complex medication.

On the side of "Nature" we have had, first of all, that remarkable
discourse on Self-Limited Diseases, [On Self-Limited Diseases. A
Discourse delivered before the Massachusetts Medical Society, at their
Annual Meeting, May 27, 1835. By Jacob Bigelow, M. D.] which has given
the key-note to the prevailing medical tendency of this neighborhood, at
least, for the quarter of a century since it was delivered. Nor have we
forgotten the address delivered at Springfield twenty years later,
[Search out the Secrets, of Nature. By Augustus A. Gould, M. D. Read
at the Annual Meeting, June 27, 1855.] full of good sense and useful
suggestions, to one of which suggestions we owe the learned, impartial,
judicious, well-written Prize Essay of Dr. Worthington Hooker. [Rational
Therapeutics. A Prize Essay. By Worthington Hooker, M. D., of New
Haven. Boston. 1857.] We should not omit from the list the important
address of another of our colleagues, [On the Treatment of Compound and
Complicated Fractures. By William J. Walker, M. D. Read at the Annual
Meeting, May 29, 1845.] showing by numerous cases the power of Nature in
healing compound fractures to be much greater than is frequently
supposed,--affording, indeed, more striking illustrations than can be
obtained from the history of visceral disease, of the supreme wisdom,
forethought, and adaptive dexterity of that divine Architect, as shown in
repairing the shattered columns which support the living temple of the
body.

We who are on the side of "Nature" please ourselves with the idea that we
are in the great current in which the true intelligence of the time is
moving. We believe that some who oppose, or fear, or denounce our
movement are themselves caught in various eddies that set back against
the truth. And we do most earnestly desire and most actively strive,
that Medicine, which, it is painful to remember, has been spoken of as
"the withered branch of science" at a meeting of the British Association,
shall be at length brought fully to share, if not to lead, the great wave
of knowledge which rolls with the tides that circle the globe.

If there is any State or city which might claim to be the American
headquarters of the nature-trusting heresy, provided it be one, that
State is Massachusetts, and that city is its capital. The effect which
these doctrines have upon the confidence reposed in the profession is a
matter of opinion. For myself, I do not believe th