400 MENTAL FUNCTIONS* OF 



in reality, phrenology gives no additional support to such views. 

 It leaves all questions of fatalism and materialism where it found 



name of it will not be known in a twelvemonth ! " Yet Quinine is now as much 

 used as rhubarb, though neither it nor Prussic Acid is in the Pharmacopoeia ; and 

 all my statements are established. 



In 1824, I published my discovery of the almost specific power of carbonate 

 of iron in cases of general chorea before the adult period ; and for pointing 

 out (1. c. vol. xiii. 1827.) that Carbonate of Iron, when it failed in ordinary 

 doses, might be given without the least unpleasant effect in doses ten times 

 larger, I was considered little less than a fool, and acquired a permanent reputa- 

 tion for giving all medicines under all circumstances in enormous doses; though 

 I am one of the most cautious practitioners, and always begin, in chronic cases, 

 with small doses of medicine, increasing them by slow degrees according to the 

 necessity ; and never, from my earliest days of practice or teaching, have wished 

 to give one grain or one drop more than proves requisite. At the same time, 

 I certainly do not regard quantity as I proceed, but steadily augment my 

 doses till the complaint begins to yield, or some effect of the medicine begins 

 to appear. No practice is more irrational than to discontinue a medicine simply 

 because it does nothing, or before you have step by step augmented the dose till 

 some circumstance manifests that the medicine is not inactive. Difference of 

 quantity and difference of continuance must be demanded in different cases. I 

 did not feel myself justified in recommending large doses of iron as more efficient 

 than small. But farther experience proved to me the superior power of large 

 doses of carbonate of iron in obstinate cases; and in 1827 (1. c. vol. xiii.), I 

 stated this, and have proved it to the crowds of students at the North London 

 Hospital again and again. The possibility of giving the large doses of the 

 medicine ordinarily is now no longer doubted. I next announced the power of 

 large quantities of Carbonate of Iron over Tetanus (1. c. vol. xv. 1829.), and this 

 has been confirmed. (Lond. Med. Gazette, Sept. 14. 1833.) A gentleman from the 

 West Indies told me he had great success with it. But no one else gives it a 

 trial, and old means which have failed again and again are absurdly repeated. 



When I displayed the utility of sulphate of copper in chronic diarrhoea, in 1827 

 (1. c. vol. xiii.), some contended that the opium combined with it effected all the 

 good, although I had so proceeded as to prove how much was owing to the salt. 

 I now possess heaps of letters expressing the realisation of my statements from 

 practitioners of various parts. 



In 1830, I proved the occurrence of glanders in the human subject, not- 

 withstanding its possibility was denied. (1. c. vol. xvi.) I was smiled at for 

 my credulity. Yet extracts from my papers and copies of my engravings 

 have now a place in Dr. Rayer's work upon the Diseases of the Skin, to 

 which no other is comparable ; and, in noticing some foreign cases just 

 published, the editors of the Brit, and For. Med. Review, for July, say the occur- 

 rence is no longer a novelty, (p. 241.) After my first paper appeared, the 

 lecturer on veterinary medicine in the University of London, to whom I had 

 given a copy, did not condescend to notice it ; and, making a passing ob- 

 ervation upon the belief of the occurrence of the disease in the human subject, 



