||

ferred to acknowledge their merits till she saw them on their deaths, surrounded with that halo of immortality which all the nations of the earth united to bestow on them.

Such is the groundwork of the Chrono- || warming sun never shone ;—she all but deThermal System-so called from Chronos, Time or Period; and Thermà, Temperature or Heat. This I gave to the public in 1836. Then, for the first time, I announced the appalling fact, that up to that hour the The Chrono-Thermal System of Medicine Professors of the Healing Art had been, to has shared the fate of every truly great disa man, in all but utter darkness on the covery. Translated, reprinted, and lauded subject they pretended to teach. From abroad, it was first denied, decried, then plathe days of Hippocrates, I indisputably giarized at home. And now, at the eleventh proved, that when the Physician succeeded hour (or year!) when France, Germany, in the Cure of Disease, he did so-in Irish Sweden, and America, havə each come forphrase-by accident, on purpose! Thirty ward to speak to its worth, I, its author, centuries and upwards the Blind had been find myself here in England exposed to the leading the Blind in Medicine—the right hourly abuse of men who gain their bread way sometimes-more frequently the wrong! by practising in secret, or under some paltry Was it wonderful that a revelation so start- disguise, the very principles they have surling should come upon the Profession like a reptitiously pilfered from me! Who does thunderbolt? Silently, secretly, however, not remember the London practice of Physic it has been gaining converts ever since only ten years ago-the barbarities practised from their ranks. Like the Religion of the under the name of medicine? Leech, lancet, Reformation in its earlier struggles, the and calomel-where are they now-those Chrono-Thermal System has been embraced so-called sheet-anchors of the Medical Art? and practised by thousands who have nei- The change that in that short time has ther the courage nor the honesty to dare been accomplished in Physic, is not less great the avowal. To those gallant men, who have || than what has taken place in our mode of openly come forward to bear testimony to locomotion through the agency of steam. its worth, I want words to express my gra- Ten years ago, where was the madman so titude. How but for them could I have so foolhardy as to declare the Lancet could be long stood against the organised opposition dispensed with in Apoplexy? Nearly ten of the Schools-the Brodies, the Chambers', years it is, however, since I first had to run the Clarks, who, with their clique of pe- the moral gauntlet for explaining, not only dantic, sycophantic supporters, conspired to that this could be done, but that the emcry me down for my efforts to cleanse the ployment of the Lancet is the most certain Augean Stable of British Medical practice of course to render that disease fatal! And its filth and corruption? Could the London here have we now, in 1845, Books, Pamworld but know the arts by which certain phlets, and Reviews, all corroborating the men have got a name, with what astonish- fact, but studiously concealing the name of ment would it stare to find itself precisely in him who first announced it! The Editor the position of a deluded savage, when, for the of the Medical Times, for one, will not first time, he discovered the utter worthless- deny, that, when he first printed, as a marvel, ness of the red and green glass, for which, a case of Apoplexy that had been successyear after year, he had been unsuspiciously fully treated without Bleeding by Mr. Baldy, bartering his wealth! In the dark, pigmies of Devonport, such was his dread of the seem giants; Britain only knows her great professional conspiracy against me, he was men when they are dead. On Harvey and obliged to draw his pen through the Jenner, while they lived, the beams of her passage in the narration that alluded to

Dr. Dickson as the first teacher of the new treatment!

of the medical world-the Brodies, the Chambers', and others of that stamp, who Nothing can more forcibly show the va- have so long led the Profession by the nose, lue of an article, than attempts to steal it. and the public by the ear! Winter after Would a pick-pocket risk detection for an winter in their Lectures at St. George's empty purse? The first who committed Hospital, did Sir Benjamin Brodie and himself in this manner was Dr. Henry Dr. Chambers assure their worshipping puHolland, a physician of the Court. In pils that the Lancet and the Leech are the sheet-anchors of Apoplexy. "Bleed! bleed! bleed !" was their cry-and bleed, bleed, bleed! was their practice. Of what slaughter have not these men been the cause? Said I not truly, The Blind have been leading the Blind in medicine! By the terrible doctrines they have so long taught, must Sir B. Brodie and Dr. Chambers now stand or fall. Among the multitude of fools they may still find patients. The clique of sycophants who professionally support them, already begin to turn with the turning

