580 
VAGARIES OF PHYSIC. 
always exists previously to the sugar in the tissue of the 
liver. 
We still have to determine the organic form of this 
glucogenic matter, as well as the exact anatomical and phy- 
siological conditions of its formation in relation to the phe- 
nomena of development and the various physiological states of 
the liver. Some experiments which I have already com- 
menced on this subject lead me to hope that it may be 
possible to go still further into the glucogenic question, and 
to localise the formation of the glucogenic matter in the 
peculiar elements of the hepatic organ. — Comptes Rendus. 
THE VAGARIES OF PHYSIC. 
Lord Bacon assigned as a reason why the science of 
medicine had not advanced and kept pace with the other 
sciences, that “ physicians had reasoned in a circle and notin 
a line.” Dr. Benjamin Rush compared the same science, as 
practised in his day, to “an unroofed temple, cracked at the 
sides, and rotten at the foundation.” An American writer, 
who runs a tilt against every nostrum not belonging to the 
vegetable kingdom, hearing that Mr. Wakley had recom- 
mended all poisons sold in druggists’ shops to be placed on 
high shelves, dryly observed, that “ in that case the lower 
part of the establishment would generally be to let /” Seeing, 
then, in what bad odour the disciples of Esculapius are held 
even by members of their own fraternity, and how each gene- 
ration, in its turn, “ kicks against the rusty curb of old father 
antic, the law,” we feel almost disposed to place our medical 
man under the conservative guardianship of that African 
doctor whose mode of practice is shrewdly likened by Sir 
John Forbes to that of the homoeopathic school of medicine : 
the sable physician’s remedy was to write his prescription on 
a board, and then, having carefully washed it off, to give his 
patient the water to drink ! Verily, from the days of Hippo- 
crates downwards, so many have been the odd conceits that 
have sprung, full-armed for mischief, from the prolific brains 
of the world’s physicians, so many and so wonder-working 
the medicaments propounded, from the “ail-heal of Hercules” 
to “ Parr’s Life Pills,” that, leaving the graver side of the 
subject to take care of itself, and dealing only with its 
“tickled surface,” it seems as if an amusing volume might 
be written on the Vagaries of Physic. Omitting from our 
category those who have “ turned diseases to commodity,” 
