INTRODUCTORY LECTURE TO THE CLASS Inratenpatljif ftirtal CnlUge OF PENNSYLVANIA. JOHN REDMAN COXE, JR., M.D., PROFESSOR OF HOMCEOPATHIC INSTITUTES, PATHOLOOT, AND THE PEACTICl OF MEDICINE. / (jvy: 3 DELIVERED OCTOBER 14, 1858. JJnblisheb bn tlje Class. a 94 ^ PHILADELPHIA: JOHN E. POTTER. No. 617 SANSOM STREET. Publisher of «• Subscription " and other books. 1858. CORRESPONDENCE. Homoeopathic MnVeal College of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Nov. 26th, 1858. Peof. J. Redman Coxe, Jr.:— Dear Sir:—As a Committee appointed by the Class, the undersigned would re- spectfully solicit a copy of your Introductory Address for publication. Entertaining, as we do, a high respect for your ability in diffusing the principles and practical ap- plications of our science, we trust that our communication will meet your favourable consideration. Awaiting your pleasure, we remain, Very respectfully yours, Wm. H. M'Pherson, (of New Jersey,) Chairman. B. S. King, Georgia. C. F. Butler, New York. J. P. Teague, Canada West. J. D. Davis, Nova Scotia. J. G. Cortes, Mexico. T. G. Edwards, Texas. J. B. Bell, Maine. F. Nichols, Massachusetts. J. M. Troyer, Illinois. Wm. M. Hill, Kentucky. T. N. Reed, New Jersey. A. B. Burr, North Carolina. J. T. Lear, Louisiana. 0. S. Wood, Pennsylvania. V. L. Moore, Wisconsin. J- C. Budlong, Rhode Island. C. W. Skiff, Connecticut. J. F. Crouch, Delaware. Philadelphia, Nov. 27th, 1858. W. H. M'Pherson, Esq., Chairman, and others: — Gentlemen:—Your letter of the 26th inst. has just been received, requesting a copy of my Introductory Lecture for publication. It affords me pleasure to comply with your wishes, and I herewith send you a copy of the lecture in question. I feel gratified by your favourable appreciation of my endeavours in behalf of the noble science of Homoeopathy, and sincerely trust that each and all of you will fol- low my example in this respect. • With my best wishes for your health, happiness, and success in the profession you have chosen, I am, very truly, ' Your friend, J. R. Coxe, Je. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. Gentlemen:—It has been admitted from the earliest ages that the human mind is prone to fall into the path of error,—"Human- um est errare" is a maxim as old as the Augustan era, and it is not less true of the present, notwithstanding the most ardent aspi- rations after truth, and the most gigantic efforts to attain it have been characteristic of mankind in general through successive ages. The philosopher, the divine and the statesman, have far too frequently substituted fallacies, which they either believed, or feigned to be truths, and all the power of human reason has been employed in one age, to sustain as true, that which, in a subsequent period, has been acknowledged to be a delusion, by the wisest and most enlightened of mankind. This has been the case in every moral and intellectual research, and in none more so than in the progress and development of the science of medicine. A retrospect of the errors and delusions of our forefathers in medicine will aid us in bringing our noble science to a higher degree of excellence, and render it more worthy of the exalted object to which it is, or should be mainly directed—the renovation, and preservation of health—the greatest of all bless- ings conferred by our Almighty Creator on man. Time would fail me, should I enter into an elaborate detail of all the various delusions in medical science since the era of Hippo- crates, and my present object is simply to portray and to vindicate the doctrines we hold, as the followers of the illustrious Hahne- mann, and to prove that those doctrines contain a most decided and important truth, as well as a most important progress in medi- cal science. 6 It 13 however necessary, first, to revert to and animadvert on the past and present imperfection of Therapeutics, in order to il- lustrate the absolute necessity for further most careful and exten- sive research. In so doing 1 shall have occasion to repel the un- generous, the ungentlernanly,andtheunphilosophical assaults made against Homoeopathy by Allopaths, who were totally ignorant, (and wilfully so) of that which they assailed. Assaults characterized by misrepresentation, inconsistency and dogmatical assumption, so gross as to render the authors ridiculous in the estimation of the wise, the well informed, and the gentlemanly of their own school. The charge of quackery, iterated and reiterated by very many of the Allopaths against Homoeopathy besides being altogether false and unfounded in fact, comes with exceeding bad grace from those who, in all ages, have been accused and