48 Kansas Academy of Science. 



crocodiles, vipers, brains of wolves, heads of mice, bodies of moles, 

 liver, lungs, blood and organs of generation of animals, etc. 



The excrement of animals was used internally and externally. 

 Poultices of mashed spiders were used, and the heart of the hare worn 

 upon the back of the neck for the cure of malarial fevers. Newly born 

 puppies were cooked and eaten to make the individual immune from colic. 

 Such treatment, doubtless, is disgusting to the more fastidious of our day, 

 but were as effective in the cure of diseases as are many of the plasters 

 and pads in use at the present time. "Thoriac," a compound comprised 

 of 150 ingredients, was held in high esteem, and it was retained in the 

 British Pharmacopoeia until a little over 125 years ago. 



To-day, as in the past, it is difficult to rid the field of medicine of 

 remedies that possess no merit whatever. What are the conditions found 

 in the medical profession at the present time? Rationalism predomi- 

 nates, and, as a rule, medicine is prescribed from a scientific standpoint. 

 The better class of physicians are at work along a line termed the ex- 

 pectant treatment, relying very largely upon nature to accomplish the 

 end desired. 



I am looking forward to a time when the expectant treatment will 

 be coupled with laws governed by sanitary science. The physician will 

 then prescribe rules of living and thus prevent diseases, instead of 

 medicine to cure the ills that flesh is heir to. Sanitary laws will become 

 more and more a governing factor in our lives. 



A correct system of living is the end to be desired. In the prevention 

 and treatment of diseases our science culminates and becomes an art. 

 If unable to accomplish these ends the world would be as well without 

 as with our aid. 



We should be able to ward off or cure disease. Our mission is to 

 cure the curable and comfort the incurable. It is impossible for me at 

 this time to enter into detail, yet it is obvious to an observer that 

 therapeutics has undergone very great and important changes during 

 the last half century. For many diseases the mode of treatment to-day 

 is the opposite of that in use but a few years ago. An explanation of 

 this change is to be found in the idea that previously theory was the 

 ground work of therapeutics. Now, fact is the basis of treatment. In 

 other words, once disease was treated by its name; at the present time 

 known conditions govern its treatment. Local changes were the guide 

 in the past; now, the general condition of the patient is held in high 

 esteem as a therapeutical informant. When pathology was in its in- 

 fancy, medical practice was an empirical art, and it had all its evils. 

 With the growth of pathology, therapeutics, still an art, is becoming a 

 science, having a better knowledge of the limits of its powers, hence is 

 content to attempt less heroic measures, being convinced that it does 

 less harm. More real good is accomplished with medicine than ever 

 before in its history. 



As a rule we have no set theory, but act upon the nature of diseases 

 from a general standpoint. Our knowledge of the laws that govern 

 morbid changes' is better than it was during the past history of medicine. 



The treatment used is based upon a true appreciation of the general 



