>. >£v\ ( A COURSE OF FIFTEEN" JLECTURES, ON SUBIDIKBAIL aJSWDAH^ ' DENOMINATED THOMSON'S NEW THEORY OF MEDICAL PRACTICE ; W WHICH THE VARIOUS THEORIES THAT HAVE PRECEDED IT ARE REVIEWED AND COMPARED. DELIVERED IN CINCINNATI, OHIO, BY HAMUEIi ROBINSON. There are herbs to cure all diseases, though not 09017 where known............Dr~. Rat. The Flora of our country will yet so enlarge and estab- lish her dominion, as to supercede the necessity of all othei remedies.........Dr. Mitchell. Omnibus in terris, qua sunt a Gadibus usque— Auroram et Gangem,pauci dignosccrepossunt Vera bona, atque illis wultuni diversa remota Error is nebvla.....Juv. Sat. With Introductory Remarks by the Proprietor. COLUMBUS: PUBLISHED BY PIKE, PLATT AMD OO. JL. L. LEWIS......PRINTER. 1S32. DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS, TO WIT. ) DISTRICT CLERK'S OFFICE. f ~a~ j TciE IT REMEMBERED, that on the twenty L.S. > 43 eighth day of October, in the year of our ~v~ * Loin*, one thousand eight hundred thirty, and in the fifty-fi th year of American Independence, Samuel Thomson, of said District, deposited in this office, the ti- tle of a book, the riirht whereof he claims as proprietor, in the words following-, to wit: " A course of Fifteen Lectures on Medical Botany, de- nominated Thomson's New Theory of Medical practice, In which the various Theories that have preceded it, ara reviewed and compared. Delivered in Cincinnati, Ohio, by Samuel Robinson. There are herbs to cure all diseases though not every where known. Dr. Ray. The Flora of our country will yet so enlarge and es- tablish her dominions, as to supercede the necessity of all other remedies. Dr. Mitchfll. Omnibus in terris, quae sunt a Gadibus usque— Auroram et Gangem, pauci dignoscere possunt Vera bona, alque illi3 multum diversa rcmota Erroris nebula. With introductory remarks by the proprietor." In conformity to the act of Congress of the United States of America, entitled " An act for the encourage- ment of learning-, by securing the copies of Maps. Charta and Books, to the authors and proprietors of siuh copies during the times therein mentioned." And also of the act entitled "An act supplementary to an act, entitled An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned; and extending tne benefits thereof to the arta ol designing, engiaving and etching historical and other prints." J NO. W. DAVIS, Clerk of the District of Massachusetts. To the Reader. A combination of causes induced me to examine the System of Medical Botany, and deliver this course of Lectures. Of the character of an author, I am neither ambitious nor repugnant. Were the items summed together, " of all all that creep and all that soar," in this department of Literature, the amount of remuneration might not be very seduc- tive. I am but a pioneer in a path unknown, and may have stumbled in my course, or failed to clear the way ; still I am persuaded enough has been done, to excite tho attention of the curious, and rouse the penetration of the profound. Of all the interests of this mortal life, the preservation and care of health, is one of the most important and ab- sorbing. Without it, existence is a burthen ; days and nights, and times and seasons, perform their revolutions, spread abroad their beauties, and ex- hibit their varieties in vain. If, in any thing, there- fore, I have contributed to relieve the maladies of the human race, by directing them to a mode of practice safe and salutary, at once within the reach of their attainments and pecuniary resources, I shall feel the highest gratification. I know the subject on which I have discoursed, is one highly unpopular; and may subject me to the reproach of some of my bestfriends: But the dieia cast, and the ordeal I am willing to encounter. From the conviction, that even though I should have failed, the cause itself, is susceptible of <;vast ira- , 1* 4 provement, and progressive elevation, I shall de- rive a solace which cannot be taken away. The prospects of ultimate success, and the view of con- ferring future benefits on society will fortify the mind against the danger of many evils, and the apprehension of the bitterness of censure. It will obtund the keen edge of sarcasm, and defeat the purposes of malignity, to know that we are serving the, cause of humanity and truth: For though the lip of scorn is hard to bear; as we instinctively love fame, and desire to stand high in public estimation; yet there is a higher source of happine&s than the applauses of the world. With a mind perhaps as deeply imbued with sensibility as generally falls to the lot of mortals, I was never much afraid of any thing but the reproaches of my own heart. Let me have but the approbation of that invisible tribunal, and I feel as secure from every pointed dart, as the Grecian warrior under the shield and armor of Achilles. The (physicians, of whom I was obliged to speak, I have spoken with kindness and candor. I have treated them with much more deference than they have accorded to each other. To reflect on a whole community and succession of learned and eminent men might appear to the inconsiderate, as the very essence of madnees and folly. And so it was said, when Galielo attacked the Ptolemaic system of the heavens, and Lord Bacon the dialectics of Ar- istotle. Great names may give splendor to error, but cannot transform it into truth. And let it be remembered, J have not made an attack upon the Faculty ; they, themselves, have alternately made it on each other. I have merely introduced passages from their own writings for the sake of argument and illustration. They have all Bdaaittci! the uncertainty ol medical practice, and 5 its great susceptibility of improvement and redue- tion. To spurn the humule eiibrts of a fellow la- borer, willing to toil i:i removing the rubbish and re-edifying the superstructure, would neither b« patriotic nor philosophical. Let every ray of truth shineupon a subject confessedly obscure—let every improvement and discovery be cast into the balance, so long and fatally fnu.d wanting'—l*-t all come for.vj.rd, from every corner of the Und, to aid in the reduction of the great sum of human misery suffer- ed by disease, and close up by all the powers of hu- man skill, the avenues of death. In this cause I have been laboring, and to this end I have directed my efforts; with what success let others testify. I now bid the reader farewell— with this single assurance, that if in any thing I have erred, or have been mistaken or deceived, or have set down aught in malice, let it be shown; let any point it out with kindness and candor, and " Cuncta recantabo maledicta, priora rependam Laudibus, et vestrum nomen in astra feram." S. ROBINSON, Proprietor's Introduction. The following course of Lectures were delivered during the last year at Cincinnati, Ohio, voluntarily, without the knowledge of the author of the Thom- sonian System, he being at the time a thousand miles distant from that place. The writer had no other knowledge of the system than what he ob- tained from a few books that had fallen into his hands on the subject, and his personal observation of the success of the practice. He has treated the subjects with much candor and impartiality, and discovers himself to be a man of learning, and well acquainted with the theories and practice of the regular physicians. He is entitled to the thanks of the author of the Botanic System, and all those who take an interest in its success. An edition of the work it was thought would be useful, and would be read with pleasure and profit by the friends of the system, to whom it is recommended, as also to the perusal of the public generally. Boston, October 1830. COURSE OP LEC?I7P.ES. LECTURE I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. Ladies and Gentlemen: We have assembled on this evening, for the purpose of introducing a course of Lectures on Medical Botany — generally denominated ^Thom- son's System of Medicine. I am well aware that the prejud ices existing against it are numerous and strong: and so they have been against every new discovery, or invention, since the beginning of the world. Since the day that Noah built the ark, and had to encounter the mockery and scorn of the Antideluvian race, till the present hour, obliquy and proscription have assailed every new and untried experiment of man. This spirit forms one of the most unseemly traits in the human character. It indicates a state of mind, neither resting for success on the resources of its own power, nor relying on the superintend- ing care of a just, a wise, and holy Providence. Because we ourselves are not first in the discovery —or because it might militate against our interests— we would wish it buried —yes ! — no matter how useful or benevolent! — we would wish it forever buried in the cave of the Cyclopes. 8 Pride and presumption lie at the foundation of all this hostility. It presumes, either that all which can be known is already discovered ; or that our own fair fame must not be tarnished by the superior penetration of exalted minds. If we had humility to remember, that the progress of mind is endless as duration—;:nd the question of the inspired Eli- nv, " who hath searched out the works of the Al- mighty to perfection 1" we might be willing to concede to others, with all complacency, the signal honor of having added one single item to the great sum of human knowledge. Let us remember, in the language of an eloquent writer, that pride is unstable and seldom the same. That she feeds upon opinion, and is fickle as her food. She builds her lofty structures on a sandy foundation—the applause of beings every moment liable to change. But virtue is uniform and per- manent ; and fixed upon a rock are the towers of her habitation: For she looks for approbation only to Hui, who is the same, yesterday, to-day, and forever. The road to glory would cease to be arduous if it were trite and trodden. Great minds are not only ready to seize upon opportunities, but they make them themselves. Alexander forced the Pytheau Priestess on the Tripod, on a forbidden day—the Pythia exclaimed " my son, thou art invincible." It was all the Oracle the warrior desired! On an- other occasion, he cut the Gordian Knot, which others had endeavored to untie in vain—and thus accomplished the oracle which ascribed to him the Empire of Asia. Nelson, when the statue of Victory was holding her laurel wreaths in either hand uncertain where to bestow them—N;:lso;j seized upon both! Those who start in the career of glory, must, like the mettled 6teeds of AcUeon, 9 per sue the game not only where there are paths, but where there are none. For it is given to man, and is the high distinction of his mental powers, not only to explore the whole [ circle of human science — but passing that awful and venenljlc limit—bearing in his hand the torch of intellect—enter alone, the trackless wilderness, untrodden by mortal feet—to travel on a path which the vulture's eye hath not see i, nor the lion's whelp* trodden, nor hath the fierce lion passed thereon. Enclosed on every side by the magnificent scenery of Jehovah's works — he may exclaim with the Prophet, the works of the Lord are great, and sought out by all that take pleasure in them! It is sweet and dear to the mind,the acquirement of knowledge. But in the acquisition of a new truth, gained by the efforts of our own industry, there is a sort of holy and divine unction, which is not to be obtained by wisdom derived from the la- bor of others. From the very nature of our immaterial struc- ture, and every thing gleaned from its operations, we are well assured that wisdom is progressive and eternal: That our highest attainments are but as the perception of infants, crawling on the very threshold of being, in comparison of that knowledge of Jehovah, his works and ways, that shall pour its radiance on the unclouded inteltect of man, as he rises from the blow of death, and wings his mighty aud majestic flight amidst the boundless splendors of eternal, worlds ; where he shall look on that in- eflible glory, of which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the magnificence of its uncreated beams ! % The inspired writer, from the awful elevation of the third heaven, suddenly dropt his wing, and cut short the history of his visions, at the awful re- 10 membrance of that overwhelming sight of dazzling splendor, which filled his soul with silence and adoration.' If the wise and learned only were to make dis- coveries, it could be borne—a strong prejudice and opposition would be rooted from the mind. But that the illiterate, the mere plough-boy, and the peasant—a man like Samukl Thomson, who had spent his life among the clods of the valley—and himself but little suporior to the dust he walked on—that he should pretend to make discoveries in the science of medicine; and invent forms, arxdmed- icines, and rules, to enlighten its exclusive and profound professors—is not to be endured by men, proud of their high attainments, and fortified by all the tenacity of systemi If I might quote the poet Burns, in this serious discourse, it might be of service to them who think more highly of themselves than they ought to think. In his address to the unco guid and the rigid right- eous, the poet was endeavoring to cast the mantle of his charity over the poor, fallen daughters of misfortune—and thus addresses the proud matrons of Scotland : " Ye high exalted virtuous dames, Ty'd up in^godly laces, Before ye gie poor frailty names, Suppose a change of cases. A dearlov'd lad"------ But I desist—you may read for yourselves. Let the brightest son of medical science, suppose a change of cases with Dr. Thomson, and but for the care of that good* and holy Providence, of whom perhaps, he has never acknowledged the existence he might have been consigned to the plough-tail' 11 and Dr. Thomson to the wisdom of the schools.— And thus situated, would he have considered it a crime in himself to have forced his way through all the asperities of nature, the obstructions of poverty, the absence af education, and the iron and heavy hand—the combined phalanx—of science, of wealth, and power, and popularity, arrayed against him, to spurn, to trample him down, and crush him to the earth, and plunge him in oblivion forever!—would he have thought it criminal in himself to resist this terrible array, to rise superior to the blow that would have cloven hiSj fortunes down; and by the unaided innate vigor oiThis own intellect, have for- ced his way, in despite of enemies to wealth, and rank, and fame, and taken his station amongst the benefactors of the'human race"? No, I am persua- ded he would not; for it is the very path in which superior minds do most delight to travel—the un- tried, stormy journey of perilous adventure—accor- ding to the saying of that modern sage, Dr. John- son, "The man that can submit to trudge behind, was never made to walk before." Beyond all this, we are presented with solemn facts from history, to shew us that, perhaps, the learned are as much indebted: to the illiterate, for their observations, as the latter to the former for their science. They are equally necessary to each other, in forming the sum of human things—from "The poor Indian whose untutored mind, Sees God in clouds, and hears him in the wind." to the soaring spirit of the philosopher, traversing the starry sky. In vain do enlightened nations boast, that they have gathered within themselve all the arts and sciences. The earth is covered over with vegeta- 12 bles and animals, the simple vocabulary of which, no scholar, no academy, no nation, whatever, will ever be able perfectly to acquire. No, nor all the human race, in their united wisdom, shall be ever able to rind out the limits, the name and nature of her innumerable millions! We, therefore, with all humility, in consideration of our profound ignorance, ehould Le willing to glean from every source, Which promises an acces- sion to the stock of our materials. "And it is to savages,—to men utterly unknown, —that we are indebted for the first observations which are the sources of iul science. It was nei- ther to the witty and the polished Greeks, nor the grave and stately Romans,—but to nations which we denominate barbarous, that we are indebted for the use of simples, of bread, of wine, of domestic animals, of cloths, of dyes for cloths, of metals ; and for every thing most useful and most agreeable for human life. Modern Europe may glory in her dis- coveries; but the Art of Printing, which ought to immortalize the inventor, has been ascribed to a person so obscure, that the world could scarcely fix upon his name, or ascertain his identity ; so that several cities of Holland, of Germany, and even China, laid claim to the discovery as their own ! Galileo would have never weighed and calcula- ted the gravity of the air, but for the casual obser- vation of a fountain-player, who observed in his presence, that water could only rise thirty-two feet in a forcing engine. And the sublime Newton would have never read these heavens, but for the occurrence of some children, in the L;le of Zealand, playing with the glasses of a spectacle-maker; which first suggested to him the idea of the tele- scopic cylinder; And perhaps the arms of Europe would have never been able to have subdued Amer- 13 ica, had not an obscure monk made the discovery of gunpowdjr. And whatever glory Spain may attribute to her- self for that discovery—the nation of the East,—the savages of Asia,—had founded mighty Empires, of splender and renown, over that vast continent, which Spain could never rival, notwithstanding her boasted wisdom and erudition L And the great dis- coverer himself, Christopher Columbus,—whose name this vast portion of the globe shall bear upon its bosom to immortality,—would have perished with all his followers—and his discoveries perished in the ocean with him,—had not the kind hospital- ity of the simple oborigines'furnished him with food. " It was the fortuitous observation of the Colonel of a marching regiment, which instructed the great Sydenham in the utility c-f bleeding in inflammatory fevers!" Let, then, academies and schools accumulate their machines, and models, and books, and systems, and eulogiums; the chief praise of all is due to the ignorant who furnished the first materials! And let those who have reached a boundary at which thsy have designed to stop, not envy, nor impede the progress of him, who is determined to press forward till his journey shall end in the dark valley of the shadow of death. Amidst all the innumerable branches of knowl- edge, which solicit the attention of the human mind, there can be none of so much importance, religion only excepted, as that which shall constitute the subject of the following Lectures—the Healing Art. For the soul in a diseased body, like the martyr in his dungeon, may retain its value, but has lost its usefulness ! Such is the nuture of man, under the strong pow- er of sense and sympathy; influenced by all the 14 elements around him, and the energies of thought within nim—wearing out his mortal covering—sap- ping the foundations of his house of clay—while the passions pour a continual storm upon the wheels of life. Thus circumstanced, and impelled forward by the combined action of so many agents, to that "bourne from whence no traveller returns"—it is not astonishing if man, although the soul is so much superior to the body, should bestow upon the care of the latter, the principal portion of his la- bors and his life. Medicine is therefore a study, not only of curious inquiry, but of deep interest, to families and indi- viduals, who, after ail that has been done by its professors, ought, in fact, to be their own physi- cians. And this great desideratum Dr. Thomson professes to aid and establish, by his own discove- ries. To promote health of body and tranquility of mind, the sages of antiquity labored with the most severe and incessant toil. They studied the con- stitution of man, that they might find out the seat of his maladies, and the sources of his misery. To assuage the sorrows of the heart, and lift the load of melancholy from the desponding mind; to restore to the wounded spirit its elasticity and vig- or; they exhausted all the powers of reason, and all the arguments and arts of their divine philoso- phy. Sometimes they succeeded but they often tailed. It was from a deep sense of the inadequa- cy of their feeble powers to eradicate the disorders of the n.ind, that led them to look for divine suc- cor, to that benevolent Being, who sits upon the eircle of the heavens, and showers his mercies down upon the world. And this aid was not im- plored in vain. The day arrived. The veil of su- perstition was rent in fragments. The Apostle, 15 from the hill of Mars, led them to the knowledge of their unknown God. He conducted them to tho infinite sources of wisdom and consolation, in Him in whom there is fulness of joy, and at whose right hand are pleasures forever more. In their application to the diseases of the body, the Greeks were more successful than in their ap- plications to the mind. And if we may believe the current testimony of ancient writers, they had more power over their patients, in stemming the inroads of dissolution, than the moderns have ob- tained after all the improvements of advancing sci- \ ence. It is certain, they often arrested the career of death when he appeared in his most awful and terrific forms. Athens was rescued from the plague by the skill of a single man! It was in the commencement of the second year of the Peloponesian war, that the plague broke out in Athens; and never before had this dreadful scourge of the human race, ravaged so many coun- tries and climes. Rising on the burning brow of Africa, through Ethiopia, Egypt, Lybia, and Per- sia, Syria, and Cyprus, and Lemnos, together with many other places of Asia and isles of the ^Egean sea, it held its dreadful and desolating course. The nations stood appalled in its presence, and thou- sands perished by its breath ! A merchant vessel landing in the Piraeus, brought the disease to Ath- ens; and this fell destroyer raged with a fury be- fore unknown, over that celebrated city, Minerva. : Its fearful and rapid progress seemed to bid defi- ance to all mortal skill. From the first attack of the disease, the powers of the mind seemed blotted out, while the body acquired new and additional strength; as if the enemy, on purpose, had aug- mented the power to suffer. The torment was ter- rible. The sick were seized with despair, and the 16 nund confounded with madnes?. All the laws of equity and social order were trampled down.— Scenes of riot and confusion, and reckless cumult, surrounded the march of Death! The diseased were first smitten in the head ; from this the mala- dy passed down through the whole body, leaving in one shapeless, ruined mass, that noble form di- vine. But. the sufferers seldom waited for this ter- rible catastrophe; but, in the beginning, in the fu- ry of distraction, plunged into wells, rivers, and the sea, to quench the consuming fire that devoured within them ! It was in this awful crisis of her ruin, that one man—one single jnan—skilled in the use of those divine remedies, which the Cod of Nature has lodg- ed in the herbs and flowers of the field, entered the devoted city, and shook off, with a giant's strength, the deadly grasp of the destroyer. The sound of his very name poured hope and consolation through the torn bosom, filled with the agonies of despair! This man was the far famed Uippocrai i:s. He dwelt in the island of Cos. At the breaking out of the plague in Persia, Artaxerxes the great, king of the empire, wrote to the physician to hasten to the relief of his dominions. He allured him by the most magnificent promises ; the most splendid of- fers of wealth and honors. But the physician re- plied to the great king, that he had neither wants nor desires; and he owed his sevice, and his skill, whatever they might be,to his country rather than to her enemies ! This magnanimous reply so enraged the monarch, that he sent a squadron to bring him by force of arms; but Hippocrates had sailed for Ath- ens. Ami the power of his lame upon the mind, and his skill over the body, scattered the shadows of death, and 6hed around him a radiance of joy and hope, as if an angel's visit had lighted upon the city. 17 To purify the air, he caused large fires to be kin- dled in all the streets and lanes of Athens. And to relieve the suffering from the consuming heat which devoured their entrails, he placed them in warm baths, to expel the infection by the Burface of the skin; and, to support their weak- ness, caused them to drink of the rich wines of Naxos. These great examples of success and diligence in the healing art, to discover and apply new modes of cure, when we find all the common and established forms baffled and confounded, should dispose us to cherish, as the martyr would his iaith, whatever discovery may be calculated to deliver us, by a short and simple process, from the long train of dis- eases entailed upon our fallen race. Before Hip- pocrates arrived, all the physicians of Athens had either fled or fallen with their victims. They had no success. Their practice seemed rather to aggra- vate than to remedy the miseries of the dying.— Why had Hippocrates so much control over the pes- tilence'? Because he applied a new method of relief; one that seemed to 6trike down} at once, the strong hold of the destroyer! From all these considerations, and from the fact, that the healing art is yet in its infancy, by the con- fession of its most successful and celebrated practi- tioners ; the great and venerable Dr. Rush com- pares it to an unroofed temple:—Uncovered at the top, and cracked at the foundation—unless you ad- mit his own theory of animal life, as a sure and soK id basis—for he scatters, like atoms in the sun beam, all the systems of pathology, that have gone before him ; from all these, we ought to deeply pon- der the peradventures which Providence may eli- cit, by any means, to diminish the sum of misery, 18 before we spurn from us, what has been discovered, tried, and found effectual. After bewailing the defects and disasters of med- ical science, Dr. Rush consoled himself with the animating prospects of that hope, which he often proclaimed from his desk—that the day would ar- rive, when medical knowledge should have attain- ed to that apex of perfection, that it would be able to remove all the diseases of man; and leave not for life a single outlet, a single door of retreat, but old age; for such is my confidence, said he, in the be- nevolence of the Deity, that he has placed on earth remedies for all the maladies of man. I remem- ber still, with a thrill of love and gratitude, to that admired and venerable professor, with whatenthu- siam and transport, and prophetic vehemence, he used to pronounce that sentiment at the close of his lectures. His confidence in the benevolence of that Deity was boundless; and his own. soul largely partook of that divine character of the Almighty. We shall not, shortly, look upon his like again.— Quam de invenientparem? The influence of thjs hope, so feelingly expressed and deeply felt,*by every noble mind, that all dis- eases shall yet yield to the power of medicine, in its perfect state, ought to be abundantly sufficient to determine us to examine with candor, every new discovery, that is presented by the care and expe- rience of man, whatever may be his state or condi- tion in life. Great men are not alway wise; and the very meanest is not beneath the care of a kind Providene, nor the influence of his holy spirit. " For thy kind heavenly father bends his eye, On the least wing that flits across the sky." And if, perchance, the grand Panacea shall be at 19 last found—that Moly of the Egyptians, and Elix- ir of the Greeks—who would not deem himself more honored by contributing the smallest item to the great discovery for relieving the wretchedness of the human race, than if he had bestowed upon him the Empire of the world.' 