EDITORIAL. 
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profession  giving  them  its  countenance,  for  however  valuable  certain  of 
them  might  chance  to  be,  they  could  not  be  made  officinal  without  the  pub- 
lication of  their  recipes.  Our  country  is  deluged  with  medicines  of  this 
class,  and  it  is  time  that  a  stand  should  be  taken  to  discourage  their  intro- 
duction into  regular  pharmacy,  whilst  they  remain  secret  preparations. 
Of  Nature  and  Art  in  the  cure  of  disease  : — by  Sir  John  Forbes,  M.  D.  &c. 
&c.  From  the  second  London  Edition.  New  York  :  Samuel  S.  &  Wil- 
liam Wood,  389  Broadway,  1858,  pp.  261,  12mo. 
This  little  volume  is  ably  written.    Its  object  is  to  arrest  and  direct  the 
attention  of  the  medical  profession,  to  the  inherent  restorative  powers  of 
the  human  system  in  its  normal  condition,  and  to  the  extent  to  which 
these  powers  may  be  relied  upon  in  the  cure  of  disease.    The  author 
believes  that  the  materia  medica  occupies  too  prominent  a  position  among 
the  "instruments  of  the  medical  art/;and  that  mankind  having  been  for 
ages  over-medicated,  it  is  time  now  for  the  physician  to  return  to  first 
principles,  and  let  nature  perform  her  restorative  functions,  whilst  he 
looks  on  and  lends  his  aid  where  it  can  be  done  with  advantage  in  cases 
where  she  has  not  a  fair  chance.    It  is  very  evident  that  Sir  John  Forbes  is 
no  advocate  of  the  materia  medica  in  its  present  extent  of  outline,  and  he 
no  doubt  looks  upon  the  whole  machinery  of  druggists,  apothecaries,  phar- 
maceutical societies  and  professors  of  materia  medica,  as  a  great  mistake 
like  false  doctrines  in  religion  and  false  theories  in  science,  which  have 
condemned  poor  mankind  from  time  immemorial  to  swallow  pills  and  po- 
tions and  be  blistered  and  cauterized,  when  nature  herself  would  have  ex- 
tended her  aid.    The  truth  probably  lies  somewhere  between  Sir  John 
and  the  materia  medica ;  like  all  reformers,  he  has  probably  struck  be- 
yond the  point  of  truth,  allowing  room  for  reaction.    If  ever  there  was  a 
time  when  such  views  are  needed,  it  is  now,  when  so  many  influences  are 
at  work  to  throw  the  business  of  curing  on  mere  medicines.    Not  only  are 
new  medicines  constantly  sought  for  and  held  up  to  notice  by  the  medical 
journals,  but  of  late  apothecaries  and  "  manufacturing  pharmaceutists/' 
and  even  "  manufacturing  chemists,"  have  joined  in  the  work,  and  by  a 
wholesale  deluging  of  the  country  with  pamphlets,  and  circulars,  and  med- 
icines nicely  put  up  with  directions  for  use,  sometimes  directed  to  physicians 
and  often  to  the  public,  the  medical  profession  have  been  to  a  degree 
taken  unawares,  and  have  joined  in  the  great  cry  for  physical  medication, 
that  every  newspaper  in  the  land  is  echoing  from  Maine  to  Texas.  We 
have  a  firm  belief  in  the  positive  powers  of  medicines  based  on  a  degree  of 
personal  experience  and  observation  ;  we  believe  that  pharmacy  is  a  neces- 
sary and  a  valuable  handmaid  to  medicine,  and  should  rank  higher  than 
it  does  in  the  great  scheme  of  medical  science  and  art,  yet  we  have  no  hes- 
itation in  saying  that  her  powers  have  been  and  are  most  shamefully  pros- 
tituted to  the  business  of  over  medication  for  the  sake  of  lucre,  by  regular 
members  of  the  profession,  not  to  speak  of  the  thousand  and  one  quackeries, 
