The intense thirst for new discoveries, especially in therapeutics, is owing to its uncertainty. The right-minded doctors are eager and anxious to cure their patients. They are true to the cause they have adopted, and the welfare of the patient is the chief end of their life-work; but patients still die. Every moment a life passes to the inevitable beyond; every time the clock strikes it not only marks the death of the hour, but tells the tale that sixty souls have entered into eternity since it last tolled the requiem of sixty others passing away. We all know it, and as death mocks our best efforts and laughs at our attempts to baffle him in his onward and inevitable course, we rouse ourselves to look for something better than we have hitherto employed; to find other surer methods than we have essayed, and hearing of some vaunted drug, or some new appliance, we are prone to fly to it, without much thought and without much examination, taking it very much upon trust, and deserting our older and welltried medicines. This craze for novelty in the old school is remarkable as it is true, and it is because the best men in it know they have no formula to guide them, and that their compass on the wide sea of suffering is experience only. Science cannot exist without law, and hence the unstability and the variability of their therapeutics. This time last year the whole old-school medical world was in a convulsiona shaking, shivering, shattering convulsion. Tuberculosis was to be cured. It was no longer beyond the pale of curable diseases. Koch had found. the tubercle bacillus, and phthisis pulmonalis was to be no more. Thousands upon thousands of medical men left their homes and their patients to obtain small modicums of the inestimable treasure, which was doled out in most minute particles to those of especial position and eminence, or to those having "a pull.” The great medical journals, at immence cost, had extras telegraphed to them regarding the methods and the results of the "Koch treatment." Hospital wards were arranged, and even set apart by some governments, for the accommodation of the patients undergoing the inoculations. Hospital nurses were instructed how to follow the scientific medical gentlemen through the wards and clap on the compresses that not the hundred thousandth part of a drop should be lost. New hypodermic syringes were invented that not a single atom of dust, or an infinitesimal proportion of air, should be mixed with the precious fluid. New charts were printed, new urinometers and thermometers constructed, and millions of observations made; and for what? Nothing; absolutely nothing!

There never has been such a reaction in medicine since Hippocrates was born. What do you hear now about Koch's bacillus? Where are the long editorials? Where are the extra

numbers of the journals? Where are the minutely-written records? Where are the Koch's wards in the hospitals? Where are the long strings of observers? And, I may ask more particularly, where are the patients suffering from real tuberculosis? Aye! Where? Dead as Koch's lymph. Methinks I see a funeral procession, in which

A Hottentot, with setons in his ears,

Bearing Koch's dead tuberculine, appears;
The tubes are covered with a sable pall,

On which is written: "He has fooled us all."

I was asked over a year ago, in this very theatre, before the assembled class, what I thought of "Koch's lymph cure." You may remember my answer.

It is a matter of history that the homoeopathists, as a body, either here or abroad, did not become insane concerning the lymph, and the reason was that they were, in a measure, satisfied with their own therapeutics; they knew they had a law to guide them in the treatment of disease, and knowing this, even perhaps unknown to themselves, they waited, and were vigilant. This is the lesson I desire to teach you from this allopathic fiasco. Be cautious how you leave the tried for the untried; don't leave the more certain for the uncertain; don't forsake what you know to be true for that which has not been so proven. By so doing you will be regarded as safe men to trust, and reliable men in times of severe distress and adversity.

There are other things besides the administration of medicine or the operations in surgery that are necessary to the true doctor. He must take into his being the welfare of his patient, mentally as well as physically. Really in these days, when we are beginning to see but not to understand, what immense. power is hidden within the nervous centres; when hypnotism and personal magnetism are acknowledged to possess such force, there is no saying how much personality may influence disease, especially of the nervous system. You can carry brightness or gloom in your countenance; you can carry sympathy or coldness; you can carry pleasantness or mournfulness; but to do this you must preserve your health, and you must have cultivated that which to a doctor is his chiefest endowment, namely, humanity. You never lower yourselves by talking pleasantly with the poorest patient at the clinic; it is not beneath your dignity to shake hands with the pauper in the wards of yonder hospital; it is not unmanly to show sympathy for distress of any kind; but be sure you put your sympathy in the right form and express it in the right place, otherwise, instead of comfort, you may bring absolute consternation and misery. Witness the following true story:

The incident occurred in one of the large London hospitals. The patient's name was Hopkins, and he was dying. The chaplain had left the room for a few moments to attend to another sufferer, hoping to return in time to give the last consolation and comfort to the dying soldier. The minister was too late; when he reached the ward the patient had just expired. The chaplain thus spoke to the hospital orderly:

Chaplain "So poor Hopkins is dead. I should have liked to speak to him once again and soothe his last moments. Why didn't you call me?"

Hospital Orderly: "I didn't think you ought to be disturbed for 'Opkins, sir, so I just soothed him as best I could myself.” Chaplain: "Why, what did you say to him?" Orderly: "Opkins," sez I, "you're mortal bad."

66

"I am," sez 'e. "'Opkins," sez I, "I don't think you'll get better." No," sez 'e." "Opkins," says I, "you're going fast." "Yes," sez 'e. "'Opkins," sez I, "I don't think you can 'ope to go to 'eaven." "I don't think I can," sez 'e. "Well, then, 'Opkins," sez I, "you'll go to 'ell. "I suppose so," sez 'e. "'Opkins," sez I, "You ought to be wery grateful as there's a place perwided for you, and that you've got somewhere to go. And I think 'e 'eard me sir, and then 'e died." *

*

If it be true that all science is developed by imperfection, it will be found that in medical science the beginning of inquiry is disease. If there had been no disease, if every one enjoyed perfect functional and organic life or that unknown quantity called health (mens sana in corpore sano); if there existed in every one of us the harmonious action of all our organs, there would be no need of the science or art of medicine.