1 saw one fever rage, and prostrate its victim, over which the physician's skill had no influence. To have saved that life, to me so precious, I Would have given the universe, had I possessed it, and would have considered it but as dust in the balance. No doubt others feel as I do. And if the period shall arrive, when the heart strings shall no more be torn, and lacerated, who would not exult in the joyful anticipations of that coming day 1 And this dream of a universal medicine, which has pervaded the nations of the earth, since the days of Isis and Osiris, is not alia dream—-for the days shall come, saith the Lord, when there shall be nothing to hurt, or annoy, in my holy mountain. No pain to hurt, nor sickness to annoy. But whether diseases shall be banished from the globe, in that glorious period of the Millenium ; or the grand catholicon be discovered, to remove them, the data do not determine. But this we know, the earth shall have health and peace; and Dr. Rush's hope will be fulfilled, even beyond the lim- its of his most sanguine expectations; for the child shall die an hundred years ojd. It is the purpose of this course of lectures, to lay before the people, a succinct account of Thomson's System of Medicine, that they may judge from the mode and the results of this new practice, of its fair and honest claims to the public confidence and ad- miration. There is no design to gild over errors, nor to mislead the minds of the unwary. We shall submit it, simply, in its own merits, to the grand 20 enterion of all new discoveries—the understanding and reason of man. Whatever is true and valua- ble, let it be retained; but if there be any thing false or pernicious, let it be given to the winds; or discarded to that oblivion, where ail have per- ished that could not brook the light! And in thus submitting the "New Guide to Health," to the public scrutiny of their fellow citi- zens, the friends and followers of Dr. Thomson, have pursued the path marked out to them by many of the greatest men of antiquity; who often turned aside from the forms and dogmas of the sch6ols, or submited their cause to the tribunal of public opinion. And they were never deceived; For God has lodg- ed the fund of common sense in the mass of the as- sembled multitude. These assemblies were dear to every land of liberty; and it was on the appeal to that assembly, and its decisions, that the ancients established the maxim, so often in thei jmouth, Vox populi, vox Dei. The voice of the people is the voice of God. Dr. Thomson says, " It has long been a subject in which I have taken a deep interest, to publish some- thing not only useful to the world, but also, that would convey to them my system of practice ; in order that they might reap the advantage of curing disease, by a safe and simple method of my own in- vention." " One other subject, also, I have had in view ; that is to lay before the public a fair state- ment of facts; that they may have a correct knowl- edge of the trials and persecutions which I had to endure in bringing my system sf medicine into use among the people." Dr. Thomson was not brought up in the schools and colleges of the learned. But he was trained in one far superior, for eliciting the powers of an ori- ginal mind—the severe school of adversity—that 21 perilous ordeal where the feeble minded perish; but the great of heart come out of the fires, puri- fied and resplendent in tenfold brightness. They rebound by the very impulse and pressure of the blow, that was designed to crush them, and reach their elevation in the sky; to refute an objection made against the goodness of Divine Providence— that the virtuous were often, not only destitute of the blessings of fortune, but of nature, and even the necessaries of life. To this objection St. Pierre returns the following beautiful and profound answer: To this, said he, I reply—The misfortunes of the virtuous often turn to their advantage. When the world persecutes them, they are generally driven into some illustrious ca- reer. Misfortunes are the road to great talents; or, at least to great virtues, which are far prefera- ble. It is not in your power, said Marcus Aurelius to a friend who was exhausting his breath upon the unequal distribution of the favors of the gods—it is not in your power to become a great natural philos- pher, a poet, a mathematician, an orator, or an his- torian ; but it is in your power to be an honest and a virtuous man, which is far superior to them all! Use well the gifts the gods have given thee, and leave off repining at the good they have denied. For the very talents thou sighest after are far from conferring happiness on their possessors. The splendor derived from successful studies, sel- dom repay the occupant for the lassitude and ex- haustion of the mind; the feverish debility and throb of nervous excitement which thrill through all his frame. ^ The peasant in his cot, perhaps has more real en- joyment—and certainly has more peace, and calm contentedness, than the philosopher, crushed to an 22 untimely grave by the very magnitude of his stu- dies. Inter silvas academi qu'cercrr vcnnn—as the poet says: To search out truth through academic groves may be a very pleasing, but is often a very unprof- itable occupation. You .may behold the scholar, pale, over his midnight lamp, and far distant the golden dreams of honor and applause, which he is never destined to realise. How disconsolate is the condition of an intellectual being, who thus sus- pends his happiness on the praise and glory of the world J The good Aurelius gave an advice, worthy of being inscribed in letters of gold. He who pla- ces his heart on material objects, or expects to draw the streams of consolation from the resources of the world, must be exposed, in every vicissitude, to the keen pangs of anguish. The slightest ca- lamities will disquiet and trouble his soul. In ad- versity he is cast down, and every stay, on which he leaned for succor, like the infidelity of Egypt— as'a broken reed—will pierce him to the heart.— From the gay and lofty summit of his pride, and presumptive daring, he sinks to the deplorable lev- el of his own weak and worthless presumption. Quantum nvitalv* ab Mo—is that sunken, hopeless condition. This glory of the world, uncertain as it is, is not within the grasp of many minds. And even those who are able to seize the gay and gilded prize, it stings in the very embrace, and perishes in the en- joyment. But 'the path of virtue, that leads to hap- piness on high, lies open to every traveller ; and he can neitl: .' be mistaken in his course, nor disappoin- ted iirt.is acquisition. He has with him, and around him, in the darkest hour, in the lone desert or the crowded city, a Being who knows his pain, and hears every sigh of his complints, He made the 23 soul, and is able to delight and ravish its inmost fac- ulties, with the communication of joys unspeakable. How noble was the sentiment expressed by Sir Isaac Newton: Speaking of infinite space, he said '• it was the sensorium of the Deity ;" as if a fibre touched, in the most minute, remote, or worthless of all his creatures, could move the spirit of the eternal Godhead. This view of his power and his providence, inspires the heart with a holy hope, and high dependence, far above the influence of a troubled and a fleeting world. Queen Elizabeth, when her triumphant fleet had swept from the ocean the invincible armada of Spain, had medals struck, with this most beautiful and ap- propriate motto : Ajjlavit Dews, et dissipantur. " He blew with his wind, and they were scattered."— How exalted the thought! The belief of a divine and superintending Providence, taking care of us and our concerns, elevates and ennobles the mind. It transports a mortal creature to the high and holy meditations of angelic beings, and fills the soul with the purity,and peace of heaven. liECTUKE II. HISTORICAL VIEW OF ANCIENT THEORIES. That divine philosopher, Plato, said, light was the shadow of the Deity, and truth his soul. That the wise and good, as they approximated to the source of glory and intelligence, were clothed and animated by that heavenly essence, which he poured out from the fountain of his eternal being: That in- 24 to the cup mixed for the formation of Man.he poured a portion of his own divinity; that this divine prin- ciple, rational and immortal, resides in the brain, the seat of sublimity and great conceptions; but an- other soul, which dwells in the breast, formed by the inferior deities, was mortal and destitute of rea- son ; which contracts evil, pain and sorrow, and in- volves all the woes of man, misery and death, and the despair of Hades! That the gods, not being under the influence of this mortal inferior soul, do goo civil liberty, the diffusion of sci- ence, the. equity of laws, and the amelioration of the condition of the miserable—all! all! proclaim her bright and rapid progress to the uncreated splendors of eternal day ! After the revival of learning, the works of the ancients were held in great repute. They were searched out, and sought after, with an avidity which shewed how earnestly men were bent on the 41 culture and improvement of the mind. Sennertus and Rivenus collected with the greatest diligence, the opinions and writings of the ancients; espe- cially of Hippocrates, Celsus and Galen. Baglivi, another faithful laborer in the same good cause, is said to have committed the whole writings of Hip- pocrates to memory !—Transiat in exemplum. And all who would succeed in their professions, must embue their very soul with the whole subject matter of their vocation. None can ever rise to eminence, who possesses not this enthusiastic devotion to the object of his pursuits. Baglivi places the principle of animal life, in irri- tability and sympathy. He traces the doctrine of animal motions from Hippocrates down to his own time—the end of the seventeenth century. His impetus faciens, or to arche of Hippocrates, forms the principle of his pathology; accounts for the proximate causes and cures of disease. T\iis first, or prime mover, he placed in the dura mater of the brain; which propelled its energies along the liga- ments and membranes of the body, to produce mo- tion. His cures like his great master Hippocrates, chiefly consisted in the cold and hot bath, frictions, cauteries, and epispasticks. A few medicines, ho observes, well directed, are the best evidence and demonstration of the skill and abilities of the physi- cian. The whole of the sixteenth and part of the sev- enteenth centuries, were spent by Sennertus and Riverius, together with their disciples and prede- cessors, in teaching, expounding and commenting on the systems of the ancients. They were called Galenists; and their pathology and practice were conducted on the same principles and rules. Early in the sixteenth century, the far famed Par- acelsus advanced his chimical system to the world. 42 This was directly opposed to the system of thoGa- lenists. They, however, held possession of the schools to the end of the seventeenth century. But the followers of Paracelsus acquired the patronage, and were supported by the power and influence of the learned. The Galenists were finally forced to yield; and, the humoral and chimical pathology, which had agitated and divided the schools for two hundred years, began to retire to the shades, and sink under a new and splendid light, which was just dawning on the world. About the middle of the seventeenth century, the circulation of the blood came to be generally known; and this knowledge together with that of the dis- covery of the receptacle of the chyle, and of the tho- racit duct, combined finally to explode the Galenic system. A considerable revolution had now also taken place in the system of natural,philosophy. In the course of the seventeenth century, Galileo had introduced the mathematical mode of reason- ing; and lord Bacon had proposed to the world his new mode of reasoning, by an induction of facts. These new modes of philosophizing, as might be supposed, had soon a visible influence on the sci- ence of medicine. A disposition to observe facts, und make experiments, began to prevail in the schools, and to fix the attention of keen and accu- rate inquirers. The clear view of the organic system of animal bodies, presented by the knowledge of the circula- tion of the blood, led not only to a deeper acquaint- ance with the internal structure, but also, to the ap- plication of mechanical philosophy, in explaining the phenomena of animal life. This became the fashionable mode of reasoning until a very late pe- riod. But it has been found very defective in ex- plaining the animal economy; and, although it 43 is still partially in use, and may still continue to be used, it would be easy to show, that its application must be very limited and partial. Still, however, down till this period, the physician, whether Gale- nist or Cliimift, was so accustomed to consider the state and condition of the fluids, both as the cause of disease, and as the foundation for explaining1 the operation of medicine in its cure, that they were both termed the Humoral pathology. It now soon appeared that chimistry promised a much better explanation of the system, than the Ga- lenic or Aristotelian phylosophy had done. These were therefore, almost entirely laid aside, and chim- ical reasoning every where prevailed. Lord Ba- con, with his usual sagacity, had early discovered that chimistry promised a great number of fj.cts; and lie therefore gave it credit, and covered it with the shadow of his mighty name. The Corpuscular philosophy, restored by Gassen- di, readily united with the reasonings of the Chim- ists; and the philosophy of Des Cartes, with great facility,combined and commingled with both. From all these combinations and affinities, an Humoral, but chiefly a Chimical pathology prevailed down to the end of the seventeenth, and even had great in- fluence on the science of medicine, down to the end of the last century. The history of the human mind is to be traced in the language, the science, the arts, and the writings of the world. The study , is curious, but it is of high and holy estimation. About the middle of the seventeenth century, arose the great Sydenham—the first of the moderns, the father of medical science, in its present robes of modern fashion. His writings will be esteemed a standard, says Dr. Cullen, as long as they shall be known, or shall endure. He did not entangle himself in the thorny paths which lead to the mys- 44 teries of animal life; his pathology was simple and comprehensive. The oppressed and exhausted state of the system, comprised his rationale of disease and mode of cure. The simplicity of his views seems to have laid the foundation for the theories of Rush and Brown. The morbid excitement of the first, and the direct and indirect debility of the lat- ter—with the unity of disease, and classes of sthenic and asthenic diathesis, and mode of cure, appear to have their origin in the principles of Sydenham. To add to the science of medicine, said Syden- ham, two facts must be kept in view: 1st, to give a full and complete description or history of disease; and, 2d, to discover a fixed and perfect remedy, or mode of cure. And to these high objects did Dr. Sydenham dedicate the labors of his long and use- ful life; preferring their great importance, to the fruitless and unprofitable speculations, on the prin- ciple of life. By neglecting these desiderata, he observes, the Materia Medica has been swelled to an unreasonable size, filled with great uncertainty! To these obvious and valuable facts, the doctor would add the knowledge of specifics; and in con- sequence has been called a quack. But his fame stands too high and bright, to be tainted by the breath of scandal! He says the only specific we have, is the Jesuit bark. Calomel and sarsparilla, are not specifics; unless it can be shown that the one does not produce salivation, and the other per- ' spiration. He laments that the medical virtues of plants are so little known, though the most valua- ble part of the materia medica. Organized substances are the food of animals, and as medicinal must be more congenial to their natures, than the brute mass of inanimated matter. Dr. Ray observes, we are sprung from the earth, we faed upon her bounty, draw our nourishment 45 from her bosom, and our healing medicines from her breast. It must be confessed, says Dr. Sydenham, that although mineral medicines meet the indications 6f disease, they are not to be relied on as specifics, with the same entire confidence, as the the vegeta- ble medicine-. Here is a strong testimony to the theory of Thomson. Dr. Glisson, was the first of the moderns who paid any attention to the vital principle, and the first who mentions irritability as a property of this vis insita. He defines it to be a property, which, receding in all bodies, can be excited to action by irritation; that it resides in a mucus, and is perfec- ted by heat and blood. He had no idea of the dis- tinction between sensibility and irritability, and therefore he uses the old distinctions of animal, vital and natural functions. Because a muscle was seen to contract, when pricked,although separated from the body, he believed the fibres and muscles had per- ception in themselves. Here again he confounds sensibility and irritability; and attempts to confirm the hypothesis, by the remark, that there can noth- ing be, in the intellect, but what we receive by the senses. Dr. Cullen advanced the same maxim one hundred years afterwards. Baglivi also pursued, to a great extent, his observations on the phenome- na of the vital principle. HaHer says, irritability is independent of sensibility, and vice versa. Glis- son thought irritability depended on volition: Bel- loni,on the accelerated motion of the blood: Bag- livi, on the oscillatory motions of the dura mater along the membranes; Stahl, and his followers, supposed irritation to be innate and influenced by the soul. Dr. Winter traced all human motions to fibrous irritability and stimuli; and the younger Boerhaave to the moving power of animals. Dr, 46 Whytt believed irritability essential to motion, and was produced by a sentient principle residing in the medulla of the brain. Dr. Kirkland thought that this medullary substance was conveyed by tbe nerves to the muscular fibres, which caused motion. But Dr. Whytt affirmed perception was necessary in connection with all or any material substance to produce motion; While Zimmerman and Q3derus demonstrated by experiments-, that irritation was as general in the animal fibres, as attraction in the universe; and was altogether separate from the mind and soul. You see, my friends, how difficult it has been for the professors of this art, to fix upon one scheme of principles. Well might Dr. Brown say, "the sci- ence was altogether uncertain and incomprehensi- ble; and could yield no satisfaction to his mind," When the principles are so jarring and incoherent, the practice founded upon them must be defective, and partake, in a great measure, of the uncertain- ty of its foundation. This was perceived and con- fessed by all the faculty. And the new sybtems introduced in the beginning of the eighteenth century by Sthal, Hoffman and Boerhaave, were intended to supply a remedy. But, alas! they were equally different as they were new; and instead of removing the disorder, they only op- erated to its augmentation, and inflamed the'wound they were designed to heal. Dr. Staiil.—His leading principle was, that the rational soul of man governs the whole economy of his body. It was observed at all times in the his- tory of medicine, that the animal economy posses-* ses, in itself, a principle or power of resisting inju- ries, of correcting or removing diseases, arising in it, or induced upon it. Sometimes this has been called nature's effort to throw off disease. This 47 was ascribed by the ancients, to an agent in the system, which they called the ro arche; and from Greece the language passed into the west, of a vis conservatrix et medicatrix naturce,* and has not only continued in the schools,but has been retained in the heart of the multitude, to the present, and from the most ancient times ; and perhaps, after all, the doc- trine of dame nature is the truest part of medical theory. Dr. Stahl supposes, that this power of na- ture so much talked of, nothing else but the ration- al soul; that when it perceives noxious powers threaten the body, it excites such emotions in the body as shall expel them. This theory was great- ly opposed by Dr. Nichols in his Oratio de Anima Medica; and also by Cullen in his physiology. Dr. Gaubius, in his pathology, says it is a capricious government of the animal economy, and not to be relied on. Stahl and his followers, called this the Hippocratic method of curing diseases; but the wits called it the Art of curing by expectation. Dr. Hoffman.—He was professor in the univer- sity of Halle, when the doctrines of Htahl prevail- ed. But rejecting altogether the Vires natura medicatrices, of his predecessor, he introduced a new system, in which he blended the doctrines of nervous spasm, with the mechanical, cartesian, and chimical doctrines. These, however, he modified to suit his leading principle of disease, or spasm, evinced in his Pathologia medulla cerebri et nevo- rum. In these Hoffman placed the primary mo- ving powers; and by considering their state and affections, he thought he could explain all the phe- nomena of the animal economy, in health and in » sickness. Dr. Cullen says, we are indebted to Dr. * That the force of nature is a preservative of health, and a remedy against disease. 48 Hoffman for putting us into a proper train of hives- tigation. It was this theory which induced Dr. K. Boerhaave to publish his works, entitled Impe- tum Faciens, and Dr. Gaubius to give his patholo- gy of the Solidum Vivum. It was objected to Hoffman, that he did not prop- erly apply his own fundamental doctrine, and that he intermixed the humoral pathology of the Galen- ists, and the plethora and cacochymia of Stahl—I wish I had done with these intolerable names—De morborom gencralione, ex nimia sanguinis quanti- tate et humorum imperritate. Dr. BoERiiAAVE.T-He was a man of general eru- dition. In forming his system of physic, he seems to have studied diligently, all the writings of both ancient and modern physicians. He intended to be a eareful, a candid, and genuine elcctic. But, alas! he loo failed. He possessed a. genius peculiar- ly systematic; and at first gained high reputation. His system was more generally received than any former had been, since the time of Galen. Cullen objects to this system; 1st, that in the course of forty years, he made in it neither addi- tions nor improvements, except in the 755th Apho- rism, where the words forte et nervosi, tarn cerebri quam cerebelli cordi destinati inertia; and these did not appear until the fourth edition ; 2d, he objects to his doctrine of the simple solid, and its errone- ous composition of earth and gluten ; 3d, his mis- take respecting the structure of the compound mem- branes ; 4th, his neglect of the cellular texture___ From all these reasons, Cullen thought his system very imperfect, and incapable of explaining the phenomena of the animal economy in health or sickness. Cullen thinks that on very few occasions, the simple solids are either changeable, or actually ehanged; and that out> of ninety-nine cases in an 49 nundred, the phenomena attributed to the change of the simple solids depends altogether on the state of the solidum vivum. To all these, Dr. Cullen adds, that Dr. Boerhaave's morbid acrimony, and lentor of the fluids; his hypothetical and humoral pathology, to the almost total neglect of the state of the moving powers of the animal body; are cal- culated to mislead in the practice of physic. In his aphorisms there are very few pages where error or defect does not occur; and therefore, Dr. Cullen concludes it ought to be set aside. Dr. Lieutand, a French physician, attempted a system upon a new plan, which he called the synop- sis universa medicince. It was to consist of a mere collection of facts and observation from experience. But this also failed; and, according to Dr. Cullen, he has only increased the confusion of medical sub- jects. These are painful premonitions to the ad- venturer in this dark and doubtful journey of phy- siology and medical science. Dr. Cullen remarks—I have endeavored to form a system of physic that should comprehend the wholeol the facts relating toths science; and that will, I hope, arrange thein in better order than has been done heretofore. The affections of the motions and movieg powers cf the &.iir.ial economy, must certainly be the leading inquiry, Ir. considering the diseases of the human body, i have assumed, says Cullen, the general principle of Hoffman, and I have avoided introducing the many hypothetical speculations of the humoral pathology, which have disfigured both his, and all the other systems which have hitherto prevailed. There is within us, says the doctor, a strange mixture of the material and immaterial part, evinced by their operations; and these are liable to very great irregularities. Hence, the laws of the nervous systems are not even toler- 4 50 ably ascertained. We speak obscurely of it; and shelter ourselves under the general term of sympa- thy, spasm, &c. which are used with as little pre- cision now, as malignity and lentor were employed / of old. Van Helmont was the first who attended to the nervous system, and advanced the doctrine of the Archajus, as the proximate cause of disease. Sev- eral had been advancing the science of the nerves, but he says (Dr. Whytt,) had done more than all the rest, lie considered the subject as still far from being exhausted, and of the highest consequence to explain the condition of the body, in sickness or health. We suppose, says the doctor, that in the phenomena of the nervous system, there is a series of three conditions* 1st, an impression made on the organ of sense, or sentient part; 2d, in conse- quence of this, there is a perception created in the common origin of sense, sensorium commime; 3d, there is a motion or contraction excited in the mo- ving fibres, which depend upon the nerves. We call these from Gaubius, impression, perception, ir- ritation. All phenomena are comprehended under these three. Of these three conditions, the inter- mediate link is perception, and on it the other two depend. This link, perception, is the foundation of all our internal operations; being derived from the immaterial power within us, and connected with our material part. This immaterial power may be left out in medi- cine ; for if contraction necessarily follows percep- tion, and perception as necessarily follows impres- sion, we have no more occasion to take notice of it as a sentient principle, than if it were a mechanical cause. The doctor, however, shews that impression may excite irritation, and often does, without the intervention of perception; and shows the absurdi- 51 ty of Stahl and his followers, by asserting that the soul is conscious of every impression. There are, says the doctor, a variety of impressions, which are not at all attended to by perception ; or if we per- ceive, it is the effects, and not the impressions them- selves. As to perception, it always depends on im- pression ; so that the old saying is very true—" nil in intellectu quod non fecit prius in sensu."* These impressions are varied by the sensorium commune, or origin of the nerves. Irritation depends constantly on perception or impression. This system so carefully arranged, and the inves- tigation of the nervous system conducted and inves- tigated by him, with a success which has no paral- lel, has nevertheless been denounced uncertain, in- comprehensible, and disastrous. He has been charged with overlooking, or but slightly glancing at the pathology of the blood vessels, in his concen- trated views of the nervous system. And by adop- ting the nosology of Sauvages, Linnaaus and Vogel, he has,unfortunately,led physicians, says Dr.Rush, to prescribe for the names of diseases, instead of their proximate cause. It is sufficient to jar the foundations, of the firm- est confidence in medical 6kill, to find the profes- sors of that science, but rising, as it were, to over- throw each other, to show that a false pathology, or a corrupt practice, had pervaded the system from the origin of the science. It is, indeed, melan- choly to reflect, that the industry and labor of man, should be thus buried and forgotten with his bones. * Nothing gains entrance to the mind but through the senses. 