d:

show of alleviating the terrible conditions under which they worked. The fact that Lister's system has resulted in an entire revolution in surgical methods is proof of the blindness which prejudice may engender even with the most cultured and enlightened of men.

This is well illustrated by the unreasoning spirit of opposition which is manifested to-day with regard to Homœopathy. From the first moment that Hahnemann enunciated his principle, 'Similia similibus curantur,' the profession were ready with scorn and contempt for anything so contrary to the accepted theories and practice of medicine. In spite, however, of the violence and truculent demeanour of its opponents the 'heresy' steadily gained ground, attracted enthusiastic adherents, and has been kept alive by converts from the ranks of the regular allopathic fraternity. Yet all the while they are ostracising the homoeopath, and casting ridicule upon his doses, they are depending less and less upon their drugs and 'mixtures,' and secretly adopting the very principles which openly they profess to despise. Dr Dyce Brown, who made a special study of the matter, 'finds no fewer than eighty separate remedies recommended by the most orthodox authorities, at one time or another (many of them by several physicians), for conditions to which they are distinctly homœopathic.' *

The whole conflict bids fair to result in a reductio ad absurdum, for, as Dr Wheeler puts it:

'The situation, therefore, is this-medicine to-day has accumulated observations and made innumerable experiments, but loses faith more and more in the possibilities of drug treatment. The leading text-books are filled with information as to diagnosis and pathology, but dismiss treatment with brevity almost amounting to despair. To rely on nursing, and to let the disease take its course, is the rule for acute diseases; for chronic disease there is treatment by diet and climate, rest and exercise, but, throughout, a general scepticism that the physician can help to give much aid in any direct manner, save for isolated instances wherein are recorded the few triumphs of empiricism.'†

No one to-day disputes the value of hypnotism as a

* Vide 'Permeation of Present Day Medicine by Homoeopathy,' by Dr Dyce Brown.

† VideKnaves or Fools,' by Chas. E. Wheeler, M.D., B.S., B.Sc., p. 14.

an

therapeutic agent, but we owe to the persistence and pluck of a Frenchman-Charcot of the Salpetrière Hospital, Paris-what we might have had from Englishman eighty years ago. John Elliotson, foremost among the eminent physicians of his day, was appointed Professor of the Practice of Medicine of the University of London in 1836. He was looked upon as one of the ablest thinkers. He became interested in the study of phrenology and this 'led him on to examine the empirical conditions in connexion with disease of the PseudoScience of Mesmer.' His investigations more than satisfied him, and he proceeded to give séances which became popular, and were attended by people of fashion and quality. His custom was to practise on epileptics and 'designing girls,' and the results which he obtained were regarded as nothing short of miraculous. But what happened? The profession were up in arms against him. Disputes between the council of University College, and his colleagues generally, became so acute that he was driven to resign his professorship in 1838.

It is, however, when the question of consumption is approached that one of the most serious charges against the profession arises. With the accumulation of pathological knowledge of recent years it is possible to-day to formulate the principles upon which the treatment of phthisis should be based; but it should never be forgotten that these very principles which science has revealed were recognised and practised by a village doctor in the Midlands as early as 1833.

Dr George Bodington was established at Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire. The recognised orthodox treatment of the consumption patients in those days was to keep them closely shut in, from fear of the evil influence of fresh air. As Bodington put it, they were forced to breathe over and over again the same foul air contaminated with the diseased effluvia of their own persons.' Common sense told him that this was wrong. He revolted, accordingly, against the pundits, established a home where he could carry out his principles, and taught that cold is never too intense for a consumptive patient, and the apartment should be kept well-aired, so that it should resemble the pure air outside, pure air being used in the treatment as much as possible. In

1840 he wrote an essay on 'The Cure of Pulmonary Consumption, on Principles National, Rational and Successful,' in which he insisted on the importance of a generous diet, fresh air day and night, together with systematic arrangements with regard to exercise and general treatment, and the watchfulness, almost hourly, over a patient, of a medical superintendent.

What happened again? It was suggested that he was mad, his patients were driven away, and he was compelled to turn his sanatorium-the first of the kind in the world-into an asylum for the insane. He pathetically wrote to his son, in 1866: 'I often think that when I am dead and buried, perhaps, the profession will be more disposed to do me justice than whilst I live.' It was not sufficient that he should suffer at the hands of his professional brethren; the reviewer got to work and joined in the attack. The 'Lancet' of July 1840 reviewed Bodington's pamphlet as follows:

'The modest and rational preface with which the author introduces to us his pamphlet on Pulmonary Consumption has so far influenced us that we shall merely give an outline of his principles, without expending any portion of our critical wrath on his very crude ideas and unsupported assertions. ... The measures then which Mr Bodington assures us have been " uniformly and completely successful in the treatment of several cases of tubercular consumption" are detailed in the following passages

...

