vulsions. and the diseases of children.   All these, yielding
to the stimulating medicine, he concluded they were  as-
thenic.   For seven years he was  able to  repel the fits of
the gout by this mode of practice.
  Led by the hand of nature, the doctor says,  he walked
round the whole circle of asthenic  diseases, and found that
th« y were all cured by the same remedy, stimulants.
 With regard to sthenic diseases, the cause and cure of which
he says,nobody understood, all their symptoms were mista-
ken and the  practice wrong.   I will, once for all, explain
these terms of  the Brunonian syst< m.
  Sthenic diathesis—diseased  habit of body, occasioned by
excess of stimuli; called indirect  debility—oppressed state
of the system.
  Asthenic diathesis—diseased habit of body, occasioned by
a deficiency  of stimuli;  called direct debility—exhausted
state of the system.
  The former was to be removed by depletion;  the  latter by
repletion.  The Egyptians,  in the corn country, purged and
vomited themselves every month,  three  days in succession,
notwithstanding they were the healthiest people in the
wor'd.
  Dr. Brown reduced all general  or  universal diseases  to
these two forms,sthenic and asthenic; enlarged his plan; ac-
counted for the  symptoms, and reduced  the whole to a cer-
tain  principle.   An  universal  disease,  he says,  proceeds
from an affection of the principle of life—but a local disease
from local injury.   These three states,health, disease and pre.
dispositiem,  constituted the  life, or living state of animals*
From thus ascribing all diseases to excess or  deficiency, he di-
rected his remedies to the reverse  states of the  body ; and
shewed that the noxious powers which excited either, were
the remedies of the other.   He laid down the  sam:  doc-
trine in regard to plant-; and finally demanded, whether the
medical art, hitherto conjectural^ incoherent, and in the great 
57
body of its  doctrines, false,  was not at last, reduced  to a
science of demonstration, which  might be  called the sci-
ence of life? A question which has been answered in the
affirmative, says his biographer, by every one who has been
at due pains to understand the doctrine.

                  BROWN'S THEORY.

   1st, To every animate being is allotted a certain portion
of the principle on which the  phenomena  of life depend;
This piinciple is denominated Excitability.
   2d,  The exciting powers are the external and internal stim-
uli.   The former are heat, food, wine,  poisons, contagions.-
The latter, the functions of the body itself—•contractibility,
thought, emotion and passion.
   3d, Excitement is the effect produced by the action of the
exciting powers on excitability.
   4th, Life  is a forced state; if the exciting powers are
withdrawn, death ensues, as certainly as if the excitability
was gone.
   5th, By too great excitement, weakness  is produced, be-
cause the excitability becomes defective.   This is indirect
debility.   When the exciting powers are withheld, weakness
is also induced, and this is direct debility.   Here the  excit-
ability is in excess.  Ergo, when the excitability is defective
 it produces indirect debility; but when the excitability is in
excess, it then produces direct debility.
   Gth, Every power that acts on the living frame, is a stim-
 ulant.
   7th, Excitability is seated in the medullary portion of the
 nerves, and in the muscles.
   Dr. Christie has illustrated this theory of Dr. Brown, by
 a familiar similitude.   Suppose a fire to be made in a grate
 tilled with  fuel, not very combustible, and a machine placed
 before it, containing several tubes pouring  constant streams
 of fresh air  upon it.   Suppose another pipe, fixed at the 
58
back of the grate, through which a constant supply of fresh
fuel was poured into it, to supply the waste, occasioned by the
flame.
   The grate is the human frame; the fuel in it, the matter
or principle of life—the excitability of Dr.  Brown, and the
censorial power of Dr. Darwin.  The pipe behind the grate
pouring in luel, is the power of the living system to regen-
erate itself, or reproduce excitability; the air machine with
several tubes,is the various stimuli, acting on the body; and
the flame is the phenomenon of life!
  Thus the  curious and comprehensive system of  Dr.
Brown, is summed up briefly in  this plain  similitude; to
which is added this further illustration:  As life is a forced
state, according to the doctor, it is said, where one tube of
the machine pours in pure air—this signifies  the highest de-
gree of stimulants; when common atmospheric air, the com-
mon stimulants of food, drink, &c;  and when impure  air,
it indicates the sedative powers, as  poisons, putrefactions,
marsh miasmata, foul air, stagnant water, &c.   From these
few examples, it will be easy to comprehend  Brown's theo-
ry.   The  more a spark is blown, the brighter it burns,  and
the sooner it is spent.   This sage saying, exemplifies what
is remarked by Dr. Brown, when he affirms, that the stim-
ulating powers support life, and at the same time consume
it, because they waste the  excitability;  therefore, the ne-
cessity of sleep, when all the exciting powers are withdrawn,
to give the living principle  time  to accumulate its excita-
bility.
  In a very few years, notwithstanding the opposition made
to Brown's theory, it  spread with rapidity over  England,
France, Italy,Germany, Holland and America.  Even those
who rejected  his doctrine, were nevertheless influenced and
benefited  by bis practice.  It has been so with Dr. Thom-
son: The vapour bath  was a poor attempt to devise a sub-
stitute for his method of steaming. 
59
   When Lavoisier first announced his system, the Chimists,
 who were the most scandalized by it,fbund tiiemselvesobliged
 to revise their whole congeries of facts and deductions. The
 immediate consequence was, an entire change in their opin-
 ions.   They were  forced to shift their foundations; and
 though they disdained to go over to  Lavoisier, they could
 no longer adhere to Stahl.  They were obliged to abandon
 half their errors; and no doubt, a thorough lustration  in
 medicine will be forced upon the faculty, by the curious dis-
 coveries of  these latter years.

                DR. RUSH'S THEORY.

   With Brown, he affirmed, 1st, Life to be a forced state.
   2d, Life, as applied to the human body, included  motion,
 heat,sensation, ami thought; these  four, when united, com-
 pose perfect life.
   3d,  Every part of the human body, nails and  hair except:
 ed, is endowed with sensibility and excitability.  Sensibility
 means, the power of having sensation excited by the action
 of impressions;  excitability, the power of having motion ex-
 cited  by means of impressions.
   4th, The human body is so formed, that if impressions be
 made upon it, in its healthy state, in one part, it will excite
 s°nsation, or motion,  or  both,  in every other part; hence,
 the body is a unit—ergo, disease is a unit.
   5th, Life is the effect of stimuli acting on the  excitabili-
 ty and sensibility, which are extended in different degrees
 over every part  of the bodyr.
   Dr. Rush agrees  with Dr.  Brown,  that  life is a forced
state, and the effect of stimuli.  He divides fhese the same
as BROwN,into external and internal.  But for the matter or
 principle of life itself, he adds sensibility to Brown's exci-
tability.   He will not admit, with Brown, that debility is
disease, but  only a predisposing cause of disease.
  Disease consists in morbid excitement, and the cure of dis-
 eases consists in restoring the equal diffusion of excitement 
b"0
over the whole body.   He blames Cullen tor inducing his
students, by his nosology, to prescribe for the names of dis-
eases,  instead of their proximate  causes; and Brown, he
affirms to be equally faulty, for reducing them nearly to one
class, and  accommodating  his prescriptions  to the reverse
states of the body, or to that which constitutes their proxi-
mate cause.
  Air, by exciting respiration, gave the first impulse of life.
When  man was formed, God  breathed into him the breath
of life—that is, says the  doctor, atmospheric air—dilating
his nostrils, inflating his lungs, and thus excited in him the
whole  phenomena of animal, intellectual, and  spiritual life!
And hence, life is the effect of  stimuli acting on an organized
body.
                DR.  THOMSON'S THEORY.
  All  bodies  are  composed  of the four elements—Earth,
Air, Fire, and Water.  Earth and water constitute the solids,
and  air and fire, the fluids, of the body.  The healthy ttate
consists in the  proper balance and distribution of these  four
elements, and disease by their disarrangement.  All disease
is caused by obstruction; the mode of cure  is to remeve it
by diffusing heat over the system—for heat  is life, and cold
is death.   All disease is the effect of one general cause, and
therefore  requires a general  remedy.   Whatever supports
the internal heat, and directs the determining powers to the
surface, will expel the disease, and save the patient.
   Through the long experience of thirty years, Dr. Thom-
son thinks he has discovered those  medicines and that mode
of practice, which will  accomplish this object.  ' He has
tried them on the  most hopeless cases, and still found them
effectual.  Indeed, such was the  nature of his trials and
difficulties, that he was only  called in to the aid of the pa-
tient,  when given  over to death  by the other physicians.
The progress of his skill was, therefore, testedhy a succession
of the most desperate and deadly maladies. 
61
  if it be objected to  his system, that the four elements
composing the human body, are not a correct enumeration of
primary substances, I reply, that it is the most simple, obvi-
ous and ancient distribution of  the  primary elements.   It
was Aristotle's division, and that of many other celebrated
philosophers.   Indeed, it is not  long since the physiologists
and chimists began to  add to the number of primary ele-
ments.  From seven, to nine, and forty-six, they have sum-
med  up the number at  different times; but they are  not
now sure whether this last number should be enlarged or
diminished.  Indeed,  they confess  that the real, simple,
.elemcntaiy principles  of matter,  will never be discovered.
The  natural division of Thomson,  made  in times of old,
answers  all the purpose of his  system, and the operations
of  his healing skill.
   The assertion, that heat is life, is, at least, equally as philo-
sophical as the affirmation of Dr. Rush, that motion, he f,
sensation, thought, when united,  compose perfect life.  His
cause of disease being ascribed  to  obstruction, seems to
amount to  the  same  as Dr. Rush's morbid  excitement;
and that cold is death, is about equal  to the extinguished
excitability of Dr. Brown.
   The conclusion of the whole matter, is, that Dr. Brown
perceived, that the  system* of  medicine  were too compli-
cated, and  therefore, uncertain and false  in many of their
principles.   He, by a close  attention to facts in his own
case, discovered a method of curing disease, at once simple
and comprehensive, extending to  all cases.  Dr. Rush  un-
derstood well, the value of this  new  mode of reasonings
and though he has  added  sensibility to the system, he has
not much improved  it.  Brown is more philosophical than
Rush; for he  gives the principle  of  life  merely a name,
which serves his purpose—Excileibility—without pretending
to  say what it is—whether a substance, or quality of sub-
stance. He says it is a somewhat,  which he cannot pretend 
G2
to explain.  And this is surely better than to make life the
mere effect of the united action of organization and stimuli.
   Dr. Thomson might only intend, like Dr. Brown, to ex-
press by the phrase, heat is  life, the unknown somewhat,
which  he could not describe; and, that cold  is death, he
might only mean an effect of death.   Cold, is generally con-
sidered a negative term, to  express the absence of heat.
Dr. Ray says, it is the  effect of a condensed or cold ether,
from which, heat has been expelled.  Plato calls it « fluid
of gioss particles, which presses upon and stops the pores of
bodies, excluding heat. Life is a metaphysical subject, and
cannot  be investigated by the laws  of physics.   This pre-
posterous mode of reasoning has led to all the absurdities
uttered on this sublime theme.
   Dr. Thomson in calling heat life, has more philosophy on
his side than people  imagine, or than even  he himself is
aware of.  Light, heat, and fire, are only the same substance,
in different states or  conditions, and acting in a different
manner.  They are all signified by the same word in  He-
brew and Greek, and also in  the Latin.   •'Some of the An-
cients affirmed, that light  gave organization, sensation, and
thought, to the primative  chaos, and is the pabulum of all
living things.   It is the purest, brightest and most beautifu)
of all that we behold, of the works of the Creator."  Plato,
in Timaeus, asserts that fire and heat beget and govern all
things.   He accounts  for the animal functions, from air and
fire joined, acting through the whole body; fire expanding
within, and air compressing without.  The Abbe le Pluche
says, there are  but three  fluids, which, by their continual
activity, cause all motion—these are fire, light, air; and they
are the  breath of life! These active agents the Heathen
held to be intelligent,  and the gods that govern the world.
Fire and air, they called the active moving  powers, and
earth and water the passive elements. 
63
   These opinions correspond with Dr. Thomson, who thinks
with them, that the  circulation of the blood is caused  by
the expanding power of heat within, and the compression of
air without.  The activity he has assigned to them agrees
with the most reputed systems of ancient  philosophy.  An
egg cannot hatch, says Dr.  Ray, without air and heat.-^
They have absolute dominion over all things.  The circu-
lation of the blood is from internal he.it,  and the external
air pressing into the  lungs, they  serve as  a pump to draw
the blood from  the heart, and the air keeps this pump in
motion.  The air  is to the body, what the weight is to a
clock, and the heart widi its  valves, as a pendulum to regu-
late its motions.
   We now perceive, from these few examples of ancient and
modern opinions—and they  might be greatly enlarged—
that Dr. Thomson has not given too  much  importance to
heat and air, in  his theory; or if he has erred, it is in great
society, and with long established maxims of profound rea-
son, and  careful observation.
   Dr.  Thomson says, food and  medicine are in  harmony
with each other; they grow in the same field, and are gath-
ered by  the  same people.  Dr. Ray remarks, we derive
our food from the surface of the earth, and it also contains
our principal medicine.
   In accordance with the sentiments of the philosopher,
on the beneficial results of misfortune, Dr. Thomson  was
forced into his career of medicine, and pressed forward  till
triumph crowned his struggles, and wealth rcpayed his toil;
from the vale of obscurity he has risen to take his rank with
the benefactors of the world. 
 
LECTURE  V.
    MEDICINE, AS IT IS TAUGHT IN THE SCHOOLS.

   We must survey the whole  extent of a science, in order
fo understand the value  and  relation of its integral parts.
When we know the extent of an evil, we are more resigned
to our lot, than while the subject remains doubtful.  The
mind winds up her powers  to the contest or the endurance,
and  displays an extent of energy and resolution, which the
man, before, never even dreamt that he  possessed.  And
so it is with science; when we  have surveyed its  outline
and mighty range, we  are  then prepared to meet its most
threatening aspect, and grapple with its formidable strength.
There is a fortitude of soul, distinct from that physical for-
titude which braced the  Nemean Lion's nerve; and I am
persuaded that it is from lack of the former, that many men
are deterred  from encountering  the difficulties of science,
and facing that imposing front, that would soften into a placid
smile before the energy of  perseverance.  I have known a
boy to weep, and abandon school forever, because he could
not solve  a single problem; though formerly he had been
considered one of the smartest in his class.
   I shall now hasten to give you a brief view of the several
parts of medical science, as it is taught in the schools, and
embraced by the literati  of that profession.
  The Institutes of Medicine are divided into physiology, pa-
thology, and therapeutics.
   1st, Physiology comprehends the  laws and functions of
the human body, in its  healthy state.
   2d, Pathology describes  the remote, predisposing, exciting^.
and proximate causes of disease.
       [6*] 
                          66
   od, Therapeutics contain an account of the  nature and
operation of medicines, in  the cure of disease.   To these
divisions we may add—
   4th, The Clinical Lectures; which comprehend the me-
thod of visiting and examining sick people, and the know-
ledge to be derived from attending the bed of sickness.   A
register kept of the  diseases and remedies of Clinical pa-
tients, forms an item in this part of the study.
   I. Chimistry.—The  analyzing of substances, to discover
their nature and composition.
   II.  Materia  Medica.—This  study comprises  the whole
volume and extent of  the number, name, nature and use of
medicines—mineral, vegetable and animal.
   III. Pharmacy.—To know the  aspect and admixture, and
chimical qualities of  the various  medicines, the student
must apply to the Apothecary's Art;  or study under a prac-
tising physician, who prepares his own medicines.
   IV. Botany.—The science of the vegetable kingdom;
which is the foundation of one part of the materia medica-
To know the class, and family, and name of  plants, and
their medical virtues, is of  high importance.
   V.  JValural History, is another part of the science, inti-
mately connected with the former,  and affording so many
facts  and  illustrations,  that no eminent physician  will
neglect to acquire it.   It is delightful to the intellect, and
useful in the department of medicine.
   VI. Anatomy,  which is  the science  of organization as
physiology is the  science of Life; and  is the foundation of
Surgery,  and the most important item in the pathological
department—must be carefully studied..
   VII. Surgery, which is the practical part of Anatomy,
requires  great attention; a firm hand, a fixed eye, and deter-
mined soul,are absolutely necessary in the manual operations
of surgery.   For want of these, I saw a patient perish, under
the hands of one  of the most skilful surgeons.   His nerves
trembled, his hand shook, and he was forced to desist in the 
61
midst of his operation.   The operation was upon the wind-
pipe, to extract a substance that had entered.   The patient
expired.  And when we add to all these, the science of
  VIII. Obstetrics, you will perceive that the medical pro-
fession commands a most extensive and boundless field.   JNo
idler can be, or ought to be, admitted in this laborious vine-
yard.  For it  is no matter, in the language of Dr. Rlsh,
whether acting under the cover of a diploma, or the pomp-
ous folly of an advertisement—if they are idle, they  are
equally empirics, and arc only calculated for incomparable
mischief!
  A few remarks on these different parts of medicine, shair
close this lecture.
  The investigations of physic are not only peculiarly inter-
esting to  the physician,  but they are eminently  so to all
mankind.   For an acquaintance with the nature of  human
life and health, and  their various states and  affections, is
undoubtedly of greater moment and importance to us all,
than any other natural subject.   The religion of the bible is
supernatural.   For, although by this knowledge, men  may
not become adepts in the art of healing, they may yet guard
and defend themselves from much misery and disease.
  There is, in all  living animals, a principle, the effects of
which are very visible and obvious to all men.   During its
presence there is ///e—-in its absence, death.  This we deno-
minate vitality, or  the living principle.  It is infused by the
Supreme Being, and is the work of his hands.
                  He is the Father of Spirits.
It is neither the dura mater of Baglivi ; nor the Medulla of
Haller; nor the nervous fluid of Hoffman; nor the censo
rium of  Darwin;  nor the  excitability of Brown; nor the
excitability and  sensibility,  and stimtdi, of  Rush; no!  nor
the heat of Thomson; but the living spirit  which is made
and implanted  in the breast by the Almighty.  All these
that I have enumerated, and ten times as many morer that I 
68
might enumerate, are the mere effects of the vital principle,
which  have  been so  egregiously mistaken  for the principle
itself.   It is very  easy to  distinguish a living dog from  a
dead lion.   The most stupid can perceive this.   And yet
the  most learned cannot explain the intimate nature of that
living principle, which has  forsaken  the one, and animates
the other.
   But  although we are equally ignorant of the principle of
life, as we are of the principle of gravity, yet their effects are
abundantly obvious to reason and experience.   And when
we have collected and digested the various modes and ope-
rations and  phenomena, which life exhibits, under all the
aspects of health and  disease, by careful observation, expe-
rience  and reason, the sum total may  be called the philoso-
phy of life.
   Animal life, as it operates on the human body in  health
and in  disease, has been considered the primary and grand
object  of the attention of the physician.  And some of its
most obvious properties are sensibility, irritability, and ex-
citability.  These are the effects of vitality, which have been
mistaken for vitality itself.
   Some  physicians have supposed that the vital principle
may lie dormant in a quiescent  state, like latent heat, and
afterwards be made to shew itself, like heat, by the applica-
tion of stimuli.   But the reasoning is fallacious; it is merely
analogical—drawn from a  material subject, heat,  to prove
the phenomena of an immaterial subject—the spirit of life.
It would be better reason, to attempt to prove that the spirit
is latent, when the body is dead, because we cannot perceive
its effects, than to attempt  to establish  from  latent  heat,  a
Jatent state of mind.   For if in fainting, or catalepsy, it can
be  established that th« spirit is merely latent—it may as
well be latent in the grave to the day of judgment:  for in
the  argument  respecting an  immaterial substance,  whose
very essential quality is activity—and without wlriek it could 
69
 not  be—the  latency of one  hour, or  one hundred  thousand'
millions, could not at all change the conditions of the ques-
tion ; nor relieve the disputant from the direful consequences
of making the soul a material substance.
  I know some physicians distinguish between the rational
soul and the vital principle of animal  life.   But the distinc-
tion is, perhaps, not clearly  understood.  There is in  ani-
mals something far superior to  mere  vitality.   A plant has
vitality—its life and death.   And Dr.  Brown's theory  was
applied, with great success,  to plants, and  supported them
with  superior energy and  vigor, in  the high latitudes of
Scotland!   But in  animals,  besides  vitality, we perceive
thought, reason, memory, design, and perseverance, with a great
number  of the noble passions  which animate man—love,
gratitude, affection, friendship, grief and bitter woe, even to  the
destruction of life.
  A very eminent and pious philosopher, considered these
phenomena, as the operation and agency of God, moving
and directing his own universe to the final issue and grand
results of the eternal Judgment,  This, by the way, is a ve-
ry old opinion, and has been beautifully embodied by  the
poet, in  these celebrated lines:
        "AH are but parts of one stupendous whole,
        Whose body, nature is, and God the soul;
        That, chang'd through all, and yet in all the same,
        Great in the earth as in the etherial frame;
        Lives in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
        Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees;
        Lives through all life, extends through all extent.
        Spreads undivided, operates unspent;
        Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
        As full, as perfect, m a hair as  heart;
        As  full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns.
        As  the rapt seraph that adores and burns.
        To him no high, no low, no great,  no small;
        He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all !"*
   This is  not the doctrine  of  Spinoza, who made God the
 soul of the world; but the pious doctrine of a universal prov 
                          70

idence, and the omnipresence  of the Deity in the govern-
ment of the world.   Look  at the smallest plant or insect.
you behold him there,in his matchless wisdom and sustain-
ing power—forming the mechanism and moving the vitality
of a creature so small and  inconsiderable, and apparently
worthless in the great sum of things.   The Psalmist took a
most striking and comprehensive view of this sublime and
glorious theme.  ••Whither  shall I  go from thy  spirit?  Or
whither shall I flee from thy presence?  If 1 ascend up into
heaven, thou art there! If I make  my bed in hell, behold
thou art  there!! If I take the  wings of the morning, and
dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy
hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.   If I say
surely the darkness shall cover me,  even the night shall be
light round about me!''
   This was the tiue sentiment and doctrine of the ancient
philosophers—the presence and superintendence of the Dei-
ty every where.   They were not  Atheists—although the
miserable Spinoza wrested  their doctrine  to his own malig-
nant and deadly purpose.   But he might well do that, when
he turned the  Jewish  Scripture to the  same account—for
he was a Jew, and deeply read in the old  testament.  But
the wasp  can  extract  poison from the flower:  So did  his
perverted soul draw death from the  wells of salvation!
   As the doctrine of life and health cannot be known by rea-
soning a priori; but must be deduced from experience and
observation, some very eminent men have  thought that it*
laws and  principles should be divided in  a  different manner
from that of the scholastic mode: That so many divisions of
the theory  of life and disease,  which have prevailed since
the days of Galen,  have not only embarrassed  but  bewilder-
ed the subject; and  that the laws and principles,  there-
fore, should be divided in a different manner—1st, that the
human blood is the recipient and vehicle of heat and  life to
the several parts; 2d, from many experiments, pure air an 
71
jfears to be the pabulum of irritabiluy; for the absence »f
pure air destroys life sooner than the defect  of any other
natural substance; 3d, the next in importance to the animal
economy, seems  to be the nervous fluid, or the  medulla of
the brain  and spinal marrow;  for they  have all the same
nature  and origin; 4th, sensibility,  residing in the organ of
sense, connecting the mind with the external world.
   The term Physianthropy, has been devised for the purpose
 of expressing, in one word, the healthy, the morbid, and the
curative nature of the vital actions.
   Pathology has been also subdivided into Semiology, or the
doctrine of symptoms; and JVosology for the names and divi-
sion of diseases into their genera and species: A most tedi-
ous and terrible array, for the  head of the poor disciple of
Esculapius.  Dr. Rush  has here, great merit in banishing
nosology from the walks of medicine.   You have only to im-
 agine the dilemma of the practitioner, looking, in silence, on
, his suffering patient, until the disease would develope itself
that he  might understand its nature;  fir this was necessary
before he could prescribe.  Dr. Rush laid, at once, his fin-
ger on the  pu!se,anddirected,without delay, depletion or stim-
uli.  This shorthand  sudden process, gave  opportunity of
routing the enemy, (as the doctor used to say,) before he had
time to entrench himself in the human vitals!
   Therapeutics do very  well to express the curative indica*
tions.  But it has been often suggested, that the above terms
have been considered  too much  as separate  subjects of
pursuit, and independent of each other; and are used often
without due consideration, in the antiquated and scholastic
manner.
   AH these, Pathology, Semiology, JVosology, Therapeutics, de-
pend on Physiology—as it depends  on Anatomy.  For no
principle, or mode of action of the human body, in health or
in disease, can be either learned or understood, without afl
accurate acquaintance with physiology. 
72
  Medicines, says Dr. Hoffmw,contain no inherent princi-
ples of action in themselves.  They do not acton the dead bo-
dy, said Hippocrates, and thciraction on the  living body de-
pends on the state in which they fi d it; whether torpid or
irritable, strong or weak, and  it is the same with all parts of
regimen, food, drink, air, exercise or any other.
  This is sound philosophy, an J has been illustrated  by  Tr.
Cullen, on sensibility and irritability.   Sensibility, when  of-
ten excited, becomes dull and  loses its force—thus, a do.-e of
opium, if continued a  few days, must be increased, or it will
have no effect: On the contrary, irritability augments by be-
ing excited—if an emetic be  repeated for several days, the
dose must be diminished; the irritation of the stomach will
not bear the original quantity.  It must be diminished daily.
  Medicinal substances may be understood perfectly in their
ahimical  properties, as they are by some apothecaries, and
yet we may be perfectly ignorant of them in their physical
operations on the human body.  This distinction will show
that  Dr. Thomson, without a  knowledge of chimistry or bot-
any, may know the physical operation of his medicines, bet-
ter than the most profound chimist.   For this  knowledge
must be learned by experience, and not in the dust, and toil,
and  retirement of the schools.  Hippocrates has given us
the clue; medicines affect  the body  according to the state
in which they find it.  The state or condition of the body*
and  the operation of the medicine on that state, we com-
monly learn, as Thomson learned it, by experience.
   Dr. Brown, by reducing all diseases into two classes, sthe-
nic and  asthenic, ascertained, at once, to which class  the
complaint  belonged, on visiting his patient, and proceeded
accordingly to remove the debility.
   Dr. Rush, by  making disease a unit, caused by  morbid
excitement,  and its state or condition to be ascertained  by
the  pulse, would deride with equal facility, on the mode of
eure—equalize  the excitement. 
73
   Dr. Thomson, by making disease the general effect of one
general  cause, obstruction, has fixed  his remedy like the
others.   Remove the obstruction,is his cure: Remove the de-
bility, was Dr. Brown's cure:  Remove the morbid excitement,
was Dr. Rush's cure:  and all by different stimulants.   The
debility was removed by diffusive stimulants: The  morbid ex-
citement, by diffusive stimulants: The obstruction, by diffusive
stimulants.
   These  gentlemen, though they have travelled  on far di-
verging paths, yet, at the end of their journey, they have
met almost  in single point.  They began their career to-
gether about the end of  the last century; and before the
middle of the present, it  is impossible  to say what may be
the estimation in which they shall be held by the world; or
the cures effected by their discoveries.
   I am not one of those who think that wisdom is to be ob-
tained by idleness, or gained by chance; and yet I know that
some of the most valuable discoveries in the world, have been
made in obscurity, and have sprung, as it were, from fortui-
tion—not that I  believe  that there is any thing absolutely
fortuitous—but to humble the  pride of man, who is too apt
to lean on the might of his own arm, and ascribe to himself
the merit of great discoveries.  The Deity concedes them
to the humble and illiterate, while they are  withheld from
the proud aspiring sciolist, or  doctor of the schools.
   Let  those who despise Dr. Thomson and his discoveries,
because he is, or was, poor and unlearned,  remember the
words of him,who knew the heartof man,and has left us an ad-
monition that should sink us into the very dust: "I thank thee
O, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because  thou  hast
hidden those thing from the wise and  prudent, and hath re«
vealed them unto babes." 
 
               LECTURE VI.
         IMPROY ED THEORY OF MEDICINE.

