MEDICAL COMPOUNDS. 183 
experience goes, we know itis not so with our herbal medicines. 
We are always prepared to take a dose of any medicine that 
we prescribe, and do so very often, but never feel any the 
worse forit. If this theory were true we ought to have had 
all the diseases in the calendar. The faith of this school in 
infinitesimal doses 1s wonderful. An enthusiastic member 
told us he was now prescribing the millionth part of a grain 
of salt. It may be our dullness of perception, but for 
cur lives we cannot see reason in the system. On the 
other hand the allopaths, whose creed is to cure by contraries, 
have taxed the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdom 
to find innumerable and incongruous agents with which to 
combat disease. During the past 20 years the tendency with 
the most liberal physicians has been to contract their Materia 
Medica, weeding out the most dangerous agents, also those, 
which after repeated trials failed to show any curative 
power. It was said of a late celebrated doctor that when he 
began practice he had 20 remedies for every disease, but when 
he finished he had but 20 for all diseases. There is yet 
much room for improvement in the allopathic school. « Our 
school (the eclectic botanic), desire to avoid these extremes 
and found a rational system without the contracting power of 
human creeds. We fancy some of our readers may say (as 
many have), what are we to do, seeing doctors differ so widely ? 
We reply, take the hint given in the following well-known 
line:—‘' When doctors disagree, the people then are free.” 
Use your freedom and your reason. Learn at least something 
about medicine before you swallow it. You would not 20 
even to a well-known friend’s house and eat anything he 
chose to give you without your knowing what it was. Of 
course it is very pleasant for a doctor to see strong faith in his 
patients, but we, in most cases at least, would prefer to see 
people of such an intelligent turn, that knowing their system 
and its peculiarities, they could doctor themselves and their 
families. This is the chief object we have in view in writing 
our book. In giving the following recipes, we might state 
that the reason (with which we agree), for compounding 
