AjanwyPi9?om'}       The  American  Materia  Medica,  n 
sion.  The  terms  bleeders,  blisterers,  and  "  fashionable  doctors " 
were  hurled  against  physicians  of  regular  professional  education. 
Empiricists,  believing  in  domestic  medication  and  the  possibilities 
thereof,  in  contradistinction  to  regular  medication,  issued  pamphlets, 
wrote  communications  to  the  papers,  travelled  about  the  country 
giving  lectures  and  otherwise  decrying  the  evils  of  the  processes 
inherited  from  Europe  and  paralleled  in  America.  "  Better  that  our 
loved  ones  should  be  permitted  to  die  in  peace  than  by  the  torturer's 
hand/'   That  cry  became  a  battle  cry. 
Samuel  Thomson  the  Botanic  Crusader. — Just  then  came 
Samuel  Thomson  as  the  most  pronounced  of  all  the  agitators. 
Dogmatic,  aggressive,  unflinchingly  persistent,  closely  did  he  touch 
the  people  and  irresistibly  did  he  appeal  to  them.  Throughout  the 
country  his  followers  and  himself  travelled,  introducing  the  new 
"  American  "  practice  and  arraigning  those  whom  they  called  "  fash- 
ionable doctors."  The  evils  of  bleeding,  the  depleting  effects  of 
violent  cathartics,  of  blistering  and  of  salivating  were  most  forcibly 
and  excoriatingly  set  forth.  Nor  could  they  well  be  exaggerated. 
Thomsonianism.  (better  had  it  been  Thorns onism)  became  a  house- 
hold word.  Empiricism  as  concerns  medication  became  the  fashion 
with  thousands.  Household  remedies  now  grew  in  importance, 
whilst  home-prepared  remedies  were  most  extravagantly  praised. 
In  it  all  the  educated  physician  was  berated  and  abused  without  stint 
and  without  mercy.  The  good  in  his  work  was  forgotten,  the  bad 
(and  there  was  much  bad)  was  never  overlooked.  Seizing  upon  the 
nature  of  the  heroic  remedies  that  were  favorites  Thomson  and  his 
people  raised  the  battle  cry  against  such  methods  and  against  such 
remedies.  For  reasons  that  are  apparent  as  we  look  back  into 
those  days  they  instituted  a  crusade  that  finally  succeeded.  Not- 
withstanding the  illiteracy  of  so  many  of  its  advocates,  the  rebellion 
against  the  regular  profession  spread  like  a  prairie  fire.  The  fame 
of  Thomson  and  the  Thomsonian  remedies  became  established  in  the 
homes  of  the  people  throughout  America,  from  Massachusetts  to 
the  Carolinas. 
(To  be  concluded  in  February  number.) 
