and lift up the prayer of faith. It is only in default of their penitence and faith that his prayers are required. He shows great shrewdness in pointing out the sins of the vicious, to which he attributes their diseases. This adds much to his reputation, and to the mental influence which he exerts upon the sick. He is sincere in his views, and takes no compensation for his services to the sick, which he performs in connexion with his pastoral labors. His success is so great, that no physician has been able to get a living in the place where he resides, and invalids come to him from all the country round, even to the distance of fifty miles.

In this instance, there are some of the same elements of success that exist in the case of Homœopathy. His mental influence upon his patients is very decided. He leaves the curative power of nature to act undisturbed. And added to these sources of success may be mentioned, as having a considerable influence, a reformation in the life of some of those whose vices he faithfully points out to them. So far as apparent results are concerned, it is quite as proper to attribute a curative 'dynamic power' to the prayers of this clergyman, as to the infinitesimal doses of Hahne

man.

Homœopathists often boast of the inroads which their system has made upon the ranks of the medical profession. But it is an empty boast. If the Homœopathic physicians in this country could be gathered together, it would be an assemblage for the most part of very common men. No superior order of talent would be found among them. There would be none who are distinguished for true reearch; none who have made any respectable additions to he literature of medicine, or to its store of experience; and none who have ever had any commanding influence.

There would be some indeed who are reputed among Homœopathists to be great men; but none, who previous to their conversion to Homœopathy, were considered great by the medical profession. A large portion of that assemblage, I am persuaded from what I have seen, would be made up of men, who have no true faith in the so-called science of Homœopathy, but have a strong faith in the deception which can be practised by means of it upon the community, and its consequent availability in a pecuniary point of view. Those who have such a strange cast of mind, as to dupe themselves into a belief of Homœopathic doctrines, after a thorough and scientific examination of them, I suspect would be in the minority.*

Though Homœopathists commonly look down with contempt upon Thompsonism, as being vulgar and unscientific, there is really considerable resemblance between Samuel Thompson and Samuel Hahneman. Let us look at some of these points of resemblance.

Both have a theory on which their practice is based, and nothing is deemed true that does not correspond with that theory.

Both reject all former theories and observations as worth

It is proper to remark here, that some, who at first adopted Homœopathy from mere pecuniary considerations, may afterwards have come to a full belief in it. For if, previous to their adoption of this practice, they were undiscriminating over-dosers, as most of those physicians who have turned Homeopathists once were, they find themselves actually more successful in the treatment of disease than they were before their conversion. This is owing only to the discontinuance of their over-dosing, but they of course refer it to the "dynamic power" of their globules.

What I have said of the general character of Homœopathic physicians will probably provoke them to pour out upon me the vials of their wrath. But as they will undoubtedly administer it in Allopathic doses, and will not stop to give it a "dynamic power" by "dilution" and "attenuation," I shall, I think, be able to stand up against it.

less. Their light is the true and only light. "The medical world was in total darkness till I arose," said Hahneman; and so said Thompson.*

As Hahneman said, "the Allopathic method never really cures the Homoeopathic method never fails to cure;" so said Thompson, the "regulars" cure no one-my system always cures curable cases.

Both claim that all who get well under their system are cured by it, and give no credit to nature; and upon these asserted cures they build the reputation of their systems.

Both began their career as arrant quacks. Samuel Thompson sold his patent rights to practice after his theory; and Samuel Hahneman sold his secret nostrum for the cure and prevention of Scarlet Fever.†

Both were exceedingly dogmatical and authoritative, and both quarrelled with their followers who did not yield to all their assumptions.

The followers of both have very generally imbibed the spirit of the "venerated founders" of these systems, and are very sure that they are right, and everybody else is wholly

wrong.

The followers of both look upon physicians as a body as being wilfully blind to the truth, and unwilling to adopt anything new, simply because it is new.

There are a few points in which those noted "reformers" differ, which I will very briefly notice.

While Thompson was an illiterate man, Hahneman was an educated man; and, if the making of many books is a proof of learning, then he was a learned man. Thomp

* So also says Turner, the founder of a new system just rising into notice, styled Chrono-Thermalism.

This fact, though well authenticated, is carefully omitted in all notices of him by his followers.

son's Materia Medica is but a single little book; but Hahneman's Materia Medica fills six large octavo volumes.

Thompson's theory is rude, and has no air of learning. Its philosophy knows nothing of the modern chemical nomenclature, but reckons earth, air, water, and fire, as elements. Hahneman's theory, on the other hand, has a long name of classic Greek derivation, is more finely spun, and is learned in its guise.

Hahneman has obtained special favor with the refined and learned and wealthy; while Thompson has been for the most part the favorite with those of common minds and limited information.

There is one particular in which the two systems differ very widely. Though it cannot be said of Thompsonism, that it has never cured anybody, for it may chance to cure like anything else; yet, in its general influence upon the medical practice of the community, it has been an unmitigated evil. Its influence has been to give currency to the overdosing, which has been so popular, and so destructive to health and life. But Homœopathy, on the contrary, is doing a good work in helping to destroy the undue reliance upon positive medication, of which I have spoken in the chapter on Popular Errors, as being quite prevalent in the medical profession, and exceedingly so in the community at large. And when Homœopathy shall have passed by, as pass it will, like other delusions before it, I believe it will be seen, that Hahneman had a vocation to fill, of which he never dreamed, and that he has unwittingly done more good than harm to the permanent interests of medical science.

THE setting of bones is wholly a mechanical operation; and there cannot be a natural innate skill in this particular kind of mechanics, any more than there can be in any other kind. It would be as proper to say that a man is a natural watch maker, steamboat builder, carpenter, &c, as to say that he is a natural bone-setter. A man may be born with a taste for mechanics in general, but not with a taste for any particular kind of mechanics. This innate mechanical taste shows itself in various ways, as the child grows up into the man; and it is governed altogether by circumstances, in selecting the particular branches of mechanics, from which it will seek its gratification.

Every one applies these plain principles almost instinctively to every subject but the sciences of medicine and surgery. An exception is made of these, not only by the ignorant, but often also by the well-informed and the learned. . The healing art seems to be cast out of the common pale of reason; and learning, as well as ignorance, often refuses it the plainest and most established principles both of science and of common sense. There has always been a disposition to mysticism on this subject, and the idea of a