motions unhealthily fitful,-run into the true ague or agueish fits, with which I shall hereafter prove to you all diseases commence. And beware of mis-taking the end for the beginning, the consequence or coincidence for the cause; beware of that all but universal medical error-that fallacy in many instances so fatal-of mistaking the decay, or tendency to decay, of a PART, for the primary cause of the febrile disturbance of the WHOLE;-when, as by numerous proofs, I shall bring it home to your conviction that such local disease, in the majority of instances, is a mere consequence or developement simply,-a termination or effect, though sometimes a coincidence from the beginning, of repeated constitutional febrile attacks. Health and Disease, Gentlemen, are convertible states;-else why should the aid of the physician. be asked? The same moving matter of the body, when influenced by one agency, may become Disease, and acted upon by another while in the diseased state, may return again to the condition of Health.

The human body, whether in health or disorder, is an epitome of every great system in nature. Like the globe we inhabit, it has in health its diurnal and other revolutions; its sun and its shade; its times and seasons; its alternations of heat and moisture. In disease, we recognise the same long chills and droughts,-the same passionate storms and outpourings of the streams, by which the earth at times is agitated, the matter of the body assuming in the course of these various alternations, changes of character and composition, such as abscesses, tumours, and eruptions, typical of newformed mountain masses, earthquakes, and volcanoes; all these, too, like the tempests and hurricanes of nature, intermitting with longer or shorter periods of tranquillity, till the wearied body either regains, like our common mother, its wonted harmony of motion; or, like what we may conceive of a world destroyed, becomes resolved into its pristine elements.

In the language of the schools, the phases of Disease are termed the Paroxysm and Intermission; the first, or period of suffering, being synonymous with access, exacerbation, throe, fit; the second, as we have already seen, meaning the period or interval of comparative freedom from disorder; though when less completely periodic, Intermission is usually termed Remission. For my own part, I shall occasionally be compelled to use Remission and Intermission synonymously. But as I have already explained to you, so far from having been recognised as a law of universal occurrence, and harmonising with every thing which we know of our own or other worlds, periodic intermission and return have been vaguely supposed to stamp the disorders where they were too striking to be overlooked, as the exclusive offspring of a malarious or miasmatic atmosphere! Gentlemen, there can be no greater error than this. The actions of life in health are all, as you have seen, periodic; and however, or by whatever caused, their morbid modifications, termed disease, are periodic also.

What are the remedies most influential in preventing the return of an Ague-fit? The profession will answer, and rightly answer, the Peruvian BARK; or its better substitute, QUININE, in fact, its essence, ARSENIC, and OPIUM; to which you will permit me to add HYDROCYANIC ACIE, better known as Prussic Acid, IRON, SILVER, COPPER, STRYCHNIA, MUSK, ASSAFETIDA, VALERIAN, COLCHICUM, ZINC, BISMUTH, TURPENTINE; and there are others, doubtless, in nature, which time and accident may yet discover. These agents, Gentlemen, are generally most effective when taken during the intermission. From the relation which their influence must thus bear to Time or Period, and Temperature (Cold and Heat,) I term them CHRONOTHERMAL-Ovos (Chronos) being the Greek word for Time-0ɛgun (Thermà) for Heat or Temperature. But as some of you, in common with many in the profession, and not a few out of it, may possibly be sceptical in regard to the curative power of any medicine in any disease, I will here tell you how I lately settled this matter with a certain young barrister, who thought he should be able to prove to me that physic is all nonsense. "Do you

mean to tell me," said the gentleman in question,

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that putting little bits of pounded stick or stone into a man's stomach, will cure any disease whatever?" Oh! certainly not," said I; for when you find people obstinate, it is better to humour them a little at first; "but perhaps," I continued, " you may just be disposed to admit, that little bits of pounded stick and stone may cause disease, and even death;-otherwise you must be ready to swallow hemlock and arsenic in any quantity required of you." To this the man of law at once put in a demurrer. The causing and killing part of the business he could not by any sophistry get rid of. So I then thought it time to explain to him, as I now do to you, that the principle upon which these substances can cute and cause disease is ONE and the SAME; namely, their power, for good or for evil, as the case may be, of ELECTRICALLY altering the motive state of certain parts of the body, and of altering at the same time their thermal conditions.

