o establish a
presumption against giving poisons to sick persons was considered as
equivalent to condemning the use of these substances. The only important
inference the writer has been able to draw from the greater number of the
refutations of his opinions which have been kindly sent him, is that the
preliminary education of the Medical Profession is not always what it
ought to be.

One concession he is willing to make, whatever sacrifice of pride it may
involve. The story of Massasoit, which has furnished a coral, as it
were, for some teething critics, when subjected to a powerful logical
analysis, though correct in its essentials, proves to have been told with
exceptionable breadth of statement, and therefore (to resume the
metaphor) has been slightly rounded off at its edges, so as to be
smoother for any who may wish to bite upon it hereafter. In other
respects the Discourse has hardly been touched. It is only an
individual's expression, in his own way, of opinions entertained by
hundreds of the Medical Profession in every civilized country, and has
nothing in it which on revision the writer sees cause to retract or
modify. The superstitions it attacks lie at the very foundation of
Homoeopathy, and of almost every form of medical charlatanism. Still the
mere routinists and unthinking artisans in most callings dislike whatever
shakes the dust out of their traditions, and it may be unreasonable to
expect that Medicine will always prove an exception to the rule. One
half the opposition which the numerical system of Louis has met with, as
applied to the results of treatment, has been owing to the fact that it
showed the movements of disease to be far more independent of the kind of
practice pursued than was agreeable to the pride of those whose
self-confidence it abated.

The statement, that medicines are more sparingly used in physicians'
families than in most others, admits of a very natural explanation,
without putting a harsh construction upon it, which it was not intended
to admit. Outside pressure is less felt in the physician's own
household; that is all. If this does not sometimes influence him to give
medicine, or what seems to be medicine, when among those who have more
confidence in drugging than his own family commonly has, the learned
Professor Dunglison is hereby requested to apologize for his definition
of the word Placebo, or to expunge it from his Medical Dictionary.

One thing is certain. A loud out