  If wc wanted additional proofs of the necessity of Divine
Revelation, to direct us in the way of truth, we have them
in abundance, in reviewing the different theories of animal
life, suggested by medical writers.   Walking with them, we
have to explore a wilderness, dark and trackless, and inter-
minable as the  terra incognita of ancient days.  But when
we turn to revelation for an account of life, our minds expa-
tiate in a boundless field of heavenly light; survey objects
in the reality and spirit of their being; behold prospects of
truth, and glory, and magnificence, where the mere light of
nature could never penetrate, nor the rays of human wis-
dom shed their radiance.
  I know the mind of man  possesses creative powers and
transcendant faculties, the limits of which, even he himself
has never ascertained.  Yet his utmost art and skill, exerted
with all the ardor and  daring  flight of genius, will  never
enable him to penetrate the mysteries which God has hidden
in himself; and  life is one of them.   But the rays of reve-
lation  have beamed upon it, and shewed us its origin and
end.   It is neither  atmospheric air, nor any other material
thing,  which man can analyze.  The inspired Elihu  has
described it, in language lofty as the  theme.   It is ihe spirit
and  the breath  of  the Almighty.  "For if he gather unto
him  his spirit and his breath, all flesh  would perish  together,
and  man return  to his dust."
  If men of science would give more attention to the study
of the living oracles, they would discover many-truths, find
out many mysteries, which are  unfolded and  displayed on 
                          76

the awful pages of that book, sealed with the seven seals,
which they in  vain endeavored to discover in the volumes
of human wisdom.  Life and immortality arc brought to
light by the gospel.  The  most learned  and v isc of the
ancient  Greeks, bewailed their ignorance and their uncer-
tainty of the nature and condition of a future state of exist-
ence.  No light of nature could pour its blaze through the
dark  impenetrable  glooms of the grave; no light of life,
for them, had ever  irradiated  the horrid mans.ens. of the
dead.  From the cold  repulsive  embraces  of the king of
terrors, nature had no refuge,  and furnished no  remedy.
When we behold a  Darwin laboring to confound  himself,
and his followers, by a hopeless atheism, and sink them to
the rank  of, reptiles, we pause to admire  and to reverence
the wisdom of  those ancient sages, who sighed for immor-
tality, although their hopes were  doubtful,  and their evi-
dence feeble and fluctuating.
  In reference to their anxiety, and their  condition, the
Savior said, as  a reproof to the Jews, "many prophets and
righteous men, have desired to see those things which ye sec,
and have not seen them."   What a sad and solemn reproof,
which applies with  equal force to infidelity, to the present
hour.  For if the investigations of mind, of physiology, and
anatomy, were carried on with that spirit of liberal and sub-
dued  philosophy, which bows the  soul  to the behests of
heaven, how rapid would be the advancement in those pur-
suits; and how different would be the results, from the cur-
rent course of the present achievements  and speculations.
in which professors appear, like the Roman gladiators, on
the arena of combat,only to hew each other down!
  Galen was converted from atheism, by the study of anat-
omy, and wrote a hymn of praise to the Deity, to celebrate
his wisdom and power,  in the admirable  structure of the
human form.   Having observed the exact  distribution of
the nerves to the museles. the arrangements of the face for 
77
expression and beauty, the structure of the bones for strength
and  motion, he exclaims,  "Hcec enim forlunce sunt opera."'
&c.   Galen having  substantially refuted the Epicurean
principles of Asclepiades, by showing his ignorance in anat-
omy and philosophy;  and by demonstrating all the causes
to be evidently in  the works of nature, viz. final, efficient,
instrumental, material, and formal; concludes  thus, against
his fortuitous atoms:  "Ex quibus intelligi potest, conditorem
nostrum  in formaniis particulis unum hunc  scqui scopum,
nempe ut quod melius est eligat."   The skill of that ingenious
and  famed heathen, in his illustration of the mechanism of
the fingers, is most admirable.  The reason which he gives
for the different lengths of the fingers, is, that the tops may
come to  an equality  in  grasping round or spiral objects,
which makes the hold firmer.  "Cum magnas aliqua moles
in circuita comprehendunt et cum in  seipsis humidum velparvum
corpus continere  conanturJ'''—Galen, 1. xi. c. 7. g. 1.  i. 6. c.
13. 1. i.  14.
  It has  been observed, that nature presented one continued
series of composition and decomposition, still going forward
within us, and without us: That all material things are sink-
ing in decay, to rise and reappear  in new and renovated
beauty;  and having reached their acme, descend again into
the dust, to spring once more upon the face of day, in varied
and in endless  progression.  This ceaseless mutation  has
been considered the most formidable obstruction to  a fixed
and  permanent system of medical science.  Dr. Barnwell
remarks, it must be allowed that we are not yet  in  posses-
sion of scientific proofs or analytical demonstrations of me-
dical rules and observations, so that we might re luce them
to first and general principles.   Our indications for ascer-
taining their reality, are not sufficiently established; and,
consequently, have had hitherto only a technical, not a scien-
tific meaning.
       [7*] 
78
    Medicine,  he says,  considered  as an art, is  still in  it-
 infancy—an assertion which no candid and intelligent prac-
 titioner will attempt to contradict—even for the most valua-
 ble therapeutical or dietetic discoveries and improvement*.
 We are more indebted, he continues, to accidental observa-
 tions, and  analogical conjectures, than to an established
 scientific theory.  The modus operandi of nedicines, as well
 as regimen, are so far obscure, that the whole difference
 between the  rational prescriptions and  those which are
 termed specifics, depends upon the application of rule-, by
 which the technical application of the  remedy is, in txcry
 instance, determined.
   Notwithstanding these  defects in medical science, there:
 is a constant and strong desire in the human mind,  to reduce
 all the  phenomena of animal bodies to general principles,
 and to explain from these, by scientific deductions, the most
 suitable technical methods;  not merely in an empirical, but
 a philosophic manner, to vindicate our medical treatment,
 says Dr. Barnwell, a priori, by the genera] laws of nature:
 and thus  to effect a gradual, though indissoluble, connec
 tion between  the scientific  theory and practice.   And  to
 this object every scientific mind in the pursuit of a correct
 theory, should be directed.   If we had evident and sensible.
 marks, and accurately defined  terms, for every degree of
 variation  of the human body from the  state of perfect
 health, the  practice would  become a  far more easy and
 more certain study.
   Dr. Sydenham first suggested something of this nature.
 And an endeavor to attempt something in this way, is the
 object of the present work, or new theory, proposed by Dr.
 Barnwell.  Thus, the theory and practice  of medicine,
 from, not only Sydenham to Barnwell, but from Hippo-
 crates to Stahl, in the language of Cullen, have been
 defective and corrupted; and from Galen to Cullen himself.
 in the words of Brown, uncertain, unsatisfactory, and incom-
prehensible ! 
79
   All these defects and difficulties have suggested a change
 in the plan of medical study, and the necessity of a new
 theory.  In order to this it is said, that as medicines possess
 no inherent medical virtue in themselves, and are of no use,
 but  rather pernicious, except as they are properly  applied
 to the  various states  and conditions  of the living body;
 therefore, a thorough acquaintance  with the body, in all its
 varieties and phenomena, in health  and in sickness, consti-
 tutes the beginning, the middle, and the end, of physical medi-
 cal studies: But as the human body  is continually surround-
 ed and acted upon by other physical and  mental causes, we
 must extend our researches to them; butalways keeping in
 mind the cui bono, lest we wander in useless speculation, and
 waste our days in idle  labor.
  Physianthropy,  or the knowledge of the  nature of man
 ought to be the basis of all medical science; consequents
 it should  comprise  the natural  philosophy of the  human
 body, its principles, laws, and properties—as anatomy does
 its structure and organization.  It should  exhibit the imme-
 diate application of the doctrines of organic animal nature
 to man in particular, and to the relation which his structure
 and economy bears to mind.  The relation between animate
 and inanimate, must  be diligently attended to.

  PHYSIANTHROPY, CONSIDERED IN ITS SEVERATL
               PARTS AND RELATIONS.

  To consider man in a physical  light, the philosophy of the
human body is the first and most necessary  division  of me-
dical  science; second, those things which act upon  him, or
 in any manner affect his physical existence.
  To the first of  these divisions, belongs  the due exercise
of all the functions with ease and  regularity; and in this
consists health.
  To the second belongs the record of all the  variations
from due health to intricate and complicated disease; and 
80
 these diseases must be Investigated in their cause§—remote,
 proximate, and  exciting.  The variations from health to
 disease, in all its grades, we will find to be partly owing to
 a variety of conformations, and combined action of habits?
 states, temperaments, external causes of various kinds—a§
 aliments, air, regimen, infections, or accidents of several
 kinds.
   Third—we must consider the different remedies for all
 these  maladies, whether externally applied, or taken in-
 wardly :  Fourth, the intention for which we apply them; and
 fifthly, their modes of operation.  These constitute human
 physics, or what may be properly denominated physianthro-
 py.   In this physianthropy,  or improved theory of medical
 science,you are presented, in the first place  with,
   1st, The phi lose phy of the human body;  embracing the
 due exercise of all its functions with ease and regularity.
   2d, The stimuli; or all things which act upon the body, so
 as to  produce the  variations from health to disease; either
 as remote, exciting, or pioximate causes, in  producing  dis-
 ease.
   3d, AH the remedies for those diseases, whether interna]
 or external, properly digested and arranged.
   4th, The  intention for which they are applied, or end to
 be accomplished by them.
   5th, And finally, their modes of operation on the system
 to be carefully marked and recorded.
   The philosophy of the body, then,  is  to know it in its
 healthy state; to know all things which act upon it to change
 that state of health, and the reason  why they do change it.
 The  remedies must be known, external and internal;  the
 intention for which they are applied; and the  ,nodus operandi
 recorded.
  This is certainly an improvement, in so far as it renders
 the objects of study more condensed and distinct, and pre-
sents  to the mind a more specific object of pursuit.   Id its 
81
 application, this science would assay to begin, where physi-
 cians have commonly left off; and to build its bulwarks up-
 on the experiments and observations of health, of diseases,
 and of their remedies upon the whole practical phenome-
 na; and from  them, draw the rules or laws of the human
 frame, as it is acted upon by other agents in nature, as well
 as mental causes;  and again apply these rules and laws tc
 practice.
   It was a scheme of study, constructed after this manner,
 that  Lord Bacon  recommended in physics; and the neces-
 sity will appear to any one, who will duly consider the sub-
 ject, and contemplate its extent and range over and above
 that conducted in the schools.
   The history of medicine, the  best of all foundations, to-
 gether with a strict attention to medical philosophy, would
 carry the mind  forward to high advancements, and elevate
 it to the perfection of the science—if that is ever to be-at-
 tained or hoped for in the world.  Dr. Barnwell thus sums
 up his argument for a change of medical studies:
   "It has been asked, what do the common school divisions of
 medical study, teach us?  The study and practice of anato-
 my can only be.useful in the manual operations of surgery:
 Chimistry can only prepare us to be the preparers of medi-
 cine ; or qualify us to learn the  Apothecary's art.  But hy-
pothesis and specidations have too  generally been substituted
 in place of  science, or theory  founded on facts  and experi-
 ence ; and the facts themselves, have not been properly di-
 gested;  so that their very volume, so vast and appalling-
 accumulating  for  four thousand years—excites despair in
 the student  at the  very sight, and defeats their own purpose?
 by consigning them, generally, to absolute neglect—like the
 laws of Draco, which, by their very severity, were render-
 ed a  dead letter:  Humanity triumphed over  law, and re-
 fused to execute the dicta  of a  tyrant.  All these reasons,
 together with the  assurance that all  the systems of medi- 
82
cine are defective; and that the whole of them, though sub-
mitted to expurgation,  could not afford a complete system;
announce the necessity of a thorough renovation in medi-
cal science. For if the principles of the healing art can be
reduced to scientific order,  it is, undoubtedly, an object of
sufficient importance to merit the attention of the students
of nature, and the friends and admirers of truth."  And it
is imagined that this new plan of conducting medical re-
searches will accomplish this invaluable object.   And upon
this new plan the theorist says:—When we leave out the an-
tiquated theories and useless speculations, we shall find the
indispensible and  useful parts of the science and practice
reduced to the moderate  extent of one course,  which, when
completed, will amount to from ninety-six to one hundred
lectures.

  THE NEW PLAN OF STUDY—BY DR. BARNWELL.

  1. Historical.—The progress and  present  state of the
principles  and practice of the healing art, in various parts
of the world, and at different  periods  of time :  The doc-
trine of the different sects, in medicine: The causes and
consequences of their different tenets and enthusiasms:  The
best method of studying, of observing, and improving, and
investigating medical science.
  II.  Physianthropy, or the physical nature  of the human bo-
dy,and the manner in which it is affected by external agents:
The properties, principles,  and laws of  human life:  The  vari-
eties of constitutions and temperaments: The causes, phe-
nomena, and modus agendi of morbid affections: The gen-
era, species, and variety of diseases.
   III.  The modern improved practice of the various depart-
ments of  the healing art, by means of regimen—medicinal
or surgical applications deduced from observation, experi-
ence and reason:  The genera of the disease to be arranged
according to their physical natures, deduced from their phe- 
                          B3

nomena, symptoms and remedies:  '1 ne species to be ascer-
tained by the causes, nature  and treatment, appropriated
 to t! em:  The varieties are learned from appearances.
   This is the new  plan, proposed to be condensed in one
course, and  one  hundred  lectures.   But if all the objects
 here proposed could be attained in one course of one hun-
dred lectures, the human mind, itself must sustain a revolu-
 tion.   He who professes  to be a reformer of the art of phy-
 sic, says Dr. Harvey, must resolve to run the hazard of the
martyrdom of his reputation, life and estate.
  But in this reform, we can only perceive distinctions with-
out differences; if we except  the historical  introduction;
which  is certainly of the highest utility in the study,  and
should never be neglected.   A science must be very imper-
fectly known, and  unsatisfactory to an ingenious mind, un-
less we are  acquainted with its rise and progress, and trials
and variations.   "History, is philosophy teaching  by exam-
ple."   And  this philosophy, in medical science, is not only
the best foundation, but the most necessary part of the whole
study: For who  are they that require examples, as a light
to their path, if medical practitioners do not?
  Physianthropy  is a  very  good and  comprehensive term,
derived from phusis and anfhrops— the nature of man or
philosophy of human nature.  But, we apprehend, all  this
is contained under the divisions already  reigning in  the
schools—Physiology. Pathology,  Therapeutics, and  Anatomy.
For I am convinced, that no liberal mind would be disposed
to confine the study of those  subjects to the limited range,
supposed  by the writer  of the  New Theory; but would'
extend them to the  whole  phenomena of  the  human eco-
nomy.
  To push  investigations to  their utmost  boundaries; or,
at least, as  far, or rather farther, than common  sense'can
follow  them; is  the predominant disposition of man.   To
stop short in his career of  inquiry, does not belong to that 
84
 aspiring spirit which fell from its supiemacy and its happi-
 ness, by desiring to become as God!   And although we are
 often  misled by this reigning principle, into vain and vis-
 ionary speculations, it is, notwithstanding, an irrefragable
 proof of the immortality of the soul;  of its high origin and
 heavenly nature!
   If nothing can rise above its own level, nor act beyond  its
 own limit", why is the soul of man constantly urging him for-
 ward beyond the limits of sense, and all material things? im-
 pelling him on to the abode of spirits, to contemplate the na-
 ture, the exercise, and the felicity of assembled millions,
 which throng the heavenly temple,  and adore before the
 throne, day without night, rejoicing.
   There is  no doubt but medical studies may be greatly
 reduced and simplified, as they have been, in the examples
 and success of Drs. Brown, Rush, and Thomson.  When
 Nosology is  completely expelled  from the  science: When
 hypothesis and speculations are no more:  When antiquated
 and useless theories are  rejected; and a proper digest of
facts, experiments, and observations compiled,  for the use of
 the students; and principles  properly derived therefrom,
 arranged in scientific order; the number of courses, and of
 lectures, may be greatly reduced, and the time of the student
 devoted more successfully to the radical and important parts
 of the science; which Dr. Barnwell comprehends under
 the healthy,  morbid, and curative nature of the vital actions,
 and medical history.
   From the whole matter, I presume  it is a just inference,
 that unless disease can be  reduced to  a unit, as Dr. Rush
 has done; and its  remedy  to a unit,  as Dr. Thomson has
 done—that as hunger is removed by one remedy—food;  so
 disease may be removed by one remedy—diffusive stimuli—
 the science of medicine, as digested  under its present ar-
 rangements,  can be very little  improved.   The highest
 human skill and ingenuity have been lavished on it for fouy 
85
 thousand years.   The acute and penetrating -oreeks; the
 studious and profound Romans; the Europeans, with all the
 aid of their improved and advancing science; have devoted
 the labor of ages to correct, to improve and perfect the sys-
 tem of medicine.
   But if they should have all failed, and come short of the
 high excellence which they most ardently sought to obtain,
 it is no reason but the Deity, in love to man, may lead an
 U 'tutored  mind to  make that discovery, which  has been
 concealed  from ages. "By their fruits ye shall know them ;*
 an infallible criterion in medicine, as in morals  or theology.
 I  cannot be deceived in the medicine which  removes mf
 disease.
   The fruits of Thomson's practice have been so abundant,
 on the most forbidding soil, and so well authenticated, that
 we are called upon  to admit its truth and  respect its testi-
 mony; and it requires the aid of strong prejudice to resist
 its claims on public confidence and  attention.  Great men
 ire not always wise; the most simple means are often over-
 looked, for  the most labored and complicated; and it would
 be well to give the agency of God a place in the universe,
 as well as the agency of man.  The kine pock, a mere acci-
 dental  discovery,  extremely simple and yet  powerful to
 expel a disease, on  which  all the  physicians of the world
 had  spent  their  skill in vain, (or twelve centuries; while
 jt was  carrying off annually,  one in every twelve  of the
 population  of the globe, and leaving its rude impress upon
 nearly one half of the survivors.   It will be  as easy for
 Divine  Providence to discover a specific to men, for con-
 sumption, for fever, for plague, for every pain, as for the
 small pox;  for a more  loathsome and terrible disease couhf
 not be found amongst all the maladies of man.
   There are  herbs, says Dr. Ray, to  cure all diseases,
though not  known every where.   The Celtic tribes know
the most of them.   They can take the paw out of a burn-
       f«l 
86
 ing at once, and heal  it soon, though burned to the bone;
 which baffles all the faculty  in large and learned  cities.—
 The Celtic doctors are applied to by such as use the estab-
 lished practice, when given up by it.
   The same writer say s, it is a mistake that the animal spirit
 resides in the nerves, and not in the blood.  It is self-evident,
 from the opifcx rerum. or maker of man, that life  is in the
 blood; for the heart and bjood  are first formed,  and all the
 other parts, both solid and fluid, are nourished  from it.—.
 Death makes no alteration on the  nerves, but  it makes a
 total change in the blood.  Though all the  nerves aresatd
 to be derived from the brain and produced by it, yet the
 nerves are found to be in proportion to the size of the body,
 and not of the  brain;  and they are so  in monsters where
 no brain can be discovered.   The nerves  and brain are
 themselves supplied, repaired, and nourished by the blood,
 He, therefore, considers the blood, and not the nerves, as the
 principal  seat of disease, as  it is the vehicle of heat  and
life to the whole system.  The morbid action of the flood—
 the cause of disease—he says, is to be  removed l>v barley
water, pure water, pare air, light food, and gentle exercise* 
                L.ECTURE VII.
   THEORY OF FEVER, ACCORDING TO THE MODERN
                 SYSTEMS OF MEDICINE.

   Dr. Cullen.—Fever, Pyrexia, or Febrile diseases, designate
 their approach by a general debility  and languor over the
 body; cold shiverings, increase of heat, frequency of pulse;
 dimiuution of strength in the animal functions.   These are
 the  distinguishing  characteristics.   Phenomena—languor,
 debility, sluggishness in motion, face  pale and shrunk___
 Stages, three—cold, hot, and sweating.
   The hot stage of fever is so constantly  preceded  by a
 cold stage, that we  presume the latter is the cause of the
 former; and, therefore, that the cause of the cold stage is
 the  cause of all that follows in  the paroxysm of the disease.
 To  discover the cause of the cold  stage of fever, we may
 observe, that  it is  preceded by  strong  marks of general
 debility  prevailing  in the system.  The weakness of the
 pulse, paleness of the face, shrinking of the whole  body
 plainly indicate that the action of the heart and arteries are
 extremely  weakened.  There is  also  a weakness of the
 energy of  the brain.
   Debility  is the proximate  cause of fever.  The remote
 causes are, contagion, putrid  effluvia from sick persons
 decayed vegetables or animal substances, marsh miasmata,
state of the atmosphere, cold, fear, grief, strong passions, or
whatever  exhausts the system and produces debility.__
There is, therefore, evidently, three  states which take place
in fever; state  of debility, state of cold, state of heat; and
these follow in a series of cause and  effect.
   The principle of action,  by which the state of debility
produces the  cold state,  has not been explained; but is 
88
 referred to the general law of the animal economy, or phi-
 losophy; which is, that  when noxious powers threaten to
 hurt or destroy the system, it immediately assumes a repel-
 ling attitude to resist the hostile powers.  This is called the
 vis medicatrix natures, in the schools of physic.
   The increased action of the heart and  arteries,  which
 takes place in the hot stage, says Dr. Cullen, has long been
 considered as an effort of the vis medicatrix natures to repel
 the  disease, by physicians; and the* cold stage, also, as an
 effort of the same power.   In  this sedative  state, nature is
 concentrating  her powers to that formidable  resistance
 against  the enemy, which she displays in the strong par-
 oxysm of fever*, for it has been observed, that the paroxysm
 is always in proportion to the force of the chill.
   This is  precisely Thomson's principle; that fever is  a
friend, and  not an enemy, but rises to subdue the enemy;
 and should, therefore, be aided in its efforts, instead of being
 broken and destroyed—wh'ch in fact, is to destroy life—to
 crush  the very efforts of that vis medicatrix naturce, which
 God, in mercy, has  placed in the  human form, to defend
 man from the  innumerable evils which assail him in  life.
 Whether, therefore, we agree with ancient or modern  the-
 ories—with the ancients, who supposed fever, this unusual
 motion  in  the blood,  to  arise from  the to arche, to  expel
 morbid matter from the system—or, the impetus faciens, the
 anima medica, the vis medicatrix naturex, or vis insita, of \heir
 successors:  all these moving powers, healing powers, spirit
 of life,  principle of  life, law of life, vital energy, amount
 precisely to the same  thing—the vital  action resisting the
 encroachments of disease.  Life is opposed to death, neces-
 sarily  and  eternally.  It is a necessity of nature.   Light
 and darkness could as soon unite, as life  and death.   When-
 ever there  is life, therefoie, there will be a resistance to
 whatever has a tendency to produce death.  It is an essen-
 tial law  of life;  where  it is not found, life does  not exist. 
89
   The dispute of physicians respecting the proximate cause
of fever, ought to be reduced to a single point, namely, in
what part of the material system, has the Deity lodged thi.s
vital principle, or law of life, which causes the fevered action
to repel disease?  For wherever life eminently resides the
action of resistance will first begin.  One will answer, the
blood vessels; another, the  nerves; another,  the sensorium;
another, the medulla of the brain, and nerves, and spinel
marrow; another, the stomach; another, the absorbents; and-
finally, some in  all these taken together; and some in the
nerves, bloejd vessels, and the absorbents;  Dr. Brown's excita-
bility, and Dr. Thomson's heat.
  But where does the vital principle reside?   In the blood!
in the blood! we would certainly affirm, if it  can  at all be
located, or  fixed  to any part of the system.  But if it is
seated in the blood, its vital energies arc diffused over the
whole system.   Now, that it is seated in the blood, we shall
assign the  following  reasons:  1st,  the experiments of Dr.
Hunter on  the  blood.  He found it to resist  cold and cor-
ruption by its innate vitality.  2d, from  the phenomena  of
the system.   The blood is recipient, and the vehicle of life
and heat to the whole system; the nervous fluid, the censo-
rium  the medulla of the brain, and the  nerves, and spinal
marrow, are all formed  and supplied  by the blood; the
absorbents  are formed and supplied by the blood;  the sto-
mach is supplied and formed by the blood in the incipient
stage of existence—for in the fa-tus, the heart and arteries
are first formed; and  from these,  the vital  current of the
blood supplies and forms all the of.ier  parts of the system.
Muscle, ligament, cartilage, and bone, are formed out of the
vitality of this all  pevvadu^fuid!  Now, if the vital prin-
ciple be located at all, common sense  would  undoubtedly
place it in  the blood—in  that fluid and its organs, which
give formation and vitality to the rest of  the system.
       [8*] 
90
  It has been often remarked, that the Poets are truer to
nature, than the Philosophers; ye-, than the sceptical phi-
losophers and their votaries.   Scepticism generally springs
from a cold, insensible heart, never warmed by a single ray
from the eternal sources of the splendor of the Divine Ma-
jesty.   But the poets have warm and  feeling hearts;  they
are truer to the voice of  nature, and their figures, and meta-
phors, and sublime language, are predicated on nature, on
revelation, and tradition, derived from original  discoveries
of the Divine will.   We therefore find in them, animal life
ascribed to the heart and blood—"-The  living current of the
blood"—"The vital  stream"—"Pouring his life's blood  on
the yellow sand," said Homer, of his hero; and Burks, jn
his ''epistle to Davey, a brother poet," says:
           "The life Moid streaming through iny heart,
           Or mv more dear, immortal part,
              Is not  more fondly dear."
3d, and finally, in  confirmations of philosophers, and poets,
and anatomists, the most acute, profound  and penetrating;
in confirmation of  experiments and of facts, in the living pro-
cess of the animated being, from the first germ to the finish-
ed  system; we shall add the high authority of the living
oracles: "For the life is the blood thereof."
   In the law given to Israel,  respecting the  use of animal
food, they were prohibited from the use of the blood, be-
cause, it  was the  life of the animal.   It has been said, in
order to  repel this  application of the text, that it was  on
accountef the sacred typical allusion it had to the Messiah's
sacrifice, that the Hebrews  were forbidden to eat blood.
But this  very exposition corroborates the argument, that
the life is in the blood;  for it was a type of the life of the
Lamb of God, slain  for the  sins  of the world.   His life
laid- down, was  the  atonement for the soul.   And life, and
blood, in scripture  language, are convertible terms: the latter
is therefore, called the blood of atonement.  From the first 
91
sprinkling of the blood of the Paschal Lamb, on that awful
night of Egypt's sorrow and despair, through all the sprink-
lings of the altar, the mtrcy  seat, the  cherubim, the boohs
of the law, and the  congregation of the Lord, until the son
of God himself, sprinkled with his own blood, the rocks of
Calvary; the blood was a standing emblem of the price of
the soul—and that price was life—the life given for its -al-
vation.  Man, by rebellion, had forfeited his life; life was
given for his ransom; this life was in the blood; and hence,
ihe high and hallowed  designations—The blood of atone-
ment—The  blood of Jesus Christ,  his son, cleanseth  from
all  sin!—The  blood of sprinkling, which speaketh better
things than the blood of Abel!
  The inference is  now indubitable, that the animal life be-
ing in the blood, the resistance  to disease and death will be
in the nlood.  The fever, therefore, which is a battle in the
blood to resist and repel the enemy, should  be aided, by
every principle of reason, and argument and humanity.  If
it be debility, remove the debility;  if it  be morbid excite-
ment,  remove  the morbid  excitement; if it be obstruction
from cold, remove the obstruction.   The  fever, which is the
effect of all the-e, or the effort of the vital actions to  subdue
all  these, amounts to the same  thing, when we examine the
principles. Let thecausebe removed, and the effect will cease.
  The house, at midnight, reposes in perfect peace.   The
robbers enter; in an instant all is turmoil and distraction—
the dashing of swords, and guns,  and pistols, and screams,
and groans, intermingled.  This is an effect produced in the
quiet mansion, by the robbers entering the house; it is also
a.i  effort, and a violent effort, of the  inhabitants, to expel
the intruders.  Now, what would be thought of the wisdom
of  a passer-by, on hearing all this hubbub, who should enter
the house, and, utterly regardless of the robbers, would en>
ploy all his  efforts to arrest the master's arm, and still the
ories of his wife and children?   He certainly would be re- 
92
 garded as insane; and his aid, although he did not intend it.
 was in help of the robbers, and against the  family!
   The case is clear, the fever  begins in the blood; the vital
 principle is there; it rouses  the blood vessels to  extraordi-
 nary action.  In the very preceding chill, it i?  mu.-tering
 the clans—rousing all the  forces of vitality, from the sensa-
 rium. to the spasms of the toes and fingers, till every moving
 f ower, and the  whole system, are  finally engaged in the
 struggle.  This has been called the spreading of the disease,
 by many physicians; but it is the united struggle of  nature
 to resist  death.   And  you may observe the  melancholy
 events of the combat,  as  she  yields  to the destroyer; the
 extremities become  cold  and  torpid; the eye glazed and
 dim; the pulse low—stops; the struggle gains upon the heart;
 the breast  heaves with violent respiration;  the last throb
 bursts on the appalled  ear—the battle ends!  Life is for-
 ever  fled; and  over  the hollow and  pale cheek of death,
 the king of terrors  waves his triumphant  banner!   Alas!
 alas! that ever this king of  terrors should be aided in his
 efforts to destroy the human race, under the idea of afford-
 ing them relief!  This is no suggestion of mine, to the pre-
judice of the Faculty;  they themselves have accused each
 other with aiding the  destroyer.   Their books,  then lec-
 tures, and their quarrels, all testify to this solemn and seri-
 ous truth of the fact of pernicious practice.
   Dr. Rush accuses Cullen's nosology, with directing phy-
 sicians to prescribe for the names of diseases, instead of their
 proximate cause: he accuses them all, from the archceus of
 Van Helmont, to the putrrfietion of Cullen.   He himself
 was condemned, in tu-n. for letting out life with his lancet!
In Englard, where people  enjoy very robust health, they
bleed little; sweating is generally practised to remove dis-
ease.   It was here that  Brown's system made the most rapid
progress,  because it fell in with the common  sense of the
people; of what  they  themselves had felt and practised. 
                           93

