;3£CT. v.] Materia Medica. 13 



of knowledge connected with the healing art has 

 been rendered more accessible and popular by 

 the exertions of philanthropic and liberal minded 

 physicians. For a number of preceding ages me- 

 dical science was hidden under the veil of dead 

 languages, and obscured by the technical jargon, 

 and the love of mystery, which long distinguished 

 medical practitioners ; but in the course of the 

 century under consideration, and especially the 

 latter half of it, the love of mystery, though not 

 completely vanquished, has much declined. The 

 elements of medical knowledge have been brought 

 down to the capacities of all classes in the com- 

 munity. Plain and popular works for the use of 

 Families have been presented to the public, and 

 much useful knowledge respecting the best means, 

 in ordinary cases, of preserving and restoring 

 health, for the first time, generally disseminated. 

 Among the many popular works of this kind which 

 might be mentioned, those of Tissot, Buchan, AV^il- 

 lich, and Parkinson, have successively appeared, and 

 acquired much distinction. 



. The different modes of making impressions on 

 the human system, in various states of disease, 

 through the medium of the imagination, and all 

 the endless impositions of 2uacke?\ij and Cliarla- 

 tmiism, have been astonishingly multiplied in the 

 course of the eighteenth century. Though medical 

 knowledge has been evidently increasing througli- 

 out this period, medical imposture lias at least 

 kept pace with it. Among many instances wliich 

 might be adduced in support of this remark, may 

 be mentioned the audacious pretensions of count 

 Cagliostro with respect to his Balsam of Uj> ; 



