cases of Pneumonia, (inflammation of the lungs,) as well as of pure Bronchitis, (inflammation of the airpassages,) have also yielded to medicine without any bleeding whatever. And I may at the same time observe, the recovery was in every case quicker, and the consequent weakness less than if blood had been drawn.

"Yours truly,

"CHARLES TROTTER."

From Dr. Fogarty, Surgeon of the St. Helena Regiment.

"LONDON.

"My dear Sir,-I have read your Lectures with the greatest delight. Every word ought to be written in letters of gold.

"Yours faithfully,

"M. FOGARTY."

From H. W. Bull, Esq., Surgeon, R.N.

"WOKINGHAM, 5th Feb. 1843. "Dear Sir, I beg to forward to you a statement of my own case, and one or two cases of others treated on your plan, all of which are evidence of the value of the Chrono-Thermal System. I was attacked by paralysis on the 28th October, 1840, which deprived me of the use of my right arm and leg, affected the same side of the face, and produced some difficulty of speech. The usual plan was adopted,-bleeding, purging, leeching, mercury, and blisters. In this state I crawled on to May, 1841, when I lost more blood to prevent another anticipated attack, goaded on by what you term the bugbear CONGESTION. In this manner I went on occasionally cupping and purging, and with a very restricted diet. In consequence of all this I was much reduced, and I became exceedingly weak,-the heart palpitated very much on the least motion, and I had in addition occasional fainting fits. Last May my son sent me some extracts from your Lectures, the perusal of which induced me a few days afterwards to state by letter the particulars of my case to you. The first prescription you were so kind as to send disagreed; you then ordered quinine, and this I took with good effect. The shower-bath which you also ordered I found very beneficial. I have followed the plan laid down by you with very great advantage,-changing the different medicines from time to time as occasion required; and I can now walk two miles without assistance. I have now not only power to raise my right arm and wave it round my head, but I can lift a weight of forty pounds with it. I am now following the same plan with very good effect; I must confess I was at first startled by a practice so very different from all I had been taught in the schools, but a practice, I can truly say, to which I owe my life. Like Dr. M'Kenzie, nothing will ever induce me to lose a drop of blood again so long as it will circulate in the veins of, "Yours most sincerely and faithfully,

"H. W. BULL, Surgeon, Royal Navy."

||

Cases alluded to in the preceding letter. "Case 1.-Mr. C was attacked with acute rheumatism in almost every joint, great difficulty of breathing, and violent pain in the chest. I prescribed an emetic, but he refused to take it, he is a Hampshire man, and almost as obstinate as one of his own hogs. He continued in this state two days more; at last he was prevailed on to take the emetic. It operated soon and gave him instant relief. I followed it up with quinine and colchicum: he is now quite well, and has gone to his brother's house some distance from this.

"Case 2.-A girl twelve years of age was brought to me from Binfield in convulsive fits. The pupils of her eyes were much dilated, and the fits followed each other in rapid succession. I first gave her a purgative, and followed it up with prussic acid;-this was on a Monday. The fits became less and less frequent, and from the following Friday they entirely ceased. I also lately used the prussic acid with the best effect in the case of a child seven weeks old.

"Case 3.-A gentleman lately brought his child, a fine boy, to me for squint; the age, two years. Some days the boy squinted less than others. I gave him six powders containing quinine and a little calomel: no other medicine was prescribed. There has been no squint since the powders were finished. In many other cases I have followed your plan with the best

success.

"H. W. B."

From John Yeoman, Esq., Surgeon.

"LOFTUS, YORKSHIRE, Feb. 2nd, 1843. "Sir,-Hearing that you are about to give us another edition of your Lectures, I beg now to offer to you my best thanks for the service you have already done the medical profession, by the publication of your original doctrines on disease. Being convinced, from my own experience and observation, that there is a Periodicity in most diseases, and that blood-letting is resorted to, as a curative measure, far too indiscriminately, I have read the work with very great interest and advantage. With interest, because I have been anxious and ready for the last two years, to test the Chrono-thermal doctrine and remedies fairly, and with advantage, because I have succeeded in a wonderful manner to cure diseases, by acting up to the principles and practice you recommend. I have treated several cases of decided Pleurisy and Pneumonia according to the Chrono-thermal system, using emetics, purgatives, tartar emetic, prussic acid, and quinine, and without the aid of lancet or blister, most successfully. In croup and typhus-fever, I can bear ample testimony to the good effects of emetics, cold affusions, prussic acid, and quinine; and with these agents alone, I have cured several cases of both within the last six months. You are at liberty to make use of these few remarks, to make them known to the profession, or the world, as

you please and wishing you every success in your future efforts, good health, and happiness,

"I am, Sir, yours sincerely,

"JOHN YEOMAN,

"Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, and Licentiate of the Apothecaries' Company, London." From Dr. Sprague, formerly a Medical Officer on the Staff.

