Doctors blunder pitiably at times by not going to the causes of disease. "Salt rheum is not a disease of the hand; an ulcer is not a disease of the ankle; catarrh is not a disease of the nose. The poor nose is not sick!" The body is diseased, and the disease shows itself in the hand, the ankle, the nose, the throat or some other organ.

A dashing boy steps upon a nail and has the lock jaw. The cause is in the heel, the effect in the jaws. When the cause is removed the effect will cease. Local pains and chronic troubles depend almost entirely upon general disease. This must needs be, as the blood rushes rapidly through the heart to every part of the body. Blood poison and malaria should be more carefully studied by the medical fraternity.

Catarrh is easily cured by inhalation and constitutional treatment.

Cultured and thoroughly trained physicians of the different schools rely less and less each year upon powerful medicines, and more upon the hydropathic treatment, the Swedish movement, disinfecting baths, the electric battery and the recuperative powers of nature.

Medical practitioners should not administer poisons that tend to destroy the organized tissues, depress the vital force, or in any way deprive it of the power to respond to the will; neither should they administer potent medicines to the sick which, if taken by the healthy, would make them sick. This, I am sorry to say, is too frequently the case.

Shun quacks as you would the smallpox. Let advertised nostrums and "patent medicines" entirely alone. The idea that some "secret" nostrum will cure a dozen different diseases is absolutely disgusting. Reliable and trustworthy physicians keep no secret remedies from their fellows, nor from humanity. If a new discovery is made in medicine, or if a very efficacious compound is manufactured, it does or may become at once the common property of all worthy physicians. Such are the ethics of the profession, as well as the highest and noblest philanthropy.

Nature is the great healer, and such medicines and remedies as assist her are blessings. Dr. Common Sense is a very eminent medical gentleman. In all acute attacks he should be the first physician called. I make no difference between men and women as physicians; they stand as equals before God, and should so stand in the estimation of humanity.

Specialists have their legitimate fields, and will have until one man, or some one class of men, become infinite in wisdom, knowing all things. Therefore, if you have a serious difficulty of the eyes, go to some skillful occultist. Distinguished surgeons are specialists. Surgery is a science.

Keep away from Indian doctors and pretentious charlatans!

In complex chronic diseases employ educated and experienced physicians. I specify no one particular school of medicine, for I am not a bigot, running in a narrow rut. Bigotry and ignorance are twin brothers. Commencing the study of medicine when a young man, I began at the foundation, allopathy. In this school I attended my first lectures, and did the usual routine work of dissecting. It interested me to enthusiasm. Anatomy, physiology, chemistry and hygiene are the same in all schools. Then why this bitterness? Why these envies? The celebrated Prof. Dalton well said: "jealousies in the medical profession became children, not men."

Educated and honorable men are always the most catholic, charitable and magnanimous. The world is wide, the universe is infinite, and wisdom was not born, neither will it die with any one school of medical practice.

This is an age of progress. Discovery follows discovery in quick succession. Physicians should be persistent students, and their remedies abreast of the age.

The old method of treating disease - well, say a cough - was this: "An expectorant is given, and the cough is somewhat relieved; but the expector ant has produced nausea, and the appetite is gone; to restore appetite and improve the tone of the stomach, mineral acids are prescribed; the appetite gets somewhat better, but the acid has irritated the mucous membrane of the bowels and has produced diarrhea, to check which astringents must be given; these, in turn, produce an aggravation of the cough, and so the round has to be recommenced." This may pass for regular scientific treatment, but I have not the least hesitancy in pronouncing it pitiable quackery.

Take the case of General George Washington, as reported in brief by his physicians. "He was taken in the night of the 30th of December with a sore throat. The 'bleeder' being sent for, he took from him 14 ounces of blood." In the morning the family physician came and "proceeded to bleed him copiously, twice within a few hours, and again the same evening, giving him thereafter a dose of calomel." This was followed by another dose in the morning. Another physician arrived the next day, and after counseling together they took from him 32 ounces more of blood, and, to use the words of the report, there was "no alleviation of the disease." Then vapors of vinegar and water were inhaled. Ten grains more of calomel were administered, "followed by doses of emetic tartar." "Blisters were applied to his extremities and a cataplasm of bran and vinegar to his throat, to which a blister had been previously applied. Growing weaker, and after several attempts to speak, he expired at 11 o'clock in the evening." Now then, take a well, healthy man, put him to bed and treat him in that manner, and how long would he live?

Byron went to Greece to liberate the country and, possibly, receive a crown. Exposed to malaria, he was taken ill, when Drs. Bruno and Millingen were sent for. They proposed to bleed him, but he refused. At length, on April 16th, 1824, he very reluctantly consented. The London Lancet says, "Casting at the two doctors the fiercest glance of vexation, and throwing out his arm, he said in his angriest tone: 'There! You are, I see, a damned set of butchers! Take away as much blood as you like, and have done with it.' They took 20 ounces! The next day they repeated the bleeding twice, and put blisters above the knee, because he objected to have his feet exposed for the blistering process."