MEDICAL SCIENCE IN ONTARIO. 215 



" like the moraing cloud, or the early dew," and makes the man of 

 briefs, awake to the fact, that, whatever weight may be safely attached 

 to his legal opinion, he is an unsafe guide when he travels beyond the 

 record, and deals with questions of life and death, about which he 

 knows little or nothing. Such presumption may be met ; and it may 

 be traced, too, to the parent of all presumption — ignorance and self- 

 conceit. But I entirely repudiate the charge of jealousy, and, I go 

 further, and assert that the latitude allowed, for the free expression 

 of opinion, by the medical profession, and the opening of the columns 

 of medical journals, for the advocacy of the most opposite theories, 

 often, prove that sectarianism in medicine is not a necessity, and that, 

 the motive prompting it, is not an honest search after truth. Medicine 

 is a progressive science. Indeed, it cannot be made a fixed science ; 

 for, although the properties and action of medicinal agents, may be 

 definitely ascertained, the type of disease is ever varying, and ever 

 variegated, so that it is impossible to establish precise rules of treat- 

 ment, or to claim, truthfully, to have "specifics" for every ill that 

 flesh is heir to, as do the Homoeopaths. But, surely the accumulated 

 experience, gathered by the medical profession, in the centuries of 

 the past, is not to be lightly cast aside, for the crude theories of 

 an obscure, illiterate Dutchman, or the rhodomontade and lobelia of 

 a Yankee " steam doctor." Let the present anomalous union of 

 " schools " be perpetuated by the Legislature, and the medical pro- 

 fession of Ontario will cease to be recognized abroad, and speedily 

 deteriorate into degeneracy at home. Let the objectionable parts of 

 the Act be repealed, — emancipate us from the double load of degrada- 

 tion, under which we are now placed, by Legislative enactment, and 

 we shall soon occupy a position of high rank in the scientific world, and 

 of increased usefulness, as a profession, in our own fair New Dominion. 

 I seek not to deprive the Homoeopaths and Eclectics of any "rights" 

 they have had accorded to them, by the Legislature, in the past. I 

 would restore to them, if need be, their individuality. I would protect 

 the public, by requiring the students, who may present themselves 

 for examination, before their boards, to produce evidence of having 

 attended prescribed courses of lectures, at some of our own recognized 

 medical schools. And, freed from the trammels of a coerced and un- 

 natural alliance, I would seek to lay broad and deep the foundation of 

 sound, scientific, medical education, and leave fancy theories to the 

 inexorable logic of time, and solid results to the treasury of posterity. 