4* 52 LECTURE IV. THE THEORIES OF DRS. BROWN, RUSH AND THOMSON. It was observed by the ancients, as an argument for the duration of the soul, that this state did not appear to be the final residence of any portion of ita inhabitiants: That all nature was in progressive motion; evidently hastening forward to some far distant centre, where it should attain the perfec- tion of its being, and the consumation of that excel- lence for which the Deity had designed it. If we apply this argument to the progress and revolutions of medicine, we may anticipate, with joyful hearts, that the perfection of its science is nigh at hand. In tracing its history, we find that almost every new professor comes forward with his new theory; and his proscription of his predeces- sors. Those incessant revolutions must ultimately terminate: And we most ardently hope, that end may be perfect knowledge, in the completion of the system; that simplicity and success, a fixed and permanent mode of practice, may be universally adopted; and the wavering and contending sys- tems be banished from the earth. I know it has been said, in defence of this perpet- ual change, that every science, around which neu facts are daily accumulating, requiree, from time to time, an entire reform and renovation. But that this reform and renewal of the whole system of med- icine, from age to age, should be accounted for, merely by the "accumulation of facts," and not the perversity of principles, I apprehend, will not bear the test of sound argument. Other sciences, as 53 well as medicine, have been changed often; but it was professedly because their former principles were false, and not derived from facts, from expe- rience, and observation; and not on account of the accumulation of facts, which only serve to confirm right principles. The symptoms, of malignant and inflammatory fevers, appear to be the same now, that they were in the days of Hippocrates; and yet how various has been the treatment since that time. There must be first principles in medicine as well as in philosophy, which are invariable and incon- testible ; which, like the stars of the firmament, in guiding the mariner, will conduct the physician, With assured aim, through the deep ocean of human troubles. When learning revived, the physicians of Europe employed themselves in reviving the sys- tem of Galen and Hippocrates. During the course of the sixteenth century, the study of the physi- cians was almost solely emplcjed in explaining and confirming that system. Early in the same centu- ry, the noted Paracelsus had laid the foundation of a chimical system, which was in direct opposition to that of Galen. This system finally prevailed over the Galenists. But though thus opposed and contending,the explanations of both, of the phenom- ena of health and sickness, turned so entirely on the state of the fluids of the body, that a humoral and chimical pathology prevailed, sometimes to- gether, and sometimes apart, down to the end of the seventeenth century; and even to the end of the eighteenth, had a great share and influence on the practice of medicine. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, Stahl; Hoffman, and Boerhaave, produced three new and different systems of physic, and mixed up their doc- trines of spasm, of morbid acrimonies, of vis natural 54 eonscrvatrix, with the humoral pathology of Rive- rius, and the chimical affinities and repulsions of Paracelsus. But the Autocrateia, says Dr. Cullen, obtained and admitted, in some shape or other, by every sect, had currupted the practice of all phy- sicians,from Hippocrates to Stahl. This is a sweep- ing sentence, pronounced upon the anima medica, by the good doctor of Edinburgh. And his own No- sology has received <\he physician, but they are em- inently so to all mankind. For an acquaintance with the nature of human life and health, and their various states and affections, is undoubtedly of 69 greater moment and importance to us all, than any other natural subject. The religion of the bible is supernatural. For, although by this knowledge, men may not become adepts in the art of healing, they may yet guard and defend themselves from much misery and disease. There is in all living animals, a principle, the ef- fects of which are very visible and obvious to all men. During its presence there is Ufe-in its absence, death. This we denominate vitality, or the living principle. It is infused by the Supreme Being, and is the work of his hands. He is the father of Spirits. It is neither the dura ma'er of Baglivi; nor the Me- dulla of Haller; nor the nervous Jluid of Hoffman; nor Che ceasorium of Darwin; nor the excitability of Brown; nor the excitability, and sensibility, and stimuli of Rush; no! nor the heat of Thomson; but the living spirit which is made and implanted in the breast by the Almighty. All these that I have enumerated, and ten times as many more, that I might enumerate, are the mere effects of the vital principle, which have been so egregioush/ mista- ken for the principle itself. It is very easy to dis- tinguish a living dog from a dead lion. The most stupid can perceive this. And yet the most learn- ed cannot explain the intimate nature of that living principle, which has forsaken the one, and animates the other. But although we are equally ignorant of the princi- ple of life, as we are of the principle of gravity, yet their effects are abundantly obvious to reason and experience. And when we have collected and di- gested the various modes and operations and phe- nomena, which life exhibits, under all the aspects of 70 health and disease, by careful observation, expe- rience and reason, the sum total may be called the philosophy of life. Animal life, as it operates on the human body in health and in disease, has been considered the pri- mary and grand object of the attention of the phy- sician. And some of its most obvious properties are sensibility, irritability and excitability. These are the effects of vitality, which have been mista- ken for vitality itself. Some physicians have supposed that the vital principle may lie dormant in a quiescent state, like latent heat, and afterwards be made to shew itself, like heat, by the application of stimuli. But the rea- soning is fallacious; it is merely analogical—drawn from a material subject, heat, to prove the phenom- ena of an immaterial subject—the spirit of life. It would be better reason, to attempt to prove that the spirit is latent, when the body is dead, because we cannot perceive its effects, than to attempt to es- tablish from latent heat, a latent state of mind. For if in fainting, or catalepsy, it can be established that the spirit is merely latent—it may as well be latent in the grave to the day of judgment: for in the argument respecting an immaterial substance, whose very essential quality is activity—and with- out which it could not be—the latency of one hour, or one hundred thousand millions, coul J not at all change the conditions of the question; nor relieve the disputant from the direful consequences of ma- king the soul a material substance. I know some physicians distinguish between the rational soul and the vital principle of animal life. But the distinction is, perhaps, not clearly under- stood. There is in animals something far superior to mere vitality. A plant has vitality—its life and death. And Dr. Brown's theory was applied, with 71 great success, to plants, and supported them with superior energy and vigor, in the high latitude of Scotland! But in animals, besides vitality, we per- ceive thought, reason, memory, design and perseve- rance, with a great number of the noble passions which animate man——love, gratitude, affection, friendship, grief and bitter woe, even to the de- struction of life: A very eminent and .pious philosoyher, consider- ed these phenomena, as the operation and agency of God, moving and directing his own universe to the final iss$ie and grand results of the eternal judg- ment. This, by the way, is a very old opinion, and has been beautifully embodied by the poet, in these celebrated lines: "All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body, nature is, and God the soul; That,chang'd through all, and yet in all the same, Great in the earth as in the etherial frame; Lives in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees; Lives through all life, extends through all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unspent; BreTthes in our soul, informs our mortal part, As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart; As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, As the rapt seraph that adores and burns, To him no high, no low, no great, no small; He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all!" This is not the doctrine of Spinozia who made God the soul of the world ; but the pious doctrine of a universal providence, and the omnipresence of the Deity in the government of the world. Look at the smallest plant or insect, you behold him there, in his matchless wisdom and sustaining power—for- 72 ming the mechanism and moving the vitality of a creature so small and inconsiderable, and apparent- ly worthless in the great sum of things. The Psalmist took a most striking and comprehensive view of this sublime and glorious theme. " W hith- er shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence ? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there! If I make my bed in hell, behold thou art there!! If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be lighf round about me!" This was the true sentiment and doctrine of the ancient philosophers—the presence and superinten- dence of the Deity every where. I'hey were not Atheists—although the miserable Spinoza wrested their doctrine to his oton malignant and deadly pur- pose. But he might well do that, when he turned the Jewish Scripture to the same account—for he was a Jew, and deeply read in the old testament. But the wasp can extract poison from the flower: So did his perverted soul draw death from the wells of salvation! As the doctrine of life and health cannot be known by reasoning a priori; but must be deducted from experience and observation,some very eminent men have thought that its laws and principles should be divided in a different manner from that of the scho- lastic mode: That so many divisions of the theory of life and disease, which have prevailed 6ince the days of Galen, have not only embarrassed but be- wildered the subject; and that the laws and princi- ples, therefore, should be divided in a different man- ner—1st, that the human blood is the recipient and vehicle of heat and life to the several parts; 2d, 73 » from many experiments pure air appears to be the pabulum of irritability; for the absence of pure air destroys life sooner than the defect of any other natural substance; 3d, the next in importance to the animal economy, seems to be the nervous fluid, or the medulla of the brain and spinal marrow; for they have all the same nature and origin; 4th, sen- sibility, residing in the organ of sense, connecting the mind with the external world. The term Physianthrophy, has been devised for the purpose of expressing, in one word the healthy, the morbid, and the curative nature of the vital ac- tions. Pathology has been also subdivided into Semiol- ogy, or the doctrine of symptoms; and Nosology for the names and division of diseases into their genera and species; A most tedious and terrible array, for the head of the poor disciple of Esculapi- us. Dr. Rush has here, great merit in banishing nosology from the walks of medicine. You have only to imagine the dilemma of the practitioner, looking, in silence, on his suffering patient, until the disease would develope itself, that he might un- derstand its nature; for this was necessary before •he could prescibe. Dr. Rush laid, at once, his fin- ger on the pulse, and directed, without delay, de- pletion or stimuli. This short, and 6udden process, gave opportunity of routing the enemy, (as the doc- tor used to say,) before he had time to entrench himself in the human vitals! Therapeutics do very well to express the curative indications. But it has been often suggested, that the above terms have been considered too much as separate subjects of pursuit, and independent of each other; and are used often without due consid- eration, in the antiquated and scholastic manner. All these, Pathology, Semiology, Nosology, The- 74 rapcutics, depend on Physiology—as it depends on Anatomy. For no principle, or mode of action of the human body, in health or in disease, can be ei- ther learned or understood, without an accurate ac- quaintance wit^h physiology. • Medicines, says Dr. Hoffman, contain no inco- herent principles of action in themselves. They do not act on the dead body, said Hippocrates, and their action on the living body depends on the state in which they find it; whether torpid or irritable, strong or weak, and it is the same with all parts of regimen, food, drink, air, exercise or any other. This is sound philosophy, and has been illustra- ted by Dr. Cullen, on sensibility and irritability. Sensibility; when often excited, becomes dull and loses its force—thus, a dose of opium, if continued a few days, must be increased, or it will have no ef- fect: On the contrary, irritability augments by be- ing excited—if an emetic be repeated for several days, the dose must be diminished ; the irritation cf the stomach will not bear the original quantity. It must be diminished daily. Medicinal substances may be understood perfect- ly in their cliimical properties, as they are by some apothecaries, and yet we may be perfectly ignorant of them in their physical operations on the human body. This distinction will show that Dr. Thom- son, without a knowledge of chimistry or botany, may know, the physical operation of his medicines, better than the most profound chimist. For this knowledge must be learned by experience, and not in the dust, and toil, and retirement of the schools. Hippocrates has given us the clue; medicines af- fect the body according to the state in which they find it. The state or condition of the body, and the operation of the medicine on that state, we com- monly learnn, as Thomson learned it, by experi- ence. 75 Dr. Brown, by reducing all diseases into two classes, sthenic and asthenic', ascertained, at once, to which class the complaint belonged, on visiting his patient, and proceeded accordingly to remove the debility. i Dr. Rush, by making disease a unit, paused by morbid excitement, and its state or condition to be ascertained by the pulse, would decide with equal facility, on the mode of cure—equalize the excite- ment. Dr. Thomson, by making disease the general ef- fect of one general cause, obstruction, has fixed his remedy, like the others. Remove the obstruction, is his cure: Remove the debility, was Dr. Brown's cure; Remove the morbid excitement, was Dr. Rush's cure: and all by different stimulants.— The debility was removed by diffusive stimulants: The morbid excitement, by diffusive sti mulapts: The obstrudtion, by diffusive stimulants. These gentlemen, though they have travelled on far diverging paths, yet, at the end of their jour- ney, they have met almost in single point. .They began their career together about the end of the last century ; and before the middle of the present, it is impossible to say what may be the estimation in which they shall be held by the world ; or the cures effected by their discoveries. I am not one of those who think wisdom is to be obtained by idleness, or gained by chance; and yet I know that some of the most valuable discoveries in the world, have been made in obscurity, and have sprung as it were, from fortuition—not that I be- lieve that there is any thing absolutely fortui- tous—but to humble the pride of man, who is too apt to lean on the might of his own arm, and as- cribe to himself the merit of great discoveries. The Deity concedes them to the humble and illiterate, 76 while they are withheld from the proul aspiring aciolUt, or doctor of the schools. Let those who despise Dr. Thomson and his dis- coveries!, because he is, or was, poor and unlearned, remember the words of him, who knew the heart of man, and has left us an admonition that should sink us into the very dust: " I thank thoe O, Fa- ther, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hidden those things from the wise and prudent, and hath rc-?ealed them unto babes." LECTURE VI. IMPROVED THEORY OF MEDI- CINE. If \re wanted additional proofs of the necessity of Divine Revelation, to direct us in the way of truth, we have them in abundance, in reviewing the different theories of animal life, suggested by med- ical writers. Walking with them, we have to ex- plore a wilderness, dark and trackless, and inter- minable as the terra incognitia* of ancient days. But when we turn to revelation for an account of life, our minds expatiate in a boundless field of heavenly light; survey objects in the reality and spirit of their being; behold prospects of truth, and glory, and magnificence, where the mere light of nature could never penetrate, nor the rays of hu- man wisdom shed their radiance. I l;now the mind of man possesses creative powers and transcendantjfaculties, the limits of which even (Undiscovered continent. 77 he himself has never ascertained. Yet his utmost art and skill, exerted with all the ardor and daring flight of genius, will never enable him to penetrate the mysteries which God has hidden in himself; and life is one of them. But the rays of revelation have beamed upon it, and shewed us its origin and end. It is neither atmospheric air, nor any other material thing, which man can analyze. The in- spired Elihu has described it in language lofty as the theme. It is the spirit and breath of the Al- mighty. "For if he gather unto him his spirit and his breath, all flesh would perish together, and man return to his dust." If men of science would give mere attention to the study of the living oracles, they would discov- er many truths, find out many mysteries, which are nnfolded and displayed on the awful pages of that book, sealed with the seven seals, which they in vain endeavored to discover in the volumes.of hu- man wisdom. Life and immortality are brought to lif*ht by the gospel. The most learned and wise of the ancient Greeks, bewailed their ignorance and their uncertainty of the nature and condition of a future state of existence. No light of nature, could pour its blaze through the dark impenetrable glooms of the grave; no light of life, for them, had ever irradiated the horrid mansions of the dead.— From the cold repulsive embraces of the king of ter- rors, nature had no refuge, and furnished no remedy. When we behold a Darwin laboring to confound himself, and his followers, by a hopeless atheism, and sink them to the rank of reptiles, we pause to admire and to reverence the wisdom of those an- cient sages, who sighed for immortality, although their hopes were doubtful, and their evidence fee- ble and fluctuating. In reference to their anxiety, and thej ir condition, 78 the Saviour said, as reproof to the Jews, "many prophets and righteous men, have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them." What a sad and solemn reproof, which applies with equal force to infidelity, to the present hour. For if the investigations of mind, of physiology, and anatomy, Were carried on with that spirit of liberal and subdued philosophy, which bows the soul to the behests of heaven, how rapid would be the ad- vancement in those pursuits; and how different would be the results, from the current course of the present achievments and speculations, in which professors appear, like the Roman gladitors, on tiie arena of combat, only to hew each other down ? Galen wis converted from atheism, by the 6tudy of anatomy, and wrote a hymn of praise to the Deity, to celebrate his wisdom and power, in the admirable structure of the human form. Having observed the exact distribution of the nerves to the muscles, th^ arrangements of the face for expres- sion and b$auty, the structure of the bones for strength and motion, he exclaims, "Haze enimfor- lunai sunt oper&!"* &c. Galen having substan- tially refuted the Epicurean principles of Asclepi- ades, by showing his ignorance in anatomy and phi- losophy; and by demonstrating all the causes to be evidently in the works of nature, viz: final,efficient, instrumental y material and formal; concludes thus, against his fortuitous atoms: "Ex quibus intelligi potest, conditQrem nostrum in formandis particulis unam hunc scqui scopum, nempe ut quod melius est eligat."\ The skill of that ingenious and famed * These are the productions of divine wisdom. f From whifh we arrive at this conclusion—thai oyr Creator even in the formation of the least parti- 79 heathen, in his illustration of the mechanism of the fingers, is most admirable. The reason which he gives for the different lengths of the fingers, is, that the tops may come to an equality in grasping round or spiral objects, which makes the hold firm- er. " Cum magnas aliqua moles in circuita compre- hendunt et cum in seipsis humidum vel parvum eor- pus coutinere, conantur."*~G\-LEN, 1. xi. c. 7. g. 1. i.6. c. 13.1. i. 14. It has been observed, that nature presented one continued series of composition and decomposition, still going forward within us, and without us: That all material things are sinking in decay, to rise and reappear in new and renovated beauty; and having reached their acme, descend again into the dust, to spring once more upon the face of day, in varied and in endless progression. This ceaseless mutation has been considered the most formidable obstruction to a fixed and permanent system of med- ical science. Dr. Barnwell remarks, it must be al- lowed that we are not yet in possession of scientif- ic proofs or analytical demonstrations of medical rules and observations, so that we might reduce them to first and general principles. Our indica- tions for ascertaining their reality, are not suffi- ciently established ; and, consequently, have had hitherto only a technical, not a scientific meaning. Medicine, he says, considered as an art, is still in its infancy—an assertion which no candid and intelligent practitioner will attempt to contradict— even tor the most valuable therapeutical or diete- cles of matter had or followed but one design—that whatever was best he chose. * When they grasp large objects—and when they seize upon small and moist bodies—the use of each finger is equally exerted and felt. 80 tic discoveries and improvements. We are more indebted, he contiues, to accidental observations, and analogical conjectures, than to an established scientific theory. The modus operandi of medicines, as well as regimen, are so far obscure, that the whole difference between the rational prescriptions and those which are termed specifics, depends up- on the application of rules, by which the technical application of the remedy is, in every instance, de- termined. Notwithstanding these defects in medical science, there is a constant and strong desire in the human mind, to reduce all the phenomena of animal bodies to general principles, and to explain from these, by scientific deductions, the most suitable technical methods; not merely in an imperical, but a phi- losophic manner, to vindicate our medical treat- ment, says Dr. Barnwell, n priori, by the gen- eral laws of nature; and thus to effect a gradu- al, though indissoluble, connection between the scientific theory and practice. And to this ob- ject every scientific mind in the pursuit of a cor- rect theory, should be directed. If we had evident and sensible marks, and accurately defined, terms, for every degree of variation of the human body from the state of perfect health, the practice would become a far more easy and more certain study. Dr. Sydenham first suggested something of this nature. And an endeavor to attempt something in this way, is the object of the present work, or new theory,proposde by Dr. Barnwell. Thus, the the- ory and practice of medicine, from not only Syden- ham to Barnwell, but from Hippocrates to Stahl, in the language of Cullen, have been defective and corrupted; and from Galen to Cullen himself, in the words of Brown, uncertain, unsatisfactory, and incomprehensible! 81 All these defects and difficulties have suggested a change in the plan of medical study, and the ne- cessity of a new theory. In order to this it is said that as medicines possess no inherent medical vir- tue in themselves, and are of no use, but rather pernicious, except as they are properly applied to the various states and conditions of the living bo- dy; therefore, a thorough acquaintance with the body, in all its varieties and phenomena, in health and in sickness constitutes the beginning, the mid- dle and the end, of physical medical studies: But as the human body is continually surrounded and ac- ted upon by other physical and mental causes, we must extend our researches to them; but always keeping in mind the cui bono, lest we wander in uselesss speculation, and waste our days in idle labor. Physianthropy, or the knowledge of the nature of man, ought to be the basis of all medical science ; consequently it should comprise the natural philos- ophy of the human body, its principles, laws and properties—as anatomy does its structure and or- ganization. It should exhibit the immediate ap- plication of the doctrines of organic animal nature to man in particular, and to the relation which his structure and economy bears to mind. The relation between animate and inanimate, must be diligent- ly attended to. PHYSIANTHROPY, CONSIDERED IN ITS SEVERAL PARTS AND RELATIONS. To consider man in a physical light, the philos- phy of the human body is the first and most neces- sary division of medical science; second, those S2 things which act upon him, or in any manner affect his physical existence. To the first of these divisions, belongs the due exercise of all the functions with ease and regular- ity ; and in* this consists health. To the second belongs the record of all the vari- ations from due health to intricate and complicated disease; and these diseases must be investigated in their causes—remote, proximate, and exciting.—- The variations from health to disease, in all its grades, we will find to be partly owing to a variety of conformations, and combined action of habits, states, temperaments, external causes of various kinds—as aliments, air, regimen, infections, or ac- cidents of several kinds. Third—we must consider the different remedies for all these maladies, whether externally applied, or taken inwardly : Fourth, the intention for which we apply them; and fifthly, their modes of opera- tion. These constitute human physics, or what may be properly denominated physianthropy. In this physianthropy, or improved theory of medical sci- ence, you are presented, in the first place with, 1st, The philosophy of the human body ; embra- cing the due exercise of all its functions with ease and regularity. 2d, The stimuli; or all things which act upon the body, so as to produce the variations from health to disease; either as remote, excitin^, or proxi- mate causes, in producing disease. 3d, All the remedies for those diseases, whether internal or external, properly digested and ar- ranged. 4th, The intention for which they are applied, or end to be accomplished by them. 5th, And finally, their modes of operation on the system to be carefully marked and recorded. R8 The philosophy of the body, then, is to know it in its healthy state ; to know all things which act upon it to change that state of health, and the rea- son why they do change it. The remedies must be known, external and internal; the intention for which they are applied; and the modus operandi recorded. This is certainly an improvement; in so far as it renders the objects of study more condensed and distinct and presents to the mind a more specific ob- ject of pursuit. In its application, this science would assay to begin, where physicians have com- monly left off; and to build its bulwarks upon the experiments and observations of health, of disea- ses, and of their remedies upon the whole practi- cal phenomena; and from them, draw the rules or laws of the human frame, as it is acted upon by oth- er agents in nature, as well as mental causes: and again apply these rules and laws to practice. It was a scheme of study, constructed after this manner, that Lord Bacon recommended in physics; and the necessity will appear to any one, who will duly consider the subject, and contemplate its ex- tent and range over and above that conducted in the schools. The history of medicine, the best of all founda- tions, together with a strict attention to^nedical philosophy, would carry the mind forward to high advancements, and elevate it to the perfection of science—if that is ever to be attained or hoped for in the world. Dr. Barnwell thus sums up his argu- ment for a change of medical studies : " It has been asked, what do the common school division* of medical study, teach us? The study and practice of anatomy can only be useful in the manual operations of surgery: Chimistry can only prepare us to be the nreparora of medicine; or qua!