 And all medical prescriptions should be at once submitfed9
 in their composition, intention, and  operation, as far as these
 are known,  to  the  common sense of the people.  Of all
 professions, Medicine  and Religion should be  disrobed of
 the very shadow of disguise.   Those systems, which have
 for their objects the health and life of the body and the soul,
 should be above all mystery and finesse;  they  should stand
 open, and  naked, and  bare, before the judgment of the
 people, resting on their own evidence, and  merits, and be-
 neficent results.  The lawyer may invent his writs and briefsi
 not to enlighten, but to  darken and conceal his profession
 from vulgar eyes; but it is the course and glory of truth, to
 lie open to the day.  There is a face of  dishonesty and sus-
 picion  stamped  on the very  front of concealment, from
 which the  ingenuous  spirit turns  away with loathing and
 disgust.  And whenever the earth shall  have been purged
 from her folly and her  heathenism, the science, and the doc-
 trines, and  the  deeds of darkness, from the mysteries  of
 Eleusis, to the abduction of Morgan, shall be swept  from the
 page of the book of nature.  Light, heavenly light, sliall
 beam on all the professions, and principles,  and institutions,
 of men; for  there  shall be nothing wrong;  nothing that
 shall seek to hide deformity in darkness, nor to borrow conse-
 quence from the garb of concealment.
   It is really piteous, in  the advancement  of science, and
 improvements of mind,  to behold professors of medicine
 sticking to scholastic forms and  disguises,  in issuing their
prescriptions.   Why not adhere to the Hebrero, or the Cop-
tic, or the Greek languages,  in writing prescriptions—the
languages in which medicine was first written—as well  as
still cleave to the Latin;  it is a language as dead to the mass
of the people, and the boys of the  Apothecaries, as any  of
the others.   And to wrap up any part of knowledge in  a
dead or foreign language, to excite admiration or gain con-
sequence, is worse  than vain—it is pernicious.   1  know a 
94
knowledge of language enlarges critical  acumen, and ex"1
pands die power of thought; it opens the sources of ideas,
and unfolds, as it were, the operations and springs of intel-
lect.  The study is, therefore, by no means to be despised
nor neglected; but as the great sum of the people cannot be
linguists,why should those things which concern their life and
happiness,be concealed from them by a dead language?
  It was but veiy lately, that the  lecturer on Theology, in
Cambridge  College, England, gave his  instructions in En-
glish; and the reasons which he assigns, for deviating from
the accustomed mode of giving them in Latin, are, that the
common people may be benefited by their perusal, as well
as the  Clergy! for he wished all  to be acquainted with a
system,  which concerns their everlasting hope.   And  why
shoulcLnot a patient be benefited  by the perusal of the na.
ture and  operation of the medicine which he is about to
swallow—which concerns his own life, and the happiness of
his friends and family?
  In the treatment of fever, Dr. Rush endeavored to equal-
ize the system by drawing the blood from the  interior, te
relieve  the engorged vessels, and  excite action on the sur-
face.   This is to be done, according to the principles of Dr.
Brown,  by  reducing,  or increasing, excitement, according
to the high  or  low state of the body.  Dr. Chapman's ob-
ject, in  the cure of fever, is directed to the state of the sto-
mach, as that, he says, is the great medium for acting on the
whole body.  Dr. Ewell says, "candor induces me to state
the fact, that it is very doubtful whether the mode of treat-
ing fever be at all improved since the days of Hippocrates.
Notwithstanding the great  varieties of theory on the sub-
ject, the practice has been pretty much the same in all ages."
"If  inflammatory,  evacuate; if low, stimulate;" this seems
to be a reigning feature of medical science.   Almost all the
labors of the schools, and ingenuity and  industry of profes-
sors,have been expended on the invention and discussion of 
95
 theories; thus, theory succeeded to theory;  invention to-in-
 vention;  systems rose, and flourished, and tell;  but tne con.
 dition of  the sick was permanent.  The tires thai ought to
 have relieved, but did not relieve th.em, remained the same
 for three thousand years; they were as fixed and permanent
 as the foundations of the everlasting hills.   Although they
 discovered their  medicines to be ineffectual, or  pernicious,
 they were still neglected, for the delightful labor of building
 new theories.  The wrangle for distinction, in hypothetical
 ingenuity, absorbed  the efforts of humanity, in revising the
 Materia Medica, or relieving the sick.  To  find a safe and
 simple method of curing the patient, has been left to the di-
 rection of chance.   "If there be, says Dr. Ewell, an im-
 provement in the treatment of common fever, I  think it
 is in the use of antimonial  medicines."   '*Their operation
 is not understood,  he says, but they tend to lesson disease d
 action in the blood vessels."
  "What unaccountable perversity is in our frames, says Dr.
 Harvey, that we set ourselves so much against every thing
 new? Can anyone  behold,  without  scorn,  such drones of
 physicians, that after the space  of so many  hundred year's
 experience and  practice of their predecessors, not one sin-
 gle medicine has been detected, that has the least force, di-
 rectly, to  prevent, to oppose, and expel a continued fever?
 And should any one, by a more sedulous observation, make
 the least  step  tow; r fs  the  di-co^e y of such remedies,
 their  hatred and envy would swell against him like a legion
of devils."
  Systems maybe labored,ad infinitum,and practice dimin-,
ished in the same proportion.  The  schools were never bu-
 sier, than in  the days of Thomas  Aquinus;  and perhaps,
 practical piety was never at a lower ebb.  To seek  distinc.
tion by splendid writing, is one thing; and to become famou§
 by practical utility, la quite, another, 
96
    It was the defects of medical practice in his own family,
  which led Thomson  to infer that  their treatment of fever
  was wrong.   Their theories he did not understand;  but he
  saw the effects of their medicines; and affection, necessity,
  and hope, led him on to the discoveries, and forced him into
  tb<t illustrious career, which  Providence seems to have
  smiled upon, with great and  peculiar favor.   And if  the
  results, of this new practice, proceed  as they have begun,
  there is no doubt  but they will produce a complete revolu-
  tion in the entire policy and practice of the medical world.
   Dr.  Rush divides fevers into two kinds;  original and
  symptomatic.   The latter  arises from local affection, au
  wounds, bruises, inflammation of particular  parts, as the
 lungs, bowels, kidneys, &c.
   Original fevers, he divides  into three states: 1st, high,
 inflammatory; 2d, intermediate;  and, 3d, low malignant states.
 He also enumerates thirty-five  causes of fever; they  all
 occasionally change their type, from the highest to the lowest
 grade.   One fever will assume all the varieties, from the
 highest inflammatory to the lowest typhus; and it is  some-
 times doubtful how to fix  upon the true symptoms, as they
 are  often fallacious!
   So extravagant  are  the sentiments of  the  physicians
 respecting fever, that Dr. Cullen, one of the most respecta-
 ble, says, every time we feed, or take nourishment, we have
fever more or less!  because we expectorate, or raise mucus
 from the lungs? Food communicates heat to the system;
 and  therefore,  because it, like  all the aliment of life, will
 act with more force on the organs, which may chance to be
 debilitated or diseased; it is therefore presumed it must be
 fever, or disease!
   The very superior mind of Rush becomes often entangled
 with t!>e complex theories of former days.  In enumerating
 the symptoms of disease, how strong is the power of habit!
 Notwithstanding the improved simplicity in theory and prac- 
07
lice, so strongly recommended by Dr. Rush, one cannot but
observe him, at times, plunging and floundering in the clouds
and  darkness of nosology!  But from the open, ingenuous,
and  discriminating cast of his mind, it is very certain, had
he lived, that he would have advanced and improved Thom-
son's system, by all the energies of an intrepid and disci-
plined intellect.   The little time he had to converse with
Thomson, or review his system, seems to have made a very
favorable impression on his mind.  He  intended a complete
examination; but death defeated his purpose, and  robbed
society of one of the brightest ornaments  of charity and
humanity, that ever adorned this region of the globe.  His
fame, as a professor, wa^ great;  but that fame which shall
shine on the imperishable pages of the book of life—his
efforts in  the cause of humanity—shall  shine when the
heavens are no more.
  Dr. Rush directed S. Thomson to Dr. Barton,as he was
the professor of Botany, and observed, that whatever Dr.
Barton would agree  to, he  would give his consent.  Dr.
Barton advised Thomson to place his  medicines in the
hands of some  celebrated doctors, and  let them  try the
medicine,  and give to the puhlic  such statement  as they
should deem correct.  He left  some with  Dr. Barton for
an experiment; but the  sudden deaths of both these emi-
nent men, (Drs. Rush and Barton,) defeated his  purpose
in this trial.  But it is still to be hoped, that some conspicu-
ous leader in the medical ranks, may  give Thomson's sys-
tem  a fair trial, and oblige the world with results.  And
humanity, science, and common sense,  are all united in one
interest, to promote this object, to satisfy society, and silence
clamorous tongues.
  The high  moral character of New  England  has not
saved her from  the crime of persecution, from the history
of the Salem witchcraft, to the  trials and  persecution  of
S\muel Thomson.  A scene of persecution and  infamy,
       [9J 
98
combined in his imprisonment and trials,  and the perjury
of witnesses, which would have disgraced  the  Inquisitions
of Spain.  What then, must  be the stigma, the indelible
brand, left on the face of a free and independent nation?
  God has made the poor of this world rich in faith.   And
if he has made some of the poor rich in making discoveries,
which the wise have not made, shall the Courts of Justice,
and the forms of law, be screwed up to the stern aspect, and
bloody purpose of tyrants and persecutors, to overwhelm
them with  darkness,  and  sink them in oblivion?  There is
a spirit abroad among the people, that will defeat all the
efforts of petty tyranny, and the rancour of malicious  slan-
der!  Who would  not rather be Samuel  Thomson,  in his
vile and loathsome dungeon, than  Dr.  French, flying  from
town to town, after his deeds of sin, with eternal infamy  m
his wings? 
LECTURE  VIII.
                  FEVER, CONTINUED.

   In tracing the progress of fever in its direful and disaster-
 ous course, we are compelled to regard a remedy, at once
 s,:ife and  powerful to still its raging, as one of the most sig-
 nal benefits which the Deity has conferred on man.  When
 we cast our eye over the map of human misery,  and mark
 the monuments of the destroyer—the scenes of battle and de-
 vastation, spreadout over all the nations of the world, where
 he has marched  with death and fever inscribed on his bloody
 banners;  and behold the same defence to resist his power,
 and to baffle his malignity; we may exclaim with the poet—

        "For thou, ten thousand, thousand years,
       Hast seen the gush of human tears,
       Which shall no longer flow."

   The tears that have bedewed the earth, were we to cal-
 culate their sum, poured out for the dead that have fallen
 by this one disease called Jever,  they  would form an ocean
 that might swim the living!  Were the cold and ghastly forms
 of the victims that have  sunk into the silence of everlasting
 -deep, by  this one disease, since the history of the son of the
 Shunamite to the present time, collected into one monu-
 ment, they  would  form a mountain that would astonish
 heaven, and terrify the earth! What ht art has not bled over
 a  beloved friend? over children dearer than their own soul?
 over the wife or  husband of  their youth?  And  how  many
 have  seen all their earthly comforts wither under the sweep-
 ing siroc of this pervading and desolating storm? Yes! from
the first thrill of  the agitated nerve, the stinging pain, the
hot and heaving breast, to ''the  pestilence that walketh in 
100
darkness, and  the destruction that wasteth openly at noon
day;"  the human race, smitten in all its members, consum
ed in every limb, has sunk to the house of silence, in multi-
tudes  innumerable, under the single pressure of  this de-
structive power.  Look at the East and  West, the silent
cities, the untrodden streets, the dismal, dark array of trav-
ellers on the path of death—and ask, who hath done all this?
what enemy hath been here ? Echo, from her thousand caves*
would  ring out  her response, Jcvcr! fever! fever!   This is
the disease which, to break, to baffle, to conquer, or subdue,
the  learned Colleges  of Physicians  have tried all their
efforts, and spent their skill in vain.  It must run its course,
js the common sentiment;  if one mode of treatment fails,
we  must try another, and another, and another, till the ex-
hausted imagination,  the  worn out sources of the materia
medica, and the dyihg patient, arrest the Viand of the ex-
perimenter,  (and, I  might have said, tormentor,) or nature
triumphs equally ever medicine and disease.
  "The practice of  medicine is, perhaps, the only instance
in which a man can profit by his blunders and mistakes. The
very medicines which aggravate and  protract the malady,
bind a  laurel  on the Professors  brow; when, at last,  the
sick  is  saved  by the living poyvers  of nature struggling
against death and the physician.  He receives all the credit
of a miraculous cure;  he is lauded to the skies, for deliver-
ing the sick from a detail  of  the  most deadly symptoms
of misery, into which  he himself had plunged them;  and
out of which they never would have arisen, but by  the re-
cuberating efforts of that  living power, which, at once, tri-
umphed over poison, and disease, and death."
  The causes which have conspired  to cover  with uncer-
tainty  the treatment of fever,  and to arm the  members of
the  faculty often against each other, are numerous and im-
portant.  A brief detail will unfold the many causes of er-
ror, and the fatal consequences which often result from the
established practice. 
101
   1st. Fevers are said to be of two kinds; general and lo-
cal.   Local, from partial injuries or diseased  parts; gene-
ral, from an affection of the whole system, or morbid actioi*.
of all the vital powers.
   2d. There are  three stages of fever; the cold, the hot
and the sweating stages.
   3d. There are three states of fever; the state of debility,
the state of cold, and the state of heat.
   4th.  Causes of fevers are enumerated at thirty-nine  and
upwards.
   5th.  The forms of fever are, 1st, plague  or pestilence;
2d, malignant or yellow bilious fever; 3d, inflammatory bH-
ious,  or remittant fever^ 4th, intermittent fever.
   6th.  The intermittent fevers, or agues, are divided into,
1st, the quotidian, or daily fever—having an intermission
of twenty-four hours; 2d, the tertian, or third day fever—
having  an intermission of forty-eight hours; 3d, the quar-
tan, or fourth day fever—having an intermission of  seventy-
two hours.
   Now, when to all  these- we add the following  sources of
mistake and  uncertainty, it is not wonderful that more pa-
tients are killed than cured by the established modes of
practice;  and that the incomprehensible theories, and per-
nicious  consequences, have been felt, confessed, and lament-
ed, by every  candid  mind, from Hippocrates to Stahl.—
These we shall now  enumerate.
   1st. The symptoms of fever are mistaken;  and  one dis-
ease,  or stage, or state, or class, is treated for another; and
the physicians declare, the symptoms are often so blended,
complex, and Protei formed and fashioned, that it is  impossi-
ble to comprehend them.  This is one source of uncertainty
in practice.
   2d. Nosology, or  the  mournful  and  dreary list of the
names of  thirteen hundred and eighty-seven diseases, be-
sides the new diseases, so difficult to be understood, to be
      [9*] 
102
remembered, or distinguished, is another source of uncer-
tainty in practice.
  3d. Theories constructed on false  principles mislead the
physician, and direct  him to the use of wrong medicines;
for false theories will make false practice.   These are the
causes of the uncertainty of practice.
  4th. Error in judgment, from misapprehending the re-
mote, the exciting, or the proximate cause  of disease, de-
stroys the certainty  of practice, and brings death to the
patient.
  5th. Medicines used in the cure of fever, of the most dan-
gerous nature—poisons of the rankest dye  and most fatal
tendency—are often  the causes of^sudden  death, and de-
stroy, or ought to destroys all confidence in the  established
practice.  It is, in truth, like running the gauntlet amongst
armed Indians, or red hot plough shares, to escape from the
poisons of medical practice.
  From all these cause*, and many more that might be as-
signed; such as  the  recipes being concealed in  a dead lan-
guage; the mistakes in filling them up;  one substance mis-
taken for another; attendance ofbenjs, and persons unskilh d
in the apothecaries  shops, when rankest poisons are distri-
buted a* medicines;  all these causes have filled the whole
history of medical practice with dismay, uncertainty and
death.
   "Mr. Barry, a respectable citizen of Boston, during the
course of the last summer, applied  to an apothecary for a
 dose ofcream of tartar; in place of which he received tartar
emetic; he had no sooner taken a small port;on of it.  than he
was thrown into the most violent puking and  spasms.   A
 physician was immediately sent for, who ndn in'siered fifteen
 grains  of white vitriol.   Death  soon  followed.   Query—
 Which killed the man—the tartar emetic or the  white vit-
 riol?" 
                         103

  Now, the great superiority and  certainty of Thomson's
system, consist in the simplicity of his practice and the safe
and certain operation of his remedy.  And, although Thom-
son seems to have been utterly unconscious of the hazards
and difficulties of  the established practice—yet, when these
were  brought  to  light, they served to confirm him in the
value and  universality of his  discoveries;  because, if all
the wisdom of the schools,  and genius, and ingenuity,  of  ^
practitioners, had been baffled and confounded, through the
lapse of four thousand years, it was evident rhat  the dis-
covery of a universal remedy  for fever, must be found  in
another department than that of the established science!
And in  that department  Thomson rose  to  eminence, and
received "Az's degree from the  hand of nature.'''  In that great
labaratory of medical science, where nature makes our food
and fashions our medicines,  Thomson spent thirty  years of
his life.  A quack is one,  who, in unblushing ignorance,
palms his detestable and deadly nostrums upon the public,
of which he knows  nothing!   Thomson  laid  before the
public, without a shadow  of concealment, remedies, the
healing virtue of which he had tested by a practice  of
thirty years; and with invariable and indisputable  success;
a success, which, had I  not seen, I should have deemed
impossible.  But some of the most leaned of the faculty,
who have  attended to the effects of this  new practice, have
given their decided  testimony to its power  and  its  efficacv.
 ' Prejudices rank and strong, as might have been expected,
have prevented the  popularity of a "safe and simple method
of cure," which bids fair, were it universally introduced, to
banish diseases and  untimelv death from the nations of the
 world; to introduce the dawn of that redeeming day, when
 sickness shall not be seated in  the constitution to emaciate
 the body and prostrate the  mind; but shall be met and ex-
 pelled at its very entrance, by a remedy, that shall neither
 entail debility, nor chronic maladies, on  the patient. 
104
  A ray of this new light seems to have broken  in on the
mind of Cullen,; for Dr. Rush  ascribes to him. the first
principle of his own  theory, and  that of Dr. Brown—that
"Life is a forced state."  This principle yvas detailed  by
Dr. CuLLEN,"in his lectures,  in the year 1766—"that man
was not an automaton, or self moving machine; but is kept
alive and in motion, by the action of stimuli."
  This seems  to be the  principle on which they all three
acted, to restore the nervous  energy, to remove the debility ,
to equalize the system;  and  Thomson to raise the fountain
and  diminish the  stream. The  principle was simple  and
unique—but the medicine was very different.  Dr.  Rush,
says, there  is one disease; and  morbid excitement in the
blood, is its  proximate cause.  Dr. Thomson says, there is
one  disease,  and one general remedy; and obstruction is the
disease, and cold is the proximate cause.
  1st, Now this seems to be the advantage in Thomson's
practice.  He directs his attention, not to eradicate the fe-
ver, but to remove the cause of obstruction, and restore the
action of the digestive organs.  The fever is regarded as a
friend, and treated as a friend, by raising the internal heat
to remove the  obstruction, which caused the fever—or dis-
turbed action of heat.
  2d, The medicine  and mode of practice of Thomson, iff
far  superior to that in  use  among the physicians; as has
been demonstrated, by its effects in  curing diseases, when all
their art had failed;  not in one, or a few cases, but many of
the   most  protracted  and complicated distempers,  given
over as incurable by the  faculty.
  3d, To enumerate its pre-eminence in restoring health to
the  system, we might, 1st, name its power in removing ob-
structions; 2d, in expelling  virus from the  blood;  3d, in
throwing off morbific matter  from the surface of  the body;
so that  the perspiration has deeply dyed and  stained a
clean towel, with its taint; 4th, and in restoring and reno- 
105
 vating all the vital actions and powers of the body; so as to
 give tone to the stomach and digestive organs; 5th,  and
 finally, in removing  pain, promoting calm  sleep, in raising
 the animal spirits, spreading hilarity and cheerfulness over
 the mind, without leaving a taint in the constitution, or the
 s'.ing of slow disease behind.  It by far surpasses,  in innu-
 merable trials, all other medicines or modes of practice,
 which have been heretofore  discovered,  or brought  into
 operation; and promises fair  to reduce the mysteries of
 the  healing art  to  a  very  simple process;  conducted in
 every family, and prepared  and  administered by the same
 hands which prepare and administer our food!   They grow
 in the same field, may  be plucked by the  same hand,  and
 medicated  by the same skill, which  furnishes our daily
 bread.  I have  the  authority of the  celebrated Rush, to
 support this sentiment.
 " "Theessentialprinciplesof medicinearevery few; they are
 moreover plain. All the  morbid effectsof heat and cold,of eat-
 inganddrinking,and the exercises of the body and mind, may
be taught with as much ease as the multiplication table. In sup-
 port of thistruth, let us look at the effects of the simplicity of
the art of war, introduced into Europe;  a few obvious prin-
ciples have supplied  the place of volumes on  tactics.   Pri-
 vate citizens have become great generals; peasants,irresist-
 ible soldiers, in  a few weeks, even superior to their prede_
e.essors, after the instructions and exercise of fifteen or twen.
 ty years.
  Let  us strip our profession of every thing that looks like
 mystery and imposition, and clothe medical knowledge in a
dress so simple and intelligible, that it  may become a part
 of academical education in all our seminaries of learning."
-Truth is simple upon all subjects; and upon those essential to
 the general happiness of mankind, it is obvious to the mean-
 est  capacities.  There  is no  man  so simple, that cannot be
 taught to cultivate grain ;and there is no woman,who cannot be 
106
taught to make it into bread.   And shall the means of pre-
serving our health, by the culture and preparation of aliment,
be so intelligible, and yet, tbe means of restoring it when
lost, soabstruse, that we must take years to study, to discover
and apply them? to suppose this,is to call in question the good-
ness  of the Deity; and to believe that he acts without system
and unity in his works." ••In thus recommending the general
diffusion of medical knowledge, by an academical education,
let it not be supposed, that I wish to see the exercise of me-
dicine  abolished, as a regular  profession.  Surgical opera-
tions, and diseases which rarely occur, may require  profes-
sional aid; but the knowledge necessary for those purposes,is
soon acquired; and  two  or three persons, separated from
other pursuits, would  be sufficient to meet the demands of a
city consisting of forty thousand people."
  If this seems astonishing to any, let them  remember the
effects and discovery of vaccination, and cease to wonder
if the  Deity, by means  the most  inconsiderable,  should
accomplish what had baffled the skill and research of all
the philosophers of the world.
  Thomson was born for  the  fame  he has acquired; and
necessity, dire necessity,  forced him into the niche in the
Temple of Nature, where he  now stands.  His narrative
is not to be  forgotten, nor passed without the painful  feeling
of this additional evidence of the perversity of our nature,
and  the  selfishness of our lives.  If this were to be our
everlasting home, we could not display a more determined
disposition  to establish  our claims, right or  wrong, and
defeat those of our neighbors, be they ever so well founded.
   Dr.  Thomson reasons, if disease be an enemy to  life, in
every form; and medicine a friend in all—it must then, be
a universal remedy;  for the sum  is  but the amount of the
particulars; and the  particulars, the items of the sum;  as
genuine food removes hunger of  every degree, so genuine
medicine, disease of  every type.   It is not necessary, there- 
107
fore, to be changing the dose any more than it is necessary
to be changing the food, to remove malady in the one case,
or hunger in the other.
   Now as the healing power of nature in resisting  disease,
confessed by  all physicians, seems to be effectually aided
by Thomson's practice, he must have discovered the right
practice—the true  mode of curing disease.   And that he
has so  discovered it, we thus )udge—his  practice suddenly
expels the disease—has an effect the most salutary on the
whole system—invigorates and renews the powers of nature;
and leaves—"not a wreck behind."
   Dr.  Hillary, in  his secret of curing diseases by adopt-
ing a better system of medicine, says, "that by accurately
observing all  the motions, endeavors, and indications of
nature, to carry off and cure diseases; and by observing by
what critical evacuations she does at  last cast off the morbid
matter which caused them, and so restores health; we may,
by the same method of reasoning, know both the methods
and the means we should use to assist nature in producing
those salutary effects; if we avoid all hypothetical reason-
ing, and  by thus observing, following and assisting nature,
agreeably to her indications,  our practice will always  be
more satisfactory and successful.
   For the human body is so wisely7 and wonderfully formed
that whenever any noxious matter is got into it that would
be injurious or destructive, we may observe, that it always
so irritates, stimulates and offends nature, that she always
exerts her power, or the vis vita, to throw it off.  And she
acts  with great regularity, oider,  and  uniformity, in  her
endeavors to expel the offending matter out of the body;
and by carrying off the disease, restore health and preserve
life.
   And thus, by observing, investigating, and truly knowing,
the diseases and their causes, and justly reasoning therefrom,
we shall  know when to assist nature according to her indi- 
108
cations;  and in this is contained the chief part of medical
 knowledge, and the true scientific principles of the medical
art.  And when we shall thus have learned of nature, by
observing her laws and indications, we may reasonably hope
to render the theory and practice of physic  beneficial to
mankind."
  How just is this mode of reasoning; and how much does it
resemble the process and workings of Dr. Thomson's mind in
that straining effort,  without the aid of book or friend, to
penetrate the secret  workings of nature; to observe how
she moved in health, and  in disease; what were the reasons
and results of her diseased action; how could she be aided,
or befriended; could a hand be lent her in the struggle, or
must  she triumph or  sink  alone?  These, and ten thou-
sand other  questions, such as these,  must he have asked
himself,  while he looked mournfully on the* approaching
tremors  of  the final hour!   I  think I see him in the deep
solitudes of  the trackless desert, interrogating nature thus:
"Is there no remedy, no  healing balm, in all thy boundless
stores, to save thy  dying children? No powerful  antidote
to defend the human race from untimely death, or protract-
ed misery?"  He was answered yes, for "there is a voice in
stones, speech in trees, and sense  in every thing."   He re-
ceived his answer, and his science, and his diploma, and his
medicine; Heaven  sent  him  forth to  work; foriified  his
mind, girt up his loins, and cleared his way!  And it is but
just to add, that the smile of approving heaven has most ev-
idently blessed and accompanied bis practice.   A revolution
in medical practice is nigh at hand.  His plan is simple, as
Nature heiself is simplein her operations.   There is no time
spent in looking after names, symptoms, theories, causes a> d
indications;  the name is out, the cause  out, the indication
out, and  theremedvont;  and in a few hours, with'the help
of heaven, the parent is relieved, restored, requires fond,
recovers strength, sleeps, and rises, and returns to the busi > 
109
 ness of life.   These remarks may offend the prejudiced or
 stumble the incredulous^ but facts, plain ai.d  evident, will
 support the mind in its adherence and its tesiimony, notwith-
 standing the opposition of the world.   The  thrill of joy, on *
 beholding a single friend saved, will more than repay us for
 all the ridicule of this fleeting world.  Lord Bacon declares
 that the only  cause  of death, which i, natural  to man, is
 that from old age.   And he  complains of the  imperfection
 of phy>ic, in not  being able to guard "the principle of life,
 until the whole of the oil that feeds it be consumed.- v ">
   Dr. Rush remarks—"I am here insensibly led to make an
 apology, for  the  instability of the theories and practice of
 physic: And those physicians generally  become  the  most
 eminent, who have the soonest emancipated themselves from
 the tyranny of the schools of physic."
   "Our want of success,  continues the  same writer, is oc-
 casioned by the following causes; 1st, our ignorance of the
 disease; 2d, our ignorance of a suitable remedy; 3d, want
 of efficacy in  the remedy."   [See his works, page  79.]
   "Dissections daily convince  us of our ignorance of the
 seats of disease, and cause us to blush at our  prescriptions."
 "What  mischief have we done,  under the belief of false
 facts and false theories?  We have assisted in multiplying
 diseases; we  have done  more—we have increased their
 mortality.''''
   "I will not  pause to beg pardon of the faculty, for ac-
 knowledging in this public manner, the weakness of our pro*
 fession.   I am pursuing truth, and am indifferent whither I
 am led,  if she only is my  leader."
  How noble was the sentiment! but it was congenialtothe
 magnanimous soul of the great and venerable professor: And
how well was he qualified, by sentiment as well  as educa-
tion, toappreciate the labors and discoveries of Dr.THOMsoN, -
to seize  on his unity  of disease as kindred to his own;  an-
other testimony to the practical application of his own doc-
        [10J   * 
110
trine, and the guidance of that truth which he so ardently
admired.  That two such men,  the  One the pupil of na-
ture,  and the  other the  disciple of the schools, should be
both led, by reasonings from very different data, to the same
conclusion, is both curious and important.  It shows us that
they were both close  observers of nature; that  they  had
penetrated far beyond  the  surface  and appearances of
things; that they had regarded the complicated  maze of
names and symptoms of disease, as the chief foundation of
all the error and uncertainty in practice. 
LECTURE  IX.
                ON MEDICAL POISONS.

