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paring the same, may as easily learn to collect and prepare all their medicines, and administer the same when it is needed. Our life depends on heat; food is the fuel that kindles and continues that heat. The digestive powers being correct, causes the food to consume; this continues the warmth of the body, by continually supporting the fire. The stomach is the depot from which the whole body is supported. The heat is maintained in the stomach by consuming the food; and all the body and limbs receive their proportion of nourishment and heat from that source; as the whole room is warmed by the fuel which is consumed in the fireplace. The greater the quantity of wood consumed in the fireplace, the more heat and support through the whole man. By constantly receiving food into the stomach, which is sometimes not suitable for the best nourishment, the stomach becomes foul, so that the food is not well digested."

I suppose in that case, all that is necessary is to give large quantities of cayenne pepper, and burn it out as we do a stove pipe: Yes, I see it is by the paragraph below! "This causes the body to lose its heat, then the appetite fails; the bones ache; and the man is sick in every part of the whole frame." After these very sublime and philosophical reasonings he turns to his evidences on the subject. On page 9: "I have found, by experience, that the learned doctors are wrong in considering fever an enemy. This I found by their practice in my family, until they had five times given them over to die. Exercising my own judgment, I followed after them, and relieved my family every time. After finding a general principle respecting fevers, and reducing that to practice, I found it sure in all disease, when there was any nature left to build on; and in three years constant practice, I never lost one patient." Here is a grand discovery, which if the statement of the relator is to be trusted, will keep men alive to an interminable age-men need not die now-the secret of prolonging life is at length discovered; and the whole is simply this-when the stomach is out of order, to give largely of cayenne pepper-burn out the flues, and you can apportion life to any given quantity. He says, (page 10) "It has been acknowledged, even by those who are unfriendly to me and my practice, that my medicine may be good in some particular cases, but not in all. But this is

an error. For, there are but two great principles in the constitution of things, the principle of life, and the principle of death." He says, in the same paragraph-"Names are arbitrary things-the knowledge of a name is but the cummin and annis, but in the knowledge of the origin of a malady, and its antidote, lies the weightier matters of this science. This knowledge makes the genuine physician; all without it is real quackery." Thomson has defined the cause of disease, and the effect of disease the same-the remedy being heat, it does not need much reflection to know what, under the practice of his system, to apply as a remedy-give heat; give cayenne, and the disorder must vanish. Surely no man. needs long to remain in darkness, and commit the sin of "quackery." Hear him again—what parade he makes of superior intellect-with what complacency he sounds the praise of his wonderful endowments! What little dependence is to be put upon human learning! how useless and injurious! Page 11. "A man may have a scientific knowledge of the human frame-he may know the names in every language, of every medicine, mineral and vegetable, as well as every disease, and yet be a miserable physician." These are truths which are evident to all, as they come within the experience of all; but, surely, this can bear no analogy to the qualifications of such a man as Thomson. The possibility may exist, that some men of very extensive information may not, owing to some unusual peculiarity in them, be good physicians. The case widely differs when the individuals or individual are not in possession of a cultivated mind to qualify them for the practice. The first presupposes an occasional incompetency from, perhaps, a certain habit or peculiarity-the supposed case of an individual without the necessary education, involves in its stating only the idea of utter disqualification and improbability-it cannot with any semblance of correctness be tortured to mean that an ignorant man like Thomson may be capable of performing the high duties of a physician. With all the supposed incapacities of a man of science in the knowledge of diseases and their

remedies, it is preposterous to conclude, with even all his disqualifications, that he is no better as a physician than the most illiterate. It is gross folly enough, to feed the mind on flattery in any individual, but when it is furnished and swallowed by the individual himself, it is truly disgusting and abhorrent.