1839, Dr. Holland, for the first time, hazarded as a prophecy, what I had not only proved, but printed as a fact in 1836,namely, the Intermittency of all Disease. Then, too, for the first time, he suggested as a probable danger, the employment of the Lancet in Apoplexy. Successively and under new disguises, new plagiarisms followed. Sir C. Bell, Hood, Copeman, Dr. Searle, and others, pretending to repudiate the Chrono-thermal principle, adopted the Chrono-thermal practice. I know not if Dr. Searle be the same person who sent me his pamphlet about the Gases, "with the author's respectful compliments and admiration" inscribed on the title page. Some such similar expression in the body of the book he lately printed, "On the Tonic Treatment of Diseases of the Brain,” would have spared me the necessity of telling the world that the practice he advocates in those diseases is borrowed entirely from me. Sir George Lefevre, I regret to find, has followed in the same slippery track-quoting Dr. Holland, instead of me, on the subject of Apoplexy. "Dr. Baillie said in his day that Palsy was upon the increase. It is not improbable (remarks Sir George) that the UNIVERSAL system of Blood-letting upon all such attacks, and even threatenings of them, has converted remedial into incurable diseases. Paralysis has sometimes immediately followed the depletion intended to prevent apoplexy." Here the practice he condemns is admitted to be "universal.” To whom must we attribute this universality of a bad practice? To whom but to the teachers in the various medical schools-the so-called leaders

The Chrono-thermal principle is denied, disguised, plagiarized, and whispered away -the Chrono-thermal practice secretly triumphs in every hand! Dr. Copland, it is true, in his peculiar fashion, has admitted the correctness of both; but to account for it, he contends, that within the last fiveand-twenty years Disease has changed its type-that the physical constitution of man has changed its character! Pity he did not sooner announce his discovery! For something like five-and-twenty years has this very Dr. Copland been ever and anon favouring the public with his notions about Medicine. But not till the year of Grace

1844, did he tell the benighted world, that || obscurity, by clinging to the mantles of the

truly great men who belong to it. Of this exceptional class is Doctor Laycock. To him and to his doings, the censures of the Times completely apply. He began at York.

the diseases of mankind had ceased to be continual, and had all [to gratify Dr. Dickson?] taken on the Intermittent Type-that the Lancet and the Leech must, henceforth, give way to Bark and Tonics "even in inflam- || At York, in 1842, by means of a false tail mation of the chest!" Ah! Dr. Copland, || and other Yorkshire tricks, he disfigured why not confess at once you had just been taking a peep at Disease through Dr. Dickson's spectacles? As it is, you have unwittingly paid him a compliment at the expense of your integrity, your honour, and your understanding. The Type of Disease change! Forms change; Types are immutable! A Continual Disease! Who ever heard of an eternal tempest or an eternal storm? From the beginning of Time there never was a continual disease-a continual tempest of the Human body! How degrading these piratical attempts to take my Bark, and throw its owner overboard! They afford an index, however, to the present morale of the Profession. Vain will be its calls upon any government to reform it, till its members shall have first individually learnt to reform themselves.

and disguised my hobby, Vital Periodicity, to pass it off afterwards as his own at one of the meetings of the British Association. Not content with this, he did the same in the Lancet; and, some time after, he repeated the offence in Forbes' Medical Review -that well-known receptacle of stolen property. Blush! Messrs. Chambers, for having allowed him to do the same in your respectable Edinburgh Journal. As a specimen of the false tail he tacked to my hobby, let me give the first joint :-"A day of twelve hours," quoth Laycock, "is the basil unit of Vital Periodicity." The merest schoolboy could tell him, that a day, being the measure of one full revolution of the Earth, takes twenty-four, instead of twelve hours, for its accomplishment; and that the basil unit of all Periodicity must necessarily be the smallest portion of Time the mind can imagine -a second being sufficient for every practical purpose. My letters in the Medical Times very speedily stripped this jackdaw of his borrowed feathers. With a perseverance, however, worthy of a better cause, I find him again at his tricks with the British. Association. Only within the last few weeks, the Botanical and Zoological Section of that