Gentlemen, turn over the history of medicine, and mark well the remedies upon which authors dilate as being most beneficial in any form of disease; you will find them to be, one and all, agents having the power of controlling Temperature,-of exalting or depressing this in the stages of exacerbation, or of continuing and prolonging the more healthy and moderate degrees. of it, characteristic of the period of remission; thereby at the same time controlling motion, or vice versa.

For this latter indication, the most generally efficient of all remedies is the Peruvian Bark, or Quinine; but it is not specific, nor is there such a thing as a specific, for this or any other purpose, in physic; arsenic, opium, hydrocyanic acid, all proving better or worse than another in particular cases of disease, and this less with reference to the disorder and its cause, than to the constitution or peculiarity of system of individual patients. This peculiarity, we shall afterwards prove, depends upon certain Electrical conditions of the Brain. But upon the nature and the mode of action of all Remedial sub stances, we shall enter at length, at a more advanced period of the course. In our next lecture we shall consider the phenomena of AGUE, and show you its relation to Spasmodic disease,-Asthma, Epilepsy,--to Palsy, Curved Spine, Squint, &c. These disorders we shall prove are merely so many developements occurring in its course,-analytically, by rigidly scrutinising their symptoms; synthetically, by detailing to you cases of each cured on CHRONO-THERMAL principles.

LECTURE II.

AGUE-SPASMODIC AND PARALYTIC DISEASE-DISORDERS OF SENSATION

IN our former Lecture, Gentlemen, you will remember that, after a brief allusion to a few of the many errors which, from time to time, have prevailed in the schools, we took a more simple, though, at the same time, a much more bold and sweeping view of the subject of Medicine than would appear to have hitherto come within the grasp of teachers and professors. The nature of Health, Sleep, and Disease, we in some measure explained; and we proposed, as matter for future argumentation, that INTERMITTENT FEVER or AGUE is the type, model, or likeness of all the maladies to which man is liable, referring, at the same time, to certain natural analogies in the world around us; and hazarding the statement, (which, until we prove, we by no means wish you to take for granted) that the chrono-thermal, or ague medicines, are the most generally influential in the treatment of every kind of disease. Let it not, however, be supposed that, in our high estimate of this particular class of remedies, we reject, in practice, any earthly agent which

God has given us; for there is no substance in nature which may not be turned to good account by the wise and judicious physician. Besides the chrono-thermal remedies, which we chiefly use as remedies of Prevention, we possess a multitude of powers which have all more or less influence upon the human body, both in health and disease: and though few or no substances can act upon any part of the frame without implicating every other part, yet do we find that certain medicines have relations of affinity to particular organs of the body greater than to others; some affecting one organ, some another. Of this class, Vomits, Purgatives, and Diuretics, (as their names import,) Mercury, Creosote, Cantharides, and the various Gums and Balsams, are the principal: Iodine, Lead, the Earths, and Acids are also examples. But while, in the more simple cases of disease, the chrono-thermal medicines, singly, may answer every purpose, particular cases of disorder will be more efficiently treated with alternations and combinations of both classes, than by the exhibition of either simply. Of the action of remedies of every kind, we shall speak more particularly when we come to treat of individual substances. For the present, we shall content ourselves with repeating what we stated in our former Lecture, in connexion with this subject, that the action of REMEDY and CAUSE, in every case, comes at last to the common principle of their capacity to affect temperature or motion-change in one never taking place without change in the other. It will be a subject of interest to pursue DISEASE through all its modifications and varieties, step by step, and to show you the source and the extent of our influence over it; for which purpose we shall call our different witnesses before you in the shape of Cases; taking these, as often as possible, from the experience of others, and when this fails us, from the results of our own practice; leaving to you, of course, to compare and cross-examine these last at your leisure, with such facts and cases of a similar description, as may come before you during your attendance at the various hospitals with which you are respectively connected. Of this we feel assured, that whether or not you individually pronounce a verdict in our favour upon all counts, you will at least collectively admit, that we have compelled you to alter your sentiments most materially upon many measures which you previously supposed to be as unquestionable in practice as they were orthodox in precept. But if, according to Lord Bacon, "disciples do owe unto masters only a temporary belief, and a suspension of their own judgment until they be fully instructed, and not an absolute resignation or perpetual captivity," you will not be sorry to escape from the thraldom of men who, when asked for bread, gave you a substance which, in the darkness of your ignorance, you could not by any possibility tell was a stone! No longer mocked by mystic gibberish, you will now take your places as judges of the very doctrines you formerly, as pupils, implicitly and without examination believed; and according to the evidence which I shall bring before you, you will pronounce between your teachers and me--whether the infinity of distinctions and differences, upon which they so pride themselves, be founded in nature and reason-or whether, in the words of the same great philosopher, "all things do by scale ascend to UNITY, so then, always that knowledge is worthiest which is charged with least multiplicity."