* 6* PI fy us to learn the Apothecary's art. But hypothe- sis and speculations have too generally been substi- tuted in place of science, or theory founded on facts and experience; and the facts themselves, have not been properly digested ; so that their very vol- ume, so vast and appalling—accumulating for four thousand years—excites despair in the student at the very sight, and defeats their own purpose, by consigning them, generally, to absolute neglect— like the laws of Draco, which, by their very sever- ity, were rendered a dead letter. Humanity triumphed over law, and refused to execute the dicta of a tyrant. All these reasons, together with the assurance that all the systems of medicine are defective; and that the whole of them, though snbmitted to expurgation, could not afford a complete system; announces the necessity of a tho- rough renovation in medical science. For if the principles of the healing art can be reduced to sci- entific order, it is, undoubtedly, an object of suffi- cient importance to merit the attention of the stu- dent of nature, and the friends and admirers of truth." And it is imagined that this new plan of conducting medical researches will accomplish this invaluable object. And upon this new plan the theorist says :—when we leave' out the antiquated theories and useless speculations, we shall find the indispensable and useful parts of the science and practice reduced to the moderate extent of one course, which when completed, will amount to from ninety-six to one hundred lectures. THE NEW PLAN OF STUDY—BY DR. BARNWELL. 1. Historical.—The j:r,gross and present state of the principles and praciiee of the healing art, in So various parts of the world, and at different periods of time; The doctrine of the different sects, in medicine: The causes and consequences of their different tenets and enthusiasms: The best method of studying, of observing, and improving, and in- vestigating medical science. II. Physianthropy, or the physical nature of the human body, and the manner in which it is effect- ed by external agents: The properties, principles, and laws cf human life: The varieties of constitu- tions and temperaments: The causes, phenomena, and modus agendi of morbid affections : The gene- ra, species, and variety of diseases. III. The modern improved practice of the vari- ous departments of the healing art, by means of re- gimen—medicinal or surgical applications deduced from observation, experience and reason: The gen- era of the disease to be arranged according to their physical natures, deduced from their phenomena, symptoms and remedies: The species to be ascer- tained by the causes, nature and treatment, appro- priated to them: Tha varieties are learned from appearances. This is the new plan, proposed to be condensed in one course, and one hundred lectures. But if all the objects here proposed could be attained in one course of one hundred lectures, the human mind it- self must sustain a revolution. He who professes to be a reformer of the art of physic, says Dr. Har- vey, must resolve to run the hazard of the martyr- dom of his reputation, life and estate. But in this reform, we can only perceive distinc- tions without differences ; if we except the histori- cal introduction; which is certainly of the highest utility in the study, and should never be neglected. A science must be very imperfectly known, and un- satisfactory to an ingenious mind, unless we are s6 acquainted with its rise and progress, and trials, and variations. " History, is philosophy teaching by example." And this philosophy, in medical science, is not only the best foundation, but the most necessary part of the whole study : For who are they that require examples, as a light to their path, if medical practitioners do not1? Physianthropy is a very good and comprehensive term, derived from phusis and anlhrops—the nature of man or philosophy of human nature. But, we apprehend, all this is contained under the divisions already reigning in the schools—Physiology, Pa- thology, Therapeutics, and Anatomy. For I am convinced, that no liberal mind would be disposed to confine the study of those subjects to the limited range, supposed by the writer of the New Theory ; but would extend them to the whole phenomena of the human economy. To push investigations to their utmost bounda- ries ; or, at least, as far, or rather farther, than common sense can follow them, is the predominant disposition of man. To stop short in his career of inquiry, does not belong to that aspiring spirit which fell from its supremacy and its happiness, by desiring to become as God! And although we are often misled by this reigning principle, into vain and visionary speculations, it is, notwithstanding, an irrefragable proof of the immortality of the soul; of its high origin and heavely nature! If nothing can rise above its own level, nor act beyond its own limits, why is the soul of man con- stantly urging him forward beyond the limits of sense,and all material things; impelling him onto the abode of spirits, to contemplate the nature, the exercise, and the felicity of assembled millions, which throng the heavenly temple, and adore before the throne, day without night, rejoicing. 87 1 nere is no doubt but medical studies may be greatly reduced and simplified, as they have been, in the examples and success of Drs. Brown, Rush and Thomson. When Nosology is completely ex- pelled from the science: when hypothesis and spec- ulations are.no more : when antiquated and useless theories are rejected; and a proper digest of facts, experiments and'observations compiled, for the use of the students ; and principles properly derived therefrom, arranged in scientific order; the num- ber of courses, and of lectures, may be greatly re- duced, and the time of the student devoted more successfully to the radical and important parts of the science; which Dr. Barnwell comprehends un- der the healthy, morbid and curative nature of the vital actions and medical history. From the whole matter, I presume it is a just in- ference, that unless disease can be reduced to a unit, as Dr. Rush has done—that as hunger is re- moved by one remedy—food ; so disease may be re- moved by one remedy—diffusive stimuli—the sci- ence of medicine, as digested under its present ar- rangements, can be very little improved. The highest human skill and ingenuity have been lav- ished on it for four thousand years. The acute and penetrating Greeks ; the studious and profound Romans; the Europeans, with all the aid of their improved and advancing science; have devoted the labor of ages to correct, to improve and perfect the system of medicine. But if they should have all failed, and come short of the high excellence which they most ardently sought to obtain, it is no reason but the Deity, in love to man, may lead an untutored mind to make that discovery, which has been concealed from ages. " By their fruits ye shall know them;" an infalli- ble criterion in medicine, as in morals or theology. 88 I cannot be deceived in the medicine which re- moves my disease. The fruits of Thomson's practice have been so abundant, on the most forbidding soil, and so well authenticated, that we are called upon to admit its truth and respect its testimony; and it requires the aid of strong prejudice to resist its claims on pub- lic confidence and attention. Great men are not always wise ; the most simple means are often overlooked, for the most labored and complicated ; and it would be well to give the agency of God a place in the universe, as well as the agency of man. The kine pock, a mere accidental discovery, extremely simple and yet powerful to expel dis- ease, on which all the physicians of the world had spent their skill in vain, for twelve centuries ^ while it was carrying off annually, one in every twelve of the population of the globe, and leaving its rude impress upon nearly one-half of the survivors. It will be easy for Divine Providence to discover a specific to men, for consumption, for fever, for plague, for every pain, as for the small pox ; for a more loathsome and terrible disease could not be found amongst all the maladies of man. There are herbs, says Dr. Ray, to cure all dis- eases, though not known every where. The Cel- tic tribes knew the most of them. They can take the pain out of a burning at once, and heal it soon, though burned to the bone; which baffles all the faculty in large and learned cities. The Celtic doctors are applied to by such as use the establish- ed practice, when given up by it. The same writer says, it is a mistake that the an- imal spirit resides in the nerves, and not in the blood. It .is self-evident, from the opifex rerum, or maker of man, that life is in the blood ; for the heart and blood are first formed, and all the other 89 parts, both solid and fluid, are nourished from it.— Death makes no alteration on the nerves, but it makes a total change in the blood. Though all the nerves are said to be derived from the brain and produced by it, yet the nerves are found to be in proportion to the size of the body, and not of the brain ; and they are so in monsters where no brain can be discovered. The nerves and brain are them- selves supplied, repaired, and nourished by the blood. He, therefore, considers the blood, and not the nerves, as the principal seat of disease, as it is the vehicle of heat and life to the whole system. The morbid action of the blood—the cause of dis- ease—he says, is to be removed by barley water, pure water, pure air, light food, and gentle exercise. LECTURE Til. THEORY OF FEVER, ACCORD- ING TO THE MODERN SYS- TEMS OF MEDICINE. Dr. Cullen.—Fever, Pyrexias, or Febrile dis- eases, designate their approach by a general debili- ty and languor over the body; cold shivering, in- crease of heat, frequency of pulse, diminution of strength in the animal functions. These are the distinguishing characteristics. Phenomena—lan- guor, debility, sluggishness in motion, face pale and shrunk. Stages, three—cold, hot and sweating. The hot stage of fever is so constantly preceded by a cold stage, that we presume the latter is the cause of all that follows in the paroxysm of the dis- 90 ease. To discover the cause of the cold stage of lever, we may observe, that it is preceded by 6trong marks of general debility prevailing in the system. The weakness of the pulse, paleness of the face, shrinking of the whole body, plainly indicate that the action of the heart and arteries are extremely weakened. There is also a weakness of the ener- gy of the brain. Debility is the proximate cause of fever. The remote causes are, contagion, putrid effluvia from 6ick persons, decayed vegetable or animal substan- ces, marsh miasmata, state of the atmosphere, cold, fear, grief, 6trong passions, or whatever exhausts the system and produces debility. There is, there- fore, evidently, three states, which take place in fe- ver; state of debility, state of cold, state of heat; and these follow in a series of cause and effect. The principle of action, by which the state of debility produces the cold state, has not been ex- plained ; but is referred to the general law of the animal economy, or philosophy; which is, that when noxious powers threaten to hurt or destroy the system, it immediately assumes a repelling atti- tude to resist the hostile powers. This is called the vis medicatrix nature?, in the schools of physic. The increased action of the heart and arteries, which takes place in the hot stage, says Dr. Cul- len, has long been considered as an effort of the vis medicatru nalurce to repel the disease, by phy- sicians; and the cold stage, also, as an effort of the same power. In this sedative state, nature is concentrating her powers to that formidable resist- ance against the enemy, which she displays in the strong paroxysm of fever; for it has been observed, that the paroxysm is always in proportion to the force of the chill. This is precisely Thomson's principle; that fe- 91 ver is a friend, and not an enemy, but rises to sub- due the enemy; and should, therefore, be aided in its efforts, instead of being broken and destroyed— which in fact, is to destroy life—to crush the very efforts of that vis medicatrix naturee, which God, in mercy, has placed in the human form, to defend man from the innumerable evils which assail him in life. Whether, therefore, we agree with an- cient or modern theories—with the ancients, who supposed fever, this unusual motion in the blood, to arise from the to arche, to expel morbid matter from the system—or, the impetus faciens, the ani- ma medica the vis medicatrx natures, or vis insita, of their successors: all these moving powers, healing powers, spirit of life, principle of life, law of life, vital energy, amount precisely to the same thing; the vital action resisting the encroachments of disease. Life is opposed to death, necessarily and eternally. It is a necessity of nature. Light and darkness could as soon unite, as life and death. Whenever there is life, therefore, there will be a resistance to whatever has a tendency to produce death. It is an essential law of life; where it is not found, life does not exist. The dispute of physicians respecting the proxi- mate cause of fever, ought to be reduced to a single point, namely: in what part of the material sys- tem, has the Deity lodged this vital principle, or law of life, which causes the fevered action to re- pel disease] For wherever life eminently resides the action of resistance will first begin. One will answer, the blood vessels; another, the nerves; an- other, the sensorium; another, the medulla of the brain, and nerves, and spinal marrow; another, the stomach; another, the absorbents; and, finally, some in all these taken together; and some in the 92 nerves, blood vessels, and the absorbents; Dr. Brown's excitability, and Dr. Thomson's heat. But where does the vital principle reside] In the blood! in the blood! we would certainly affirm, if it can at all be located, or fixed to any part of the system. But if it is seated in the blood, its vital energies are diffused over the whole system. Now, that it is seated in the blood, we shall assign the following reasons. 1st, the experiments of Dr. Hunter on the blood. He found it to resist cold and corruption by its innate vitality. 2d, from the phenomena of the system. The blood is recipient, and the vehicle of life and heat to the whole sys- tem; the nervous fluid, the censorium, the medulla of the brain, and the nerves, and spinal marrow, are all formed and supplied by the blood; the ab- sorbents are formed and supplied by the blood; the stomach is supplied and formed by the blood in the incipient stage of existence—for in the foetus, the heart and arteries are first formed; and from these, the vital current of the blood supplies and forms all the other parts of the system. Muscle, ligament, cartilage, and bone, are formed out of the vitality of this all pervading fluid! Now, if the vital princi- ple be located at all, common sense would undoubt- edly place it in the blood—in that fluid and its or- gans, which give formation and vitality to the rest of the system. It has been often remarked, that the Poets are truer to nature, than the Philosophers; yes, than the sceptical philosophers and their votaries. Scepticism generally springs from a cold, insensi- ble heart, never warmed by a single ray from the eternal sources of the splendor of the Divine Ma- jesty. But the poets have warm and feeling hearts; they are truer to the voice of nature, and their fig- ures, and metaphors, and sublime language, are 93 predicated on nature, on revelation, and tradition, derived from original discoveries of the Divine will. We therefore find in them, animal life ascribed to the heart and blood—"The living current of the blood The vital stream"—Pouring his lifs blood on the yellow sand," said Homer, of his hero; and Burns, in his "epistle to Davy, a brother poet," says: "The life blood streaming through my heart Or my more dear, immortal part Is not more fondly dear." 3d, and finally, in confirmations of philosophers, and poets, and anatomists, the most acute ^profound and penetrating; in confirmation of experiments and of facts, in the living process of the animated being, from the first germ to the finished system; we shall add the high anthority of the living ora- cles: "For the life is the blood thereof." In the law given to Israel, respecting the use of animal food, they were prohibited from the use of the blood, because it was the life of the animal. It has been said, in order to repel this application of the text, that it was on account of the sacred typi- cal allusion it had to the Messiah's sacrifice, that the Hebrews were forbidden to eat blood. But this very exposition corroborates the argument, that the life is in the blood; for it was a type of the Lamb of God, slain for the sins of the world. His life, laid down, was the atonement for the soul. And life, and blood, in scripture language, and con- vertible terms; the latter is therefore, called the blood of atonement. From the first sprinkling of the blood of the Paschal Lamb, on that awful night of Egypt's sorrow and despair, through all the sprinkling of the altar, the mercy seat, the cheru- 94 bim, the books of the law, and the congregation of the Lord, until the son of God himself, sprinkled with his own blood, the rocks of Calvary; the blood was a standing emblem of the price of the soul—and that price was life—the life given for its salvation. Man, by rebellion, had forfeited his life; life was given for his ransom; this life was in the blood; and hence, the high and hallowed designa* tions—The blood of atonement—The blood of Je- sus Christ, his son, cleanseth from all sin!—The blood of sprinkling, which speaketh better things than the blood of Abel! The inference is now indubitable, that the animal iife being in the blood, the resistance to disease and death will be in the blood. The fever, there- fore, which is a battle in the blood to resist and repel the enemy, should be aided, by every princi- ple of reason, and argument and humanity. If it be debility, remove the debility; if it be morbid excitement, remove the morbid excitement; if it be obstruction from cold, remove the obstruction. The fever which is the effeet of all these, or the ef- fort of the vital actions to subdue all these, amount! to the same thing, when we examine the principles. Let the cause be removed, and the effect will cease. The house, at midnight, repoies in perfect peace. The robbers enter; in an instant all is turmoil and distraction—the clashing of swords, and guns, and pistols, and screams, and groans, intermingled.— This is an effect produced in the quiet mansion, by the robbers entering the house; it is also an effort, and a violent effort, of the inhabitants, to expel the intruders. Now, what would be thought of the wisdom of a passer-by, on hearing all this hubbud, who should enter the house, and utterly regardless of the robbers, would employ all his efforts to ar- rest the master's arm, and still the cries of his wife 95 and children ; He certainly would be regarded as insane; and his aid, although he did not intend it, was in help of the robbers, and against the family ! The case is clear, the fever begins in the blood ; the vital principle is there; it rouses the blood ves- sels to extraordinary action. In the very prece- ding chill, it is mustering the clans—rousing all the forces of vitality, from the sensorium, to the spasms of the toes and fingers, till every moving power, and the whole system, are finally engaged in the struggle. This has been called the spreading of the disease, by many physicians; but it is the uni- ted struggle of nature to resist death. And you may observe the melancholy events of the combat, as she yields to the destroyer; the extremities be- come cold and torpid ; the eye glazed and dim ; the pulse low—stops; the struggle gains upon the heart; the breast heaves with violent respiration ; the last throb bursts on the appalled ear—the battle ends ] Life is forever fled ; and over the hollow and pale cheek of death, the king of terrors waves his triumphant banner! Alas! alas! that ever this king of terrors should be aided in his efforts to des- troy the human race, under the idea of affording them relief! This is no suggestion of mine, to the prejudice of the Faculty; they themselves have ac- cused each other with aiding the destroyer. Their books, their lectures, and their quarrels, all testify to this solemn and serious truth of the fact of per- nicious practice. Dr. Rush aecuses Cullen's nosology, with direc- ting physicians to prescribe for the names of disea- ses, instead of their proximate cause ; he accuses them all, from the archseus of A'an Helmont, to the putrefaction of Cullen. He himself was condemned, in turn, for retting out life with his lancet! In En. gland, where people enjoy very robust health, they 96 bleed little; sweating is generally practised to re- move disease. It was here that Brown's system made the most rapid progress, because it fell in with the common sense of the people; of what they themselves had felt and practised. And all medical prescriptions should be at once submitted, in their composition, intention, and operation, as far as these are known, to the common sense of the peo- ple. Of all professions, Medicine and Relgion should be disrobed of the very shadow of disguise. Those systems, which have for their objects the health and life of the body and the soul, should be above all mystery and finesse; they should stand open, and naked, and bare, before the judgment of the people, resting on their own evidence, and mer- its, and beneficent results. The lawyer may in- vent his writs and briefs, not to enlighten, but to darken and conceal his profession from vulgar eyes ; but it is the course and glory of truth, to lie open to the day. There is a face of dishonesty and sus- picicion stamped on the very front of concealment, from which the ingenuous spirit turns away with loathing and disgust. And whenever the earth shall have been purged from her folly and her heathen- ism, the science, and the doctrines, and the deeds of darkness, from the mysteries of Eleusis, to the ab- duction of Morgan, shall be swept from the page of the book of nature. Light, heavenly light, shall beam on all the professions, and principles, and in- stitutions, of men ; for there shall be notning wrong; nothing that shall seek to hide deformity in dark- ness, nor to borrow consequence from the garb of concealment. It is really piteous, in the advancement of sci- ence, and improvements of mind, to behold profes- sors of medicine sticking to scholastic forms and disguises, in issuing their prescriptions. Why not 97 adhere to the Hebrew, or the Coptic, or the Greek languages, in writing presdiptions—the languages in which medicine was first written—as well as still cleave to* the Latin ; it is a language as dead to the mass of the people, and the boys of the Apothecaries, as any of the others. And to wrap up any part of knowledge in a dead or foreign lan- guage, to excite admiration or gain consequence, i3 worse than vain—it is pernicious. I know a knowledge of language enlarges critical acumen, and expands the power of thought; it opens the sources of ideas, and unfolds, as it were, the ope- rations and springs of intellect. The study is, therefore, by no means to be despised nor neglect- ed ; but as the great sum of the people cannot be linguists, why should those things which concern their life and happiness, be* concealed from them by a dead language] It was but very lately, that the lecturer on The- ology, in Cambridge College, England, gave his in- structions in English; and the reasons which he assigns, for deviating from the accustomed mode of giving them in Latin, are, that the common people may be benefited by their perusal, as well as the Clergy! for he wished all to be -equainted with a system, which concerns their e^erlaeting hope__ And why should not a patient he ^netited' by the perusal of the nature and operation of the medicine which he isabout to swallow—which concerns his own life, and the happiness of his friends and fam- ily] In the treatment of fever, Dr. uush endeavored to equalize the system by drawing the blood from the interior, to relieve the engorged vessels, and ex- cite action on the surface. This is to be done, ac- cording to the principles of Dr. Brown, by redu- cing, or increasing, excitement, according to the 98 high or low state of the body. Dr. Chapman's ob^ ject, in the cure of fever, is directed to the state of the stomach, as that, he says, is the great medium for acting oh the whole body. Dr. Ewell says, "candor induces me to state the fa#)t, that it is ve- Ty doubtful whether the mode of treating fever bo at all improved since the days of Hippocrates. Not- withstanding the great varieties of theory on the subject, the practice has been pretty much the same in all ages." " If inflammatory, evacuate ; if low, stimulate;" this seems to be a reigning feature of medical science. Almost all the labors of the schools, and ingenuity and industry of professors, have been expended on the inventions and discus- sions of theories; thus, theory succeeded to theory; invention to invention; systems rose, and flourish- ed, and fell; but the condition of the sick was per- manent. The cures that ought to have relieved, but did not relieve them, remained the same for three thousand years; they were as fixed and per- manent as the foundations of the everlasting hills. Although they discovered their medicines to be in- effectual, or pernicious, they were still neglected, for the delightful labor of building new theories.