convicted of the grossest quackery, by the wise and learned of their own school. Not to mention Boerhaave, Rush, Sydenham, and many other il- lustrious men, I merely refer you to Drs. Knighton, Luther, Forbes, and Girtanner of the present day, who assert in the most emphatic language, that Allopathy is disgraced by the most atrocious quack- ery, practised ad nauseam by its adherents. Forbes says, "The history of Medicine is nothing but a history of perpetual changes in the opinions and practice of its professors respecting the very same subject,—the nature and treatment of diseases. When we come to trace the history and fortunes of particular remedies and modes of treatment, what difference of opinion, what an array of alleged facts directly at variance with each other, what contra- diction, 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 admired." The other great men to whom 1 have alluded use, if possible, still stronger language, and we and the human race generally are fully justified by the authority of the Allopaths themselves in styling them quacks. The remarkably modest claim set up by the Allopathic Colleges of exclusive legitimacy, is answered by the fact that the charter of the Homoeopathic Medical College of Pennsylvania was granted by the same high authority, the Legislature of Pennsylvania, which 7 conferred a similar charter upon themselves, so that when they ignore the validity of our degrees, they at the same time ignore the validity of their own. The equally modest claim of exclusive orthodoxy, is well met by the inquiry—what is orthodoxy ? The reply of the celebrated Bi- shop Uorsley is perhaps the best definition ever yet given.—"Or- thodoxy is my-doxy, and heterodoxy is any other man's doxy," so that in this view of the case, we are the orthodox, and all who dif- fer from us are heterodox. But we make no such ridiculous and absurd assertion. We merely assert that Homoeopathy is in no way less orthodox than Allopathy, while we know it to be quite as le- gitimate, and far more true and regular, as well as scientific and rational than Allopathy. The old school, at times, assume the name of Hippocratics, alleging they are governed by his doctrines, and follow very closely his mode of practice. They ignore the ex- istence of Galen, and shelter themselves under the idea that the antiquity of Hippocrates is a sufficient guarantee for the unques- tionable truth of their principles and methods of practice, and they ask with a sneer, can a mere pretended discovery in Therapeutics of scarcely sixty years' duration, weigh against the established doc- trines of centuries? But assuredly a Therapeutic system which has been stationary for more than 2000 years, can, in this age of progress have but little to boast of, or to recommend it, and this kind of argument, if argument it can be called, may be considered on a par with that of an insane sailor, who insists upon navigating the ocean in an ancient galley with oars, because Jason and the other celebrated Argonauts did so, and that the modern method by steamers and ships is a ridiculous humbug, altogether illegitimate and heterodox. The character and reputation of our illustrious and immortal founder, the great Hahnemann, have been frequently assailed by the little minds of the Allopathic school. The truly great men of that school have defended him warmly, simply because they could comprehend and appreciate his genius and learning. Hufeland, the Nestor of Medicine, calls him the most learned man of his time. Forbes says, " He is distinguished for his talents, his learning and his industry." Maley, at that time an Allopathic Professor, in speak- in"1 of Aconite, says, " Even were we under no other obligations to Hahnemann, by this simple discovery of the antiphlogistic proper- ties of Aconite, he would, like Jenner, deserve to be ranked among 8 the greatest benefactors of suffering humanity." Popper, of Wur- temburg, after eulogizing Belladonna in diseases of the throat, compliments Hahneman in the highest terms, and says, "that the best source of information upon its virtues is the Materia Medica Pura of Hahnemann;" where also he asserts, "is to be found the only reliable accounts of many other medicines." Dr. Mott of New York, says, "Hahnemann is one of the most scientific and accom- plished physicians of the age." These are all scientific and well known physicians, and their eulogy will always outweigh the slan- ders of thousands of the Thersites of the profession. One of the strongest evidences in favour of Homoeopathy, and which goes very far to prove it a legitimate and valuable reform of the defective therapeutics of Allopathy, is