first impulse to those regulations by which scorbutus is so successfully
prevented in our navy." (Lond. Cyc. Prac. Med. art. "Scorbutus.") Iron
and various salts which enter into the normal composition of the human
body do not belong to the materia medica by our definition, but to the
materia alimentaria.

For the first introduction of iron as a remedy, see Pereira, who gives a
very curious old story.

The statement in the text concerning a portion of the materia medica
stands exactly as delivered, and is meant exactly as it stands. No
denunciation of drugs, as sparingly employed by a wise physician, was
or is intended. If, however, as Dr. Gould stated in his "valuable
and practical discourse" to which the Massachusetts Medical Society
"listened with profit as well as interest," "Drugs, in themselves
considered, may always be regarded as evils,"--any one who chooses may
question whether the evils from their abuse are, on the whole, greater
or less than the undoubted benefits obtained from their proper use. The
large exception of opium, wine, specifics, and anaesthetics, made in the
text, takes off enough from the useful side, as I fully believe, to turn
the balance; so that a vessel containing none of these, but loaded with
antimony, strychnine, acetate of lead, aloes, aconite, lobelia, lapis
infernalis, stercus diaboli, tormentilla, and other approved, and, in
skilful hands, really useful remedies, brings, on the whole, more harm
than good to the port it enters.

It is a very narrow and unjust view of the practice of medicine, to
suppose it to consist altogether in the use of powerful drugs, or of
drugs of any kind. Far from it. "The physician may do very much for the
welfare of the sick, more than others can do, although he does not,
even in the major part of cases, undertake to control and overcome
the disease by art. It was with these views that I never reported any
patient cured at our hospital. Those who recovered their health were
reported as well; not implying that they were made so by the active
treatment they had received there. But it was to be understood that all
patients received in that house were to be cured, that is, taken care
of." (Letters to a Young Physician, by James Jackson, M. D., Boston,
1855.)

"Hygienic rules, properly enforced, fresh air, change of air, travel,
attention to diet, good and appropriate food judiciously regulated,
together with the administration of our tonics, porter, ale,