— The wrankle for distinction, in hypothetical in- genuity, absorbed the efforts of humanity, in revi- sing the Materia Medica, or relieving the sick. To find a safe and simple method of curing the patient, has been left to the direction of chance. " If there be, says Dr. Ewell, an improvement in the treat- ment of common fever, I think it is in tho use of antimonial medicines." "Their operation is not understood, he says, but they tend to lessen disea- sed action in the blood vessels." " What unaccountable perversity is in our frames, say3 Dr. Harvey, that we set ourselves so much against every thing new! Can any one behold, 99 without scorn, such drones of physicians, that af- ter the space of so many hundred year's experience and practice of their predecessors, not one single medicine has been detected that has the least force, directly, to prevent, to oppose, and expel a contin- ued fever ] And should any one, by a more sedulous observation, make the least step towards the dis- covery of such remedies, their hatred and envy weuld swell against him like a legion of devils." Systems may be labored, ad infinitum, and prac- tice diminished in the same proportion. The schools were never busier, than in the days of Thom- as Aqinus; and perhaps, practical piety was never at a lower ebb. To 6eek distinction by splendid writing, is one thing; and to become famous by practical utility, is quite another. It was the defects of medical practice in his own family, which led Thomson to infer that their treat- ment of fever was wrong. Their theories he did not understand; hut he saw the effects of their medicines; and affection, necessity, and hope, led him to the discoveries, and forced him into that il- lustrious career, which Providence seems to have smiled upon, with great and peculiar favor. And if the results of this new practice, proceed as they have begun, there is n6 doubt but they will pro- duce a complete revolution in the en^jre policy and practice of the medical world. Dr. Rush divides fevers into two kinds; original and symptomatic. The latter arises from local af- fection, as wounds, bruises, inflammation of par- ticular parts, asthe lungs, bowels, kidneys, &c. Original fevers, he divides into three states: 1st, high inflammatory; 2d, intermediate; and, 3d, low malignant states. He also enumerates thirty-five causes of fever; they all occasionally change their type, from the highest to the lowest grade. One 7* 100 fever will assume all the varieties, from the high- est inflammatory to *the lowest typhus ; and it is sometimes doubtful how to fix upon the true symp- toms, as they are often fallacious! So extravagant are the sentiments of the physi- cians respecting fever, that Dr. Cullen, one of the most respectable, shys, every time we feed, or take nourishment, we have lever more or less ! be- cause we expectoratc,or raise mucus from the lungs! Food communicates heat to the system; and there- fore, because it, like all the aliment of life, will act with more force on the organs, which may chance to be 'debilitated or diseased; it is therefore, pre- sumed it must be fever, or disease! The very superior mind of Rush becomes often entangled with the complex theories of former days. In enumerating the symptoms of disease,how strong is the power of habit! Notwithstanding the im- proved simplicity in theory and practice, so stongly recommended by Dr. Rush, one cannot but observe him, at times, plunging and floundering in the clouds and darkness of nosology! But from the open, ingenuous, and discriminating cast of his mind, it is very certain, had he lived, that he would have advanced and improved Thomson's system, by all the energies of an intrepid and dis- ciplined intellect. The little time he had to con- verse with Thomson, or review his system, seems to have made a very favorable impression on his mind. He intended a complete examination; but death defeated his purpose, and robbed society of one of the brightest ornaments of charity and hu- manity, that ever adorned this region of the globe. His fame, as a professor, was great; but that fame which shall shine on the imperishable pages of the book of life—his efforts in the cause of humanity— shall shine when the heavens are no more. 101 TJr. Rush directed S. Thomson to Dr. Barton, as he was the pofessor of Botany, and observed, that whatever Dr. Barton would agree to, he would give his consent. Dr. Barton advised Thomson to place his medicines in the hands of some celebrated doc- tors, and let them try the medicine, and give to the public such statements as they should deem correct. He left some with Dr. Barton for an experiment; but the sudden deaths of both these eminent men, (I>rs. Rush and Barton,) defeated his purpose in his trial. But it is still to bs hoped, that some conspicuous leader in the medical ranks, may give Thomson's system a fair trial, and oblige the world with results. And humanity, science, and com- mon sense, are all united in one interest, to pro- mote this object, to satisfy society, and silence clam- orous tongues. The high moral character of New England has not 6aved her from the crime of persecution, from the history of the Salem witchcraft, to the trials and persecution of Samuel Thomson. A scene of persecution and infamy, combined in his imprison- ment and trial, and the perjury of witnesses, which would have disgraced the Inquisition of Spain. What then, must be the stigma, the indelible brand, left on the face of a free and independent nation 1 God has made the poor of this world rich in faith. And if he has made some of the poor rich in making discoveries which the wise have not made, shall the Courts of Justice, and the forms of law, be screwed up to the 6tern, aspect, and bloody purpose of tyrants and persecutors, to over- whelm them with darkness, and sink them in obli- vion] There is a spirit abroad among the peo- ple, that will defeat all the efforts of petty ty- ranny, and the rancour of malicious slander! Who would not rather be Samuel Thomson, in his vile 102 and loathsome dungeon, than Dr. French, flying from town to town, after his deeds of sin, with eternal infamy in his wings ? LECTURE Till. F E V E R , CONTIN IT E D . In tracing the progress of fever in its direful and disastrous course, we are compelled to regard a remedy, at once safe and powerful to still its ra- ging, as one of the most signal benefits which the Deity has conferred on man. When we cast our eye over the map of human misery, and mark the monuments of the destroyer—the scenes of battle and devastation, spread out over all the nations of the world, where he has marched with death and fever inscribed on his bloody banners; and behold the same defence to resist his power, and to baffle his malignity; we may exclaim with the poet— " For thou, ten thousand, thousand years, Hast seen the gush of human tears, Which shall no longer flow." The tears that have bedewed the earth, were we to calculate their sum, poured out for the dead that have fallen by this one disease called fever, they would form an ocean that might swim the living! Were the cold and ghastly forms of the victims that have sunk into the silence of everlasting sleep, by this one disease, since the history of the son of the Shunamite to the present time, collected into one monument, they would form a mountain that 103 would astonish heaven,and terrify the earth! What heart has not bled over a beloved friend ] over chil- dren dearer than their own soul] over the wife or husband of their youth ] And how many have 6een all their earthly comforts whither under the sweep- ing siroc of this pervading and desolating 6torm] Yes! from the first thrill of the agitated nerve, the stinging pain, the hot and heaving breast, to "the pestilence that walketh in darkness, and the destruction that wasteth openly at noon day;" the human race,.smitten in all its members, consumed in every limb, has sunk to the house of silence, in multitudes innumerable, under the single pressure of this destructive power. Look at the East and West, the silent cities, the untrodden streets, the dismal, dark array of travellers on the path of death—and ask, who hath done all this] what ene- my hath been here ] Echo, from her thousand caves, would ring out her response, fever! fever! fever! This is the disease which, to break, to baffle, to conquer, or subdue, the learned Colleges of Physi- cians have tried all their efforts,'and spent their skill in vain. It must run its course, is the com- mon sentiment; if one mode of treatment fails, we must try another, and another, till the exhausted imagination, the worn out sources of the materia medica, and the dying patient, arrest the hand of the experimenter, (and I might have said, tormen- tor,) or nature triumphs equally over medicine and disease. "The practice of medicine is, perhaps, the only instance in which a man can profit by his blun^ ders and mistakes. The very medicines which ag- gravate and protract the malidy, bind a laurel on the Professor's brow; when, at last, the sick is sa- ved by the living powers of nature struggling against death and the physician. He receives all the cred- 104 it of a miraculous cure; he is lauded to the skies, for delivering the sick from a detail of the most deadiy symptoms of misery, into which he himself had plunged them; and out of which they never would have arisen, but by the recuberating efforts of that living power, which, at once, triumphed over poison, and disease, and death." The causes which have conspired to cover with uncertainty the treatment of fever, and to arm the members of the faculty often against each other, are numerous and important. A brief detail will nnfold the many causes of error, and the fatal con- sequences which often result from the established practice. 1st. Fcvemaiesaid to be of two kinds; general and local. Local, from partial injuries or diseased parts; general, from an affection of the whole sys- tem, or morbid action of all the vital powers. 2d. There are three stages of fever; the cold, the hot and the sweating stages. 3d. There are three states of fever; the state of debility, the state of cold and the state of heat. 4th. Causes of fevers are enumerated at thirty- nine and upwards. 5th. The forms of fever are, 1st, plague or pesti- lence; 2d, malignant or yellow bilious fever; 3d, inflammatory bilious, or remittant fever ; 4th, in- termittent fever. 6th. The intermittent fevers, or agues, are divi- ded into, 1st, the quotidian, or daily fever—having an intermission of twenty-four hours; 2d, the ter- tian, or third day fever—having an intermission of forty-eight hours; 3d, the quartan, or fourth day fever---haying an intermission of seventy-two hours. Now, when to all these we add the following sources of mistake and uncertainty, it is not won- 105 derful that more patients are killed than cured by the established modes of practice; and that the in- comprehensible theories, and pernicious conse- quences, have been felt, confessed, and lamented, by every candid mind, from Hippocrates to Stahl. These we shall now enumerate. 1st. The symptoms of fever are mistaken; and one disease, or stage, or state, or class, is treated for another; and the physicians declare, the symp- toms, are often so blended, complex, and Protei formed and fashioned, that it is impossible to com- prehend them. This is one source of uncertainty in practice. 2d. Nosology, or the mournful and dreary list of the names of thirteen hundred and eighty-seven diseases, besides the new diseases, so difficult to be understood, to be remembered, or distinguished, is another source of uncertainty in practice. 3d. Theories constructed on false principles mis- lead the physician, and direct him to the use of wrong medicines; for false theories will make false practice. These are the causes of the uncer- tainty of practice. 4th. Error in judgment, from misapprehending the remote, the exciting, or the proximate cause of disease, destroys the certainty of practice, and brings death to the patient. 5th. Medicines used in the cure of fever, of the most dangerous nature—poisons of the rankest dye and most fatal tendency—are often the causes of sudden death, and destroy, or ought to destroy, all confidence in the established practice. It is, in truth, like running the gauntlet amongst armed In- dians, or red hot plough shares, to escape from the poisons of medical practice. From all these causes, and many more that might be assigned ; such as the recipes being concealed 106 in a dead language; the mistakes in filling them up; one substance mistaken for another; attend- ance of boys, and persons unskilled in the apothe- caries' shops, when rankest poisons are distributed as medicines; all these causes have filled the whole history of medical practice mith dismay, uncer- tainty and death. "Mr. Barry, a respectable citizen of Boston, du- ring the course of the last summer, applied to an apothecary for a dose of cream of tartar ; in place of which he received tartar emetic; he had no soon- er taken a small portion of it, than he was thrown into the most violent puking and spasms. A phy- sician was immediately sent for, who administered fifteen grains of white vitriol. Death soon followed. Query—Which killed the man—the tartar emetic or the white vitriol]" Now, the great superiority and certainty of Thom- son's system, consist in the simplicity of his prac- tice and the safe and certain operation of his rem- edy. And, although Thomson seems to have been utterly unconscious of the hazards and difficulties of the established practice—yet, when these were brought to light, they served to confirm him in the value and universality of his discoveries: because, if all the wisdom of the schools, av.d genius, and ingenuity, of practitioners, had been baffled and confounded, through the lapse of four thousand years, it was evident that the discovery of a uni- versal remedy for fever, must be found in another department than that of the established science! And in that department Thomson rose to eminence, and received " his degree from the hand of nature*0 In that great laboratory of medical science, where nature makes our food and fashions our medicines, Thomson spent thirty years of his life. A quack is one, who, in unblushing ignorance, palms his de- 107 testable and deadly nostrums upon the public, of which he knows nothing ! Thomson laid before the public, without a shadow of concealment, reme- dies, the healing virtues of which he had tested by a practice of thirty years; and with invariable and indisputable success; a success, which, had I not seen, I should have deemed impossible. , But some of the most learned of the faculty, who have at- tended to the effects of this new practice, have giv- en their decided testimony to its power and its ef- ficacy. Prejudices rank and strong, as might have been expected, have prevented the popularity of a "safe and simple method of cure," which bids fair, were it universally introduced, to banish diseases and untimely death from the nations of the world; to introduce the dawn of that redeeming day, when sickness shall not be seated in the constitution to emaciate the body and prostrate the mind; but shall be met and expelled at its very entrance, by a remedy, that shall neither entail debility, nor chronic maladies, on the patient. A ray of this new light seems to have broken in on the mind of Cullen; for Dr. Rush ascribes to him, the first principle of hie own theory, and that of Dr. Brown—that "Life is a forced state." This principle was detailed by Dr.Cullen, in his lectures, in the year 1766—"that man was not an automa- ton, or self moving machine; but is kept alive and in motion, by the action of stimuli." This seems to be the principle on which they all three acted, to restore the nervous energy, to re- move the debility, to equalize the system; and Thomson, to raise the fountain and diminish the stream. The principle was simple and unique— but the medicine was very different. Dr. Hush 10* says, there is one disease; and morbid excitement in the blood, is its "proximate cause. Dr. Thom- son says, there is one disease, aud one general rem- edy; and obstruction is the disease, and cold is the proximate cause. l6t, Nov. this seems to be the advantage in Thomson's practice. He directs his attention, not to eradicate the fever, but to remove the cause of obstruction, and restore the action of the digestive organs. The fever is regarded as a friend, and treated as a friend, by raising the ktcrnal heat to remove the obstruction, which caused the fevor— or disturbed action of heat. 2d, The medicine and mode of practice of Thorn* son, is far superior to that in use among the physi- cians; as has been demonstrated, by its effects in curing di-sease,. when all their art had failed ; not in one, or a few cases, but in many of the most pro- tracted and complicated distempers, given over as incurable by the faculty. 3d, To enumerate its pre-eminence in restoring health to the system, we might, 1st, name its pow- er in removing obstructions; 2d, in expelling virus from the blood ; 3d, in throwing off morbific matter from the surface of the body; so that the perspira- tion has deeply dyed and stained a clean towel, with its taint; 4th, and in restoring and renovating all the vital actions and powers of the body; so as to give tone to the stomach and digestive organs; 5th, and finally, in removing pain, promoting calm sleep, in raising the animal spirits, spreading hi- larity and cheerfulness over the mind, without leav- ing a taint in the constitution, or the sting of slow disease behind. It by far surpasses, in innumera- ble trials, all other medicinesor modes of practice, which have been heretofore discovered, or brought into operation; and promises fair to reduce the 109 mysteries of the healing art to a very simpls pro- cess ; conducted in every family, and prepared and administered by the same hands which prepare and administer our food! They grow in the same field, may be plucked by the same hand, and medicated by the same skill, which furnishes our daily bread. I have the authority of the celebrated-Rush, to sup- port this sentiment. " The essential principles of medicine are very few; they are moreover plain. All the morbid ef- fects of heat and cold, of eating and drinking, and the exercises of the body and mind, may be taught with as much ease as the multiplication table. In snpport of. this truth, let us look at the effects of the simplicity of the art of war, introduced into Europe; a few obvious principles have supplied the place of volumes on tactics. Priyate citizens have become great generals ; peasants, irresistible soldiers, in a few weeks, even superior to their predecessors, after the instructions and exercise of fifteen or twenty years. Let us strip our profession of every thing that looks like mystery and imposition, and clothe med- ical knowledge in a dress so simple and intelligible, that it may become a part of academical education in all our seminaries of learning." " Truth is sim- ple upon all subjects; and upon those essential to the general happiness of mankind, it is obvious to the meanest capacities. There is no man so simple that cannot be taught to cultivate grain; and there is no woman, who cannot be taught to make it into bread. And shall the means of preser- ving our health, by the culture and preparation of aliment, be so intelligible, and yet, the means of restoring it when lost, so abstruse, that we must take years to study, to discover and apply them] to suppose this, is to call in question the goodness no of the Deity; and to believe that he acts without system and unity in his works." " In thus recom- mending the general diffusion of medical knowl- edge," by an academical education, let in not be supposed, that I wish to see the exercise of medi- cine abolished, as a regular profession. Surgical operations, and diseases which rarely occur, may require professional aid; but the knowledge neces- sary for those purposes, is soon acquired; and two or three persons, separated from other pursuits, would be sufficient to meet the demands of a city consisting of forty thousand people." If this seems astonishing to any, let them re- member the effects and discovery of vaccination, and cease to wonder if the Deity by means the most inconsiderable, should accomplish what had baffled the skill and research of all the philosophers of the world. Thomson was born for the fame he has acquired ; and necessity, dire necessity, forced him into the niche of the Temple of Nature,where he now stands. Hi6 narrative is not to be fdrgotten,nor passed with- out the painful feeling of this additonal evidence of the perversity of our nature, and selfishness of our lives. If this were to be our everlasting home, we could not display a more determined disposition to establish our claims, right or wrong, and defeat those of our neighbors, be they ever so well founded. Dr. Thomson reasons, if disease be an enemy to ife, in every form; and medicine a friend in all— it must then, be a universal remedy; for the sum is but the amount of the particulars ; and the partic- ulars, the items of the sum; as genuine food re- moves hunger of every degree, so genuine medicine, disease of every type. It is not necessary, there- fore, to be changing the dose any more than it is Ill necessary to be changing the food, to remove the malady in the one case, or hunger in the other. Now as the healing power of nature in resisting disease, confessed by all physicians, seems to be ef- fectually aided by Thomson's practice, he must have discovered the right practice—the true mode of cu- ring disease. And that he has so discovered it, we thus judge—his practice suddenly expels the disease—has an effect the most salutary on the whole system—invigorates and renews the powers of nature; and leaves—"not a wreck behind." Dr. Hillary in his secret of curing diseases by adopting a better system of medicine, says, ''that by accurately observing all the motions, endeavors, and indications of nature, to carry off and cure dis- eases ; and by observing by what critical evacua- tions she does at last cast off the morbid matter which caused them, and so restores health; we may, by the same method of reasoning, know both the methods and the means we should use to assist nature in producing those salutary effects; if we avoid all hypothetical reasoning, and by thus obser- ving, following and assisting nature, agreeably to her indications, our practice will always be more satisfactory and successful. For the human body is so wisely and wonderfur- ly formed that whenever any noxious matter is got into it that would be injurious or destructive, we may observe, it always so irritates, stimulates and offends nature, that she always exerts her power, or the vis vita, to throw it off. And she acts with great regularity, order, and unformity, in her en- deavors to expel the offending matter out of the bo- dy ; and by carrying off the disease, restore health and preserve life. And thuse, by observing, investigating, and tru- ly knowing, the diseases and their causes, and just- 112 ly reasoning therefrom, we shall know when to as- sist nature according to hor indications; and in this is'contained the chief part of medical knowl- edge, and tha true s.-ieiitifie principles of the medi-^ cal art. And when we shall thus have learned of nature, by observing her laws and indications, we may reasonably hopeto render the theory and prac- tice of physic beneficial to mankind." How just is this mode of reasoning; and how much does it resemble the process and workings of Dr. Thomson's mind in that straining effort, with- out the aid of book or friend, to penetrate the se- cret workings of nature } to observe how she mo- ved in health, and in disease; what Were the rea- sons and results of her diseased action; how could she he aided, or befriended ; could a hand be lent her in the struggle, or must she triumph or sink alone ] These, and ten thousand other questions, such ag these, must he have asked himself, while he looked mournfully on the approaching tremors of the final hour! 1 think I see him in the deep so- litudes of the trackless desert, interrogating nature thus; " Is there no remedy, no healing balm, in all thy boundless stores, to save thy dying children] No powerful antidote to person from a long attack of pain and fever. 3d. Capsicum.—It has long been a subject of deep importance to physicians, to find a stimulant at once powerful and not narcotic; bark and spir- its, both fail in this respect; and laudanum des- troys sensibility and deadens the vital powers; the system is partially destroyed by its action ; for it is hostile to life, subverts the natural functions, and is itself an obstruction of the offices of life.— Capsicum supplies this grand desideratum. It is a stimulus, powerful and permanent; not narcotic, nor destructive of the vital functions. It is said to have been found effectual in curing diseases which have resisted all other medicines. It sup- ports the natural heat of the vicera and interior action, beyond any thing heretofore known and has been used with great success in the cure of spotted fever. Like the former medicine, it seems to be safe and salutary, perfectly in harmony with nature and the most active stimulant to support and re-an- imate her feeble or exhausted powers. 3d, In the mode of expelling the virus or mor- bific matter from the blood, the physicians have been most divided; some have recommended per- spiration ; others, salivation, friction, bleeding and purging, and the use of mineral waters. Dr. Thom- son's composition medicine, to remove this morbid purulent matter from the system, has been found extremely effectual. It is a compound of four or five different herbal productions ; and in purifying the blood and cleansing the whole internal man, stands without a rival. A variety of herb teas have been used in the spring of the year to purify the circulation; but they have not been found sufficient- ly powerful to expel the dregs of disease from the 143 system. This composition of Dr. Thomson, in that respect, stands pre-eminent, in all the cases in which it has been properly applied, according to the established directions. 4th, Bitters, to correct the bile and promote di- gestion, consist of another composition of herbal medicine, and are of great importance to the health of our country ; they ought to be known and used in every family. From the nature of our climate, subject to great and sudden changes and irregu- larities ; from the abundance of fruit, used in a crude and improper state; and the vast use of flesh meat; frequent and great irregularities wilj, and do, take place in the digestive organs, and gall- bladder, and biliary ducts. Diseases of this com- plexion are, perhaps, by far the most numerous in this counfry; and to guard against them, is the im- perious duty of every individual. It is impossible to retain good health without due attention to the state of the stomach. Many men have made for- tunes by the invention of bitters, for the use of the stomach; but on trial none have been found equal to tillose prepared by Dr. Thomson. 5th, Another composition, for dysentery and the summer complaints of children, and all complaints of the bowels; has been found, on trial, to be highly beneficial. This disease of children has long baffled the physician's skill; it has been con- fessed by the most eminent of the faculty, to be ve- ry little under the control of medical skill. This medicine has been found to afford instant relief. 6th, Rheumatism, a severe and most painful dis- ease, which has been often given up as incurable, by the application of Dr. Thomson's rheumatic drops, and other medicine to relieve the system,and equal- ize the excitement, have established a perfect cure, when every other application failed. A man at 144 Columbus had suffered by this disease for years; and like her in the Gospel, had spent all his living on physicians, and grew nothing better, but rather Worse; until he was drawn together, quite bowed down by the severity of the pain, and unable to walk. He had for some months been given up by the faculty, and resigned to his fate. The medi- cal botany doctors took him in hands, after this new practice began to be known in that town, and res- tored him in a few weeks. The faculty would not believe it until the man was produced—walking straight as a line, to their utter amazement. 7th, Opium has been almost exclusively for years, used to quiet the nerves and still restless children. Many a poor infant has surlered death, by the ad- ministration of this deadly drug; and many a stu- pid head and 6tupified person, has it sent mt° *-ne world; never to speak of the multitudes it has sent cut before their time. It is a most deadly drug; and seems to destroy the vital actions of the whole system. But,say the physicians, it relieves pain; yes, it relieves pain by deadening sensibility; a bullet or a dagger will relieve pain in the same^way! But the important question is, will it remove pain by removing the cause of pain—disease] Will it not, on the contrary, give force to the disease, by weakening the vital functions] Does it not es- tablish disorder in the system by rendering all its powers torpid ] Dr. Thomson's nervine has a more powerful ef- fect, by ten fold, in quieting the nerves, promoting sleep, soothing and stilling the tumult of the whole system ; is perfectly 6afe and harmless in its appli- cation ; has none of the narcotic qualities, nor dead- ly etupifying effect of laudanum. It promotes ease an.d comfort, and leaves no dregs of wretchedness, nor dream °f insanity behind! Now, nothing can 145 80 recommend a medicine, as to be certain it will pioduce the end designed; and none of all the evil consequences not designed, but deprecated by the faculty; but which they have no means of preven- ting. Dr. Thatcher says, arsenic, in cancer powder, has been absorbed by the patient, so as to cause death by consumition, in the course of one year. Beware, says 9. Thomson, of all minerals used as medicine ; such as mercury, arsenic, calomel, antimony; all preparations of copper, lead, iron, vitriol; also nitre and opium: They are all poi- sons, and deadly enemies to health. Beware of bleeding, and blistering; they are destructive of health; avoid seatons and issues; they are hateful, nauseous and drain the very sources of life; they never did, and never can do good! Shun them all, us opposed to life and its vital functions. Now, it may be said in justification of the facul- ty, that using the medicines they do, the fatal con- sequences they are not able to prevent. If it be re- plied, then let them not use such medicines; the answer is, they have none else to use! What are their active remedies, which are not poisonous, and destructive to life ] " Mercury, says Dr. Rush, is the Goliah of medicine;" it is certainly a Goliah to destroy; it is the unsircumcised Philistine of medical science, who defies the living armies of me living God. The numb3rs slain by Tiis arm, let India, and America, and the world witness.— The multitude of the valley of liammon Gog, would not equal their countless hosts, if mustered on the field of the slain, or arrayed before the eyes of the world. The " heroic medicines^' as they are emphatically called, deserve indeed, a considerable share of the praise of the Csesars and Alexanders of the world; 10 146 powerful to destroy, heroic in blood, and havoc, and devastation. It was the boast of Alexander— " I have made Asia a desert, I have trampled down its inhabitants and prostrated its ancient renown." 