the powerful influence it has exerted upon, and the re-active energy it has displayed in promoting a regeneration of Allopathy. And this is well known, not only to the enlightened Allopath, but also to his patients, and to all those versed in the present state of Allopathic medicine. The comparative minuteness of dose, the greater simplicity in pre- scription, the more cautious use of venesection, and its total aban- donment in many diseases, from a conviction of its pernicious ef- fects; together with a far more accurate observation of symptoms and some little disposition to ascertain the pure medicinal action of drugs; all point to the influence, silent—but potent—of Homoeo- pathy, and which influence has been acknowledged by Forbes and others in direct terms. All these facts, which are well established, prove the orthodoxy and the legitimacy of Homoeopathy, past all doubt or cavil. There are several misconceptions of Homoeopathy, which appear to pervade the medical mind to some extent, and through it—pass current with the non-medical—to which I will briefly allude. 1st, Homoeopathy is not a surgical science. It does not pretend with its minute doses, (though strange to say it has been demanded of it,) to amputate a limb, to reduce a dislocation, to extract an aching tooth, to remove a deadly poison from the stomach, or any other local irritant from the organism, affecting it chemically or mechanically, (though it has, in fact, very often superseded the ne- cessity of chemical and mechanical agency.) Neither does Ho- moeopathy promise any more than Allopathy, to counteract poten- cies overwhelming the organism, beyond the power of re-action. But, passing all such cases, as not within its boundaries, it confines 9 itself strictly to its legitimate province, the treatment of medical cases. Our surgeons and obstetricians perform all the operations necessary in their department, and they do so as ably and as skil- fully as when they practised Allopathy, and assuredly to the full, as ably, as any Allopath now living. As a Medical Science, Homoeopathy views the manifestations of disease, as consequences of disturbed vital action. Hence it em- ploys agents, whose dynamical action, ascertained by experiment on the healthy, is directed upon the vital forces thus disturbed, and because disturbed, morbidly susceptible, to the influence of similar irritants, beyond all calculation. Actuated by such views, and guided by experience, Homoeopathy cannot but enforce the employ- ment of doses, greatly less than those administered by Allopathy. Still, much is here left to the discriminating judgment of each physician, in adapting his doses to the varied circumstances of each individual case. So that he may never transcend the limits of healthy re-action, limits, however, which experience alone is com- petent to determine. 2d, Homoeopathy is not a new system of medicine, though it is often so called. A system of medicine must necessarily embrace all the collateral medical sciences. Now, Homoeopathy does not supplant these; on the contrary, it pays most special attention to them all. It does not, therefore, subvert any thing previously well authenticated; but it does subvert all mere theories, and most espe- cially it subverts all the Allopathic therapeutics, as utterly false, irrational, unscientific, and destructive of human life. This, this is the mission of Homoeopathy, and under the auspices, and gui- dance of its law, similia similibus curantur, it will assuredly ul- timately destroy the Allopathic plan of treating disease, by enor- mous doses of poison. Homoeopathy then, is the Keystone of the arch of true scientific medicine. Hahnemann does not deny his obligations to the experi- ence of past ages. Far from it. In his Organon, he draws copiously upon this experience, in support of his doctrines, and we, his fol- lowers, so far from disowning the great advances which modern researches have effected, in many departments of science, do most frankly admit and gladly avail ourselves of these essential elements of the great arch, it is the province of Homoeopathy to complete, for example, special and general anatomy, physiology and patho- logy, botany, chemistry, and materia medica, each and all of these, 10 merit and receive our most special attention. But even if we were to admit perfection, in each and all of these collateral sciences, in- dispensable to a well educated physician, it is abundantly mani- fest that, without the keystone, a scientific system of therapeutics, founded upon an immutable law, the arch of the medical sciences was altogether devoid of both symmetry and strength. For what could