IN MEDICAL SCIENCE. 73 



and of the natural stimuli, and that less will be ex- 

 pected from specifics and noxious disturbing agents, 

 either alien or assimilable. The noted mineral-waters 

 containing iron, sulphur, carbonic acid, supply nutri- 

 tious or stimulating materials to the body as much as 

 phosphate of lime and ammoniacal compounds do to 

 the cereal plants. The effects of a milk and vegetable 

 diet, of gluten bread in diabetes, of cod-hver oil in 

 phthisis, even of such audacious innovations as the 

 water-cure and the grape-cure, are only hints of what 

 will be accomplished when we have learned to discover 

 what organic elements are deficient or in excess in a 

 case of chronic disease, and the best way of correcting 

 the abnormal condition, just as an agriculturist ascer- 

 tains the wants of his crops and modifies the composi- 

 tion of his soil. In acute febrile diseases we have long 

 ago discovered that far above all drug-medication is 

 the use of mild liquid diet in the period of excite- 

 ment, and of stinmlant and nutritious food in that 

 of exhaustion. Hippocrates himself was as particular 

 about his barley-ptisan as any Florence Nightingale 

 of our time could be. 



The generation to which you, who are just enter- 

 ing the profession, belong, will make a vast stride for- 

 ward, as I believe, in the direction of treatment by 

 natural rather than violent agencies. What is it that 

 makes the reputation of Sydenham, as the chief of 

 English physicians ? His prescriptions consisted prin- 

 cipally of simples. An aperient or an opiate, a " car- 

 4 



