Am.  Jour.  Pharm.) 
February,  1910.  ) 
The  American  Materia  Medica. 
87 
gular  war  waxed  hotter  and  hotter,  each  faction  fighting  bitterly 
the  others,  but  each  engaged  earnestly,  as  they  saw  life's  duties  in 
their  task  of  relieving  mankind  of  ills,  even  though  the  attainment 
of  the  object  necessitated,  where  heroic  medication  was  involved, 
the  death  of  the  individual. 
Warring  of  the  Heroics. — But  in  all  this,  let  us  not  forget  the 
people  who  were  so  vitally  concerned  in  this  war  of  the  professions. 
The  good  in  each  benefited  the  people,  the  wrong  of  one  or  of  all 
injured  them.  Each  home  in  America  became  involved,  one  way  or 
the  other.  Under  the  influence  of  Thomson  and  of  Beach  home- 
made remedies  increased,  whilst  under  their  combined  but  yet  dis- 
connected attacks  criticisms  of  the  profession  became  more  pro- 
nounced. The  cruelties  of  the  transplanted  mediaeval  ages,  as 
exemplified  for  centuries  in  bleeding,  blistering,  and  salivating,  were 
illustrated  in  print  and  depicted  in  lecture,  in  the  home,  the  school 
house,  the  church.  The  dominant  school  as  well  as  the  Thomsonians 
felt  the  touch.  They  indignantly  resisted,  but  yet  under  the  influence 
of  transpiring  events  they  lessened  their  doses  and  gradually  aban- 
doned their  depleting  processes.  Then,  at  last,  it  was  discovered 
that  barbarism,  in  these  lines  at  least,  was  unnecessary.  But  yet,  all 
seemed  to  believe  in  fighting  disease,  not  in  preventing  its  occurrence. 
Came,  now,  in  the  seeming  day  of  victory,  tribulation  to  the 
Thomsonians.  The  people  had  become  better  educated,  better  fed, 
and  better  clothed.  The  methods  of  times  gone  by  would  no  longer 
be  tolerated.  The  eclectics,  too,  felt  the  influence  of  the  times, 
and  discovered  that  their  enormous  and  too  often  nauseating  doses 
of  syrups,  of  vinegars,  and  of  compound  tinctures  were  neither  desir- 
able nor  necessary.  They,  too,  began  to  look  upon  what  had  pre- 
viously been  their  ideal  of  greater  kindness  as  a  process  of  less 
cruelty.  About  i860,  came  the  ending  of  the  more  heroic  phases 
and  processes  of  eclectic  medication.  The  old  school,  as  shown 
by  the  records,  had  during  this  period  assimilated  many  remedies 
native  to  America,  the  Thomsonians  had  about  abandoned  their 
lobelia  courses  and  had  lessened  the  enormous  doses  hitherto 
employed,  whilst  the  eclectics  had  discovered  that  disease  expres- 
sions could  be  controlled  by  more  kindly  methods  and  by  smaller 
doses  than  had  been  advocated  by  Beach.  A  great  number  of  the 
remedial  agents  suggested  by  Barton,  but  neglected  during  this 
period  bv  his  old-school  disciples,  had  in  small  doses  become  favor- 
ites in  the  eclectic  school,  some  of  them  being  reintroduced  from 
