nted. They are addicted to the
daily use of this empirical and unchemical mixture which we call air; and
would hold on to it as a tippler does to his alcoholic drinks. There is
nothing men will not do, there is nothing they have not done, to recover
their health and save their lives. They have submitted to be
half-drowned in water, and half-choked with gases, to be buried up to
their chins in earth, to be seared with hot irons like galley-slaves, to
be crimped with knives, like cod-fish, to have needles thrust into their
flesh, and bonfires kindled on their skin, to swallow all sorts of
abominations, and to pay for all this, as if to be singed and scalded
were a costly privilege, as if blisters were a blessing, and leeches were
a luxury. What more can be asked to prove their honesty and sincerity?

This same community is very intelligent with respect to a great many
subjects-commerce, mechanics, manufactures, politics. But with regard to
medicine it is hopelessly ignorant and never finds it out. I do not know
that it is any worse in this country than in Great Britain, where Mr.
Huxley speaks very freely of "the utter ignorance of the simplest laws of
their own animal life, which prevails among even the most highly educated
persons." And Cullen said before him "Neither the acutest genius nor the
soundest judgment will avail in judging of a particular science, in
regard to which they have not been exercised. I have been obliged to
please my patients sometimes with reasons, and I have found that any will
pass, even with able divines and acute lawyers; the same will pass with
the husbands as with the wives." If the community could only be made
aware of its own utter ignorance, and incompetence to form opinions on
medical subjects, difficult enough to those who give their lives to the
study of them, the practitioner would have an easier task. But it will
form opinions of its own, it cannot help it, and we cannot blame it, even
though we know how slight and deceptive are their foundations.

This is the way it happens: Every grown-up person has either been ill
himself or had a friend suffer from illness, from which he has recovered.
Every sick person has done something or other by somebody's advice, or of
his own accord, a little before getting better. There is an irresistible
tendency to associate the thing done, and the improvement which followed
it, as cause and effect. This is the great source of fallacy in medical
practic