Minute and highly important symptoms are disregarded, and facts are compelled to give way, that clashing theories may triumph. "Break down the disease, if in so doing, you break down the patient," is too often the result, although not generally the open preaching of the allopathic school.

We will suppose a patient sick with fever, and glance at the treatment he would be likely to receive at the hands of different physicians. The cause of the disease to the unbiassed mind should be apparent, and the case perfectly plain and simple. Prostrate on his bed, the head dizzy and throbbing with pain, the heart beating with violence, the pulse quick and wiry, and the whole frame burning with fever, the patient tosses from side to side, eagerly watching for the approach of his physician, filled, as his fancy pictures him, with the accumulated wisdom and experience of centuries, whose magic skill is to soothe the tortured frame, cool the fevered blood, and call back the pulse of health.

At length the physician enters, looks at the flushed face, places his finger on the pulse, and says, unless we reduce the vital power, and deplete the patient, he will die. The arm is bared, and the blood spouts from the vein until weakened by its loss, a faintness almost amounting to insensibility is felt. Bind up the arm, give a smart purgative, follow it by nauseating doses of antimony, and to-morrow, if no better, put in again the lancet and cathartics. As he leaves the room, he gives the comfortable assurance, that in addition to these pleasing remedies, the patient is to have for the coming few days, nothing to eat.

But, perchance, a physician is called in having a different theory. The fever, he says, undoubtedly arises, in this case, from an irritation of the intestinal canal. Clear out the canal then, with a gentle purgative, keep the patient perfectly quiet, and give him cooling drinks.

But, still another physician may have been called in, and he says, that the fever is caused by an irritation of the brain, and we must deplete valiantly, bleed from the arm, apply leeches to the temples, put ice to the head, and be sure not to forget the cathartics.

And these physicians, and a host besides, agreeing in a plain simplecase as, to the cause of the disease and the treatment necessary, about as well as oil agrees with water, are all ranged under the worn and time-honored flag of allopathy. Godly allopaths all, steeped in the wisdom of the past, how their souls revolt at quackery, and their lips curl in scorn at those, who tired with the restless waves on which they had been tossing, of the shifting sands in which they had been enveloped, dare to set their feet on firm ground and drink of pure waters.

But we will suppose, the fever was in reality produced by an inflammation of the brain. The capillaries of the brain are congested, and to relieve their congested state a large amount of blood is drawn from the system. The strength is reduced, but the congestion still continues. An artificial inflammation must now be produced in some healthy part of the system, which shall supersede that already existing in the brain. Put on the blisters then, and ply drastic purgatives.

But what effect do you produce by this treatment, and how do you touch beneficially the true seat of the disease? The serous vessels of the brain, from their loss of irritability and tone, are prevented from performing their functions aright, and no cure can take place, until this tone and irritability is restored. Can you, by the most active depletion, prevent the red globules, freighted with oxygen, from entering the relaxed and enfeebled capillaries, and the whole remaining mass of blood from circulating through the brain every few moments? Certainly not, and by thus reducing the strength you take away one of the most important stimulants to these enfeebled vessels. And also by creating new inflammations, you reduce the chance of recovery by weakening the system and taking away a portion of its power to struggle against disease. And more than this, you by your drugs may create new diseases frequently more serious than the old diseases, which in their long duration and the torture they produce in the system, often make the patient long to lay his weary head in the quiet of the grave.

One would suppose that the allopath might devoutly pray, "Oh for some rest to this tossing bark; Oh! for some rock on which to stand, some ray of light to penetrate this gloom, or one thread to guide me through this tangled maze!"

But lest the reader should suppose the picture is overdrawn, let me quote from one whose virgin heart has never wandered from the shrine of allopathy or become tainted with heresy. Dr. Bushnan, in a little work, published in London, in 1850, on "cholera and its cures," paints us the following exquisite picture of allopathy. In speaking of the different remedies used in cholera by 24* the "regular profession," he says: "Let us pass in review these remedies, so as to obtain a bird's eye view of them. They defy classification. Omitting for a moment the complex method by which cholera was to be vanquished, what were the simple specifics that were to cure, infallibly cure, the fearful enemy?

