Nueo V* .a"^ /A1- ^ ^r NEUROPATHY ;/3/5 OH, THB ^ i^ TRUE PRINCIPLES OF THE ART OF i I HEALING THE SICK. BEING AN EXPLANATION OF THE ACTION OF GALVANISM, ELECTRICITY, AND MAGNETISM, IN THE CURE OF DISEASE j ABD A COMPARISON BETWEEN TflEIR POWERS, AND THOSE 0? DRUGS, OR MEDICINES, OP ALL KINDS, WITH A VIEW TO DETERMINE THEIR RELATIVE VALUE, AND PROPER USES. v- BY FREDERICK HOLLICK, M. D., Lecturer on Physiology, the Origin of Life, the Causes and Cure of Disease, &c, &c.; and author of various popular works on Anatomy, Physiology, and the Practice of Medicine. /■>.. " H * PHiLADELPIIIA: NATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY, 142 CHESNUT ST. 1847. r~\ \A{63 HI 3*?* /SO Entered, aceording to act of Congress, in the year 1846, by FREDERICK HOLLIGE, M. D., in the Office of the Clerk of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. PREFACE. The present work is written for the double purpose of correcting error, and imparting truth. Its purpose is not to attack men, nor systems, but simply to state facts by which their preten- sions may be judged. The medical art is at present in a very unsatisfactory state. It is relied upon blindly by a few; is distrusted by many; and by some even treated with utter con- tempt. The professors are at variance, both in their teaching and their practice; and with no prospect of ever coming to an agreement. The regular, or orthodox, practice, is daily losing ground, and being superseded by numerous other, systems, all professing to have superior claims to our attention. These new systems often advance less from their own merit, than from the popular and familiar manner in which they are propounded. The advocates of them bring their explanations down to the level of the pub- lic mind, and thus gain a character for honesty and disinterestedness, which enlists a large por- tion of sympathy and confidence in their behalf. The old practitioners, on the contrary, wrapt up iii iv PREFACE. in a mantle of what they call dignity, keep them- selves aloof from the "common herd," and strive to keep up the mystery and exclusiveness that was practised ages ago. The consequence is, they are daily losing ground, and their rivals are daily advancing. The fact is, and all must ere long perceive it, the public are now so far enlightened that this mystery and exclusiveness can be ,no longer practised. Though sufficient knowledge is not yet disseminated to teach all that is true, in regard to the medical art, there is yet sufficient to expose many errors; and while medical men themselves obstinately refuse to admit those errors, or attempt their removal, the conviction will force itself upon the mind, that the whole system is a deception. This is essentially an age of innovation, of searching scrutiny into all pretensions, and whatever shrinks from investigation will be regarded with distrust. Some of the most eminent men in the profes- sion now begin to perceive this, and openly agitate a reform. With an honesty and love of truth that does them immortal honour, they openly admit that their art is defective ; that the )ublic are abused by it; and that it is rather a curse than a blessing, as now practised. They also contend that the public must be immediately enlightened on the subject to reconcile them to PREFACE. V the change, and they call upon all who have the well being of the profession and of humanity at heart, to come and assist them. There are few persons, indeed, who are aware of the dissension, or rather open civil war, wThich now rages in the medical world: and many will hear with asto- nishment, or actual incredulity, that some of the most eminent practitioners of the day actually admit, and even publicly state, that their art is altogether uncertain, that it is often injurious, and that " it would fare quite as well, or better, with patients in the actual condition of the medi- cal art, as more generally practised, if all reme- dies, at least all active remedies, especially drugs, were abandoned." And yet this language, and even stronger, is used by them, as will be seen by the extracts in the body of the work. The fact is, these men are sufficiently enlightened to see that the truth cannot longer be withheld, and they wisely conclude that it will be better for them to teach it themselves, than to leave the masses to discoA^er it in spite of them. Hitherto, however, these admissions and disclosures have been made only in medical works, such as are read by the profession alone,' and have not gene- rally met the public jeye. My object is to assist in making them universally known, both in the profession, and out of it; a result which eventu- VI PREFACE. ally must inevitably follow from their first an- nouncement, whether it was intended or not. No important truth can now be exclusively con- fined to any particular class, let it be but breathed in the slightest whisper, and at once the press, that mighty tell-tale, re-echoes it in thunder tones to the very confines of civilization. It is both vain and impolitic to attempt to smother such facts any longer, they must be known, and the sooner the better. The people now begin to see that whatever really appertains to medical science, and is of actual use in it, can be under- stood as easily as other branches of knowledge; and that what cannot be so understood, is gene- rally worthless, it being either learned ignorance, or mere mummery. If medical men themselves will come forward, and honestly admit to the public that their art is sadly defective, but show at the same time that they are striving with un- prejudiced minds to improve it, and that they are not afraid of throwing it open to public * scrutiny, they will inspire confidence and meet with approbation; but if they try to hide the truth, and shrink from inquiry, distrust will in- crease, and eventually contempt and utter aban- donment will be their fate. In making these remarks, 'I trust that no one will misunderstand me. I do not wish to de- PREFACE. Vll stroy all confidence in the medical art, but merely to show its actual condition. Neither do I wish to impugn the motives, or deny the abilities of medical men. On the contrary, I am anxious to render them due credit and praise. Among them are to be found some of the most enlightened and liberal members of the commu- nity. Men with warm hearts, and expanded minds, ever ready to alleviate distress, to admit the truth, and to acknowledge their own imper- fections. Such men never practice mystery or deception of any kind, and are never opposed to the dissemination of any kind of knowledge ;' but, on the contrary, are always ready to give freely what they themselves have received plentifully. Such men I esteem, though they may not always co-operate with me in my pro- ceedings, and I feel sure that if they oppose me, they will not exhibit either malice or uncharit- ableness in doing so. From many such I have met with encouragement and assistance, both privately and publicly, and I know that many others, in their hearts, wish, me god-speed in my undertaking. At the same time, however, that I pay this deserved compliment to those truly enlightened members of the profession who elevate and enoble it, I feel it my duty to denounce as em- Viii PREFACE. phatically, those narrow minded and illiberal pretenders, who disgrace, and bring down upon it public contempt. That there are many of this kind, is an unfortunate and undeniable fact. Having little capacity for the reception of truth themselves, they are jealously afraid of others acquiring it; and knowing that their own import- ance depends solely on the ignorance of others, they strive with all their might to conserve that ignorance. These men can never forgive any one who tries to enlighten the masses, because they are aware such enlightenment will expose their own littleness; and as they are usually as deficient in moral principle as they are in common sense, no scruple is felt by them at employing the basest and most dishonourable means to put that man down. I myself have suffered this unprincipled persecution, for merely giving to the public that information which these illiberal aristocrats wished to keep to themselves. Every injury that malice could suggest, and every annoyance that a petty mind could conceive, has been at- tempted against me, with a disregard of truth and decency evincing the deepest moral turpitude. Let these persecutors pass, however, they are part of the evils arising out of the errors of the old system, and, fortunately, are powerless in PREFACE. IX their efforts to prevent the introduction of the new and better one. They are sufficiently pu- nished by the mortification they must feel at hav- ing failed in their attempt, and by being dis- graced in the estimation of all honest men for having made it. The erroneous notion that disease is, to a very great extent, if not altogether, under the control of drugs, and may be cured by them, has caused immense mischief to the human race. It has made the system a receptacle for poisons of all kinds, and has, in all probability, originated a great portion of the diseases now existing. But what is worse, it prevents safer and more effect- ive means of cure from being tried. No treat- ment can be of use, in the opinion of some per- sons, unless it includes the giving of medicines ; and hence medical men are often obliged to give them, though against their better judgment. Some, it is true, make a compromise in such cases, and by means of bread pills and coloured water, satisfy the patient without risking doing him any injury. It is highly desirable, however, that this erroneous notion should be removed; and one object of this work is to show the fallacies now entertained respecting medical (or drug) treatment, and to give the real opinions 'of practitioners themselves as to its value; X PREFACE. Another object is to show that there are curative agents more powerful than drugs, and which at the same time are incapable of injury. When the nature of these new agents is understood, and when old errors are removed, the practice of medicine will be a very different thing from what it has ever been yet. People will not be made worse or killed, by vain and unauthorized attempts at curing them; nor imposed upon by a pretended system of treatment. The power that really cures will be known, and it will be seen that the physician, even when right, merely assists nature, and can do that only in a few cases. But what is of far greater consequence, it will be seen that the cure of disease must always be doubtful, and that our proper course is to devise means for preventing it. The use of galvanism, electricity, magnetism, and other neuropathic agents in the cure of dis- ease, is of recent date, and the philosophy of their action is but little understood. It has, therefore, been fully treated upon in the pre- sent work, so that an estimate may be formed of their value, and a comparison made be- tween them and the agents most usually relied upon. It is my belief, confirmed by extensive experience, that these mysterious powers, when rightly used, are the most efficient, and the PREFACE. XI safest agents we can employ in the cure of dis- ease, and that they will eventually supersede the use of drugs to a great extent, if not alto- gether. I am now making the grand experiment of treating nearly all diseases without medicines of any kind, and though I occasionally resort to them in some few cases, yet still I find that they can be dispensed with to a great extent, and I hope will be, eventually, still more. The bene- fit to the whole race from this important change, will be greater than the mind can well conceive, and it becomes the imperative duty of every friend of humanity to earnestly strive for its accomplishment. The object of the work being popular instruc- tion, it has been purposely divested of all techni- calities, and made as familiar as possible. To the favoured ones who have the lamp of science already burning brightly in their path, it may not be needed, but to those who are yet groping in the darkness of ignorance, it may give the first gleams of that holy light which will event- ually lead them to primary truth, and show them the real source of all human power. F. Hollick, M. D., 36 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, Penn. 1846. V CHAPTER I. THE ART OF HEALING THE SICK, ITS HISTORY, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS. Cause of disease.—Origin and progress of the healing art.—Its present state but little, if any, superior to what it was ages ago.—Its uncertainty demonstrated by the number of different systems, and the want of agreement among its professors.— Will it ever be more certain?—Probably it will, though not in all cases. Our wisest course would be to adopt proper mea- sures for the preventio?i of disease, and not confine our atten- tion so much to the means of cure.—Comparison of the re- sults of the different systems, particularly Homoeopathy and Allopathy, the two most opposite.—The result shown to be the same under all the different modes of treatment, and under no treatment at all.—The real curative agent is Nature her- self, who often effects a cure in spite of Art, rather than by its assistance.—As now practised, the Medical Art is rather an evil than a benefit, and it would fare as well, if not better, with patients if they were left alone.—Authority of Drs. Forbes, Grisolle and others on the subject.—Still the healing art may be made, and probably will eventually, to assist Nature, and accomplish much good.—^Progress of medical reform. Human health depends on the observance of cer- tain laws, which determine our relations with sur- rounding objects, and circumstances; the non-ob- servances of those laws deranges the healthy action of the system, or produces disease. Unfortunately those laws have been,'and are now, but little known, and are therefore neglected; con- sequently disease has always prevailed, and always will, till a due observance of them takes place. This knowledge the most important man can ob- tain, he seems to be late in acquiring. Eventually he will acquire it, there is no doubt, and then dis- ease will be prevented, bv removing all causes which 'i (0 2 THE ART OF HEALING THE SICK, produce it. Till that time comes it will always exist, and we must do the best we can to mitigate its evils. The suffering produced by disease has always prompted attempts to cure it, though, from defi- ciency of knowledge, but few efforts have been made to prevent it. The art of healing the sick has been practised from the remotest antiquity, and always esteemed as of the greatest importance. Unfortunately, however, though we have made ad- vances in almost every other art, and have perfected most of the collateral sciences, yet in this most im- portant one we are but little, if any, in advance of our ancestors. It is true we are better acquainted with the structure of the human body, we know more certainly the action of various remedies upon it, and, in some few cases, we have even applied our knowledge to the prevention of diseases. But still sickness prevails, and in every instance runs nearly the same course that it did in former times. Notwithstanding all our knowledge, and in spite of our many new and powerful remedies, we have still the same black list of incurable diseases, and succeed but little, if any better, with the curable ones, than our ignorant forefathers did with tlieir charms and simples, or even than Nature herself does, in many instances, entirely unaided. To show that I am not unsupported in these state- ments, I will here introduce a quotation from an article in the British and Foreign Medical Review, No. XLL, written by the editor, John Forbes, M. D., F. R. S.