CORRESP ONDENCE. 



113 



tioned them as synergistic operations. But 

 within the scope of my argument I would 

 have been justified in treating them as 

 identical functions. Does Dr. Black wish 

 to deny that intestinal digestion, in its nor- 

 mal phases, includes an assimilative process ? 

 But, as in the case of dyspepsia infantum, the 

 doctor's experience is perhaps limited to the 

 action of a drug-convulsed system, in which 

 case the activity of the digestive organs does, 

 indeed, but rarely lead to assimilation. 



Dr. Black's exception-plea in favor of 

 the stimulant superstition illustrates only 

 the radical confusion of his pathological 

 theories. For that energy of action which 

 he mistakes for a sign of restored functional 

 vigor demonstrates nothing but the urgency 

 of an expulsive process. The functional 

 activity excited by the influence of a drastic 

 tonic proves only the virulence of the drug, 

 and the system's eagerness to rid itself of a 

 deadly foe. In my treatises on " Dyspepsia 

 and Climatic Fevers " I have exposed the 

 two most specious fallacies of the stimu- 

 lant-delusion ; and there is an end to all in- 

 ductive reasoning if the analogies of the 

 stimulant-vice and the medicine-habit do 

 not establish my tenet that the poi son-hun- 

 ger in all its forms, whether as mania a 

 potu, or a hankering after a digestive excit- 

 ant, is wholly abnormal and mischievous ; 

 that its repeated gratification rarely fails to 

 inoculate the system with the seeds of a 

 progressive stimulant-habit ; that the dys- 

 peptic's dependence upon Dr. Black's calo- 

 mel pills is an aggravation of the original 

 disease ; and that even the temporary results, 

 effected at such risk, by the use of virulent 

 drugs, can, in nine cases out of ten, be more 

 safely and as directly attained by other 

 means, as by refrigeration in the treatment 

 of malarial fevers, or indirectly by reform 

 of the predisposing habits, as in consump- 

 tion and various enteric disorders. 



In one of his tirades against heretical 

 theories. Dr. Black carries his bravado to 

 the degree of appealing to the testimony of 

 " stubborn facts " in other words, to the 

 lessons of experience. I would advise my 

 colleague to avoid that arena. Hospital 

 statistics might prove that the homoeopa- 

 thists can challenge our best record and dem- 

 onstrate by proofs, which should satisfy a 

 depredator of their sugar-pellets, that they 

 can beat it. by total abstinence from the so- 

 called remedies of the drug-shops. 



In his first letter Dr. Black proposed to 

 let dyspeptics trust themselves to the guid- 

 ance of their morbid appetite, and, after I 

 proved that the absurdity of that plan could 

 be demonstrated by the analogies of the 

 alcohol-habit, our entrapped medicine-man 

 tries to slip out by the following hole : The 

 chronic hunger of the dyspeptic, he informs 

 us, is a craving after food, while the un- 

 quenchable thirst of the alcohol-drinker is 



tol. xxiv. 8 



a craving after poison. Does that subvert 

 my tenet that, in regard to the persistency 

 of the appetite, both cravings are wholly 

 abnormal V For, let us remember that 

 the original point at issue was the question 

 about the proper number of daily meals. 

 Xow, in pursuance of Dr. Black's plan, his 

 patients would have to eat about forty 

 meals a day ; for, in his first letter, he ad- 

 vised dyspeptics to follow the promptings 

 of an appetite which he now admits to be 

 morbid and unappeasable, as caused by a 

 chronic state of semi-starvation. Thus Dr. 

 Black continually shifts his ground, to dodge 

 the inferences of his own premises. But 

 the fact is, that he never expected to main- 

 tain his positions. He merely wrestles 

 against time, and accepts his successive 

 overthrows in the secret hope that the 

 shrieks of his afflictions might attract the 

 aid of some brother-sophist. Hence, also, 

 his repeated allusions to a " numerous class 

 of physicians " whose wrath he warns me to 

 deprecate. Like other champions of ortho- 

 doxy who find that their logic leaves them 

 in the lurch, he tries to retreat behind the 

 shelter of a numerical majority. 



By my outspoken denunciation of the 

 stimulant-superstition, Dr. Black holds that 

 I have offered an insult to that large body 

 of medical men to whom is due the credit 

 of the most important discoveries in hygiene, 

 physiology, surgery, etc. My orthodox con- 

 temporary will try in vain to identify the 

 interests of his cause with the progress of 

 those sciences. All their promoters have 

 contributed their share to undermine the 

 foundations of the position which he tries 

 to defend. For the last hundred years the 

 history of medical science has been the his- 

 tory of a continued and increasingly rapid 

 collapse of the drug -delusion a delusion 

 whose defenders have always tarried in the 

 rear of progress, and, after doing their ut- 

 most to obstruct the path of reform, have 

 recognized its triumphs only by sharing the 

 fruits of its victories. My invectives were 

 not directed against the thousand earnest 

 seekers after truth, not against its great dis- 

 coverers, the pioneers of the true healing 

 art, not against men like Bichat,* Schrodt,f 



* " To what errors have not mankind been led 

 in the employment and denomination of medicines ! 

 They created deobstruents when the theory of ob- 

 struction was in fashion; and incisives when that 

 of the thickening of the humors prevailed. Those 

 who saw in diseases only a relaxation or tension of 

 the fibers employed astringents and relaxants. 

 The same identical remedies have been employed 

 with all these opposite views. . . . Hence the vague- 

 ness and uncertainty our science presents at this 

 day. An incoherent assemblage of incoherent opin- 

 ions, it is. perhaps, of all the physiological sciences, 

 that which best shows the caprices of the human 

 mind. What do I say ? For a methodical mind it 

 is not a science at all. It is a shapeless collection 

 of inaccurate ideas ; of observations often puerile ; 

 of deceptive remedies, and of formulas as fantasti- 

 cally conceived as they are tediously arranged." 



t " If we reflect upon the obstinate health of 