it avail the art of healing, though, on the one hand, every fibre, and every function of the animal frame, in health and in dis- ease, were perfectly disclosed to our view, and on the other, if all creation had yielded up its stores, and chemistry had analyzed them all, and recombined their elements without limits, if that science, which ought to teach the adaptation of agents, to the re- moval of morbid action, was yet to be created ? And that it was to be created, the whole history of medicine from Hippocrates to Hahnemann, testifies most conclusively. All that was positively established previous to Hahnemann, all which has effectually with- stood the revolutions of medical opinion, consisted of a few specific medicines, and a few specific practices, (for which the art was mainly indebted to fortuitous or empirical sources,) and these not referred, but deemed absolutely irreferrible, to any consistent sys- tem of general principles, and of course offering no claim to the appellation of a science. And here I quote a few words from the celebrated John Hunter, which will clearly prove, that I have by no means exaggerated the absolute deficiency of that science, or therapeutics, without which medicine can never be other than a mere conjectural art. Hunter says, " Of these virtues we know nothing definitely—all we know is, that some are capable of altering the mode of action, others are stimulating, many counter-stimulating, some even irri- tating, others quieting, so as to produce either a healthy disposi- tion and action in a diseased part, or to change the disease to that action which accords with the medicine; or to quiet where there is too much action; and our reasoning goes no further than to make a proper application of these substances, with these virtues, that is, if we can, for here all is guess work. The difficulty is to ascer- tain the connexion of substance and virtue, and to apply this in restraining or altering any diseased action, and as that can never be demonstrated a priori, it therefore reduces the practice of me- dicine to sheer experiment, and this not built upon well deter- mined facts, but upon mere experience, resulting from probable 11 data. This is no more than inferring, that in what is now to be tried there is probable effect or good to arise in the experiment, from what has been found serviceable in similar cases. But dis- eases of the same specific nature, not only vary in their visible symptoms or actions, but in many of those which are invisible; which will make the effects of applications vary in the same pro- portion, and as those varieties may not be known, so as either to adapt the medicine to them, or to suit the disease to the medicine, it will then be only given upon a general principle, which, of course, may not correspond to the peculiarities. Even in well marked specific diseases, where there is a specific remedy, we find that there are often peculiarities, which counteract the simple specific medicine." Such is the testimony of the celebrated Hunter. Could language describe the uncertainty, the irrationality of the modus operandi of the Old School, in stronger terms? But the position we maintain, that therapeutics, until the pro- mulgation of the Homoeopathic law, had never even met the first requisitions, and was therefore utterly unworthy the name of a science, can be abundantly fortified by other authority; and as I am desirous to clearly prove the outrageous absurdity, and the unparalleled impudence of the Allopaths, in arrogating to them- selves the title of rational, and scientific physicians, I give a quotation from Dr. Paris—the President of the Royal College of Physicians in London—the first physician in Great Britain—the primus inter pares, whose authority has never been questioned. He says—"That such fluctuations in opinion, and versatility in practice, should have produced, even in the most candid and learned observers, an unfavourable impression with regard to the general efficacy of medicines, can hardly excite our astonishment, much less our indignation. Nor can we be surprised to find that another portion of mankind has at once arraigned physic as a fal- lacious art, or derided it as a composition of error and fraud. They ask, and it must be confessed, that they ask with reason— What pledge can be afforded them, that the boasted remedies of the present day will not, like their predecessors, fall into disre- pute; and in their turn, serve only as humiliating memorials of the credulity and infatuation of the physicians who commended and prescribed them?" Again, while attempting to account for these fluctuations, &c, connected with the