"CLEVEDON, near BRISTOL, Feb. 6th, 1843. "My dear Sir,-Having read over and over again your invaluable work, and having devoted much time to the study of the principles laid down, I am desirous to convey in plain language my sentiments in regard to the immense benefit which would indubitably be conferred on mankind by the general adoption of your opinions and practice. I was strictly educated to the Medical profession from my youth up, and have been in actual practice more than THIRTY-THREE years.

Notwithstanding the strenuous and persevering advocacy with which blood-letting has been so universally urged, and that, too, in the face of the great destruction of human life indubitably produced by it, to you, Sir, belongs the honour of triumphantly proving by evidence the most incontrovertible, that all diseases which ADMIT of RELIEF can be successfully treated WITHOUT loss of blood.' And here do I most willingly record my unbiased testimony to this important TRUTH. Let me further add, that by a course of patient investigation and much practical experience, I had arrived at the same conclusion before I had the pleasure of perusing your writings. I am, therefore, bound to acknowledge how highly I value the moral courage which has induced you to promulgate your invaluable opinions, and which, I believe, are built upon an immoveable foundation. With a deep sense of obligation to you for the information I have derived from your various writings, "I remain, yours faithfully,

"J. H. SPRAGUE."

From John P. Baldy, Esq., Surgeon.

"DEVONPORT, 3rd March, 1843. "Dear Sir, I have for several years past followed a similar line of practice to yourself; but I must confess I never entered so deeply into the principles of it till I read your invaluable publication. If medical men would follow your steps-the steps of nature-instead of the theories of the schoolmen, mankind would be benefited, and you would be hailed as the Founder of a New System of Physic; and your name would go down to posterity with those immortal men, Harvey

through the course of my medical education after the most approved orthodox fashion, and I fancied I comprehended the practice of medicine. Your views too clearly point out that I was more than ignorant on the subject.

"I find, on referring to my note-book of cases, that, since February, 1842, up to the present date, nearly three hundred medical cases have occurred in my practicecases of acute and chronic disease. In the treatment of these, I have strictly followed the Chrono-thermal principles, and I feel a conscious satisfaction and delight when I reflect, that, with the exception of one case, (Phrenitis,) my treatment-your treatment-has restored them ALL to health. Which of our greatest doctors, by the old treatment, can boast a similar successful result?

"Yours very faithfully,

"MATTHEW CARTER, M.R.C.P." From C. Don, Esq., Assistant Surgeon, 7th Madras Native Infantry.

"KAMPTEE, 23rd March, 1844. "My dear Sir,-I hope you will excuse the liberty of a stranger to you writing a few lines. It is simply to return you my best thanks for the great gratification I have had, and still have, in reading your highly original Lectures. I have a sister going home from Bengal in bad health, and I have advised her to put herself under your care, hoping you will be able to do her good. "I remain, my dear Sir, yours very truly,

"C. DON,

"Assistant Surgeon, 7th M.N.I.”

DR. DICKSON AND DR. FORBES.

To the Editor of the Medical Times.

3rd January, 1843.

Sir, Will you allow me, through the medium of your pages, to administer a little wholesome castigation to Dr. John Forbes, of British and Foreign Medical Review notoriety?

In the present January number of that periodical, Dr. Forbes pretends to review the second edition of my "Fallacies of the Faculty." The very first quotation from the volume, in his first page, is a misquotation! The second quotation in the same page is a misquotation! The first quotation in the next page is a misquotation!! At the bottom of his third page is the following false insinuation :-" Curved spine, which Stromeyer and a few other insignificant schoolmen have attributed to Paralysis of certain sets of muscles is also in the opinion of Dr. Dickson a remittent affection." Certainly, at the commencement it is a remittent affection; but in the very volume my critic pretends to review, not only do I take much pains to prove its paralytic nature, but I claim to myself the discovery of that fact; and if Dr. Forbes chooses to appeal to dates, I will make it clear to the world that Stromeyer and his other schoolmen have only followed in mv wake!

