Its temple is raised on the summit of the loftiest eminence, and the path which leads to it winds in tedious tortuosity, narrow, intricate, and perplexed; but strewed, at its different stages, with flowers to tempt, and hung at its termination with fruits to reward. Few, very few, have ever reached it. The majority of those who set out on the enterprise become soon discouraged, and either linger by the way, or are lost in its

mazes.

The energies of genius, assisted by unwearied diligence, can only hope to surmount the difficulties and to gain the prize.

But candour must still allow that the empiric strengthens, in some degree, his credit with the public, by sometimes performing great and imposing cures. Such instances, however, of occasional success, bring with them no solid claims to confidence. They are indeed calculated to excite distrust when properly viewed. Their cures, which are admitted to be few are alone registered and promulgated. Nothing is ever said of the failures or the deaths produced. No regular and impartial account is kept, nor any striking adjustment of balances: but, what must be the fatality of a practice conducted in a way so rash and indiscriminate, without the guide of either principle or experience? The nostrums employed are uniformly composed of ingredients of the greatest activity, principally of the mineral poisons, as arsenic, corrosive sublimate, calomel, &c. and which can never be neutral in their operations. Whenever administered they assume a side in the pending contest, and exert all their might either for the patient or the disease, till one or the other yields.

The preceding is a faithful picture of empiricism-of its swaggering pretensions, of its danger, and its uncertainties; a plain and unvarnished tale, in which naught is extenuate or set down in malice.

But with the too prevalent inclination for nostrums, we regret the strange aversion that exists, and which proceeds from the same neglect of medicine, to some of the most efficacious remedies. Tartar is denounced as a certain destroyer of the stomach; mercury, because it lodges in the bones; arsenic, as rancorously poisonous, &c. &c. Thus are those powerful

and salutary agents, when in the hands of a judicious physician, stigmatised by the false views of vulgar prejudice. It has been .wisely and truly declared by high authority, "that all medicines in large doses are poisons, and that poisons in small doses are the best medicines." This is no paradox. The efficacy of a remedy must be proportioned to its force, provided it be administered with discretion, and its operation properly restrained. On the contrary, the weakest medicine becomes poisonous when given in an undue quantity.

In the use of medicines we should be careful to adapt them to the nature of the disease, and the condition of the patient's system at the time, for the salutary properties of a remedy are not positive, but entirely relative to the peculiar circumstances of the case.

A remedy, therefore, may do harm, or prove beneficial, according to the degree of judgment exercised in its employment. This position might easily be illustrated and enforced by a variety of examples. We shall mention, however, only a few most pertinent.

What then is more sanative in its effects than the Peruvian bark in the treatment of intermittent fever, or gangrene; or more deleterious if given in an excited system? Where is there a readier cleanser of a foul stomach than emetics? yet in inflammations of that organ, nothing would prove so pernicious. The same remark applies to cathartics, "nature's scavengers of a gorged alimentary canal."

With regard to our lancet: what could we do without it? How quell those dreadful insurrections of acute disease which every where ravage our country? But indispensable as it is in such cases, yet there is, perhaps, no remedy, which is more mischievous when wrongly applied.

Who has not experienced the soothing restorative operation of opium, that divine medicine, which has not with too much force been called, "magnum Dei donum," the great gift of God; and who has not known its demonical influence when imprudently employed?

In this way we might proceed through every class of the Materia Medica, deriving proofs to fortify our statement, and

to warn us of the danger of abusing remedies. Enough, however, has been said. We trust the admonition will not be neglected.

To apply, as we have indicated, the various medicines of which we are possessed, is the secret of successful practice, and constitutes the wide difference between the discriminating physician and empiric.

The practice of the one is governed by principles slowly and cautiously deduced from the contributions of long experience and diversified observations; that of the other is the result of daring experiment, sanctioned only by the chances and calculations of the lottery. In the revolutions of the wheel, and amidst a thousand blanks, a prize may come out! Thus, an important cure by an empiric, like an enormous prize, seizes public attention, and is sounded abroad by the clarion of fame," while the evidence of the murderous practice, like the blanks of the lottery, is hushed in silence or buried in forgetfulness.

