high profession, and as not being generally as
willing as they should be to examine fairly into the alleged merits of
remedial agents and improved principles of practice, (claimed to be
such), when brought forward by intelligent, cultivated and respectable
men, outside of "the regular profession." This is said at the same time
that the author gives much weight to their commonly offered defense,
viz: that, in the midst of professional engagements, they have not always
the time to spare for such examination; and that, since the most of
alleged improvements in the healing art, particularly of those introduced
by persons who have not received a regular medical education, sooner or
later prove themselves to be worthless, the _presumption_--though not
the _certainty_--is, whenever a new agent, or a new method or principle
is proposed by an "outsider," that this, too, if not willful
charlatanism, is a mistake; and therefore, the sooner it comes to an end
the better it will be for the public health, and that neglect is the
surest way to kill it.

But the medical faculty have too widely employed electricity in the
treatment of disease, and that with too frequent success, to admit of
its being denied a place among important therapeutic agents by any
respectable practitioner. The only questions concerning it now are those
which relate to the _versatility_ of its power, the _scope_ of its
useful applicability, and the _principles_ which should guide in the
administration of it. The general subject embraced in these questions is
one in which suffering humanity has a right to claim that physicians
shall be at home.

And yet it will scarcely be denied that, in the exhibition of
electricity, more than of almost any other therapeutic agent, medical
practitioners feel incertitude as to what shall be its effect. Now and
then it acts as they expected it to do; sometimes it pleasantly
surprises them; oftener it offensively disappoints them. They find it
_unreliable_. Of other remedial agents, they commonly know, before
administering them, what _sort_ of effect will be produced; but in
employing this, while they have hope, they are generally more or less in
doubt. They regard it as _a stimulant_; although its action on the
living organism appears to them to be largely veiled in mystery. In many
cases of disease, particularly those of acutely inflammatory or febrile
character, they judge it to be not at all indicated. To administer it in
a