This Dr. Thomson, who, it seems cares not what false principles he puts forth so that he may vend his book-hear how adroitly he applies to himself, expressions, which the author of them would never have uttered, had he supposed the possibility of the abuse made of them in this book-"But, there have been men, without this, to boast of, from the earliest ages of the world, who have arisen, blest with the sublimer powers of genius, who have, as it were, with one look, pierced creation, and, with one comprehensive view, grasped the whole circle of science, and left learning, itself, toiling after them in vain.” It cannot be misunderstood-he intends this should be applied to himself. Yes! he has studied thirty years to accomplish this task, and all the information he can give is a farrago of nonsense contained in this little book. Here, in his own distempered fancy he has embodied a fund of valuable information-a something which did not admit of change, to which all the world might look and be healed. If the concluding sentence is not sheer nonsense in reference to Thomson, then, I must confess, I have ever been laboring under the greatest disabilities to the proper information of a sound judgment-delusion and error. It is the conclusion he draws from the premises he has stated above, in his own favor. "A man never can be great without intellect; and he never can more than fill the measure of his capacity. There is a power beyond the reach of art, and there are gifts that study and learning can never rival." Yes, gentlemen of the jury, this ignorant, great Dr. Thomson has obtained a knowledge which puts down all science, and leaves learning toiling after it in vain. Yes, a knowledge of this book will qualify a man to cure the whole catalogue of the sufferings of humanity-"there is a power beyond the reach of

art," and he has it by intuition-"and, these are gifts that study and learning can never rival," and, this man, according to his own notion, has attained them! and to perpetuate the idea, he has adorned his book with a portrait of himself, having this motto "His system and practice originating with himself." He endeavors, by direct flattery, to get within their judgment, and tells them that his long experience and great success prove that his medicines may be used with safety and success by any person-that all constitutions are the same, and all diseases are alike, however opposite their nature. I have heard of mathematics being taught by a game of marbles, but to prove that the science of medicine, or a knowledge of the curative art, could be acquired without effort would be a problem more difficult to solve than mathematicians or any others have yet undertaken. Nothing can be learned without labor and attention-and nothing is more difficult to acquire a correct and useful knowledge of, than the science of medicine. Notwithstanding all the facilities afforded by books, many are totally ignorant of certain arts and sciences-they are not easily acquired by any person -and, perhaps it may be necessary to the well being of society, that it is so. Thomson and his followers have brought all diseases to one general standard, and they know of but one general remedy-all else "is but the cummin and annis" but in their "one general remedy," "lies the weightier matters of this science." Men cannot be too careful when they tamper with what they never can restore. Scarce has Thomson began to repose under the shade of his laurels and to reap the benefit of the sale of his rights, when his quiet is disturbed by the innovating hand of another aspirant after fame. In the first page of his address to the public, he complains; "many persons are practicing my system, who are in the habit of pretending that they have made great improvements, etc.," and says, "the public are, therefore, cautioned against such conduct," etc. Elias Smith says, he has made improvements on Thomson's practice, and Thomson bawls out against the innovation, and cautions the public

against the evils attending "such conduct." Thomson, in his own estimation, had now become a regular physician.

From the expositions which have been made respecting the correctness of the system and practice revealed in this book, you, gentlemen of the jury, will be able to determine how far men are to be benefited by the use of it. The prisoner is to be responsible to the laws, if he is proved to be guilty of gross rashness and ignorance, and the book binds him hand and foot to the principles of it-if he varies in the least, he is deprived of his right, and denounced by its author as an innovator, and no longer worthy, nor entitled to the privileges and immunities of membership. The cardinal principles are set forth on page 89, sections 3, 4, 5.

"That the construction and organization of the human frame are, in all men, essentially the same; being formed of the four elements; earth and water constitute the solids of the body, which are made active by fire and air. Heat, in a peculiar manner, gives life and motion to the whole; and, when entirely overpowered, from whatever cause, by the other elements, death ensues.

"A perfect state of health arises from a due balance of temperature of the elements; and, when it is, by any means, destroyed, the body is, more or less, disordered. When this is the case, there is always a diminution of heat, or an increase of the power of cold, which is its opposite.

"All disorders are caused by obstructed perspiration, which may be produced by a great variety of means; that medicine, therefore, must be administered, that is best calculated to remove obstructions and promote perspiration."

"Earth, water, air and fire," compounded, form the man, and the whole treatment to be pursued in the removal of the various diseases to which he is exposed, are contained in two things-heat and medicines, without reference to symptoms of contra-indications. No complaint should be made of his consumption of food-the more he eats, the warmer he isand, the warmer he is, the better health he enjoys. Now, gentlemen, of the jury it is known that many diseases create an inordinate appetite-here the great fundamental principle is observed to eat largely, for the purpose of keeping up the inward heat above the outward. Does not such a plan

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