FASHIONABLE SYSTEMS OF TREATMENT. 45 



they were to blame also for an undue use of medicine, 

 since they supposed that in medicine alone consisted his 

 power to do them good ; and if one practitioner declined to 

 prescribe, they went to another. But still the profession were 

 consenting parties. There was a want of confidence in the 

 force of truth, when urged with simple earnestness. Had 

 the profession been sufficiently alive to the danger of 

 reaction in the public mind ; had they calculated upon the 

 growing intelligence of society ; had they sacrificed their 

 immediate interests to the permanent welfare of the pro- 

 fession, they would have prevented the present discreditable 

 state of things. We are not now speaking of vulgar quackery : 

 that must always exist while the masses are ignorant and unre- 

 flecting, and thus in danger of becoming the prey of designing 

 men. We allude to those fashionable systems which are 

 followed by so many otherwise thoughtful and intelligent men 

 and women, who are not to be led astray by mere credulity, 

 but require some one guiding principle, of which they must be 

 persuaded. This has been with many the conviction that the 

 former practice of over-drugging with medicine was wrong. 

 Satisfied of this fact, they have dwelt upon the discovered truth 

 so long as to" have little thought to expend upon the founda- 

 tions of the system they have adopted. They know themselves 

 to be right on one point of the enquiry, and they too lightly 

 assume the correctness of the rest. Tired of so much physic, 

 they fix upon water, a remedial agent of good repute, and erect 

 a temple of health in which she is the exclusive goddess. As 

 hydropaths, they can, at least theoretically, get rid of the drugs 

 they so much detest Or, if unprepared absolutely and osten- 

 sibly, to " throw physic to the dogs," they tamper with their 



