66 BOKDEK LINES OF KNOWLEDGE 



of the ancient Master, you will see that before all rem- 

 edies he places the proper conduct of the patient and 

 his attendants, and the fit ordering of all the condi- 

 tions surrounding him. The class of practitioners I 

 have referred to have always been the most faithful in 

 attending to these points. No doubt they have some- 

 times prescribed unwisely, in compliance with the 

 prejudices of their time, but they have grown wiser 

 as they have grown older, and learned to trust more 

 in nature and less in their plans of interference. I 

 beheve common opinion confirms Sir James Clark's 

 observation to this effect. 



The experience of the profession must, I think, run 

 parallel with that of the wisest of its individual mem- 

 bers. Each time a plan of treatment or a particular 

 remedy comes up for trial, it is submitted to a sharper 

 scrutiny. When Cullen wrote his Materia Medica, he 

 had seriously to assail the practice of giving burnt 

 toad, which was still countenanced by at least one 

 medical authority of note. I have read recently in 

 some medical journal, that an American practitioner, 

 whose name is known to the country, is prescribmg 

 the hoof of a horse for epilepsy. It was doubtless sug- 

 gested by that old fancy of wearing a portion of elk's- 

 hoof hung round the neck or in a ring, for this dis- 

 ease. But it is hard to persuade reasonable people to 

 swallow the abominations of a former period. The 

 evidence which satisfied Fernelius will not serve one 

 of our hospital physicians. 



