766 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



character of the pulse and the general condition of the patient furnish the data 

 for differential diagnosis so that the knife need never enter human flesh on an un- 

 certain errand. That professed surgeon, who, in a recent search for what he 

 had pronounced an ovarian tumor, found an advanced pregnancy, was very 

 properly prosecuted for malpractice and driven to some service better suited to 

 his want of culture. There is alsolutely no excuse for such manifest blunders. 

 The present century is all ablaze with the surgical exploits of the many who 

 adorn its fair history with what they have done for those suffering with surgical 

 diseases. The exact rules which they have formulated for the guidance of all 

 who would be masters of the art are so fully set forth in all the recent publica- 

 tions that none need be without their aid. The names of Gross, Billroth, Da 

 Costa, Pancoast, Frank Hamilton, J. Marion Sims, and a host of others, and last 

 but by no means least, the honored name of our own Joseph Wood, M. D., 

 (who more than a quarter of a century ago invented and promulgated an unerring 

 procedure for the removal of stone in the bladder,) are all living witnesses to the 

 accuracy of what is known on this subject. 



3. The third classification relates to materia medica, or that which has to do 

 with the discovery and utiHzation of agents used in the treatment of disease. 

 Here we draw upon all of nature's resources for th,e selection of remedies. And 

 the law of the " survival of the fittest " has been fully illustrated under the un- 

 erring dominion of the laws of chemistry. The old empirical experimentation has 

 given place to a certain and accurately classified pharmacopoeia, so that he who 

 makes fatal blunders must charge it to his own inexperience or stupidity rather than 

 to want of exactness in the preparation of his remedies. It is wonderful what 

 assistance has been rendered to the physician by expert manufacturing chemists, 

 in the repose and confidence he feels in administering their carefully prepared 

 medicines. Dr. Squibb and the able chemists at the head of the establishments of 

 Wyeth Brothers, Powers & Weightman, Tilden & Co., and many others, whose 

 remedies are found in every city of our land, have done excellent service in this 

 direction. The knowledge which we possess in this department puts at rest all 

 anxiety so long felt by the medical fraternity touching how and what to do in the 

 treatment of disease. The list of the agents known to possess special and clearly 

 marked characteristics in their action is large and quite complete. There is no 

 guess-work in their anticipated effects. The various preparations of opium, and 

 and cinchona bark, the known and well-marked effects of the various forms of 

 iron, mercury and iodine, put to the blush any person who doubts the certainty of 

 remedial agents. So perfect have been our researches in the domain of medi- 

 cines that you may bring to my office the most utterly unknown sample of 

 mineral or vegetable, and I can, with the aid of those skilled in the art of chemis- 

 try, give it such perfect analysis as to enable me to prescribe it, the first time in 

 its history, with as certain a knowledge of its effects and trust in its curative 

 agency with the same confidence I may have in the oldest remedy within my 

 knowledge. The practitioner who is always adding to his list, is no longer 