The well-known biblical phrase, "those that be whole need not a physician, but those who are sick," would tell the entire story. Does it not appear one of the most wonderful conditions of nature, an apparent paradox, that knowledge actually grows out of evil, or of ignorance? If Adam had not sinned there would be no need of redemption; if man had not become diseased there would have been no need of doctors; if there were no transgressions of law there would be no lawyers. Therefore, with such an understanding, we should be thankful to mother Eve, and still grant to woman priority in the establishment of our profession. Even here we find "a woman in the case." Dux femina facti.

The physician differs from all other men in the varied pursuits of life, in the commodities which he handles, in the mechanism he endeavors to control, in the results he hopes to accomplish, and in the powers with which he has to contend. He deals with the mechanism of the human body, he fights with disease, he

Tex

endeavors to overthrow suffering, and to avert or postpone death. Often after his best directed efforts come

"The knell, the shroud, the mattock and the grave,

The deep, damp vault, the darkness and the worm." Can there be more serious subjects than this, and can one's energies be better expended than in thus striving to relieve our common humanity?

At the outset of the physician's life it is well for him to understand that there exists a tremendous force always powerful in the body known as the vis medicatrix naturæ. It is a power likely to be forgotten, especially by the young medical man as he emerges from the college with a mind full of new medicines, new theories of diseases, new methods, new instruments, and new nomenclature.

I

He is liable to thwart, or to set aside, or to interfere with this agent which silently watches over the body, and is ready to expel the invader, to heal the breaches that have been made in the citadel and to restore a shattered framework to a comely and harmonious whole. I am persuaded that the reason that this tremendous force is often overlooked is because it is vital and not mechanical; because it is invisible and not tangible, save by its results; because it is silent, and not obtrusive. take it that the highest aim of the physician must be to assist, not to impede, this unseen power. An obstructionist is always dangerous, and it requires not only the most consummate skill and the largest experience, but also an intuitive perception of the workings of this power to prevent interfering with its results. All I ask of you is to carefully watch the silent manifestation of the power of the vis medicatrix; to ascertain, as does the experienced general, whether the enemy or the friend is in the ascendant. If this is done carefully; if one perceives this silent and mysterious force preserving the economy of man from the inroads of disease, he will be more cautious in the application of his drugs. It is known, like good men, by its works. Its physical results, as exhibited by certain conditions of the system known as favorable to returning health, are appreciated and understood; its vital power, which is invisible, is not capable of explanation. I am of opinion that the law of similars offers to the physician a facile method by which medicaments may be passed into the body in such manner as will not in any way interfere with the action of this all-powerful vis. There is no revulsion, there is no opposition, there is no contrariety of action in homoeopathic medication. The symptoms of a disease develop, and are carefully noted. The similar is found with a certain precision which, though not always exact, on account of certain imperfections in our own knowledge and in the materia medica,

is certainly better than the vague generalities upon which the old-time therapeutics is founded. A drug is administered with the most decided and positive aim of removing certain specified symptoms; it is not, as in the old school, given with the hope, on general principles, that because it will vomit, or sweat, or soothe or narcotize, that in such revulsive or convulsive action the symptoms will abate or disappear. Homœopathic medicine, guided by a scientific law, must go to its place and do the work intended for it, silently and without external evidence. The allopathic dose - pill, mixture or capsule, draught or potion causes some sort of a revulsion, often ending in a crisis of diaphoresis, emesis, or counter-irritation, by which the symptoms are expected to, and often may, abate; that is, if the constitution of the patient is strong enough to bear the shock produced by this heroic medication. There are some individuals whose idea of the action of a medicinal agent upon the system of man is gauged by what is known as "its working," and would have us believe that this "outward and visible sign" of the medical action within the body must exist, otherwise such substances are inert. The wise and successful "regulars" of to-day are those who know the importance and the power of the vis medicatrix naturæ, and know it so well, as compared even with the improved pharmacy and therapeutics, that they have almost become a sect "the expectants;" they watch and wait, and are wise; they guide rather than compel; they believe in all the hygienic surroundings that are known as conductive to health, and they "throw physic to the dogs," and are successful. I heard a distinguished member of the old school once make the assertion that "nine-tenths of all diseases would get well of themselves; that only one-tenth required treatment." If this be a belief, it shows the drift of the medical mind of to-day; but its adoption would soon close half the apothecary shops in the county, and I might say one-tenth is about the mortality of the school. Knowing these facts, therefore, when you prescribe your medicine, watch, wait for and assist the vis medicatrix, and you will find that your success in the very beginning of your career will bring you a step in advance of those who crowd the aisles of the temple you are entering, where, amid the confusion of poly-pharmacy, the fanatical worship of the bacillus, the chaotic prescription-writing upon vague general principles, the prostration of a crowd of worshippers before the god of experience (who forget that he has a hundred faces and a thousand tongues), the silent and mysterious power of the vital force is either misapprehended, forgotten or extinguished.

The next point I wish to urge upon you is that, as students and as physicians, you be true to your country.