se obey laws which, under the
circumstances, are on the whole salutary, and only require a limited
and occasional interference by any special disturbing agents. The list
of specifics has been reduced to a very brief catalogue, and the
delusion which had exaggerated the power of drugging for so many
generations has been tempered down by sound and systematic
observation.

Homoeopathy came, and with one harlequin bound leaped out of its
century backwards into the region of quagmires and fogs and mirages,
from which true medical science was painfully emerging. All the
trumpery of exploded pharmacopoeias was revived under new names. Even
the domain of the loathsome has been recently invaded, and simpletons
are told in the book before us to swallow serpents' poison; nay, it is
said that the _pediculis capitis_ is actually prescribed in
infusion,--hunted down in his capillary forest, and transferred to the
digestive organs of those he once fed upon.

It falsely alleged one axiom as the basis of existing medical
practice, namely, _Contraria contrarues curantur_,--"Contraries
are cured by contraries." No such principle was ever acted upon,
exclusively, as the basis of medical practice. The man who does not
admit it as _one_ of the principles of practice would, on
_medical_ principles, refuse a drop of cold water to cool the
tongue of Dives in fiery torments. The only unconditional principle
ever recognized by medical science has been, that diseases are to be
treated by the remedies that experience shows to be useful. The
universal use of both _cold_ and _hot_ external and internal
remedies in various inflammatory states puts the garrote at once on
the babbling throat of the senseless assertion of the homaeopathists,
and stultifies for all time the nickname "allopathy."

It falsely alleged a second axiom, _Similia similibus
curantur_,--"Like is cured by like,"--as the basis of its own
practice; for it does not keep to any such rule, as every page of the
book before us abundantly shows.

It subjected credulous mankind to the last of indignities, in forcing
it to listen to that doctrine of infinitesimals and potencies which is
at once the most epigrammatic of paradoxes, and the crowning exploit
of pseudo-scientific audacity.

It proceeded to prove itself true by juggling statistics; some of the
most famous of which, we may remark, are very well shown up by
Professor Worthington Hooker, in a recent essay. And having done all