CAUSES OF COMPLAINT. 



17 



Dr. Rush says, " Dissections daily convince us of our igno- 

 rance of the seats of disease, and cause us to blush at our 

 prescriptions." He also adds, "We have assisted in multi- 

 plying disease : we have done more, — we have increased 

 their mortality." If it be true what Dr. Rush and hundreds 

 of others assert, that the science of medicine, as practised at 

 the present day, is no science at all, — and who doubts it ? — 

 then we can easily account for the sad havoc, that, accord- 

 ing to Youatt, has taken place in the animal kingdom. Well 

 may we exclaim, They have been swept away as by the blast 

 of a dire tornado. The lancet, antimony, and corrosive sub- 

 limate have been more destructive than the pestilential sword. 

 They are the Samsons of a barbarous practice, and have slain 

 their thousands and tens of thousands. 



The great bone of contention among men has been, " What 

 are nature's intentions ? and with what means, and in what 

 manner, shall we second them ? " 



To this Professor Curtis replies, "While Hippocrates ad- 

 hered in practice to his correct principles, that nature should be 

 aided by means and processes that act in harmony with her 

 intentions, his practice was universally successful ; but when 

 he departed from established principles, in the use of unknown 

 agents, which proved useless and injurious, he often failed of 

 curing disease. 



" It must never be forgotten that, while the learned were 

 verging to something like a correct theory of vital action in 

 a healthy body, they were departing farther and farther from 

 the truth in two other points of importance. 



" 1st. They were settling their minds in the belief that, in 

 every case of the encroachment of offending causes, this very 

 vital power, so essential to health, in rising to expel them, 

 becomes at once the very sum and essence of disease, ('vital 

 action cannot be a diseased action,' ) and must be checked, 

 subdued, and destroyed at all hazards. But, rinding none 

 of the innocent and life-supporting remedies calculated to do 

 this work in a direct manner, as the effect of their adminis- 

 tration, — 



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