stance, as Black and other chemists assert, is || bleeding and starving systems, would have a mere condition of matter in motion-it is no more a substance than colour, sound, or fluidity. What can be greater nonsense than an "imponderable" substance-as Heat and Light have been sometimes called? That only is MATTER or SUBSTANCE Which can be weighed and measured-and this may be done with invisible as well as visible things,-in the case of a Gas for example ;-however attenuated, a gas can both be weighed and measured. I am often asked, what Baths are safest, as if every thing by its fitness or unfitness is not safe, or the reverse. The value of all Baths depends upon their fitness; and that, in many instances, can only be known by trial. It depends upon constitution, more than upon the name of a disease, whether particular patients shall be benefited by one Bath or another. Generally speaking, when the skin is hot and dry, a Cold Bath will do good; and when chilly, a Hot Bath. But the reverse sometimes happens. The cold stage of Ague, may at once be cut short by a cold bath. I have seen a shivering hypochondriac dash into the cold plunge bath, and come out in a minute or two, perfectly cured of all his aches and whimsies. But in cases of this nature, every thing depends upon the glow or reaction, which the Bath produces; and that has as much to do with surprise or shock as with the temperature of the bath. I have seen a person, with a hot dry skin, go into a warm bath, and come out just as refreshed as if he had taken a cold one. In that case, the perspiration which it excited must have been the principal means of relief. So far as my own experience goes, I prefer the cold and tepid shower-baths, and the cold plunge-bath, to any other; but there are cases in which these disagree, and I, therefore, occasionally order the warm or vapour bath instead. In diseases termed "inflammatory," what measure so ready or so efficacious as to dash a pitcher or two of cold water over the patient -Cold Affusion, as it is called? Whilst serving in the Army, I cured hundreds of inflammatory fevers in this manner-fevers, that, in the higher ranks of society, under the kept an apothecary and physician-to say nothing of nurses and cuppers-visiting the patient twice or thrice a-day for a month,—if he happened to live so long. Gentlemen, with the cold dash you may easily, "While others meanly take whole months to slay," Produce a cure in half a summer's day. That being the case, do you wonder that prejudices should still continue to be artfully fostered against so unprofitable a mode of practice? Why do not the gullible public examine for themselves? Why will they continue to bribe their medical men to keep them ill? In their shops and out of their shops, people generally enact two very different characters. Behind their counters they take advantage of their customers in every possible way; but the moment they get out of doors, the same persons drop the knave and become the dupe. The merchant and tradesman, who buy cheap and sell dear—the landowner and farmer, who keep up the corn laws by every possible sophistry-the barrister and attorney, who rejoice and grow fat on the imperfections and mazes of the law-the clergyman and his clerk, whose gospel knowledge and psalm-singing, are too often in juxta-position with tithes and burial fees become all perfect lambs when they leave their respective vocations, -each giving the others credit for a probity and disinterestedness in their particular line, which himself would laugh at as sheer weakness, were any body to practise it in his own! With the most childish simplicity, people ask their doctor what he thinks of this practice, and what he thinks of the other-never for a moment dreaming that the man of medicine's answer, like the answer of every other man in business, will be sure to square with his own interests. Instead of using the Eyes that God has given them, they shut them in the most determined manner, that their Ears may be the more surely abused. "What a delightful person Dr. Such-a-one is," you will hear persons say; "he is so very kind, so very anxious about me." Just as if ali that affected solicitude, all that pretty manner of his, were not part and parcel of the good doctor's stock in trade. Silly, simple John Bull! why will you pin your faith to fallible or fallacious Authority, when you may get the truth so easily by a little personal Examination! To be able to discriminate in the choice of a physician, and to guard against medical imposture, would not cost you half the time, nor anything like the trouble, of mastering the inflections of тUят, verbero, or Amo, amare! Which kind of knowledge is of most use in life I leave to pedants and philosophers to settle between them. Meantime, I shall beg your attention to the subject of EXERCISE. The effects of mere motion upon the body are sometimes very surprising. Only think of Horse-exercise curing people of consumption! A case of this kind, you remember, I gave you, on the authority of Darwin. I knew a gentleman, who was affected with habitual asthma, but who breathed freely when in his gig. I know, at this moment, another, afflicted with giddiness, who is immediately "himself again," when on horseback. A dropsical female, who came many miles to consult me, not only felt corporeally better when she got into the coach, but her kidneys acted