62 BORDER LINES OF KNOWLEDGE 



treatment has come into vogue again in the practice 

 of Dr. Todd and his followers. The compounds 

 of mercury have yielded their place as drugs of all 

 work, and specifics for that very frequent subjective 

 complaint, neseio quid faciam — to compounds of io- 

 dine.* Opium is believed in, and quinine, and "rum," 

 using that expressive monosyllable to mean all alco- 

 holic cordials. K Moli^re were writing now, instead 

 of saignare, purgare^ and the other, he would be more 

 like to say, Stimulare, opium dare et potassio-iodizare. 

 I have been in relation successively with the Eng- 

 lish and American evacuant and alterative practice, in 

 which calomel and antimony figured so largely that, 

 as you may see in Dr. Jackson's last " Letter," Dr. 

 Holyoke, a good representative of sterling old-fash- 

 ioned medical art, counted them with opium and Pe- 

 ruvian bark as his chief remedies ; with the moderately 

 expectant practice of Louis ; the blood-letting " eoiq? 

 8ur coup " of Bouillaud ; the contra-stimulant method 

 of Rasori and his followers ; the anti-irritant system 

 of Broussais, with its leeching and gum- water ; I have 

 heard from our own students of the simple opium 

 practice of the renowned German teacher, Oppolzer ; 

 and now I find the medical community brought round 

 by the revolving cycle of opinion to that same old 



graced the surgery of the times," — the early years of this century. Life 

 and Opinions of Sir Charles James Napier, (London, 1857,) Vol. L p. 153. 

 * Sir Astley Cooper has the boldness — or honesty — to speak of medi- 

 cines which " are given as much to assist the medical man as his patient." 

 Lectures, (London, 1832,) p. 14. 