As a specimen of the misquotations I have noticed in this pretended Review, take the following:-In the original the passage stands thus, "Like every other remedial agent it (iodine) cuts two ways-atomically attracting or lessening volume and secretion in one case, atomically repelling or increasing both in another, according to the electric state of the individual body for which it may be prescribed." In the misquotation the word "anatomically" is substituted in both instances for "atomically." Dr. Forbes asks if this be not stark staring nonsense?-Most certainly; but it is his nonsense, not mine.-Perhaps Dr. Forbes will ascribe these and his other misquotations to the printer's devil-six misquotations at least in a review of as many pages!Such a course was worthy of the plagiarist of Dr. Paine, [for a full account of which disgraceful transaction, see the various Medical Journals.] Yet he, Dr. Forbes, has the impudence to tell his readers, "We have done justice to his (Dr. Dickson's) doctrines by giving them and the proofs in his own language." He concludes his review by asking, "Has not Dr. Dickson made an Ass of himself?" In return for which piece of politeness, I ask you, Mr. Editor, if Dr. Forbes has not made a Knave of himself? Dr. Forbes is a Court Physician, "Physician Extraordinary," &c.; so is his friend and coadjutor, Dr. Holland. Perhaps it is by way of revenge for my having defeated Dr. Holland's ingenious attempt to steal my discoveries, that Dr. Forbes now does his best by an equally ingenious device to stifle them. The world will doubtless cry, "Arcades ambo!"

I am, Sir, your most obedient servant,
S. DICKSON.

DR. DICKSON AND DR. LAYCOCK. To the Editor of the Medical Times.

July 20, 1842.

Sir, I beg to express to you my obligation for your early insertion of my letter, on the subject of Vital Periodicity, and I would further beg to tender my very best thanks to the numerous friends who in your pages have as kindly and readily come forward to vindicate my claim to the discovery of the doctrine in question. That fragmentary parts of the doctrine of Vital Periodicity should from time to time have attracted the attention of medical theorists, will excite the wonder of nobody-nobody at least that had ever counted a pulse or witnessed in his life the outward phenomena of an ague-nobody even who knows so much of man and his many diseases, as to be aware that his toothache, his tic, his gout, and his epilepsy, come on in fits only, and by no possibility can last for ever!-Hippocrates, Celsus, Boerhaave, Darwin, ay, and hundreds of others, knew this much at least,-some trying to explain it one way, some another. M'Culloch more recently and more fully handled the subject, and he endeavoured to prove what, for a time, scarcely one professional man in Europe doubted,-that every intermittent action depends on malaria or marsh emanations. This doctrine of

M'Culloch I was the first to impugn; and I have yet to learn that any author, ancient or modern, in England or elsewhere, has preceded me in the discovery, that all the movements of all animal bodies-the greater and the less-the atomic, functional, and organic-whether in Health or Disease-disease however caused,-like all the movements of all the systems, minor and major,-of the Universe at large-are similarly intermittent and periodic! And that there can no more be an eternal or continuous disease (i. e. a disease without intermission) than there can be an eternal earthquake, or an eternal tempest. Six years ago and more I brought this forward-this doctrine of the periodic and intermittent nature of all animal movement-not as a WHOLE, but as a PART; for with it I also published the Elements of the New System of Medicine which necessarily grew out of the discovery, viz., the Chronothermal System. And how were my discoveries then received at the hands of the professional public? How! How, Mr. Editor, did the professional public ever receive any discovery that improved the practice of physic? Mine they received as they have received every other. So far back as 1836, I demonstrated that Life in health is in reality, and not figuratively, a “fitful fever"-a thing of alternate motion and rest-alternate chill and heat-depression and excitement-and that Intermittent Fever or Ague is the type or model of every one of the many modifications of Life termed Disease. Then the doctrine was scouted and ridiculed by all. Doctors, surgeons, apothecaries, all flew to The Reviewers, in the language of Dr. James Johnson their chief, denounced it as a FEVER-madness -a PYREXY-mania. Nobody then dreamed of calling its authorship in question-No! it was false, fanciful, and fatuous throughout-so utterly insane that nobody ever was mad enough to put such madness on paper before! How stands the question now?-Why, it makes one laugh at the turn-coat world; for who could dream that the same men who, six years ago, denounced the author as a madman, and his system as an absurdity, would now meanly attempt to annihilate and cast aside the one, while adopting as their own the principles of the other! This, nevertheless, has been done. But you, Mr. Editor,-of you I demand why you only do me partial justice? "Whoever," you say, 'preceded Dr. Dickson, Dr. Dickson long preceded Drs. Holland and Laycock. In publishing the doctrine in England, and having done much to REVIVE and propagate it, he was fairly entitled to some notice by more recent writers adopting his views on so important a subject." Of whose doctrines, Sir, permit me to ask, are mine a REVIVAL?-Who before me maintained the doctrine of the Periodicity of all Animal Life? I speak of LIFE in its totality-its abstract-not in its fragments! It is only in the nature of things that a doctrine when reluctantly admitted to be true, should be whispered away as not new; and you-you Sir, doubtless, in my case, have unwittingly caught up the

arms.

