ain invariable
remedies prepared without fraud. Of course it is self-evident that when
old Pare eulogized 'sack medicine' and ordered his patients to carry
pulverized medicaments in a little sack whose form varied according to
the organ to be healed, assuming the form of a cap for the head, of a
bagpipe for the stomach, of an ox tongue for the spleen, he probably did
not obtain very signal results. His claim to have cured gastralgia by
appositions of powder of red rose, coral and mastic, wormwood and mint,
aniseed and nutmeg, is certainly not to be borne out, but he also had
other systems, and often he cured, because he possessed the science of
simples, which is now lost.

"The present-day physicians shrug their shoulders when the name of
Ambrose Pare is mentioned. They used to pooh-pooh the idea of the
alchemists that gold had medicinal virtue. Their fine scorn does not now
prevent them from using alternate doses of the salts and of the filings
of this metal. They use concentrated arseniate of gold against anemia,
muriate against syphilis, cyanide against amenorrhea and scrofula, and
chloride of sodium and gold against old ulcers. No, I assure you, it is
disgusting to be a physician, for in spite of the fact that I am a
doctor of science and have extensive hospital experience I am quite
inferior to humble country herborists, solitaries, who know a great deal
more than I about what is useful to know--and I admit it."

"And homeopathy?"

"It has some good things about it and some bad ones. It also palliates
without curing. It sometimes represses maladies, but for grave and acute
cases it is impotent, just like this Mattei system, which, however, is
useful as an intermediary to stave off a crisis. With its blood-and
lymph-purifying products, its antiscrofoloso, its angiotico, its
anti-canceroso, it sometimes modifies morbid states in which other
methods are of no avail. For instance, it permits a patient whose
kidneys have been demoralized by iodide of potassium to gain time and
recuperate so that he can safely begin to drink iodide again!

"I add that terrific shooting pains, which rebel even against chloroform
and morphine, often yield to an application of 'green electricity.' You
ask me, perhaps, of what ingredients this liquid electricity is made. I
answer that I know absolutely nothing about it. Mattei claims that he
has been able to fix in his globules and liquors the electrical
properties of certain plants, but