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cause the kidneys are stationed as guards to remove certain material from the blood, and when such remedies are absorbed the kidneys. act upon them. The class of restoratives are very marked examples. Give a patient iron and the system acts upon it and appropriates a portion as the basis of red globules, just as it acts upon a beefsteak and appropriates it to form a pabulum for the nitrogenized tissues.-JOHN M. SCUDDER, M. D., Eclectic Medical Journal, 1865.

CONTAGION BY MILK.

CONTAGION BY MILK.-I am well satisfied that there are many causes of disease which may be discovered and removed, and it is as much the physician's duty to look after them as to administer remedies.

Among the most fertile causes is a bad condition of the cellars of houses. Provisions will be kept in places where the air is so filthy that the wonder is, not that it produces disease, but that it does not breed an epidemic. I have eaten at houses where articles of food, otherwise well prepared, had so bad an odor due to bad cellarage that I could not touch them.

It is not only milk that is capable of absorbing these poisons, but various other kinds of food, especially when they are stood in such places after cooking. Much of the stuff sold by our city hucksters is thus tainted. A very common place of storing with them is under the bed, sometimes in dark rooms, and in miserable, dirty cellars. I have purchased sweet potatoes in market in the winter time that developed the catty smell so strongly on baking that the cook was forced to throw them into the garbage barrel.— SCUDDER, Editorial, Eclectic Medical Journal, 1871.

"Wherefore, laying aside every weight, and the sins which doth so easily beset us, let us run with patience the race set before us."

I am an admirer of Paul: setting aside the religious character of his teachings, the wonderful insight which he had into the motives of men make them valuable in every pursuit of life. I use his language with all due reverence, and I use it because it so well expresses a truth that we would do well to consider.

A moment's thought will show that the field for sermonizing is very extensive. There is no pursuit in life in which it does not point the way to success. To the young man commencing the practice of medicine it is peculiarly applicable. We all carry weights, in the form of prejudices, ignorance, passions uncontrolled, etc., that prevent the attainment of that success which we may anticipate. If we can lay aside these weights and the sins. which so easily beset us, we will find our progress in life more rapid and our lot in life much pleasanter.

But we desire to apply Paul's teaching to Eclecticism as a school of medicine. Though we have made rapid progress in numbers and influence, and are stronger to-day than we have been before, we have not accomplished as much as we ought, and there have been times when the movement has retrograded. Why? We have carried dead weights, and we have had certain besetting sins which were unpleasant. Let us examine some of them:

Thomsonianism, or the idea that a doctor could be grown from a $25 patented book and a few herbs, without education, has been a persistent incubus. There is no use for medical colleges, or an extended curriculum of study;--read our books, we tell it so plainly that the wayfaring man can understand-put it in practice, with much cursing of the Old-School, and success is yours.

"Give a dog a bad name," etc., is an old saw that has a great deal of meaning. Steam doctor! Botanic! Root and herb doctor! etc., etc., have been dead weights that we were obliged to carry,in part because we affiliated with Botanics, but principally from their continued application to us by our competitors.

Success brought its usual crowd of parasites. As Eclecticism became popular, Jones, Brown, and Simpkins, who had gathered all they knew of medicine from Thomson's book or Beach's Family Practice, became Eclectics; and we had to stand godfather to their ignorance and malpractice. The thought of some of these deadweights and their miserable and ridiculous errors is enough to make one sick of his profession.

The demand for Eclectic physicians outrunning its supply brought, as we might expect, considerable imperfect material, but we could congratulate ourselves that our condition was not worse than that of our regular opponents. But the whims or private interests of those conducting our medical colleges put down the fees and opened the doors to promiscuous graduation. Honorary degrees were issued to those who could n't come; they were called honorary, but with a few exceptions they were dishonorable to all parties concerned.

Medical colleges sprang up in the larger cities, which was well enough; but of the Faculties, the less said, the better. They taught crudely; and their students failed in that primary training so essential to true success. But in one thing they did not fail,-to give the pupil an exaggerated idea of the resources of Eclecticismand its adaptation to the treatment of chronic disease. Such colleges, such professors, such teachings have been constant deadweights, and if it had not been for the miserable practice of our opponents and a few good men that furnished our text-books, it would have wrecked us long since.

The treatment of chronic disease has been one of our besetting sins. The first card the beginner would issue would have on it, "Special attention given to the treatment of chronic disease, and the diseases of women." The business of the young man is to es

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tablish a creditable reputation as a general practitioner, in which by study and experience he may fit himself for the treatment of these affections after some years' service. Not that the young physician may not treat chronic disease from the first, but it must not be the first object.

Curing cancer has been one of our besetting sins, and cancer doctor one of the dead-weights we have had to carry. Now, Eclectics, as a rule, make no profession of curing cancer,-they treat it as they treat other diseases, and in some of its forms, with success; but they are ready to acknowledge that, in the main, the treatment thus far is not a success.

Cursing the Old-School, heaping maledictions on bleeding, mercury, antimony, arsenic, etc., is another dead-weight peculiarly Eclectic; so much so, indeed, that some of our physicians, and even some professors, have deemed it the very essence of Eclecticism, and claim that so soon as one quits "cussing" in this way he should no longer be recognized.