echo! The same thing happened to Harvey. When his enemies found it impossible any longer to deny the truth of his discovery, they accused him of having stolen it from the ancients. Ancient or modern, what author have I stolen from ?-Who taught me that all diseases, however named, and by whatever caused, are intermittent in their character; or that all diseases, like the ague, may be cured on the principle of prolonging the intermission, by Bark, Arsenic, Opium, &c.? To whom am I indebted for the hint, that every and each of these medicinal agents, like every other medicinal agent in nature, cause and cure by their ELECTRICAL influence solely-in one case Electrically producing, in another Electrically reversing every morbid motive condition of the body?—That whether Opium produce sleep or wakefulness, whether Copaiba aggravate or cure discharges, -whether Prussic Acid or Strychnia cause or relieve palsy, spasms, &c.,-depends upon the positive or negative Electrical state of the Brain of the individual selected for their administration?-That Change of Temperature and Change of Motion are equally the law of Disease, Remedy, and Cause ?-Who, I again demand, taught me these? Of these, nevertheless, and many other matters which have never entered the head of pathological professors, the Unity of Disease and Fallacies of the Faculty treat at length. Under the title of Erreurs de Médecins, ou Système Chronothermale, the latter work is now busily agitating the medical circles of France and Germany. Permit its author to ask why you have not yet reviewed it? In the expectation that you will still do your duty in this respect to your readers, he looks forward to a just and candid criticism at your hands.

Your very obedient servant,

S. DICKSON. This Letter the Editor of the Medical Times declined to insert. But shortly afterwards a "Review" of the Fallacies of the Faculty appeared in his pages—which Review, while it nibbled at certain fragmentary matter, discreetly postponed sine die all notice of the doctrine of the Unity of Disease, and more particularly omitted to answer the question-WHOM HAVE I REVIVED?

Scarcely was the People's Edition of this Work published, when the same individual who, in June, 1842, enlightened the British Association with his "discoveries" on Vital Periodicity-Dr. Laycock of Yorkventured to put forth something more in the same original vein in the Lancet-and among other things to "prevent controversy" he claimed to have discovered the Periodic movement of all Vitality! Immediately on seeing this, I wrote to the Editor of the Lancet, charging Mr. Laycock with Piracy; sending at the same time a copy of the Fallacies of the Faculty, that the respective dates of his and my papers might be compared. Instead of printing my letter, Mr. Wakley, the Editor, in a note to Correspondents, informed me that my Work would be examined in connexion with the paper of Dr. Laycock,

and his (Mr. Wakley's) opinion of the question raised by me, given in another number. I immediately wrote to say, I would dispense with his, Mr. Editor Wakley's opinion, if he would do me the favour to print my letter. What was the reply of this second Daniel-this exquisite expounder of Crowner's Quest law? "We have received the second note of Dr. Dickson-who may adopt any course that he thinks proper, though he may be assured that we shall not allow him to make use of the columns of this journal for promulgating a charge of piracy against a highly respectable physician, unless he accompanies that charge with proofs of the accuracy of his allegation-[the first time he asks for what he had already got-proofs !] The subject is in process of investigation, and a perfectly fair and just decision shall be the result."

Anticipating the sort of investigation Mr. Editor Wakley intended, I immediately dispatched the following to his address, taking care, at the same time, to send a copy to the Medical Times, where it was in due time inserted:

To the Editor of the Lancet.

April 22, 1843.

Do not, Sir, imagine that any trick, or artifice, however ingenious, can juggle me out of a discovery which it has been the labour of my life to establishthe discovery of the Periodic movement of all Vitalityof the Periodicity of life in Health-the Periodicity of life in Disease-of the Periodicity of movement of Universal Nature! You will not, you say, allow me to make use of the columns of your Journal "for promulgating a charge of piracy against a highly respectable physician, unless I accompany that charge with proofs of the accuracy of my allegation ;" and in the same breath you add, "The subject is in process of investigation, and a perfectly fair and just decision shall be the result." What! an INVESTIGATION and DECISION without proofs ! Not Mr. Thomas Wakley surely, but some blockhead of an underling must have penned that absurdity. Proofs ! What proofs do you demand? words? dates? or both ?-words, or dates, that the papers recently printed and eulogised by you under the head of "Vital Periodicity, by Dr. Laycock," are so many mean attempts to plagiarise my doctrine of the Periodic movement of all Vitality! Sir, the proofs are already in your possession; they are contained in my Works, the Fallacy of Physic as taught in the Schools; the Unity of Disease, and Fallacies of the Faculty, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and foreign editions; nay, they are stamped, indelibly stamped, on your own pages! Look to the Lancet for 23rd Sept., 1837, and you will there find, what Mr. Laycock now so modestly puts forth as his, the whole doctrine of Vital Periodicity given by myself. Let me quote it." The principal aim of my volume (Fallacy of Physic, &c., published in 1836) has been to demonstrate that the corporeal actions of man in his healthy state constitute the basis or standard of EVERY

