The practices of hydropathy are nominally founded upon this theory. If, however, the water be the cause of the benefit experienced, there would be no occasion for hydropathic establishments. Such have been considered indispensable, however, since the folly was first set a-going by Priestnitz. We really cannot take the trouble of opening the little pile of hydropathic treatises, lying on the table before us, to ascertain in what year this happened. Priestnitz is an illiterate German peasant, but one who evidently possesses an immense amount of cunning. He tells, we believe, some kind of a cock-and- | bull story about the manner in which his attention was first directed to this wonderful discovery. It is, if we remember aright, that a fractured rib, or at any rate some fractured bone, united under the influence of cold bandages, as if all the world did not know that under ordinary circumstances broken bones always unite in a certain given time, and all the external applications in the world will neither promote nor retard that time a single moment. The man, however, set up a boarding establishment, enforced a rigorous system of diet upon his visitors, and made them use water in various manners, pretending that different diseases required it to be so employed. He succeeded in getting plenty of custom, and many similar establishments have been since set a-going. In them large quantities of water are drank, and baths of various kinds are used. The wet sheet which so astonishes some people is only one form of bath. The obvious effect of the water is principally profuse perspiration. That the external application of water has this effect is well known, and copious draughts of it, by over-supplying the blood with watery fluid, causes nature to cast it off by the skin. When this happens, the patient, adopting an old and exploded medical hypothesis, believes that he has got rid of the peccant matter, which, circulating in his blood, caused the disease. Sometimes, when it is long since he has been well washed, the perspiration is none of the cleanest. Then he says that the morbific matter of his disease was dark colored, and that by hydropathy he got rid of it. It is quite true that in many cases of diseasein frequent instances of fever for example- the return to health is contemporaneous with a perspiration; but the perspiration is not the cause, but the effect of the cure. If artificially excited before this time, it is not of the slightest efficacy. In one or two diseases a discharge from the skin is undoubtedly beneficial, but it is not so in the immense majority of cases of disease which are found in hydropathic establishments; and, moreover, we possess means more effectual and more certain to produce it than all the dousings and swillings of water in the world. Further, the use of cold external applications is sometimes very dangerous, and there is no doubt but that hydropathy manslaughters many a victim. The truth is (with the exception just stated, where perspirations which can be excited by hydropathy are likely to be beneficial), neither homœopathy by its drugs, nor hydropathy by its drenches, nor animal magnetism by its manipulations and passes, ever did or ever could cure one single diseased action; and the evil they exereise by removing their votaries out of the reach of regular medicine is incalculable. When the physician, however, speaks thus to his inquiring neighbor, he is answered, “That may be all ingenious reasoning, but I have read of cases of cures in such and such respectable works by this quack medicine or by infinitesimal and homeopathic doses, or by a residence in a hydropathic establishment, or by being thrown into magnetic sleep; nay, I have known intimate friends of my own, who have had for years this and that frightful disease, who have consulted the physicians of most reputation, and who have got no better by following their advice; and yet by these systems of quackery, as you call them, they perfectly recovered. How can you account for this, or how do you get over that?" This is a very important question, the answer to which the public in general have not been able to understand, and we fear that our reply to it will not at first be believed. In the first place, we leave out of consideration all downright and wilful lies about cures of which quack medicine advertisements are full, and from which some works on the more reputable systems of quackery are not free. We confine ourselves to those cures, or supposed cures, which are related in good faith by the votaries of homeopathy, hydropathy, &c. To give a faithful account of any occurrence, it is not only requisite to have the desire and determination to tell the truth, but it is also indispensable to have the faculty of correctly observing. How many have not this faculty? Look at what daily occurs in our courts of justice. How often do we see two witnesses, both respectable men, both anxious to speak the truth, who yet give different versions of a very plain matter-of-fact occurrence which took place in the eyesight of both of them not a month before! and if the prejudices of a numerous class are interested in the result of any event, what different versions do we hear of it! How dif ferent often is the account of a Whig, from the narrative of the same event by a Tory! Why do the soberminded of the community not be Disease of the Wrist Joint.