that all the wisdom of the world is to be found in either of these two divisions of civilised intelligence. Noble principles are represented by both. I simply call attention as impartially as possible to this sharp division line existing in all departments of thought or work, and to the fact that homoeopathy lies substantially only on one and always the same side of this line. In short, homoeopathy is the one new, live, aggressive, quite untraditional element in modern therapeutics. All other therapeutic systems are largely traditional, and the traditional mind clings to them. If this be true, it will explain to some the reason of the unexpected delay in the demise of homoeopathy. It will also explain, as no scientific hypothesis can, the intense and peculiar antagonism which traditional medicine has so long manifested towards homœopathy. Otherwise there is nothing in any new theory of therapeutics that ought to disturb the serenity of a great school of medicine for a moment. And finally, it will explain why the school of medicine split on a mere theory of therapeutics (as the Christian church once divided on a diphthong), because other branches of medical learning are predominantly scientific; and about the ascertained facts of science there can be no dispute. In therapeutics it is different. Here the exact indisputable facts cannot be ascertained. A scientific settlement of the dispute is impossible therefore. To illustrate, if every man in this room were asked to state its temperature at this moment, each would be obliged to answer according to his own feeling. A hot man would say ninety. A cold man would say forty. And so on. And doubtless the average of all opinions would be nearly correct. But that is not a scientific opinion nevertheless. A scientific answer could only be given by a thermometer. . No man would venture to have an opinion on the subject after the reading of the instrument. That is positive science settling disputes. Well, in therapeutics there is no thermometer that will measure exactly the precise effect of treatment, and we are driven perforce to trust the average of opinion, which so far is largely in our favour. Yet medicine is on the whole a progressive science, and the opposition offered by it to the study and practice of homœopathy was a violation of its own historic spirit and purpose, and the immense "row" (for we cannot call it by any more dignified name) that has been raised about it is one of the anomalies of medical history, and one of the

most serious mistakes it has to record. In other departments the history of medicine is consistent and glorious.

In surgery, from the days of Hippocrates until the present hour, that is to say, for nearly 2500 years, its pathway has been illumined by one continuous succession of brilliant achievements, the very conception of which is an "honour to the human race." Anesthesia alone is almost equal to another gospel of salvation, by the peace which it has shed over a great world of torture. Obstetrics has so far advanced within the memory of men now living, so complete has become its knowledge of principles, and so perfect are its appliances of means to emergencies, that even the great lying-in hospitals now report one death where formerly they reported ten! Physiology and pathology have shared equally with these other branches in the astounding progress, while the morning newspaper thrusts the principles of sanitary science in house building, draining, lighting, and ventilating, in clothing, eating, sleeping, and working, upon every man's breakfast table. Indeed, this sanitary work has become so engrossing and noisy as to provoke an English physician to ask whether a sanitary life is worth living? He says, "whether longevity purchased at the price of passing a lifetime in running away from death would be worth having, I must leave to be determined by those who set a value on sanitary progress, which I for one fail to recognise. What to eat, drink, and avoid, what to wear, where and how to live, by what means to avoid infection, to keep off disease, and to escape death for a few weary and worried years, are questions which so engross the thoughts, if they do not embitter the lives of the multitude," that the "taxed and harassed community" will be compelled sooner or later to consider whether the whole thing had not better be brought to a close.

I sympathise with that doctor; with him I feel "tired," but yet I think that the net result of the fuss and furor will be a general improvement, organised as a habit and a method, in all that closely affects the sanitary side of human life. At all events, inasmuch as we are here to-night with something of the odour of schismatics about us, I would like, before saying what further I have to say, if I can, to say a fitting tribute of praise and admiration to the work of the great undivided school of medicine, which has lived and laboured so long and covered itself with an historic renown that reaches from Egypt to America. The