Materia Medica, he says—" That its advance- 12 ment has been continually arrested, and often entirely subverted, by the caprices, prejudices, superstitions and knavery of mankind; and that, unlike the other branches of science, it is utterly in- capable of successful generalization;" and he adds the significant question—" In the progress of the history of remedies, when are we able to produce a discovery or improvement which has been the result of that happy combination of observation, analogy- and experiment, which has so eminently rewarded the labours of modern science?" This question he leaves unanswered, and it is evidently unanswerable by any Allopath, however scientific, how- ever learned he may be. But it has been answered by Hahnemann, and it is daily answered by every Homoeopath. We may well ask how it happens, that amid the infinity of fictions with which the Allopathic Materia Medica notoriously and confessedly abounds, how it can have any, the very slightest pretension to the rank of a Science? It would be an easy task to multiply authorities, to prove what the learned and conscientious of the Allopathic school, have in all ages admitted and lamented. Girtanner says—" Our Materia Medica is a mere collection of fallacious and absurd ob- servations," and Hoffman, the Father of Modern Pathology, says —" Very few are the medicines, whose virtues and operations are certain ; but very many are those which are utterly false, sus- picious, and fictitious." Our fellow-citizen, Dr. James Rush, the author of the " Philo- sophy of the Human Voice," and a worthy scion of his illustrious father, says—" It seems to be one of the rules of faith in our art, that every truth must be helped into belief by some persuasive fiction of the schools; and I confess, so far as I know, the medical profession can scarcely produce a single volume in its practical department, from the works of Hippocrates, down to the last made text-book—which by the requisitions of an exact philosophy—will not be found to contain as much fiction, as truth. There are tests for all things. Now, a dangerous epidemic always shows the dif- ference between the strong and the weak, the candid and the crafty, among physicians. It is equally true, that the same occa- sion displays, even to the common observer, the real condition of their art—whether its precepts are exact, or indefinite, and its practice consistent, or contradictory. Upon these points, and bearing in mind that we have now, in medicine, the recorded science and practice of more than two thousand years—let the 13 reader refer to the proceedings of the medical profession, during the prevalence of the Asiatic Cholera—and he will find their history every where exhibiting an extraordinary picture of pre- faratory panic, vulgar wonder, doubt, ignorance, obtrusive vanity, plans for profit and popularity, fatal blunders, distracting contra- dictions, and egregious empiricism—of ten thousand books upon the subject, with still an unsatisfied call for more—of experience, (so-called) fairly frightened out of all his former convictions; and of costly missions after moonshine, returning only with clouds. Now, I do assert, that no Art, which has a sufficiency of truth, and the least logical precision, can ever wear a face so mournfully grotesque as this. In most of the transactions of men, there is something like mutual understanding, and collective agreement; on some points at least. But the history of the cholera, summed up from the four quarters of the earth, presents only one tumul- tuous Babel of opinion, and one unavailable farrago of practice. This, even the populace learned from the daily papers, and they hooted at us accordingly. But it is equally true, that if the in- quisitive fears of the community were to bring the real state of professional medicine to the bar of public discussion, and thus array the vanity and interests of physicians in the contest of opinion, we should find the folly and confusion, scarcely less re- markable, on nearly all the other topics of our art. Whence comes all this ? Not from exact observation, which assimilates our minds to one consenting usefulness—but from Fiction—which individualizes each of us to our solitary conceit, or herds us into sects, for idle or mischievous contention with each other—which leads to continual imposition on the public, inasmuch as fictions, for a time, always draw more listeners than truth—which so gene- rally gives to the mediocrity of men, and sometimes even to the palpably weak, a leading influence in our profession, and which helps the impostures of the advertising quack who, being an unavoidable product of the