  It would seem a solecism in language, the bare combina-
tion of these terms;  but such is the fact—poisons, the most
violent and destructive, have been denominated and account-
ed, the most powerful and valuable medicines!
  It is said to be a power of the living principle,  to assimi-
late all foreign substances to its own nature.   One  might
suppose,  that the  physicians have strong reliance on this
principle, when they make so liberal a use of poison for
the cure of disease.  The assimilation, however, often fails;
the hostility is  too potent to be  overcome, and life expires
in the struggle; the process,  notwithstanding,  goes on;
and poisons are still  exhibited in the cure of disease—and
are likely to continue, unless some men, conspicuous for their
wealth and irifluence, shall unite for their proscription; for so
inveterate is  the passion for the use of mercury in medical
practice,  that  it  has passed into a proverb—"deprive  a
physician of  his uicrcury and his lancet, and he is like a lion
yvithout claws.'"1
  It has been remarked by many acute writers, that as the
science of medicine became technical, theoretic, and com-
plex, simple  remedies were rejected, and combined  and
complicated medicines supplied their place; and these were
so compounded and  disguised, to render the practice mys-
terious, that the patient  could  never  tell yvhich  article of
the compound relieved him; or what it was that relieved *
him at all.  If the medicine failed in its effects, or was inju-
rious, the whole was ascribed to the disease, not to the
remedy.   A  had habit of body;  virulent state of theflblood^ 
112
obstinate case;  Protei symptomatic developements;  un-
known type; unusual symptoms; have all  been assigned as
the cause of failure; instead of ascribing it to the  poison,
which  was exasperating the system and arousing every
power of life against the outrage.
  "There is,"  says Dr. Thomson—for even he is sometimes
sublime—'•there is a power beyond  the  reach of art, and
there are gifts which study and learning can  never rival."
He seems to have possessed those gifts and power, and to
have employed them with great and  uncommon success.
His mode of theorising leads to this conclusion: He per-
ceived that in food and drink, nothing was good but what
was congenial  to nature, and in harmony with the  laws of
life and health.   From these principles, so obvious and well
established, he drew the inference, that medicine designed
to restore health and remove disease, must be in harmony
with the laws of health and animal life; and opposed to
disease—hostile to every thing noxious to the living  powers
of nature.  In this  mode of reasoning he was confirmed,
by a painful experience of medical practice in his own
family.   He found the physicians had not success;  and he
discovered  their medicines to be poisonous, and the  reverse
of nature; an aggression of her  power, and violation of her
laws.  He had carefully observed nature's mode of curing
disease—or the practice of the vis medicatrix natvm, as the
school men would say—and he conceived, the whole  secret of
curing diseases consisted in aiding the efforts and operations
of nature, by administering medicine which  was  in con-
formity with her laws.
  For so curiously and wonderfully  are we made, that
whenever we are assailed by any noxious  power;  the system
immediately assumes a new, and generally a violent,  form of
action  to resist, and to overcome it.   Her operations in
supplying flesh, ligament, and bone,  when these  have been
injured, or  removed from the body, have been the admira- 
113
 uon and astonishment of the  students and lovers of nature
 in every period of the world.
   The  skill and power of nature to prevent deformity, or
 injury, in filling up and supplying the defects of any part of
 the system, is, indeed, so miraculous, that both in ancient
 and modern days, it  has been  ascribed to the agency of a
 percipient, a conscious, and intelligent power.
   Thomson  pursued his system;  which  was to observe
 nature in her efforts to cure disease; to aid her, by remedies
 in harmony with her laws; to support her when ready to
 perish;  and to allay her fury, when roused  to  excessive
 action.   For the latter, his nervine is incomparable, and
 for the former, Nos. 2,3, and 6, or 4, 5, and 6, will be found
 a safe and  salutary remedy.
   The  mineral  poisons, used as remedies so excessively
 and universally, seem still to  advance, until they have be-
 come as common at the bed  side of the patient, as food on
 the table of the healthy.  This state of things has long pro-
 gressed with accumulating power, and the most disastrous
 and ruinous consequences.  The time, however, is nigh at
 hand, when poisonous remedies shall  be hunted from medi-
 cal practice.  Great and wise and noble men, in every quar-
 ter of the globe, are opening their eyes to this wide spread.
 ing havoc and  devastation, and  raising their voices  like a
 trumpet, to withstand and overwhelm it.
  The Medical Colleges of Paris,  and London,  and Edin-
 burgh, are  taking the lead in  the great work of regenerat-
ing the medical world; in arresting the practice of poison-
 ing the  human system, and sending  millions unwept, un-
pitied, unannealed, to people the realms of the King of
 Terrors.  Our own country has  raised her warning voice;
the great and good Dr. Rush opened the  cry, and it now
resounds from the university of Massachusetts, to the wilds
of the West.  "I am sick," says the celebrated Dr. Water-
house, Professor of Materia Medica in the  University of 
114
 Cambridge; "I am  sick of learned quackery!"   And, he
 adds,  '"The flora of North America is astonishingly rich in
 remedies.   There is no doubt, in my mind, that in more
 diseases than is generally acknowledged, vegetable simples
 are  the preferable  remedies.  Who knows but in time.
 these  native productions of the  field and  forest, will  so
 enlarge and confirm their dominion, as to  supersede  the
 employment of other medicines."  The dawn ha?  broke
 upon us, and bright day shall go forth and shine;  when we
 may hope to live with the dear objects of our love, until
 ripe and full of years, we shall be gathered  to our fathers.
   Dr.  James  Hamilton, Fellow of the Royal College of
 Physicians, and Professor of Midwifery in the University of
 Edinburgh,  says:  "Among the numerous  poisons which
 have been used for the cure or alleviation of diseases there
 are  few yvhich possess more active, and of course  more
 dangerous, powers, than mercury.   Practitioners prescribe,
 on every trifling  occasion,  calomel or the blue pill:  thus,
 calomel is  now  almost the  universal opening medicine
 recommended for infants and children; and a course of the
 blue pill, is advised, without any discrimination, for the cure
 of trifling irregularities of digestion in grown persons."
   Dr. Falconer, of Bath, in a paper inserted in the Train-
 actions  or the Medical Society of London, May, 1809, has
 reprobated  the dangerous  practice of giving mercury  on
 every trifling occasion; and  his warning voice has  been
 re-echoed from  the Medical College of Paris.
  "Preparations of Mercury,  exhibited  for any length of
 time,"  says  Dr. Falconer, "whether internally or exter-
nally, increase the general action of the heart and  arteries
produce salivation, followed by emaciation  and   debility
with an extremely irritable slate of  the whole system.*1
  "The effects of mercury are expressly mentioned, or
virtually admitted, by everv author,  ancient and  modern
who has directed its use; and it must appear extraordinary 
115
that their full influence should have been misunderstood,
or, at least, not sufficiently* regarded."
   "Blood drawn  from the arm, of the most delicate  and
debilitated  individual,  subjected to a  course of mercurial
medicines, exhibits the same buffy crust with blood  drawn
from a person laboring under pleurisy.  The secretions of
the skin are greatly increased."   "Reasoning upon this sub-
ject, it may  be concluded, that inordinate action of the heart
and arteries, attended with an altered state of the blood,
and with debility, while  the  increased secretions attend-
ing this violent action have no tendency to allay it, health
must be rapidly  undermined.   If there be  ulcerations  in
any part of  the body, they must degenerate into malignant
sores;  as blistered surfaces mortify, in cases where the liv-
ing powers  are much exhausted!"   Dr. Reece's  observa-
tions on  the mercurial  disease, have confirmed and estab-
lished these remarks.  Dentists  have traced the  progress
of mercury, in medical practice, by the progressive accu-
mulation of decayed  teeth, and other diseases of the gums.
But these are the smallest evils resulting from this practice;
the morbid  effects of mercurial  medicine are almost i nu-
merable; retchings in the morning, disturbed sleep, fright-
ful dreams, impaired vision, aches  and pains in  different
parts of  the body, sudden failure of strength, as if just dy-
ing, violent palpitations at the heart, difficult breathing, with
shocking depression of spirit-, intolerable feelings  nervous
agitations, tremors, paralysis,  incurable mania, mental de-
rangement, fatuity,  suicide, deformity, bones  of the face
destroyed, and miserable  death."
   "These maladies, continues the doctor, have embittered
life in such  a degree, and rendered  existence so intolerable,
that it is  more than  probable that manv  of the suicides,
which  disgrace our country,have resulted from this state  of
the nervous system, produced by mercurial practice." 
116
  In the medical school of Paris, Bishat has established a
new theory of medicine, from his  discoveries in anatomy.
Broussais, practising upon this neyv system, gives the  pa-
tient almost no medicine and very little food.   His object
is to starve the disease; when, he says, it will soon burn out
of itself.  Therefore, to cleanse, and open, and purify, the
stomach and bowels, he makes the patient drink freely of
mucilaginous drinks, with very little or no food,  and if any,
of the very lightest  kind—and wine to  prevent debility.
All his practice is said to be accompanied with remarkable
success.
  These beginnings of opposition  to this fatal  remedy, or
deleterious poison, although not accompanied with  all the
success which we might expect, must yet, infallibly  gain
influence, and  finally overwhelm the practice with abhor-
rence and  detestation.
  The poisons used  for medicine are,  mercury, in various
states of preparation, arsenic, or ratsbane,  corrosive subli-
mate, white vitriol, antimony—a metal so powerful and dele-
terious, that a quantity so minute that it cannot  be sensible
in the finest balance, is capable of producing the most violent
effects—nitre, tartar emetic, iron, opium, foxglove—which
causes vomiting, syncope, coma and convulsions—hemlock—
the substance used of old, to put malefactors to death—dead-
ly night shade, &c.   This is the terrible array mustered by
the masters of the healing art, against the life and peace of
the distressed and wretched.  The apology of Paul can
only avail them: "1  did it through ignorance," said that sub-
lime Apostle, when  recording the time in which he had
persecuted Christ.   And the time will arrive, when future
generations shall look back on the theories  and  practice of
medicine  which now prevail, with as  much astonishment
and abhorrence as did Paul upon hie  former life.  "They
did it through ignorance" will be  the kind apology, which
children yet  unborn  will make for their  predecessors— 
117
while  they shall  heave a sigh  for the  miserable victims
wnich had been sacrificed on the altars of mineral poison.
and the  reigning  Moloch of mercury.   The deplorable
effects of  administering  these  poisonous  medicines,  can
never  be foreseen, nor defeated, with certainty;  because
their operations depend upon causes beyond the  reach of
the physician's skill.  The morbid effects of mercury, when
given in very  small quantities, have been sudden and fatal;
it has lain latent for years, before the effects appeared, and
then displayed the most dangerous results.
  There are  certain constitutions, says Dr.  Falconer, in
which the most dangerous  consequences appear from the
exhibition of  mercury; and yet they have  no  marks by
which  we can  distinguish this  peculiar tendency;  and
there is no method  of arresting  the dangerous progress of
the medicine, when once in active operation.
  The administration of mercury, to be safe, depends on the
peculiar state  of the stomach, the habit and temperament of
the body; for  what will produce  death in one patient, will
scarcely seem to have any  sensible effect upon another. One
will take  thirty grains and not  be salivated; another will
be salivated by five. One it will violently purge, and another
vomit; another, ulcerate the mouth and  destroy the bones
of the face.   All  metallic preparations are uncertain, be-
cause it depends entirely on the state of the stomach whether
they have any action at all, or act with violence and terrible
consequences; nor can this state of the stomach be previous-
ly known.  The danger of administering them is,
  1st, They are hostile to life, and in direct  opposition to
all  its laws and principles.
  2d,  The state  of  the  stomach  and habit of  body, on
which their action depends,  cannot be known, in relation to
the medicine; death or life, or chronic misery, may be the
result.
  3d, If given at all, the  proper quantity cannot be ascer-
tained. 
118
  4th, The exhibition of the dose, by ignorant or careless
hands, renders the danger still greater, and the condition of
the patient more insecure, and sometimes fatal.
  5th, Their exhibition  multiplies disease, aggravates mis-
ery, entails the long line of chronic complaints on millions?
poisons the system, embitters life, and accelerates death.
  And what else can we expect? Can we believe that man
is such an anomaly, that life and death can spring from the
same cause? That tike poison which destroys health, can re-
store it? This looks very much like putting darkness for light,
and  light  for darkness; calling  bitter  sweet,  and sweet
bitter.  If poison be both our bane and antidote, we are
strangely made! If the  mineral poisons doappear to remove
disease, in some cases, how can it be known that they do not
leave a taint in the system, a virus in the blood, and entail a
wretchedness which hangs upon the miserable  victim for-
ever;  drinking all the springs of life, until he sinks a mar-
tyr to  his  remedy, into  the cold  embraces of the  tomb.
Now that they do so engender disease, Mr. Mathias has in-
contestably shown; and the experience  of others has con-
firmed it: "That certain dangerous changes  upon ulcera-
tions originally  syphilitic,  and certain derangements of
health occur, wherever  mercury has  been administered in
too acrid a form, or in too large a quantity."   Dr. Falconer
once saw mercury applied for redness in the face, which it
speedily  removed; but also produced  death,  by causing
a dropsy in the breast.
   "A boy  about eleven  years old, had a  sore on  one cheek
occasioned by a dentist extracting a tooth; a physician was
consulted, who immediately prescribed a course of mercury.
In a short time, ulcerations in the throat appeared, the nose
sunk, and one eye was nearly destroyed; while the general
health was so injured, that death followed in a few months.
   "A lady, whom the same writer attended, had such small
doses of the blue pill, combined with opium, for three nights
V 
119
in succession, that the whole quantity amounted to no more
than five grains of the mass.  Salivation began on the fifth
day; and notwithstanding every  attention, the tongue and
gums became swelled to an enormous degree,  bleeding  ul-
'-crs of the mouth and fauces took place,and such excessive
irritability  and debility followed, that, for nearly a whole
month, her life was in the utmost jeopardy.   Every practi-
tioner must have met with similar cases."
  Dr.  Ally saw a boy about seven years old, covered with
a violent eruption,' in consequence of taking three grains of
mercury as  a  purge; which did not operate as intended,
but threw its virus on the skin.
  Another instance will serve to shew how mercury may lie
inert in the body  for years, and then become active, from
some incomprehensible cause.
  "A lady, the mother of four children, in the twenty eighth
year of her age, had a bad miscarriage at the end of the
fourth month.  When the author was called, she was very
much reduced by the loss of blood, and required the ordina-
ry palliative remedies.   Three days after the first visit, she
complained of a bad taste in her mouth, with soreness in her
vums;  and on the following day, salivation took place.   On
inquiring into the circumstances of her previous history, it
was learned that four years before, she had, for a fortnight,
a course of the blue pill,  which had only slightly touched
her gums; and it was solemnly  asserted, that she had never
again taken any preparation of the  mercury, and had been
in general good health."
  The salivation was, therefore, at first, attributed to some
accidental cause; but when it  was found to be proceedi-g
with great violence, the medicines which the lady had been
taking for the abortion  were carefully analyzed; but they
contained no mercury.   The most anxious care, and unre-
mitting attention proved unavailing, as did all the remedies
used in similar cases.   The salivation, with the usual conse 
120
yuences of excessive emaciation,  debility, and  irritability,
continued for above twelve months; occasionally, lor a day or
two, it was checked; but alarming symptoms, vomiting, with
threatened sinking of the  living powers supervened."
  These are  but very few of the distresses  and calamities
caused by the use of mineral poisons in the cure of disease.
It has been conjectured, th. t if we were able to trace their
operations on the system,  it would be found, that perhaps,
all chronic and hereditary diseases were derived from poi-
sons,  taken into the body in tie  form  of remedic ;  that
for a while, they might lie concealed, yet they  were work-
ing in secret, and preparing for that display of morbid action,
which fills life with misery and leads to an untimely grave!
  "Can a man take fire into his bosom, and not be burned?"'
said the wise man.   And we may  say, can a man take poison
into his stomach, and not  be poisoned ?  He  may not imme-
diately die; but may not a disease be generated in the  sys-
tem, that will render the remainder of his days deplorable
and wretched? when firm health and  refreshing sleep, shall
be strangers to his history! "We know not, says Dr. Reece,
whether  we should hail the discovery  of mercury as a bless-
ing,  or regard it as a curse; since the  diseases it entails
areas numerous as those which it cures."  "There are seri-
ous objections also, to other articles of the metallic world;
antimony, iron, and arsenic, are dangerous remedies in the
hands of the ignorant;  and mankind, perhaps, in the aggre-
gate, would be benefited  by their expulsion  from medical
practice."
  Dr. Reece is a member of the Royal College of Surgeons,
London;  and he thus remaikson  the charter of that Institu-
tion.  "The charter of the Royal College of Physicians, is
found to contain this singular licence; which is, 'a permis-
sion to any one, and  everyone to practice the  healing art by
herbs only.''  Now we do consider this is as ample a commis-
sion as any man would require; for poor must be  the resour, 
121
ees of that physician's mind, and narrow nis  Knowledge of
medical botany, who could not, from the vegetable kingdom
alone, cure most of the diseases of the human frame. Even
the specific of mercury, were yve driven to the necessity of
a substitute, might probably be rivalled in some of the pro-
ductions of nature."
  These  confessions and remarks, from a man high in his
profession, and eminent in the literary world, speak volumes
on this important subject.  It is certainly time to draw upon
these resources of the vegetable kingdom, and abandon for-
ever the  mineral  poisons.  The argument is copious,  and
clear, and strong, from Dr. Reece's own statement, to expel
them  forever; why should the  use of dangerous medicines
then, be still adhered to, while it is confessed the medicines of
the vegetable kingdom are so abundant, so safe, and so supe-
rior.   There must be a strong perversity in our nature, as
Dr. Harvey says, to resist the force of facts, and evidence
so abundant, and accumulating, and  irresistible.
  In 1816 and'17. the spotted fever raged at Eastham, Cape
Cod;  of those who used the system of  Dr. Thomson, thirty-
three  out of thirty-four, lived; and eleven out of twelve died,
of those who used the old practice.   Dr. Cyrus Thomson^
a son  of Dr. Samuel Thomson, in a  practice of four years
and six month-, during yvhich time he attended 1250 patients
lost out of that number only six; and most of those cases,
were  of the most dangerous type; or  of such as had been
surrendered to death by the regular physicians.
  To  the list of dangerous remedies, Dr. Reece might have
added the lancet, the blister and many others.   An eminent
physicia i has said, "that after the practice of blood-letting
was introduced  by Sydenham, during the course of one hun-
dred  years, more died by the lancet  alone, than all who, in
the same period, perished by war!"
  We all know how long and  painful was the struggle, be.
fore liberty of conscience, and civil libertv, could be estab- 
U\2
fished in the world; or before even  the liberty of thought
was permitted in the schools.   And  even to this d;iy, they
have only partially  obtained in the world.  "Lite  at -els'
visits, feyv and far between," have been the periods of their
triumphs, and the bounds of their establishing t.  The ty-
ranny of medicine is running the same career, ai.d  usurp-
ing the same authority over the rights, and privilege?, and un-«
derstandingsof men; or why so much my-tciy aid disguise
in the composition of pills, and medicines, and forms of prac-
tice?  Why has the  strong arm of the law been called b to
aid the facul'y.as  if  they were a privileged or<h >, bete't
whom the discoveries, the experience, the common sense,
and the understanding of the people must bow, as to a Da
gov).
  I know a case that will be certified by a gentleman of this
city.   He was attacked with rheumatism  so severely as to
be confined to his bed, and helpless, for  five or six months.
The  physician gave  him no relief,  but  rather aggravated
his complaint.  A poor woman, from the country, said she
could  cure it by a certain herb tea; in  twenty-four hours
after the use of the tea,  he was able to imlk his room; the
doctor called—was astonished at the change—and was in-
formed what produced it; pslia! said he, I knew that reme-
dy long ago.  And why,  said the patient in a rage, which
almost induced him to take the doctor's life on the spot—
why did you not then  relieve me from such excruciating suf-
ferings?  Because, said the doctor very coolly, the remedy
was not set down in our books!   The authority  of books, has
often set at defiance the  authority  of God, and trampled
down the peace, and sense, and independence of man.
■4T 
LECTURE  X.
     HEPATITIS, AND PHTHISIS PULMONALIS;  OK
        DISEASES OF THE LIVER  AND LUNGS.

   1st, Inflammation in general.—When any part of the body,
says Dr. Cullen,js affected with an unusual degree of red-
ness, heat, pain and tremor, yve name the disease an inflam-
mation, or phlegmasia.
   2d, As the external, so also the internal parts,  may be
affected with  inflammation; and we judge them to be so
from pyrexiae, fixed pain, attended with interruption of the
exercise of any of their functions.
   3d,  We  also judge of the presence of inflammation, by
blood drawn from the arm; when the blood, after  cooling,
shows a portion of the gluten, separated from the rest of the
mass, and  lying on the surface of the crassamentum; and
as such separation happens in  all  cases of more  evident
phlegmasia, so  in am'iguous cases,  we, from this  appear-
ance, joined to other symptoms, conclude the presence of
inflammation.
   I. In the phenomena of inflammation, all agree, that
there is an increased impetus of the  blood in  the vessels of
the part  affected; and  as, at the same time, the action
of the  heart is not considerably  increased; we  infer that
the increased  impetus of the blood in the particulir part,
is owing  to the increased action of the  vessels of the part
itself.  The cause of this increased  action of the  vessels,
we are to inquire after, and consider, as the probable cause
of inflammation.   The  application of a  stimulant  will, in
many cases, enable us to ascertain the part affected by the
inflammation:  as a stimulant will increase a pain in the side. 
124
in the breast, in the head, or in the stomach.   When this
occurs as a proximate cause,  the  stimulants are disused,
and sedatives prescribed as the mode of cure.   But when
the application  of stimulants  does not indicate  the part
affected, physicians  suppose an obstruction in the extreme
vessels,  by some cause unknown; perhaps cold, to be  the
cause proximate of inflammation.  But many difficulties
attend this doctrine; an error in the proximate  cause, will
infallibly lead to error in the mode of treatment.   Dr. Cul-
len supposes, that some causes of inequality in the distribu-
tion of the blood, may throw an unusual quantity of it upon
particular  vessels, to  yvhich  it  must necessarily  prove  a
stimulus.   But further, it is probable, that, to  relieve the
congestion, the vis medicatrix natune, increases still more the
action of these vessels, which it effects by the formation of
a spasm on their extremities—as in all other febrile diseases.
A spasm,  therefore of  the extreme arteries, supporting
an increased action in the  course  of them, may be consid-
ered  as the proximate cause  of inflammation in all cases
not arising from direct stimuli.
   II.  The inflammation of the  liver  seems to be  of tyvo
kinds; the one acute, and  the other chronic.   The  acute,
is attended with pungent pain, considerable  pyrexia, a fre-
quent, strong, and hard pulse, and high colored urine.  The
chronic hepatitis, very often exhibits none of those symptoms:
and is only discovered by the formation of large abscesses
in the liver.   The acute hepatitis is known by a pain  in
the right hypochondrium, dry cough,  pain in the clavicle
and  top of the shoulder, and  in lying on the diseased side.
   The disease may be seated either on the concave or con-
vex side of the liver; in the latter case, the pain is more
pungent and  the respiration is more considerably affected.
The inflammation is  often  communicated to the gall-blad-
der and biliary ducts; and this is perhaps, the only case  o!
idiopathic hepatitis attended with jaundice,. 
125
   The general plan of cure, is by the application of blisters,
fomentations,  bleeding, purges, salivation, mercury in vari-
ous exhibitions, or the blue pill  in small doses with nitres
salts, magnesia, and other medicines.   Now it is yvell known
from  long and mournful  experience, and  fatal  examples,
that this  mode of practice, if it does  relieve the liver, re-
move obstructions, or abate inflammation; it will, at  the
same time reduce and exhaust all the energies of the living
powers.   According to Dr. Culle.Vs oyvn theory—which if
it  be not  the  theory of all others, the  mode of practice is
the same—how can the vis medicatrix  naturce support its
energy, attacked at  once, by the  loss of blood, by the  poi-
son of mercury, and the direful effects of blisters and sali-
vation?  How many are cured by this mode of practice?
Plow many die?   How many do  yve not know in this city,
progressing from year to year,  in their painful  and rapid
journey to the grave, without receiving any relief?  Some
are relieved, but it is apartial relief; the complaint returns,
and  re-returns, until  the system  is consumed and  wasted,
all the vital powers  exhausted, and then the patient is de-
clared incurable!  not that the disease is incurable; but the
medicine and  mode of treatment, have made  it  so, by  de-
stroying the powers of life!
   Dr. J.  Smith confessed of a lady in this city, laboring
under hepatitis, that she was reduced so low, he could  not
prescribe  for  her, without aggravating some one of  her
combined diseases;  and that she could  not  endure any
more medicine, so dangerous were the symptoms.  Mrs.
Sullivan, whom, I presume, you mostly all  know, is  the
lady I speak of.   She had  suffered under this disease, and
the effects of  medical practice,  for  eleven years, or  up-
wards; and from a simple bilious cholic, it spread to  the
extent of nosology itself, by the help of medicine.  Bleeding,
tartar emetic, and mercury, were  adminstered by physicians
in the state of New York  and here; until Dr. Smith said
       [11*] 
12b"
tie could give no  more medicine—she could not bear it.
To die, was now her only hope.  Thom.-osx's medicine
was  recommended,  and  immediate relief obtained; tin
complication of disease  yielded altogether; and  if firm
health and vigor were not obtained, the vital poyveis were
restored, so  as  to make life comfortable, food nourishing,
sleep  refreshing,  strength to attend to the  duties of her
family;  and neno, to undertake a journey of fourteen hun-
dred miles to see her friends!  Who ever, had seen the suf-
ferings, and  sinking of strength, and spasms, of this lady,
previously to the  use  of this new remedy; and see her
noyv would think  her recovery little less than a resurrec-
tio" from the dead!
  The very severity of the mode of practice  for hepatitis,
as it has been  heretofore  pursued, has so  debilitated the
system,  that, perhaps, more have  been killed than  cured;
and more said to  have  been cured than ever enjoyed any
kind of tolerable health through  the  remainder of their
days; every change of air, or exercise, causing pain, de-
pression, irritation, fainting, languor, and all the symptoms
of dejection and debility, which result  from  an exhausted
state of  the vital powers!  For it is axiomatic in the econo-
my of life—that, whenever the system has been so far re-
duced by severe medicines, or  otherwise, as to lose  in  a
great measure, its power of re-action, good health canneter
be enjoyed.  Every irregularity affects the whole body, while
it has not power to repel, or reduce the morbid action.
  Dr. Thomson's system has never yet failed, where it has
heen fairly tried, in removing this disease; without leaving
any, of all  the  nameless train  of miseries,  which tartar
emetic,  mercury, purging, and  bleeding, and  antimonial
powders, entail on the  system.  But, on the  contrary, this
botanic  medicine  purifies the blood, restores the tonic pow-
e  of the fibres, and the stomach, and digestive organs, re-
animates the whole frame, rouses the animal spirits, and 
\Tt
acts, as it has been said to act, in harmony with life, in sup-
port of health, and  in opposition to disease.   A medicine
thus acting, is not to be overlooked nor rejected for the fee-
ble prejudices of man.
   There  is one  cause of the  frequency of inflammation of
the liver, yvhich ought not to escape observation.   The cir-
culation of the blood is remarkably sloyv through this organ;
being computed at only one twenty-fifth part of the rapidity
of other veins of the same diameters; the vena portae, yvhich
distributes the  blood through  the  liver yvithout the  aid of
arterial action, is the cause of this slow circulation.   There
is a small artery which goes to the  liver for the purpose of
supplying its nutrition; but it affords no aid to the secretion
of bile, nor to the circulation  through the glandular parts.
Now, this is one of the singular parts of the animal economy;
nutritions and secretions of the various organs, are always
supplied from the arterial blood, this of the bile alone  ex-
cepted;  It  is sui generis.  The vena porta?, collects  the
blood from  the stomach,  intestines, and lower belly,  and
from thence conducts it  to the liver; through every part
of which it is distributed, for the secretion of bile from it,
by its glandular parts; and this blood  is again returned  to
the  heart  by a  branch of the great vein.  Now, to force
the  blood forward  through the circulation in other parts,
there  is  requisite, a considerable  degree of  arterial force;
but here there is none—as it is all expended, perhaps, more
completely than in any other part of the body, by the length
and  minuteness of the ramifications of the blood vessels in
the lower belly, which, are not equalled  in any other part
of the whole system; hence,the slowness of the circulation
of the blood in the liver and  the danger of engorging the
vessels by the increase of arterial action.   The melancholy,
the languor, the despondency, the dull and heavv ev e, which
accompany this complaint always indicate its peculiar force.
A rapid flow of blood, is always necessary to  strong health 
128
and high spirits.  In the liver, at best, the motion  of the
blood is so  slow that it is only  the twenty-fifth part of the
common time, in order to give it time for the secretions of
bile; but if any thing impede ibis motion, deep grief, mop-
iug melancholy, or imaginary troubles, brood upon the mind.
  The Empress Josephine attributed  the melancholy dull-
ness of Lucien Bonaparte, and his dislike to activity, to the
deficiency of his digestive powers.  She had  learned   this
from the physicians;  for none can surpass the faculty of Pa-
ris.  There can be no proper digestion, without a sufficien-
cy of bile;  now,the circulation in the liver becoming lan-
guid from grief, or depressing passions, or any other causei
and the vena portae not being  aided by the impelling pow-
er of arterial force, to perform its laborious functions; and
its energy  depressed by the passions themselves;  the blood
accumulating in the branches of  the porto, causes a painful
and obtuse  sense of oppression, anxiety and despair; and ve-
ry often complete mental derangement.  And although, it
be not often suspected, the fact is certain, that the liver is
far more frequently the seat of mania and melancholy, than
the brain.
  How invaluable then, must be that cure,  which can safe-
ly remove a disease pregnant with so much misery, and re-
plete with such innumerable d isasters, and terrifying results to
the human  race.  Terrible must be that influence, which can
chain down the free-born mind to systems inccmpetent and
deleterious, and  render it regardless of a discovery, as po-
tent to expel  the complaint, as kine-pock  to consume that
virus of the blood, what had been devouring the one-twelfth
of the human race for 12,00 years.
  Dr. Barnwell, in  describing the treatment for  disease
in the liver, says: "It may be thought, by some of our read-
ers, that we are not acquainted with the use  of mercurials
in diseases  of this organ; but it has happened, that we  are
but too well acquainted with their effects in acute hepatitis. 
129
 Mercurials for about twenty years past, have been in their
 meridian  fame in India; but we hope from  our acquaint-
 ance with their pernicious effects, that some of the physi-
 cians have minds formed  so  as to profit  by experience."
 "The abuses of mercuiy  in cases of acute hepatitis, or in
 any stage of it, when attended with acute pain, we know to
be the most pernicious mode of treatment which it is possi-
 ble to invent.  The efficacy of mercury was discovered in
 India about fifty years ago, in chronic diseases of the liver;
 and being indiscriminately recommended, it got soon  into
general use;  and when the patient died by the application,
—as they generally did by this treatment—the acute were
 set doyvn as incurable.  But the mischief did not end here;
for its application was transferred to other  inflammations,
 until mercury was at length considered a specific, in all the
stages and varieties of disease.
  "But  we can safely pronounce mercury to be highly per-
nicious in  the first stages of disease, whilst the pain,  or true
inflammation, is present.   For tubercles orimpostumes are so
apt to follow, that it is scarcely possible to avoid them;  a
 circumstance to be dreaded  above all  others.  These  are
the effects, which we have seen invariably  take place,  from
the abuse  of mercury, in the early stages of disease;  so that
 we are not more certainly convinced of the poisonous effects
of arsenic, than we are of those of mercurials, given in the
acute stages of this disease.
  "It may be thought  our  criticisms on the abuse of mer-
 cury are  too severe;  but let it be remembered, that when
applied  to those, who either through ignorance or irrational
proceedings, sport with the lives and  health of mankind,
there should  be something still more severe than words, ap-
plied to such offenses."
  Dr. BvRNWELLhad practised medicine both in India and
 America,  and declares the destructive effects of mercury he
has often witnesed on both sides of the  Atlantic,   And who 
130
t»as not witnessed such horrible consequences; the destruc-
tion of the face, the emaciated and miserable form; the liv-
ing eleath, moving in place of a human being? Who has  not
witnessed all these, and many more, who has at all attended
to the diseases and the management of the human family?
 III. Phthisis pulmonalis, or consumption of the lung'1, is de-
fined to be an expectoration of pus, orpurulent matter, from
the Imigs, attended with a hectic fever.  In every instance
of phthisis pulmonale, there is, as we suppose, an ulceration
of the lungs.  Dr. HAENhas supposed, that pus maybe form-
ed in the blood vessels, and be from  thence passed into the
bronchia*.   A catarrh is attended with  an expectoration of
matter so  much  resembling  pus, that physicians have been
often uncertain whether it was mucus or pus.  It is of con-
sequence to determine this point;  and it may be done with
sufficient certainty  (or all the purposes of  practice.
  1st, From the appearances of the  matter; mucus  is  na-
turally transparent, and pus always opake; when mucus be-
comes opake, it is white, yellow, or  greenish; which latter
color, is not so considerable  as in  pus.
  2d, From the  consistence; mucus is  more viscid and ad-
herent; pus less so.
  3d, From the specific  gravity compared with wafer; it is
usual for the mucus of the lungs to swim on water, and pus
to sink.
  4th, Expectorations  of pus, are connected  yvith a hec-
tic fever; but expectorations of mucus, though with  fever,
yet not with  hectic fever.   There are  many  of  these
distinctions recoided by physicians, but these are sufficient
to satisfy a person's own mind. For disease is aggravated, if
the mind despairs or becomes gloomy.
   This disease is remarkably different, in many of its phe-
nomena, from those of the liver; for the ugh great debility
and emaciation take place, the mind, for the most part, is
confident and full of hope; the senses and judgment com- 
131
monly remain entire to the very end.  In some cases  deli-
rium takes place a little  before death, bu-. this nappens sel-
dom.
  Tae phthisis pulmonalis, says Dr. Cullen,-'is exceedingly
ditfiult of cure.   It may be doubted wlietherthis failur- is
to be imputed  to the imperfection of our art,  or to the ab-
solutely incurable nature of the disease.   I am extremely
averse, in any case, to admit of the latter supposition; and
can always admit  readily of the former.   Dr.  Rush always
firmly maintained  the same opinion; that no disease was in
itself incurable; the failure constantly arose from  misman-
agement, or imperfection in the practice.
   The remedies prescribed are, blcod  letting, low diet, a
to d abstim nee from animal iood,  milk and vegetable  diet.
The asses milk in  this complaint  has long been  found  the
best remedy; Dr. Buchan  says he  knew a man who was
cured by sucking his wife, who  happened to lose her child;
he sucked her breast to give her relief; and finding the ben-
efit  great, he continued  until  perfectly  cured! became a
sound and  healthy man, and was living when the doctor
wrote his family medicine. In this complaint blisters, bleed-
ing, mercury.and the blue pill, are prescribed; of the evil ef-
fects of mercury, we have already spoken; of bleeding, the
reasons are strongly against it.   The blood is  the great ve-
hicle of life, and health, and heat, to the whole system.  And
how can draining  the fountain of life, add  to its duration?
The pernicious consequences of blisters have been  often re-
marked by practitioners. Dr. Hillvry remarks, "canthari-
des contain a great quantity  of alkaline semi-volatile salts,
whic'i pass into the blood by absorption, and increase  both
the stimnlons and  the momentum of the blood, and atten-
uate, dissolve and hasten its putrefaction;  and produce  heat
and «tranguary in the urinary passage."
   Noyv the me-hcine and mode  of treatment recommended
by Thomson, have removed  both these diseases, in  cases 
132
 almost innumerable and in their most  desperate  and hope-
 less stages.  It is the purpose of these lectures to declare
 a  remedy, safe, certain, and successful,  which has  never
 been known to fail, when properly applied; a remedy which
 has removed,  with powerful and salutary effect, the most
 fatal diseases of our country \feroer, hepatitis, and pulmonalis;
 a remedy which restores and invigorates the system; leaves
 no  taint, no debility, no lurking death behind it!
   The cases to suppoit this fact  can be easily  examined
 and certainly  known.  No one  need  be  deceived, if they
 only take the  trouble to institute the inquiry; and surely
 the life  and health of our friends and families demand  the
 trial.
   It is not a light thing  for which we contend; but a matter
 which regards the precious life.  Without health, no state
 nor prosperity can be enjoyed; and when  sickness comes,
 to have to encounter remedies, at best uncertain, and often
 direful in their consequences, adds an immense load of anx-
 iety and  grief, to  the already  suffering  patient, together
 yvith all that the friends and relations must suffer.    But it is
 ^he causeof humanity atlargc,and the business of every man,
 who has  a common interest in  the  welfare of the human
 race;  of all who would lay claim  to benevolence of heart;
 to endeavor to reduce the sum of human calamities.  What
joy would  it not yield, to see our neighbors arriving at  a
 good old  age?  their days spent in firm liealth; their diseases
 few and  soon  removed; their time, and peace, and memey,
 saved?  These  considerations,  when  contrasted  with the
 present state of things;  when  men  do not  live half their
 days; yvould  be as a new birth to  the renovated and  re-
 deemed world!
   And I  am persuaded that if ever the arrow of  death has
 pierced  the happiness  or entered the  abode of those who
 he ir m<-,they  will not lightly hear the proclamation of that
 hope, that their diseases may be safely  relieved and healed; 
133
and the heart thrilling  anguish of losing c. u^ioved object,
dearer than our own souls, on every trivial complaint, be for
ever extracted from the breast!
   Dr. Thomson very shrewdly remarks, "a number of the
doctors  discovered  that  the effects of my medicine  were
astonishing; and therefore concluded it  was poison.  This
can be easily accounted for; because they have no remedy
in their medical science  capable of producing a powerful
effect on the system, except what is poisonous."
   And it is astonishing, and will remain as an astonishment
to future ages; that the very rankest poisons are the princi-
pal remedies now in use in  the yvorld; and  have  been for
at least  fifty years  past.   It would be a melancholy tale
could it be told, the millions who have perished  through
this practice.
   The stream of popular feeling is, however, on the  turn;
and we  have no doubt, but the hue and cry against it will
be louder and  longer  continued, than it has  been against
Thomson and his practice.  It is a promise of God to the
yvorld, that men shall  be brought to a  knowledge of the
truth; that the earth shall rejoice, because of the out  pour-
ings  of  the beneficence of Him, who dwells amidst the
dazzling light of vast eternity,
        [12J 
^
- 
LECTURE   XI.
 *». GENERAL REVIEW OF THE NATURE  AND OPERA-
           TION OP THOMSON'S REMEDIES.

