Nature. Well-eh ?-how do you make that out in diseases that arise from too much eating and drinking? Indigestion, for instance."

"Indigestion," answered Mr. Newby, "is so far salutary, that it involves a resistance, on the part of the digestive organs, to their farther abuse. But excess does not produce serious disease of the stomach and viscera in the first instance. It disorders those organs, perhaps; and their disorder occasions disease in a distant part-even as far away as the great toe, possibly, you know, Mr. Bagges; but thus the more important organs are relieved. It is a fact, that internal disorder is often remedied by breakings out, and other diseases of the skin, or by the formation of sores on the limbs. And if we get the sore to heal, or subdue the eruption, by merely local means, we do it at the risk of causing inward disease. So, when we have to deal with these outward ailments, we proceed, not against them, directly, but against the conditions of body which they arise from, and in regard to which they are a sort of vents and safety-valves."

"Eh! but disease, then, seems to be so good a thing that one would think it ought sometimes to be rather encouraged," Mr. Bagges remarked.

"Certainly that is what we do when we bring an inflammation to a head,' or when, in the cold stage of a fever, we try to induce the hot. Sometimes we have to assist the process of disease, sometimes to restrain it; at othersand I think at most-to give it free scope, content to act merely as Nature's dustmen, and brush impediments out of her way. Shakspeare talks of the natural gates and alleys of the body.' We are little better than porters to the gates, Mr. Bagges; we are not much more, sir, than men that sweep the alleys."

"Nature!" exclaimed Mr. Bagges; "Nature! Wellcertainly there is nothing like studying Nature."

"Particularly in medicine," said Newby. "Many im portant measures of practice are suggested by hints from Nature. Nature bleeds-from the nose. She blisters-in throwing out an eruption. She establishes an issue when

she forms an ulcer."

"You don't believe," said Mr. Bagges, "in specificsor that particular medicines cure particular diseases? But —eh ?—but what, then, is the action of medicines ?"

"They act," replied Newby, "on special organs or tissues; and so far they exert a specific action. Some, for instance, promote the function of the skin, some of the liver, some of the kidneys. Others stimulate the brain and nervous system, or the stomach, or the heart and arteries. The use of medicines is, to act on those organs in such a manner as to produce the conditions of the body required for the favorable termination of the disease, and in some cases to moderate or check the diseased process when it is going too far."

"Then-now-suppose any one ask you what is good for a cough?"

"He asks me," Newby replied, "a foolish question Antimonial wine may be good. Salts and senna may be good. Dover's powder may be good. Sulphuric acid may be good. Opium may be good. Water-gruel may be good. A rump steak, and a bottle of stout may be good-according to the different conditions of particular organs, or of the whole system."

"And yet," said Mr. Bagges, "you see, people in general think that each disease has its remedy-just as a poison has its antidote."

"A notion which is the foundation of quackery, both in

the profession and out of it; out of it by inducing faith in infallible pills, and so forth-in it by encouraging medical men to administer drugs for the relief of mere symptoms, withot regard to their causes. It also degrades their profession in the opinion of the public, causing it to be looked upon as consisting merely in the remembrance and application of a catalogue of recipes. Moreover it deludes patients into the belief that they may be cured by drugs, independently of any regulation of their habits, and makes them think slightly of honest practitioners, who tell them that this cannot be done."

"You seem to think a good deal of diet and exercise, eh?"

"Diet alone, will often suffice to remove impediments to cure; and when it does, it is better than medicine. Exercise acts as a downright stimulant to the skin, and the other cleansing organs. Hence your fox-hunter is enabled to eat and drink considerably more than your philosopher."

"You can't pursue science on quite so much beef and ale, as you can a fox, eh?"

"Decidedly not, Mr. Bagges."

"In regulating the functions, eh?-of the different organs of the body-by medicines, and regimen, consists the art of medicine, then?" Mr. Bagges inquired.

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Mainly," answered Newby. "But we have some remedies which are not medicines, baths, for instance, although these act medicinally. Then we sometimes regulate the circulation by bleeding; and then there is the great principle of counter-irritation."

"What is that?" inquired Mr. Bagges.

"Why, creating a disease-an inflammation-by blistering, or similar means—in an unimportant part, near to, or connected with, an important part. By a law of Nature,

the diseased action is transferred from the latter to the former. As, from the inside of a joint to the skin on the outside of it, or from the lungs to the exterior of the chest."

"Now, what do you think of homoeopathy?" Mr. Bagges demanded.

"I think," Newby replied, "that it is a fine satire on the drugging system of practice. Part of the homœopathic treatment is dietetic. Diet alone will cure very many diseases. The vulgar-the great vulgar, sir, as well as the small-see the cures apparently affected by homoeopathy; and, in keeping with their general reasoning on medical matters, refer them to the wrong cause-the homoeopathy instead of the diet. Homœopathy is merely a system of treating diseases without medicines."

"You think nothing, then, of the infini-what?-tesimal doses ?"

But

"Pooh! We are all continually taking infinitesimal doses. A druggist's apprentice is inhaling and absorbing them, from all manner of medicines, all day. If they cure diseases by their power of producing similar diseases, what a state every such unfortunate youth ought to be in! I am open to conviction, sir. Take a hundred patients or so, with similar ailments. Put them all on the same regimen. Give one fifty homoeopathic globules, and the other globules of bread. Lead them all to imagine that they are being treated homoeopathically. Repeat this experiment a dozen times, and if a plain preponderance of cures can be shown on the side of the first fifty, I will believe in the globules. But I think I may venture to add, I will also eat my boots."

"It is a sad thing that there should be so much quackery," Mr. Bagges remarked-" eh ?-and that Government should grant patents for quack medicines! If the medicines

do good in some cases-why, in others, patients may take the wrong, or die from quacking themselves, instead of resorting to proper advice-eh? And then only to think of the mischief done in the nursery-by mistakes with your

Daffy, and your Dalby, and your Godfrey.

How—just for

the sake of a little revenue-can Government sanction such -what?-such mischievous imposture?"

"From an utter contempt of medical science, and a total disregard of the rights of the medical profession, Mr. Bagges, in which society acquiesces."

"But now, is society altogether to blame?"
"No, sir.

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We are partly to blame ourselves for not having disclosed to society the true nature of our science. We ought to have told society long ago what I have just been trying to tell you."

"Well," said Mr. Bagges, "let us hope the world will get wiser by and by with respect to medical matters. And now if you'll allow me one glass more-we'll drink 'Physic-I mean 'Success to Physic,'-and then we'll ring for the tea."