pretending theories of the schools, may be called a physician, with the requisite amount of fictions, but without respectability. In view of the above recorded opinions of such distinguished Allopaths, and also in view of the fact that there is not a cure recorded in the books from Hippocrates to Hahnemann, which cannot be proven to have been an Homoeopathic cure, it is passing strange, that our fellow-citizens will still submit to be drugged by 14 the dominant school—dominant at present, but destined, ere many years, to hear the prophetic voice, in Mene, Mcne, Tekel, Upharsin. The above picture of the irrationality, the ab'surdity, and the confused and contradictory prescriptions of the Allopaths, drawn by a master mind, is truly disgraceful, and of itself is sufficient to inflict a death blow upon that system—or rather no system. How different the practice of the true, rational and scientific school of medicine—the Homoeopathic. Guided by one immutable law, they had but one mode of practice, and under this mode they saved 75 per cent, of their patients, while Allopathy, with its seventy or eighty different and discordant modes of practice, only saved 48 per cent, of theirs. Why this immense difference? Simply because the Homoeopaths had a law to guide them; the Allopaths were guided by a hundred discordant theories. In short, the Homoeopaths had found the desideratum, the long-sought- for Key-stone of the Arch of Medical Science. A grand thera- peutic law, which has given, and will continue to give, a consis- tency, a strength, and a beauty to medicine, which for the first time in the history of the world, it has ever had, and which, but for the discovery of the immortal Hahnemann, it never would have had, so long as this globe endured. Dr. Bushnan, an English Allopath, in writing the history of the cholera as it appeared in Great Britain, gives us a picture of the practice there, still more absurd and unscientific than that described by Dr. Rush, and many other distinguished authors. He says the infallible specifics were "pitch, sulphur, carbon, and phosphorus, gold, silver, zinc, and lead, strychnine, salicine, cannabine, and morphine, hachshish, and Thorabia; abstraction of blood, and in- jection of blood: perfect repose, and incessant motion. To the skin irritation the most severe, and applications the most soothing; stimulants the most violent, sedatives the most powerful; inhala- tion and flagellation." But if these are the simple, what are the complex methods which have been proposed? A combination of all the absurdities contained in the foregoing. " One physician, and quite a noted one, administered the following:—Port wine, calo- mel, opium, sulphate of potash, powdered ipecacuanha, spirits of nitric ether, cardamom seeds, raisins, carraway seeds, cinnamon, cochineal, camphor, aniseed, storax, benzoic acid, benzoin, balsam of tolu, aloes, rhubarb, sal volatile, potash, ipecacuanha wine, bi- borate of soda, oxide of bismuth, spirits of wine, nitrate of silver, 15 tartar emetic, bismuth, columba, canella, sulphuric ether, cayenne and brandy;" polypharmacy this with a vengeance; science, no doubt, and rational in the eyes of Allopathy. But only fancy all this abominable mixture administered to the same unfortunate sto- mach, in less than forty-eight hours, and it will then cause you no surprise to hear that all the patients of this noted physician, left this world for a better. Homoeopathy, then, gentlemen, is not a new system of medicine, but it most unquestionably is, a new system of therapeutics. It is in medicine the science of therapeutics; and it is a science which, though not as yet full and perfect in its development, claims for itself; and announces the principle with its practical application, through which specific remedies, yet undiscovered, may be ulti- mately found for the diversified forms of disease, which afflict the human race. All that I have above said, is amply sufficient to place in a clear light, the all-important truth, that all which is essential to the ex- istence of Homoeopathy, in its great radical principle, similia simili- bus, and those who hope to vanquish Homoeopathy must direct their blows at this, and not waste their time and their energies, as heretofore, upon the outworks, the parasitic productions of mis- guided zeal, or of their own prolific imaginations. 