  The great and general advantages ascribed to mercury^
by the physicians, were to pierce and penetrate the system;
to remove obstructions; to restore action to the parts affect-
ed, and equalize the excitement.  The liver was said to be
impervious to every other medicine;  and hence its universal
application in diseases of that organ.  From this, it extend-
ed its empire over all;  and reigned  triumphant  over every
other remedy.   In the  more  simple cases; worms, colds,
indigestion,  costiveness,  cough, sore  throat, or whatever
else you could name; mercury was  the cure for all.
   1st, Lobelia, discovered and used  by Thomson, will pene-
trate  the system, equalize the excitement, remove the ob-
structions, cleanse the stomach and bowels, purify the blood,
remove diseases from the lungs and liver, in a  manner far
superior  to yvhat  ever was accomplished  by mercury.—
While it  possesses this advantage, which  mercury never
had,itacts in harmony with all the principles of  life;  leaves
no taint, no disease, no rackeel and  decaying bones, and de-
formed countenances behind!
   This simple fact, whatever may be said to the  contrary,
will set it at an  immense  distance,  above all the fame that
mercury ever  can acquire.  I think, as  1 am yvriting these. **
words, of that awful and terrible day of decision and despair,
when all  the forn.s and faces which  mercury has mutilated,
shall be arraved against the system of practice;  but against
lobelia, -iot.-r.ic in all that countless  multitude to show a de-
cayed bone,- or deformed  feature.  The members of the 
136
 faculty, noyv so busy in abusing Thomson, could they behold
 this; could  they anticipate this scene;  would employ them-
 selves in devising methods, if that were possible, to remune-
 rate the world for the evils they have done it, and the  mise-
 ries they have inflicted ori its inhabitants!
   There are men of mind, said Dr. Barnwell, who will, 1
 am convinced, profit by the  experience  of past practice.
 If it were  not for  that  idol—rself interest—which so  many
 worship, there would be little difficulty in profiting by past
 experience.
   The mind that is open to conviction, and determined  to
 pursue  truth  wherever  she may guide, v. ill derive lessons.
 even from  its oyvn mistakes,  yvhich may  prove salutary  to
 itself and to the yvorld.  O!  how grand, is that character,
 that can ri-c superior to sense and selfishness—and  cling
 to the radiant glory of immutable truth.
   Lobelia is a most active and powerful medicine; its effects
 are to cleanse the stomach, lemovc obstructions and  pro-
 mote perspiration.  It is, perhaps, one of the most valuable
 remedies of the vegetable kingdom.  It is the Lobelia fnfiata
 of Linnjeus; but it does not appear, that its  medical qualities
 were ever perceived, or regarded, by the physicians.   It is
 a specific in asthmatic complaints.  A lady yvho had not been
 able to lie in bed for six months, with an asthmatic  com-
plaint, by the use of this vegetable tincture, slept in  bed
the first night of  using it; and has enjoyed a  comfortable
state of health since, upwards of twelve years.
   Dr. Thomson says of this herb, "it is most  powerful  in
 removing disease, and safe in its operation.  1 have  given
it  to  infants of a  day  old,  and men of eighty years-,  it is
innocent in  its nature, moving yvith the  general current  of
the animal spirits.  There arc tyvo cases where this medi-
cine will not operate; when the patient is  dying, and when
there is no disease.   Where there is no enemy, there  cm
be no war:  in the  hcalthv system, it will be silent and harm- 
137
less."  "It is calculated to remove the cause of disease anfi
no more, as food to remove hunger."  "It clears all obstruc-
tions to the extremities, not regarding the name of the dis-
ease, until it produces an equilibrium in the system; and will
be felt in the  fingers and toes, producing a prickling feel-
ing like that caused by a blow on the elbow."  It is also, he
says, of great  value in preventing, as well as in curing dis-
ease ; a little  of it taken into the stomach, when a person
feels  unwell,  will immediately throw  off the  obstructions,
or cause of  sickness, and save the person from a very long
attack of pain and fever.
   2d, Capsicum.—It has been long a subject of deep import-
ance to physicians, to find a stimulant at once powerful and
not narcotic—bark and spirits both fail in  this  respect; and
laudanum destroys sensibility and deadens the  vital powers;
the system is  partially destroyed by its action; for it is hos-
tile  to life,  subverts the natural functions, and is itself an
obstruction of the offices of life.   Capsicum  supplies this
grand desideratum.   It is a stimulous, powerful and perma-
nent; not narcotic,  nor destructive of the vital  functions.
It is said to have been found effectual in curing diseases
which have  resisted all other medicines.  It supports the  na-
tural heat of the vicera and interior action, beyond any thing
heretofore known; and has been used  with great suecess in
the  cure of spotted fever.   Like  the former medicine, it
seems to be safe and salutary,  perfectly  in harmony with
nature, and the most active stimulant to support and reani-
mate her feeble or exhausted  powers.
   3d, In the mode of expelling the virus or morbific matter
from the blood,  the physicians  have  been most divided;
some have  recommended perspiration; others, salivation,
friction,  bleeding and purging, and  the use of mineral
waters.   Dr. Thomson's composition medicine,  to remove
this morbid   purulei t  matter from the system,  has been
found  extremely effectual.   It  is a compound of four or
       [12*] 
138
  five different herbal productions; and in purifying the blood
  and cleansing the whole internal man, stands without a ri\al.
  A variety of herb teas have been used in the spring of the
  year to purify the circulation;  but they have not been found
  sufficiently powerful to expel the dregs of disease from Ihe
  system.  This composition of Dr. Thomson, in that respect.
  stands pre-eminent,  in all the cases in yvhich it has  been
  properly applied, according  to the established directions.
    4th, Bitters to correct the bile and  promote digestion, con-
-  sist of another composition of herbal medicine,  and are of
  great importance to the health of our country;  (hey ought to
  be known and used in every family.  From the  nature of
  our climate, subject to great and sudden changes and irre-
  gularities;  from  the  abundance of  fruit, used  in a crude
  and improper state;  and the  vast use of fie-h meat; fre-
  quent  and  great irregularities will, and do, take place in
  the digestive organs, and gall-blader.  and  biliary  duct?.
  Disea es of this complexion  are, perhaps, by  far the most
  numerous in this country; and to guard against them, is
  the imperious duty of every individual.  It is impossible to
  retain  good  health without due  attention  to  the state of
  the stomach.   Many men have made fortunes bv  the inven-
  tion of bitters, for the use of the stomach; but on trial none
  have been found equal to those prepared by Dr.  Thomson.
    5th, Another composition, for dysentery ai d  the summer
  complaints of children,  and  all complaints of the bowels-
  and has been found, on trial, to be hi. hlv beneficial.  Thi =
  disease of children has long  baffled the physician's skill: it
  has been confessed by the.most eminent of the faculty, to
  be  very little under the control of medical  skill.  This
  medicine has been found to afford instant relief.
    6th, Rheumatism, a  severe and   most  painful  disease
  which has been  often given  up as i; curable, by the appli-
  cation of Dr. Thomson's rheumatic drops, and other medi-
  cine to relieve the system,  and equalize  the excitement. 
139
have  established a  perfect cure,  when  every other appli.
cation failed.   A man at  Columbus, had  suffered by this
disease for  years;  and  like her in the  Gospel, had  epent
all  his living on physicians, and grew nothing better, but
rather worse; until he was drawn  together, quite bowed
down by the severity of the pain, and unable to walk.  He
had for some months been given up by the  faculty, and re-
signed to  his fate.   The medical  botany doctors  took him
in hands, after this new practice began to be known in that
town, and restored him in a feyv weeks.  The faculty would
not believe it until the man yvas produced—walking straight
as a line, to  their utter amazement.
  7th, Opium has been  almost  exclusively  for years, used
to quiet the  nerves and still  restless children.  Many a poor
infant  has suffered  death, by  the administration of this
deadly drug; and many a stupid head and stupified person,
has it sent into the world; never to speak of the multitudes
it has sent out before their time.  It is a most deadly drug;
and seems to destroy the vital actions of the whole system.
But, say the physicians, it relieves pain;  yes, it relieves
pain by deadening sensibility;  a bullet or a dagger will re-
lieve  pain in the same way!   But the important question
is, will it  remove pain by removing the cause of pain—disp-
ense? Will it not, o  i the contrary, give force to the disease,
by weakening the vital functions? Does it cot establish dis-
order in the  system by rendering all its powers torpid?
  Dr. Thomson's nervine has a more powerful effect, by ten
fold, in quieting the nerves, promoting sleep, soothing and
selling  the  tumuli  of the  whole  system; is perfectly safe
and  harmless in its application; has  none  of the narcotic
qualities, nor  deadly stuyifving eflfe  ts of laudanum.   It
promotes ease and comfort, and leaves no dregs of wretch-
edness, nor  dream of insanity behind!  Now, nothing can
so recommend a medicine, as to be certain it will produce
the end designed: and none of all the evil consequences not 
140
designed, but deprecated by the faculty; but which they
have no means of preventing.
  Dr. Thatcher 6ays, arsenic, in cancer powder, has been
absorbed by the patient, so as to cause death ny  consump-
tion, in the course of one year.
  Beware, says Dr. Thomson, of all minerals used as medi-
eine; such as mercury, arsenic,  calomel, antimony;  all pre-
parations of copper, lead, iron, vitriol; also nitre and opium:
They are all  poisons, and deadly enemies to health.  Be-
ware of bleeding, and  blistering;  they  are destructive  of
health; avoid seatonsand issues; they are hateful, nauseous
and drain the very sources of life; they never did, and never
c.«ndo good! Shun them all, as opposed to life and its vital
functions.
  Now, it may be said in justification of the faculty, that us-
ing the  medicines they do,  the fatal consequences they are
not able to prevent.  If it be replied, then let them not use
such medicines; the answer is, they have none else to use!
What are their active remedies, which  are not poisonous,
and destructive to life? "Mercury, says Dr. Rush, is the
GoliahoJ medicine-" it is certainly a Goliah to destroy; it
is  the  uncircumcised Philistine of medical science,  who
defies the living armies of the living God.  The numbers
slain by his arm, let India, and America, and the world wit-
ness.  The multitude of the valley of Hammon Gog, would
not equal their countless hosts,  if mustered on the field of
the slain, or arrayed before the eyes of the world.
  The '"heroic medicines" as they are emphatically called,
deserve indeed,  a considerable  share of the praise of the
Cjesars  and Alexanders  of the world; powerful  to de-
st oy, heroic in blood, and havocr and devastation.   It was
the boast of Alexander—"I have made Asia a desert, I have
tramoled  down its inhabitants and prostrated its ancient
renown." 
141
  8th, It i.-, a point  conceded  by medical writers, that the
operation of medicine does not depend on any of the com-
mon layvs of matter, but  on the principle of vitality  alone.
Now, from  this concession, the theory of  Dr. Thomson is es-
tablished;  for he affirms the great value and success of his
medicine depends on this  principle—that it is in harmony
with the vital  powers.   As the operation of medicine de-
pends on the principle  of vitality alone, it must harmonize
with the vital principle; or, otherwise,so far from being a
remedy, it would be a poison;  because, depending for its
action on the principle of life, if its action be in oppostion
to that  principle, it cannot restore  health, but  destroy it.
And  this very conclusion of Thomson's theory, is in perfect
accordance with the physicians' doctrine, but in opposition
with their practice.
  Every animated being is  endowed yvith a primordialprin-
c iple of life.   This principle, resident in  the eggs of animals
and the seeds of plants, constitutes  the power, by which, in
the first place, the various organs are moulded,  developed?
and perfected; and by which, nftenvards, the animal econ-
omy is  maintained and defended against the action of me-
chanical and chimical laws.  Now, it is evident, that medi-
cine throyvn into the system, directly hostile  to  this active
and repulsive  power, must  have the most pernicious effects
on life and health.  The principle of life may struggle for
a time, but must sink at last.   I know,  in reply to  this, it
will be  said, that this principle of life, by the power of the
digestive and assimilating  organs, will  change  or destroy
the  qualities of substances exposed to  their operations, if
renpgnant  to its  nature, without  sustaining any injury it.
self.  This is true only in part;  for this power of assimilat-
ing is often overcome, and life destroyed.  If it were other-
erwise,  it would matter  not what we  might eat or  drink;
what medicine we received.   But yve know the contrary to
be a fact;  why  so much direction  and caution to patients- 
142
 respecting the qualities  of their food and drink?  why the
 terms harsh medicines,  severe medicines, dangerous medi-
 cines? They all establish the same conclusion; the necessity
 of guarding the principle of life; and the value of Dr. Thom-
 son s remarks, that proper medicine must  be in harmony
 with the principle of life.
   There is a unity and beauty in truth; it is not  like error,
 multifarious and infinite.  It was remarked by an ancient
 sage, that there was but one road to Truth, and that diffi-
 cult to find; but the ways to Error were innumerable, and
 every fool could walk in them.   It requires no meditation,
 no thought, to establish or deliver systems of error.  The
 greater the madness and less the  discretion, the better is
 the publisher  qualified to propagate  falsehood and detail
 lies.
   Between the physician who theorizes in his study, and the
 one who establishes his theory on facts and experience, the
 difference is as wide as between a novelist and a writer of
 true  history.   The historian gives us human nature as it is;
 the novelist as it is not.
   Dr. Thomson gives  his   pharmaceutical  preparations
 horn his own  trials, observations and  experience.  Many
 others write theories,  and then found  their practice  on
 what they have written.  Thus  medicines repugnant to
 life are given to the patient; he has to struggle  with the
 morbid excitement, and  additional hostility  of  the medi-
 cine, until  the  whole system, languid and decayed, sinks
 under the attack, which it is no longer able to repel.  Now
 from the very nature of the operation of medicines, as they
 are designated by the faculty, "that their operation is either
local on the stomach, and diffused over the system by sym-
pathy; or general, being  thrown into  the  circulation, and
conveyed through the whole body;" it would seem to be of
the highest moment  that they should  be safe and salutary
in their nature, thus to commingle  yvith all the. streams of
 life, and pervade the extent of vital action. 
143
   It is a fact, admitted by physicians, that between medicine
 and  certain portions of the body, an intimate and specific
 relation exists.  Now, if this be  notorious as it is, will  not
 a general specific become an universal remedy?  For these
 consequences  must necessarily follow; that while an action
 is  going on in a diseased organ, if the  remedy  be only a
 partial specific, though it may be salutary to that particular
 organ,  it may disturb the order of health in every other or-
 gan in the system, and create morbid derangements through-
 out every other  part of the body.  And this very conse-
 quence we  perceive in mercurial medicines; while they re-
 lieve  the liver, or  subdue/e»er, they are creating  ulcerations
 »n the mouth and glands of the throat, diseasing  the bones,
 and exciting deadly tumors in other parts of the body.  The
 medicines, therefore, which  are partially specific, are dan-
 gerous medicines; though on this well known fact, the whole
 Materia Medica is based in its order and classification.
  Now,a  safe  medicine must be a universal specific, possess-
 ing an intimate relation to the whole body; that while re-
 moving obstruction from a particular organ, it may not ex-
 cite morbid action in others.  And such has Dr. Thomson's
 medicine  proved  on trial.  He has affirmed it to be of that
 nature; and the whole of the experience confirms the fart,
 that while  removing disease, it produces no  morbid  de-
 rangements.
  Arsenic and tartar emetic, as has been found after death,
 produces  the most deleterious effects  on the stomach; and
 yet they are given to remove disease, and  called  excellent
 remedies;  but are  now denounced by those  who  are
 disposed to purge the  Materia  Medica;  as may be seen
 in  the Transactions of the Royal  Society, for  1811—12.
 Corrosive sublimate kills, by acting  chimically on the mu-
 cus coat of the stomach; but arsenic, tartar emetic, and the,
muriate of barytes, by entering the blood, 
144
  The general course of nature, in accomplishing its result*.
is known to employ means, which are proverbially  distin-
guished by great simplicity and unifoimity of action.   The   ^
mode of curing her complaints, yve might suppose, should be
distinguished by the  same uniformity ai-d simplicity.  Dr.
Chapman in his Therapeutics, has this beautiful remark: "It
is more than probable that on some Alpine height, or along
the margin  of some mighty stream, which pervades our
wide spread continent, there blooms many a plant, wasting
its virtues 'on the desert air,' which were they known, may
be peculiarly adapted to the gigantic form  of disease, and
capable ot reducing the lengthened catalogue of the  oppro-
bria medicarum."   At this period of the progress of these
lectures, I cannot help  expressing a hope that Dr.  Thom-
son,  from his extensive acquaintance yvith the medical vir-
tues of plantsand herbs, would make out,for the sake of neat-
ness and precision in his pharmaceutical preparations, a com-
plete system of medical botany; or a digest of all the plants,
in  classification,  with a  particular detail of their  efficacy
and application in removing disease, the mode  of operation
and practical results.
  If the  immese riches of  medical virtue,  inherent in the
pants and flowers of the field, were collected in ore volume, it
would realize the aspirirg 1 ope of the great and good Dr.
Rush, the perfect cure of all the maladies of the human race.
And the rays of human thought are converging on this sub-
lime, and grand, and awful, elevat'or—the perfection of the
healing art; and will continue to concentrate their ei ergies
until the full blaze of glorious triumph shall burst upon the
world.
 From all the instinctive propensities, and rational principles
of action, man is induced to shun pain and  misery;  aid re-
move it from himsel f if attacked, I y the easiest and speedi-
est method possible.   This established law of our iature
would dispose, if left to our unbiased reason, to examine and 
145
  approve, if found valuable, whatever might conduce to our
  jase  and comfort in the world.  Whatever promises to re-
  store or establish the health of cur fellow men, excites a
  glow of general feeling of gratitude  and thankfulness, in
  every benevolent heart;  for we do not live for  ourselves
  done; we live and rejoice in the happiness and joy of our
  neighbors; and we pine and die in their misery and destruc-
  don.   Homer stated it as  a general unqualified maxim, that
  •good men are prone to shed tears."   The silent streams that
  bedew the earth  arc supplied from the sources  of human
  icnevolence, yvcpt over the woes of others.  The tear and
  he smile are  characteristic of man; they  distinguish  the
  lignity of human feeling and that divine sympathy which
  i.iimates the   osom; and prove that the glandulae lachry-
 males were not made in vain.
   There  is one part  of the new practice, which I wish to
 recommend to general notice; Dr.  Thomson's method of
 ;educing the contracted muscles, in  the occurrence of bro-
 ken bones and luxations.  It  is very simple and effectual;
 and of such power and influence over the contracted muscles,
 that the patient can have  the bone  set, or the  luxation  re-
 duced, almost without any  pain.  The great importance of
 this simple  practice need  not be impressed on those yvho
 have witnessed the agony of setting bones and reducing lux-
 ations in the usual and established practice.  I have known
 a piece of the bone sawed off,  in order to its being set, such
 was the contraction of the  muscles!  This state of terrible
 suffering to the patient, and moreover being rendered by it
 lame for life, was so dreadful f.o behold, that Dr. Thomson's
 simple mode of reducing the muscles, is of itself, sufficient to
 immortalize hisnameif hehadnevermade another dis tovery.
  To the attention of families I would mention  and recom-
mend another fact in Dr. Thomson's discoveries, of great"
advantage to their comfort and happiness;  and   lappeal
now, not only to the feelings and sensibility of parents, but
        [13] 
146
 mj-o to their understandings and experience;  is not the mo-
 ther, the most  affectionate and careful nurse  of her  child?
 Can any stranger know the  disposition,the temperament,
 the peculiar  idiosyncrasy of that child, equal to its oyvn
 mother?—A'une.  It is, therefore, impossible  for any physi-
 clan, upon their own principles, to know  either the quantity
 or the  nature of the dose of medicine to be administered to
 that child, equal to the mother; for they, not knowing its pe-
 culiar temperament, cannot tell nor foresee  by their utmost
 skill, what will be the operation of that medicine.  It may
 act right or wrong; hill or cure.  The mother is the  best
 qualified to administer, but for one circumstance—she is the
 most tender, watchful  and  most perfectly acquainted with
 the disposition of her  child—but si e knows  not medicine.
 Add but this knowledge to  all her other qualifications, and
 the mother, for the diseases of infants,  would be  the best
 physician in the world; and the  best  in  the most prevalent
 diseases of her whole family.  I have the authority of Dr.
 Rush for the assertion, that a sensible mother, or nurse, in
 most of the diseases of children, were superior to the most
 of physicians,
  The practice of Dr.THOMsoN is expressly adapted to con  -
 for on the mother that only qualification which she reeds, to
 render her the best physician, as she is the best nurse, in her
 family; or to bestow the same skill on every other member
of it.   For it is emphatically  the realization of the facl, or
the  attainment so long sought after,  "let every man be his
oyvn physician."  Philosophers and sages, physicians and
 patriots, have all subscribed to the same  maxim.
  Now, Dr. Thomson's system is designed for this very
purpose;  that every farnily should practice for itself; that
a knowledge of the medicine and its administration should
be as familiar to every family, as the knowledge and use of
 their daily bread.
  Dr. Thomson has very particularly described the nature
 and use, andprr. oration of his medicines, so that any one 
147
possessed of common sense, can prepare and administer it,
with  perfect safety and convenience.   How great then
must be this addition to the security and happiness of fami-
lies! I will not even suppose that any can  be  so  hardened,
as to  be  indifferent to  the health and safety of their  chil-
dren; now when the  father and  mother can  administer to
them, and to each other, a medicine safe and  effectual for
their  complaints, I ask what must be the amount of pleasure,
the thrill of gratitnde to heaven, to have in charge the lives
of their dear ones, rather than be obliged to  entrust them
 to the care of a stranger?
   Reflect on this, my dear audience, and ask these families
yvho  pVsess the right to practice, what they would take to
 be i ereft of this  knowledge and this  medicine; make the
 trial, and  I am convinced you will meet with answers that
 will astonish you!  A gentlemen told me he would not take
 all the state  of Ohio, to be deprived of the use of this me-
 dicine in his  family!!   No, because he loved his wife and
 children far beyond all the riches of the world.  I was deep-
 ly impressed by the observation, because it came unasked
 and with a sincerity and solemness of manner, which I could
 not mistake.   Those   who have tried for years  in  their
 f :milies  the efficacy of this  medicine,  cannot  surely  be
 deceived.   Men of sense and science have made the exper-
 iment, and I have not yet met with one who expressed the
 least disappointment;  but on the contrary, declared the full-
 est confidence.
   1 hope  my fellow citizens will  weigh well the weight of
 testimony  on the side of this new discovery.   Give it a fair
 trial, implore the direction of the God cf mercies  to direct
 their decisions and crown.them with success, rnd p-rious
 lives may  bo saved to  adorn society,  and he a blessing to
 their friends, and ornament to their country. 
 