Among the pitiful persons who have been thus amusingly employing themselves, I must not forget to notice a country practitioner, of the name of Laycock, who figures as a member of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. "The British Association," we are told by the Times newspaper, "began at York ;-what it has brought forward, of new, is not true-what, of true, is not new!" From this sweep-body-all doctors of course-appointed a ing condemnation of the Times I wholly dissent. The Herschells, the Bucklands, the Sedgwicks, the Murchisons,-Faraday, Brewster, Airey, have laboured too successfully in science, not to rebut with all sensible people, this language of the Times. These, with other illustrious names, belong to the British Association. But, unfortunately, connected with it also, is a rather noisy class of people-principally of the Doctor tribe-who hope to emerge from

committee to inquire into the "Periodicity of Plants and Animals,"-got up, I happen to know, at the instance of Mr. Laycock, to shield him and his delinquencies from the scorn and contempt of a profession he, and so many people like him, have degraded. Oh for the Report of this precious Committee! The Periods of sowing, planting, flowering, and reaping," annuals," "biennials," "septennials," and so forth,-taker. for the nonce from the Gardeners' Chronicle,

when prettily dressed up with a certain imposing technicality of manner, will furnish forth a highly original dish on the Periodicity of Plants. While the plundered contents of my volume, variously distorted, and mixed up with the history and habits of Birds and Beasts,-not forgetting the nidification, egg-hatching, and breeding of the genus "Goose" and class " Reptile," the cackling and slimy creatures with which they are so familiar,—will be reproduced as a scientific novelty on Animal Periodicity. On this particular occasion the pilfering Magpie, by desire, will be left out; so also,

perhaps, will be the mare's nest of "a day of twelve hours." The whole performance, however, to conclude with a handsome compliment to the talented author of the discovery-Doctor Laycock, the quondam York apothecary. Alas! for the learned Laycock

-to have his name and his fame withered in a moment by a slight comparison of the little word, DATES. For these and some amusing Facts, I refer the Reader to the correspondence in the Appendix.

28, Bolton Street, Piccadilly,
September, 1845.

TO THE READERS OF CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL.

No. 22, New Series of Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, contains an article, entitled, "Persecution of New Ideas," which Messrs. Chambers deliberately print as an extract "from a private pamphlet," although word for word, that article is taken from Dr. Dickson's "Fallacies of the Faculty." In a subsequent number, (36,) appears another article, headed, "What to Do in Cases of Accident-Blood-letting." Every argument in that article against the operation in such cases, is borrowed, without acknowledgment, from the same work. But the worst is to come. Messrs. Chambers, to whom the "Fallacies of the Faculty" was submitted three years ago, with a view to the publication of a People's Edition, cannot possibly be ignorant of Dr. Dickson's claim to the discovery of the Periodicity of all Vital Phenomena. That great truth is the main feature of the Book, and it forms the basis of the Chrono-thermal System of Medicine, of which he is the founder. Messrs. Chambers, nevertheless, in their Journal, (No. 38,) published an article on the "Periodicity of Vital Phenomena," wherein they not only take care to exclude all mention of Dr. Dickson, but absolutely go out of their way to repeat an attempt of certain Medical Journals, to give the merit of his discovery to an obscure practitioner, of the name of Laycock, who impudently plagiarized it. How that Plagiarism was exposed-the facts and dates by which the discovery was substantiated may be seen at length in the pages of the Medical Times, and in the Appendix to this work.

Bolton Street, September, 1845.

S. DICKSON.

DR. TURNER'S INTRODUCTION

THE AMERICAN EDITION.