THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 4-01 



them. Every thing in nature is subjected to laws which must be 

 obeyed. The nature of every thing is destined. A stone is des- 



was perfectly silent in regard to my facts, and considered such an opinion 

 as the result of inaccurate observation, referring to some one else, not to me. 

 (Lancet, No. 436.) After my second paper was published, (1. c. vol. xviii. 1833.) 

 in which I gave another case, he could no longer profess a doubt ; but, in ad- 

 mitting the fact, now said that it had " long been suspected, or rather painfully 

 known." ( Veterinarian) March, 1833.) 



For having discovered the extraordinary power of Creosote in arresting vomit- 

 ing, unconnected with inflammatory or structural disease of the stomach, in an 

 immense majority of cases (1. c. vol. xix. 1835.), I am now going through a 

 course of sneers and attacks. Some who cannot have, and others who evidently 

 have not, employed it according to my directions, nor to one twentieth of the 

 extent, assert that they have not found it so useful as I have, and put it on 

 a par with medicines as inferior to it as lettuce to morphine : and the reviewers, 

 who are lauded as respectable above all others, untruly say that I call it never 

 failing ; whereas I pointed out two forms of vomiting in which it is useless 

 and even injurious, and mention that where it seems proper it occasionally fails, 

 and that it so disgusts some persons that the stomach will not bear it ; and, 

 though, after a laborious and rigid examination of its effects for a twelvemonth 

 in a large practice, I have pointed out various diseases and forms of disease in 

 which it is useful, I really have pronounced against it in a still greater number 

 of diseases and opposed writers who eulogised it absurdly. I shall always con- 

 gratulate myself upon my good fortune in discovering the extraordinary power 

 of creosote over nausea and vomiting and to enable the stomach to bear medicines 

 which disagree with it; and all I stated in regard to it is confirmed by still farther 

 hourly experience up to this very day, and will stand firmly, notwithstanding the 

 assertion of Drs. Forbes and Conolly, who untruly make me have "unlimited 

 confidence" in creosote and call it " never failing," and who assert that " in other 

 and equally judicious hands it has fallen very far short of the virtues ascribed 

 to it " by me, "and that it more frequently fails" in cases in which I say I have 

 found it successful. To crown all, they make a lecturer, who confirms a 

 candid remark of mine, be confirmed by me. (July, p. 170. 200.) The tes- 

 timony of hundreds of my pupils and patients is happily against them.* 



* Except the narrative of a case of rupture of the stomach (1. c. vol. xiii.), 

 and one of rupture of a pregnant Fallopian tube (1. c. vol. xiii.), my only other 

 paper in the Transactions is on Fatty Discharges from the Alimentary Canal and 

 Urinary Passage (vol. xvii. 1833.). In it I collected a great many instances, 

 and deduced several general facts as to the disease. 1. That the fat might 

 be discharged solid or liquid, or both. 2. That the disease might be tern- 

 porary, or permanent, or even fatal. 3. That there might be organic, or merely 

 functional disease. 4. That the organic disease might be in the intestines, liver, 

 or pancreas. 5. That fatty discharge might take place from the alimentary and 

 urinary organs at the same time. Yet this paper was called a mere collection 

 of cases. 



E E 2 