                 LECTURE XII.
        REVIEW OF DR. THOMSON'S REMEDIES.

   "Fever, of every discription, says Dr. Chapman, has its
 origin in  local irritation, which is spread more or less, ac-
 cording to circumstances."  "The stomach, however, from
 its central position, and extraordinary sympathies, seems to
 be the organ most commonly  at first  affected; and when
 the morbid  action is not at once arrested, diffuses itself by
 multiplying trains of associations, till the disease becomes
 general, involving in a greater or less degree, every part of
 the animal  economy."   In this way, he remarks, diseased
 impressions made on the stomach, are imparted, generally,
 in the first place, to the chylopoietic viscera, to the  heart, to the
 arteries, to the brain, lungs, skin, capillaries, and other import-
 ant organs, until they embrace within their scope the whole
 animal machine.
   Now, from this very theoiy, the great utility of Thom-
 son's medicine is clearly established.  According to  this
 system, the  beginning  of fever is irritation in the stomach,
 affecting the organs of chyle, the heart, and arteries,  and
 ending  in  the  capillary vessels.  The two first  parts of
 Thomson's practice are  directed particularly  to Ihe first
 and last of these troubled orgas; lobelia, to remove  the
disease  and irritation  from the  stomach,  and steaming, to
 remove the  obstruction of the capillary vessels, and force
the disease from the interior organs.   Of the power of lobe-
lia to cleanse and relieve the stomach, and purify the inter-
nal organs, I have spoken already.  Of the value of steam,
nature  herself will teach man; it being one of the most
important channels—perspiration—by which she throws off
       [13*1 
150
the morbific matter,  yvhich weighs  down to the grave the
oppressed and exhausted system.
  It has  been long since remarked by  physicians, that a
profuse sweat and calm sleep yvere the  harbingers of  re-
turning health to their  patients; they indicated  the crisis
of the disease.  Dr. Thomson's  medicines  produce these
signs of gentle health returning  immediately; as soon as
the operation of the lobelia and steam has ceased, the pa-
tient sinks into a quiet slumber, and rouses only to demand
food, to the great astonishment of  all, yvho have not wit-
nessed the fact before; but have been only acquainted with
the vomits of tartar emetic,  and their results.   The  source
of the disease being thus removed,  the heart and arterie.-
are at once restored to their healthy action; the fever ceases,
and strength and activity are restored.   The man  himself
is amazed at the sudden change.
  "In  treatment of fever,  says Dr. Chapman, venesection,
puking and purging, are resorted to, to relieve  the general
circulation.   But the capillaries being  affected, we must
resort  to medicines acting  more immediately on this set of
vessels; as blisters, diaphoretics, and mercury;  which last
is of universal opeiation, pervading every part, and enter-
ing every recess of the  body."
  Now, the first of Dr. Thomson's remedies will  accom-
plish more than this all powerful mercury; and  steamirg
will act on the capillaries better  than the last, or venesec-
tion combined.  Here  are six  remedies enumerated by
Dr. Chapman, to remove fever; three for  the internal struc-
ture, and three for the external; but one of the  latter, mer-
cury, acts universally on both.  Now. of all the six reme-
dies, four—tartar  emetic, mercury, purges, and  b'istcrs— in-
crease the cause of fever, which Dr. Chapman  says, is irri-
tation; the fifth, venesection, diminishes the  power  of life
ard weakens the force of  vital action: the sixth ard hst,
diaphoretics,  may be considered as the only one of the  six 
151
which  does not exasperate the  eause of fever, irritation.
And this is, no  doubt, the reason Why fevers are so long in
continuance before they are broken, in the common lan-
guage  of practitioners.  You may perceive the fever  at
the beginning, small; no  particular  excitement to be  re-
garded as dangerous; but after a few doses of the above
remedies, the irritation is so increased as to threaten life;
you are then told, the disease is hastening to a crisis.   But
it is strange that the remedy should not arrest  the disease,
instead of awaiting the crisis.  It is at once conceding that
the remedies have no power over the disease; they cannot
stay its progress: Then they are  not proper remedies, nor
fit to be relied on, by those yvho have in charge the protec-
tion of human life.
   The remedies of the new practice can be relied on, with
a confidence derived from an experience of forty years,  in
which  they have never been known to fail in removing fever.
This gives confidence to  the practitioner, and warrants the
assertion, that they are superior to any thing now in  prac-
tice  among the physicians; that the citizens have only  to
make a fair trial to determine for themselves.  To relax the*
excretories, in removing disease, Dr. Cullen considered of
the greatest moment.   Steaming, and the medicines receiv-
ed into the stomach in Thomson's practice, relaxes these
organs by producing  a  solution  of all the external and
internal  obstructions, and have a power of expelling fever,
which was neyrer before known.   The vitiated humors and
putrefactions caused  by  morbid action, are at once purged
out of the system; a  tone of health, and  animation, and
serenity of mind, ensue, of which a person can hardly con-
ceive  the  amount, who  has not witnessed the operation,
and its consequences.
   The more we examine Thomson's system, we find  its
principal features agree yvith the most popular and received
opinions of ancient or modern times.  "An opinion univer- 
152
 sally received, says Dr. Cullen, is, that noxious matter
 introduced into, or generated in, the body, is the proximate
 cause of disease; and that the increased action of the heart
 and arteries, yvhich makes so great a part of fever, is an
 effort of the vis medicatrix naturue, to expel this morbific mat-
 ter, and particularly to change or concoct it, so as to ren-
 der it either altogether innocent,  or, at  least, fit for being
 more easily throyvn out of the body."  This doctrine of as
 great antiquity  as  the first records of medicine, has been
 received  by almost every school of physic, down  to  the
 present  day; and  even those who  have rejected  it  are
 obliged to speak of the vitiated  humors expelled  by the
 capillary  vessels.  Now, the  very essence of the botanic
 system is to expel  those morbific humors together with  the
 corruption and putrefaction of the internal diseased organs;
 and in accomplishing this it has  no parallel.  The coagu-
 lated and congealed pus, and purulent matter, thrown  off
 by  this medicine from the system, would  perfectly astonish
 a stranger to its operation and its efficacy.
  Whether, therefore, we consider diseases to be occasioned
 by the diminished energy of the brain; by general debility,
 direct  or indirect: by spasm in the extreme arteries*  by
 lentor; viscidity; tenuity; acid; or  alkaline  acrimony in
 the mass of the blood; or morbific matter tnken into, or
 generated in, the system; or impressions on the nerves ad-
 verse to life; it is no matter  which of all these, be the  cause
of disease, the remedy here recommended is equally pow-
erful to expel it; because its operation is  universal over  all
the organs, healthy and diseased, to strengthen the one, and
purify and restore the other.   I know it may look, to those
who do not think deeply, like quack boasting to say so  much
in praise of this safe and simple  remedy.  But let  those
who are capable of thinking, and who will take the trouble
to think, revolve over the following facts: 
153
   1st, This medicine has been tried by an experience  of
upwards of forty years;  not on a few diseases, nor a few
mild  cases, but on  every form of disease incident  to our
country, and on cases the most dangerous and desperate;  on
diseases absolutely  incurable by the faculty, and given up,
as such by them!  And yet, by the application of this medi-
cine, they have been perfectly cured, or so far mitigated, as
to render life useful and a blessing, both to the patient him-
self, and to his friends and family.
   2d,  This new practice has extended  o\er most  of the
eastern, and many of the western and middle states: and is
still advancing  in power  and reputation.   Even in childbed
delivery—a matter never  to be forgotten—this practice has
very  nearly removed the pain and  punishment from the
daughters of Eve, threatened to our first progenitor, and
entailed upon her offspring.  A  lady of great good sense,
and without the least  coloring of  imagination, said  it was
easier to have five children under  the operation and influ-
ence of this new practice, than one, by  the other manage-
ment  and  medicine; and she had experience in  both cases,
and has been supported  in the evidence by every one who
has followed her example.
   3d,  The efficacy of  this medicine has become  a  part of
the public history  of  our country.  The  records  of the
Legislature of the state of New  York, have stamped upon
it their high approbation.  It will form an  epoch  in the
medical science of the great republic of  the western world.
Dr. Thomson's system had been very extensively introduced
into the state of New York, and had met with unrivalled
success; which excited the fears and jealousies of the regu-
lar physicians.   They, in order to protect themselves, pro-
cured the passing of a law, the most unjust and  unconstitu-
tional that could  be imagined, to arrest and extirpate this
new practice, by preventing the practitioner from collecting
his fees.  This measure resulted, as might have been fore- 
154
 seen, in a country of equal rights and privileges, in great
 excitement, and  numerous  petitions to the Legislature to
 abolish the invidious law.   The Legislature  appointed  a
 committee of five of their members  to  examine  into the
 merits of the case.  The official report of this committee
 is now on the records of the  House of Assembly, and be-
 comes a part of the public history of the  United States.
 The report is too long  to be here quoted, but ends with
 this important particular: "The  practice of Dr.  Thomson
 has, in a great many instances, proved beneficial, and in no
 case deleterious."   The petitions were sent  in from at least
 one-half of the  counties of the  state of New York, and
 were supported  by the  evidence of the  most respectable
 and intelligent men.   Now, when all these  particulars are
 carefully weighed and  considered, it will  be found, they
 bear with them a testimony as fully entitled  to credence, as
 any thing that ever issued  from the schools!  an  evidence.
 such as quackery never could  establish  nor exhibit—here
 are medicines,  known, tried, and described,  in their efficacy
 and operations.  The legislative wisdom of the first state in
 the Union, has, by their committee, after the  strictest scru-
 tiny, and investigation, stamped upon them the seal of their
 approbation, and the weight of their testimony.  The prac-
 tice assumes a character altogether  distinct  from the arts
 and devices of deception; with the gravity of philosophy,
 and the  attitude of truth and benevolence, it stands  before
 the world.  The serutiny of friends and  enemies  have
 searched it through, and there is yet  no  decisive testimony
 where it has  absolutely failed, unless where death had laid
 his stern arrest on all the doors and passages of life.
   Physicians rely much on the reaction  of the system,  11
^the cure of disease.   But in order to secure this reaction, it
 is necessary to preserve  the vital powers of  the system; for
 how can reaction take  place in an exhausted, prostrated,
 condition of the living  powers?  The conservation of the 
155
vital powers—or as some have termed it, the conservative
power of the animal life—ought to be cherished  by every
means, in the treatment of the sick; and that practice  will
ever be  found best, which best preserves the  conservative
power of nature—a power that will, of itself,  prevail over
disease,  if not overwhelmed  by a too potent enemy.   I
know  the  advocates of the  heroic medicines,  have called
the timid and the cautious practice, "a meditation em death!"
But the facts speak for themselves; the "heroic medicines"
have left behind them, if not a meditation on death, "a histo-
ry of graves," sufficient to blast their reputation,exterminate
their existence, and alarm every benevolent heart for  the
welfare of society.
  Dr. Cullen.in recounting the remote causes of fever, sup-
poses cold to act in conjunction with the unsearchable quali-
ties of the air, in  promoting disease.  In all its operations,
he remarks, cold  seems to act more powerfully  in propor-
tion as the body,  and particularly the circulation, lose their
vigor, or are debilitated.  The second number of the new
practice,  and No. 6, have more powerful effect, in counter-
acting this cold, and supporting the vital heat of the system^
than any thing used in the old  practice.  There is a kind of,
what may be called, the tyranny of fashion, in medicine, as
in all other things.  The "heroic medicines," have become
so fashionable, that though  they  should kill and deface,
it is of no account; still they are heroic medicines!  and the
patient, if he dies, dies heroically!
  Were I to recount the invaluable advantages of this new
system, it mightastonish the ignorant, and admonish the wise;
while both would be  drawn into an extensive field of  re-
mark and meditation.
  1st,  It abolishes the intolerable lumber of Nosology, and
symptoms, habits, temperaments, diathesis, prognostics, and
critical days, about which volumes  have been written, an$
millions of lives sacrificed. 
156
   2d, It purges from the Materia Medica, all the useles*,
 and what is of infinitely  more importance, the poisonous
 and pernicious remedies.
   3d, It reduces the idle and endless details of pathological
 ingenuity, respecting the  remote, exciting, predisposing,
 and proximate causes of disease, to one simple cause—mor-
 bid action, or obstruction.
   4th, It  has abolished the uncertainty of practice; which
 has always been evinced  by the change of  medicines,
 adopted by  the  regu.ar  practitioners; a  tacit confession
 th«t they  knew not what remedy would remove the disease.
 And  when they  thought they  had discovered  the  proper
 remedy, that  remedy was 'but too often the messenger of
 death!  The  cold hand of the destroyer was upon the pa-
 tient, yvhich  was mistaken for the departure of the fever.
 I  will instance the  example of Dr.  Rush, in the  yellow
 fever; he thought he had discovered, in blood letting, an
 infallible specific, and proclaimed  to the citizens of Phila-
 delphia, that he had the fever reduced, under this practice,
 as completely  as a common  cold—that they  might safely
 return to their homes.  But, alas, look at the results! bleed-
 ing was certain death  to the  poor, suffering  patient; life
 sunk  in proportion as the vital stream yvas exhausted.—
 They might have had a more easy bed, but they had cer-
 tainly a more speedy death!   Every one is now  convinced
 of the fatal consequences of bleeding in that stage of fever;
 and yet, that venerable physician,  so eminent for his  skill
 and success in practice, believed it to be a sovereign reme-
 dy; at least, he never contradicted his former assertions.
  There is one criterion which physicians  seem to have
 overlooked; that when their practice aggravates the disease,
 or hastens death, they may be sure it is wrong.  And yet,
 this they seem never to have considered with due attention;
ascribing to the disease, what  they ought to attribute to the
 remedy.   They appear to have lulled  their  consciences." 
157
and pursued their course, although it led down to the cham-
bers of death.  Far be  it from me, to impute the want of
humanity, or a  disposition to destroy, to a class of learned
and  respectable men.  But certainly we may affirm, in the
spirit of charity,  that when  they find  a  remedy not only
failing to produce the desired  effects,  but absolutely pro-
ducing deformity  and death, it ought to be discarded.  A
remedy worse than the disease, is no remedy; it may  hold
the rank by prescription; but it is  an  authority as unhal-
lowed as the tyranny of eastern despots.
   The rich are able to afford to nurse their complaints and
pay their physicians; the poor can do neither.  This is the
true reason, and not credulity, why  they are prone to em-
ploy quacks; they are promised a safe and speedy cure, at
small expense.   Their  necessities,  and not their want of
sense, force them to run  the risk; and dearly do  they
often pay for their confidence.   Still, the  principle which
urges them on  to the adventure is  a good principle; and
the feeling, one of the  most noble  in human nature—the
love of independence.  In the  trial they are moreover influ-
enced by a principle, which  has in all ages operated equal-
ly on the  learned and the unlearned; that the  Deity has
placed the- remedies for disease within the reach of man;
not far from any of us, had we but the skill or the good for-
tune to discover them.   When a new remedy is, therefore,
published, there is a natural impulse in every mind to try
its efficacy;  and if the rich and the  learned are  more cau-
tious  than the poor, it is because they are not urged on by
the same  necessity; and not because  they have not the
very  same inclination.   The  pride of learning,  and the
pride of wealth, may stand in the way;  but God has formed
our hearts alike.  And this universal sentiment, impressed
ppon the hearts of mankind, is like the argument for the
immortality of the soul—a proof that the remedy exists,
and shall be discovered  in due time.  And the very exist*
        fHl 
158
ence of quackery, like  false bills, is a proof of the true—
that the genuine  remedy exists,  and shall  come forth,  not
from schools and colleges, but from the casual discoveries of
the people—the result  of chance or necessity.  Quackery
never  could have existed but  for this innate sentiment of
man.   Every deception practised on the human family, in
the healing art, has been predicated on this principle of
the human breast.  If it were a  fact, that we believed  the
cure of disease could  only issue from the wisdom of  the
schools, quackery might  proclaim his skill in vain; not a
soul would lend him a single  moment's regard.  But  the
very contrary is the  fact;  we feel it as a part of our nature,
that remedies the most powerful and efficacious, are scat-
tered round the  paths of our feet; and in an instant may
be discovered, like the  Tyrian  dye, without labor or learn-
ing.  A  discovery that will not, indeed,  clothe kings  and
courts in purple;  but will clothe  them in health and peace
and banish disease from the inhabitants of the earth.
  Dr.  Rush was deceived by one of his former pupils, Dr.
Brown,of Pittsburgh;  yvho returned to Philadelphia  and
informed his former  tutor and friend, that he had discovered
a vegetable remedy for cancers, which  was an effectual
and safe cure.   The good and benevolent Dr. Rush was
transported  with  the idea that this terrible disease at  last
had found an antidote—well knowing the deleterious effects
of arsenic, and its inefficacy to remove the complaint.  But
alas, he was sadly disappointed.  Dr. Brown died; Dr. Rush
bought up the remedy, and as  his former pupil refused to
inform him of its  nature or composition,  he resorted to an
analyzation of the substance, and found, to his great mortifi-
cation, it was but the arsenic disguised by some simple, use-
less, brown bark of  a tree!
  This is a proof, from no common man, that the cure  fox
cancer, might be  the result of chance, rather than  study.
Nor did the deception, in this instance, remove  that confi> 
159
 dence; he still believed to his dying hour, that discoveries
 in  a very simple manner, would be  made, to cure cancer
 and all other diseases.  Let not the poor, then, be charged
 with credulity.  They exercise a  principle  on which the
 faith and hope of the  great and learned have  revolved, in
 every age of the world.  But deception, like  false gold, is
 capable of certain detection and infallible exposure. It only
 requires us  to beware, and not  be too hasty in our conclu-
 sions ; to sever the deceiver from the man of integrity and
 virtue.
 y  The people  are not to be blamed for their great caution
 in admitting the Thomsonian practice;  the only blame at-
 taches to that kind of hostility and vengeance  by which it
 has been pursued; the deception  practised upon society,
 under the name of remedies, requiie caution in the people,
 and warn the multitude to beware.   But so far from shew-
 ing hostility, the course which  nature and common sense
 prescribe, is to  carefully listen to the narrative of the dis-
 coverer; examine his medicine and  his  cures.  Let «very
 case be stated with candor and impartiality; the state of the
 patient, the  duration of his diseps^ jhp  *"Cir,Cdi5S hcnas
 used,  and their effects upon him;  his state when  the new
 practice commenced with him, and its operation and conse-
 quences.  This is but a fair specimen of trial, and the way
 in yvhich all the regular physicians  proceed, when called to
 difficult and  doubtful cases they write out an exact history of
 the patient and  his disease, the course of treatment he has
pursued, the state in which they find him, the plan of their
oyvn remedies, their failure or success; as an admonition or
encouragement for future practice.
  Now, I am thoroughly convinced from all the information
which  I have been able to obtain on this subject, that, yvere
Thomson's practice submitted to the same fair and impar-
tial trial, it would be found—T will not say a remedy for alj
diseases—but it would be found to alleviate the mostinvete- 
160
 fate, to cure the most doubtful and dangerous, to injure
 none;  and where it failed, it failed  from the obvious reason,
 that death had already laid his cold and icy hand upon the
 life of the patient.
    There is nothing in the history of quackery, to be at all
 compared to Thomson's discoveries; every thing in his Nar-
 rative  carries yvith it the face and air of an honest  man,
 acting for the good of his country, and desirous, like other
 men, to live by that honest industry or profession of a neyv
 system of curing disease—a profession which, if it shall be
 found on a universal trial to be as beneficial as its high and
 early promise has inspired, his country never can repay, nor
 the world calculate the price.   It  is not supposed that this
 system has arrived at perfection; or at all attained  to that
 Btate of pre-eminent elevation, which it shall yet assume;
 but we  believe the foundation is laid of a system of cure,
 susceptible of  advancing,  until it shall comprehend the
 wants and miseries of the human  race, in the extent and
 compass of their diseases.
   Dr.  Thomson had this opinion from the  effects  he him-
 self had seen; and his Narrative is  convincing from its very
 form and features.  He tells us he  was illiterate, and he was
 poor; oppressed by a  young, helpless, and sickly family;
 the practice pursued did not agree  with their constitutions,
 nor diseases; he was, from nature, inclined to try the virtue
 and operation of plants; the gift of healing, it yvas impress-
 ed upon his mind, God had given to him; necessity, when
 his family was dying, forced him to  try; he  was successful;
 success encouraged him to go on; his neighbors applied  to
 him in the hour of calamity; he relieved their complaints,
 his time  was consumed, his reward nothing; he consulted
with his wife  and friends, whether  he  should abandon the
practice, or abandon his farm and  yield to  these pursuits;
he was  counseled to follow his oyvn inclination.   Still be-
lieving he had a call from Providence, and  a degree from 
161
the God of nature, he commenced, in form, the healing art.
H s cause and claims are belbre the world; laid before the
Government of his country ; his remedies submitted  to the
experience of scientific men, and eminent physicians; tried
by a jury of  his country for his cures, and even perjury
could not  substantiate a plea against him!  This  is some-
thing very different from all the pretensions to the healing
art ever yet set up in the world.
       [14*1 
 
LECTURE  XIII.
      THE POWER OF THE THOMSONIAN REMEDIES.

