not poisons. The medicines used by the 'regulars' Thompsonians consider as belonging to the first class, especially their mineral remedies; while the vegetable medicines, which they use in their practice, they claim to be of the latter class.

Let us look at the true meaning of the word poison. Webster's definition of it is a correct one. He says it is 'a substance, which, when taken into the stomach, mixed with the blood, or applied to the skin or flesh, proves fatal or deleterious.'

This definition has no reference to the time or the quantity required to produce the effect. There is a wide difference in both these respects between different poisons. Some are slow, and some rapid in their operation. Some, as for example opium, arsenic, and prussic acid, act as poisons in small amounts; while comparatively large quantities of such articles as lobelia, saltpetre, and salæratus, are required to produce 'deleterious,' and especially 'fatal' effects; and yet lobelia, saltpetre and salæratus are as truly poisons as are opium, arsenic and prussic acid.

It may be remarked also that this definition has reference only to the usual effects of substances; and not to any occasional effects which may be owing to circumstances. If, for example, any substance produce a bad effect simply from the influence of any constitutional peculiarity, or some temporary condition of the system, it is not to be called a poison. The term poison is used often in relation to the effects of substances in such cases, but it is only in a relative sense. Anything may be a poison in this sense. Anything which is inappropriate to any case will produce a 'deleterious' influence upon it, and is therefore a poison to it. Food may thus be for the time being a poison to the sick man, as really as a noxious drug. Indeed a noxious

drug may be to him a cure, while in the same quantity it would be perhaps even a fatal poison to him if he were well. Thus a man sick with spasmodic colic is relieved by opium, which is a noxious drug to a well man; and perhaps, in order to produce the relief, he requires as much as would kill him if he were in a state of health.

The word poison carries terror to most minds, and it has therefore been one of the watchwords of Thompsonians and other quacks, in their warfare upon the medical profession. And yet, while they are raising this ridiculous outcry, they themselves, as I have before said, daily use poisons, even mineral poisons, as common articles of food. Salæratus, cream of tartar, and even common_salt,* are poisons, for when taken in large quantities, they prove 'deleterious,' in some cases 'fatal,' and therefore come within the terms of the definition.

I have said thus much of the popular prejudice on the subject of poisons, and the use which Thompsonians and other quacks have made of it, because there is so general a misapprehension in regard to these points abroad in the community.

I cannot conclude this chapter without noticing the changes which have taken place in the sentiments and practice of Thompsonians within the last few years. These changes have been quite material. I have already alluded to some of them.

Thompsonians formerly denied the necessity of education in the practitioner. But now the candidates for admission to Thompsonian practice must study, and must submit to an examination before a board of Censors And though Thompsonians have from the first denounced the

* Guy, in his Forensic Medicine, states that common salt taken in a large quantity has destroyed life, with symptoms of irritant poisoning.

medical faculty, and their institutions, they have now amedical faculty of their own, and have organized state societies.

Thompsonians are not now so bold and reckless in their practice as they once were. In the infancy of this practice every sick man, whatever might be his disease, or his state at the time, was subjected to what was called "the operation,"—that is, steaming and vomiting with lobelia. But so many died during the " operation," or immediately after it, that Thompsonian doctors have learned to be more cautious.

Cathartics used to be utterly discarded by Thompsonians, but now they are quite extensively used. Indeed they have widened their range of remedies generally. Once lobelia and steam and red pepper were nearly all in all. But now they are making out a very considerable materia medica. At the same time they are dropping the names Thompsonian Physician and Thompsonian Practice, and adopting instead of them Botanic Physician and Botanic Practice.

Once no Thompsonian doctor would practice vaccination, because as he contended, it was better to have even small pox, under the guidance of Thompsonian treatment, than it was to run the risk of getting 'humors' from the vaccine virus. But finding that their employers would have their children vaccinated, even though they were obliged to get the 'mineral doctors' to do it, some of them have gone into the business themselves.

Such are some of the changes which have come over Thompsonism, giving it a very different character from that which it exhibited when it first came in its stern simplicity from the rude hand of its founder. Its popularity is already declining, and it will probably soon pass away, to give place to some other kindred delusion.

CHAPTER VI.

HOMOEOPATHY.*

SAMUEL HAHNEMAN, the founder of the system of practice called by this name, was born at Messein in Saxony in the year 1755. At the At the age of twenty he went to Leipsic, to obtain his education, with but twenty ducats in his pocket. While he was going through with his course of education, he supported himself chiefly by translating English works on medicine. He professed to be dissatisfied with the common modes of medical practice, and after he took his degree, instead of becoming at once a practitioner of medicine, he preferred to gain his livelihood by translating books, and by contributing to various scientific journals in Germany.

* It may be proper to state at the outset, that the author has himself suffered no encroachments from Homœopathy, and so has no personal feelings to gratify in attacking it. It has not seemed to find, for some reason, a congenial soil among the hills and rocks of Norwich. Two Homœopa thic physicians, (one of them a man of good education, and with favorable adventitious circumstances) have tried to get a foothold among us, but have failed. The author has many friends and acquaintances who are inclined to Homœopathy, some of whom have their little boxes of medicines, and swallow globules, and administer them to others. He is, however, on the best possible terms with them; and Homœopathy is, in his intercourse with them, more a subject for agreeable pleasantry, than for warm or even grave discussion.

It was in the year 1790 that he first broached the idea, which is the great principle of the Homœopathic system, and which he soon dreamed was to overturn and dispossess all other medical practice. He viewed himself as a great reformer, as the founder of a system, and he was soon ready to proclaim to the world, that his was the 'great gift of God to man.' Discarding all the past experience of ages as useless, with his mind filled with bright visions of his future greatness, he was ready to say with Paracelsus, 'the monarchy of physic is mine.' In 1796 he published his first paper on the subject of Homœopathy, in 1805 his first work, in 1810 his famous Organon, and the next year his Materia Medica. He died in Paris at an advanced age, only a few years since, having lived to see his system adopted very extensively all over Europe.

It will not be necessary to spread before the reader the principles of his system in his own language. There is in his statement of them considerable verbiage, which has quite a learned air, but which would be unintelligible to the common reader. The essential principles of his system are but two in number, when the mass of words comes to be sifted by a little plain common sense.

The great principle, which lies at the foundation of this system, and which has given it its name, is found in the Latin aphorism, 'Similia similibus curantur. This is in homely English, Like things are cured by like. In other words, a disease is cured by remedies which produce upon a healthy person symptoms similar to those presented by that disease. Thus vomiting is to be cured by a nauseant, diarrhoea by a laxative, &c. Hahneman does not pretend that this is a newly-discovered principle, but says that it has been acted upon from time immemorial. Of this fact the following examples are given. Senna has been used for