—Also editor of the Cyclopedia of Practical Medicine. It is entitled " Homoeopathy, Allopathy and ' Young Physic' ITS HISTORY, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS. 3 Says Dr. Forbes, " we do not deny that medi- cine has made progress, or that it can cure diseases and save life;—we merely assert that the superiority in the proportion of the instances in which it does so, in the present day, is most lamentablu small, all things considered, when placed side by side with the amount of any former day. In several of our commonest and most important diseases, it is hardly to be questioned that the proportion is little, if at all, on our side, and in others it is manifestly against MS." The experience of individuals, and the records of history, also prove the truth of these remarks, and substantiate my statements. This is much to be regretted for humanity's sake, and it prompts at once the important question " is there any dependence at all to be placed in the art of healing, or is it a mere deception altogether?" This is a momentous question, and one which every person should ponder well upon. For my own part I believe that disease may, and will be, cured much more extensively than it ever has been, though I cannot but fear that it will never be entirely under our control. It will always be a serious evil, and will probably mock all our efforts, and put all our knowledge to scorn, in numerous cases, as it has done hitherto. Our wisest, and surest course, will ever be, to adopt proper means for its prevention! But whatever success I may anticipate from other means of treating disease, I feel bound to say, that I expect but little from the means now mainly relied upon, namely, the administration of drugs! The art of healing the sick, practised on correct prin- ciples, may be a reality, but the art of Medicine, as 4 THE ART OF HEALING THE SICK, now practised, is for the most part sheer deception and imposition. The fact is, and there is no use denying or con- cealing it, the practice of medicine is, for the most part, a mere matter of guess-work and experiment, or slavish adherence to mere empirical routine. It is not based on established principles, nor supported by facts and reason, but is often in opposition to both. It is true that disease is often cured while under medical treatment, but it does not follow that it is cured by the medicine, it may have been by other agency, or even in spite of it! But even admitting that a certain prescription sometimes cures any particular disease, the fact is of little importance, except to the individual. It is most likely a fortunate acci' dent, and the same result may not happen in a thousand similar cases, neither with the same doctor nor with the same medicine ! which proves, as I remarked before, that it is mainly a matter of guess- work and experiment. As evidence of its uncertainty, we need only refer to the numerous systems of practice, opposed to each other in every essential particular—to the numerous parties into which eacji system is di- vided—to the bitter opposition of great medical leaders, and the difference in their opinions and prac- tice in the simplest cases. Every new medical work teaches a new doctrine, and every day almost brings a new system into fashionable repute. In the article above referred to, Dr. Forbes thus speaks on the same subject:—"This comparative powerlessness, and positive uncertainty of medicine, is also exhibited in a striking light when we come to ITS HISTORY, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS. 5 trace the history and fortunes of particular remedies and modes of treatment, and observe the notions of practitioners, at different times, respecting their posi- tive or relative value. What difference of opinion, what an array of alleged facts directly at variance with each other, what contradictions, what opposite results of a like experience, what ups and downs, what glorification and degradation of the same remedy, what confidence now, what despair anon, in encountering the same disease with the very same weapons; what horror and intolerance at one time of the very opinions and practices which, previously and subsequently, are cherished and advised ! To be satisfied on this point, we need only refer to the history of one or two of our principal diseases, or principal remedies, as, for instance, fever, pneumo- nia, syphilis;. antimony, bloodletting, mercury. Each of these remedies has been regarded, at dif- ferent times, as almost specific in the cure of the first two diseases ; while, at other times, they have been rejected as useless or injurious. What seemed once so unquestionably, so demonstrably true, as that venesection was indispensable for the cure of pneumonia? and what is the conclusion now dedu- cible from the facts already noticed in the present article, and from the researches of Louis and others ? Is it not that patients recover as well, or nearly as well, without it? Could it have been believed pos- sible by the practitioners of a century since, that syphilis could be safely treated, and successfully cured without mercury ? or that it could ever be questioned that mercury was not a specific in the cure of this disease ? And yet what are the opi- nions and the practices of the surgeons of the pre- 1* 6 THE ART OF HEALING THE SICK, sent day, and the indubitable facts brought to light during the last thirty years? Are they not that mercury is not necessary (speaking generally) to the cure of any case, and that it is often most inju- rious, in place of being beneficial ? The medi- cal god, mercury, however, seems as unwilling to to be baulked of his dues, as the mythological; if he has lost the domain of syphilis, he has gained that of inflammation ; and many of onr best practitioners might possibly be startled and shocked at the sup- position, that their successors should renounce alle- giance to him in the latter domain, as they them- selves had done in the former. And yet such a re- sult is more than probable, seeing that there exists not a shadow of more positive proof (if so much) of the efficacy of the medicine in the latter, than in the former case." I do really believe that it would be possible to find authorities, and great ones too, both for and against the use of nearly every medicine, in nearly every disease* As an instance of this, M. Lugol wrote a celebrated work on Scrofula, in which he strongly recommends iodine for that disease, and states that he cured thirty-five cases out of one hundred and five with it. But more lately, Mr. Philips has written an equally celebrated work on the same subject, in which he speaks of iodine as being of doubtful efficacy, and says that M. Lugol's thirty-five cures would have been effected by suitable clothing, food, air, and exercise, in proper season, as well without iodine as with it. He also says it is "a matter of doubt" with him whether sea water, and sea bathing, are useful in such cases; contrary to nearly all previous authority. ITS HISTORY, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS. 7 And in respect to mineral waters he gives a num- ber of statistics from which he draws the conclu- sion, "that they are more indebted for the credit they possess to the enthusiasm of friends, than to the faithful register of the cures which, it is alleged, have resulted from their employment." How dif- ferent is this from what has generally been taught. When doctors disagree who shall decide between them ? A witty Frenchman once said, " If you are sick send for a doctor, and if you don't like his medicine, I will soon find you another who will prescribe something different." The celebrated Dr. Dunglison, in his " Medical Student," has the fol- lowing remarks, as an explanation of the causes which lead people to put faith in quack medicines.1 " The vacillation from sect to sect, which, at one time was more characteristic of our profession than it is at present, has perhaps encouraged all this, by impressing the public that we ourselves have no fixed principles to guide us, and that the unprofes- sional might accidentally light upon something which might be more satisfactory for the removal of disease, than the members of the profession it- self. They have seen physicians, at one period, believing that almost all diseases are to be treated by stimulants: at others, embracing the view that they require the most powerful antiphlogistics, or sedatives ; at others, again, referring the*m to some particular part of the economy—the lining mem- brane of the stomach, for example; and, after the lapse of a few short years, discarding this view, and becoming—what they ought always to have been,— essentially eclectic. They have seen Humourism, and Solidism, Brunonianism and Broussaism, sup- 8 THE ART OF HEALING THE SICK, ported in turn, and in turn abandoned, by the self- same persons ; and they have felt,—what has after been expressed, and with some is considered almost proverbial,—that all medicine—regular medicine— must be uncertain, and consequently not superior to the emanations of empiricism, seductive, as they are, by a long array of successful cases, and of suc- cessful cases only, that are always brought forward in their support." It cannot be maintained that any one mode of practice now extant is much, if any, superior to the others, for, if it were, common sense tells us it would soon supersede them. They are all alike uncer- tain and have all about the same chances for doing good and evil. This is true, I believe, of all alike, regular and irregular, empirical and scientific. I have taken great pains to keep lists of all persons I have met with, or could hear of, who had been under any kind of medical treatment; and, so far as my data extend, I find the number of cured and uncured to be about the same under them all. The same fact is exhibited by the reports of hospitals, and other institutions, where the patients are under totally different modes of treatment: they vary little, if any, from each other. Let any person col- lect his own experience on this subject, let him in- quire of all his friends; he will find one adhering to the regular practice, having found no benefit from any of the irregular or new fangled systems.— Another will tell him he was under the regular practice so many years, took so many gallons, or pounds of medicine, which did him no good, and he was cured at last by a couple of Homoeopathic powders, almost invisible. The third will tell him ITS HISTORY, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS. 9 he tried Allopathy and Homoeopathy without suc- cess, and was cured at last on the Thomsonian plan. The fourth puzzled all the doctors for a long time, and was cured at last by a bottle of some quack medicine, —the fifth was raised from his death-bed by some kind old woman's recipe, after all other means had failed,—and still another was cured by leaving off taking medicine altogether, having previously emptied the apothecary's store several times,—some have been cured by Mesmerism, and some by Hy- " dropathy, while others have been made worse by them. This singular and puzzling similarity of results from opposite modes of treatment, is the most striking when we compare two so opposite that if one be true the other must necessarily be false— Allopathy and Homoeopathy for instance. It is much to be regretted that we have not more data than we have for this purpose, as I have no doubt but it would still further bear out my statements. The number of homoeopathic institutions from which we have reports is small as yet, though we shall probably soon have more, as the system is daily extending, and lately has been adopted by the pro- fessor of medicine in the University of Edinburgh, W. Henderson, M. D. In the article already re- ferred to, by Dr. Forbes, are some Reports of this kind, sufficient for our purpose, and as they are given by an opponent of Homoeopathy, though a very fair one, we may rely upon their accuracy. The first is a report of the hospital of the Sisters of Charity, at Vienna, which was opened in 1832, and placed under the charge of Dr. Fleischman, "a regular, well educated physician, as capable of form- 10 THE ART OF HEALING THE SICK, ing a true diagnosis as other practitioners, and he is considered by those who know him, as a man of honour and respectability, and incapable of attest- ing a falsehood." * * * " The patients have been treated according to the homoeopathic system exclusively." This Report is translated in the in- troduction to the study of Homoeopathy, by Drs. Drysdale and Ru'ssel. It exhibits " a tabular view of the cases treated at the hospital during eight years,—from the beginning of 1835 to the end of 1843. The total number of patients treated was 6551, (six thousand five hundred and fifty-one) and the following are the general results: Remaining from 1834, .... 27 Admitted,......6524 Cured,.......5980 Dismissed uncured,.....112 Died,.......407 Remaining, -.-.". 50 The list includes all the usual diseases, acute and chronic, found in hospitals, and some surgical cases." The tables are not, it seems, so full in detail as to enable us to institute a comparison between them and similar ones from allopathic institutions, in par- ticular cases, but still we are told that, " they un- questionably furnish us with isolated facts of great value, and even supply materials which may be •worked into such rude approximations to truth, as medicine has, alas, been too content withal. These tables, for instance, substantiate this momentous fact, that all our ordinary curable diseases are cured, in a fair proportion, under the homoeopathic method of treatment. Not merely do we see thus cured all the slighter diseases, whether acute or chronic, ITS HISTORY, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS. 11 which most men of experience know to be readily susceptible of cure, under every variety of treat- ment, and under no treatment at all; but even all the severer and more dangerous diseases, which most physicians, of whatever school, have been ac- customed to consider as not only needing the inter- position of art, to assist nature in bringing them to a favourable and speedy termination, but demanding the employment of prompt and strong measures, to prevent a fatal issue in a considerable proportion of > cases. And such is the nature of the premises, that there can hardly be any mistake as to the just- ness of the inference. * * * * No candid physician, looking at the original report, or at the small part of it which we have extracted, will hesi- tate to acknowledge that the results there set forth would have been considered by him as satisfactory, if they had occurred in his own practice. The amount of deaths in the fevers and eruptive diseases is certainly below the ordinary proportion ; but, for reasons already stated, no conclusion favourable to Homoeopathy can be thence deduced. It seems, however, reasonable to infer that, even in these cases, the new practice was not less favourable to the cure than the ordinary practice. In all such cases, experienced physicians have long been aware that the results, as to mortality, are nearly the same un- der all varieties of allopathic treatment. It would not surprise them, therefore, that a treatment like Homoeopathy, which they may regard as perfectly negative, should be fully as successful as their own. But the results presented to us in the severer inter- nal inflammations, are certainly not such as most practical physicians would have expected to be ob- 12 THE ART OF HEALING THE SICK, tained, under the exclusive administration of a thousandth, a millionth, or a billionth part of a grain of phosphorus, every two, three, or four hours." Here we have evidence enough that the results under the two opposite systems of Allopathy and Homoeopathy are nearly the same. But in addi- tion to this Report, Dr. Forbes gives us, in another part of the same article, a number of detailed cases, from the work of Dr. Henderson. These cases are shown to be such as the allopathic practitioner ordinarily meets with, and, the result of the homoeo- pathic practice is shown, by them also, to be quite as favourable, if not a little more so, than the allopathic. After reviewing these cases fully, Dr. Forbes remarks that, so far as they extend, he does " not hesitate to declare, that the amount of success obtained by Dr. H. in the treatment of his cases, would have been considered by ourselves as very satisfactory, had we been treating the same cases according to the rules of ordinary medicine." Here then we have a comparison of the two most opposite systems, and when they coincide so re- markably in their results, we cannot expect much difference from those more nearly allied. Thom- eonianism—all the varieties of the regular practice —Hydropathy—and the numerous patent cure-alls, would probably vary but little from the same stand- ard, if they were all fairly compared. Now what is the practical result of these com- parisons ? Do they prove that any or all of these various systems are either true or false, or that any of them are superior to the others ? No ! They merely prove that none of them are based on known principles, but that, on the contrary, they all con- ITS HISTORY, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS. 13 sist for the most part, of mere guess-work and ex- periment ! The chances therefore of being killed or cured, or left as you vjere, are about the same under them all. These comparisons also prove, most incontesti- bly, that there is, to use the words of Dr. Forbes, when comparing the powers of Homoeopathy and * Allopathy, " a third power, common to, or