    Dr. Brown, in recommending his system, said, the theo-
  ries of disease were so tedious, uncertain and incomprehen.
  sible, that he despaired of success,  and sunk into  aphathy.
  There is certainly great truth, and much matter for medi-
  tation, in the  remark.   It  must  be distressing to a feeling
  mind to perceive, after many years spent in study, the poor
  success of all  his efforts in the healing art.  In  Dr. Rush's
  remarks on Dr. Sydenham. I was much struck with the great
  Uncertainty of medical knowledge, and the little  progress
  of medical  science.  Dr. Rush says of that eminent phy-
  sician,  Sydenham, "he first took the cure of disease cut of
  the hands of nature; his remedies were either altogether
  new, or they  were used in a manner  before unknown to
*  other physicians!"  Remedies altogether  new, or used in a
  manner  before  unknown,  would certainly,  at least in the
 judgment of Dr. Rush, go to establish the fact, that the me-
  dical practice had been  wrong from the beginn ing of the
  world, and only put on the  garb of truth in Englaud in  the
  seventeenth century, under the highly  favored Syoenham.
    These observations on the treatment of disease  by medi-
  cal writers,  and the sad failure so  often obvious in critical
  Cases, and what are called new diseases, will more  than jus-
  tify  all  that has been uttered by Dr. Thomson in praise  of
  his remedies.   He was drawn  before the public  eye at a
 period when a new disease threatened to desolate the coun-
 try; the physicians were not successful in their treatment;
  great alarm  and excitement  prevailed;  he  exhibited  hie
  remedies, and was every where successful!  The mortal 
164
rage of a wide spreading epidemic  war;  arrested  in its
course, and health revisited the land.
  The alarming disease referred to above, at Alstead and
Walpole,  was called the yellow  fever; it continued for lor
ty days, and was very fatal; the physicians losing half their
patients.  Dr. Thomson lost not one!  In cold plague  and
dysentery, he had the  same  success.  Now, the  practice
which  so  evidently  surpassed  the whole professional art,
must have been not only above all praise,but a general bless-
ing to tie human race. Tl e  tin c vill <( n (.said the irccm-
parable Hooker, when three words  spoken in charity  and
meekness, will receive a far more blessed reward than 3,000
words  with  disdainful  wit and bitterness of spirit.  With
charity and  meekness then, let us examine the causes yvhy
ceriainty and perfection have not attended the progress of
medical practice.
  1st, Man is naturally prone to theories—for to think, is to
theorise, says Dr. Cullen—and pursuing the bent of his in-
clination,  he is more disposed  to reason than to act; to spec.
ulate than to experiment;  to found a system rather on argu-
ment than observation; and hence his real knoyvledge of the
cure of disease bears no proportion to the extent of his sou
en^e; formed in the schools, rather than the sick chamber,
he is much  more of a philosopher than a physician, and
could measure the distance of a star better than the depth
of a disease.
  2d, The  systems of philosophy  to which they were at-
tached, influenced the practice and theory of the physicians •
one intermixed the philosophy of Plato, another of Epicurus,
and  a third  of Aristotle.   The classification of-plants and
animals, led to the classification of disease;  and the atoms
 of  Democritus, and transmigrations  of Pythagoras, foui d
thpir way into the pathology of the medical schools.  It is
equally curious and admonitory,  to trace the history of me-
dicine, and  observe how curiously the ancient philosophy is 
165
 interwoven with the curative art, and mingled  up with the
 human system.   All tiiis, certainly, has not only the appear-
 anceof learning, but is learning itself; it evinces great refine-
 ment and cultivation of mind,  progress in knowledge and
 the yvisdom  of science.  But is all this calculated to aid  in
 the cure of disease? may not a longlite be spent in obtaining
 knowledge, and yet the particular knowledge necessary to
 skillful practitioner be  far distant?
   Conversing with one of the most candid and kind physi-
 cians whom I have ever known, on this very subject, he at
 last replied, "well you must confess, that if we have not ad-
 vanced the certainty of medical practice, we have advanc-
 ed science."   That I readily  g.anted; and I  noyv add with
 much pleasure, that some  of the  most  able  and scientific
 men I have ever  known,-were physicians;  but they were
 more devoted to philosophy than to their patients; and could
 converse much better on  Newton's Principia, than on the
 cure of disease.   A taste for learning, and a disposition for
 watching the pan ful  progress  of disease, through all the
 slow and lingering stages of diathesis and death, are very
 different qualities of mind.
   Man, from the very activity of his nature, is prone to over-
look the most simple and obvious truths,  in order to rush to
some far distant and unknown  discovery.  Animals,  when
 they have, satisfied the  wants of nature, and the calls of ap-
 petite, lie doyvn and  sleep; but  man continues  awake  to
contemplate  the universe, and  survey  the busy  scenes
around him.  Himself, the first  of all objects of contempla-
tion, he generally knows least and  last of all.  How slow  in
 its progress was the philosophy of mind, in  comparison  of
 other  systems of science; almost within our own age, it first
assumed the garb or semblance of truth. The  soul, that
thinking thing within us, the  most valuable and important.
it might have been supposed would have been better un-
derstood than any other object of  thought; but the reverse 
166
 was the fact.  Will not this account for the fact, in the lan-
 guage of Lord Bacon, that medicine was labored but  not
 improved;  that its advancement was in a circle, and not in
 progression?
   The neyv school of France seems to be well aware of
 this truth, and have retired back to the simplicity of nature;
 to  h s : days' of primitive manners, when the dietetic schools
 spread its doctrines abroad  for the relief of man.   If you
 ask the French professors what  is the best mode of curing
 disease? they will answer you, like the Greek  orator, when
 it was inquired what was the first essential in eloquence? he
 answered action; and what the second?  action; and what the
 third? action:  So would the physicians of Paris, if it were
 inquired  what was the first requisite in curing disease, they
 would answer  diet; and the second? diet; and the  third?
 diet!
  These  important truths directly  disprove the utility of
 the present mode of medical  practice—that the system of
 man yvas never intended to be drenched with  medioine  to
 relieve its complaints.  That the heroic medicines, and all
 the 20,000 articles of  the Materia Medica, are a mere arti.
ficial system of cure, as  hostile to nature and life, as cram-
 ming the stomach with an hundred kinds of food, is to the
health and growth of the infant.  How simple is the nour-
 ishment provided for that dear  little infant that drops into
the world; and should  not its sickness be  removed by a
medicine equally simple  and convenient?  We might rea-
 son from the benevolence of the Deity, a priori, that as food
and medicine were the essentials of life—the one to support
health, and the other to  restore it when lost—that the Di-
vine Goodness would equally  provide for both, in the most
 ample and accessible  manner.  The first  we know he has
supplied in  great abundance  and profusion;  and can we
 doubt  Him  on the last?  No! it would  evince hostility
 against all his plans, and contradict  our  own experience. 
167
 We can never be brought to submit to the mortifying con-
 clusion, that Deity, who has spread out this vast continent-
 established it as an empire of freedom for the rights and the
 liberty of man; that he has filled it with the exuberance of
 his goodness, in the vast abundance provided to supply the
 need of every thing that lives—so that we may say in the
 language of the royal  Hebrew poet, "to any nation never,
 He such goodness did aff rd:" that He has after all  this,
 left our country destitute of the one essential of life, medi-
 cine, to cure our diseases!  xMust we go to Europe to import
 mineral poisons?  Must the wealth of  the country be  sent
 abroad to  bring amongst us the instruments of death?—
 Must we pay, with our substance rmd our lives, for aehing
 bones, deformed countenances, emaciated bodies, and ruin-
 ed constitutions?  And has the Deity reduced us to this
 dilemma?   He, whose goodness is pre-eminent over all His
 other works?  He who has done so much for us. crowning
 the years with his bounty and filling the heart with gladness?
 Has He negleeted this only one good thing—-a safe  and
 simple  cure for our  diseases, placed in our own country?
 No!  he has not, we never can believe it! no, never! neveri
 mver!   The remedies are here;  they are spread over the
 plains  and  mountains in abundance; they surround  every
 cottage, and bloom round every cabin, over this vast  and
 trackless wilderness.   The cities and the navigable streams
 have them crowding on their verge and  their vicinity, invit*
 ing the eye and the hand to  gather them!   Blessed provi-
 sion !   Shall we neglect our own mercies, and from  the
 mere force of habit, or strength  of prejudice, adhere to the
 mad remedies of Paracelsus, and the dogmas of Hoffmas
 and Clllen?
  Dr.  Thomson has lod the  way to an examination and
 reliance on the plants  of our own country, the part of
philosophy and patriotism, the course of wisdom and; pru-»
deuce, all must understands.  It cannot; ksseni the dignity 
168
 nor detract from the merit of the most exalted, to examine
 with  care and candor, the discoveries of this student of
 nature, who had the wilderness  for his academy, and the
 flowers of the field for his instructors.  It has been said, and
 perhaps  yvith  more truth than is  generally conceded to the
 remark, thaijhe reason why the first poets so far excelled
 in their pictures of nature, in sublimity and flights of im-
 aginations, was, because they had  little else to study but
 the book of JVature; they were not led aside from the splen-
 did scenery and magnificence of the creation of God, to
 cull the  feeble flowers of man's  production.   The school
 that forms a poet may  form a physician.  If the poet  sees
 and.feels, the physician may taste  and understand.   Search
 all the records  of all the innumerable and nameless nations
 which overturned the  Roman Empire j they were  hardy,
 healthy, powerful tribes;  their doctors were of the Thom-
 sonian school.  If it is replied, that  their health depended
 on their mode of life, and not the  power of their medicines,
 the answer is at hand; this is partly true and  partly not!
 They  were liable to severe diseases, to wounds, and acci-
 dents,  and casualties of various kinds; and their  physicians
 were more expert in the cure of wounds, of burns, of sores,
 ulcers  and fevers, than  any thing now  known  in medical
 practice.  They could extract the pain from a burn,  almost
 in an instant; and heal it. though burned to  the  borfe. in a
 very short time, with certainty and safety.
   There can be no good reason assigned, but the same pow-
 erful remedies  which can quickly  heal burns, and wounds,
 and ulcers, and  gangrenous  sores, may also  heal the  dis-
 eased viscera of the afflicted patient.  In the botanic rem-
edies this is a real fact;  the same medicines applied to  the
wound, or ulcer, or bruise, is also taken into the stomach av
the same time, and greatly facili rates  the external cure.  An
application is made  at once to the local disease and  the
whole system.  The finger or the toe is wounded—the rem- 
169
edy is applied to the place, and  administered to the pa-
tient at the same time,  though otherwise in perfect health.
Tiiat is entirely new in the  history of medicine—a discov-
ery as exclusively Thomsonian, as his lobelia, or his  bitter
herb.  Physicians never once dreamt of this mode of prac-
tice, if a person  had a yvounded toe, to administer a dose
of medicine  when there was no fever.   But.Dr. Thom-
son, acting on the true philosophic  principle of the unity
of man and of disease, whatever  might be the external in-
jury, fever or no fever, administered  his mediciue  also to
the stomach; and thus found byr administering to the func-
tions,  and supporting the  vital actions, that he performed a
cure of the injured part with vast rapidity beyond the slow
progress  of  the  usual practice.   He  also,  by  this mode
of cure,  prevented  gangrei.e  and  grievous suppuration,
yvhich otherwise might have taken place, to the great dan-
ger of the patient, and the lengthening out of his calamity.
  It was very common in  the established practice if the in-
jury was serious, to let  blood as a  preventative of fever.
Noyv, I appeal to the common sense of mankind, whether in
point  of rationality, this  practice is to  be compared to
Thomson's.  A man  receives an injury, in perfect health;
the physician in order  to cure him, begins by inflicting on
him a  second injury—drawing off his blood; and perhaps a
third,  by dosing him  with calomel.   Now, to  thus dis-
order and destroy the vital poyvcrs, is it any wonder that the
patient sickens, the wound gangrenes,  and life is in the ut-
most jeopardy.   If the patient escapes, it is  yvith an ampu-
tated limb, or a broken constitution.  Dr. Thomson in simi.
lar  circumstances  draws  no blood,  gives  no mercury, sick-
ens not his patients by hostile remedies,  but administers a
remedy congenial to nature, and all the vital functions. The
vis vilee is strengthened and  invigorated  to save the wound-
ed  limb, and support  the patient above  the diathesis of
death.   If this be not true philosophy and wisdom, we may
        H5I 
170
exclaim with the patriot, "O virtue, thou art but an empty
name!"
  Dr.  Donalosox, yvho practiced many years in the East,
soys he was well assured by a gentleman who had travel-
led extensively through the vast empire of Hindostan, that he
never met yvitha person maimed or bereft of a limb; for such
was  their mode of cure,  that they could save the most se-
verely   yvounded limb, or shattered  bone,  without being
forced  to resort to amputation.   Thomson's practice in the
West, promises to establish  the same results, and proceeds
on the  same principles.  The remedy in both instances, is
a vegetable medicine poured upon the wound, and admin-
istered to the stomach.  Inflammation and  gangrene,  and
even pain, are excluded by  the poyver of the remedy.   In
this city, a child had his leg shattered by acart running over
him; the neighbors assembled, as usual on such  occasions,
and called for a surgeon  immediately to amputate the limb.
One of the botanic doctors happened to be passing by; he
proposed to save the limb; but yvas laughed to scorn.  The
parents,hoyvever, distressed at the thoughts of the pain and
mutilation of the child,  agreed to let him make the trial.
Me first gave thechild some medicine; fixed and tied up the
shattered bone as well as he could; poured the liquid on it;
gave the child more medicine; left dircctiors to  pour at in-
tervals on the wound, and give to the child, till he fell asleep;
in a short time the agony abated, and the child  fell into a
sweet  refreshing  sleep;  slept ten  hours—awoke in  fine
health, never complained of pain more, and in a very short
time yvas perfectly  well—the limb straight and as strong as
the other.
  And this is not the only instance; there are very many
which  might have been  enumerated.  And it is firmly be-
lieved  by the most judicious and upright men, conversant
with the practice, that were it universally to prevail, the use
f>f the  knife would be banished from America as well as In- 
171
dia, in cases of wounds and broken limbs!  Of what immense
value  would this practice be in the army  and nav^ of our
country, should we have another war? yvhich heaven forbid!
How many valuable men would be saved to their country, by
this medicine, which  the  knife now  sends to an  untimely
grave?  The sword devours but  few beyond  the numbers
of the  surgeon.  The campaign of Napoleon in  Russia,
will show that the work of death was but half done, when
the roar of the cannon and the musket had passed ayvay from
the field of battle; the surgeons came to amputate, and how
few survived of that mighty multitude who passed beneath
the knife!   I blame not the physicians of the yvest; they had
no better practice  amongst them.   And I appeal to India,
and to the known facts of Dr. Thomson's practice, to show
that the evil may be avoided; and should pride and preju-
dice stand for a moment in the yvay of a blessing so great
and beneficial to our country ?
   Dr.  Donaldson  mentions two other facts of the  eastern
practice, which go to illustrate and establish the claims of
Thomson.   The first is, he  says the Indian  doctors  can
cure fever in one  day, with mathematical certainty;  and
the most obstinate Cases in two  days at most.  Vegetable
remedies are the only ones in use; and such is their power,
that they fairly astonish the European physicians.   The se-
cond  remark is, that mercury  has  obtained in the Indian
practice of the English physicians for about fifty years,  and
with the most fatal and terrible effects.   Some physicians
discovered, or thought they had discovered, that mercury
was good in acute  diseases; it was then extended to chronic
diseases, and was uniformly fatal; notwithstanding they still
persevered in their prescriptions, yvith death staring them
in the  face; and  exhibit their mercury as if it was as in-
nocent as breast milk.
   Dr. Donaldson regards it  yvith  a kind  of horror,  and
hopes by way of consolation to hi? afflicted mind, "that there 
172
are still left in India,  men of sufficient humanity and inde-
pendenceofmind,tobrcak through the established rulesand
modes of practice, and commence aneyv era in the  history
of medical science."
  Dr. Thomson  never decried  the  use of mercury so ve-
hemently as Dr.  Donaldson: for he had not  witnessed  its
horrible effects in the burning,  sultry soil of India, as Do-
naldson had done. The actionuf the mercury on the heart
and arteries, in that climate so adverse to life, yvas such that
it seemed to turn the whole system of the ble>od into amass
of  putrefaction  in a  few hours.  Yet such is the force of
habit, or  the delusion of prejudice, that the  majority of
practitioners  still persevere  in administering this  deadly
poison.
  What shall we say to these things?  Alas! we must leave
them amongst those inscrutible  mysteries  of the  human
mind, which  led the  pious pilgrims of New England to im-
prison the Quakers, and burn the witches!  There are many
anomalies in man; and the history of religion and medicine,
furnish  us with  some sad and mournful examples.  In this
respect, however, the human mind is fast advancing in the
march of wisdom, and holding her proud and princely course
to  reach the blaze of science.  It is very usual to declaim
against the age as deteriorating from the standard of ages
past; but in this  respect, at least, it  is surely advancing in
reputation and profound judgment.
  The action of all medicine depends on the state of the
living powers, and the stomach which  receives it!  The
remark is  as  old as  Hippocrates.  "Medicine, said that
venerable sage,  has no  power in  itself; it will  not act on
the  dead, but on  the living;  and  its action will be in propor-
tion to the state and condition of the living  subject."__
Hence, the danger always in the  use of dangerous remedies.
The state of the stomach can never  be thoroughly knoyvn-
it cannot be  ascertained what will be the operation of the 
173
 medicine, until it is too late  to prevent it.   Mercury, or
 tartar emetic, is given to one patient, and do very well;
 administered to another,and they produce the most danger-
 ous or fatal results.  For it cannot be foreseen  what yvil!
 be the operation, until the trial be made.   Is there no safety
 then, you  will ask, in administering the heroic medicines.'
 None!   There never can be  certain safety in administer-
 ing poisons to the  human system:  they  may act right and
 they may act wrong.  If they  have not the dc-ired  effect,
 they are absorbed  by the system; and  then fareyvcll io
 health!  farewell forever to the tranquil mind, the  peaceful
 slumbers, and the rejoicing heart!   The feeble and emacia-
 ted frame, the sinking pulse, and trembling and  fluttering
 heart, and shattered nerves, all testify that firm health has
 fled forever!  It is a maxim founded on truth and experi-
 ence that there can be nothing safe in medical practice, but
 that which is not poisonous; and then no matter what may
 be the state of  the system, or the condition of the  stomach;
 no evil can possibly  ensue.  The patient is  safe  in every
 event.   If his  case  is not made better it is  not  rendered
 worse.   He has not to strive at once against the physician
 and the disease.
   In this very city, but yesterday, a physician administered
 to his own daughter a dose of tartar emetic; it did not ope-
 rate according to the intention of the prescriber; the father
 then gave her twenty grains of calomel; it threw her into
 dreadful spasms, and  her  life was  despaired of.   In this
 deplorable dilemma  the wretched father, who thought he
 had killed his  own child, sent immediately for a botanic
 doctor, and his remedies.   The  young  lady  was instantly
 relieved; was out of danger in four hours, and next day
 wa< able  to leave her I ed!   She then declared that no other
medicine but the Thom-onian. should ever again  be given
to her; she seemed to be convinced  it had  saved  her life.
The new remedies have more in  their favor than is gene-
       [15*] 
174
rally  supposed.  Those who are not hostile  to them, say
they are good in some cases, or they are good for nothing, and
this last seems to be the most general belief.   Some indeed,
affirm them to be rank poisons.   The accusation, however,
is fast dying away; and a physician is now ashamed to com-
mit his understanding, by affirming  that lol elia is a rank
poison.   But none  believe, but those who have seen the
trial, that these Thomsonian remedies are more powerful
and rapid in their  operation than those of the established
practice.  In  convulsions, in spasms, in  cramp of the sto-
mach, in  bleeding of the lungs and stomach, in fainting
and various diseases, which require rapid relief,  the medi-
cine has  been tried  often in  this city, and  with  the most
speedy  and  happy results.  A gentleman,  taken with a
bleeding of the stomach, sent for a physician; but his family
being afraid he would die before the physician could ar-
rive, sent for a steam doctor, who was  his neighbor.  He
stopped the bleeding immediately-  two physicians arrived,
and confessed his life had been  saved  by the application.
   There  is not any thing, perhaps, in  use, which will  as
soon relieve the system as this  medicine;  and to penetrate
a diseased organ or purify the  internal structure, it has not
yet been  equalled.
   Facts are the true and faithful witnesses to decide  con-
troversy.  The  cause  of Thomson is on trial at  the bar of
public opinion and  public scrutiny.  His friends try. of
course, to defend it, and  his enemies, to impugn  it.  But
the public may easily  decide for themselves.  The exami-
nation and the  testimony is  within their grasp; and cer-
tainly the subject  cannot be of indifference to any  who
regard the health of their families and friends. 
LECTlTKF  It TV.
    THE EXTENT OF THE TliOMsoMAN REMEDIES.

   An  objection to the Thomsonian  practice,  considered
 unanswerable by its  impugners is, that he  has  only one
 remedy for every disease; this they conceive to be the very
 essence of quackery.   This objection is, however, suscepti-
 ble of two distinct solutions; which, if they do not satisfy,
 will at least weigh deep in the balance, with  every dispas-
 sionate mind.   The first is derived  from Dr. Sydenham him-
 self, who says  the Materia lVWicc is swelled  beyond all
 reasonable bounds; and that two-thirds of its articles are
 worse  than useless.   Indeed, the  eternal  multiplication of
 remedies, till the understanding is lost and confounded  in
 the  mass,  reminds one of St. Anthony's devils.  Twenty
 thousand  tormented the good saint, but they were so small
 aed intangible that the whole legion could dance a saraband
 01 the finest point of a lady's needle, without involving or
jostling ea< h other!   Of what avail can a vast innumerable
 class of articles be to a practitioner, who must either relieve
 his patient immediately, or see him sink into the grave___
 There is  no time to  try experiments, when life is ebbing
 with the rapidity of the flowing minutes: No! the remedy
 must be sure,  and speedy, and  safe, or death is only hast-
 ened in his course.   The second answer to this objection
 I shall take from an authority no less than Dr. Rush himself-
 when lecturing on the infallible certainty of medical scince
yet to  be attained, he remarked, nature was  simple in all
her operations! he had no doubt but the most simple reme-
dies were to be discovered; some lonely weed trampled in
the  .arth, might furnish a cure, which had baffled all the
wisdom of the schools.  Bread and water were the simple 
176
aliments of food—not to  this man nor  that  man—but
to lie  wiioiL  inhabitants of the earth;  and could  not the
God of nature, who placed the food and drink of man in
low simple elements, also place his medicine in some of the
most untried plants or flowers of the field?   These answers
are as full of wisdom as they are replete with experience.
Tney were made by two of the most celebrated physicians
of the age in yvhich they lived, and have still common sense
and experience upon their side.  Another answer might be
here added, from the  fact of  medical practice.   It is well
known to all practitioners that out of all the articles of the
Materia Medica, very few are in general use; six or seven
remedies are about the extent of the general  range  of the
physician's applications.   The  heroic  medicines  are  the
chief and general resort in all diseases.   What  advantage
then in point of fact, have the volumes  of the Materia Me-
dica over the simple numbers of  Thomson.
   There is something very imposing in the classic names and
learned disquisitions of the recorded remedies of the schools;
and so there is something very imposing in the splendor of
an eastern despot, compared yvith the plain and simple man-
ners of the President of these United States;  but whether
of these is the better man, the world will judge, and history
on her true and faithful page, will leave her infallible testi-
mony.  So shall the  Thomsonian remedies.  It is  useless
to be angry, to decry or rail against them; if  the people
find  them useful and  effectual  in healing  their diseases,
science may fight against them in vain.   If they are found
not efficacious, it will not require art  nor learning  to put
them down; they will sink, like all other folly and imposi-
tion,  by their own worthlessness.   It  is admitted on all
hands, that medicine needs improvement;  let it not then
be rejected, though furnished  by a humble instrument, and
coming unadorned by the drapery of science. 
177
   Dr. Reynolds says, "we suspect every theory which pro-
 poses to conduct the cure of disease on a few general prin-
 ciples.''  A feyv general principles conduct the whole nour-
 ishment of the body and  why not the  cure of its diseases?
 In the body, there  are many classes of organs and functions,
 solids and fluids; a strange and curious whole, composed of
 many parts.   And yet a simple food taken into the stomach,
 will nourish all these, supply every ligament, cartilage, and
 bone, and the whole viscera, with its appropriate nutriment.
 Why not a unity in the mode of cure, in the remedy pro-
 vided, as well as a unity in the body itself, a unity in disease,
 a unity in nourishment, a unity in feeling, in sympathy, and in
 every thing connected with man.   Take the strongest man,
 expose him to cold, and  he takes a fever—not in this or that
 part—but fever all over, throughout the whole system; and
 yet the system yvas only partially exposed to cold.  When
 the proximate cause of disease  affects the whole system,
 why may not a  single remedy affect the whole  system  in
 removing disease?   The parity of argument is on the side
 of the unity of cure.   It  is supported by  the same facts
 which demonstrate the unity of disease.
  The  wise  man  has  beautifully observed,  "that  a few
 words  fitly spoken, are like apples of gold  in  pictures of
 silver!"  A few general principles well established, are of
 infinitely more importance in the business of life, than ten
 thousand compilations and collections destitute of  practical
 utility.   Of what  avail to the practice  of medicine has
 been the intolerable load of nosology, of pathology, of signs
 and symptoms, and types and stages?   Worse than nothing!
 They have only beyvildered the practitioner,  paralized his
 efforts,  and  confounded  his  reason.  The two  thousand
names of disease, carry absurdity and contradiction in their
very front.   Disease is but the  departure of the  system
from its healthy state;  and it would be as wise to  talk of
 two  hundred thousand  departures, as of two thousand.— 
                         178

 The  causes of disease are equally unreasonable and un-
 known.  Have any two  physicians ever yet  agreed upon
 the remote, the exciting, predisposing, and proximate causes
 of disease?   Never—for  they do  not know them, and how
 then  can they agree!  Men may reason about uncertain-
 ties,  and crowd volumes full of speculation, but when the
 simple matter of fact is wanting;  when there is no obvious
 and specific principle;  it is a mere sail through oceans  of
 vapor.  To classify disease after the manner of natural his-
 tory,  led to all  the absurdities of nosology; and to explain
 what  was never understood, to the speculations  and vain
jangling of pathologists.  Dr. Brown congratulates himself,
 that he  had  not looked into a  medical book  for five years
 before he put>Ueh»d his system; as the delusive reasoning of
 the theoretical writers would have only entangled  his under-
 standing and  cast darkness over the  light of nature and
 obscured the splendor of  truth.   These confessions are not
 the solitary sentiments of an irritable or disappointed mind.
 No, they have  been confessed, in  substance, by  the most
 eminent leaders of the schools of medicine;
  Some bold and daring spirit thinks he has made a new
 discovery;  and that all his  predecessors have been wrong.
 He starts in the career of fame with his new theory; abuses
 or ridicules those who have gone before him; is followed by
 a crowd of pupils and admirers;  triumphs his  brief and
 troubled day; sinks into  his grave; and his system is per-
 haps overturned before his  ashes are cold in the tomb!—
 Every student of medicine knows this to be a fact since the
 beginning;  but especially from the days of Paracelsus  to
 the present time.   And that is  not all; it will never cease
 to be otherwise until a perfect, safe, and  speedy mode  of
 cure,  shall have been discovered.   Revolution will succeed
 to revolution, school fo school, theory to theory, until time,
 or accident, or necessity, shall have crowned  their system
 with  perfection.  For finding  themselves wrong,  disap- 
                          179

 pointed, mistaken in their exhibitions of medicine, the ac-
 tive, ingenuous, and conscientious physician, will not rest;
 he will make every effort for the perfection of his system.
 And if he cannot discover a new medicine, he will form old
 ones into new combinations.  He will revise theories, and
 new model systems, and for ever continue restless, until the
 great object of his  search shall have been attained.
   From the above  remarks, the reply  may be made, the
 Thomsonian remedies ought, upon that principle, to be rea-
 dily adopted, or at least examined.  Ad  so they would,
 were it not for a reason, perhaps too invidious to mention-
 had a member of the faculty made  the discovery which
 Thomson made, they would have, to a  man, at least made
 trial of the remedies.  We see how anxiously Dr.Rusn seiz-
 ed upon the specific for cancer,though a deception; but had
 it been genuine, by this time it would have  not only over-
 spread the United States, but all the nations of Europe.  Dr.
 Rush seized with the same avidity on  Dr. Brown's doctrine
 of the unity of disease, and life being a forced state. So san-
 guine was he upon this  topic,  that  some  of his friends
 thought he uttered  sacrilege on the subject.
   "Upon  this subject, said Dr. Rush,—the unity of disease
 and  life being a forced state—Reason and  Revelation em-
 brace  each other—Moses  and the Prophets shake hands
 with Dr.  Brown."  Whatever mistake may  be in his views,
 we perceive  in them this important truth: That to arrive at
 any certainty in medical practice,  the theories of life and
 disease must be simplified and reduced within the grasp of
 knoyvledge and  common sense.   For there was never yet a
 physician  on  the face of the globe, that understood all the
names in Cullen's Nosology, with  their characteristic dif„
ferencesand distinctions; state of the pulse; signs, and symp-
toms, and aspects of disease; no certain practice could ever
be founded on such  a system, because  it is as absolutely be-
yond the reach of the understanding,  as. to count the nuny 
180
ber  of the stars.   These matters are very easily arranged
on paper, and put on the gravity  and appearance of wis-
dom, but at the bedside of tue sick they are as useless as a
mountain of dust!  They have often  betrayed the pr eti-
tioner to slay  instead of cure; and made him lament, when
too late.   Had he pursued another course he could have
saved his patient; but he was deceived by his names and
signs.  While studying  this lecture, a gentleman called in
my room; conversing on the subject, I mentioned Dr.CuLLEN's
system as filling the practice of medicine with the blackness
of darkness, and confounding common sense by classifying
diseases like the plants of Linnjeus.   He retorted, that Dr.
Thomson had the same remedy for every disease.  I replied
that was  not exactly the f-ict-, he had more than one rem-
edy;  but if that were, he had the authority o€ Dr. Chap-
man  upon his side,  that one remedy would cure divers dis-
eases, opposite both in their cause, symptoms and localities;
and showed him the Doctor's recommendation of SyvAiM's
panacea;  in which  he affirms, that although he could not
account for it, yet such was the fact, that Swaim's panacea
did cure diseases altogether different,  according to the theo-
ries and reasonings of the schools!  He was silent, for there
was  Dr.  Chapman's recommendation.   Now,  said I, the
most formidable objection against the Thomsonian remedies
is answered by one of your own faculty;  and why may not
Dr. Thomson discover a  remedy tocure different diseases as
well as Dr. SwArM?  The truth is, the absurdity so  often
urged in this objection, is not  in the thing itself,  but in the
mode of comparison. In itself, it is perfectly philosophical;
the unity  of medicine agrees  with the unity  of man, his
sympathies, his feelings, his health, and his disease.   But
when you compare the one remedy, with the artificial  class-
ifications and theories of th« schools,  the  absurdity is very
palpable indeed; it is like comparing a man with a centaur.
But compare man with  man;  medicine with disease; and 
181
you find  the  perfect concinnity established by the hand of
nature—the unerring guide, from which proud science has
often led man to stray into the deep darkness of strong de-
lusion.   For what is disease? The obstruction  or  morbid
excitement of some organ, which in health moved yvith ease
and facility.  Man is not changed in disease, nur his consti-
tution much changed in the incipient stages.   A very sim-
ple remedy of the proper kind, like the kine pock, would at
once restore him and establish health.  Why then does  he
linger? Because either the medicine has no power over the
disease, or because it aggravates the disease.  To say a dis-
ease must run its course, is to  say  we have  no remedy
for it. There is no such thing in nature asn law establishing
a course  of disease.   The Deity has established laws of or-
der, of harmony, and benevolence, but he established no law
of disorder and necessary pain.
  We know the wages of  sin is death; but there is a reme-
dy for that death, and for all the diseases which are its har-
bingers.   The  greater includes  the less.  That Goodness
which provided  a relief from the woes of the second death,
could not fail to make provision for the pangs which presage
the first;  for the promise  of a good old  age, is included in
the comprehensive assurance, that the saint shall inherit all
things.   The experience of the world, and the promise of
the latter day glory, establish the fact.  A single instance
will be sufficient to  display this principle: The  small pox
must run their course—this was the common language, be-
cause they had no remedy for them—they did run  their
course with a fierce and fatal certainty for twelve hundred
years.   Had any one then said the day would  come when
that loathsome  disease  would be extirpated  from among
men, he would  have  been  scouted as  a madman or a
fool.  But the day came, the remedy was found; and it is
now found also,  the small pox had no course to run; and so
shall every disease be stopped and eradicated whenever the
       [16] 
182
proper remedy shall have been discovered.  The hope that
the discoveries of Dr. Thomson  had contributed  to this
great subject, induced me to deliver  this course  of Lec-
tures;  and  from all I have  yet  seen or known  on the
subject, 1 am persuaded, that however humble  my efforts
may be found, I am contributing to the cause of humanity
and the relief of the miseries of man.   If 1 thought these
remedies dangerous to a single individual, or useless in re-
moving complaints, there is no wealth yvhich could  have in-
duced  me  to have spent one breath upon them.  I know
the condition of the poor, I have a deep sympathy for their
wants and their woes;  they can neither spare time  nor mo-
ney.  On reading the  Narrative of Thomson, I said to my-
self, if this  be fact, and this discovery and mode of practice
real, it will lift  a vast load from off  the poor and the oppress-
ed.  It was a high and holy commendation of the Gospel,
on its first exhibition, that it yvas preached to the poor. This
new system of  medicine seemed to  be medicine to the poor;
and in this  respect, like the equalizing spirit of the Gospel?
it sets them on an equality with therieh! Now. if both were
established  with equal certainly, O! how great would be the
blessing! If the means for procuring the health of the bod\
were equally within the reach of  the poor as those of the
soul, who would not rejoice; for these two important objects
comprehend the whole sum of human.happiness—health of
body and health  of mind.   That man cannot be miserable
who has a soul at peace with God, and a body on which the
storms of life may beat in vain.
  The Thomsonian remedies seem peculiarly adapted to the
diseases of  the laboring classes of society.  Exposed as tbey
are to greater hardships, severer toils,  less nourishing food,
they are  more subject to rheumatisms, low fevers, putrid
fevers, dysenteries, cholics.and chronic complaints,than the
Other members of the community.
  These neyv remedies are, in a high degree, powerful and
safe to remove all these complaints, at a very small expense 
185
They possess an energy which seems to communicate new
life to the system,  and renovate  the feeble, fainting pow-
ers of nature.  I have witnessed  a few cases beyond the
power of the established practice, relieved by this medicine
in a manner so short and new to me,  that I would forfeit
my own convictions did I not speak of it as I do; and recom-
mend  it with the zeal of one who believes he is promoting
the good of his fellow men, and contributing to the welfare
of society.
   Dr. Rush says, "in no  part of the world is animal life,
among, the human  species, in a  more perfect state than ih
the inhabitants of Great Britain, and the United States  of
America.  For in addition to  all the natural stimuli which
have been named, they are constantly under the  invigorating
influence of liberty."  "There is, he says,  an indissoluble
connexion  between political freedom and physical  happi-
ness.   And if it be  true, that elective and  representative
governments have a greater influence on human happiness
and national prosperity, they must also be more favorable
to human life."  Now, the idea of liberty here inculcated
as conducive to life and happiness, is precious  and dear to
man in  every  department of life and practice.  I have
known patients refuse medicine, merely because they did not
know  what it was; the mystery ar.d technical name seemed
an infringement on the very  freedom of thought, and dis-
gusted the sick with the prescription.  It is certainly grati-
fying in  a high degree, to understand the medicine you are
taking, the nature of its operation, and safe and salutary re-
sults.  Small things will influence the condition of the sick.
All who  have attended sick beds,must  have observed, that
the least sh idow of concealment or deception, whispering,
or doubtful looks, or  the  color of mystery, will  distress
the patient.   If he  loses confidence  in his physician, it will
aggravate his disease.  But  what  must be his condition
when  the  grand principle of freedom is destroyed in  the 
184 '
mode of administering;  when he is reduced to the condition
of the slave of an eastern despot;  when  he must  in  pro-
found ignorance receive,  with implicit faith, whatever is of-
fered to  him.  Hoyv  deadening must be the effects on a
weak and  worn out constitution?  If it be objected, what
confidence can the patient place in a botanic physician, who
is not a man of science? The answer is plain; the  trust of
the patient is not in the  skill  of the physician, but in the
nature  and  poyver of the remedies, that they are safe and
certain, congenial to life  and productive of health.   To re-
lieve our hunger, we do  not rely on the  skill of  the cook,
but on the nature of the food;  so in medicine,our depend-
ence should be on the remedy and not on the administrator.
Short and sudden has been the journey to the tomb to thou-
sands, whoby a proper remedy timously applied,might have
spent a long and useful life in tlie world.
  This new practice possesses this great and decided ad-
vantage; it places the knowledge and the remedy in every
family; the  physician  and the cure  are always at hand.
You have not to  wander in the night  to a distance, and the
patient dying, to seek a doctor, with the  agony pressing on
your spirits, that your wife, or child, or friend, may be dead
on your return.  No, you can  apply at once to  your own
resources, and at least keep the sick in safety till additional
aid be called if necessary.  I knew a  lady in  this city,
who cured her husband of a cholera  morbus, in  an attack
so severe that if he had  been left unaided till a  physician
could have been called from his bed, his case would have
been very doubtful, if not  entirely fatal, as many have in the
same disease.  Now the whole amount of family medicine
for  one year, will not much exceed three dollars; for  this
sum you can procure a portion of all the numbers, and direc-
tions how to take them; any one in  the family can adminis-
ter to another in perfect safety.   There is a kind of peace
and confidence established in the family, when they know
relief is at hand. 
                          185

   This is a part of practical wisdom, which every good
mind must  appreciate, to  be provided,  especially  in the
warm seasons, for sudden and severe sickness.  The bene-
volent Dr. Rush was exceedingly careful to inculcate upoh
his students, to instruct the  families where they might prac-
tice, how to act  in cases of emergency.  In sudden cramp
or spasm of  the stomach, pour water on hot ashes and drink
it off;  in croup, or  strangling, run a shovel  into the fire,
pour on it water or vinegar and inhale the steam; in a dis-
tressing cough, take salt and water, or stand yvith your back
against the cold  wall.  These were all intended for imme-
diate relief, until a physician  could be called.
   Now, the system of Dr.  Thomson is not only for tempo-
rary, but permanent relief.  It i«» the beginning and the end
of the  patient's cure.  You are prepared to attack disease
in its forming state,  and pursue  it without  remission, until
a  cure be finally  established.  Surely, to  those who love
health, the remedies are worthy of a fair trial—of a candid
and  patient investigation.   The study of medicine I  dearly
loved, and the practice I would ere now have pursued, had
I known a remedy of certain and infallible  efficacy.  But
1 knew of  none such; and I cared not to encounter the pang
of that dreadful  disappointment, which I have but too often
witnessed, to see. your remedies taking a course altogether
the reverse, of that which you intended, and  your patient
sinking by the very hand employed to raise him up!  Others
may sooth their conscience, and justify themselves in a man-
ner of yvhich I am ignorant;  but I could never find but one
answer which satisfied me—the uncertainty of medical prac-
tice, and the impossibility of ascertainjjfpg when you admin-
istered a dose, whether you were not hastening the pitient
to the grave.  On  consultation, you  may  see  a  practice
entirelv changed, when the sick is alreadv dying; a plain
confession they have died by  the hands of the physician.
       [16*] 
 
LECTURE XV.
    A GENERAL VIEW OF THE WHOLE SUBJECT.

