olently opposed by both doctors and
ministers.

A belief in such a theory would lead naturally to simplicity in
therapeutics, and in this respect at least Stahl was consistent. Since
the soul knew more about the body than any physician could know, Stahl
conceived that it would be a hinderance rather than a help for the
physician to interfere with complicated doses of medicine. As he
advanced in age this view of the administration of drugs grew upon him,
until after rejecting quinine, and finally opium, he at last used only
salt and water in treating his patients. From this last we may judge
that his "system," if not doing much good, was at least doing little
harm.

The theory of the Vitalists was closely allied to that of the Animists,
and its most important representative, Paul Joseph Barthez, was a
cultured and eager scientist. After an eventful and varied career as
physician, soldier, editor, lawyer, and philosopher in turn, he finally
returned to the field of medicine, was made consulting physician by
Napoleon in 1802, and died in Paris four years later.

The theory that he championed was based on the assumption that there was
a "vital principle," the nature of which was unknown, but which differed
from the thinking mind, and was the cause of the phenomena of life. This
"vital principle" differed from the soul, and was not exhibited in human
beings alone, but even in animals and plants. This force, or whatever it
might be called, was supposed to be present everywhere in the body, and
all diseases were the results of it.

The theory of the Organicists, like that of the Animists and Vitalists,
agreed with the other two that vital activity could not be explained by
the laws of physics and chemistry, but, unlike them, it held that it
was a part of the structure of the body itself. Naturally the practical
physicians were more attracted by this tangible doctrine than by vague
theories "which converted diseases into unknown derangements of some
equally unknown 'principle.'"

It is perhaps straining a point to include this brief description of
these three schools of medicine in the history of the progress of the
science. But, on the whole, they were negatively at least prominent
factors in directing true progress along its proper channel, showing
what courses were not to be pursued. Some one has said that science
usually stumbles into the right course only after stumbling into all
the wrong ones; and if this be only p