incident with both, (or all) which, while it explains the triumphs of Homoeopathy, reduces those of Allo- pathy within much narrower limits than its most zealous votaries are wont to assign it: this is the power of Nature !" That Nature can, and does, cure the worst kind of diseases, totally unaided", cannot be denied ; and my own opinion is that she effects more of the cures whicn we see take place than is generally supposed. People are too apt to think, when a person gets well while taking medicine, that it must have been the medicine which cured him, but it is quite possible, as previously remarked, that he has got well in spite of it, and would have done so much better without any at all. There can be no doubt but that medicine often makes people ivorse, nay, sometimes kills them, but whether it ever ef- fects any positive good, which would not equally have resulted without it, is, by some people, ques- tioned. I am almost constrained to believe myself that, as medicine is now practised, it does almost aa much harm as it does good, and that we should be as well off without any treatment at all as with that which we now have. Still I believe it is capable, when practised on right principles, of doing much 2 14 the art of healing the sick, good, and without any prospect of doing harm. My object is to elucidate those correct principles. It is difficult to compare this curative power of nature with the power of medicine, as we have so few cases where nature is left to operate undis- turbed. She seldom has fair play. Dr. Forbes, speaking on this point, remarks: " Health is such a blessing, and disease such an evil, that the existence of the desire to get rid of the latter, and thus to recover the former, must be co- extensive with the possession of reason by the organism that suffers. Strongly to desire is equi- valent to the origination of action to gratify the feel- ing. Hence the origin of the medical art, which must have been coeval with the origin of man him- self; hence the conception and formation of plans for the purpose of relieving pain, and of theories to account for and explain them, springing up in the minds of the first sufferers, and growing in number and variety from that time to the present; hence the constant interference of art with the natural pro- cesses of disease in the human body. When, in process of time, medicine came to be established as a distinct profession, such interference necessarily became much more frequent and much greater; until, at length, the result was, that all diseases, occurring in civilized communities were interfered with, as a matter of course. In the long succession of human generations, almost every thing possible, physical or moral, was, at one time or other tried, with the view of proving its possession or non-pos- session of remedial powers. The necessary conse- quence has been the fixing in the minds of men, not ITS HISTORY, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS. 15 merely of the professors of the medical art, but of mankind in general, these two notions, first, that nature was inadequate to the cure of most diseases, certainly of severe ones, and, secondly, that art was adequate. And these notions have not only come down to us as heirlooms of physic, but have been almost universally received as axioms, without in- vestigation, both by the medical profession and the public. The result of all this has been, that the members of the medical profession at all times, and more especially in modern times, have been kept in a state of forced ignorance of the natural progress and event of diseases. In other words, of the true natural history of diseases in the human body ; and they have been, and continue to be, almost as ignorant of the actual power of remedies in modi- fying, controlling, or removing diseases, and from the self-same cause, viz. that as art has almost al- ways been permitted to interfere in the morbid pro- cess, it has been impossible to say what part, if any, was attributable to nature, or what part to the re- medies employed!" This is an important admission from so high an authority, and will startle many persons, who were not previously aware that physicians themselves spoke thus of their art. Many instances could be given of eminent medical men, who, at the termina- tion of their career, have expressed not only their distrust of physic, but their utter contempt for it, and total disbelief in its utility. Further on he remarks, on the power of nature, " that nature can cure diseases without assistance from art, is a fact demonstrated by evidence of the most unequivocal kind, and of almost boundless ex- 16 THE ART OF HEALING THE SICK, tent." 4t suffices here to refer cursorily to a few of the more open sources of such evidence. 1. The cure of diseases among uncivilized na- tions, of ancient and modern times, under the sole in- fluence of charms, magic, or other practices equally ineffective. 2. The general treatment of diseases in the ruder and simpler times of physic, as recorded in the writings of the early fathers of our art. 3. The record of innumerable cases in the works of medical authors, more particularly before the eighteenth century, in which, from various causes, no medical treatment, or one demonstrably power- less, was employed. 4. The records of the expectant system of medi- cine, long- and extensively prevalent in various parts of Europe; also of other analogous systems of prac« tice in vogue at different times in various countries, which could exert no substantial influence on dis- ease or on the animal economy. 5. The wide spread, and frequently exclusive employment, more especially in modern times, of universal, or as they are now called, quack medi- cines, under the use of which almost all curable diseases have frequently got well. Whether these medicines consist of inert substances, or of sub- stances of positive medicinal power, the influence de- rived from their employment is nearly the same. All of them have, most indubitably, cured (to uso this word in its common acceptation) a vast nam ber of diseases ; and whether the event was conse quent on the use of a substance of no real power, or possessing a particular power only, must be al lowed to be nearly Uie same thing. In our own ITS HISTORY, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS. 17 day we have seen many large fortunes made in this country, by the sale of various patent drugs of this kind,—from Solomon's Balm of Gilead to Parr's Life Pills ; and this fact alone proves their real efficacy, that is, proves it on the very same grounds of evidence admitted in legitimate medicine. Suc- cess, that is, the apparent cure of diseases on an extensive scale, could alone keep up a sale of them so extensive as to enable their proprietors to ac- cumulate large fortunes. And of this kind of suc- cess,—that is, the getting well of patients under their use, according to the legitimate post hoc mode of reasoning, every medical man must have witnessed many instances. 6. The now fashionable system of Hydropathy furnishes strong and extensive evidence of a like kind, although on somewhat different grounds. This mode of treating diseases is unquestionably far from inert, and most opposed -to the cure of diseases by the undisturbed processes of nature. It in fact, perhaps, affords the very best evidence we possess of the curative powers of art, and is, unquestion- ably, when rationally regulated, a most effective mode of treatment in many diseases. Still it puts, in a striking light, if not exactly the curative powers of nature, at least the possibility, nay facility, with which all the ordinary instruments of medical cure (drugs) may be dispensed with. If so many, and such various diseases get well entirely without drugs, under one special mode of treatment, is it not more than probable, that a treatment consisting almost exclusively of drugs, may be often of none effect, sometimes of injurious effect ? An intelligent and well educated hydropathical 2* 18 THE ART OF HEALING THE SICK, physician, on whose testimony we can entirely rely, informs us, that in a great many cases which have come under his care in a hydropathic establishment, he has observed the symptoms amend on the first commencement of hydropathic remedies, with a suddenness and speed which he could not consci- entiously ascribe to the influence of the means used, but which rather appeared to result from the aban- donment of injurious drugs which the patients had previously been in the habit of taking. In some cases, to test this point, the physician purposely abstained from treating the patients at all, and yet witnessed the same amendment. Our informant points out to us another natural field of observation in this line, in the numerous patients discharged, cured, or relieved, from hydropathic establishments, almost all of whom carry with them such a horror of drugs that they never have recourse to them, if it can be helped, afterwards. Yet these people re- cover from their subsequent diseases—even without Hydropathy! 7. Mesmerism,-also, we think, must come either within the category of cases illustrating the curative powers of nature, or, at least, the non-necessity of drugs, or both. 8. We may next instance a large and important class of cases, in which some philosophical physi- cians, in all times, have instituted direct experiments, both publicly and privately, to test the powers of nature, by either withholding all means of treat- ment, or by prescribing substances totally inert: the result often being the cure of many diseases under such management. 9. Lastly, we must advert to what is, perhaps, ITS HISTORY, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS. 19 the most extensive and valuable source of all—the actual practice of the more scientific physicians of all ages, in the latter part of their career,—men of philosophic minds, as well as of much experience. It is well known, from the history of physic, that a large proportion of men of this class have, in their old age, abandoned much of the energetic and per- turbing medication of their early practice, and trusted greatly to the remedial powers of Nature. The saying of a highly respected and very learned physician of Edinburgh, still living at an advanced age, very happily illustrates this point. On some one boasting before him of the marvellous cures wrought by the small doses of the Homoeopathists, he said, " This was no peculiar cause for boasting, as he himself had, for the last two years, been curing his patients with even less, namely, with nothing at all T People have been so accustomed to always see the human stomach made a drug store of, that they seem utterly amazed at the idea of doing away with drugs altogether. They must have something called medicine; and many physicians are in the habit of giving such drug-eaters bread pills, or coloured water, and find, like the old Edinburgh physician, that their patients get well " with nothing at all." A case of this kind is given by Dr. Forbes himself; he says, "Many years ago, when in charge of a large body of men in the public service, we had occasion to treat an epidemic diarrhoea, of con- siderable violence, but not dangerous. Finding our patients recover as fast under one as another of many methods of "treatment adopted, we thought there would be no unpardonable lese-majeste, (treason) 20 THE ART OF HEALING THE SICK, either to our royal master at London, or our divine master of Delos, in carrying our trials one step further. Accordingly, we put half of our remain- ing patients on a course of orthodox physic, and half on homoeopathic doses of flour (farin thirty) in the shape of bread pills; and it puzzled us sadly to say which was the most successful treat- ment." Numerous other instances could be given to show that the entire dependence placed upon drugs as curative agents, is altogether a fallacy, and that, wherever a cure is possible, it often takes place as well without medicine as with it. The disease called pneumonia, or inflammation of the lungs, is always looked upon as one requiring the assistance of art in an eminent degree. The use of powerful drugs, as well as the lancet and the blister, is thought to be the only means by which it can be brought to a safe termination; and both patient and doctors con- clude that death is certain if such treatment is omit- ted. In a work by M. Grisolle, however, I find some facts which prove that even in this severe dis- ease Nature can right herself as often without as- sistance as with it. At p. 560 (Traite Practique de la Pneumonia) he says, " In order to appreciate thoroughly the value of various kinds of treatment cried up in pneumonia, it is indispensable that we should know accurately the progress, duration, and most frequent termination of it when treated purely on the expectant plan; but we have not this medium of comparison. It is indeed true, that M. Biett treated, during a whole year, all the cases of pneu- monia that came into his wards, with emollient drink and cataplasms only, and the mortality was ITS HISTORY, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS. 21 very inconsiderable! M. Magendie employs no other treatment in the same disease." In another place he tells us that he himself treated eleven cases of pneumonia, all distinctly marked, in nearly the same manner. The whole treatment consisted in confinement to bed, rigid diet, pectoral ptisans, and occasionally, but very seldom, a mild laxative, like castor oil. The patients all perfectly recovered, in about the usual time. Another curious circumstance observable in com- paring the results of different systems is this; not only is the total number that recovers the same in all, but the number is also the same in each parti- cular disease ! Thus all the slight diseases get well under any treatment or no treatment; the dangerous diseases kill about the same number under each sys- tem as they do when left to Nature ; while a certain class of diseases are always fatal treat them as we may. This almost proves that all curable diseases fare as well without medical treatment as with, and that where Nature cannot cure, Art can render but little assistance. As this conclusion is likely to startle many persons who have been brought up with a blind faith in physic, I will give other authority than my own for saying it. In the article by Dr. Forbes, so frequently referred to, he gives the inferences which seem to flow from his examination and com- parison of Homoeopathy and Allopathy, in the fol- lowing words. " 1. That in a large proportion of the cases treated by allopathic physicians the disease is cured by nature, and not by them. " 2. That in a lesser, but still not a small propor- 22 THE ART OF HEALING THE SICK, tion, the disease is cured by nature in spite of them; in other words their interference opposing instead of assisting the cure ! 