nce between that practice of our profession
which, as a general rule, excludes medicine, and that which, as a
general rule, includes it. And an entire change from the latter to the
former, is, perhaps, too great to be expected immediately. Yet, in the
progress of society towards a more perfect millennial state of things,
must it not come?

CHAPTER CI.

CONCLUDING REMARKS.

It is a notorious fact, that while the number of physicians and the
expenditure for drugs and medicines is constantly increasing, in every
civilized country where they have been much employed, diseases have been
multiplied in proportion. Perhaps, too, they have, in a like proportion,
become more fatal; but this does not so clearly appear. Nor is it quite
so certain that acute diseases have been multiplied, as chronic ones.

Another fact deserves to be placed by the side of this; viz., that in
those countries, or portions of country, where no physicians have ever
been in vogue, and very little medicine beyond a few herbs, and roots,
and incantations, or charms, the health of the people is quite as good,
and the longevity quite as great, all other things being equal, as in
those countries and places where physicians and medicine have obtained a
strong foothold.

There is no evidence that the want of physicians before the flood,--if
such a want or deficiency there was, which appears probable,--had any
influence in shortening human life, since Methuselah, who lived at the
end of the series, was the oldest of all. Nor does it appear at all
probable that there were more diseases, or more fatal ones, at that
early period, than since.

One thought more. It is confidently expected that a better day than the
present is yet to dawn upon our dark world. Not only is it predicted
that the child shall die a hundred years old, by the highest authority,
and that men, like the oak tree, shall live several hundred years, but
profane writers no less than prophets and sacred ones, have expected
and still expect it. The better time coming is, as it were, in
everybody's mouth.

But, is it probable that this better day will dawn on a world which, in
respect to health and longevity, is going in the other direction? While
nearly half our children die under ten years of age, and the mortality
is increasing, are we tending towards the point when a child shall die a
hundred years old? And are our physicians and our medicines likely to
bring us there?

If not, a