"Thus there exists a fashion in medicine, as in the other affairs 

 of life, regulated by the caprice and supported by the authority of 

 a few leading practitioners, which has been frequently the oc- 

 casion of dismissing from practice valuable medicines, and sub- 

 stituting others less certain in their effects and more questionable 

 in their nature. As years and fashions revolve, so have these 

 neglected remedies, each in its turn, rise again into favour and 

 notice, whilst old receipts, like old almanacks, are abandoned until 

 the period may arrive, that will once more adapt them to the 

 spirit and fashion of the times. Thus it happens that most of 

 our "New Discoveries" in the Materia Medica have turned out to 

 be no more than the revival and adaptation of ancient practices." 



From the Introduction of Paris' 

 Pharmacologia, New York, 1830. 



