pears to challenge its pretensions, and to lay claim to a share of the enormous profits which will never cease to flow from the commerce in human credulity.

Dr. Warren. And you don't think that persecutions add to the number of its patrons ? Dr. Putnam. No, I don't. What you call persecutions-but I do not-have been practised in the same way, and to the same extent, by us and others, toward all the other forms of empiricism, and yet they have, in a great measure, lost their patronage. If persecution sustains Homœopathy, why did it not sustain or why does it not resuscitate the others?

NINTH CONVERSATION.

Newspaper opinions of the ethical war-Proprietary Medicines-"Interviewers"-Our obligations to the public do not imply an obligation to consult with a charlatan.

Dr. Warren. Allow me to read to you an editorial paragragh which I found this morning in one of our city papers.

"The doctors are still quarrelling over the abstract question of old code, new code, or no code. It is essentially a question of consultation between Allopathists, Homoeopathists and certain other sects in medicine, upon which the combatants have formally arranged themselves upon opposite sides, and have commenced to throw stones at each other. In which contest the old code men have for the present numerically the advantage, while the more liberal and progressive members of the profession, now temporarily in the minority, are driven to the wall. The latter have, however, the sympathy

of the public, which, in this country, always inclines toward those who are contending for liberty, and who are making war upon narrowminded bigotry."

In a similar tone a majority of the newspapers of this city have from time to time discussed this subject; and it seems to me very unwise for the medical profession to put itself in a position of antagonism to the public press.

Dr. Putnam. In what respect is it unwise? Dr. Warren. In this respect, that it deprives us of the moral support of a very influential class of men.

Dr. Putnam. Not because they are right in their views, but because our failure to acquiesce in them insures their displeasure.

Dr. Warren. Partly both; for I hold that an intelligent independent press, such as we justly boast in this country, is generally right in its estimate of public questions; and whether right or wrong, its open hostility is dangerous to our interests as a craft.

Dr. Putnam. I will answer your several points in the inverse order of their statement. Our interest as a craft, in the sense of the term as it is employed by you, is a commercial one, and in no wise connected with our interest as

the representatives of a science. This latter interest, and this is the only one we have to consider, cannot be affected by their displeasure. Moreover, this is not in any proper sense a public question, or one which the press is especially fitted to discuss. The editors of most of our city newspapers are men of culture and intelligence; and so far as they undertake to speak of matters which come habitually and closely under their special observation, they may generally be regarded as authority; but in reference to the matter now under consideration by us, I would much prefer the opinions of an equal number of equally intelligent medical men. Indeed, the paragraph to which you have called my attention, and which, as you say, is in the same tone with many other newspaper editorials upon this subject, shows that they do not understand the question now being discussed by medical men.

Dr. Warren. The press is generally regarded with us as a representative of public opinion; and what the people think is, in most cases, very near the truth; Vox populi vox Dei.

Dr. Putnam. If this be so, then the voice of God gives a very uncertain sound; for nothing can be more capricious, according to my

observation, than popular opinion. It is seldom the same through two consecutive years; and is almost never the same in different countries, or in different districts of the same country. It is very often the case, also, that the press does not know what public opinion is. Its principal or only sources of knowledge are in what people say publicly, or in private conversation, and in what they write in the daily newspapers and journals. They have no means of knowing the opinions of those who neither write nor speak, but only think. The unexpected results of some of our recent elections ought to be considered conclusive upon this point.

Dr. Warren. When you were enumerating the various forms of medical quackery in this country, you spoke of the immense number of proprietary medicines with which the manufacturers have lately flooded the country; and you said they were only substitutes for the patent medicines, which they had, in a great measure, driven out of the market; and that they were practically as much secret remedies as the nostrums they had supplanted. I am convinced that you are correct upon this point.