more we know of the work done by the medical profession, the better we understand the zeal, the industry, the courage, and the perseverance with which it has ransacked every storehouse of nature in order to learn the laws, causes, and remedies for the physical sufferings of mankind, I say, the more we know of this Titanic toil, the greater grows our admiration for the grand army that accomplished it. And still the noble work goes on. And we who stand before you to-night as physicians, and as educators of physicians, though regarded by some as aliens from the commonwealth of medicine and accursed therefrom for homœopathy's sake, are yet, in our humble way, in every essential form and feature members of the same historic body, and labouring to carry onward our small share of the same unending duty. How far we shall succeed in doing our part, we well know, depends upon how far we shall be able to emulate the zeal and the fidelity and the high purpose of our illustrious predecessors, and likewise depends upon how far you, representing the people of this state and nation, shall emulate the people who aided and cherished them. For ourselves we acknowledge no alienship in the matter. We stand firmly upon the broad natural platform of the science of medicine, and we acknowledge our relationship to every man who recognises the fundamental principles thereof. In fact, our history will show that we are the most "regular" of all the regulars in the medical profession. The question between the schools being so largely one of "orthodoxy," this point is important. We have diligently adhered to the timehonoured routine of medical study in all the older elements; we have promptly adopted every new science as it has appeared; we have explored materia medica by the one only rational and scientific method-by the only method; we have applied the resultant theory; we have succeeded with it. We are now open to every future improvement. Thus beginning with the real apostolic succession as it exists in medicine, and going on to full scientific ordination into the service, we have followed this up by persistent adherence to the legitimate work of the profession to this day. And best of all, the great body of our school is wholly uncommitted to any twaddle about heresy, and so can give its entire energies to legitimate business. If this constitutes regularity, then again we say we are the truly Catholic, strictly orthodox, and only regular doctors now living.

We recognise in medicine a science and an art, both necessarily progressive-not founded on tradition or divine revelation, but on the simple basis of experience, which includes both experiment and study. The medical profession, consequently, is not in our view a priesthood, endowed with authority human or divine, legal or ecclesiastical, real or assumed, to formulate a creed for its members; and to determine what, under pain of excommunication and official damnation, they shall believe or disbelieve in anatomy, therapeutics, and so forth. It is simply a body of men educated, more or less, for a special work; organised into associations, great or small, for the better furtherance of that work. Medical colleges are examples of such associations; so likewise are medical societies, local, state, or national. But in all this there is involved nothing whatsoever but the endeavour to discover by all possible research the laws, the causes, the cures, or the preventions of disease. Now, whether we have become so divinely perfect in the knowledge of these four fundamental elements as to be quite ready to persecute and defame each other for differences of opinion respecting them, let good sense and the facts determine. As to the laws of disease, that is to say, its modes, varieties, periods, course, &c., in a word, as to pathology, a good deal is known. Respecting the causes of disease, we know nothing precisely, and precisely nothing. Neither must we be blamed above all men for this. Professor Huxley doubtless knows a great deal about nettles and the Simian family, but he does not know the cause of nettles or of the Simiæ. As to the cures of disease they are in perpetual dispute in every school and always have been. And as to prevention, it is a fact that we have not yet driven any disease from off the face of the earth, or prevented its reappearance when for a time it has been absent. That medical skill and science diminish human mortality immensely we of course know. But half the human race still perishes in childhood-a generation of men still lives, on an average thirty-three years, not thirty-five, much less forty or seventy, just as they did 3000 years ago. While this is so we must maintain that it is too soon for schools of medicine to put on airs of infallibility. It is even too soon for any one of them to try to appropriate all the honours, public offices, and powers and privileges.

November 1st. This number contains a communica

tion from a very enterprising gentleman, Dr. Palmer, of Terre Haute, who "operates" on the lungs of his phthisical patients, and relates one case in which he practised "nucleation" of the entire right lung with perfect success! Dr. Danforth's gynæcological triumphs, recorded in the same number, are less mythical, but hardly less wonderful.

December 1st.-Dr. Corson points out that infants brought up by hand are commonly underfed; that the doctor directs. only the degree of dilution and not the quantity of milk to be given; and that the latter should not be less than a quart a day. Dr. E. M. Hale suggests that Naja would seem to be "the nearest simillimum we have for purely neurosal cases of angina pectoris, for many of those bitten by the cobra complain immediately of agonising pain in the heart, with rapid dissolution."

St. Louis Clinical Review.-The numbers for November and December in the present series are the only ones that have reached us, and 1882 has (up to December 1st) been represented solely by its issue for February. If this is what the editor calls "exchanging," his notions of the process are peculiar.

The two numbers before us contain nothing for notice. American Homœopath.-This journal is now arriving regularly, and is always welcome.

July. Dr. Oehme finds Staphisagria p, two drops night and morning, of immediate and lasting benefit in many cases of constipation.

August.-Naja is a medicine so little employed, that a cure by it, reported by Dr. L. L. Danforth, of New York, is worth extracting.

Mrs. V—, æt. 33, married and the mother of one child, was under treatment last winter and spring. First began to suffer three years previously. Was subject to headaches and pain in cardiac region. Very easily excited; was frightened just before her illness began, and on account of the singular condition resulting therefrom was taken to St. Luke's, and afterwards to Bellevue Hospital. Does not know what the physicians pronounced her disease to be. Remained in hospital only a few weeks and then returned home. Never felt well after that;