2. That, consequently, in a considerable propor- tion of diseases, it would fare as well, or better, with patients, in the actual condition of the medical art, as more generally practised, if all remedies, at least all active remedies, especially drugs, were aban- doned." In another place he remarks, " The same truth as to the uncertainty of practical medicine gene- rally, and the utter insufficiency of the ordinary evi- dence to establish the efficacy of many of our re- medies, as was stated above", has been almost always attained to by philosophical physicians of experience in the course of long practice, and has resulted in general, in a mild, tentative or expectant mode of practice in their old age, whatever may have been the vigorous or heroic doings of their youth. Who among us, in fact, of any considerable experience, and who has thought somewhat as well as pre- scribed, but is ready to admit that,—in a large pro- portion of the cases he treats, whether his prac- tice, in individual instances, he directed by precept and example, by theory, by observation, by expe- rience, by habit, by accident, or by whatever prin- ciple of action,—he has no positive proof, or rather no proof whatever, often indeed very little proba- bility, that the remedies administered by him exert any beneficial influence over the disease? We may often hope, and frequently believe, and some- times feel confident, that we do good, even in this class of cases ; but the honest, philosophical, thinker, the experienced, scientific observer, will hesitate, ITS HISTORY, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS. 23 even in the best cases ; ere he commits himself by the positive assertion that the good has been done by him." Admissions of this kind are now becoming quite 'common, and the medical world is dividing into two classes, one consisting of the conservatives, who will stick to the old routine, right or wrong; and the other consisting of the reformers, or those who are aware of the great evils of medical practice, as now conducted, and who think it best to admit those evils and try to remedy them. Dr. Forbes is one of the chief of these reformers, and his article, from which we have quoted so often, was the first signal gun announcing the commencement of the attack on old prejudices, bigotry and ignorance. That article fairly frightened one half of the faculty out of their wits, and startled the other half very much. Even those favourable to the new move- ment thought he had "gone too far at first," and rather wished to let the old system die gradually, than to deal it such death-blows as these. By de- grees, however, they recovered from their alarm, and rallied to his support. In the last number of the " British and Foreign Medical Review," are quotations from a number of letters, received by the editor from all parts of the world, coinciding with his views, and desiring to co-operate with him in disseminating them. The attack on the present system of medical practice is therefore fairly begun, and not by unprofessional persons, or by those of opposite systems, but by the most eminent and libe- ral men in the profession, headed by no less a per- son than John Forbes, M. D., F. R. S., F. G. S., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in Lon- 24 THE ART OF HEALING THE SICK, don, Honorary Member of the Cambridge Philo- sophical Society, of the Academy of Sciences at Madrid, of tha American Philosophical Society ; of the Imperial and Royal Society of Physicians of Vienna, of the Royal Society of Gottingen, of the* Uoyal Medical Society of Copenhagen, of the Me- dico-Chirurgical Society of Amsterdam, of the Me- dico-Chirurgical Society of Turin, &c, &c.; Phy- sician in Ordinary to Her Majesty's Household; Physician Extraordinary to his Royal Highness Prince Albert; Physician in Ordinary to his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge; and Consulting Physician to the Hospital for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest; Editor of the Dictionary of Practical Medicine, and of the British and Fo- reign Medical Review. It is not a mere trivial alteration either, which these reformers seek, but a thorough change, both in principle and practice, as is proved by the ex- tracts already made. Under the new system, drugs of any kind are not to be depended upon as the chief agents in curing disease, but they are regarded, generally speaking, " as subservient to hygienic, regimenal, and external means,—such as the rigid regulation of the diet, the temperature and purity of the air, clothing, the mental and bodily exercise, &c, baths, friction, change of air, travelling, change of occupation," &c. Physicians must " endeavour to break through the routine habit, universally pre- valent, of prescribing certain determinate remedies for certain determinate diseases, or symptoms of diseases, merely because the prescriber has been taught to do so, and on no better grounds than con- ventional tradition," Students are to be taught, as ITS HISTORY, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS. 25 we have already seen, " that no systematic or theo- retical classification, of diseases, or of therapeutic agents ever yet promulgated, is true, or any thing like the truth, and that none can be adopted as a safe guide in practice." Every effort must be made " to endeavour to ascertain, much more precisely than has been done hitherto, the natural course and event of diseases, "when uninterrupted by artificial interference I" * * * " To endeavour to estab- lish, as far as is practicable, what diseases are cura- ble, and what are not; what are capable of receiv- ing benefits from medical treatment and what are not; what treatment is the best, the safest, the most agreeable; when it is proper to administer medi- cine, and when to refrain from administering it," &c. &c. In all cases, where we are not certain of an indication, to "give Nature the best chance of doing the work herself, by leaving her operations undisturbed by art." But above all, we are " to direct redoubled attention to hygiene, public and private, with the view of preventing diseases on the large scale, and individually in our sphere of prac- tice. Here the surest and most glorious triumphs of medical science are achieving, and to be achieved." In those cases where it may be thought advisable to give medicine, we should " inculcate a milder and less energetic mode of practice, both in acute and chronic diseases," * * * "discountenance, as much as possible, and eschew the habitual use (without any sufficient reason) of certain powerful medicines in large doses, in a multitude of different diseases, a practice now generally prevalent, and fraught with the most baneful consequences ;" and, lastly, we should " endeavour to enlighten the pub- 26 THE ART OF HEALING THE SICK, lie as to the actual powers of medicines, with a view to reconciling them to simpler and milder plans of treatment; to teach them the importance of having their diseases treated in the earliest stages, in order to obtain a speedy and efficient cure!" Such is a brief sketch of some of the prominent changes these reformers propose, by way of intro- ducing'the new system of" young physic."—Who that has observed attentively, and without preju- dice, the present system, can say that this reform is not needed ? No one! Common sense, and the best interests of humanity imperatively demand it. . The public is already too much enlightened not tp see the defects of the existing system ; it is conse- quently daily losing confidence in it more and more, •and the only way for the medical profession to re- gain that confidence is, by candidly acknowledging those defects, and showing that they are earnestlv trying to remedy them. The doctor can no longer be a dictator, he must be a friend; his art must no longer be shrouded in vulgar mystery and sense- less jargon, but be simplified, and made easy to be understood by all. The letters received by Dr. Forbes are encourag- ing evidences that these enlightened views are held by numbers who had not previously given utter- ance to them, as the following brief extracts will show. "-------(America,) Jan. 30th, 1846. "I thank you much for having written the article. The fulness of time has come in which all this mat- ter should be exposed fully and clearly. You have not said a thing which I 'have not thought of and agreed to beforehand. I know how presumptuous ITS HISTORY, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS. 27 this may seem ; but you know that it is one thing to entertain correct thoughts on a subject, and quite another thing to bring them out clearly and in pro- per order, so as to claim the assent of all good judges. This last is what you have done most satisfactorily. " Some of the opinions you have expressed I have entertained for many long years; others I have arrived at more lately. I first longed for a good natural history of diseases, to decide how far remedies had an effect. As connected with this I early learned the primary importance of diagnosis, and this in reference to the different stages of dis- eases as well as in reference to diseases themselves. It is many years since I was satisfied, in respect to acute diseases, that it was only on the first days (principally the first three days) that medicine (drugs) could be of much service. At this period I am still satisfied that acute diseases can, ordinarily, be much mitigated and somewhat shortened. But an exception must be made in regard to such as we call malignant (yellow fever, Asiatic cholera) ; and, as to shortening, in reference to the exanthemata. I have been getting more and more of the opinion, that in most chronic diseases, diet and regimen will often have a great influence,—drugs rarely any very decisive good effect and often an injurious effect only. I have long deprecated the idea (and this I have done in communication with my intelli- gent patients) that medicines (drugs) are necessary in the treatment of all diseases. I have urged that it was the business of the physician to take care of the sick, pointing out that cure and care were the same word originally,—and that in taking care, it 28 THE ART OF HEALING THE SICK, was much more important that he should endeavour to control the influence of the common agents, than that of the occasional ones, called medicines ;—that he should attend to the non-naturals,—-those things which nature does not decide, but leaves to our choice,—that he, the physician, should do it, and not leave it to the nurse or the grandmother. In consonance with these views, I have been unwilling to say that my patients who recovered were cured by me; for I endeavoured to cure all of them, and claimed to have done it, even when they died. In our hospital, opened twenty odd years ago, I would not allow the record books to say that so many patients had been cured, as is a common practice; but that so many were discharged well, so many improved in health, &c. I have often urged upon my brethren that we should never get the better of quackery so long as we attributed the recovery of our patients to medicine, on the propter hoc princi- ple,—that is, propter hoc because post hoc. Our proper ground is, that, having studied the subject and had personal experience, we know better than others how to direct the cure of the sick; and that in doing so we may use drugs, or may not, as the case may require." The simple meaning of this is, that we ought not to attribute the cure to the medicine in all cases, merely because the one follows the use of the other. We can be but seldom warranted indeed in using the word cure; we can only say safely, that the patient got well after using the medicine, but whether it was by its means we cannot tell. "------- (Germany,) April 15th, 1846. " I beg that you will allow me to thank you for ITS HISTORY, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS. 29 the article on Homoeopathy and Allopathy, con- tained in the January No. of your Review. It must be hailed with the greatest satisfaction by all the members of our profession who have its welfare truly at heart, and have searched for the solution of the contradictions and riddles presented by all the orthodox works on the different branches of our science, either when studied in books only, or when compared with the statements of unorthodox schools or the results of practice. Your article must neces- sarily produce not only a great sensation, 'but it will lead to the most positive and the most bene- ficial results,' since it contains the enunciation of a principle which has before been hinted at by others, and which many, and myself among the rest, have had an ' Ahnung' of, (to use a favourite German term,) but which none have dared to give clear and decided utterance to. The article in question made upon me the impression of an outburst of matured thought and long-suppressed conviction, which has broken forth with all the vehemence of an explosion, but it is not the explosion of gunpowder, but the powerful ejection of the first steam from the boiler, which at once proves the strength and workman- ship of the engine, and gives promise of a long and useful career. The works of Dr. Combe, to which I with so many others owe much—I might almost say, the entire direction of my professional creed and practice in the path of hygiene—have prepared the way and rendered the adoption of your views a less difficult matter than it might have been, had they been published ten years earlier; and though I am convinced that you yourself would soften some of the expressions used in the above-named article, 3* 30 THE ART OF HEALING THE SICK, and remove stumbling-blocks which may offend tender consciences, the profession are indebted to you for the clearness and precision and courage with which you have pointed out what ought to be our aim, what must be the guiding principle in all our labours, if we are to be useful to humanity and satisfied with ourselves....... " I have learnt to look upon the prevention of disease—upon hygiene in its most extended mean- ing—as the true aim of the medical man. I have seen enough both in hospital and private practice to feel disgusted—I may admit as much to you—at the authorized quackery even of intelligent and highly educated medical men. I have felt the op- probrium severely, which must be the lot of the profession so long as they shut their eyes to the true working of natural laws, and as long as they wilfully refuse to admit inferences, which though necessarily the permanent basis of the ' curative' art, clash with received notions and traditionary prejudices. Truly has it been said that the real object of our science is less the healing of disease than the correct guidance of those that are healthy, and the interpretation of those laws by which heal- ing xar' i%o%rtv is rendered unnecessary. What more melancholy fact can be presented to the mere pre- scriber when he first enters upon the duties of his benevolent profession, with the enthusiasm of un- soured philanthropy, than the continual assurance of the Nestors of the profession that the greater our experience the more positive the conviction that we can do nothing ? and it only proves the immense force of habit that, with such convictions, we do not more frequently see men quit a profession ITS HISTORY, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS. 31 which, under such circumstances, requires a con- stant exercise of hypocrisy and a sacrifice of prin- ciple. But sir, thanks to you, and to men like Combe, Chadwick, Clark, the young generation see the radiancy of a new light, that warms the heart while it illumines the intellect; and though their path still continues beset with dangers, they feel a firm footing, and the slough of despond is passed." "-------(Germany,) March 8, 1846. j [Translation.^ " Being compelled to write in haste, I avail my- self of the German preferably to my bad English. ... The good fortune I have had, ever since the com- mencement of my medical studies, of residing in large hospitals, necessarily familiarized me early with the natural history of disease, a thing some- what different, it is true, from what we read in many, and not all uncelebrated works. I have ar- rived at the conviction that in inflammation and fever our drugs prove rather mischievous than use- ful ; and that Nature has then to overcome both the disease and the evil effect of the said drugs. I need scarcely tell an experienced physician that, under this term ' drugs,' I do not comprehend simply- mucilaginous, gently-resolvent, mildly-aromatic, or very slightly-astringent deeoctions or infusions. My objection is to the frequent employment of emetics, purgatives, drastie resolvents, mercurials; of cuprous, cinchonous, aBthereo-resinous preparations. It, has been, is still perhaps, imagined, that with such re- medies, inflammation and fever are to be ' cut short,' * advanced to a crisis,' ' to resolution,1 &c. Calm observation at the bedside, an unbiassed review of 32 THE ART OF HEALING THE SICK, circumstances, long practical study of pathological processes at the dissecting table, demonstrate the untenable nature of all these fancies which have, alas, been handed down from generation to genera- tion. Let not Nature be thwarted; above all, let external influences be properly regulated, the in- stincts of the patient judiciously ministered to. Under this kind of treatment diseases are assuredly less complex in their course, and more fortunate in their termination ; whilst the patients themselves are spared the distress inseparable from the use of substances for the most part so little germain to the organism." "-------Hospital, 3d March, 1846. " The general error into which English practi- tioners are falling is the empirical use of powerful remedies, with a strong disinclination to be quiet, even when the diagnosis is obscure. The general scope of your paper I take to be to combat this mistake, and I hope that it will be the means of bringing about an improvement in our practice. The table (Fleischmann's) you have given is curi- ous, and could it be implicitly relied on, would prove to me at least that we had better, in some diseases, give up prescribing altogether. Thus Ave have 188 cases of rheumatism, all of which are cured ; and even of articular inflammations, 203 are cured out of 2T1. Now we have no success at all approaching to this at our hospital. I treat about 100'cases of these diseases annually; but I should be ashamed to place the