PROLEGOMENON. 13 



higher and BETTER SENSE than his stomach could enjoy ita 

 flesh, whilst the overworked artist's sickly face would 

 bloom with the life and light of the picture his hand had 

 wrestled for, and won from the world ? Concerning all of 

 which it seemed necessary that something should be said. 

 There is also another excuse or apology, an account that may 

 be rendered, for the appearance of this rude, unkempt, un- 

 combed story of the Mountain. Being a regular member 

 of the Old School of medicine for many years, and thus a 

 Priest in the sanctuary of healing, according to the unbroken 

 apostolic descent from Hippocrates and Galen, the Hegira, 

 or flight to the mountain, with the approaching advent of 

 a Hospital or Health-Eesort for invalids, had, as supposed 

 by many of the brethren in the faith, an anomalous appear- 

 ance, an aspect eminently suspicious, even rendering the author 

 thereof obnoxious to the charge of apocryphalness in his 

 pretensions to professional soundness. They said, " It has 

 a questionable shape: it looks like a hydropathic arrangement. 

 Are you really a convert to the water-cure ? Have you 

 left the regular profession, and have you ceased to practise 

 secundum artem?" Being immaculate in the faith, and 

 accepting with religious awe the venerable oracles of Delphi 

 as the true and only fountain of medical inspiration, and 

 having with zeal and piety sworn devoutly and constantly 

 by the beard, dog, and snake of Esculapius, including, in 

 the daily recitation of the calendar of true saints and con- 

 servators of the world, the lancet, calomel, and quinine, 

 Spanish flies, and ipecacuanha, it became painfully incumbent 

 to utter some word of explanation, some rational account, 

 if possible, for the appearance of an unhappy doctor of 

 medicine in a wilderness where the original elements still 

 reigned, and sand, rocks, trees, water, and air were ALL 

 that Nature had left as implements in the art of healing. 

 The afflux of hydropathic advertisements, pamphlets, and 

 even patients, gave a serious coloring to the impression 

 that some obliquity of position in regard to the infallibility 

 of the ancient school of medicine existed; that the 



