IN RELATION TO GENERAL PRACTICE. 531 
upon us the homoeopathic incubus, by their system of 
drenching; in fact that, when people had been surfeited 
with physic, they naturally ran to the opposite extreme, and 
eagerly embraced a creed w 7 hich promised their gustatory 
nerves an exemption from “ nasty stuff.” If this assertion, 
then, be true (and there is every reason to believe that it is 
so), another and a far more weighty effect has followed in the 
the wake of this popular movement, viz., the determination 
on the part of the profession at large to abandon the univer- 
sal practice of drugging their patients, for one less disgusting 
to the sick, and equally advantageous to the doctor. The 
plan which is now coming generally into use, of charging 
for visits and attendance, is in itself every way desirable ; 
but it cannot be forgotten that the new doctrine is suggestive 
of new methods of prescribing ; and it may be worth w T hile 
to consider whether we are not losing substantial good in 
our endeavours to satisfy the whims of patients, by attempt- 
ing to reduce our prescriptions to the attenuated formulae of 
the medicine chest. 
We now propose to examine into this matter a little more 
narrowly ; and, for convenience 5 sake, w 7 e shall divide the 
subject into two parts. 
First, let us inquire how 7 far we may with safety depart 
from old-established forms of prescribing ; and, second, 
whether the progress of such a reform is affecting, or is 
likely to affect, those who dispense the physic that is 
swallowed. Let it be once for all understood that our ob- 
servations do not in any way apply to the operations of the 
retail apothecary or druggist, since w 7 e are now concerned 
only with the acts and prospects of that large body of men 
who prescribe and send out their ov 7 n medicines from their 
private houses — namely, the general practitioners. 
The art of prescribing is to the doctor what the art of 
colouring is to the painter. Both have the powder of pro- 
ducing the same results by different processes. The painter, 
by the aid of “ hand and eye,” will compound on his palette 
two or more tints, w 7 hich are identical in appearance and in 
their effects on the canvass, from a variety of colours ; so 
the doctor, from the stores of his materia medica, will pre- 
scribe remedies derived from many sources, all of which 
shall have the same property, namely, that of removing some 
given symptom. In both cases, the real skill consists in ju- 
diciously applying the material to the thing to be done. 
Now 7 , we are very much inclined to carry our analogy 
further, and to suggest that w hat has been found to be true, 
and acknowledged universally, in the art of painting, may 
