230 ON THE VAGARIES OF MEDICINE, 



Pry of nature, the microscope, which detects when the division of par- 

 ticles of gold and sulphur have been carried to their utmost limit, show- 

 ing particles of mineral in some of the globules and yione in others. 



Like the others it is yery good at times, hut never can be called a 

 science. It may relieve headache in the morning by taking (as com- 

 pared with former potations) an infinitesimal dose of the cause of disease, 

 but it can never cure deJiriiim tremens I And, besides, I quote from 

 Vol. 15 of the "Medical Gazette," " Homoeopathia has been fairly 

 put to the test of experiment by some of the members of the Academy 

 of Medicine in Paris, and the result was a failure. Andral tried it on 

 130 or 140 patients, in the presence of the homoeopathists themselves, 

 adopting every requisite care and precaution ; yet, in not one instance 

 was he successful." However, one credit we must award it, and that 

 is — the harmless sugar globules have been the means of stopping the 

 excessive use of those patent medicines that flooded the country, many 

 of them of a most dangerous kind, and I fancy it is generally a transi- 

 tion of patient from one to the other — with them it is " Coelum, non 

 animum, mutant." 



The fourth, Hydropathia, I need not remind you is of ancient date, 

 though recently brought fdrward as a sovereign balm, or the absurdity 

 of its being the only one thing needful, but the incalculable amount 

 of good it has effected in the prevention of disease cannot be named, 

 and if, as we are told, cleanliness be godliness, its advantages hare 

 been moral as well as physical. Celsus describes its use in hydropho- 

 bia to allay its spasms. " In this hopeless state," he says, " the only 

 remedy is to throw the patient instantly and without warning, into a 

 fish-pond, plunging him under the water that he may drink, then 

 raising his head and forcing him under it and keeping him below till he 

 is filled with water, so that the thirst and water-dread may be relin- 

 quished at once." And Von Helmont, at a later date, kept the pati- 

 ent under water till the choir could sing the psalm Miserere. 



It is here worthy of remark how singularly void of information oa 

 all that pertains to medicine are men of learning, men erudite in every 

 other branch, yet seeming incapable of forming a correct opinion on 

 that subject in which their lives are most interested. 



Lord Bacon says it is accounted an error to commit a natural body 

 to empiric physicians, which commonly have a ievi pleasing receipts, 

 whereupon they are confident and adventurous, but know neither the 



