disease, there is very much _doubtful_, which is
received as _sure_? And in therapeutics, is it better yet, or worse?
Have we judged--have we deduced our results, especially in the last
science--from _all_, or from a selection of facts?

"Do we know, for example, in how many instances such a treatment fails,
for the one time it succeeds? Do we know how large a proportion of cases
would get well without any treatment, compared with those that recover
under it? Do not imagine, my dear father, that I am becoming a sceptic
in medicine. It is, not quite as bad as that. I shall ever believe, _at
least_, that the rules of _hygeia_ must be and are useful, and that he
only can understand and value them, who has studied pathology. Indeed, I
may add that, to a certain extent, I have seen demonstrated the actual
benefit of certain modes of treatment in acute diseases. But, is this
benefit immense? When life is threatened, do we very often save it? When
a disease is destined by _Nature_ to be long, do we very often
materially diminish it?"

It is worthy of remark, that the discussions in the pages of the _Boston
Medical and Surgical Journal_, for two or three years past, concerning
the treatment of scarlatina, have usually resulted, practically, in
favor of the no-medicine system. It clearly appears that the less our
reliance on medicine, in this disease, the better. But what shall hinder
or prevent our coming to similar results, in the investigation, in time
to come, of other diseases?

Dr. Reynolds, one of the most aged as well as most distinguished medical
men of Boston, has been heard to affirm that if one hundred patients
were to call on him during the day, and he could induce them to follow
such directions as would keep them from injuring themselves from eating
and drinking,--no matter what the disease,--he should be surprised at a
mortality of more than three per cent of their number; and he should
_not_ be surprised if every one who implicitly followed his direction
should finally recover.

I will only add, in this place, the testimony of two or three
distinguished individuals on this subject, whose opinion, though they
were not medical men, will with many have weight, as it certainly ought.

Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Dr. Caspar Wistar, of Philadelphia,
thus writes: "I have lived to see the disciples of Hoffman, Boerhaave,
Stahl, Cullen, and Brown succeed each other, like the shifting figures
of a magic lantern..