so powerfully as to be a source of much inconvenience to her during the journey. This corporeal change she experienced every time she came to see me. The motion of the circular swing has cured mania and epilepsy. But what, as we have repeatedly shown, is good for one patient is bad for another. You will not, therefore, be astonished to find cases of all these various diseases, where aggravation may have been the result of horse exercise, and the other motions we have mentioned. Exercise of the muscles, in any manner calculated to occupy the patient's whole attention, will often greatly alleviate every kind of chronic disease. Dr. Cheyne was not above taking a useful hint on this point from an Irish charlatan. "This person," says Dr. Cheyne, "ordered his (epileptic) patients to walk, those who were not enfeebled, twelve, fifteen, or even twenty miles a-day. They were to begin walking a moderate distance, and they were gradually to extend their walks, according to their ability. In some of the patients, a great improvement took place, both with respect to digestion and muscular strength; and this was so apparent in a short time, that ever since this luminary shone upon the metropolis of Ireland, most of our patients affected with epilepsy, have been with our advice peripatetics." Exercise, then, is one of our best remedial means. Moreover, it may be turned to very great advantage in our common domestic matters. Were I to tell you all at once, that you might keep yourselves warm by a single log of wood all the winter over, you would think I was jesting, but really the thing may be done. I believe we owe the discovery to our friends across the water, the Americans; and I may as well give you the recipe:"Take a log of wood of moderate size, carry it to the upper garret, and throw it from the window into the street, taking care, of course, not to knock any body on the head; this done, run down stairs as fast as you can; take it up again to the garret and do as before. Repeat the process until you are sufficiently warm-when-you may lay by the log for another occasion!" "One of our reverend bishops (who, Sydenham tells us, was) famous for prudence and learning, having studied too hard a long while, fell at length into a Hypochondriacal disease; which afflicted him a long time, vitiated all the ferments of the body, and wholly subverted the concoctions. [Such, Gentlemen, was the jargon of the eminents of Sydenham's time.] He (the bishop) had passed through long steel courses more than once, and had tried almost all sorts of mineral waters, with often-repeated purges and antiscorbutics of all kinds, and a great many testacious powders which are reckoned proper to sweeten the Blood () and so being in a manner worn out, partly by the disease, and partly by Physic used continually for so many years, he was at last seized with a colliquative looseness which is wont to be the forerunner of death in consumption and other chronical diseases when the digestions are wholly destroyed. At length he consulted me; I presently considered that there was no more room for medicine, he having taken so much already without any benefit; ever failed me. And though riding on horse- The poet Coleridge, while at Malta, was in the habit of attending much to those about him, and particularly those who were sent there for pulmonary complaints. "He frequently observed how much the invalid, at first landing, was relieved by the climate, and the stimulus of change, but when the novelty arising from that change had ceased, the monotonous sameness of the blue sky, accompanied by the summer heat of the clime, acted powerfully as a sedative, ending in speedy dissolution." Is not this a proof of the correctness of my previous observation, that in chronic disorder remedies require to be frequently changed? The benefit to be derived from Travelling, often great in chronic disorders, is partly to be ascribed to the change of motion, and partly to change of air and scene. Like every mode of treatment presenting frequent novelty, travelling therefore offers many advantages to the invalid in every kind of chronic or habitual disease. How often, alas! do we find it recommended, as a last resource, under circumstances where it must inevitably hasten the fatal catastrophe! The breath that for which reason I advised him to ride on horseback, and that first he should take such a small journey as was agreeable to his weak condition. Had he not been a judicious man, and one that considered things well, he would not have been persuaded so much as to try such a kind of exercise. I entreated him to persist in it daily, till in his own opinion he was well, going daily farther and farther, till at length he went so many miles, as prudent and moderate travellers that go a long journey upon business use to do, without any regard to meat or drink, or the weather, but that he should take everything as it happens like a traveller. To be short, he continued this method, increasing his journey by degrees, till at length he rode twenty or thirty miles daily, and when he found he was much better in a few days, being encouraged by such a wonderful success, he followed this course for a pretty many months, in which, as he told me, he rode many thousand miles; so that at length he not only recovered, but also regained a strong and brisk habit of body. Nor is this kind of exercise more