^SSCULAPIUS. 531 



the antecedent living language of suffering, or the voice 

 of organs in the process of change and destruction, to- 

 gether with the alteration incompatible with life, and con- 

 structed the science of pathology, with its sister science 

 semiology, or the philosophy of the natural language of 

 disease. By carefully -conducted experiments upon the 

 whole category of created things, all substances possessing 

 properties which influence the organization, it has dis- 

 covered a class of agents, called medicines, with which its 

 power is absolute over many conditions of the body in disease, 

 or it has produced the science of materia medica. By a 

 never-intermitting series of observations upon the effects of 

 different substances upon the body in all states and con- 

 ditions, and by the discovery of the uniform chemical ele- 

 ments that give medical qualities to these agents, there 

 has been constructed a demonstrable science of therapeu- 

 tics, or an account of the modus operandi of medical sub- 

 stances upon the body. By nicely-conducted experiments, 

 under the influence of every-day agents about us, the power of 

 climate, or special localities, chemistry of diet and digestion, 

 with the influence of habits of life, it has elaborated a sys- 

 tem of perfect details, constituting the laws for the preserva- 

 tion of health, or the science of hygiene ; in short, from the 

 mere mechanical achievement of a surgical operation, or scien- 

 tific cutting of the living body, directed by an absolute knowl- 

 edge of every fibre of its organization, or from the gross out- 

 ward phenomenon of the transit of epsom salts or castor-oil 

 through the intestine, to the more hidden and recondite doc- 

 trines of the antiplastic and deobstruent virtues of calomel, 

 or the alterative and metamorphic properties of iodine, the 

 regular profession has catalogued every fact of importance, 

 has achieved every result of vital significance to man, with re- 

 gard to the laws of his body, in health and disease, and does 

 really know what it assumes to know, and has a sensible 

 account to render of itself before any tribunal. With 

 solemnity and grandeur, with dignity and earnestness, with 

 serene wisdom and a perfect intellectual superiority, stand 



