Human Physiology. J77 



upon morbid humours in the blood, and the lancet and leeches 

 were freely resorted to in almost every case of illness, and even 

 for prevention of disease, many patients were killed. When it 

 was held that the bad humours could be purged away by the 

 continued use of violent cathartics, patients were poisoned and 

 exhausted. When the most virulent poisons of the vegetable 

 and mineral kingdom were prescribed in strange mixtures and 

 large quantities many lives were sacrificed. Mercury was for 

 centuries considered a specific remedy for some diseases, 

 especially for syphilis and the conditions it produces, and as a 

 powerful alterative in many cases. It is now acknowledged by 

 nearly the whole profession that it is not a specific, and many 

 believe that it has produced the worst evils attributed to the 

 diseases it was given to cure. The lancet is almost wholly 

 abandoned. Quinine, perhaps the only drug now considered 

 by what are called regulars or allopaths a specific, is no longer 

 regarded as such by the most enlightened, who attribute its 

 action in intermittent fevers to its paralysing influence. The 

 latest quasi-specific, cod-liver oil, given for scrofula and con- 

 sumption, is a comparatively harmless article of diet, and cannot 

 be shown to have any medicinal properties whatever. The 

 most recent delusions and if it were polite one might call 

 them quackeries of the profession are the administration of 

 beef tea and brandy, or other alcoholic stimulants, as remedies 

 for disease. Beef tea, Liebig o* other, has no value either as 

 food or medicine, as the most eminent chemists have demon- 

 strated, and as must be evident to every person of common 

 sense, since it is merely a watery solution of the salts which 

 give flesh its flavour ; the fibrine, gelatine, and fat being care- 

 fully excluded. In any case, a teaspoonful of Liebig could 

 not possibly make more than its own weight of animal tissue. 

 Alcohol is a stimulant powerfully exciting the nervous system, 

 a poison in large dozes, and has little or no value as a curative 

 agent The best physicians of the allopathic school give very 



