necessary to occupy time and space with the treatment pursued; suffice it to state that by a careful and persistent course of medication she recovered, but, unfortunately, was left with a chronic malady of the digestive organs which, as far as I know, was never removed.

""These serious effects, together with many unpleasant surroundings at the time naturally associated with the event produced a very unfavorable impression concerning the resin, and several years passed before I mustered courage to try it again in smaller doses, and which attempt was greatly owing to a conversation with Prof. W. Tully, M. D., of Yale College, New Haven, Conn., who, upon having related to him my fearful initiation into the use and action of resin of podophyllin, advised me to test it in much smaller doses; during this conversation he informed me that cimicifuga likewise contained a resin, and which I subsequently succeeded in obtaining. After having succeeded in testing podophyllum resin in several varieties of disease, I called attention to it in the Philosophical Medical Journal, of New York, Vol. I, page 160, 1844.o About a year after this latter publication, being in the drugstore of the late Mr. W. S. Merrell, at that time located at the northwest corner of Court and Plum Streets, Cincinnati, Ohio, he called my attention to two samples, one of podophyllum resin, the other of cimicifuga resin, about an ounce or so of each, which he said were made according to my directions in the Western Medical Reformer, and inquired if they were anything like those I had produced, and I answered that they were, and questioned him whether the Eclectic physicians of Cincinnati had tried them; he stated in reply that he had not been able to prevail on any one of them to prescribe them. According to the promise given to Mr. Merrell, I shortly afterward gave Prof. T. V. Morrow, M. D., a few hints as to the value of these resins, and it was not long before communications appeared from the pens of Professors Morrow, Hill, and others, in which the remedial virtues of these agents were highly lauded; from which time podophyllin, more especially, has been employed extensively by all classes of physicians. Yours truly,

"Cincinnati, June 14, 1887.

JOHN KING, M. D.'

"A careful review of the literature, and an intimate acquaintance with those connected with the introduction and discovery of the substance, enables the writer to say that without a question the

9 Also in Western Medical Reformer, April, 1846, page 176.-L.

foregoing comprises an authentic record of this valuable drug, which is now of world-wide reputation. It was the forerunner of the class of preparations that followed under the name 'resinoid' or 'concentration.'”

WHOLE DRUG PREPARATIONS VS. FRAGMENTS.—That plant medicines should be prepared to hold so far as possible the natural bonds of union of the characteristic structures found in the native state has been an oft-enunciated principle of latter-day Eclecticism. The divorcement of parent drug from broken out principles has been consistently opposed by leading Eclectic practitioners from the very beginning of our pharmacy, though early efforts at concentration were made by some. Even the latter proved to yield inferior medicines, and such methods were long ago relegated to the past history of experimental pharmacy so far as Eclecticism is concerned. Eclectics have from start to finish persistently and consistently demanded as nearly as possible whole plant medicines. They have done so because clinical experience, that best of medical teachers, has taught them that with energetic drugs the best, fullest, and most uniform results come from such medicines without the dangerous drug shock that so often comes from the administration of extremely toxic fragments-be they alkaloids or glucosides—even in the ordinarily approved dosage. On the contrary, it has also been observed that some presumably important fragments are not only not toxic but practically inert when compared with the drug from which they have been disrupted.

Notwithstanding the claims of some that an active principle represents the parent drug except in power, Eclectics who once went mad over proximates have claimed that proximate principles vary largely, so much so that products of different manufacturers are found to produce the most variable of results, and that many socalled active principles, even of presumed ultimates, fail to exert the same action and give the same therapeutic results. In this connection one has but to read the story of the so-called Aconitines.

When one has long known a therapeutic fact clinically learned, but has clinical observations only to corroborate his belief, it is at least gratifying to have a connected scientific truth uncovered that will substantiate his position. Eclectics have justly contended that aconitine no more represents aconite than atropine represents belladonna, or gelsemine gelsemium. Even old school authorities (now traveling over the old Eclectic road) admit that morphine, though

the chief alkaloid, nor any of the many principles of opium, singly or re-combined, do not represent the action of opium physiologically and that the therapeutic uses of the parent drug and its alkaloids are widely variant.

While the Eclectic has taken this ground he must not be misunderstood. To alkaloidal medication as such, through indications founded upon the long study and use of fragments, he is not antagonistic, nor does he deny to others the right to such a practice. He believes, however, that a more desirable practice comes from the use of whole drugs because certain alkaloids are often too energetic and less readily under the control of the prescriber. In other words, he regards it a far less safe therapy as now practiced. But what he objects to most strenuously, and rightly we believe the reader will concede, is what was pointed out by the writer in an early edition of the GLEANER, alkaloidal therapy teachings by indications not established upon a study of the use of alkaloids themselves, but upon the whole drugs from out of which the principles have been broken. Reasoning by kinship that such indications will apply is neither truthful nor just: for it is well-known that there are balanced therapeutic possibilities and power in such drug structures which have never been dissociated that can not possibly belong to an isolated fragment. Such power may be one of added strength or one of restraining influence. We assume that it is not fair to the practitioner to mislead him in this matter, nor to jeopardize the life or health of the sick by over or under medication through ill-adapted drug substances and ill-advised indications.