3 Though scarce sixty years have elapsed since the promulgation of the law of Homoeopathy, it already numbers among its adherents, a more numerous band of devoted cultivators, than can be found among the various and discordant sects into which Allopathy is divided. That these modernized relics of scholastic antiquity are doomed to the fate of their predecessors, is as certain as that the ni»-ht of error must give place to the day-spring of truth. Equally certain is it, that Homoeopathy is destined to flourish, until the whole family of man be made recipients of its fruits. " Coming events cast their shadows before," and on both sides of the broad Atlantic, as well as throughout the habitable globe, we see a har- binger of the consummation, "so devoutly to be wished," in the increased withdrawal of patronage from Allopathy, and in the equally increased patronage bestowed upon Homoeopathy, not only by the wise, the learned, and the wealthy, but also by the humble, the lowly and the poor, who crowd our hospitals and dispensaries. Dr. S. Jackson, in one of his introductories in the University of Pennsylvania, makes the following remarks:— 16 "Ie the regular (or Allopathic) practice, the treatment of dis- ease has too much degenerated into a blind routine, pursued in nearly every disease, however dissimilar in nature." This remark we all well know to be perfectly true, and it is equally well known to all those who are unfortunate enough to fall under the care of an Allopath, no matter what the disease, a purgative, or an emetic, or a tonic, is at once administered; calomel, quinine, opium, and tartar emetic. Take these from the immense majority of the Al- lopathic practitioners, and they are unable to practise. Add to the above venesection, and you have a picture of the practice of nine-tenths of the Old School. In a pamphlet published this year in Edinburgh, by an Allo- pathic physician, there appears the following, which I quote to prove to you the estimate put upon Allopathy, by the wise and learned of that School. " What medicine wants to become a pro- gressive art of healing, is a fundamental principle, a ruling general law, and this is what the celebrated Sydenham clearly perceived in his day, and demanded. Sydenham shows this general law can neither be a physiological nor a pathological law, but that it must necessarily be a therapeutical law." The writer then proceeds to show how the Allopathic Materia Medica is altogether worthless, and unreliable from want of such a principle or law. He says, "Seen in her own light, this modern orthodox scientific medicine is sitting on a mighty eminence, and all the nations of the world are listening with reverential awe to the words of almost superna- tural wisdom, that distil from her academic lips. But, as we see her in reality, she is a deformed and sinister old woman, in a very tattered black gown, standing supported by a crutch and a staff, vending her compounds in the market place, surrounded by a crowd of women and children, who still listen attentively to her ha- rangues, and purchase extensively her nauseous compounds; but many of the rising, and not a few of the manly adult generation, smile significantly, as they pause for a moment in passing; for this is what the impudent old woman says: Here are the alteratives, the anti-phlogistics, the anti-spasmodics, the anti-syphilitics, the anthelmintics, the astringents, the cathartics, the cholagogues, the corrosives, the demulcents, the deobstruents, the diaphoretics, the diuretics, the emmenagogues, the emetics, the errhines, the expec- torants, the hypnotics, the irritants, the refrigerants, the sedatives, the sialagogues, the stimulants, the contra-stimulants, the narcotics, 17 the tonics, at any price you please, from a guinea to a shilling; nerves to mend, scabbed heads to mend, kidneys to mend, livers to mend, stomachs to mend, bellows to mend, nonsense to mend." " Such a view (he concludes) of our standard therapeutics, when joined to an exposition of the methods of the schools, leads most inevitably to the conclusion that orthodox medicine is rotten to the very core, and it is apparent to all thinking minds, to all truly scientific physicians, that no scientific or philosophic tinkering can ever (as some of us once vainly imagined,) make the unsound wo- man whole. She must, sooner or later, die, and be removed out of the way. She can never mend, and must therefore end.'