'More agreeable and seductive medicaments could not certainly be found in any pharmacopœia; fresh morning air to make the patient breathe; good wine to bring down his pulse, a good dinner to make him fat and an opium pill to make him sleep, are all excellent remedies, if only they would have the desired effect.

'If there be symptoms physical and natural which clearly demonstrated the existence of ulceration or excavation of the lungs, or in other words constitute the last stage of consumption, then has Dr Bodington proved his case, and is entitled to national rewards equal, nay, superior, to those conferred on the illustrious Jenner.'

Forty-two years later the same Journal, oblivious of its previous verdict, could write as follows:

'It is remarkable that a village doctor should have arrived in 1840 at these conclusions, which anticipated some of our Vol. 247.-No. 490.

Y

most recent teachings. It is less remarkable that he met with the usual fate of those who question authority (sic). He was severely handled by the reviewers (sic), and so discouraged from pressing observations which might have been of the greatest value. In 1857, some years after he had given up general practice, a writer in the "Journal of Public Health" unearthed Dr Bodington's pamphlet, and did him tardy but ample justice. We are glad again to claim for a general practitioner the high credit of having been the first, or among the first, to advocate the rational and scientific treatment of pulmonary consumption.' *

Sir William McCormack's father, Dr Henry McCormack of Belfast, published a book on lines similar to Dr Bodington, and as a result had to bear every kind of persecution to which a man in his position could be subjected.' In 1861 he read a paper before the Medical and Chirurgical Society on 'The Absolute Preventability of Consumption,' whereupon a 'member of that enlightened body got up and asked that they should be "protected" against such papers.' Thus the traditional conservatism of the profession; the lack of perception, and the true scientific spirit on the part of the pundits retarded the development of the proper treatment of consumption, and incidentally condemned hundreds of thousands to a lingering death who might otherwise have been restored to health and usefulness. It was left to Germany to convince the faculty of what could be done under a wise and enlightened administration.†

When Lizars performed his first operation of ovariotomy he was met by his colleagues with threats of the coroner's court; and it was not until Charles Clay, Spencer Wells, Baker Brown, and Thomas Keith began work that the procedure was placed on a firm foundation. Though electricity was established on a scientific basis, three hundred years ago, by Dr William Gilbert, physician to Queen Elizabeth, it was not until the latter part of the 18th century that its value began to be appreciated. Bromide of Potassium, now recognised as one of the

* Vide 'Lancet,' March 11, 1882.

The founder of sanatorium treatment was Hermann Brehmer, who published a thesis in 1856, ‘Tuberculosis primis in studiis semper curatis.' In 1859 he was permitted, owing to the influence of his friends, Humboldt and Schönlein, to open a sanatorium at Gubendorf, and 1866 he published his well-known book.

most useful of remedies, was omitted from the London Pharmacopoeia in 1851 as being a 'useless drug.' When the laryngoscope was introduced the faculty sneered at it as a 'physiological toy.' The stethoscope was employed first by Laennec in 1819; but Sir Richard Quain remarked, in 1885, that it was used by but a few at the commencement of the second quarter of the century, and that he well remembered how an eminent hospital physician whom he had met in consultation characterised it as a 'dangerous instrument.'*

Is it to be wondered that men who could take a calm and dispassionate view of events, should sometimes be brought almost to despair? Sir William Hamilton was so disgusted that he asked, 'Has the practice of medicine made a single step since Hippocrates?' while the late Dr Arnold wrote, 'The philosophy of medicine is almost at zero; our practice is empirical, and seems hardly more than a course of guessing more or less happy.'

Nor does this lament seem an improper stricture when we consider the extraordinary way in which the physicians have executed a volte face time after time. To instance only the Uric Acid craze. For years nearly all the ailments and complaints of middle age have been ascribed to the presence of uric acid. Diet has been strictly imposed upon the unhappy patients; they have been denied nearly all the pleasures of the table until life has been rendered more miserable by the cure than by the disease. Sugar was anathema, red meat poison. Furthermore, it was said that nine people out of ten were over-eating, and busily engaged in digging their graves with their teeth. And now, after all these years of strenuous preaching, we are solemnly told that the whole thing is a delusion.

'Gout, rheumatism, and Bright's disease were of absolutely insignificant amount in the army. If anything were needed to give the final death-blow to the uric acid delusion it had been furnished by the war. The men had simply revelled in meat-red meat at that-three times a day, with abundance of sugar, sweet jams, tea and coffee. Yet gout was unknown, and rheumatism was rare .. Meat in liberal amounts had been shown to be one of the wholesomest possible of foods. . .

...