beneficial to hypochondriacal people than to those that are in a Consumption; whereof some of my relations have been cured by riding long journeys by my advice; for I knew I could not cure them better by medicines of what value soever, or by any other method. || might otherwise have fanned the flame, now Nor is this remedy proper only in small indispositions, accompanied with a frequent cough and leanness, but also in consumptions that are almost deplorable when the looseness above mentioned accompanies the night sweats, which are wont to be the forerunners of death in those that die of a consumption. To be short, how deadly soever a consumption is, and is said to be-two-thirds of it dying who are spoiled by chronical diseases-yet I sincerely assert that mercury in the French pox, and the Jesuits' bark in agues, are not more effectual than the exercise above mentioned in curing a consumption, if the patient be careful and the sheets be well aired, and that his journeys are long enough. But this must be noted, that those who are past the flower of their age, must use this exercise much longer than those that have not yet arrived at it; and this I have learned by long experience which scarce only contributes to its more rapid dissolution. How much the success of a measure depends upon time and season! I must say a few words about PLASTERS, BLISTERS, OINTMENTS, &c. The beneficial influence obtained from all such local applications depends upon the change of temperature they are capable of producing. Their results will vary with constitutions. Most patients, who suffer from chronic disease, point to a particular spot as the locality where they are most incommoded with "cold chills." This is the point for the application of the galbanum or other "warm plaster." A *Two Swedish Physicians, Messrs. Erenhoff, and Inde Betou, now settled in London, successfully treat, numerous chronic diseases solely by the use of welldirected mechanical means. plaster of this kind to the loins has enabled me to cure a host of diseases that had previously resisted every other mode of treatment. The same application to the chest, when the patient complained of chilliness in that particular part, has materially aided me in the treatment of many cases of phthisis. In both instances, where heat was the more general complaint, cold sponging has been followed by an equally beneficial effect. The ingredients of Plasters, Blisters, Ointments, Lotions, &c.-what are they but combinations of the agents with which we combat Fever? Their beneficial influence depends upon the change of motion and temperature which they produce by their electrical or chemical action on the nerves of the part to which they are directed. Cantharides will not blister the dead-they have very little effect even on a dying man! Every one of the chrono-thermal and other agents may be locally employed in certain cases,-sometimes with more and sometimes with less advantage than when given internally. which the human organism is composed, no longer follow, in their living combination, the laws to which matter is subject in the state of non-life; and they acknowledge only the laws proper to vitality-they are then animated and living, as the whole is animated and living. In the organism reigns a fundamental power, indefinable yet every where dominant, which destroys every tendency in the constituent parts of the body to conform themselves to the laws of pressure, of concussion, of vis inertiæ, of fermentation, of putrefaction, &c., which subjects them exclusively to the wonderful laws of life, that is to say, maintains them in the state of sensibility and activity necessary to the conservation of the living whole-in a dynamic, almost spiritual state." Gentlemen, what is the sum of all this? Nothing more nor less than that if you press the soft parts of the body, they will not yield to a resisting substance—that you cannot be shaken by concussion, or have the bone of the leg or arm broken by external agency-that you are in a 'dynamic state”—a state "almost spiritual !” What is the meaning of the word dynamic? It signifies "moving power." This you can understand; but when our author, apparently dissatisfied with his own term, would further explain it by the words "almost spiritual," a Gentlemen, I shall employ what remains of our time to-day in a brief notice of the doctrines of Hahnemann, the founder of the Homœopathic School. His pamphlet, entitled, "The Spirit of the Homœopathic Doc-phrase perfectly indefinite, you see he has only trine," commences thus: "To know the essence of Diseases, and the hidden changes which they effect in the body, is beyond the reach of the human understanding."