results in a tabular form by the side of the homoeopathist's table. " I trust that your paper will have a beneficial effect, by causing medical men to weigh the facts ITS HISTORY, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS. 33 well before they come to decision as to the effects of the medicines prescribed. I firmly believe that the cure is much oftener retarded by the medicines administered than it would be safe to say in these times of advanced medieal knowledge, and the mis- chief would be still greater were it not that much of the stuff sent to the patient is not swallowed by iiim. Could the public mind be so far influenced that a post-mortem inspection of the body took place in every case of death, by experienced anato- mists, the foundation of rational medicine would be laid. The opportunities we have of testing our diagnosis in hospitals, though not so good as they might be made under better arrangements, are of much service to the individual practitioners in charge, and might be made of more general use by a system of reporting." "-------February 18th, 1S46. " I trust that your prediction, as to the homoeo- pathic practice causing the restorative powers of the living system to be better understood and more respected, will be realized, and shall be glad to find that your pen coutinues to be exercised towards the fulfilment of so desirable an object. I am sure we want something to help us, and to right us, in this respect—for excessive bleedings, continual raking of the bowels by purges, and indiscriminate mer- curialization of the system, cause more diseases than they cure. Injurious as these measures prove, unless, temperately and very carefully applied, they are nevertheless regarded by those fresh from the schools as the great and chief resources against the most frequent diseases. I involve my own past errors and early notions in making this statement 34 THE ART OF HEALING THE SICK, and am free to confess that what I now know, in regard to the proper and successful treatment of many chronic diseases, and particularly such as re- quire a tonic plan of diet or medicine, I have found out by experience, and was ignorant of them at first starting in practice." "-------(Ireland,) 13th Jan. 1846. " I have carefully read your ' Young Physic' with much interest, and have taken every opportunity of eliciting the opinions of my brethren respecting it. Many quite coincide with your views; many de- precate, not—-so far as I could make out—your views, but your article; their disapprobation sum- ming itself up in the complaint of the Ephesian of old, ' Sirs, our craft is in danger,' and bitterly com- plaining of the mischief and danger that might ac- crue should the public become indoctrinated with such principles. For my own part, I think all your positions are in the main correct; I only doubt that you have extended some of them too far. I verily believe, and have long believed, and have long taught, that the greater portion of our so-called curative methods are, to say the least, of doubtful efficacy; and, in my mind, the instances in which giving medicine and recovery from disease are satis- factorily connected as cause and effect are few compared with the mass of cases of disease, or rather of diseases, treated. "I think you must '■go on.y If you, or some one else, does not go on in this direction, medicine is, I think, in danger of being utterly prostrated as a science and as a profession, and must inevitably descend lower and lower. It is now much, and promises to become still more, in the hands of the ITS HISTORY, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS. 35 drugging and drenching branch of the profession ; but the next slide downwards has already not only commenced, but has made considerable progress— the slide, namely, of the practice of medicine into the hands of professed nostrum vendors, on the one hand, and mesmerists,hydropathists,homceopathists, &c, on the other. If the regulars do not in time adopt the ' common term,' so very clearly indicated by the results of the practice of the latter-mentioned race, and adopt, in the matter of 'drugs,' ne quid nimis for their motto, c'est fait denous." There are about thirty closely printed pages of similar testimony, in the Review for July, 1846, and I should be glad if my limits would allow of more extracts from them. Some excellent quotations are made from the " Philosophy of Medicine," by E. Bartlett, profes- sor of Medicine in the University of Maryland, but they are too long to be all inserted here; I am glad however to mention the work, as it may direct the^ attention of many to it who have not yet read it. He speaks encouragingly of the gradual abandon- ment of the present drugging system, and forcibly depicts its evils. Dr. Forbes says,— " We know, on the best authority, that, not many years since, it was the practice of a professor of medicine, at one of the American Universities, to recommend and to prescribe calomel in tablespoon- fuls ! Even in this book Dr. Bartlett, reprobating this system, tells "us: 'It [calomel] is constantly administered—on all occasions—in all diseases^— and in all their stages. It has, literally, in some instances, been made an article of daily food— sprinkled upon buttered bread, and mixed with ijt 36 THE ART OF HEALING THE SICK, before baking! I suppose it is no exaggeration to say, that there is more calomel consumed in the valley of the Mississippi and its tributaries, than in all the world beside.' "] In another part, Dr. Bartlett says,— " I should be doing great injustice to my subject, if I did not mention, as prominent amongst the therapeutical improvements of the last quarter of a century, the change which has been gradually taking place, in the use of violent and dangerous remedies. I am inclined to regard this change as orte of the greatest blessings.which modern medical observa- tion has conferred upon the human race ; and it is but fair to admit, that absurd as the system of homoeopathy is, and unsupported as its pretensions are, so far as its peculiar treatment of disease is concerned, it has, nevertheless, done great good by its practice,—its scrupulous adherence to a strict regimen, and its avoidance of all injurious remedies, —in the furtherance of this revolution. 'It has been sarcastically said, that there is a wide differ- ence between a good physician and a bad one, but a small difference between a good physician and no physician at all; by which it is meant to insinuate, that the mischievous officiousness of art does com- monly more than counterbalance any benefit de- rivable from it.' (Sir Gilbert Blane.) The con- viction has been steadily gaining ground, and spreading itself abroad in the medical community, not only that heroic remedies, as they are called, are often productive of great mischief, and should never be lightly or questionably used; but that in very many cases ef disease, all medicines, using this word in its common signification, are evils; ITS HISTORY, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS. 37 and that they may be dispensed with, not merely with negative safety, but to the actual benefit of the subjects. The golden axiom of Chomel, that it is only the second law of therapeutics to do good, its first befng this—not to do harm'—is gradually find- ing its way into the medieal mind, preventing an incalculable amount of positive ill. The real agency of art is more generally appreciated than formerly ; and it= arrogant pretensions much more truly esti- mated and understood. It is coming every day to be more clearly seen, that perhaps its most universal and beneficent function consists in the removal and avoidance of those agents, the action of which is to occasion or to aggravate disease; thus giving the recuperative energies of the system their fullest scope and action, and trusting to them, when thus unembarrassed and free, for the cure of the dis- ease. ' This, I apprehend, i§ so well understood among,well educated physicians, that the word cure, as applied to themselves, is proscribed as presump- tuous, and rarely, I believe, escapes the lips of any practitioner, whose mind is duly tinctured with that ingenuous modesty which characterizes the liberal and correct members of the profession.' (Sir Gil- bert Blane.) " It is melancholy to think what an enormous aggregate of suffering and calamity has been oc- casioned by a disregard of the axiom which I have quoted. Our means for the direct removal of dis- ease are limited in extent, but it is not so with our power to augment and to eause it; this is unlimited. Difficult as it may be to cure, it is always easy to poison and to kill. We may well congratulate our- selves and societv, that the primary and fundamen 4 38 THE ART OF nEALING THE SICK, tal truths, of which I have been speaking, are finding their right position, and producing their legitimate results ; and that long abused humanity is likely, at no very remote period, to be finally delivered from the abominable atrocities of wholesale and indiscriminate drugging." There is also an excellent letter from Isaac Gil- christ, M.D., detailing some valuable experiments made by him in treating severe wounds, and other surgical cases, by cold water only, or leaving them to the power of nature altogether. The result was that the patients recovered quite as well as they do under the most formal scientific treatment; often they recovered sooner and more completely. A work has lately been published at Leipsic, by Dr. F. Pauli, entitled " Researches and Practical Observations in Surgery," being the result of fifteen years careful study and experience. At the end of this work the author gives a number of Aphorisms, some of which we quote, to show how extensively these opinions are held. " The deficiencies of medicine are best learned from the systems which from time to time spring up, and upset those that have preceded them. " Dissertations generally advance a science but little. I not long ag« examined critically the litera- ture respecting one of the most important dis- eases ; I laboured through one hundred and forty dissertations treating of it without finding a single profitable idea. " A medical journal is wanted which should communicate only cases that have ended unfavoura- bly. It would be of more service than a number of others. ITS HISTORY, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS.. 39 •4 It would be well worth while to collect to- gether all that is positive in medicine, and of which not a jot is transitory. It would make J?ut a small book." M. Magendie, the celebrated physiologist and physician, expressed very similar views in an open- ing address which he gave lately to the College de France. He says,— " Medicine can only exist b.ut inasmuch as pa- tients have faith in it, and claim its assistance. It is not by theories that it lives, but by clients. Now it is impossible to conceal to ourselves that, at pre- sent, a certain proportion of the public abandons classical medicine, ironically ealled old medicine, and throws itself into the arms of new systems, thereby firmly believing -that it associates itself to the progress of intellect." And again,— " This brings us back to a question which I have often raised, and which I have endeavoured to eluci- date by experiments for the last ten years—viz., what is the influence of treatment on the progress of disease ? " In hospitals, as well as in* private practice, we must first take into consideration the influence of the mind of the patient. Now there can be no doubt but that a patient who takes a medicine, ex- periences immediate benefit, from the conviction that it will favourably modify his disease. If this favourable result takes place, what has been the real share of the medicinal substance administered? Medical men are always inclined to attribute the cure of the disease they treat to the means which they have employed; but recollect thai disease 40 THE ART OF HEALING THE SICK, generally follows its course, without being in- fluenced by the medication employed against it. Thus it is that you are often much deceived. A given medicine will succeed in an apparently seri- ous case, and will fail in another case of a less dangerous character, without your being authorized to attribute to yourself in any way the success or the failure. " These reflections explain at once the cures of which Homoeopathy is so proud. Homoeopathy, instead of bleeding a patient, will place gravely on his tongue a globule of aconite, which he will swal- low with confidence and faith. You then see the disease improve. But it would have improved just as well without globules, provided some singular operation had struck the imagination of the patient. It really is too great a stretch of credulity to be- lieve that a globule prepared by the formulae of Hahnemann can contain any active principle.— But, on the other hand, any one who has seen dis- ease, must at once admit that this same globule may exercise, through the imagination, a powerful moral effect. You must not, indeed, accuse me of partiality towards^ Homoeopathy, when I state that I firmly believe that a physician would cure a patient sooner with globules, if the patient has faith in them, than with the most appropriate medi- cinal substances, if he distrusted their action. . " What I state respecting medicinal substances is equally applicable to bleeding. A patient is seized with the symptoms to which the term inflammatory has been applied, and asks to be bled, believing that the loss of blood will cure him. You open a vein, and the abstraction of a certain quantity of the vital ITS HISTORY, PROGRESS, AND PROSPECTS. 41 fluid is followed by an amelioration of the symp- toms. But take care how you interpret the fact; the improvement may be owing to the moral effect produced, more than to the venesection. I will mention as a proof what I have often observed in my wards at the Hotel Dieu. A patient labouring under acute disease—pneumonia for instance—en- ters the hospital, believing firmly that he ought to be bled ; I bleed him, but merely to the extent of two or three ounces ; too small a quantity for the circulation to be in the least influenced by its ab- straction. Nevertheless, the patient beeomes more calm, and says he is better. A mere trial of bleed- ing will thus often suffice to arrest the progress of a disease which under another physician would be treated by abundant depletion. For more than ten years I have not found it necessary to have recourse to copious bleeding; in other words, I have rather endeavoured to act on the mind of the patient than on the circulation, and I have no hesitation in as- serting that my practice has not been the less suc- cessful. Indeed, were I to tell you my mind en- tirely, I should say that it is more especially in the hospitals, in whieh the most active treatment is adopted, that the mortality is the most con- siderable." This comes very near admitting that active medi- cal treatment is a gross deception, and at all events is additional testimony to its uncertainty, and to the power of nature. Baglivi, a celebrated Italian physician, used to say, that the human body, when diseased, might be compared to a man who had fallen into a well; the 4* 42 THE ART OF HEALING THE SICK, people round begin to throw down to him every thing that comes to hand, till at last, if he be fortu- nate, something readies him by which he can sup- port himself above water till relieved; but if by chance some improper article be thrown, as a brick for instance, and hit him on the head, it only sinks him all the sooner. In the same manner, when a man is sick, the physician throws into him a lot of drugs at random, and if by chance one is thrown that assists nature, the man is benefitted ; but if, on the contrary, one is thrown that hurts nature, it only makes his sickness worse, or perhaps kills him. In the same spirit D'Alembert, a French physician, used to compare nature and disease to a man struggling with his enemy in a dark room ; the physician comes in with a club, that is, me- dicine, to make peace; he begins to lay about him at random, and if he hits the enemy, or dis- ease, he kills it, but if he hits nature, he kills her —the chances being about equal which catches the blow. Many other such authorities could be given, but these are sufficient for our purpose. We have made it manifest, both by fact and by authority, that the art of medicine, as hitherto practised, in any and every form, is altogether uncertain, and that patients would stand nearly the same chance with no treatment at all, as with that they now receive. We have also demonstrated that nature herself possesses the power of curing dis- eases when she is not interfered with. But still, as we have previously stated, we believe that art may, and eventually will, assist nature in the cure ITS HISTORY, PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS. 43 of disease, possibly to a greater extent than we can now expect. We will endeavour to show in our next chapter, when and how this assistance should be given, and when nature should be left alone. 