-course practice of his time:

"He does not scorn it, who has long endured
A fever's agonies, and fed on drugs."

Dr. Kimball of Lowell, who has been in the habit of seeing a great
deal more of typhoid fever than most practitioners, and whose surgical
exploits show him not to be wanting in boldness or enterprise, can tell
you whether he finds it necessary to feed his patients on drugs or not.
His experience is, I believe, that of the most enlightened and advanced
portion of the profession; yet I think that even in typhoid fever, and
certainly in many other complaints, the effects of ancient habits
and prejudices may still be seen in the practice of some educated
physicians.

To you, young men, it belongs to judge all that has gone before you.
You come nearer to the great fathers of modern medicine than some of you
imagine. Three of my own instructors attended Dr. Rush's Lectures. The
illustrious Haller mentions Rush's inaugural thesis in his "Bibliotheca
Anatomica;" and this same Haller, brought so close to us, tells us he
remembers Ruysch, then an old man, and used to carry letters between him
and Boerhaave. Look through the history of medicine from Boerhaave
to this present day. You will see at once that medical doctrine and
practice have undergone a long series of changes. You will see that
the doctrine and practice of our own time must probably change in their
turn, and that, if we can trust at all to the indications of their
course, it will be in the direction of an improved hygiene and a
simplified treatment. Especially will the old habit of violating the
instincts of the sick give place to a judicious study of these same
instincts. It will be found that bodily, like mental insanity, is best
managed, for the most part, by natural soothing agencies. Two centuries
ago there was a prescription for scurvy containing "stercoris taurini
et anserini par, quantitas trium magnarum nucum," of the hell-broth
containing which "guoties-cumque sitit oeger, large bibit." When I
have recalled the humane common-sense of Captain Cook in the matter
of preventing this disease; when I have heard my friend, Mr. Dana,
describing the avidity with which the scurvy-stricken sailors snuffed up
the earthy fragrance of fresh raw potatoes, the food which was to supply
the elements wanting to their spongy tissues, I have recognized that the
perfection of art is often a return to nature, and seen in this single
instance the germ of innum