amount of death and disaster in the world
would be less, if all diseases were left to themselves, than it now is
under the multiform, reckless, and contradictory modes of practice, with
which practitioners of diverse denominations carry on their
differences, at the expense of the patient.

Sir John Forbes, M. D., F. R. S., said:--

"Some patients get well with the aid of medicine, more without
it, and still more in spite of it."

Dr. Bostwick, author of _The History of Medicine_, said:--

"Every dose of medicine given is a blind experiment upon the
vitality of the patient."

Dr. James Johnson, editor of the _Medico-Chirurgical Review_, says:--

"I declare as my conscientious conviction founded on long
experience and reflection, that if there were not a single
physician, surgeon, man-midwife, chemist, apothecary, druggist
nor drug on the face of the earth, there would be less sickness
and less mortality than now prevail."

Prof. J. W. Carson, of the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons,
says:--

"We do not know whether our patients recover because we give
them medicine, or because nature cures them. Perhaps bread-pills
would cure as many as medicine."

Prof. Alonzo Clark, of the same college, has said:--

"In their zeal to do good physicians have done much harm; they
have hurried many to the grave who would have recovered if left
to nature."

Prof. Martin Paine, of the New York University Medical College, said:--

"Drug medicines do but cure one disease by producing another."

Dr. Marshall Hall, F. R. S.:--

"Thousands are annually slaughtered in the quiet sick-room."

Dr. Adam Smith:--

"The chief cause of quackery _outside_ the profession is the
_real_ quackery _in_ the profession."

Prof. Gilman:--

"The things that are administered for the cure of _scarlet
fever_ and _measles_ kill far more than those diseases kill."

Prof. Barker, of New York Medical College:--

"The drugs that are administered for the cure of _scarlet fever_
kill far more patients than the disease does."

Prof. Parker:--

"As we place more confidence in nature, and less in preparations
of the apothecary, mortality diminishes."

The examining physician of a large insurance company in New York said to
a _Mercury_ reporter:--

"The primary cause of so many cases of _la grippe_ in this and
other cities is t