44 THE TRUE BASIS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. CHAPTER II. THE TRUE BASIS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. No art or science can progress unless based upon true funda- mental principles.—The medical art at present has no fixed principle.—Difficulties in the way of effecting a reform; undue deference to authority and mere experience,—The real value of them shown.—The fundamental principles of medicine can be- known only by a proper study of the human system, and its external relations.—General description of the human organization:—The Digestive Organs—the Circulating Organs—the Respiratory Organs—Assistant Organs—Mechanical Organs.—Necessity for a motive, or vital, power to cause the action of the different organs—the Nervous power provided for that purpose, and no action whatever can occur in the system without it.—The Nervous power probably identical with the Galvanic.—Description of the Galvanic power, and the manner in which it is en- gendered, artificially and naturally.—Description of the Ner- vous system, and the manner in which it acts on the organi- zation.—Similarity of the Nervous and Galvanic power proved by the experiments of Dr. Wilson Philips and others. —Importance of these experiments.—Causes of disease. The perfection of any art or science depends upon the certainty, or truth, of the principles upon which it is based. Many pursuits are dignified by being called arts and sciences that do not deserve these names, because they are based merely on as- sumed facts, or hypotheses, and have neither truth nor stability. Astrology and magic, for instance, were called sciences in the dark ages, but not being based on true principles, or facts, they could ex- hibit no positive results, nor make any progress ; on the contrary as knowledge advanced they became neglected, till now they are mere matters of history. How different it is with arithmetic, geometry, chem- THE TRUE BASIS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 45 istry and the other real sciences. They are con- tinually progressing, and we can depend upon their accuracy, because their fundamental principles arc true and well known. The value therefore of any so called art or science, and its claims on our at- tention, will depend entirely on the truth or false- hood of the principles it is professedly based upon, and no mere assumptions or theories, no matter how great the authority from whom they proceed, can impart to it any value, or just claim to our notice, if those principles are false. What is now called the healing art, or medical science, we have shown, in our former chapter, to be altogether uncertain, and for the most part un- satisfactory, in its results, simply because it is with- out established principles; in place of which we have vague theories, authoritative assertions, and empirical routine. The question is seldom asked, in any case, "what does nature say?" or "what is supported by the fact?" but simply what is said by some celebrated author, or taught in some col- lege? And the answer varies every day. Medical practice will, eventually, be elevated to the dignity of a science, having a firm foundation in fact, and exhibiting positive and valuable results. The im- pending reform which is to accomplish this desir- able change, is now being pointed out, and advocated by some of the most eminent medical men of the day, whose philanthropy and good sense are as creditable to themselves as they are useful to society. One great difficulty in the way of effecting the change is, the deference which exists for mere au thority, and the mistaken notion that experience alone is of paramount importance in treating dis- 46 THE TRUE BASIS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. ease. It should always be borne in mind that all men are fallible, and that the greatest authorities may be mistaken. A man may have a comprehen- sive mind, and a good stock of information, but yet be warped by prejudice or blinded by bigotry—He may see clearly into many abstruse subjects, and yet be perfectly ignorant on some points where the commonest' understanding would not be at fault The present system of medical education is calcu- lated rather to cramp the mind, and to prevent pro- gress, than to assist in its expansion. The object of teachers and institutions appears rather tO'be to make proselytes, and uphold their own doctrines, than to discover the truth. The greatest and most eminent men in the profession have been rebels to orthodox authority, and have generally stricken out a path of their own ; but unfortunately others, in- stead of following their example, have made autho- rities of them in their turn. In science nothing should be admitted as established, unless proved by facts. Mere experience, without.a knowledge of princi- ples, is comparatively valueless. It may make a person acquainted with a number of isolated facts, but it can neither enable him to explain them, nor make them available in the discovery of new truths. A person with good judgment, and a knowledge of principles, will succeed in any case better than one who has experience merely, let it be ever so great. For instance, a man might have immense experience in mensuration, for ascertaining the dimensions of objects,—he may have measured thousands of squares, triangles, and parallelograms, and yet, on meeting with one different from what he had pre- THE TRUE BASIS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 47 viously seen, find himself completely at fault, while another, with little or no experience, but knowing the principles of geometry, would accomplish the task at once. So it is with all other sciences ; ex- perience alone is of use merely in precisely similar cases, but by knowing fundamental principles we see what course to pursue in every case, whether it be like what we have previously seen or not. The present essay is intended to deduce from facts only, and not from theory or mere authority, those principles on which medical practice should be founded, so that it may become a real science, and a certain means of alleviating human suffering. It will be requisite, in the first place, to show what the human system is in a state of health, and then to explain how it becomes diseased ; after which we may understand how far health can be restored, and by what means. It is not requisite here to give a detailed treatise on human anatomy and physiology, but merely such a general description as will make our exposition intelligible. The human system is an assemblage of organs, each adapted with wondrous perfection, to the per- formance of some particular function, and the whole of them working together for the accomplishment of two objects—first the maintenance of the indi- vidual's own existence, and secondly, the continu- ance of the species. The organs which seem of primary importance are those which perform the function of nutrition. All organized bodies require the constant addition of new matter, either to enable them to grow, or increase in size, or to make up for the waste which 48 THE TRUE BASIS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. incessantly occurs from the action of the system. This new matter is derived from the food which is eaten, and which is changed, by the action of the digestive organs, into a substance similar to that of the body itself. When we call to mind the various articles eaten for food and their dissimilarity to each other, it seems little short of a miracle for them to be changed into the same substance, but such is the fact. The body is formed from the fluid called the blood, which contains the element for making flesh, bone, hair, the various fluids, and in fact every other part. The food is therefore converted into blood, and then sent to every part of the system to afford the nourishment required. The food is first masticated, or broken into small pieces, in the mouth, it is then passed down the oesophagus, or meat pipe, into the stomach, and is there acted upon by a fluid called the gastric juice, which dissolves it into a gray pulpy mass called chyme. The gastric juice is secreted from the inner coat of the stomach, and it possesses an astonishing power of solution, which few substances can withstand. The chyme is passed from the stomach into the beginning of the small intestines, called the duodenum, where it is mingled with a fluid brought from the liver, called the gall, or bile, and another brought from the pancreas or sweet- bread, called the pancreatic juice. Immediately after its union with these two fluids the chyme di- vides into two portions. One white like milk, cal- led chyle, which is the same as blood excepting in Its colour; the other the mere refuse, forming the faeces. Both these parts proceed along the intes- tines, from whence the chyle is absorbed, or taken * >. THE TRUE BASIS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 49 up, by a set of little vessels called the lacteals, which, after, passing through some bodies called the mesentric glands, empty themselves into a tube called the thoracic duct. This tube runs up the back bone, and at last unites with a vein near the left arm; the chyle is thus mixed with the blood, and goes with it to the lungs, when the action of the air while breathing makes it red, and thus it be- comes real blood, which is then required to be sent all over the system. The organs employed in circulating the blood are, the heart, veins, and arteries. The heart is a double organ, each part of which is, mechanically speak- ing, a forcing pump, or an engine so constructed, with valves and chambers, that when in action it will impel the fluid within along the tubes in con- nection, the same as the fire engine propels the water along the hose. The left side of the heart is filled with pure blood, which it propels into a set of tubes connected with it called the arteries. These tubes permeate every part of the body, the hard bones, and colourless fluids, as well as the flesh ; there is no spot, internal or external, even the most minute but they reach, and thus supply every part with its re- quisite nourishment. At their extreme terminations the arteries become extremely small, so that the naked eye loses them altogether, and at last seem to disappear and another set of vessels called the veins begin. It is probable that the two sets of tubes are connected together, but from their minuteness it is difficult to show the fact. The blood when found in the veins is much altered, its colour is darker, and it is no longer capable of nourishing the body, in fact it is a poison to it. The veins run the re- 5 50 THE TRUE BASIS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. Verse way to the arteries, and empty into the right side of the heart, which acts the same as the left side and propels the impure blood, by means of tubes provided for the purpose, into the lungs which lie on each side. Tfie lungs are formed of a num- ber of very small tubes or cells, some of which are filled with the impure blood, and others with the air which is inhaled while breathing. The air thus brought into contact with the impure blood takes up its impurities, which are thrown out as we respire, and thus the blood is again made pure. It is then sent to the left side of the heart and again propelled into the arteries. The lungs are also assisted by several other or- gans. The gall is taken from the blood by the liver, the urine by the kidneys, and much waste matter by the skin; but the great purifiers are the lungs, by which several pounds of waste and poisonous mat- ter are ejected daily. To enable us to find our food and perform other locomotive acts requisite for our existence, we are provided with an apparatus composed of bones, muscles, joints, and sinews, which act in a purely mechanical way. The muscles possess the re- markable power of contracting and relaxing, or be- coming longer and shorter, and thus producing the various motions of the body. In the arm, for in- stance, we have a joint, called the elbow, to the bones above and below which are attached a num- ber of muscles, some of which by their contraction bend the joint, while others straighten it. In the same way is effected every other motion we per- form. In this way is the human system made,—a com- THE TRUE BASIS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 51 bination of vital and mechanical organs, adapted for the performance of certain functions requisite for the individual's existence. It may be compared to a complicated machine, all the parts of which act in unison. It is also like the machine in other re- spects,—it wants a motive power !—The various organs may be ever so perfect, but still they cannoi Work of themselves. The machine needs the steam-engine, and the human system also requires something analogous. The power which makes the heart beat, the stomach digest, the muscles contract, and, in short, causes every other bodily motion, is the Nervous fluid. Recent discoveries have made it extremely probable, in fact nearly certain, that this mysterious power which we call nervous, is identical with elec- tricity, magnetism, or galvanism, which, as wc shall show further on, can effect the various motions of the organization when the nervous power is ex- tinct. Galvanism is a mysterious agent and it is but re- cently that we have found means of controlling it for useful purposes. We have, however, examples of its workings in the electrotype process, various chemical changes, and in the miraculous lightning telegraph, and, in some instances, it has even been employed in propelling machinery, in place of steam, which, it is thought probable it will eventually supersede entirely. Its effects on the living body are familiar to most people, galvanic batteries being now very common. Its effect on the dead are not so familiar, though often observed; suffice it to say that the limbs and organs of a dead body will move by its means, and exhibit all the ordinary pheno- 52 THE TRUE BASIS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. mena of life. Triere is no doubt but it is the prin- ciple of vitality, or life itself, and that nothing comes into existence, or lives, but by its means. Animals have been created by it artificially, and vegetables have been made, to grow in one hour as much as they ordinarily do in several days. The heat which warms us, and the light by which we see, are only modifications of this mysterious power—the soul of the universe, which causes the gentle breeze and the refreshing shower, the furious hurricane, with its deluge and lightning's flash, the splendid aurora borealis, and a thousand other phenomena that de- light us with their beauty, or appal us with their might; and by which also the world itself, and the whole planetary system of which it forms a part, are doubtless kept and moved 'in their orbits. As it is in the universe by the electric power, so it is in the human body by the nervous. Not the slightest motion or change can occur, not a thought can originate, or a feeling be experienced but by its means. Galvanism, or electricity, is artificially engendered in various ways. All chemical action gives rise to it, or even changes in temperature, or .motion merely. The conversion of solid bodies into fluid, or fluids into gaseous, does the same. When steam is formed, under high pressure, an immense quantity of elec- tricity is engendered, as was shown by a large electric machine recently made on that principle. The most convenient mode of producing it however, artificially, is by a combination of metals and acids, called a battery. The chemical action is very.great, and the galvanic power engendered by it is further mcreased and modified by traversing coils of wire. THE TRUE BASIS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 5^ These instruments are now made vastly more power- ful than formerly, though smaller in size and more convenient to manage. The nervous power, or human galvanism, is pro- duced by the action of a natural battery, forming part of the system. This battery is composed of the brain and spinal marrow, and the nervous cords connected with them. The organization and com- position of the brain are apparently simple, but there is, undoubtedly, much in both that we have not yet comprehended. The manner in which the brain acts to produce the nervous power we do not know, but that it does so is undoubted ; it will even pro- duce common galvanism under certain arrange- ments. In connection with the brain and spinal marrow are certain white cords, called the nerves, these are very numerous, and are sent to every part of the body, like the arteries. The use of the nerves is, to transmit the power engendered in the brain or spinal marrow, wherever it is wanted. The same as the arteries convey the blood from the heart. No organ can move unless it be connected by a nerve with one of the great centres. This is easily seen by cutting the nerves, as those going to the arm for instance, and all power of motion is at once lost. Gut through those that go to the heart and it stops beating, or those that go to the stomach, and it will-be able no longer to digest. If the spinal marrow be severed at a certain point all the organs below become immediately paralyzed, owing to their connection with the source of power being destroyed. This arrangement of the nerves it will be seen, is precisely that of the wires of the magnetic telegraph. 