It may be proper to observe here, that, in using all active medicines, we should begin with the smallest doses, increasing them gradually, until the quantity suited to the strength of the constitution be discovered. For there are instances of constitutions on which one-fourth, and even one-tenth, of what would not affect others, will act powerfully.

As the system speedily accommodates itself to the action of medicines, we should never continue one medicine too long at a time. When we find it is losing its efficacy, it should be changed for some other of the same class, and after a short interval the patient may, if he choose, return to his first medicine. By thus varying the remedies, as the system becomes accustomed to their action, we shall be enabled to cure diseases which otherwise would not have yielded; as obstinate intermittents, wherein I have frequently employed the bark without effect: but on changing it for either the solution of arsenic, or vitriolic pills, a cure has generally taken place, and when it did not, by exciting a slight mercurial action in the system and immediately following it with one

Vid. Dispensatory.

or the other of the above medicines, I have pretty constantly succeeded. On this account medicines should never be made too free with, as preventives of disease, unless there be evidently a morbid predisposition lurking in the system: for, by thus wantonly familiarising ourselves to medicine when there exists no necessity for it, we shall stand a very good chance to be disappointed of its proper effects, in the season of our need.

Bitters, those especially made with spirits, like other cordials, have no doubt their use at times, as in damp weather, which hangs so heavily on the springs of life: but to use them, or mint slings, or drams, as some do every morning, even the brightest, when dumb nature herself is smiling, and every bird and beast are uttering their artless joy, is a species of suicide. It is a most wicked attempt to substitute artificial joys in place of those most pure and natural. Such an impious fighting against God and Nature, generally ends as might be expected. The wretched self destroyers seldom live out half their days. For the same delightful exhilaration, produced by one antifogmatic last year, requires two this year, and in that increase, till the habit of intemperate drinking is confirmed. How melancholy is it that rational beings should act so madly, and that the all bountiful Creator cannot intrust us with his good things, without our shameful abuse of them! Thus it is, that men turn into poisons those pleasant beverages given for cordials, to raise their depressed spirits, to invigorate their flaccid nerves, and to enable nature to repel the various attacks of a humid or infected atmosphere.

Among the many remedies of disease, none perhaps holds a higher place than the bath, in its different forms. The cold bath, by its sudden shock, is peculiarly fitted to invigorate the system, and to re-animate its circulations and secretions. Hence its acknowledged reputation in all cases of weak and relaxed habits, particularly those of the studious and sedentary..

It ought however to be remembered, that, like every other remedy, it belongs but to one set of diseases. In affections of the viscera, obstructions and inflammations, it is hurtful. If atter leaving the bath, the patient do not feel a kindly glow on

the surface, he has good cause to fear that the angel of health was not there before him "to move the waters." On going into the plunging bath, as it is called, it were better to dash in at once head foremost. The shock in this way is more instantaneous, and the distribution of the blood more salutary than when it is driven, as by wetting the feet first, from the extremities to the head. It is on this principle that the shower bath possesses advantages superior to the plunging. Immediately on coming out of the bath the body should be rubbed dry with flannel or coarse cloths, and moderate exercise taken.

Besides the advantages of frequent cold bathing, its partial use is no less salutary in all cases of local action. In periodical headache, and indeed in most complaints of the head, the affusion of cold water, though a simple, is a very effectual remedy.

If persons subject to the quinsy and sore throat, instead of muffling their necks, would bathe them two or three times a day in cold water, they would find their account in it. When the healthy resort to the cold bath, on account of its purifying and pleasant effects, they may continue in it for some time: but to strengthen and give elasticity to the solids, every thing depends upon the sudden shock.—The time of day for bathing is a matter of indifference, provided it be not immediately after a full meal, or when the body is warm and in a state of free perspiration.

The warm bath, about the temperature of the blood, has nearly all the advantages of the cold bath, without being liable to so many objections. Some indeed tell us, that it weakens the body, but so far from doing so, it may justly be considered. as one of the most powerful and universal restoratives with which we are acquainted. Instead of heating, it cools the body, diminishes the pulse, and takes off its unnatural quickness, according to the length of time the bath is continued. Hence tepid baths are of great service, when the body has been overheated, from whatever cause, whether by severe bodily or mental exercise. In all these cases, its happily composing and recuperative virtues seem to be owing to its tendency to promote perspiration, and to relax spasm.