Gentlemen, there was a time when the greater number of people imagined that the only thing worth acquiring in this life, was a knowledge of the dead languages. A new era has since sprung up, and mankind have begun to appreciate the advantages to be obtained from an acquaintance with the chemical and physical sciences. They now prefer the study of the natural bodies around them, to pedantic discussions about Greek articles and Latin verbs. It is only in the cloisters of Oxford and Cambridge, that men sneer at "utilitarianism," or in that antiquated off-shoot of these monkish institutions-the College of Physicians. Railroads, steamboats, galvanism, and gas, have all come to light within the last half century. A revolution in thought and action has been the result; petty objects have given way to comprehen

sive views, and petty interests have been destroyed by the general improvement that has already been accomplished. Is medicine the only branch of human knowledge destined to stand still, while all around it is in motion? Is the march of intellect to sweep on and on, and leave behind it this socalled science, untouched and unimproved in its progress? When the monarchs who have successively wielded the medical sceptre-who in their day were looked upon as demigods in physic, have in turn declared that all that they knew of it was that " they nothing knew," shall blame be attached to him who would attempt to rescue his profession from this worse than darkness visible? If, by their own confession, the Knightons and Baillies were ignorant of the first principles of correct practice, surely it were but charitable to suppose that men so successful in their worldly pursuits, may, in this instance at least, have followed a deceptive mode of investigation? Like the racer on the wrong road, how could they, in that case, get to the end of their journey? Pursuing their professional studies chiefly in the dead house, these physicians forgot that medicine has no power over a corpse.Gentlemen, the reflections which I shall have the honour to submit for your consideration, were the result of observations made on the ever-shifting motions of the living. Who will tell me that this kind of study is only proper for medical persons? Who shall say that this description of knowledge may not be made interesting to the world at large? Greek, Latin, High Dutch, Hebrew, are these representations of the same Signs, more important than an enlarged knowledge of the Sense-more instructive to those who pursue them as a study, than a consideration of the revolutions and constantly changing relations of the matter of their own bodies? Without a proper knowledge of the laws of your own organization, how can you possibly put in practice the good old maxim, "Know yourselves?"

Having premised this much, I now come to consider in detail the phenomena of Periodic Fever commonly called

INTERMITTENT FEVER OR AGUE;

