cant humours may be localized in some
particular organ or special portion, and erysipelatous inflammation,
mortification, or other such manifestations ensue. It is in aiding this
elimination from the system that the physician may signally manifest his
skill. His power is displayed much more at this epoch than by the
control he can exert over the process of coction. Now may he invoke the
virtues of the hellebores, the white and the black, now may he use
elaterium. The critical days which answer to the periods of the process
of coction are to be watched with anxiety, and the correspondence of the
state of the patient with the expected condition which he ought to show
at those epochs ascertained. Hence the physician may be able to predict
the probable course of the disease during the remainder of its career,
and gather true notions as to the practice it would be best for him to
pursue to aid Nature in her operations.

[Sidenote: The character of his practice.]

It thus appears that the practice of medicine in the hands of
Hippocrates had reference rather to the course or career of disease than
to its special nature. Nothing more than this masterly conception is
wanted to impress us with his surprizing scientific power. He watches
the manner in which the humours are undergoing their fermenting coction,
the phenomena displayed in the critical days, the aspect and nature of
the critical discharges. He does not attempt to check the process going
on, but simply to assist the natural operation.

When we consider the period at which Hippocrates lived, B.C. 400, and
the circumstances under which he had studied medicine, we cannot fail to
admire the very great advance he made. His merit is conspicuous in
rejecting the superstitious tendency of his times by teaching his
disciples to impute a proper agency to physical causes. He altogether
discarded the imaginary influences then in vogue. For the gods he
substituted, with singular felicity, Impersonal Nature. It was the
interest of those who were connected with the temples of Aesculapius to
refer all the diseases of men to supernatural agency; their doctrine
being that every affliction should be attributed to the anger of some
offended god, and restoration to health most certainly procured by
conciliating his power. So far, then, as such interests were concerned,
any contradiction of those doctrines, any substitution of the material
for the supernatural, must needs have met with re