yet the deviations from this state, and the general
species of diseases are almost infinite. Hence it will easily be
understood, that in the classes of medical remedies, there must likewise
he a great variety, and that some of them are even of opposite
tendencies. Such are both the warm and cold bath considered as medical
remedies. Though opposite to each other in their sensible effects, each
of them manifests its medical virtues, yet only in such a state of the
body as will admit of using it with advantage. From these premises, it
is evident that an universal remedy, or one that possesses healing
powers for the _cure of all diseases_, is, in fact, a non-entity, a mere
delusion, the existence of which is physically impossible, as the mere
idea of such a thing involves a contradiction. How, for instance, can it
he conceived, that the same remedy should be capable of restoring the
tone of the muscular fibres, when they are relaxed, and also have the
power of relaxing them when they are too rigid; that it should coagulate
the fluids when in a state of resolution, and again attenuate them when
they are too viscid; that it should moderate the nerves when in a state
of preturnatural sensibility, and likewise restore them to their proper
degree of irritability when they are in a contrary state.

The belief in an universal remedy has long been abandoned, even among
the vulgar, and long exploded in those classes of society, which are not
influenced by prejudice, or tinctured with fanaticism. It is, however,
sincerely to be regretted, that the daily press continues to be
inundated with advertisements; and that the lower, and less informed
class of the community, are still imposed upon by a set of privileged
impostors, who frequently puzzle the intelligent to decide, whether the
impudence or the industry with which they endeavour to establish the
reputation of their respective poisons, be the most prominent feature in
their character. In illustration of this last observation, it may
further be observed, that most of the nostrums advertised as cough
drops, etc., are preparations of opium, similar, but inferior, to the
well-known paregoric elixir of the shops, but disguised and rendered
more deleterious by the addition of heating and aromatic gums. The
injury which may be occasioned by the indiscriminate employment of such
medicines might be very serious and irremediable, as is well known to
every person possessing the smallest porti