5* 54 THE TRUE BASIS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. The battery at one station engenders the power, and the wires convey it to, the other, let the distance be ever so great. The will of the operator at one end is thus transmitted to the other and produces the effect he desires ; in the same way, when I wish to move my arm, the will sends the nervous power from the brain down the nerve to the muscle. This makes the muscle contract and so produces the mo- tion. If you cut the wire no communication can take place between the two ends of the telegraph; if you cut the nerve going to the arm, no communi- cation can occur between it and the brain, and it no longer obeys the will. The brain is divided into two parts, the one, oc- cupying the upper and frontal portions of the skull, called the cerebrum, and supposed to be more im- mediately concerned in the moral perceptions and thinking; the other, occupying the lower and back part of the skull is called the cerebellum, and ap- pears, to be concerned in producing what are called the propensities, certain involuntary motions, and sensations. The spinal marrow is also divided into two parts, or columns, the one in front called the anterior column, and the one behind the posterior. On examining a nerve belonging to any organ, we find it is composed of two parts, and on tracing it to the spinal marrow we find that one of these parts, or threads, springs from the anterior column, and the other from the posterior. These two nervous threads have different powers; the one from the anterior column causes motion, while the one from the posterior column produces sensation, or feeling. These two functions are distinct from each other; for instance, if tne nerves of motion proceeding to THE TRUE BASIS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 55 the arm be cut, the individual can no longer move it when he wishes, but he may still feel, or have sensation in it. If the nerves of sensation only be c it, the arm can be moved, but will have no feeling, it may be burnt, or cut, and still no pain be expe- rienced. But if both nerves be cut, sensation and the power of motion are both lost. This is an important fact, which we shall have occasion to re- fer to again. We often see persons who are para- lytic, that is, incapable of motion, in some parts of their bodies, owing to the nerves losing their power of transmission. Sometimes the paralysis will af- fect merely the nerves of motion, at others merely those of sensation, and sometimes it will affect both. The nerves of the organs of sight, hearing, taste, and smell, apparently spring from the brain, and are essential to those functions,—cut the optic nerve and the eye can see no longer, or the auditory and deafness ensues. Most of the nerves which proceed to the internal organs produce involuntary motions, that is, they are not under the control of the will. The motor nerves of the arm, as I have shown, can be excited to act on the muscles by the will, but those which act on the heart, lungs, stomach, and other organs, to make them perform their peculiar functions, are independent of it. Thus we cannot cause, or stop, the circulation of the blood, or the process of diges- tion, by merely willing it, the same as we do the bending or straightening of the arm. Still these involuntary motions are as strictly dependent on nervous agency as the voluntary ones. Each organ has its own set of nerves, distinct from those of the other organs, they are all however 56 THE TRUE BASIS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. connected with each other more or less, particularly by certain nerves called the sympathetic. These nerves interlace themselves with the others, and thus unite them all sympathetically together. This is the reason why a disease in one organ often affects another very remote from it, and why irritation in one part of the body will frequently produce an effect in some other part apparently unconnected with it. Thus constipation in the bowels will often cause inflammation in the eyes, and worms in the intestines will cause itching in the nose. Tickling the throat with a feather will act on the stomach and produce vomiting, or tickling the soles of the feet will act on the diaphragm and produce laughing. To prove that this power we call the nervous is similar to the galvanic, various experiments have been made some of which we will detail. Dr. Wilson Philips was the first to conduct them sys- tematically, but they have since been repeated, ex- tended, and varied in numerous ways. His first experiments were on digestion. He took two rab- bits, and fed both with the same kind and amount of food. In one he cut through thenar vagum, or nerve proceeding to the stomach and lungs; an operation apparently simple, but which so impeded the action of breathing, that the animal wheezed, and at last died of suffocation. The other was not interfered with ; but at the end of twenty-six hours, was killed, and both were examined. In die sto- mach of the one which had not been operated upon the food was found fully digested, but in that of the other, it was found nearly unchanged. Thus de- monstrating that, unless the nervous power is con- veyed to it, the stomach cannot digest. He next THE TRUE BASIS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 57 took two other rabbits and treated them in precisely the same manner, but to the one that had the nerves of the stomach cut he applied a small galvanic bat- tery, so that the galvanic power passed through the stomach, in the same way that the natural nervous power used to do. At the termination of the same period of time as in the first experiment they were both killed, and it was now found that the one whose nerves were cut had digested nearly as well as the other which had not been interfered with; thus showing, that the stomach could perform its func- tions by means of ordinary galvanism, the same as by means of the nervous power itself. Similar experiments were performed on the heart and other organs, in all of which it was found that their ac- tion ceased on cutting the nerves, and commenced again on transmitting the galvanic power. This proves that the nervous and galvanic powers are the same, or at least, that one may be substituted for the other.—(Philips on the Vital Functions.) In many instances of loss of motion in the limbs, loss of sight, hearing, and other functions, resulting from paralysis of the nerves, we find that the func- tion is restored instantly on sending the galvanic power through them. In some cases the effect remains only while the power is being transmitted, but in others we have the satisfaction of seeing a perfect restoration, after a deprivation perhaps of many years. The experiments upon dead bodies are also valu- able proofs of the same truth. Criminals, after exe- cution, have been submitted to the action of gal- vanism, and the different parts of the body thrown into the most fearful convulsions by it. One whom 58 THE TRUE BASIS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. I saw myself opened his eyes and mouth, moved his limbs, and made evident attempts to rise from the table. It was the opinion of all present, that he would have fully revived, had not the neck, been injured by the halter. Similar effects are frequently observed in the lecture room upon frogs, and others of the lower animals. These experiments are very wonderful, explain- ing to us as they do, the nature of that mysterious power which produces our thoughts, feelings and actions. They are also extremely valuable, as we shall see further on, inasmuch as they indicate the true principles on which medical science should be based. They are also indispensable to our under- standing the causes of disease,.so necessary to be known in all cases before we can prevent them, and in many even before we can attempt their cure. It is not our intention, nor is it needed, to enter fully into all the causes of disease, but still it is requisite we should do so generally, as a further illustration of the physiological facts we have stated, and as an explanation of some peculiarities in our mode of treatment. CAUSES OF DISEASE. The causes of disease are manifold and various. The greater part of them however are kept in ope- ration solely by the general ignorance which pre- vails on the subject. Suppose any man in busi- ness were to leave every thing to be done as it were by chance, instead of by rule, and trust all to other persons, he need not be surprised, nor could he with reason complain, if he were to find himself THE TRUE BASIS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 59 plundered and irremediably ruined, in a short time. Few men would act so foolishly in their business, and yet nearly all do so with what is of far more consequence, their health. They act as if it were not their business at all, forgetting that nobody else can be expected to concern themselves about it, ex- cept as a matter of profit, and that the profit is in proportion to the loss of health, and not its preser- vation. Many eminent medical men, with"a disin- terestedness that does them great honour, have endeavoured to direct attention te this important matter, the preservation of health, and prevention of disease. Hitherto, however, but few have lis- tened, and fewer still have profited by their advice; nor could we reasonably expect them to do so, since it requires a certain amount of knowledge of our- selves to understand that advice, and such knowledge is seldom possessed. To begin this work aright every person should early possess a knowledge of his own structure, and the influence of external agents upon it, both for good and for evil. If such information were generally distributed most diseases would be prevented, and much advice that is now thrown away would be thankfully received and made good use of. Nor is such information at all difficult to give,—a small portion of the time now spent in learning many things of questionable utility, would be sufficient if rightly used. We have such efficient means of .teaching the elements of anatomy and physiology at the present time, that such knowledge could easily be put within the reach of all. The excellent anatomical models now made so plentifully and so cheaply in Europe, will enable any oi\e, with no previous knowledge 60 THE TRUE BASIS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. of the subject, to understand them sufficiently well in a very short time. The day is not far distant I trust, when all our public schools will be provided with these excellent articles, and when every youth educated there, will esteem the knowledge con- veyed to him by their means, as the most precious gift his education has bestowed. Society itself would soon experience the benefit, and the truth would become apparent that, a small fraction of the means now expended in vainly attempting to cure disease, would, if rightly directed, prevent it alto- gether. A single simple fact would often enable a mam to avoid a disease, which, if it becomes esta- blished, all the science of the day cannot remove. It would be much better for all persons to have a moderate amount of knowledge, than for a few to possess a great amount and the-remainder be ignorant. A full knowledge of the various causes of disease will not be had till mankind are more awake to their true interests, and study that which really concerns them. At present we must confine our- selves to pointing out some of the more obvious causes, more particularly those that bear upon the new views that we wish to introduce. Improper diet, hurried eating, the habitual use of stimulants, as alcoholic drinks, tobacco, and even strong coffee, may be enumerated as common causes of disease,—so, also, may exposure to cold and wet, bad air, whether in ill ventilated apart- ments or from decaying substances, unsuitable em- ployments, injurious modes of dress, and excesses of various kinds. All these causes are more or less obvious, and people can understand you when yoa THE TRUE BASIS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 61 speak of them ; but there are other causes far more injurious about which little is known, and which you can only enable those to see who know some little of themselves. This is especially the case with what we call moral causes ! They comprise all the various disturbances of the mind and feelings, which, by having a direct effect on the nervous sys- tem, always produce more or less of disease. The influence of the mind upon the body is commonly remarked, and most people are aware that various mental states affect the health to a very great ex- tent ; but few know how far or in what way. Peo- ple in robust health are apt to speak of disease in its primary stage, as being " merely a nervous af- fection," or perhaps even consider it as "a whim," or " a fancy," or " imagination only !" But these nervous feelings are the most distressing that a per- son can experience, worse a thousand times than actual pain. Females are extremely liable to them, and often times they meet with but little sympathy, because the people around them think there is no- thing the matter,—" it is only a nervous spell!" but if they were properly informed they would know that these nervous feelings indicate the first stage of real disease, and that, if suffered to continue, some organic derangement is nearly certain to ensue. When the organic derangement is obvious, medical aid is sought, but too often without any benefit, whereas, if proper steps had been taken in the early part of the first, or nervous stage, no organic de- rangement would have occurred. Over exertion and agitation of the mind is one of the most fruitful causes of disease, in a civilized community. Every man possesses a certain amount 6 62 THE TRUE BASIS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE." ♦ of nervous power to be distributed to the various organs in his body, to enable them to perform their functions ; but when he is continually occupied in thinking, the brain takes more than its share, con- sequently the other organs have not sufficient, and their functions are either imperfectly performed or not at all. Suppose, for instance, that a man of business takes a meal of food; he is most likely thinking, all the time he is eating, about his affairs, and he rises from his table only to go to his desk; his stomach however is filled with food, and en- deavours to digest it, but, as I have previously ex- plained, no gastric juice can be secreted unless a certain amount of nervous power be sent to the stomach, and this cannot be done, in his case, be- cause all his nervous power is exhausted in think- ing ! The food remains undigested, various uneasy feelings, or pains, follow, and eventually confirmed dyspepsia, for which he swallows a quantity of drugs, at a high price, and finds himself still no bet- ter. A man who exhausts all his nervous power in thinking can no more digest, than could the rabbit who had its nerves cut through, in Dr. Philips's experiments. This incessant worry of the mind, with its attendant anxieties, hopes and fears, is, I firmly believe, more productive of disease than all the physical causes I have mentioned put together; and while this state of things continues, the phy- sician will never want practice, nor will his treat- ment be more satisfactory than now. The human machine is supplied with a certain amount of power to keep it going, and if too much of that power be absorbed in any one part, the other parts must of necessity either stop or be weakened in their action. THE TRUE BASIS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 63 My own impression is, that the greater part of our most incurable diseases are produced by moral causes, more particularly intense mental applica- tion, anxiety, hope, fear, and grief. I shall en- deavour to show, however, that we may use neuro- pathic, or nervous remedies, in many of these cases, and with good effect too, though all others fail. My object in explaining more fully the causes of disease is, that the rationale of this neuropathic treatment, and other means operating only on the* nerves, in such cases, may be seen. 64 PRINCIPLES OF MEDICINE, AND CHAPTER III. PRINCIPLES OF MEDICINE, AND CLASSIFICATION OF DISEASES AND REMEDIES. General principles of medicine, drawn from the foregoing facts.