128 THE BIOLOGY OF DAILY LIFE. 



Apt>llo, and rashly disregarding Apollo, was gifted 

 with the ears of an ass, so do the presumptuous 

 intrusion of chemical methods into cookery, and the 

 chemical classification of food, when it leads to dis- 

 regard of the Law of Interchange, turn a royal science 

 into folly. 



Not the recommendation of a Herschel, not the 

 constructive genius of a Prout, or the splendid literary 

 power of a Huxley, will avail to make man find that 

 food wholesome, which is taken at second-hand, or 

 those chemically correct, but biologically faulty, 

 materials suffice for a healthy human body. 



Chemistry has given us no medicine that can stop 

 any disease, unless with the life of the patient, and 

 that food is best which is farthest from the physician's 

 prescription. 



In the whole range of medical History it is utterly 

 impossible to find more than one solitary remedy that 

 has stood its ground for two centuries, and now 

 retains universal acceptance. 



Perhaps the longest-lived was the lt Praised Liquid" 

 which Sydenham valued,* the Liquid Laudanum 

 Sydenhami : who will dare to praise Laudanum now ? 

 Or some may think of another drug which Sydenham 

 valued highly, the Peruvian bark. Some value it 

 still, but its course is nearly run, and I think I may 

 fairly estimate that fully one-half of the medical men 

 that issue from our schools would as soon drink 

 laudanum, or any other poison, as take Peruvian bark 

 or its derivative, quinine, themselves; and the whole 

 body of Homoeopathic Practitioners would to a man 



* See Syd. Op. Om., p. 174. 