-Which proposition he contradicts by the following paragraph: "It is necessary that our senses should be able clearly to discern what it is in each malady that must be removed in order to restore health, and that each medicine should express, in a distinct and appreciable manner, what it can cure with certainty, before we can be in a condition to employ it against any disease whatever." From this you perceive that Hahnemann, like Dr. Holland and the humoral schoolmen, looks upon disease as a fanciful something to be "removed," instead of a state to change; and as he uses the phrase, "to expel disease" in another part of his work, it is evident he does not know in what Disorder consists. Again, "The material substances of a vague conception that the various parts of the body are in motion. But that the material atoms of the living frame do follow the laws to which all MATTER is subject, under the particular circumstances in which the matter composing them is placed, is undoubted. A piece of amber or sealing-wax, when rubbed, first attracts silk, then repels it; producing alternate motion altogether independent of mechanics. Though not Life, this phenomenon is at least, a type of it; for the organic and other motions of an organism termed Life, even in the highest grade of animals, when analysed, will be found to be mere periodic repetitions of alternate Attraction and Repulsion. What are the successive conversion of the food into blood, of the blood into the matter of tissue and secretions, but so many instances illustrative of this proposition?-what the alternate inspiration and expiration of the lungs ?-the equally alternate contraction and dilatation of the heart-sleep and wakefulness, love and hate, ambition and worldly disgust, but so many modifications or effects of attractive and repulsive influences ! When the magnet attracts iron, it does so, not in contrariety to the law of Gravitation, but in obedience to the more comprehensive law of which gravitation is a part-namely, Electricity or Galvanism. But Electricity, like Electrive Attraction, is only a fragment of the great doctrine of LIFE. The word LIFE, when applied to animals in their healthy condition, is an abstract term expressive of the sum total of harmonious movements produced by the principal forces in nature, when acting together with perfect Periodicity, in one body. LIFE, then, is Electricity in its highest sense, even as the attraction of gravitation is Electricity in its lowest sense. The attraction of the magnet is an electrical step in advance of gravitation,-chemical change one step more,-the alternate attraction and repulsion of amber is a still higher link in the electrical chain. Galvanism and Electricity, strictly so called, embrace all the subordinate links, while LIFE or VITAL ELECTRICITY COMprehends the whole. Mere mechanical motion, though it belongs to all animal life, in reality only grows out of it. There is no mechanical movement in the foetal germ, nor is such movement necessary to the life of the plant. VITAL ELECTRICITY, then, produces changes in every way analogous to the changes that take place in inorganic bodies, but not the same changes, for no Electricity short of the highest or VITAL kind can produce the electrical and chemical changes constantly going on in a living body, any more than the power of gravitation or the magnet could produce the higher movements of common chemistry. The chemist who, like Liebig, expects by the destructive chemical analysis of dead organs in his laboratory, to be able to produce or explain the very opposite transformations that take place in the organs of the living, will no more improve medicine than the mere anatomist who separates them tissue by tissue with his scalpel. However similar his chemistry and his electricity may be to vital electricity and vital chemistry, however analogous the results of both be to the attractive and repulsive motions that constitute vitality, yet are the transformations not identical,-curiously resembling them certainly, but still so different that they never even approach to organism. The electricity and chemistry of man no more could produce a worm, or a leaf even, than the inferior intellectual power of the dog or the elephant could produce the Iliad. The same harmony of motion that we behold in animal life we equally find in the life of the vegetable; but the forces employed are fewer in number, and more feeble in their action. The extremes of vegetable and animal life approach each other. In the zoophyte or plant-animal we have the connecting link of both. Both are made up of inorganic matter,-metals, minerals, air, earth, and every other material thing successively becoming atomically organised and living in their turn. Man, who stands highest in the scale of animated beings, is a microcosm or little world in himself; yet what is he but a Parasite on the globe's surface-the Globe itself but an Atom in the LIFE of the UNIVERSE! But listen to Hahnemann : "The Life of man, and its two conditions, Health and Sickness, cannot be explained by any of the principles which serve to explain other objects. Life cannot be COMPARED to any thing in the world except itself-no relation subsists between it and an hydraulic or other machine-a chemical operation-a decomposition and production of gas, or a galvanic battery. In a word, it resembles nothing which does not live. Human life, in no respect obeys laws which are purely physical, which are of force only with inorganic substances." We apprehend, Gentlemen, that the whole, or nearly the whole, of this statement is assumption, and if there be truth in nature, that this assumption is a fallacy. If you COMPARE the ossification of the skull with mechanical inventions, you will find it to be an exemplification of the most perfect Carpentry. The joints of the body embrace every principle of the Hinge ;-the muscles, tendons, and bones are so many Ropes, Pulleys, and Levers; the lungs act in Bellows-fashion, alternately taking in and giving out Gas;-the intestine canal is a containing Tube. Then, in regard to the vas |