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Now, "cussing," to be followed as a business, needs to be profitable; if it does not advance your interests, "cuss not at all." Let Flagstaff speak for us: "Well, 't is no matter; cursing pricks me "Yea, but how if cursing pricks me off when I come on? how then? Can cursing set a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Cursing has no skill in surgery then? No." And though we have parodied Shakspeare, yet we find, in fact, that this kind of cursing is not usually associated with skill, in medicine or surgery.

We might enumerate other weights and sins that we carry along with us, and which obstruct our progress, but we have said enough to call attention to some salient points, and the reader may make the application further.

But one asks, had these things not better be covered up? Are you not giving our Old-School friends a whip to scourge us? My dear sir, our Old-School neighbors have enough to do to take care. of their own household, as have our Homœopathic friends, and if we wait until they have purged themselves, we need fear no annoyance for years to come.

But it is best for us to slough off these dead-weights and the sins which so easily beset us, and with patience run the race set before us the attainment of a rational practice of medicine.SCUDDER, Editorial, Eclectic Medical Journal, 1871.

FOOD AND SPECIFIC MEDICATION.-"Looking farther [than medicines] we will see the necessity, in one case of histogenetic food, in another of calorifacient, in one of iron, in another of phosphorus, etc. It is just as much specific medication to be able to select the proper food for the sick as it is the proper medicine." -DR. JOHN M. SCUDDER, Specific Medication, p. 19.

PROLEGOMENA.

The following is Dr. Scudder's first editorial upon assuming coeditorship of the Eclectic Medical Journal and is the beginning of his editorial career. His policy is clearly stated-the expression of truth and his honest convictions-hewing to the line, no matter where the chips might chance to fall. Great fidelity to this purpose may be traced throughout all his written utterances. He contended always that "honesty is the best policy." His retrospective view of Eclectic medicine was not comforting to him and he promised better things to come. No standstill policy would be tolerated; for not to go ahead was to be run over. His manly appeal had its effect, and Eclecticism took on renewed life.-Ed. Gleaner.

PROLEGOMENA.-Having been invited to assist in editing the Journal for the coming year, I make my best bow to its readers, wishing them a happy New Year. What I shall write for these pages will be my honest convictions; and if I should chance to tread on anybody's corns, I beg their pardon beforehand, with the advice that they speedily consult their chiropodist as to the advantage resulting from extraction versus compression. As we enter upon the new year, it becomes us to look back at the past, and see what progress we, as Eclectics, have made in improving the art of healing. For my part, the restrospect is not very flattering. I see, in years gone by, a class of earnest seekers after truth; men of strong wills, keen discrimination, and unwavering perseverance, who were attracted to Eclecticism by their love for truth—who pursued the study of medicine continuously, devotedly, oftentimes under the most discouraging circumstances; but who attained results of the most flattering character. They were the men who proved to the people the great advantages of this reform in medicine, and who fixed it on a firm foundation. They were, doubtless, not as well polished as our physicians now; but they were better diagnosticians and therapeutists. We want more energy, greater diligence, and less disposition to settle back upon the reputation Eclecticism has already obtained with the people. Couple this with our increase of physiological and pathological knowledge, and the really good remedies lately introduced, and we will be able to chronicle progress in years to come. We will have to inake prog

ress, for old-school medicine, which was left so far behind, is following us with giant strides, appropriating our therapeutic resources, and wielding them with such skill, as to take away, in some sections, the prestige which appears to be, to some extent, the modern eclectic's capital. We must go ahead, or be run over. If our practitioners will put their shoulders to the wheel-go at it in earnest, and report through the Journal, or otherwise, 1861 will be a year that can be marked with a white stone.-SCUDDER, Eclectic Medical Journal, 1861.

ECLECTICISM VS. OLD SCHOOL.

This keen and incisive editorial shows well the fearlessness with which Dr. Scudder met current problems. In the early years of the Rebellion it was with great difficulty that Eclectic physicians could obtain appointments as army surgeons, and when a few were so appointed they were made the target for medical oppression from the dominant party as soon as it discovered their medical allegiance. This bar to public preferment was intended as a deathblow to Eclecticism, but it had the opposite effect of creating sympathy and upbuilding private practice. Dr. Scudder showed clearly that Eclecticism was far from being a corpse; in fact, that it was not even in a dying mood. The last paragraph is a keen thrust of historic comparison.-Ed. Gleaner.

ECLECTICISM VERSUS OLD SCHOOL.-Our Old School neighbors have been bragging a great deal of late about the deathblow they are striking at Eclecticism in the appointment of army surgeons. We admit that it has been a deathblow, but instead of falling upon us, it has fallen upon the army. It is true they have manifested a spirit of intolerance that would have conferred a saintship on a member of the Inquisition, and if they can obtain any satisfaction from the fact that they have prevented true and loyal men from being of service to the neglected sick and wounded, who have volunteered to defend the Union, they are welcome to it. We have, however, surgeons in the army, and quite a number of them at that, but they are so hampered by their Old School associates, that their positions are not very pleasant. For instance, a very estimable and talented man, surgeon of one of the Indiana regiments in Tennessee, let it be known that he was an Eclectic. Immediately the brigade surgeon called a special commission to examine him as to his qualifications, to the great glorification of some of his colaborers, who were notoriously deficient. The result, notwithstand

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