Veratrum viride does the same thing. How do we
know that a rapid pulse is not a normal adjustment of nature to the
condition it accompanies? Digitalis has gone out of favor; how sure are
we that Veratrum viride will not be found to do more harm than good in
a case of internal inflammation, taking the whole course of the disease
into consideration? Think of the change of opinion with regard to the
use of opium in delirium tremens (which you remember is sometimes called
delirium vigilans), where it seemed so obviously indicated, since the
publication of Dr. Ware's admirable essay. I respect the evidence of
my contemporaries, but I cannot forget the sayings of the Father of
medicine,--Ars longa, judicium difficile.

I am not presuming to express an opinion concerning Veratrum viride,
which was little heard of when I was still practising medicine. I am
only appealing to that higher court of experience which sits in judgment
on all decisions of the lower medical tribunals, and which requires more
than one generation for its final verdict.

Once change the habit of mind so long prevalent among practitioners of
medicine; once let it be everywhere understood that the presumption is
in favor of food, and not of alien substances, of innocuous, and not
of unwholesome food, for the sick; that this presumption requires very
strong evidence in each particular case to overcome it; but that, when
such evidence is afforded, the alien substance or the unwholesome food
should be given boldly, in sufficient quantities, in the same spirit as
that with which the surgeon lifts his knife against a patient,--that
is, with the same reluctance and the same determination,--and I think
we shall have and hear much less of charlatanism in and out of the
profession. The disgrace of medicine has been that colossal system of
self-deception, in obedience to which mines have been emptied of their
cankering minerals, the vegetable kingdom robbed of all its noxious
growths, the entrails of animals taxed for their impurities,
the poison-bags of reptiles drained of their venom, and all the
inconceivable abominations thus obtained thrust down the throats of
human beings suffering from some fault of organization, nourishment, or
vital stimulation.

Much as we have gained, we have not yet thoroughly shaken off the notion
that poison is the natural food of disease, as wholesome aliment is
the support of health. Cowper's lines, in "The Task," show the
matter-of