d by hundreds who examine not for themselves; and are easily
deluded, by the fairest promises, to surrender their opinions to
another's guidance: these are the supporters of quackery, and the
encouragers of those needy plunderers, who would render medicine a
farce, that they might practice jugglery the better.

If the system of man resembled a machine, which, once in motion,
continued an unvaried power, and retained an equality of force, merely
requiring, when deranged, the tightening of a screw, the readjustment of
a strap, or the addition of a quantity of oil, little knowledge would be
required in the regulation of its functions; but when we find the
constitutions of men as varied as their countenances, the affections of
the body, numerous and diversified, never preserving identically the
same characters in two cases, or requiring the same exact treatment in
diseases, apparently of the same nature, we discover that something more
than the artifice of the quack is necessary in their government and
repair.

It would indeed be a Herculean task to administer the rod of correction
to all the advertizing medical gentry of the day: it could be done, and
with justice to the community; but it would be wearisome. A champion,
however, has recently entered the medical arena, with whom we would fain
contend, not only in the hope of conquest, but in the expectation that
others may take warning by his defeat. With him we will now alone
engage, and thus throw down our gauntlet.

A work has very lately appeared, professing to be a "New Method of
Curing Dyspepsia, discovered and practised by O. Halsted of New-York."
This publication sails in the wake of a tolerably successful practice
amongst the dyspeptics of the day, who have resorted to the temple of
our author "with faith sufficient to promote a cure." So long as this
continued, all interference was of course out of the question, as every
individual possesses an undoubted right to tamper either with his
judgment or his money; but when this aspirer after dyspeptic fame leaves
his concealment, and issues his discoveries and practices to the world,
he invites the battery of opinion, and renders himself at once amenable
to remark and investigation. A few words, however, on the subject of
dyspepsia, may not be amiss, before we take leave to reply to Mr.
Halsted.

This much abused term, is a compound of two Greek words, signifying "bad
concoction," or bad digestion, _alias_ indigesti