1 V
2 the prime of life) prematurely to their graves, through
3 injudicious treatment, is by no means inconsiderable ;
4 neither is the number small of those unfortunates, who,
5 from the too violent operations of medicine, live only
6 to wander about as cripples or phantoms, weak and
7 disabled, a burden to themselves and others, some of
8 them longing for death, as the only deliverance from
9 their miseries.
10 Girtanner, in his Therapeutics , Vol. II., p. 600,
11 acknowledges, that “ The apparatus medicaminurn is
12 nothing more than a careful collection of all the soph-
13 isms which have been invented by the medical prac-
14 titioners of former times. It is true, some valuable
15 experience may be found among this immense heap of
16 verbosity ; but, who would spend his time in selecting
17 a few grains of pure metal from such an enormous heap
18 of rubbish as that which has been accumulating for
19 2,000 years. In the worse than Egyptian darkness in
20 which the physician has to grope his way, he scarcely
21 perceives a ray of light to guide him through the
22 ‘ palpable obscure.’ When two physicians meet at a
23 sick-bed, it is with difficulty they refrain from laughing
24 — like two augurs of Rome.”
25 Lemiere is quite light in saying —
26 Lorsque la fievre et ses brulantes crises
27 Ont de notre machine attaque les ressorts,
28 Le corps humain est un champ-clos alors,
29 Ou la nature et le mal sont aux prises,
30 II parvint un aveugle, appelle medecin
31 Tout au travel’s, il frappe a Taventure:
32 S'il attrappe le mal, il fait un honnne sain,
33 Et du malade un mort, s’il frappe la nature.
34 In the Heidelberg Clinical Annul . Vol. V. Part 3, it