8th, It is a point conceded by medical writers, that the.onejation of medicine does not depend on any of the common laws of matter, but on the prin- ciple of vitality alone. Now, from this concession, the theory of Dr. Thomson is eAbfished ; f>r he affirms the great value and success of his medicine depends on this principle—that it is in harmony with the vital powers. As the operation of medi- cine depends on the principle of vitality alone, it must harmonize with the vital principle; or, oth- erwise, so far from being a remedy, it would be a poison; because, depending for its action on the principle of life, if its action be in opposil ion to that principle, it cannot restore health, but destroy it. And this very conclusion of Thomson'd theory, is in perfect accordance with the physician's doctrine, but in opposition with their practice. Every animated being is endowed with a primor- dial principle of life. This principle,-lesident in the egg of animals and the seeds of plants, consti- tutes the power, by which, in the first place, the various organs are moulded, developed, and perfec- ted; and by which, afterwards, the animal econo- my is maintained and defended against the action of mechanical and chimical laws. Now, it is evi^ dent, that medicine thrown into the system, direct- ly hostile to this active and repulsive power, must have the most pernicious effects on life and health. The principle of life may struggle for a time, but must sink at last. I know, in reply to this, it will be said, that this principle of life, by the power 0/ the digestive and assimilating organs, will chang.j or destroy the qualities of substances exposed to . 147 their operations, if*r«pugnant to its nature, without sustaining any injury itself. This is truth only in part; for this power of assimilating is often over- come, and life destroyed. If it were otherwise, it would matter not what we might eat or drink; what medicine we received. But we know the contrary to be a fact; why so much direction and caution to patients, respecting the qualities of their food and drink.? why the terms harsh medicines, severe medicine*, dangerous medicine] They all establish the same conclusions; the necessity of guarding the principle of life; and the value of Dr. Thomson's remarks, that proper medicine must be in harmony with the principle of life. There is a unity and beauty in truth; it is not like error, multifarious and infinite. It was re- marked by an ancient sage, that there was but one road to Truth, and that difficult to find; but the ways to Error were innumerable, and every fool could walk in them. It requires no meditation, no thought, to establish or deliver systems of error.— The greater the madness and less the discretion, the better is the publisher qualified to propagate falsehood and detail lies- Between the physician who theorizes in his stu- dy, and the one who establishes his theory on facts and experience, the difference is as wide as be- tween a novelist and a writer of true history. The historian gives us human nature as it is; the nov- elist as it is not. Dr. Thomson gives his pharmaceutical prepara- tions from his own trials, observation and experi- ence. Many others write theories, and then found their practice on-what they have written. Thus medicines repugnant to life are given to the patient; he has to struggle with the morbid excitement, and additional hostility of the medicine, until the whole 10* 148 system, languid and decayed, sinks under the at- tack,.which it is no longer able to repel. Now from the very nature of the operation of medicines, as they are designated by the faculty, "that their operation is either local on the stomach, and diffu- sed over the- system by sympathy; or general, be- ing thfoWn into .the circulation, and conveyed through the whole body ;" it worfUL-seem to be of the highest moment that they shcuUpe safe and sal- utary in their nature, to commingle with all the streams of life, and pervade the extent of. vital ac- tion. It is a fact, admitted by physicians, that between medicine and certain pertions of the body, an inti- mate and specific relation exists. Ifow, if this be notorious as it is, will not a general specific become an universal remedy ' For these consequences must necessarily follow; that while an action is going on in a diseased organ, if the remedy be only a partial specific, though it may be salutary to that particu- lar organ, it may disturb the order cf health in eve- ry other organ in the system, and create morbid de- rangements throughout every other part of the bo- dy. And this very consequence we perceive in mercurial medicines; while they relieve the liv- er, or subdue fever, they are creatirg ulcerations in the mouth and glands of thet throat, diseasing the bones and exciting deadly tumors in other parts of the body. The medicines, therefore, which are partially specific, are dangerous meJlchics; though on this well known fact, the whola Listeria Medica is based in its order and claseificatior. Now, a safe medicir.e mutt be a universal speci- fic, possessing an intimate relation to the whole body; that while removing obstruction from a par- ticular organ, it may not excite morbid action in others. And such has Dv) Thomson's medicine ff 149 •proved on trial He has affirmod it to be of that nature; and the whole of the experience confirms the fact, that while removing disease, it produces no morbid derangements. Arsenic and tartar emetic, as has been found af- ter death, produces the most deleterious effects on the stomach^nVLyet they are given to remove dis- ease, and canedjpcellnnt remedies; but are now denounced by TOose who are disposed to purge the Materia Medica; as may be seen in the Transac- tions of the Royal Society, for 1811—12. Corro- sive sublimate kills, by acting*chin:ically en the mucus coat of the stomach; but arsenic, tartar emetic, and the muriate of barytes, by entering the blood. The general eourse of nature, in accomplishing its results, is known to employ means, which are proverbially distinguished by great simplicity and uniformity of action. The mode of curing her com- plaints, we might suppose, should be distinguished by the same uniformity and simplicity. Er. Chap- man in his Therapeutics, has this ttautiful re- mark : " It is more than probable that on some Al- pine height, or along the margin of seme mighty stream, which pervades our wide spread continent, there blooms map.y a plant, wasting its virtues ' on the desert air,' which, were they known, may be peculiarly adapted to the gigantic form of disease, and capable of reducing the lengthened catalogue of the opprobria medicarum." At this period of the progress of these lectures, I cannot help expressing a hope that Dr. Thomson, from his extensive ac- quaintance with the medical virtues of plants and herbs, would make out, for the sake of neatness and precision in his pharmaceutical preparations, a complete system of medical botany; or a digest of all the plants, in classification, with a particular 150 detail of their efficacy and application in removing disease, the mode of operation and practical results. If Ae immense riches of medical virtue, inhe- rent in the plants and flowers of the field, were col- lected in one volume, it would realize the aspiring hope of the great and good Dr. fitfsh, the perfect cure of all the maladies of the hSmt. race. And the rays of human thought are Hsfcrverging on this sublime, and grand, and awful, elevation—the per- fection of the healing art; and will continue to con- centrate their energies until the full blaze of glo- rious triumph shall burst upon the world. From all the instinctive propensities, and ration- al of priciples of action, man is induced to shun pain and misery; and remove it from himself if attacked, by the easiest and speediest method pos- sible. This established law of our nature would dispose us, if left to our unbiased reason, to exam- ine and approve, if found valuable, whatever might conduce to our ease and comfort in the world.— Whatever promises to restore or establish the health of our fellow men, excites a glow of general feeling ofgratitude and thankfulness, in every benevolent heart; for we do not live for ourselves alone; we live and rejoice in the happiness and joy of our neighbors ; and we pine and die in their misery and destruction. Homer stated it as a general unqual- ified maxim, that "good men are prone to shed tears." The silent streams that bedew the earth are supplied from the sources of human benevolence, wept over the woes of others. The tear and the smile are characterestic of man; they distinguish the dignity of human feeling and that divine sympathy which animates the bosom ; and prove that the glan- dulse lachrymales were not made in vain. There is one part of the new practice, which I wish to recommend to general notice j'JJr. Thom- 151 son's method of reducing the contracted muscles, in the occurrence of broken bones and luxations. It is very simple and effectual; and of such power and influence oyer the contracted muscles, that the patient can have the bone set, or the luxation redu- ced, almost without any pain. The great impor- tance of this-s^pt-le practice need not be impressed on those whdU^ve witnessed the agony of setting bones and red^png luxations in the usual and (es- tablished practice. I have known a piece of the bone sawed off, in order to its being set, such was the contraction of the muscles! This state of ter- rible suffering to the patient, and moreover being rendered by it lame for life, was so dreadful to be- hold, that Dr. Thomson's simple mode of reducing the muscles, is of itself, sufficient to immortalize his name if he had never made another discovery. To ihe attention of families I would mention and recommend another fact in Dr. Thomson's discov- eries, of great advantage to their comfort and hap- piness ; and I appeal now, not only to the feelings and sensibility of parents, but also to their under- standing and experience; is not the mother the most affect ionate and careful nurse of her child 1 Can any stranger know the disposition, the temperament, the peculiar idiosyncrasy of that child, equal to its own mother]—None. It is, therefere, impos- sible for any physician, upon their own principles, to know either the quantity or the nature of the dose of medicine to be administered to that child, equal to the mother; for they, not knowing its pe- culiar temperament,.cannot tell nor foresee by their utmost skill, what will be the operation of that medicine. It may act right or wrong; kill or cure. The mother is the best qualified to administer, but for one circumstance—she is the most tender, watch- ful and most perfectly acquainted with the dispo- 152 sition of her child—but she knows not medicine.-* Add but this knowledge to all her other qualifica* tions, and the mother, for tne diseases of infants, would be the best physician in the world; and the best in the most prevalent diseases of her whole family. I have the authority of Dr. Rush for the assertion, that a seiisible mother, ur purse, in most of the diseases of children, wejAsnperior to the most of physicians. *9w The practice of Dr. Thomson is^xpressly adap- ted to confer on the mother that only qualification which she needs, to render her the best physician, as she is the best Jiurse, in her family ; or to le- stow the same skill on every other member of it. For it is emphatically the realization of the fact, or the attainment so long sought after, "let evory man be his own physician." Philosophers and sa- ges, physicians and patriots, have all subscribed to the same maxim. Now, Dr. Thomson's system is designed for this very purpose; that every family should practice for itself; that a knowledge of the medicine and its administration should be as familar to every fami- ly, as the knowledge and use of their daily bread. Dr. Thomson has very particularly described the nature, and use, and preparation of his medicines, so that any one possessed of common sense, < an prepare and administer it, with perfect safety nnd convenience. How great then must be this addi- tion to the security and happiness of families! I will not even suppose that any can be so hardened, as to be indifferent to the health and safety of their children. Now, when the father and mother can administer to them, and to each other, a medicine safe and effectual for their complaints, I ask what must be the amount of pleasure, the thrill of grati- tude to heaven, to have in charge the lives of their 153 dear ones, rather than be obliged to entrust them to the care of a stranger] Reflect on this, my dear audience, and ask those families who possess the right to practice, what they would take to be bereft of this knowledge and this medicine; make the trial, and I am convinced you will meet with answers that will astonish you! i A gentleman tptjLme he would not take all the state of Ohio, to jj| deprived of the use of this med- icine in his family!! No, because he loved his wife and children far beyond all the riches of the world. I was deeply impressed by the observation, because it came unasked and with a sincerity and solemness of manner, which I could not mistake.— Those who have tried for years in their families the efficacy of this medicine, cannot surely be de- ceived. Men of sense and science have made the experiment, and I have not yet met with one who expressed the least disappointment; but on the con- trary, declared the fullest confidence. I hope my fellow citizens will weigh well the weight of testimony on the side of this new discov- ery. Give it a fair trial, implore the direction of the God of mercies to direct their decisions and crown them with success, and precious lives may be saved to adorn society, and be a blesssing to their friends, and ornament to their country. EECTURE XII. REV TEW OF DR. THOMSON'S REMEDIES. " Fkveb, of every description, says Dr. Chap- man, has its origin in local irritation, which is 154 f spread more or less, according to circumstances." " The stomach, however from its central position, and extraordinary sympathies, seems to be the organ most commonly at first affected; and when the morbid action is not at once arrested, diffuses it- self by multiplying trains of associations, till the ' disease becomes general, involving in a greater or less degree, every part of the ajtippal economy."— In this way, he remarks, diseased impressions made on the stomach, are imparted, generally, in the first place, to the chylopoietic viscera, to the heart, to the arteries, to the brain, lungs, skin, capillaries, and other important organs, until they embrace Within their scope the whole animal machiYie. Now, from this very theory, the great utility of Thomson's medicine is clearly established. Ac- cording to this system, the beginning of fever is ir- ritation in the stomach, affecting the organs of chyle, the heart, and arteries, and ending in the capillary vesels. The two first parts of Thomson's practice are directed particularly, to the first and last of these troubled organs ; lobelia, to remove the disease and irritation from the stomach, and steaming, to remove the obstruction of the capilla- vessels, and force the disease from the interior or- gans. Of the power of lobelia to cleanse and relieve the stomach, and purify the internal organs, I have spoken already. Of the value of steam, nature her- self will teach man; it being one of the most im- portant channels---perspiration---by which she throws off the morbific matter, which weighs down to the grave the oppressed ar.d exhausted system. It has been long since remarked by physicians, that a profuse sweat and calm sleep were the har- bingers of returning health to their patients; they indicated the crisis of the disease. Dr. Thomson's medicines produce these signs of gentle health re- 155 turning immediately; as soon as the operation of ths lobelia and steam has ceased, the patient sinks in- to a quiet slumber, and rouses only to demand food, to the great astonishment of all, who have not wit- nessed the fact before; but have been only acquain- ted with the vomits of tartar emetic, and their re- sults. The source of the disease being thus remo- ved, the heart amjfarteries are at once restored to their healthy action ; the fever ceases, and strength and activity are restored. The man himself is amazed at the sudden change. " In treatment of fever, says Dr. Chapman, vene- section, puking and purging, are resorted to, to re- lieve the general circulation. But the capillaries being affected, we must resort to medicines acting more immediately on this set of vessels; as blisters, diaphoretics and mercury; which last, is of uni- versal operation, pervading every part, and entering every recess of the body." Now, the first of Dr. Thomson's remedies will accomplish more than this all powerful mercury; and steaming will act on the capillaries enumera- ted by Dr. Chapman, to remove fever; three for the internal structure, and three for the external; but one of the latter, mercury, acts universally on both. Now, of all the six remedies, four—tartar emetic, mercury, purges, and blisters—increase the cause of fever, which Dr. Chapman says, is ir- ritation; the fifth, venesection, diminishes the power of life, and weakens the force of vital ac- tion ; the sixth and last, diaphoretics, may be con- sidered as the only one of the six which does not exasperate the cause of fever, irritation. And this is, no doubt, the reason why fevers are so long in continuance before they are broken, in the com- mon language of practitioners. You may perceive the fever at the beginning, small; no particular 156 excitement to be regarded as dangerous ; but after a few doses of the above remedies, the irritation is so increased as to threaten life; you are then told, the disease is hastening to a crisis. But it is str inge that the remedy should not arifest the disease, in- stead of awaiting the crisis. It is at once conce- ding that the remedies have no power over the dis- ease ; they cannot stay its prtflbess: Then they are not proper remedies, nor fitio be relied on, by those who have in chtrge the protection of human life. The remedies of the new practice can be relied on, with a confidence derived from an experience of forty years, in which they have never been known to fail in removing fever. This gives con- fidence to the practitioner, and warrants the asser- tion, that they are superior to any thing now in practice among the physicians; that the citizens have only to make a fair trial to determine for themselves. To relax the excretories, in removing disease, Dr. Cullen considered of the greatest mo- ment. Steaming, and the medicines received into the stomach in Thomson's practice, relaxes these organs by producing a solution of all the external and internal obstructions, and have a power of ex- pelling fever, which was never before known. The vitiated humors and putrefactions "caused by mor- bid action, are at once purged out of the system ; a tone of health, and animation, and serenity of mind, ensue, of which a person can haxdly conceive the amount, who has not witnessed the operation, and its consequences. The more we examine Thomson's system, wc find its principal features agree with the most pop- ular and received opinions of ancient or modern times. " An opinion universally received, says Dr. Cullen, is that noxious matter introduced intc. or 157 generated in, the body, is the proximate cause of disease ; and that the increased action of the heart and arteries, which makes so great a part of fever, is an effort of the vis medicatrix natures, to expel this morbific matter, and particularly to change or concoct it, so as to render it either altogether inno- cent, or at least, fit for being more easily thrown out of the body." This doctrine of as great anti- quity as the first'records of medicine, has beefi re- ceived by almost every school of physic, down to the present day ; and even those who have rejected it arc obliged to speak of the vitiated humors ex- pelled by°the capillary vessels. Now, the very essence of the botanic system is to expel those mor- bific humors together with the corruption and pu- trefaction of the internal diseased organs; and in accomplishing this it has no parallel. The coagu- lated and congealed pus, and purulent matter, thrown cff by this medicine from the system, would perfectly astonish a stranger to its operation and its efficacy. Whether, therefore, we consider diseases to be occasioned by the diminished energy of the brain ; by general debility, direct or indirect; by spasm in the extreme arteries; by lentor; viscidity ; te- nuity ; acid; or alkaline acrimony in the mass of the blood; or mcrkiSc matter taken into, or gene- rated in, the systcr, ; or impressions on the nerves adverse to life; it h no matter which of all these be c luse of the disease, the remedy here recommen- ded is equally'powerful to expel it; because its operation is universal over all the organs, healthy and diseased, to strengthen the one, and purify and restore the other. I know it may look, to those who do not think deeply, like quack boasting to say so much in praise of this safe and simple rem- edy. But let those who are capable of thinking, 158 and who will take the trouble to think, revolve over the following facts: 1st, The medicine has been tried by an experi- ence of upwards of forty years ; not on a few disea- ses, nor a few mild cases, but on every form of dis- ease incident to our country, and on cases the most dangerous and desperate; on diseases absolutely incurable by the faculty, and given up, as such by them! And yet, by the applicatiqpiof this medicine, they have been perfectly cured, or so far mitigated as to render life useful and a blessing, both to the patient himself, and to his friends and family. 2d, This new practice has extended over most of the eastern, and many of the western and mid- dle states: and is still advancing in power and re- putation. Even in childbed delivery—a matter never to be forgotten—their practicehas very nearly removed the pain and punishment from the daugh- ters of Eve, threatened to our first progenitor, and entailed upon her offspring. A lady of great good sense, and without the least coloring of imagina- tion, said it was easier to have five children under the operation and influence of this new practice, than one, by the other management and medicine; and she had experience in both cases, and has been supported in the evidence by every one who has followed her example. 3d, The efficacy of this medicine has become u part of the public history of our country. The re- cords of the Legislature of the state of New-York, have stamped upon it their high approbation. It will form an epoch in the medical science of the great republic of the western world. Dr. Thom- son's system had been very extensively introduced into the state of New York, and had met with un- rivalled success; which excited the fears and jeal- ousies of the regular physicians. They, in order 159 to protect themselves, procured the passing of a law, the most unjust and unconstitutonal that could be imagined, to arrest and extirpate tfcis new practice, by preventing the practitioner from collecting his fees. This measure resulted, as might have been foreseen, in a country of equal rights and privile- ges, in great excitement, and numerous petitions to the Legislature to abolish the in'i.iuous'law.— The Legislature apppointed a committee ff five of their members to examine into the merits of the case. The official report of this committee is now on the records of the House of Assembly, and be- comes a part of the public history of the United States. The report is too long to be here quoted, but ends with this important particular; "The practice of Dr. Thomson has, in a great many in- stances, proved beneficial, and in no case deleteri- ous." The petitions were sent in from at least one-half of the counties of the state of New-York, and were supported by the evidence of the most respectable and intelligent men. Now, when all these particulars are carefully weighed and con- sidered, it will be found, they bear with them a testimony as fully entitled to credence, as any thing that ever issued from the schools! an evi- dence, such as quackery never could establish nor exhibit—here are medicines, known, tried and des- cribed, in their efficacy and operation. The legis- lative wisdom of the first state of the Union, has, by their committee, after the strictest scrutiny, and investigation, stamped upon them the seal of their testimony. The practice assumes a character altogether distinct from the arts and devices of de- ception ; with the gravity of philosophy, and the attitude of truth and benevolence, it stands before the world. The scrutiny of friends and enemies have searched it through, and there is yet no deci- 100 sive testimony where it has absolutely failed, unless where death had laid his stern arrest on all the doors and passages of life. Physicians rely much on the reaction of the sys- tem, in the cure of disease. But in order to se- cure this re-action, it is necessary to preserve the vital powers of the system; fcr how can re-action take place in an exhausted, prostrated, conditon of the living powers] The conservation of the vital powers—or as some have termed it, the conserva- tive power of the animal life—ought to be cherish- ed by every means, in the treatment of the sick; and that practice will ever be found best, which best preserves the conservative power of nature— a power that will, of itself, prevail over disease, if not overwhelmed by a too potent enemy. I know the advocates of the heroic medicines, have called the timid and the cautious practice, "a meditation on death!" But the facts steak for themselves; the " heroic medicines" have left behind them, if not a meditation on death, "a history of graves," sufficient to blast their reputation, exterminate their existence, and alarm every benevolent heart for the welfare of society. Dr. Cullen, in recounting the remote causes of fe- ver, supposes cold to act in conjunction with the unsearchable qualities of the air, hi promoting dis- ease. In all its operations, he remarks, cold seems to act more powerfully in proportion as the body, and particularly the circulation, lose their vigor, or tire debilitated. The second number of the new practice, and No. 6, have mere powerful effect, in cuonteracting this cold, and supporting the vital heat of the system, than any thing used in the old practice. There is a kind of, what may be called, the tyranny of fashion, in medicine, as in all other things. The "heroic medicines," have become so 161 Fashionable, that though they should kill and de- face, it is of no account; still they are heroic med- icines! and the.patient, if he dies^, dies heroically! Were I to recount the invaluable advantages of this new system, it might astonish the ignorant, and admonish the wise; while both would be drawn into an extensive field of remark and meditation. 1st, It abolishes the intolerable romber of Nos- ology, and symptoms, habits, temperaments, dia- thesis, prognostics, and critical days, about which volumes have been written, and millions of lives sacrificed. 2d, It purges from the Materia Medica, all the useless, and what is of infinitely more importance, the poisonous and pernicious remedies. 3d, It reduces the idle and endless details of pathological ingenuity, respecting the remote, ex- citing, predisposing, and proximate causes of dis- ease, to one simple cause—morbid action, or ob- struction. 