  Since the first records of medical science, the profession
lias either slumbered under the shadow of a mighty name,
or gone forth to war yvith the conflicting elements of passion?
prejudice, and perversity of soul.   The  pride  of interest
and the pride of science, the maxims of philosophy and the
cunning of designing knaves, have all, at different times*
obstructed  the plain and simple P*©g<css of medical know-
ledge.  A  profession at first simple and retired, became at
lcflgth involved in ail the bustle, and business,and learning
of the world.
  Hippocrates  was celebrated as the first who  separated
the profession of jnedicine from philosophy.  But the sepa-
ration did  not  long exist.   Philosophy  was soon  drawn
within the magic circle, and lent her splendor, and  bowed
her pride, to adorn the mysteries of the  healing art.   For
mysterious it must needs become, when the philosophy of
life, of matter, and of  mind, were  all  brought into the illus-
trations of pathology  and  the theories of disease.   Medi-
cine now put on her purple robes, and began to assert her
infallibility; but like all infallible pretenders, she quickly
furnished by her own example, decisive proof that her power
was a dream and her pretensions a delusion.   She changed
her aspect  with the changing times, and at every new re-
move, still  thought she had attained perfection.   She  was
never idle,l ut  full of life and  activity;  pushed her con-
quests, on  every side,  and her  researches through  every
new and untried region of discovery and speculation.  If
■she did not succeed, it was not  because  her efforts were 
188
not multiplied and vigorous; but because the road in which
she chose to travel, was not that which led to the secrets of
the healing art.   There was much truth, and much science,
and great industry; but the  facts of perpetual change, con-
fess that she was never long satisfied by some of her attain-
ments, nor convinced that her labors had  reached a close.
   Some of the physicians have confessed, that the practice
itself did not change with the changing theories of medi-
cine.   That after all the disputes and  differences of medi-
cal professors, the practice remained nearly the same.   The
assertion certainly  requires some limitation.   There  must
have been a great Variety in practice as well as  in theory,
though  not so much as would  appear to follow from the
asseitions of medical writers.  Dr Rush decried the noso-
logy of Dr. Cullen, with great vehemence.  To hear him
lecture, one would  imagine his practice  would have  been
diametrically opposite; but it was not.  The opposition to
Cullen was in his theory, not in his  practice.  Dr.  Rey-
nolds, in taking a review of the jarring  theories of medi-
cal professors, says,—"the- consequence is, that the people
believe, from  the fact of so much opposition, that there is no
truth in medicine at all."  And he says, it is boldly asked
whether the profession be not rather  in a worse condition
now than it was three thousand years ago?  This question
the doctor does not  directly answer:  He does not say  they
Dow perform more cures than in  former times.   But he as-
serts, they possess more knowledge in  Anatomy, Surgery,
Chimistry, Botany and Physiology; he affirms, and affirms
truly, they art superior to the ancients.  But it is a fact not
to be forgotten nor cjjsguised, that the  most learned physi-
cians are generally the worst practitioners, or at least,  they
are not accounted  so g  od  as  others, nor so  much to be
trusted.  When  a physician  gets a professor's chair, his
practice from  that moment declines.  Dr. Watebhouse, I
am told by good authority, one of the most learned physi- 
189
 Cians of our country, has almost no practice.   The learned
 and eloquent Dr. Barton, of Philadelphia, had very little;
 a»d Dr. Rush observes in one of his lectures, that his prac-
 tice was  very small, and that0little generally amongst the
 strangers who visited the city.   Dr. Darwin was afraid to
 publish his Botanic Garden, for fear of destroying his prac-
 tice; and Dr.  Rush affirmed, that  Drs. Armstrong  and
 Akensioe, on publishing their respective poems, lost all
 their practice.
   Now the fact exists, whether true or false, that the peo-
 ple consider the pursuits of literature adverse to the medi-
 cal practitioner, and detracting from his  abilities to cure;
 that so far from being a qualification, it incapacitates him
 from the responsibility nf. rootming nealth and preserving
 life!  And  this opinion  is not  confined to the people, but
 has crept in among the physicians themselves.  Aud there
 must be some truth in the sentiment, or it never could have
 obtained such an universal sway  over the human mind.—
 But tlie truth is indubitable, the study of patients and not
 the study of books; experience and not reading; make the
 most  complete  and successful practitioner, and inspire the
 highest confidence in the  patient.   Dr. Thomson is called
 ignorant; but it is the ignorance of books,  not of experi-
 ence.  He hadj and still has, a vast measure of the learning
 abovfe described, as giving popularity to the physician, and
 reliance to the sick, in the skill of one who has battled death
 in a  thousand forms, and disease  under every aggravation.
   Dr. Rush, on the  causes of failure in  medical practice,,
 makes the inquiry, why ninety-nine cases out of the hundred
are lost, of those which  are called  the  curable diseases?
 He first mentions ignorance in the physician;  one not quali-
 fied either by reading or observation, for the practice of me-
 dicirfc*  Dr. Thomson does  not fall under this charge; by
observation he was well qualified.  2d, Dr. Rush says, inca-
pacity in tlie physician.   Dr.  Thomson is clear  of this 
                         ISO

charge also; for he had a  natural  aptitude and love b;
medical study.  Had it not been for this, he never could
have risen against the pressure which weighed  him doyv'fl,
and pressed him to the earth!   3d, Dr. Rush says, want of
instruction in the physician; with good capacity,  his instruc-
tion had been erroneous, and hence  his practice pernicious
and ineffectual.  Dr.  Thomson had the very  wisest of all
instructors—necessity and experience—instructors  which
never deceived man; but taught him to plough,  to find out
the use of corn bread, of potatoes, the use of wool and furs
for clothing, and the  simples used in medicine, and every
thing  valuable yet in  use among the human family.   4th,
Dr. Rush mentions obliquity of mind;  there are some, says
he, of such perversity of mind, that nothing will teach them
propriety, nor enforce upon them the majesty of truth.  If
ever nature  formed a plastic  mind for the impressions of
medical wisdom, that mind was Dr. Samuel Thomson's.
The medical profession was the very niche in the temple of
nature, for which the  Deity designed him.  5th, Dr. Rush
mentions as a fifth reason, or cause of  failure in  physicians,
attachments to other pursuits and neglect of their own pro-
fession.   Through all vicissitudes Dr. Thomson has been
attached and devoted to his profession;  in prosperity and
in adversity, in sickness and in healthy in  prison  and at the
bar of judgment, he  had but one single object  in his  eye,
and one exclusive sentiment in his  heart—the  healing of
the sick, the discoveries of effectual cures, the perfection
of his system, and  the relief of the wretched.  Of all the
causes of failure, in losing ninety-nine  cases out  of the hun-
dred, of curable diseases, enumerated by  Dr.  Rush, Dr.
Thomson  stands clear  before the  tribunal of the  whole
world.  He  is  the very reverse in  his whole  character,
from all those condemned by Dr. Rush.   Dr. Thomson? had
very much of Dr Rush's own  qualifications for the  office
of a physician; all, indeed, but his book learning.  He had 
191
the same enthusiasm, the same perseverance, the same de-
termination, to succeed and to excel, the same activity and
taste for observation, and in one word, the devotion of mind
to the healing art, which eminently distinguished that kind
and celebrated professor.   Now, Dr. Ru?h being judge, Dr.
Thomson would  save  the ninety-nine patients ou,t of the
hundred of the curable cases; and, in fact, his success has
been always even beyond this proportion.   He has not, no,
nor his followers, lost one out of the hundred of their pa-
tients.  I do firmly believe this tact cannot be contradicted,-
O! what a gain is here!  What a waste of lives prevented,
and destruction of the human race!
   Dr. Chaptal, speaking  of the Loioic medicines,  says,
"should their constant and invariable  effects through all
Europe be found good and salutary, they ought to be exhib-
ited.   But government should  impose  an interdict upon
their use, until the most rigid inspection should have ascer-
tained their safety and established their success.  And no«t
to suffer proud and pompous practitioners to sport with the
lives and happiness of the assembled millions of Europe."
   Now,the remarks of Chaptal have been reiterated by Dr.
Rush.   While pouring the highestencomiumson the heroic
medicines, he adds,"but in the hands of ignorant pretenders,
or proud and  careless physicians, they  are most fatal and
destructive medicines."  This will readily account for the
fact of the ninety-nine out of the hundred  of  curable cases
being lost.   It was  nearly one hundred years after the phy-
sicians of Europe introduced  the antimonial  medicines in
their practice, before the college of Paris would suffer their
introduction.  And  that  most eminent college of physi-
cians  is now  the first to banish the mineral  poisons  from
their practice.  They have the distinguished honor of being
the last to receive those dangerous  remedies, and the firsf
Jo expel them from  their community.  And there is no peo-
ple in the world, perhaps, who enjoy as great flow of an}- 
192
mal spirits as the French.   We cannot attribute the whole
effect to climate alone; it will not  account for  the fact.
Other climates equally good and salubrious, do not produce
such happy results.   We must look to a higher source, and
causes  more efficient and  philosophical.  A very eminent
physician  of Great  Britain  says, "he has no doubt but the
instances of self murder, which so frequently disgrace our
country, may be attributed  to the use of mercury and other
severe mineral medicine so profusely and constantly adminis-
tered." Forsuchyvas the deplorable state of feeling  produc-
ed, the sinkings of the heart, the tremblings and prostrations
of the \vhole system, the loss of appetite and animal hilarity,
that life became an  inuflcin-olo.wthen, and the miserable
patient preferred death by  his own hand, to such a misera-
ble existence!  And the physician ascribes the abuse of opi-
um and spiritous liquors, principally to the same cause; the
awful and terrible prostration produced  by severe medi-
cines renders life such a buthen that the sufferer will resort
to any means rather than bow before his misery!
  Now,thisis the true reason of the flow of spirits in France:
Their light wine  and light  food; their simple medicines
and cautious and reluctant use of severe medicines.   Their
spirits are neither crushed under a load of strong food nor
poisoned by destructive medicines.  Dr. Rush says, "in the
free and happy republic of  Connecticut, animal life for up-
wards of an hundred and fifty years, has existed in a higher
degree and to a greater amount, than in any other portion
of the world  of the same  magnitude."  This  fact he as-
cribes to their free goverment and happy institutions.   The
amount and force of animal life  may be greater, and even
more robust; but T much doubt whether the flow of animal
spirits  even  in Connecticut,  will equal the vivacity  of
France.  Our object is truth,  and not speculation; we have
all witnessed the sinking soul, and los« of appetite, after a
course  of severe medicine.  This is never witnessed in the 
193
exhibition of the botanic remedies; but, on the contrary', a
degree of animation and a desire for food, which, to myself,
was perfectly astonishing; and I presume must be to every
one yvho perceived it for the first time.   The conclusion of
my oyvn mind was at  the time, there must be something in
this medicine extremely congenial to  life, and in harmony
with all its laws.   Its effects upon the patient are like those
of  sound and refreshing sleep to the husbandman; he rises
restored and strengthened, like a giant refreshed by wine!
It was so contrary to  what I had ever before witnessed, and
especially in the  same patient, who had taken medicine for
years  before, and ahvays with the loss of appetite, that I
could  not, without sinning  against my own soul, withhold
my testimony and approbation.  We arp com*-times forced
into opposition  with our best friends; it is extremely painful.
I was often, since the commencement of these Lectures, on
 the very point of abandoning them forever, and wished I had
never begun the  subject;  but as I progressed, and witnessed
 the salutary results of this new practice, I did verily believe
 that I was serving God and  my country, in striving to diffuse
a knowledge of  its doctrines,  Nor do I think I can be mis-
 taken; for a practice of forty years, over perhaps a million
 of people,  in  all varieties  of cases and disease, must be
 surely calculated  to give certainty to the  practice, if cer-
 tainty can ever be  attained  in the medical profession.
    There are three very important results of this medicine,
 which I would wish  to impress on my hearers.  It removes
 obstructions, restores the appetite, and invigorates the pow-
 ers of life.  Now these are the three essential points in the
 recovery of man to perfect health.   When all the obstruc-
 tions are removed, the vital functions have a fair and easy
 play,actingin harmony and vigor,and the glow of health is
 diffused over the whole frame.  As we live by food and not
 medicine, the  tone of the stomach being restored, and the
 action of the  digestive organs, we are enabled to  receive 
                          194

 food sufficient for the sustenance of health, and the cheer
 fulglowof the animal spirits renders life indeed a blessing.
 For I presume there are  particular times, when the best
 regulated constitutions  feci that dejection of mind which
 made the poet exclaim—
               "O! life ihon art a galling load,
               A long, a rough, a yveary road,
               To wretches such  as 1."
 Now, a medicine yvhich has the tendency to exhilarate the
 mind and rouse the animal spirits, announces by this sinerle
fact, its vast superiority and importance; that it is the medi-
 cine of life and health;  and no matter when found, nor by
 whom discovered, the people should cleave to it, as a sacred
 shield and refuge from their woes.  It is a solemn thing to
 take charge of tho suk una <™ *w„ses.   There  shoul(1
 be no enthusiasm nor fancy on the subject; but dePp and
 solemn gravity, and sober thought.   And yet the effect wit-
 nessed by the operation of  this new medicine, are sufficient
 to rouse the mind to something bordering on the romantic,
 A regular physician of this city, on beholding the astonish-
 ing consequences on a patient,  extremely reduced and ema-
 ciated, of lobelia and the  other accompanying medicine
 confessed  that it was  extraordinary; "nut,  said he  it will
 not last, the effect is only temporary  relief."  But it was
 not temporary but permanent  help, which the patient re-
 ceived.   If all the sick, relieved and cured by this practice,
 could be assembled together; a fair statement of their cases
 and continuance of their diseases made out, I am convinced
the world would be amazed at  the multitudes and the re-
sults; and at the victory obtained over sickness and death, so
signal and triumphant!  For I  am well aware, that  nothing
hut something extremely powerful and striking, will over-
come the prejudices of the physicians.   I need but mention
an instance of their obstinacy, to show what may be ex-
pected from  them  by the  botanic  doctors.  "Miner and 
                             195

     I'ully on fever," reasoning against the fatal practice of
    bleeding in  putrid  malignant  fevers, observe—"oceans of
    falsehood have teemed from the  faculty on this subject; for
    when they discover their error, they have  not the magna-
    nimity to confess it."  And they mention one practitioner
    who had sixty patients  and saved them all but one—by
    bleeding?—No! but by  not bleeding.   The only one he
    bled died; and yet  he held forth the idea that he  had saved
m.   them all by this practice!   And what  could be  his motive
    for this?  A very pitiful one indeed;  the sake of consistency.
    He had, in an evil hour,  advocated  the propriety of bleed-
    ing in all cases  of fever.  He soon  found his mistake;
    changed  his practice, but stuck  to his theory, at the great
    expense of truth, and the danger of misleading other prac-
    titioners.
       Wo need not, therefore, much marvel at the accusations
    and abuse heaped on the  Thomsonian practice, when grave
    and learned physicians are forced to bring such accusations
    against the faculty to which they belong; and I know policy
    often keep^s them silent,  when they are boiling  with lage
    against the mal-practices of their brethren in the healing
    art;  when, if  they would speak out their sentiments, as they
    privately express them, they would plainly  say—"the phy-
    sician had killed his patient—his course yvas entirely wrong."
    This new practice has this vast and high prerogative, it can-
     not be wrong, and yvil! no! kill; no mistakes are fatal here;
    no unexpected and sudden  death, when you think the pa-
    tient is just about to do well.  I knoyv a physician who put
    his patient through a course of mercury;  in the evening
    he said he was doing yvell—he called in the morning, and
    inquired for his patient, and was  informed he was dead!
    He was struck dumb!—looked  on the lifeless corpse, and
    departed without uttering a single word, yvith a load of wo
    upon his heart, that I would not have suffered for a moun-
    tain of gold!  Yet he could not  be blamed; he  practised 
196
  according to his education, and yvas utterly deceived in the
  operation of his medicines.  He thought they were curing
  the patient; but alas! they were digging his grave!
    The  poyvcr of prejudice and  the empire of pride,  may
  prevail  for a season; but the soul w ill at last arise and re-
  assert the majesty of her  oyvn nature, and  shew unto the
  world, that "there are gifts, beyond the power of education
  and knowledge, yvhich learning cannot bestow."  Learning
  will neither make a great man, nor a great physician, but  it
 will highly advance the  usefulness of those  who are great
 by nature; who have received the patent of their  dignity
 from God Almighty.  Dr.  Waterhouse said of Dr. Thom-
 son, he had taken a degree  from the school of nature—a di-
 ploma from her unerring hands.   The very course of that
 education  to which l>.. -wA»™„„„„ has so handsomely
 alluded, was calculated  to instruct the  author of the new
 system in useful remedies, and deliver his mind from every
 bias but the force  of experience and  truth.   With a mind
 entirely uninfluenced  by  all authority, unmoved and unob-
 structed by any thing which had gone before him, he pos-
 sessed an advantage which, I am persuaded,  none ever pos-
 sessed who were educated in the  schools—where  we are
 introduced to the  fellowship of wisdom by the authority of
 books and  professors.  It is impossible for the most inde-
 pendent mind to perfectly retain its freedom; it will insen-
 sibly bow to the opinions of some celebrated or splendid
 authority.  In after life,  indeed, and  by much experience,
 some superior souls are enabled to cast off the shackles of
 education;  but they are the fewest number of that mighty
 host, which walk forth from  the schools of the world, to pro-
 pagate the errors of their  predecessors.   Dr. Thomson had
 nothing of all this to encounter; he was led by the hand of
 nature; and without being aware of the fact, he was  travel-
ling in the path of the Indian, the  German and Celtic doc-
 tors—the doctors of antiquity,  who without complaint  or 
197
failure, practised on the unnumbered millions,  who over-
turned the empire of the Romans; and still practice on all
the nations of the Gentile world.   He is, therefore, now a
professor in the most ancient and extensive medical school
of the world.   A school, not on the decline and about to
perish—but one beginning  to revive—to put on  strength—
to extend her conquests, until the learned and the unlearned
shall  be gathered under the shadow of her wings, and  tri-
umph in the splendor of her acquisitions.  And we see the
dawn of this glorious era, which shall transform the face of
the world.
  In Edinburgh and London,  in  France and Italy, in the
dark regions of Hindostan  and the empire of the Chinese,
we find this new light, on  the subject of medical science,
breaking forth* or rather it is the old light returningto those
long  forgotten regions of the yvorld.   And  when  nature
takes her proper course,  only chastened and controled by
science, how great and glorious must be the amount of her
operations.
   In  the United States the example of Dr. Thomson will
stimulate thousands to  press forward in the same career, and
press to the same object.  A train is laid, like the philoso-
phy of Bacon in the mode of argument, and the investiga-
tion of truth, that  will kindle a blaze which will astonish
and amaze the nations of the world.
   The first rays of science scattered on the earth were
never totally absorbed and lost.  From the first  dawn of
divine wisdom vouchsafed to man, till the last star of heav-
en's holy light shall perish from the firmanent, there has
 been and shall be in every age, advocates and adherents of
truth.   They could not, indeed,  always prevail; but they
served to  keep alive tiie flame  of purity and truth, and trans-
mit it from generation to generation.  The distance may
seem immense between the origin and perfection of a sys-
tern; but the slow and silent progress of indestructible wis*
        [17*] 
198
dom must finally flow on the horizon and cover the heavens
with light.
   There is a growth and grandeur in all the yvorks of the
Almighty.   The labors of man may perish; for like himself?
they are often vanity and lies; but the doings  of His hand,
who yvalks upon the sky, can  never come to nought.  At
first, He instructed  man in the simple method of  curing
disease by diet and  the plants  of the field; while he con-
tinued in this practice, his diseases were light and soon re-
moved.  In the pride of his heart, he  loaded the simple ele-
ments of medical  knowledge yvith the  results of his own
speculations.  In this course he has  pursued his way for
three thousand years, to his oyvn sad disappointment and
bitter sorrow.   Ho «™m* n0w willing to return; and after
the waste of ages and the complete exhaustion of  the re-
sources of science, he takes up anew the book of wisdom,
which in scorn and presumption  he had cast from his  hands!
The high disdain  of human knowledge, is yielding fast to
the sway of those eternal principles of immutable truth, in-
scribed by the hand of the Deity on the foundations of the
universe andin the livingcharacters of the starry sky. When
freedom erected the pillars of her throne in our country, we
were assured that we could not govern ourselves; that the
people were incapable of self government.  When the pil-
grims of the east  first pitched  their tents in  the howling
wilderness, they yvere persuaded that it yvas unsafe to dwell
near a man who exercised liberty of  thought, or used  free-
dom of speech.  We are now  told, we cannot  cure our-
selves when sick;  that years of study are necessary to re-
move a fever or cure a heart burn.  These last may  be also
mistaken, and with the first, look back with shame and sor.
rove, in a few years,  on  the part which they  had formerly
acted, and the perversity of the course they had pursued.
 And even now, there is evidence sufficient to astound the
 most incredulous, and shake the confidence of  the most har- 
199
 dened.   Were we able to collect, or had means to brinw to-
 gether the scattered fragments of  truth and argi.in  <t,  on
 the true  science of medicine, from Germs ry  and Spain,
 from  France and Italy, and England, from India and the  re-
 gions of this Western world, there would  be a balance in
 the scale on the side  of the neyv  practice,  which at  least
 might induce  its  opponents to weigh  with modesty the
 amount of their attainments.  I now  bid  the subject  fare-
 well.   If I have served the cause of truth and  righteous-
 ness,  I am satisfied; if I may have  led any poor sufferer  to
 the means of relief and safety, I am more  than rewarded.
 If a single tear shall be wiped from the eye, or a pang from
 the throbbing heart, or a prisoner rescued from the grasp af
 of the  king of terrors, I sh*n  «o»cm  regret  the  days and
 nights spent in these studies, nor the effort to make them use-
 ful to the public. The subject, so far from being exhausted,
 is only begun. I have acted merely as a pioneer—a breaker
 up of the way  on  this  new and untried  subject.  But if
 these Lectures shall provoke any more competent on indus-
 trious hand to engage extensively  in the developement of
 all the principles,  the  benefits and beneficial results of this
 important subject, I shall feel the deepest gratification.
  A id let  it be remembered, if this  system of practice is
 true, it will have the peculiar blessing of  the Almighty upon
 its side;  because it brings the power, the benefits, and the
 beneficial results of a  safe medicine, within the reach of the
 poor; into their  dear distressed families, who often perish for
 the lack of the means to procure medical aid! This single
 benefit cannot fail of drawing down  from heaven the pecu-
 liar blessing of Him, who bowed  his majestv and left his
 throne, and veiled his dories, to enter the world, and preach
"the gospel to the poor!"
FINIS. 
A GENERAL  REFERENCE
To the works quoted, or alluded
Hippocrates              {
Galen                    \
Celsus                    \
Plato                    \
Ari-totle                 |
Cbjm. Alex.              <
Syncell. Chron.            \
Diodo.  Sic.               \
Herodotus                \
Pliny                    |
Alexander's History of Med. \
E cyclopedic. Kritanica     j
Encyclopedia, Recce  "     *I
Medical Record           |
Medical Journal           |
Medical Review           1
Stahl                   . \
Hoffman
Haller
Van Swieten
Baglivi
Sydenham
Hunter
Harvey
Boerhaave
Munro
Cullen
Brown
Thomson
Ry
Rush
Reynolds
Barnwell
Darwin
Hooper
Cooper
Donaldson
Newton
to, in the preceding Lectures.
 Falkner
 Waterhousc
 Glisson
 Winter
 Kirkland
 Buchan
 Ewell
 Benezett
 Miner & Tully, on fever
 Derham
 Thomas
 Niewenty
 Rurns
 Richeraml
 Linnaeus
 Magendi
 Bishat
 Broussais
 Thommasini
 Whytt
 Hales
 Zimmerman
 Barton
 Chaptal
 Chapman
 Lieutand
 Williss
 Gaubius
 Huxham
 Nichols
 Mead
 Vaughn
 Des Cartes
 Lord Bacon
 Sauvages
 Pope
 Haen
 Vogel 
CONTENTS.
                                                         PAGE
 To the Reader       -              >       .        -       m
 LECTURE I —Introductory                                  7
           II-—Historical view of  ancient theories      -       23
           HI-—Historical view of  the modern systems of
                  medicine                                  37
           IV,—The Theories of n«. r»i«*yn, Hush and
                  Thomson                                  51
           V.—Medicine, as it is taught in the schools    -       65
           VI.—Improved theory of medicine   -        -       75
          VII.—Theory of fever according to the modern
                  systems of medicine        -        -       87
         VIII.—Fever, continued      ...       99
           IX.—On medical poisons   -        -         .      jj|
           X.—Hepatitis, and phthisis  pulmonalis; or
                  diseases of the liver and lungs         -      123
          XI.—A general review of the nature and ope-
                  ration of Thomson's remedies         -      135
         XII.—Review of Dr. Tnomson's remedies       -     149
         Xlll.— The power of the riiomsouian remedies  -     163
        XIV—The extent of the Thomsonian remedies  -     175
         XV.—A  general view of the  whole subject      -     187
General reference to the works quoted, &c.      -         -     200
                              f 
                   ERRATA.

Page 31, line 5 from  top,"*7or -w»«j«_     rea^  drank.
  "  33   " 15 from bottom " Commodius  *•   <1ommodus
  "  46   " 2 from   top   " marborum    "    morborum-
  "  48   « 10 from bottom " ficit         "    fecit.
  "  144 last line, alter the word dispose, add 'u*.1