\ Thus we clearly perceive the question is narrowed among the wise, the learned, and the clear-sighted of the old school, to what the Homoeopaths have long contended for. No sophistical shirk- ing will now avail. No youn£ physic. No legitimate medicine. No Physiological, no Pathological school, can command a cohe- rent body of followers. These names are considered as pure as- sumptions, evasions of the great question; they have been dis- covered to be shams, and will no longer serve the purpose of their inventors. The battle must be fought on the simple issue,-Is the principle of Homoeopathy the law of specifics or not? This Allopathic writer also defends the authenticity of the sta- tistics of Fleischman of the Homoeopathic Hospital of A ienna, which you are aware have been impugned by Hooker, Lee, Simpson, Wood and Gairdner in the following words :-« During a late resi- dence in Vienna, I satisfied myself, on the testimony of numerous Allopathic physicians there, that the statistics of Dr. Fleischman are as far above suspicion as any other statistics, and as free from sources of fallacy, as any data of this kind. The more they are investigated by impartial persons on the spot, the more does the belief in their veracity gain ground, and the flatulent essays and cobbled pamphlets are entitled to little weight, which have been written expressly to persuade the public of the contrary, by those who have not courted the means of obtaining impartial testimony on this subject. Vienna Homoeopathic statistics have long since bee subjected on the spot, in Vienna itself, to much keener scrutinv than that of certain Edinburgh owls, who have lately peered at them from a safe distance, through the Presbyopic spec- tacles of a foregone conclusion." ,_,.,.« Allnnoth Such a pamphlet as this from an educated and scientific Allopath, 18 is most cheering to the lovers of truth, to all Homoeopaths, and is, of itself, a full and explicit answer to all the claims of orthodoxy, legitimacy, and rationality, set up by the Allopathic school. The experience of ages proves, that for a long series of years, humanity and science have been importunately repeating three great claims to the Medical profession. The first of these is—that none be admitted to the ministry of an Art professing to control the mysterious phenomena of life, un- less deeply imbued with the spirit and doctrine of that philosophy, whose fundamental principle asserts, " that man, the servant and interpreter of nature, understands and reduces to practice, just so much as he has actually experienced of nature's laws—more, he can neither know nor achieve." It has been asserted by many of the wisest of our Medical Ancestors, that without this principle of vi- tality pervading all medical education, a medical license to prac- tise, is but little better than a legal license to destroy. If we, however, look to the practical evidence of the annals of medicine, we shall be convinced, that, down to the era of Hahnemann, this claim has been, with few exceptions, virtually disregarded by the teachers of our art. The second of these great claims, urged by science and humanity, is an imperative demand of a rigid application of the principles of Inductive Philosophy to the study of the laws of life, and The third is—in the administration of our art, a firm adherence to the laws of life, established by rigid induction, as the only re- velation of nature, of which man can rationally avail himself for the preservation of health, and the removal of disease*. The history of Medicine from Hippocrates to Hahnemann, proves that there never was a single general law in practice of universal authority. It is susceptible of demonstrative proof—that so late as the close of the 18th century,—"The theoretical knowledge of the physician was reduced to nothing at the bed-side of the sick, and that his practical skill resided entirely in a sort of instinctive acuteness " that " the most happy views were less the effects of reasoning, than of inspiration." And consequently, that our Art has been heretofore administered, irrespective, and in violation of the only laws which humanity and science can acknowledge for the government of the conscientious practitioner. We therefore finally arrive at the conclusion, which appears ir- 19 resistible, that agents, or medicines indicated by the Homoeopathic Law are the only appropriate means of removing disease. Let the laws of man's nature, as a totality, be clearly displayed. Let the laws of Physiological and Pathological man be developed as one harmonious system, and we have plainly before us esta- blished principles of education, moral, intellectual, and physical. However men may differ in their theoretical views, the para- mount importance of the Laws of Life, and of Life's phenomena, are conceded by all, and cannot but inspire the most generous emu- lation, full of promise for the future. For us, in these United States, with civil institutions whose first element is freedom of thought, with a profession on which the hopes of humanity are suspended, and a field of inquiry, as yet almost untrodden,—Our course henceforth is onward, our motto—Excel- sior.