"Water of every temperature. Wrap the cholera patient in a cold sheet, says one. Dash cold water repeatedly over the sheet in which he is enveloped, says another. Ply him well with cold water internally, says a third. Freeze him; cool his blood to thirty below zero, adds a fourth. Fools that ye are, exclaims a fifth,'thus to treat a patient half dead with cholera - I say, wrap him in sheets soaked in boiling water; and having thus half-cooked the shivering wretch, conclude the process by placing him over the boiler of a steam engine.'

"Sage advice, learned Thebans! the blood is dark, and the surface cold. 'My theory,' shouts one man, is that oxygen reddens the blood, and by its action on that blood, generates heat; therefore make the patient inhale oxygen.' ' Nay,' rejoins another, ' the blood in the lungs is too bright; oxygen has nothing to do with the generation of heat; stifle him with carbonic acid.' 'There are cramps present, which cause much suffering, and therefore are they the symptom especially to be treated, Chloroform annihilates pain - let him breathe chloroform.'

"'It is evident,' avows one sapient doctor,'that there is no bile in the stools; therefore calomel should be administered.' 'It is plain,' says another, 'that diarrhoea is the great evil; therefore let him have opium, that is the drug which effectually prevents a free flow of bile.' 'He is cold and depressed - what so natural as to stimulate.' The wisdom of the proposal is proved by the numbers who recommended its adoption - the folly of the many is manifested by the proportion who died under the use of stimulants. 'Give him alkalies,' vociferates one man. 'Nay,' says another, 'lemon-juice, and acids are the true remedies.'

"'It is simply a stage of intermittent fever,' maintain some; 'therefore,' they add,' the drug for its prevention and its cure is quinine.' 'Not half potent enough,' whispers a supporter of the same theory, 'give him arsenic'

"Certain fanatics refused the use of medicine, but in the course of their religious mummeries, administered to the credulous a cup of olive oil. A patient recovered, and 'Eureka!' shout the populace. Vox et proeterea nihil, say those who wait awhile before they decide.

"Opium, in one man's mind, is a specific in small doses, the twentieth of a grain frequently repeated. 'Nonsense,' says another, 'opium is a specific, but let it be given in doses of from six to twelve grains.' The latter has one advantage; if the power of absorption yet remains to the stomach, the patient will assuredly be saved all further pain, and, if he be a good man, mercifully provided for in a better world.

"'Calomel is the specific that will stay every symptom of the cholera, bring back the pulse, and restore life almost to the dead, if given,' says one, in twenty or thirty grains at a dose.' 'No,' says another, 'give it in that way, and you will kill the patient. It must be given in small doses, at short intervals.'

"Then come other infallible specifics - pitch, sulphur, phosphorus, and carbon; gold, silver, zinc, and lead; strychnine, salicine, morphine, and cannabine; backshish, and zorabia; abstraction of blood and injection of blood; perfect repose and incessant motion; to the skin irritation the most severe, applications the most soothing; stimulants the most violent, sedatives the most powerful."

And this is medical science. Medical science to which man is to turn for relief when the body is racked with pain, and in which he is to find hope when disease with stealthy footsteps enters his home. Oh! what a parody on true science, what a mockery of suffering humanity! But does the medical history of the past two thousand years present no bright spots, has it placed no trophies in the temple of truth? Have the thousands of noble and self-denying men who have filled its ranks accomplished no good? On the contrary, the history of medicine is full of brilliant discoveries, but they have mostly been in the field of physiology. Here great truths have been developed, and the way prepared for the introduction of a law of cure of so beautiful and perfect a character that it is destined to banish all adverse theories from the field. Notwithstanding, theories of disease almost innumerable have been advanced, but one law of cure has ever been established. Let us briefly examine this law, which we may do by answering the question of