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dies, are now nearly extinct, and are rapidly passing into oblivion. 

 The siderial influences, the malignant aspect of the stars, with the 

 conjunction and opposition of the planets, are not now invoked to 

 stay the pestilence. The abracadabra and the hexameter are no 

 longer suspended from the neck of beauty, as charms to protect 

 against disease. Through the unwearied labour of medicine the 

 causes of pestilential epidemics have been discovered, and the world 

 has been warned and protected against them ; the polity of the state 

 has been directed to their removal, and the lives of millions thus 

 been spared for future usefulness. The contagious nature of disease 

 has been proclaimed, and by the adoption of a stringent medical 

 police, the public health has been guarded and preserved. Thus has 

 an army of devoted medical men stood between the people and the 

 pestilence. 



To the medical profession society owes all its great sanitary re- 

 gulations. What avail all your hospitals for the sick and the dis- 

 abled ? What your houses of refuge for the insane, the deaf, the 

 blind, without proper medical aid ? They are all in vain. To the 

 profession the world is indebted, not only for the first impulse in 

 the erection of these glorious charities, but, for their proper regu- 

 lation, for all the glorious results they have effected. 



As we have before remarked, the day of incantation and charms, 

 of sympathetic and mesmeric cures, has passed. Medicine, in its 

 practice and relations, is now a natural science, and acts confess- 

 edly through natural agents. The earth has been explored, its sur- 

 face and its depths, yea, the "deep unfathomed caves of ocean," 

 have yielded their tribute to the mass of information and material 

 employed by skilful men, for the benefit of mankind. Minds of the 

 most enlarged capacity have employed their strength, while explo- 

 rers of most adventurous daring have traversed every clime in pur- 

 suit of knowledge subsidiary to medical science. Amidst the arctic 

 snows, or beneath the scorching rays of a tropical sun, its votaries 

 have braved dangers, disease, and suffering, and have ever borne 

 themselves gallantly, and with triumphant success. Medicine has 

 fully kept pace with its kindred sciences — hand in hand with the 

 most liberal of all, it has progressed, and is progressing. But in 

 vain do we push investigation into the laws of disease ; in vain does 

 materia medica open its vast and various treasure; in vain may 

 pharmacy and chemistry point out and provide the curative agency 

 of means, if those means themselves, through mercenary fraud, are 

 despoiled of their power to heal. 

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