for Ague being the type of every other modification of disease, it is necessary you should be well acquainted with the principal shades of suffering so denominated. I have already told you there can be no disease, no morbid motion without change of temperature. The subject of ague, then, among other sensations and changes, successively experiences a CHILL and HEAT, followed by a profuse PERSPIRATION. These three stages, commonly called the Cold, Hot, and Sweating stages, constitute the PAROXYSM or FIT. The patient, during each stage, is in a different condition of body from either of the others; his sensations, consequently, differ during each of them. To the state of Perspiration, which terminates the fit, a periodic INTERMISSION, or regular interval of comparative health, succeeds; and this interval of immunity from suffering usually lasts one, two, or more days (giving rise to the terms, Ter tian, Quartian, and other agues, according to the duration of the interval), before the recurrence of another similar fit;-such fit generally making its invasion with a wonderful degree of exactness at the same hour of the clock as the former, and lasting about the same time,-when it is again followed by a similar periodic intermission of the symptoms as before. In every stage of the fit, all the functions of the body are more or less disturbed. During the cold stage, the face becomes pale, the features shrink, and the muscles are tremulous or even spasmodic: the patient, in other words, shivers, has cramp, and his strength is prostrate. The breathing and circulation are variously altered,-the urine, if any passes, is generally pale and plentiful, and the other secretions are similarly changed in quantity and quality. The senses and mental powers are for the most part depressed, or even curiously vitiated; sometimes, though seldom, they are preternaturally exalted. The patient has nausea and loss of appetite; occasionally sick

ness; less frequently looseness of bowels;—or he has hunger amounting to voracity, thirst more seldom. A reaction now comes on. The tempera

ture of the body gradually changes from cold to hot-the pallor of the face gives place to redness--the cheek, is now flushed-the eye suffused, and the patient suffers from headache, more or less agonising. This is the Hot

stage.

The thirst, whether it existed before or not, is now a most prominent symptom; the appetite is thoroughly lost; the patient manifesting, in most instances, a repugnance to the very name of food. If you inspect the tongue, you will find it comparatively dry and loaded, and of a brown colour; and though the skin feel to your hand like a burning coal, so to speak, the patient himself may complain of such excessive coldness, as to induce the attendants to cover him with numerous blankets; more generally, however, he has a sensation of heat equally severe. Every muscle of his body in this stage is more or less painful and enfeebled; though, in some instances, he may appear to have a greater command over them than in health; and if delirium supervene, which it may do, his strength will appear almost superhuman. During the excitement of this stage, individuals have been known to become musical, poetical, oratorical, and have exercised other talents which they never were known to manifest in health. The heart now beats violently, and the pulse is full and bounding; the urine, instead of being pale and plentiful, as in the preceding stage, is scanty and high coloured. The secretions generally are sluggish, and in some instances they are altogether suppressed. A long Sweat succeeds, during which the greater number of the suppressed secretions gradually reappear. As with a feeling of languor, lassitude, and a disposition to yawn, and stretch the various members of the body, the fit is usually preceded; so with the same symptoms does it usually end. Then comes the state of comparative health, which may either again periodically pass into the Fever-fit, or continue for an indefinite space, so as eventually to become Health.

As every individual has, from birth, some part of his body less strongly constructed than the other parts, it would be wonderful indeed, if, during some of the repetitions of this terrible tempest of body, termed an Ague-fit, that weak point were not very often discovered; but discovered, more or less, in most instances, it is. Is the brain the least strongly constructed point? Then, according to the part of the organ most implicated, and the degree of implication, will you have vertigo, epilepsy, apoplexy, insanity, imbecility of mind, palsy, or their shades superadded. Is the original weakness of conformation seated in the lungs ? Look, then, for spitting of blood, asthma, or consumption. In the heart? how it palpitates or remits in its beats! it may even stand still for ever; and more than once in my life have I known it to do this during the ague-fit. But the joints may be the weak points of the patient's body?-then, as a matter of course, the joints swell, and become more or less hot and painful. And if just at this epoch, some wiseacre of the profession chances to drop in-with the usual scholastic sagacity, he discovers the disease is not fever, but Rheumatism. The lancet, of course, is immediately bared-the leech and the blister are ordered; from this moment, the entire treatment is directed, not to the beginning, but to the end-not to the fever, but to its development. The state of the joints is the sole subject of thought and action; the Brain--that Pandora's box of the whole-that organ upon which every motion of the body, wrong or right, depends never once enters into the wonderfully wise man's head; he never once dreams of influencing this key to all the corporeal actions, in any manner whatever. And what is the result of this treatment? Daily promises and daily disappointments; hope deferred and the heart made sick; the health, the happiness, and the home of the patient, too often made desolate for ever.

Thus far, gentlemen, I have detailed to you the beginning, the progress,