Should we slumber over the mischiefs
resulting from such indulgences, while the public look to us as pioneers
who should trace out the pathway to health and happiness, and demand
from us both precepts and examples of sobriety and virtue?
Unfortunately, in all our attempts to abolish practices prejudicial to
the best interests of man, we are compelled, in the outset, to encounter
our own inveterate habits--habits which rise up in mutiny against
reformation, and with clamorous note forbid us to proceed. Are we so
fortunate as to be free from their influence ourselves, we look around
and see our friends bound in chains, from which we should rejoice to
deliver them; but we fear, perhaps, to make an experiment which may
rouse their passions, rather than convince their understandings.

Who can count the multitudes yearly consigned to the tomb, by the
indulgence of a fastidious and unnatural appetite? Headaches,
flatulencies, cholics, dyspepsias, palsies, apoplexies, and death,
pursue the Epicurean train, as ravens follow the march of an armed host,
to prey on those who fall in the "battle of the warrior, with their
garments rolled in blood." The truth of this statement will not be
questioned. Yet where is the physician, possessing sufficient moral
courage to raise his voice against the system of modern cookery? Should
it be thought, that, as medical men have given no more encouragement to
that system than any other class in society, they are not bound to use
any extraordinary exertions to produce a change; still a wide field is
left open to benevolent action in reference to those things, the
influence of which is injurious to mankind.

Gentlemen--there is a baneful habit, diffused, like the atmosphere,
through all classes, and affecting all the ramifications of society. And
this habit owes much of its prevalence to the advice and example of
respectable physicians. We indulge the hope, from the great increase of
medical knowledge, that the time will soon arrive, when persons disposed
to vicious indulgence will be unable to entrench themselves behind our
professional advice. I am aware that I tread on dangerous ground, in
attempting to investigate the propriety of a practice which has been
introduced and approved by a large portion of the members of this
respectable Society. You may start at the suggestion, and regard it as
unworthy of your notice. Let me hope, however, that you will suspend
your opinions, while I endeavor to