On the other hand the physician who uses natural drug compounds, upon indications founded upon such entire drugs, gets the fullest and best action of his medicine with the least variability and least danger of either toxic results on the one side or non-effect on the other. He has, too, a controllable medicine; and besides, he has the lessons of history to fortify him in the long and uniform testimony from the experience of Eclectic physicians in nearly fifty years' use of whole plant products. Few will gainsay the fact that the Eclectic physician has half a century of experience in these directions, nor will any one deny that our Eclectic pharmacists have advantages in the direction of proximate principle manufacture second to none, either as to experience or apparatus. The Eclectic knows and has tested the indications, which takes years to establish, founded upon drug integrity. He has found them to work out so

true that for ourselves we can see no reason why he should risk the substitution of a dangerously toxic alkaloid in preference to the more kindly methods known to him, particularly if the treatment be of women and children.

EXTRACT FROM DR. KING'S ANNUAL ADDRESS.

You are well aware that there are several schools of medicine in this country, among which one arrogantly assumes not only the title of being "regular," but also the right to abuse, misrepresent, and persecute all the others, and to deprive their followers of all the rights and privileges guaranteed to them as citizens and freemen of this Government-"to secure which for themselves and their posterity, our patriotic forefathers were willing to risk everything." The members of this self-styled regular school of medicine. bear themselves as if Heaven, which distributes its favor liberally and impartially to all, had conferred upon them knowledge, power, and prerogatives superior to all others; and they claim "the liberty of deciding for themselves, and also for others, on all matters in relation to medicine, and as this right of decision is claimed as an exclusive privilege, they give no intimations of charity for those who may differ from their peculiar views, whom they denounce as infamous and as unfit for honorable or respectable society, without regard to their greatness or goodness, the authority by which they have been governed, or the character which they have acquired by observing the laws of God and their country." Bear in mind, gentlemen, I refer to "regularism," so-called, in its mass, as a huge machine of despotism and usurpation, and not of its individual followers, among whom I am pleased to be able to state I have found many who are gentlemen and patriots in the truest sense of these words, and who form honorable exceptions to the general rule.

This spirit of tyranny, despotism, and persecution just referred to, although in existence since the commencement of reforms in medicine, has been especially manifested during the present Rebellion, and has been carried on unceasingly and with great vindictiveness of spirit, especially in our own State. At the commencement of the Rebellion they so influenced the individual whom we had assisted in making Governor of this State, that it became absolutely impossible for any physician not of their school, however well qualified he might be, to obtain a situation in our volunteer regiments as surgeon, assistant surgeon, or even hospital steward. They had managed to secure their own Board of Examiners, and to have all matters pertaining to medicine in the army arranged to suit their interests and selfish desires; and no candidate for examination was permitted to undergo an examination, however thorough may have been his qualifications.-Annual Address, Eclectic Medical Journal, 1865.

MODUS OPERANDI OF MERCURY.

This article is one of the earliest penned by Dr. King, and perhaps is the first to appear in an Eclectic medical publication. It is characteristic of the man, who ever sought to be fair to antagonists and bring about the desired reforms by educational methods. While many of the rank and file of the Reformers, and more especially those who took refuge under the banners of the new movement, were tactless, often uncultured, and more often abusive toward those of opposite faith, the leaders of the movement for medical Eclecticism preferred to use sound arguments and educational methods to gain their point. In the beginning mercury as well as other minerals were practically proscribed. With the leaders, however, there shortly came a change from proscription to restriction, and after the first few years Eclectic literature shows rather the trend toward a warfare against the abuse and not against the use of mercurials. Nevertheless, so well-grounded did the opposition become to this class of medicines, the horrors of which were everywhere apparent (and now admitted by old school writers), that few of the earlier Eclectics would ever employ a mercurial salt internally or externally; a prejudice still maintained by some Eclectic practitioners. Dr. King's paper was published at a time when nearly all the authorities of the old school disclaimed any knowledge of the manner in which mercury operated physiologically or chemically. The chemical theory he advanced, that it is converted into an oxide, though vaguely hinted at by others, became the prevailing theory for many years. Much dissension is shown at the present day over the question as to the form in which mercury enters the circulation, some contending as an oxyalbuminate, or with Miahl of France, that all mercury compounds are transformed into the bichloride in the stomach and bowels, and uniting in the blood with sodium chloride, become converted into a double chloride of sodium and mercury; or with Henoch of Germany, that an albuminate is produced, or as claimed by Voit, also of Germany, a chloroalbuminate. It is generally accepted that it is eliminated as an albuminate. "All these theories," says Hare, "as to its absorption are open to grave criticism." Therefore it would appear that with all the enlightenment possible from the advantages of chemical and physiologic equipment of to-day, we are little nearer an explanation of the modus operandi of the mercurials than was the scientific physician of seventy years ago. John King's theory as to its absorption as an oxide lacked but a step to that now accepted by many-that it enters the circulation as an oxyalbuminate. It must be remembered that the chemistry of the albumens is of much more recent elaboration. The value of this paper consists in exhibiting the fact that the early Eclectics were not wholly uncultivated nor ignoramuses, as some would have us believe, but that such leaders as King were thoroughly