4th, It has abolished the uncertainty of practicer which has always been evinced by the change of medicines, adopted by the regular practitioners ; a tacit confession that they knew not what remedy would remove the disease. And when they thought they had discovered the proper remedy, that reme- dy was but too often the messenger of death! The cold hand of the destroyer was upon the patient, which was mistaken for the departure of the fever. m I will instance the example of Dr. Rush, in the yel- low fever; he thought he had discovered, in blood- letting, an infallible specific, and proclaimed to the citizens of Philadelphia, that he had the fever re- duced, under this practice, as completely as a com- mon cold—that they might safely return to their homes. But, alas, look at the results! bleeding was certain death to the poor, suffering patient; 162 life sunk in proportion as the vital stream was ex- hausted. They might have had a more easy bed, but they had cerUinly a more speedy death! Eve- ry one is now convinced of tnc fatal consequences of bleeding in that stage of fever; and yet, that venerable physician, so eminent for his skill and success in practice, believed it to he a sovereign remedy ; at leirat, he never contradicted his former assertions. There is one criterion which physicians seem to have overlooked; that when their practice aggra- vates the disease, or hastens death, they may be •ure it is wrong. And yet, this they seem never to have considered with due attention ; ascribing to the disease, what they ought to attribute to the remedy. They appear to have lulled their con- sciences, and pursued their course, although it led down to the chambers of death. Far be it from me, to impute the want of humanity, or a disposi- tion to destroy, to a class of learned and respecta- ble men. But certainly we may affirm, in the spirit of charity, that when they find a remedy not only failing to produce the desired effects, but absolutely producing deformity and death, it ought to be dis- carded. A remedy worse than the disease, is no remedy; it may hold the rank by prescription; but it is an authority as unhallowed as the tyranny of eastern despots. The rich are able to afford to nurse their com- pliants and pay their physicians; the poor can do neither, i'his is the true reason, and not credulity, why they are prone to employ quacks; they are promised a safe and speedy cure, at small expense. Their necessities, and not their want of sense, force them to run the risk; and dearly do they of- ten pay for their confidence. Still, the principle .vhich urges them on to the adventure is a good 163 principle ; and the feeling, one of the most noble in human nature—the love of independence. In tljfl trial they are moreover influenced by a principle, which has in all ages operated equally on the learn- ed and unlearned; that the Deity has placed the remedies for disease within the reach of man; not far from any of us, had we but thtjAiil or the good fortune to discover them. When a new remedy is, therefore, published, there is a natural impulse in every mind to try its efficacy; and if the rich and the learned are more cautious than the poor, it is because they are not urged on by the same necessi- ty ; and not because they have not the very same inclination. The pride of learning, and the pride of wealth, may stand in the way ; but God has for- med our hearts alike. And this universal senti- ment, impressed upon the hearts of mankind, is like the argument for the immortality of the soul— a proof that the remedy exists, and shall be discov- ered in due time. And the very existence of quack- ery, like false bills, is a proof of the true—that the genuine remedy exists, and shall come forth, not from the schools arid colleges, but from the casual discoveries of the people; the result of chance or necessity. Quackery never could have existed but for this innate sentiment of man. Every decep- tion practised on the human family, in the healing art, has been predicated on this principle of the human breast. If it were a fact, that we believed the cure of disease could only issue from the wis- dom of the schools, quackery might proclaim his skill in vain ; not a soul would lend him a single moments regard. But the very contrary is the fact; we feel it as a part of our nature, that rem- edies the most powerful and efficacious, are scat- tered round the paths of our feet; and in an instant may be discovered, like the Tyrian dye, without 11* 164 labor or learning. A discovery that will not, in- deed, clothe kings and courts in purple; but will clothe them in health and peace, and banish dis- ease from the inhabitants of the earth. Dr. Rush was deceived by one of his former pu- pils, Dr. Brown- of Pittsburgh; who returned to Philadelphia ami informed his former tutor and friend, that he had discovered a vegetable remedy for cancers, which was an effectual and safe cure. The good and benevolent Dr. Rush was transport- ed with the idea that this terrible disease at last • had found an antidote—well knowing the deleteri- ous effects of arsenic, and its inefficacy to remove the complaint. But, alas, he was sadly disappoin- ted. Dr. Brown died; Dr. Rush bought up the remedy, and as his former pupil refused to inform him of its nature or composition, he resorted to an analyzation of the substance, and found, to his great mortification, it was but the arsenic disguised by some simple, useless, brown bark of a tree! This is a proof, from no common man, that the rure for cancer, might be the result of chance, ra- ther than study. Nor did the deception, in this in- stance, remove that confidence; he still believed to his dying hour, that discoveries in a very simple manner, would be made, to cure cancer and all oth- er diseases. Let not the poor, then, be charged with credulity. They exercise a principle on which the faith and hope of the great and learned have revolved, in every age of the world. But de- ception, like false gold, is capable of certain detec- tion and infallible exposure. It only requires us to beware, and not to be too hasty in our conclusions; to sever the deceiver from the man of integrity and virtue. The people are not to be blamed for their great caution in admiting the Thomsonian practice ; the 165 only blame attaches to that kind of, hostility and vengeance by which it has been pursued; the de- ception practised upon society, under the name of remedies, require caution in the people, and warn the multitude to beware. But so far from shewing hostility, the course which nature gnd commonsense prescribe, is to carefully listenw) the narrative of the discoverer; examine his medicine and his cures. Let every case be stated with candor and impartiality; the state of the patient, the du- ration of his disease, the remedies he has used, and their effects upon him; his state when the new practice commenced with him, and its operation and consequences. This is but a fair specimen of trial, and the way in which all the regular physi- cians proceed, when called to difficult and doubtful cases they write out an exact history of the pa- tient and his disease, the course of treatment he has pursued, the state in which they find him, the plan of their own remedies, their failure or success; asan admonition or encouragement for future prae- tice. Now, I am thoroughly convinced from all the in- formation which I have been able to obtain on this subject, that, were Thomson's practice submitted to the same fair and impartial trial, it would be found—I will not say remedy for all diseases—but it would be found to alleviate the most inveterate, to cure the most doubtful and dangerous, to injure none; and where it failed, it failed from the obvi- ous reason, that death had already laid his cold and icy hand upon the life of the patient. There is nothing in the history of quackery, to be at all compared to Thomson's discoveries; eve- ry thing in his Narrative carries with it the face and air of an honest man, acting for the good of his country, and desirous, like other merf, to live by 166 the honest industry or profession of a new Fystei.; of curing disease—a profession which, if it shall be found on a universal trial to be as beneficial as its high and early promise has inspired, his country never can repays nor the world calculate the price. It is not suppoAd that this system has arrived at perfection; or et all attained to that state of pre- eminent elevation, which it shall yet assume; but we believe the foundation is laid of a system of cure, susceptible of advancing, until it shall coirprchend the wants and miseries of the human race, in the extent and compass of their diseases. Dr. Thomson had this opinion from the effects he himself had seen; and his Narrative is convin- cing from its very form and features. He tells us he was illiterate, and he was poor; oppressed by a young, helpless, and sickly family; the practice pursued did not agree with their constitutions, nor diseases; he was, from nature,jHclined, to try the virtue and operation of plants; the gift of healing, it was impressed upon his mind, God had given to him; necessity, when his family was dying, forced him to try; he was successful; success encouraged him to go on; his neighbors applied to him in the hour of calamity; he relieved their complaints, his time was consumed, his reward nothing; he con- sulted with his wife and friends, whether he should abandon the practice, or abandon his farm and yield to these pursuits; he was counseled to follow his own inclination. Still believing he had a call from Providence, and a degree from the God of na- ture, he commenced, in form, the healing art. His cause and claims are before the world ; laid before the Government of his country; his remedies sub- mitted to the experience of scientific men, and em- inent physioians; tried by a jury of his country for his cures, ana even perjury could not substantiate a 167 plea against him! This is something very differ- ent fr's derived from Dri Sydenham himself, who says the Mate/ia Medica is swelled beyond all reasonable bounds; and that two-thirds of its articles are worse than useless.— Indeed, the eternal multiplication of remedies, till the understanding is lust and confounded in the mass, reminds one of St. Anthony's devils. Twen- ty thousand tormented the good saint, but ihey were so small and intangible that the whole legx,. could dance a sarabuad en the finest point of a h- dy's needle, without ii:v»iving or jostling each oth- er! Of what avail can a. vast innumerable class of articles ba to a practuioner, v/ho must either re- lieve his patient imruediaf ely, or see bim sink into the grave. Ther/j is iv> imu- tu try ej x-i-.irirp.ts, when life is ebbing witn .the r,.pidity of the Cow- ing minutes: No! the remedj must be sure, and epeedy, and saie,o; ds&this ov.Jy h.iotjncd in his 181 course. The second answer to this objection. 1 shall take from an authority no less than Dr. Rush himself; when lecturing on the infallible certainty of medical science, yet to be attained, he remarked, nature was simple in all her operations! he had no doubt but the most simple remedies were to be dis- covered; some lonely weed trampled in the earth, might furnish a cure, which had baffled all the wis- dom of the schools. Bread and water were the simple aliment of food—not to this man nor that man—but to» the whole inhabitants of the eartli; could not the God of nature, who placed the food and drink of man in low simple elements, also place his medicine in some of the most untried plants or flowers of the field ] These answers are as full of wisdom as they arc replete with experience. They1 were made by two of the most celebrated physi- cians ofthe age in which they lived, and have still common sense and experience upon their side. An- other answer might be here added, from the fact of medical practice. It is well known to all practi- tioners that out of all the articles of the Materia Medica, very few are in general use; six or seven remedies are about the extent of the general range of the physician's applications. The heroic medi- cines are the chief and general resort in all disea- ses. What advantage then in point of fact, have the volumes of the Materia Medica over the sim- ple numbers of Thomson. There is something very imposing in the clas- sic names, and learned disquisitions of the record- ed remedies of the schools; and so there is some- thing very imposing in the splendor of an eastern despot, compared with the plain and simple man- ners of the President of these United States; but whether of these is the better man, the world will judge, and history on her true and faithful page, 182 will leave her infallible testimony. So shall tho Thomsonian remedies. It is useless to be angry, to decry or rail against them; if the people find them useful and effectual in healing their diseases, science may fight against them in vain. If they are found not efficacious, it will not require art nor learning to put them down; they will sink, like all other folly and imposition, by their own worth- lessness. It is admitted on all hands, that medi- cine needs improvement; let it not then be reject- ed, though furnished by a humble instrument, and coming unadorned by the drapery of science. Dr. Reynolds says, "we suspect every theory which proposes to conduct the cure of disease on a few general principles." A few general principles cpnduct the whole nourishment of the body and why not the cure of its diseases ] In the body, there are many classes of organs and functions', solids and fluids; a strange and cuilous whole, composed of many parts. And yet a simple food taken into the stomach, will nourish all these, sup- ply every ligament, cartilage, and bone, and the whole viscera, with its appropriate nutriment.— Why not a unity in the mode of cure, in the rem- edy provided, as well as a unity in the body itself, a unity in disease, a unity in nourishment, a unity in feeling, in sympathy, and in every thing connec- ted with man. Take the strongest man, expose him to cold, and he takes a fever—not in this or that part—but fever all over, throughout the whole sys- tem ; and yet the system was only partially expo- sed to cold. When the proximate cause of disease affects the whole system, why may not a single remedy affect the whole system in removing dis- ease] The parity of argument is on the side of the unity of cure. It is supported by the same facts which demonstrate the unity of disease. 183 The wise man has beautifully observed, "that a few words fitly spoken, are like apples of gold in pictures of silver!" A few general principles well established, are of infinitely more importance in the business of life, than ten thousand compilations and collections destitute of practical utility. Of what avail to the practice of medicine has been the intolerable load of nosology, of pathology, of signs and symptoms, and types and stages] Worse than nothing! They have only bewildered the practi- tioner, paralized his efforts, and confounded his reason. The two thousand names of disease, car- ry absurdity and contradiction in their very front. Disease is but the departure of the system from its healthy state; and it would be as wise to talk of two hundred thousand departures, as of two thou- sand. The causes of disease are equally unreason- able and unknown. Have any two physicians ever yet agreed upon the remote, the exciting, predis- posing, and proximate causes of disease] Never— for they do not know them, and how then can they agree! Men may reason about uncertainties, and crowd volumes full of speculation, but when the simple matter of fact is wanting; when there is no obvious and specific principle; it is a mere sail through oceans of vapor. To classify disease af- ter the manner of natural history, led to all the absurdities of nosology ; and to explain what was never understood, to the speculations and vain jangling of pathologists. Dr. Brown con- gratulates himself, that he had not looked into a medical book for five years before he published his system; as the delusive reasoning of the theoreti- cal writers would only entangle his understanding and cast darkness over the light of nature and ob- scured the splendor of truth. These confessions are not the solitarv sentiments of an irritable or dis- 184 appointed mind. No, they have been confessed, in substance, by the most eminent leaders of the schools of medicine. Some bold and daring spirit thinks he has made a new discovery; and that all his predecessors have been wrong. He starts in the career of fame with his new theory; abuses or ridicules those who have gone before him; is followed by a crowd of pupils and admirers ; triumphs his brief and troubled day; sinks into his grave; and his sys- tem is perhaps overturned before his ashes are cold in the tomb! Every student of medicine knows this to be a fact since the beginning; but especially from the days of Paracelsus to the pres- ent time. And that is not all; it will never caase to be otherwise until a perfect, safe, and speedy mode of cure, shall have been discovered. Revo- lution will succed to revolution, school to school, theory to theory, until time, or accident, or neces- sity shall have crowned their system with perfec- tion. For finding themselves wrong, disappointed, mistaken in their exhibitions of medicine, the ac- tive, ingenuous and conscientious physician, will not rest; he will make every effort for the per- fection of his system. And if he cannot discover a new medicine, he will form old ones into new combinations. He will revise theories, and new model systems, and forever continue restless, un- til the great object of his search shall have been attained. From the above remarks, the reply may be made, the Thomsonian remedies ought, upon that princi- ple, to be readily adopted, or at least examined.— And so they would, were it not for a reason, per- haps too invidious to mention—had a member of the faculty made the discovery which Thomson made, they would have, to a man, at least made trial of 185 the remedies. We see how anxiously Dr. Rush seized upon the specific for cancer, though a de- ception; but had it been genuine, by this time it would have not only overspread theUnitedStates,but all the nations of Europe. Dr.Rush seized with the same avidity on Dr. Brown's doctrine ofthe unity of disease, and life being a forced state. So san- guine was he upon this topic, that some of bis friends thought he uttered sacrilege on the subject. "Upon this subject, said Dr. Rush—the unity of disease and life being a forced state—Reason and Revelation embrace each other; Moses and the Prophets shake hands with Dr. Brown." What ever mistake may be in his views, we perceive in them this important truth; That to arrive at any certainty in medical practice, the theories of life and disease must be simplified and reduced with- in the grasp of knowledge and common sense. For there was never yet a physician on the face of the globe, that understood all the names in Cullen's Nosology, with their characteristic diffeiences and distinctions; state of the pulse; signs, and symp- toms, and aspects of disease ; no certain practice could ever be founded on such a system, because it is as absolutely beyond the reach of the understan- ding, as to count the number of the stars. These matters are very easily arranged on paper, and put on the gravity and appearance of wisdom, but at the bedside of the sick they are as useless as a mountain of dust! They have often betrayed the practh ioner to slay, instead of cure ; and made him lament, when too late. Had he pursued another course he couhl have 6aved his patient; but he was deceived by his names and signs. While studying this lecture, a gentleman called in my room; con- versing on the subject, I mentioned Dr. Cullen's system as filling the practice of medicine with the 186 hlackne.*s of darkness, and confounding common sense by classifying disease like the plants of Lin- naeus. He retorted, that Dr. Thomson had the same remedy for every disease. I replied that was not exactly the fact; he had more than ooe reme- dy; but if that were, he had the authority of Dr. Chapman upon his side, one remedy would cure di- vers diseases, opposite both in their cause, symp- toms and localities ; and showed him the doctor's recommendation of Swaim's panacea; in which he affirms, that although he could not account for it, yet such was the fact, that Swaim's panacea did cure diseases altogether different, according to the theories and reasonings of the schools! He was si- lent, for there was Dr. Chapman's recommendation. Now, said I, the most formidable objection against the Thomsonian remedies is answered by one of your own faculty; and why may not Dr. Thomson discover a remedy to cure different diseases as well as Dr. Swaim] The truth is, the absurdity so of- ten urged in this objection, is not in the thing it- self, but in the mode of comparison. In itself, it is perfectly philosophical; the unity of medicine agrees with the unity of man, his sympathies, his feelings, his health, and his disease. But when you compare the one remedy, with the artificial classifications and theories of the schools, the ab- surdity is very palpable indeed; it is like compa- ring a man with a centaur. But compare man w ith man; medicine with disease; and you find the per- fect concinity established by the hand of nature— the unerring guide, from which proud science has often led man to stray into the deep darkness of strong delusion. For what is disease] The ob- struction or morbid excitement of some organ, which in health moved with ease and facility. Man is not changed in disease, nor his constitution 187 much changed in the incipient stages. A very simple remedy of the proper kind, like the kine pock, would at once restore him and establish health. Why then does he linger ] Because either the medicine has no power over the disease, or be- cause it aggravates the disease. To say a disease must run its course, is to say we have no remedy for it. There is no such thing in nature as a law establishing a course of disease. The Deity has established laws of order, of harmony, and benev- olence but he established no law of disorder and necessary pain. We know the wages of sin is death; but there is a remedy for that death, and for all the diseases which are its harbingers. The greater includes the less. That Goodness which provided a relief from the woes of the second death, could not fail to make provision for the pangs which presage the first; for the promise of a good old age, is inclu- ded in the comprehensive assurance, that the saint shall inherit all things. The experience of the world, and the promise ofthe latter day glory, es- tablish the fact. A single instance will be suffi- cient to display this principle: The small pox must run their course—this was the common lan- guage, because they had no remedy for them—they did run their course with a fierce and fatal certain- ty for twelve hundred years. Had any one then said the day would come when that loathsome dis- ease would be extirpated from among men, he would have been scouted as a madman or a fool. But the day came, the remedy was found; and it is now found also, the small pox had no course to run; and so shall every disease be stopped and eradicated whenever the proper remedy shall have been dis- covered. The hope that the discoveries of Dr. Thomson had contributed to this great subject, in- 188 duced mo to deliver this course of Lectures; and from all I have yet seen or known on the subject, I am persuaded, that however humble my efforts may be found, I am contributing to the cause of hu- manity and the relief of the miseries of man. If I thought these remedies dangerous to a single indi- vidual, or useless in removing complaints, there is no wealth which could have induced me to have spent one breath upon them. I know the condition of the poor, I have a deep sympathy for their wants and their woes; they can neither spare time nor money. On reading the Narrative of Thomson, I said to myself, if this be a fact, and this discovery and mode of practice real, it will lift a vast load frooi off the poor and the oppressed. It was a high and holy commendation of the Gospel, on its first exhibition, that it was preached to the poor. This new system of medicine seemed to be medicine to th(i poor; and in this respeqjt, like the equalizing spirit of the Gospel, it sets them on an equality with the rich! Now, if both were established with equal certainty, O! how great would be the bles- sing ! If the means for procuring the health of the body were equally within tbjs reach of the poor as those ofthe soul, who would not rejoice ; for those two important objects comprehend the whole sum of human happiness—health of body and health of mind. That man cannot be miserabla who has a soul at peace with God, and a body on which the storms of life may beat in vain. The Thomsonian remedies seem peculiarly adap- ted to the diseases of the laboring c'asses of soci- ety. Exposed as they are to greater hardships, se- verer toils, less nourishing food, they are more sub- ject to rheumatisms, low fevers, putrid fevers, dys- enteries, cholics and chronic complaints, than the other members ofthe community. 169 These new remedies are, in a high degree, pow- erful and safe to remove all these complaints, at a very small expense. They possess an energy which seems to communicate new life to the sysr tem, and renovate the feeble, fainting powers of nature. I have witnessed a few cases beyond the power ofthe established practice, relieved by this medicine in a manner so short and new to me, that I would forfeit my own convictions did I not 6peak of it as I do; and recommend it with the zeal of one who believes he is promoting the good of his fellow men, and contributing to the welfare of society. Dr. Rush says, "in no part ofthe world is ani- mal life, among the human species, in a more per- fect state than in the inhabitants of Great Britain, and the United States of America. For in addi- tion to all the natural stimuli which have been na- med, they are constantly under the invigorating in- fluence of liberty." " There is, he says, an indis- soluble connexion between political freedom and physical happiness. And if it be true, that elec- tic and representative governments have'a greater influence on human happiness and national pros- perity, they must also be more favorable to human life." Now, the idea of liberty here incuhated as conducive to life and happiness, is precious and dear to man in every department of life and prrc- tice. I have known patients refuse medicine, me .».- Iy because they did not know what it was; the mys- tery and technical name seemed an infringement on the very freedom of thought, and disgusted the pick with the prescription. It is certainly grati- fying in a high degree, to understand the medicine you are taking, the nature of its operation, and safe and salutary results. Small things will influ- ence the condition of the sick. All who have at- 190 tended sick beds, must have observed, that the least shadow of concealment or deception, whispering, or doubtful looks, or the color of mystery, will dis- tress the patient. If he loses confidence in his phy- sician, it will aggravate his disease. But what must be his condition when the grand principle of freedom is destroyed in the mode of administering; when he is reduced to the condition of the slave of an eastern despot; when he must in profound ig- norance receive, with implicit faith, whatever is offered to him. How deadening must be the ef- fects on a weak and worn out constitution] If it be objected, what confidence can the patient place in a botanic physician, who is not a man of science] The answer is plain; the trust ofthe patient is not in the skill of the physician, but in the nature and pdwer ofthe remedies, that they are safe and cer- tain, congenial to life and productive of health.— To relieve our hunger, we do not rely on the skill ofthe cook, but on the nature of the food; so in medicine, our dependence should be on the remedy and not on the administrator. Short and sudden has been the journey to the tomb to thousands, who Ly a proper remedy, timously applied, might have spent a long and useful life in the world. This new practice possesses this great and deci- ded advantage; it places the knowledge and the remedy in every family; the physician and the cure are always at hand. You have not to wander in the night to a distance, and the patient dying, to seek a doctor, with the agony pressing on your spirits, that your wife, or child, or friend, may be dead on your return. No, you can apply at once to your own resources, and at least keep the sick in safety till additional aid be called, if necessary. I knew a lady in this city, who cured her husband of a cholera morbus, in an attack so severe that if he 191 had been left unaided till a physician could have been called from his bed, his case would have been very doubtful, if not entirely fatal, as many have in the same disease. Now, the whole amount of fam- ily medicine for one year, will not much exceed three dollars; for this sum you can procure a por- tion of all the numbers, and directions how to take them; any one in the family can administer to an- other in perfect safety. There is a kind of peace and confidence established in the family, when they know relief is at hand. This is a part of practical wisdom, which every good mind must appreciate, to be provided, espe- cially in the warm seasons, for sudden and severe sickness. The benevolent Dr. Rush was exceed- ingly careful to inculcate upon his students, to in- struct the families where they might practice, how to act in cases of emergency. In sudden cramp or spasm of the stomach, pour water on hot ashes and drink it off; in croup, or strangling, run a shovel into the fire, pour on it water or vinegar and inhale the steam ; in a distressing cough, take salt and water, or stand with your back against the wall.