perience.

But the secret was now out, and Dr. Jennings soon began to lose
practice. Instead of employing a man to give them bread pills and
colored water, many chose to take care of themselves, and let the
physician wholly alone; while a far greater number, though they dearly
loved and highly respected Jennings, as an old friend and physician and
an eminent Christian, began to seek medical counsel at other hands.

The result was, that his business became so much diminished as to leave
him without a full support, except from past earnings, and he began to
make preparations for a removal to the West. But this his friends were
unwilling to have him do, and they accordingly raised, by subscription,
$300 a year, to induce him to remain. In a few years, however, the
subscription failed to be renewed, and in 1839 or 1840 he removed to
Ohio, where he still remains. He does a little business, and what he
does is attended with great success; and yet, the number of those who
follow him is small.

Facts of similar import, in very great numbers, some more and some less
striking, might be related, to almost any extent; but can it be
necessary? Suffice it to say that some of the oldest physicians in
Boston and its vicinity, the oldest physician in Cleveland, and some of
the most intelligent ones in New York and Philadelphia, as well as
elsewhere, are coming rapidly to the same conclusions with Dr. Jennings,
and a few of them have already arrived there.

It is from stumbling on such facts as these, together with my own long
experience, all bearing in the same direction, that I have long since
renounced dependence on medicine, properly so called, as a means of
restoring the system, when out of order, to a state of health. In other
words, I have ceased to employ poison to _cure_ poison.

But, lest it should still be thought I make too much of my own
experience, and of the facts which have been adduced in this chapter, I
subjoin another of kindred character, containing the written testimony
of others, especially medical men, on the subject.

CHAPTER XCIX.

ANTI-MEDICAL TESTIMONY.

A very large amount of testimony, going to show the inefficiency and
inutility of medicine, might be presented; but I have limited myself to
a selection of some of the more striking and important.

Let me begin with Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia. In a published lecture of
his, more than half a century ago, he made the following remark:--

"Disse