—Natural classification of diseases.—Natural arrange- ment of curative agents.—Natural division of medicines, according to their effects on the system.—Real value of the present therapeutic and nosological classifications. PRINCIPLES OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. The facts stated in our last chapter, establish the following principles, as the only true basis of medical science. Upon these we can found a natural classi- fication of diseases and remedies, and a rational mode of treatment. 1st Principle. The action of every organ in the human body is caused by the nervous powers only; if that power be deficient, excessive, or irregular, so will their action be also, and if it cease they can act no more. 2d Principle. All disease, or irregular action, no matter where it may be situated, must originate in the nerves, the sole source of all action. 3d Principle. All curative treatment, to be effec- tive, must act upon the nervous system, either di- rectly or iudirectly. And, consequently, those agents that act most directly on that system, as galvanism for instance, must be the most certain and efficient. CLASSIFICATION OF DISEASES AND REMEDIES. 65 NATURAL ARRANGEMENT OF DISEASES. CLASSES. All diseases can be divided into two classes, in- flammatory and torpid. 1st Class, or inflammatory diseases, are those in which we have excess of action, as in fever. 2d Class, or torpid diseases, are those in which we have deficiency of action, as in paralysis. STAGES. Every disease will also have two distinct stages, if it run its full course unchecked ; the nervous and the organic. 1st Stage, or the nervous, is that during which the nerves only are affected. 2d Stage, or the organic, is. that which follows the nervous, and in which the functions of the organs themselves, or even their structure, becomes affected. FORMS. A disease may also be presented to us in one of two forms, acute, or chronic. 1st Form, or the acute, is that where the disease is very intense. It usually comes on suddenly, and is short in its duration, as it either ceases altogether, ends fatally, or assumes the next form. 2d Form, or the chronic, is that in which the disease is mild but continuous. It usually follows 6* 66 PRINCIPLES OF MEDICINE, AND the acute, endures a long period, and then ceases, or again becomes acute. This classification, simple as it may appear, is amply sufficient for our present purpose ;• and, with the addition of the name of the affected part, to designate its locality, would be complete enough for all practical uses. CLASSIFICATION OF DISEASES AND REMEDIES. 67 NATURAL ARRANGEMENT OF CURATIVE AGENTS. CLASSES. Curative, or medical agents, may be divided into two classes, the chemical and the neuropathic. , 1st Class, or chemical agents, includes all kinds of drugs, or medicines. 2d Class, or neuropathic agents, includes every thing that acts directly upon the nerves—mesmer- ism and galvanism for instance. MODES. Each class of agents may be used in two dif- ferent modes. Thus, the chemical agents, or medi- cines, may be used either allopathically or homoeo- pathically. 1st Mode. The allopathic mode is that in which medicines are used in appreciable doses, to produce certain obvious effects on the system—as when ipe- cacuanha is given to produce vomiting. 2d Mode. The homoeopathic mode is one in which the medicines are given in minute doses, so as to produce none of the ordinary allopathic ef- fects, but in which they are prepared in a peculiar manner that is said to endow them with new and superior powers. The neuropathic agents may also be produced and employed in two different modes. The na- tural and the artificial. 68 PRINCIPLES OF MEDICINE, AND 1st Mode. The natural mode is that in which the neuropathic power belonging to one living being is made to act upon another living being—as in mes- merism for instance. 2d Mode. The artificial mode is that in which the neuropathic power, or one similar to it, is en- gendered by any artificial means, and made to act upon the system—as when we produce galvanism by means of a battery for instance. CLASSIFICATION OF DISEASES AND REMEDIES. 69 NATURAL DIVISION OF MEDICINES, ACCORDING TO THEIR EFFECTS ON THE SYSTEM. Different authors have arranged the articles of the materia medica in different ways, according as their ideas varied respecting their properties. These divisions have been, for the most part, perfectly arbitrary, and scarcely two of them correspond in essential particulars ; they are in fact chiefly theo- ries, invented to cover the ignorance, or gratify the vanity of their authors. Thus we have diuretics and diaphoretics, epispastics and rubefacients, anti- spasmodics and sedatives, tonics and alteratives, and some twenty or thirty others; the difference be- tween many of which, except in name, it would be difficult to determine. Many articles are placed in different classes by different authors, and many may be made to produce several effects by merely varying the mode of administering them. These systems of materia medica are akin to the fanciful catalogues of diseases, called nosological tables, and are equally useless. They have been rightly termed " medical romances !" It no doubt sounds very learned to call home sickness philopatridomania—a cold in the head phlegmatorrhagia—and the head ache cephalaglia, or cephalaponia,—to use the word pscychrolutrum for a cold bath, or pediluyium for a foot bath, but I cannot see the utility of it. People are imposed upon by these unpronounceable names^nd some- times injuriously. Many a man has swallowed mer- cury, under the name of hydrargyrum, without being aware of it; and many a dose of rhea palmatum 70 PRINCIPLES OF MEDICINE, AND has been paid a high price for, the patient little thinking it was common rhubarb. When once this mania of word making seizes an author there is no telling where it will carry him; thus a celebrated author writing on the common disease croup,, pro- posed that it should be called laryngotracheite- myxopyomeningogene!—He supposed this name had certain advantages over the common one, or even over the more scientific apellation cynanche tonsillaris—possibly it may, but I confess I am not aware of them. Some of my readers may be grati- fied by learning that the above disease belongs to the class pyrexse, and order phlegmasia ! The real value of these wordy systems may be estimated, from the esteem in which they are held by medical men themselves; thus Dr. Forbes says, in the article already referred to, that it is requisite " to teach students that no systematic or theoretical classification of diseases, or of therapeutic agents, (medicines) ever yet promulgated, is true, or any thing like the truth, and that none can be adopted as a safe guide in practice." The arrangement of medicines, like that of diseases, may be made ex- tremely simple, and yet be practically useful, by noticing the actual differences in their effects. CLASSES. Medicines are naturally divided into two classes, stimulants and sedatives ; corresponding to the two classes of diseases, inflammatory and torpid, to which they*are adapted. 1st Class. Stimulants are those medicines which excite, or increase, temporarily or permanently, the CLASSIFICATION OF DISEASES AND REMEDIES. 71 vital energy—as alcohol for instance. They are adapted to torpid diseases, where there is a defi- ciency of action. 2d Class. Sedatives are those medicines which decrease the vital action—as opium for instance. They are adapted to inflammatory diseases, where we have excess of action and wish to allay it. Every medicine belongs to one or other of these classes, though some act more particularly on one part of the system and others on another,—some act quickly, and others slowly, a distinction of some Importance when we remember the different forms Of disease, acute and chronic. In our work on medical practice we shall extend and complete this classification, but the outline already given is suf- ficient for our present purpose of explanation and reference. 72 CHEMICAL SYSTEMS OF MEDICINE. CHAPTER IV. EXAMINATION OF THE DIFFERENT CHEMICAL SYSTEMS. Allopathy, its variable character and uncertainty.—Necessity for a reform in it admitted by eminent medical men.—Testi- mony of Dr. Forbes.—The condemnation extends to all its varieties, both mineral and botanical.—Nevertheless medi- cines may be given with advantage allopathically, providing we know what to give, and when and how to give it.■'-If proper neuropathic remedies were used at the beginning of a disease, drugs would be but little needed.—When drugs are given, except in a very few cases, it should always be stated to the patient that their effect is uncertain; and the dose should be so small as not to injure.—The reason for this uncertainty is, the want of fundamental principles.— Our fundamental principles show that medicines should act on the nerves, to be effective.—Testimony of Liebig, and other authors in favour of this view. Homoeopathy—a system which is said to develope certain in- herent powers of drugs, different from the ordinary ones, so that a minute dose may have equal effect with a large one given allopathically.—Probability of its truth to some extent.-—Each system may, and ought to be adopted, under particular circumstances.—Philosophy of Homoeopathy— probability of its acting galvanically.—Possibility of one sim- ple substance being so endowed with the two cardinal medi- cal properties, as to serve every purpose, merely by a difference in the mode of preparing it.—Probability of medicines being made to affect the system without our tak- ing them at all—by galvanism !—Facts and reasoning in support of this view. Almost every conceivable thing, animal, vegeta- ble, and mineral, has been used at one period or other in the cure of disease, and cast by to make room for some more potent, or fashionable remedy. At one time we have such medicines as the flesh of the viper, or the dried skin of an Egyptian mum- CHEMICAL SYSTEMS OF MEDICINE. 73 my—sometimes none but vegetable remedies are used—at others none but minerals.—One great doc- tor tells us that the more we take of a medicine, the greater will be the effect.—And another, equally great, assures us that this is a mistake, and that the most minute dose will produce more effect than the largest.—But still, different as all these various sys- tems and medicines are, the fact is, as I have proved in my first chapter, they all produce much the same result, so that it is of little consequence which we re- sort to. Allopathy, Homeopathy, minerals, botani- cals, and patent nostrums, are all equally uncertain, and have about an equal chance of doing good or harm. If there be any preference at all, it is certainly for Homoeopathy, were it only because it interferes less with nature, and is not calculated to injure the system with large doses of poisonous drugs. The present practice of Allopathy is, beyond doubt, a serious evil, and probably produces more disease than ever it cures. Indeed its abuses .are so glar- ing that many eminent medical practitioners and writers, as we have already shown, begin to speak loudly of the necessity for reform! In the article by Dr. Forbes, already quoted from, are enumerated the following things, which require to be done, be- sides those previously enumerated. " To endeavour to substitute for the monstrous system of polypharmacy, now universally prevalent, one that is, at least, Vastly more simple, more intel- ligible, more agreeable, and, it may be hoped, one more rational, more scientific, more certain, and more beneficial. * * * " To inculcate generally a milder, and less ener- getic mode of practice, both in acute and chronic 74 CHEMICAL SYSTEMS OF MEDICINE. diseases ; to encourage the expectant, in preference to the heroic system—at least where the indications of treatment are not manifest. " To discountenance all active and powerful medication in the acute exanthemata and fevers of a specific type, as small pox, measles, scarlatina, typhus, &c, until we obtain some evidence that the course of these diseases can be beneficially modified by remedies ! " To discountenance, as much as possible, and eschew the habitual use (without any sufficient reason) of certain po.werful medicine in large doses, in a multitude of different diseases, a practice now generally prevalent, and fraught with the most bane- ful consequences. * * * Mercury, iodine, col- chicum, antimony, also purgatives in geiTeral and blood letting, are frightfully misused in this man- ner! "To encourage the administration of simple, feeble, or altogether powerless, non-perturbing me- dicines, in all cases in which drugs are prescribed pro forma, for the satisfaction of the patient's mind, and not with the view of producing any direct re- medial effect. * * * " To make every effort not merely to destroy the prevalent system of giving a vast quantity and variety of unnecessary and useless drugs, (to say the least of them,) but to encourage extreme sim- plicity in the prescription of medicines that seem to be requisite." These are a few of the reforms suggested by one of the first allopathic practitioners and writers Of the present day, and coming from the quarter they do, we cannot doubt that they are really needed. CHEMICAL SYSTEMS OF MEDICINE. 75 Many other authorities, equally eminent, could be given, all bearing testimony to the evil of this incessant drugging, which has, there is no doubt, actually produced numerous diseases now prevalent, weakening the human constitution, and, in many cases, prevented nature from effecting a cure. This condemnation, be it remembered, is not levelled at any particular kind of drugs, as minerals for in- stance, but at all that are active- Botanic remedies are generally supposed, and by some are repre- sented to be, less dangerous than mineral ones, in fact almost harmless. This, however, is far from the truth. Some of the most active articles in the materia medica are vegetable products, though not generally known to be so; indeed most plants owe their medicinal powers simply to the minerals which they contain. A great deal of ignorance is often exhibited on this subject, and much deception practised. A short time ago I consulted with a botanic physician, respecting a patient to whom I recommended a small dose of prussic acid, and I shall never forget his reason for objecting to it. "1 don't lilfe," said he, " any of your strong chemical poisons, I always use herbs only."—And yet this same man gave, to the same patient, a preparation of laurel water, and with good effect, without being aware that the laurel water owed all its powers simply to the prussic acid it contained ! All medi- cines that are powerful enough to produce a de- cided effect on the system may injure, no matter whence they come. Nevertheless, though medicines are a great evil as now used, they may be in many cases of great (service, even when administered in the ordinary 76 CHEMICAL SYSTEMS OF MEDICINE. way. Nature may often be assisted by them in her attempts to remove disease, or the system may be supported by them till its own innate powers effect a cure. At the present time, however, drugs are used in- discriminately in all diseases, and at all stages of a disease, which is a great error. They are applica- ble for the most part only in certain diseases, and at particular periods. In the primary, or nervous stage of any disease, medicines are seldom of use, indeed they are often hurtful, tending to exasperate it and bring on the second, or organic stage. So long as there is only nervous derangement, we should use the remedies called neuropathic, as gal- vanism for instance, except in a few cases, where poisonous matter has found its way into the sys- tem, and w PLUMBE NATIONAL DAGUERRIAN GALLERY. 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