— These were all intended for immediate relief, until a physician oould be called. Now, the system of Dr. Thomson is not only for temporary, but permanent relief. It is the begin-- ning and the end of the patient's cure. You arc prepared to attack disease in its forming state, and pursue it without remission, until a cure be finally established. Surely, to those who love health, the remedies are worthy of a fair trial—of a candid and patient investigation. The study of medicine I dearly loved, and the practice I would ere now have pursued, had I known a remedy of certain and infallible efficacy. But I knew of none such; and I cared not to encounter the pang of that dreadful 192 disappointment, which I have but too often witnes- sed, to see your remedies taking a course altogeth- er the reverse, of that which you intended, und yonr patient sinking by the very hand employed to raise him up! Others may sooth their conscience, and justify themselves in a manner of which I am igno- rant ; but I could never find but one answer which satisfied me—the uncertainty of medical practice, and the impossibility of ascertaining when you ad- ministered a dose, whether you were not hastening the patient to the grave. On consultation, you may see a practice entirely changed, when the sick is already dying; a plain confession they have died by the hands ofthe physician. LECTURE XV. A GENERAL VIEW OF TIIE WHOLE SUBJECT. Since the first records of medica! science, the profession has either slumbered under the shadow of a mighty name, or gone lorth to war with the con- flicting elements of passion, prejudice, and perver- sity of soul. The pride of interest and the pride of science, the maxims of philosophy and the cunning of designing knaves, have all. at diferent times, obstructed the plain and simpf progiess of medical knowledge. A profession at firs* s;i(.; !o and reti- red, became at length involved in ali the bustle, and business, and learning ofthe world. Hippocrates was celebrated as the fii_t who sep- arated the profession of medicine from philosophy. But the separation did not long exist. Philosophy 193 Was Boon drawn within the magic circle, and lent her splendor, and bowed her pride, to adorn the mysteries of the healing art. For mysterious it must needs become, when the philosophy of life, of matter, and of mind, were all brought into the il- lustration of pathology and the theories of disease. Medicine now put on her purple robes, and began to assert her infallibility; but like all infallible pre- tenders, she quickly furnished by her own example, decisive pioof that her power was a dream and her pretensions a delusion. She changed her aspect with the changing times, and at every new remove still thought she had attained perfection. She was never idle, but full of life and activity; pushed her conquests, on every side,and her researches through every new and untried region of discovery and speculation. If she did not succeed, it was not be- cause her efforts were not multiplied and vigorous; but because the road 'in which she chose to travel, was not that which led to the secrets of the healing art. There was much truth, and much science, and great industry; but the facts of perpetual change, confess that she was never long satisfied by some of her attainments, nor convinced that her labors had reached a close. Some of the physicians have confessed, that the practice itself did not change with the changing theories of medicine. That after all the disputes and differences of medical professors, the practice remained nearly the same. The assertion certain- ly requires some limitation. There must have been a great variety in practice as well as in theory, though not so much as would appear to follow from the assertions of medical writers. Dr. Rush de- cried the nosology of Dr. Cullen, with great vehe- mence. To hear him lecture, one would imagine his practice would have been diametrically oppo- 194 site; but it wag not. The opposition to Cullen was in his theory, not in bis practice. Dr. Reyn- olds, in taking a review of the jarring theories of medical professors, says,—"the consequence is, that the people believe, from the fact of so much opposition, that there is no truth in medicine at all." And he says, it is boldly asked whether the profession be not rather in a worse condition now than it was three thousand years ago ] This ques- tion the doctor does not directly answer: He does not say they now perform more cures than in former times. But he asserts, they possess more knowl- edge in Auatomy, Surgery, Chimistry, Botany and Physiology; he affirms, and affirms truly, they are superior to the ancients. But it is a fact not to be forgotten nor disguised, that the most learned phy- sician are generally the worst practitioners, or at least, they are not accounted so good as others, nor 60 much to be trusted. Wh#n a physician gets a professor's chair, his practice irom that moment de- clines. Dr. Waterhouse, I am told by good author- ity, one of the most learned physicians of our coun- try, has almost no practice. The learned and elo- quent Dr. Barton, of Philadelphia, had very little; and Dr. Rush observes in one of his lectures, that his practice was very small, and that little gener- ally among the strangers who visited the city. Dr. Darwin was afraid to poblish his Botanic Garden, fox fear of destroying his practice; and Dr. Rush affirmed, that Drs. Armstrong and Akenside, on publishing their respective poems, lost all their practice. Now the fact exists, whether true or false, that the people consider the pursuits of literature ad- verse to the medical practitioner, and detracting from his abilities to cure; that so far from being a qualification, it incapacitates him from the reepoa- 195 sibility of restoring health and preserving life!— And this opinion is not confined to'the people, but has crept in among the physicians themselves. And there must be some truth in the sentiment, or it never could have obtained such an universal,sway over the human mind. But the truth is indubita- ble, the study of patients and not the study of books; experience and not reading; make the most com- plete and successful practitioner, and inspire the highest confidence in the patient. Dr. Thomson is called ignorant; but it is the ignorance of books, and not of experience. He had, and still has, a vast measure of the learning above described, as giving popularity to the physician, and reliance to the sick, in the skill of one who has battled death in a thousand forms, and disease under every ag- gravation. Dr. Rush, on the causes of failure in medical practice, makes the inquiry, why ninety-nine cases out of the hundred arelost, of those which are cal- led the curable diseases 1 He first mentions igno- rance in the physician; one not qualified either by reading or observation, for the practice of medicine. Dr. Thomson does not fall under this charge; by ob- servation he was well qualified. 2d, Dr. Rush says, incapacity in the physician. Dr. Thomson is clear of this charge also; for he had a natural aptitude and love to medical study. Had it not been for this, he never could have risen against the pressure which weighed him down, and pressed him to the earth. 3d, Dr. Rush says, want of in- struction in the physician; with good capacity, his. instruction had been erroneous, and hence his prac- tice pernicious and ineffectual. Dr. Thomson had the very wisest of all instructors—necessity and ex- perienced—instructors which never deceived man; hut taught him to plough, to find out the use of 13* 196 corn bread, of potatoes, the use of wool and furs for clothing, and the simples used in medicine, and every thing valuable yet in use among the human family. 4th, Dr. Rush mentions obliquity of mind; there are some, says he, of such perversity of mind, that nothing will teach them propriety, nor enforce upon them the majesty of truth. If ever nature formed a plastic mind for the impressions of medi- cal wisdom, that mind was Dr. Samuel Thomson's. The medical profession was the very niche in the temple of nature, for which the Deity designed him. 5th, Dr. Rush mentions as a fifth reason, or cause offailureinphysicians,attachmentstootherpursuits and neglect of their own profession. Through all the vicissitudes Dr. Thomson has been attached and devoted to his profession; in prosperity and in ad- versity ,in sickness and in health,in prison and at the bar of judgment, he had but one single object in his eye, and one exclusive sentiment in his heart—the healing ofthe sick,the discoveries of effectual cures, the perfection of his system, and the relief of the wretched. Of all the causes of failure, in losing ninety-nine cases out ofthe hundred, of curable dis- eases, enumerated by Dr. Rush, Dr. Thomson stands clear before the tribunal ofthe whole world. He is the very reverse in his whole character, from all those condemned by Dr.Rush. Dr.Thomson had very much of Dr. Rush's own qualification for the office of a physician; all indeed, but his book learn- ing. He had the same enthusiasm, the same per- severance, the same determination, to succeed and to excel, the same activity and taste for observation, and in one word, the devotion of mind to the heal- ing art, which eminently distinguished that kind and celebrated professor. Now, Dr. Rush being judge, Dr. Thomson would save the ninety-nine patients out of the hundred of the curable cases; 197 and, in fact, his success has been always even be- yond this proportion. He has not, no, nor his fol- lowers, lost one out ofthe hundred of their patients. I do firmly believe this fact cannot be contradicted. 0! what a gain is here! What a waste of lives pre- vented, and destruction ofthe human race! Dr. Chaptal, speaking of the heroic medicines, says, "should their constant and invariable effects through all Europe be found good and salutary, they ought to be exhibited. But government should impose an interdict upon their use, until the most ri- gid inspection should have ascertained their safety and established their success. And not to suffer proud and pompous practitioners to sport with the lives and happiness of the assembled millions of Eu- rope." Now, the remarks of Chaptal have been reitera- ted by Dr. Rush. While pouring the highest en- coniums on the heroic medicines, he adds, " but in the hands of ignorant pretenders, or proud and careless physicians, they are most fatal and des- tructive medicines." This will readily account for the fact of the ninety-nine out of the hundred of curable cases being lost. It was nearly one hun- dred years after the physicians of Europe in- troduced the antimonial medicines in their prac- tice, before the college of Paris would suffer their introduction. And that most eminent college of physicians is now the first to banish the mineral poisons from their practice. They have the dis- tinguished honor of being the last to receive those dangerous remedies, and the first to expel them from their community. And there is no people in the world, perhaps, who enjoy as great flow of an- imal spirits as the French. We cannot attribute the whole effect to climate alone; it will not ac- count for the fact. Other climates equally good and salubrious, do not produce such happy results. 198 Wc must look to a higher source, and causes more efficient and philosophical. A very eminent phy- sician of Great Britain says, "he has no doubt but the instances of self murder, which so frequently disgrace our country, may be attributed to the use of mercury and other severe mineral medicines so profusely and constantly administered." For such was the deplorable s'.atc of feeling produced, the sinking of the heart, the tremblings and prostra- tions ofthe whole system, the loss of appetite and ojiimal hilarity, that life became an intolerable bur- then, and the miserable patient preferred death by his own hand, to such a miserable existence!— And the physician ascribes the abuse of opium and spirituous liquors, principally to the same cause [ the awful and terrible prostration produced by se- vere medicines renders life such a burthen that the sufferer will resort to any means rather than bow before his misery! Now, this is the true reason ofthe flow of spirits in France: Their light wine and light food; their simple medicine and cautious and reluciant use of severe medicines. Their spirits are neither crush- ed under a load of 6trong food nor poisoned by de- structive medicines. Dr. Rush says, " in the free and happy republic of Connecticut, animal life for upwards of an hundred and fifty years, has existed in a higher degree and to a greater amount, than in any other portion of the world ofthe magnitude." Thic fact he ascribes to their free government and happy institutions. The amount and force of ani- mal life may be greater, and even more robust; but I much doubt whether the flow of animal spirits even in Connecticut, will equal the vivacity of France. Our object is truth, and not speculation ; we have all witnessed the sinking soul, and Iosb of appetite, after a course of severe medicine. This is never witnessed in the exhibition ofthe botanic 199 remedies; but, on the contrary, a degree of ani- mation and a desire for food, which, to myself, was perfectly astonishing; and I presume must be to every one who perceived it for the first time. The conclusion of my own mind was at the time, there must be something in this medicine extremely con- genial to life, and in harmony with all its laws. Its effects upon the patient are like those of sound and refreshing sleep to the husbandman ; he riseB res- tored and strengthened like a giant refreshed by wine! It was s<» contrary to what I had ever be- fore witnessed, and especially in the same patient, who had taken medicine, for years before, and al- ways with the loss of appetite, that 1 could not, without sinning against my own soul, withhold my testimony and approbation. We are sometimes forced into opposition with our best friends; it is extremely painful. I was often, 6ince the com- mencement of these Lectures, on the very point of abandoning them forever, and w ished I had never begun the subject; but as I progressed, and witnes- sed the salutary result of this new practice, I did verily believe that I was serving God and my coun- try, in striving to diffuse a kEowledge of its doc- trines. Nor do I think I can be mistaken; for a practice of forty years, over perhaps a million of people, in all varieties of cases and diseases, must be surely calculated to give certainty to the prac- tice, if certainty can ever be attxined in the medi- cal profession. There arc three very important results of this medicine, which I would wish to impress on my hearers. It removes obstructions, restores the ap- petite, and invigorates the, powers of life. Now these are the three essential points in the recovery of man to perfect health. When all the obstrue- tions are removed, the vital functions have a fair 200 and easy play, acting in harmony and vigor, and the glow of health is diffused over the whole frame. As we live hy food and not medicine, the tone of the stomach being restored, and the action of the di- gestive organs, we are enabled to receive food suffi- cient for the sustenance of health, and the cheerful glow of the animal spirits renders life indeed a blessing. For I presume there are particular times, when the best regulated constitutions feel that de- jection of mind which made the poet exclaim— " Q! life thou art a galling load, A long, a rough, a weary road, To wretches such as I." Now, a medicine which has the tendency to exhil- arate the mind and rouse the animal spirits, an- nounces by this single fact, its vast superiority and importance; that it is the medicine of life and health; and no matter when found, nor by whom discovered, the people should cleave to it, as a sa- cred shield and refuge from their woes. It is a solemn thing to take charge of the sick and cure diseases. There should be no enthusiasm nor fan- cy on the subject; but deep and solemn gravity, and sober thought. And yet the effect witnessed by the operation of this new medicine, are sufficient to rouse the mind to something bordering on the romantic. A regular physician of this city, on, be- holding the astonishing consequences on a pa- tient, extremely reduced and emaciated, of lobelia and the other accompanying medicine, confessed that it was extraordinary ; " but, said he, it will not last, the effect is only temporary relief." But it was not temporary but permanent help, which the patient received. If all the sick, relieved and cured by this practice, could be assembled together, 201 ! I a fair statement of their cases and continuance (of their diseases made out, I am convinced the wofld would be amazed at the multitudes and the results; and at the victory obtained over sickness and death, so signal and triumphant! For I am well aware, that nothing but something extremely powerful and striking, will overcome the prejudices ofthe phjtei- cians. I need but mention an instance of their obstinacy, to show what may be expected from them by the botanic doctors. "Miner and Tullyonfe- ver," reasoning against the fatal practice of bleed- ing in putrid malignant fevers, observe—■"oceans of falsehood have teemed from the faculty on this subject; for when they discover their error, they have not the magnanimity to confess it." And they mention one practitioner who had sixty patients and saved them ajl but one—by bleeding]—No! but by not breeding. The only one he bled died ; and yet he held forth the idea that he had saved them all by this practice! And what could be his mo- tive for this 1 A very pitiful one indeed; the take of consistency. He had in an evil hour, advocated the propriety of bleeding in all cases of fever. He soon found his mistake; changed his practice, but stuck to his theory, at the great expense of truthr and the danger of misleading other practitioners. We need not, therefore, much marvel at the ac- cusations and abuse heaped on the Thomsonian practice, when grave and learned physicians aro forced to bring such accusations against the faculty to which they belong; and I know policy often keeps them silent, when they are boiling with rage against the mal-practice of their brethren in the healing art; when, if they would speak out their sentiments, as they privately express them, they would plainly say—"the physician had killed his patient—his course was entirely wrong." This 202 new practice has this vast and high prerogative, it ttinnot be wrong, and will not kill; no mistakes are fatal here; no unexpected and sudden death, when you think the patient is just about to do well. I know a physician who put his patient through a course of mercury ; in the evening he said he was doing well—he called in the morning, and inquired for his patient, and was informed he was dead!— He was struck dumb!—looked on the lifeless corpso and departed without uttering a single word, with a load of wo upon his heart, that I would not have suffered for a mountain of gold ! Yet he could not be blamed ; he practised according to his education, and was utterly deceived in the operation of his medicines. He thought they were curing the pa- tient ; but alaB! they were digging his grave! The power of prejudice and the empire of pride, may prevail for a season; but the 6oul will at last arise and reassert the majesty of her own nature, and shew unto the world, that "there are gifts, be- yond thepower of education and knowledge, which learning cannot bestow." Learning will neither mate a great man, nor a great physician, but it will highly advance the usefulness of those who are greit by nature; who have received the patent of their dignity from God Almighty. Dr. Waterhouse said of Dr. Thomson, he had taken a degree from the school of nature—a diploma from her unerring hands. The very oour6e of that education to which Dr. Waterhouse has so handsomely alluded, was calculated to instruct the author of the new system in useful remedies, and deliver his mind from eve- ry bias but the force of experience and truth. With a mind entirely uninfluenced by all authority, un- moved and unobstructed by any thing which had fone before him, he possessed an advantage whioh, am. persuaded, none ever possessed who were ed- 203 ucated in the schools—where we are introduced to the fellowship of wisdom by the authority of books and professors. It is impossible for the most in- dependent mind to perfectly retain its freedom; it will insensibly bow to the opinions of 6ome cele- brated or splendid authority. In after life, indeed, and by much experience, some superior souls are enabled to cast off the shackles of education; but they are the fewest number of that mighty host, which walk forth from the schools ofthe world, U propagate the errors of their predecessors. Dr. Thomson had nothing of all this to encounter ; ho Was led by the hand of nature ; and without being aware of the fact, he was travelling in the path of the Indian, the German and Celtio doctor—the doc- tors of antiquity, who without complaint or failure, practised on the unnumbered millions, who over- turned the empire of the Romans; and still prac- tice on all the nations of the Gentile world. He is, therefore, now a professor in the most ancient and extensive medical school of the world. A Bchool, not on the decline and about to perish—but one beginning to revive—to put on strength—to extend her conquests, until the learned and the un- learned shall be gathered under tho shadow of her wings, and triumph in the splendor of her acquisi- tions. And we see the dawn of this glorious era, which shall transform the face ofthe world In Edinburgh and London, in France and Italy, in the dark regions of Hindostan and the empire of the Chinese, we find this new light, on the subject of medical science, breaking forth; or rather it is the old light returning to those long forgotten re- gions of the world. And when nature takes her proper course, only chastened and controled by science, how great and glorious must be the amount of her operations. 204 In the United States, the example of Dr. Thom- son will stimulate thousands to press forward in the same career, and press to the same object. A train is laid, like the philosophy of Bacon in the mode of argument, and the investigation of truth, that will kindle a blaze which will astonish and amaze the nations ofthe world. The first rays of science scattered on the earth were never totally absorbed and lost. From the first dawn of Divine Wisdom vouchsafed to man, till the last star of heaven's holy light shall perish from the firmament, there has been and shall be in every age, advocates and adherents of truth. They could not, indeed, always prevail; but they served to keep alive the flame of purity and truth, and transmit it from generation to generation. The distance may seem immense between the OTigin and perfection of a system; but the slow a nd silent pro- gress of indestructible wisdom must finally flow on the horizon and cover the heavens with light. There is a growth and grandeur in all the works ofthe Almighty. The labors of man may perish ; for like himself, they are often vanity and lies; but the doings of His hand, who walks upon the sky, can never come to nought. At first, He instructed man in the simple method of curing disease by diet and the plants of the field; while he contiued in this practice, his diseases were light and soon re- moved. In the pride of his heart, he loaded the simple elements of medical knowledge with the re - suits of his own speculations. In this course he has pursued his way for three thousand years, to his own sad disappointment and bitter sorrow. He seems now willing to return ; and after the waste of ages and the complete exhaustion of the resoui - ces of science, he takes up anew the book of wis- dom, which in scorn and presumption he had cast 205 from his hands > The high disdain of human knowl« edge, is yielding fast to the sway of those eternal principles of immutable truth, inscribed by the hand of the Deity on the foundations of the uni^ verse and in the living characters ofthe starry sky. When freedom erected the pillars of her throne in our country, we were assured that we could not govern ourselves; that the people were incapable of self government. When the pilgrims of the east first pitched their tents in the howling wilderness, they were persuaded that it was unsafe to dwell near a man who exercised liberty of thought, or used freedom of speech. We are now told, we cannot cure ourselves when sick; that years of stu- dy are necessary to remove a fever or cure a heai t burn. These last may be also mistaken, and with the first, look back with shame and sorrow, in a few years,on the part which they had formerly acted and the perversity ofthe course they had pursued. And even now, there is evidence sufficient to as- tound the most incredulous, and shake the confi- dence of the most hardened. Were we able to col- lect, or had means to bring together the scattered fragments of truth and argument,on the true science of medicine, from Germany and Spain, from France and Italy, and England, from India and the regions of this Western world, there would be a balance in the scale on the side of the new practice, which at least might induce its opponents to weigh with mo- desty the amount of their attainments. I now bid the subject farewell. If I have served the cause of truth and righteousness, I am satisfied; if I may have led any poor sufferer to the means of relief and safety, I am more than rewarded. If a single tear shall be wiped from the eye, or a pang from the throbbing heart, or a prisoner rescued from the grasp of the king of terrors, 1 shall never regret 206 the days and nights spent in these studies, nor the effort to make them useful to the public. The sub- ject, so far from being exhausted, is only begun. I have acted merely as a pioneer—a breaker up of the way on this new and untried subject. But if these Lectures shall provoke any more competent or industrions hand to engage extensively in the developement of all the principles, the benefits and beneficial results of this important subject, I shall feel the deepest gratification. And let it be remembered, if this system of prac- tice is true, it will have the peculiar blessing ofthe Almighty upon its side; because it brings the pow- er, the benefits, and the beneficial results of a safe medicine, within the reach ofthe poor; into their dear distressed families, who often perish for the lack of the means to^rocure medical aid! This single benefit cannot fail of drawing down from heaven the peculiar blessing of Him, who bowed his majesty and left his throne, and veiled his glo- ries, to enter the world, and preach the "gospel to the poor!" FINIS. A GENERAL To the works quoted, or Hippocrates Galen Celsus Plato Aristotle Clem. Alex. Syncell. Chron. Diodo. Sic. I ferodotus Pliny Alexander's Hist.of Med. Encyclopedia Britanica Encyclopedia, Reece Medical Record Medical Journal Medical Review Stahl Hoffman Haller Van Swieten Baglivi Sydenham Hunter Harvey Boerhaave Munro Sullen Brown Thomson Ray Rush Reynolds Barnwell Darwin Hooper Cooper Donaldson Newton REFERENCE alluded to, in this work. Falkner Waterhouse Glisson Winter Kirk land Buchan Ewell Benezette Miner &Tully, on ffevw Derham Thomas Niewenty Burns Richerand Magendi Linnaeus Bishat Broussais Thommasini Whytt Hales Zimmerman Barton Chaptal Chapman Lieutand Williss Gaubius Huxham Nichols Mead Vaughan Des Cartes Lord Bacon Sauvages Pope Haen Vogal CONTENTS. PAOE To the reader - - - - m Proprietor's Introduction . - vi JjBcture I.—Introductory remarks - 7 II.—Historical view of ancient theories 22 III.-Historical view ofthe mod- ern systems of medicine - 38 IV.—The Theories of Doctors Brown, Rush and Thomson 52 V.—Medicine as it is taught in the schools 66 VI.—Improved theory of med- icine 76 VII.—Theory of fever according to the modern systems of medicine 89 VIII.—Fever, continued - 102 IX.—On medical poisons - 114 X.—Hepatitis and phthisis pul- monalis ; or diseases of the liver and lungs - - 127 XL—A general review of the na- ture and operation of Thom- son's remedies - - 139 XII.—Review of Dr.Thomson's remedies ... 153 XIII.—The power of the Thom- sonian remedies - - 167 XIV.—The extent of the Thom- sonian remedies - - 180 XV.—A general view of the whole subject 192 W2- CI i*Z3&