KIND OF LIVING action. In health he rests from his labour-he sleeps-he wakes to sleep again—his lungs now inspiring air, now expelling it; his heart successively dilating and contracting; his blood brightening in one set of vessels only again to darken in another-his food and drink nutritious one hour to become excrementitious the next-in a word, all his appetites and necessities PERIODICALLY alternating with each other." Nor do I confine this doctrine of Periodicity to healthfor in the same number of the Lancet you will find the following: "Is it not strange that the profession should still couple REMITTENCY (periodicity ?) exclusively with miasma or malaria as a cause? Every writer who has professedly treated the subject, refers to this, seeming to be totally and absolutely unconscious of the universality of Remission (Periodicity?) as a law of all Disease." Thus far I have quoted from what I have written and published in your own pages. From the Unity of Disease, first published in 1838, I extract the following: The body under Disease exhibits revolu. tions analogous to those in Health; it shows a similar tendency to alternate motion and repose; for, PERIODS, more or less regular, are observed to mark the approach, duration, and interval of recurrence of the morbid phases." And in the first edition of the Fallacies of the Faculty, published in 1839, is the following::-" So far, however, from having been recognised as a Law of universal occurrence, harmonising with everything which we know of our own or other worlds, PERIODIC return has been vaguely supposed to stamp the disorders where it was too striking to be overlooked as the exclusive offspring of a malarious or miasmatic atmosphere." "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 tumours, abscesses, and eruptions, typical of new-formed 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 these extracts not only have I given the doctrine of the Periodicity of Health and Disease in ALL Vitality, but the doctrine of Universal Periodicity-of the Periodicity of ALL NATURE! Further proofs, if further proofs be wanted, you will find in the volumes I have already placed in your possession; although in the list of your "Books Received" you have not thought it politic to include their names. Under these circumstances, to refuse to

print my charge against Dr. Laycock in the journal that contains his piracies, would be to refuse me common justice. It would be the act of one who has received stolen goods, knowing them to be stolen. By such a course you would reduce your periodical to the level of the British and Foreign Medical Review, the editor of which, Dr. Forbes, first misquoted, misrepresented, and then endeavoured to divide the honour of my discovery between your protégé, Dr. Laycock, and his Court colleague, Dr. Holland-Dr. Holland, whose plagiarisms I had so fully exposed in the volume Dr. Forbes pretended to criticise. In his number for January, 1843, Dr. Forbes damns the Doctrine of Periodicity and Remittency when it comes from me. Three short months afterwards, (April,) he has the effrontery to print the following:-"The intermittent nature of disease must most certainly be better understood before we can practise medicine scientifically."—" Dr. Holland has an interesting essay on the subject in his Medical Notes and Reflections, and more recently, Dr. Laycock has attempted to demonstrate a General Law of Periodicity.""If his researches prove to be correct, a considerable change must necessarily take place in both the theory and practice of medicine." Such baseness, Sir, is perhaps unparalleled in the history of any science. It has proved to me that I had neglected to make myself acquainted with one element of Periodicity -PERIODICAL rascality-an element, however, I am pretty well prepared to encounter, with the little monosyllable DATES. To these and to the public-if not to the profession-I appeal.

I am, Sir, your most obedient,

S. DICKSON. This letter not having appeared in the Lancet on the next day of publication, I again wrote to the Editor, Mr. Wakley, as follows:

April 29, 1843.

Sir, I herewith convey to you the Medical Times of this day, which contains the copy of a letter I addressed and sent to you on the day of its date, by post. As you have taken no notice of that letter in this day's Lancet, I infer that you suppose the Conductor of a Medical Journal may dispense with the common feelings of honour and justice, that every man pretending to the rank of a gentleman is careful to evince when appealed to, in your position. Therefore, I accuse you, Mr. Thomas Wakley, of having in the case of Dr. Laycock, received stolen goods, knowing them to be stolen-of being a party to a scandalous and contemptible literary swindle-get out of the matter how you can.

I am, Sir, your most obedient

S. DICKSON.

This letter at last brought a reply from Dr. Laycock, the nature of which will be seen by my rejoinder. In a subsequent number of the Lancet, Mr. Wakley condescended to denounce me as a Quack and a Bully!