-W. H., aged fifty-three, a healthy-looking man, applied at the dispensary on February 18th. He states that the affection of the wrist commenced two years ago, but can assign no reason for it. He applied to an eminent surgeon, who blistered the part at least twenty times, but with no benefit. After this he entered the Edinburgh Infirmary, which he left in August, 1841, after having been sixteen weeks under treatment; but the disease increased, instead of getting better. The treatment pursued in the hospital was application of mercurial ointment, from which he was salivated, then poultices and stimulating washes, to lieve the many tales of ghosts and apparitions | by means of homoeopathic and infinitesimal doses. which vulgar and credulous eye-witnesses relate? One of these we extract. It is entitled — Why do they not believe the signs, and wonders, and miracles of many a little evangelical conventicle? Because they know that such contradict general laws, the truth of which is certain, and because they are narrated by a class of people sanguine, credulous, and enthusiastic, and whom they consider to be incapable of the art of rightly observing. In like manner the soberminded and educated physician does not believe the asserted fortunate results or cures of quackery, because such are in contradistinction to well-ascertained and undoubted laws of medical science, and because he does not consider those narrating them to be capable of accurate ob-gether with a dose of salts when he chose to servation. And is not this latter notoriously the case? The medical men of integrity who have joined such systems are universally men ignorant of medical principles, who have always been addicted to false theory, and who, if they are old enough, have, before they embraced their present erroneous theories, in turn embraced and rejected others as erroneous. The lay proselytes have even still more notoriously a like character. We would ask our reader to suminon to his memory such of them as he is personally acquainted with. Are they not very flighty people? Have they not all their lives been given to embrace opinions very different from those which sensible people ordinarily accept, and are they not always ardently admiring something with the charm of novelty to recommend it? take them. These means having failed, he was recommended to go to the country, but the disease got no better. He then returned to the hos pital, when amputation was advised as the only means. This he refused to submit to, and left. He was recommended by a gentleman to whom he showed his arm to apply at this dispensary. The right wrist presented, as he himself described it, the appearance of a boiled turnip, much swollen, with the cellular tissue hardened. There are two sinuses which communicate with the joint, the one opening anteriorly, and the other posteriorly. From these there is a copious yellow discharge. Unable to move the wrist or flex the fingers; any attempt to do so is attended with pain. The Report then states the medicines employed, and gives occasional notices from date to date of the favorable progress of the case. On March 25th, there is "no pain in the joint; is able now to use it a little; can even lift a buck It is not easy to give actual instances of the facility with which men who believe false theo-et of water. Sil" (this means the medicine emries are ready to believe and promulgate false facts. After reading a list of reputed cures in some treatise on hydropathy or homeopathy, it is very difficult to make inquiries into the real history of C. D., Esq., aged 43; or into that of William Smith, of Whitechapel; or John Jones, of St. Giles's. We select, however, one case in which it was possible to pursue such investigations, as affording a striking example of the fact we are now pointing out. Drs. Black and Russell, two highly respectable young physicians, although they were accused of knowing particularly little about the principles of regular medicine, became converts to the doctrines of homeopathy. We may remark that both these gentlemen are perfectly incapable of uttering a falsehood. They introduced their new doctrines into Edinburgh. Among other proceedings to promulgate them they established a dispensary; and, after the expiration of some time, they published a Dispensary Report, containing details of several very remarkable cures which they thought they had effected ployed). Then the Report goes on,—“Continued to improve under the use of Sulph. Sil. Hep. S., and on the 19th of July it was pronounced cured. The man went to the harvest, and up to this date, the 17th of November, has continued well, engaging daily in his occupation." - Report of Edinburgh Homeopathic Dispensary. We beg particular attention, not only to the decided tone of all this narrative, but also to one or two particular statements. The severity of the disease, "two sinuses communicating with the joint," is stated. Then the man's previous treatment, "salivation," is brought forward, no doubt as a sneer, with a view of contrasting it with their elegant plan of treatment. Then amputation and mutilation are threatened the poor fellow by regular surgery. This shows that the hospital surgeons thought it a hopeless case. Lastly, he got quite well, "went to harvest, and up to this date, the 17th of November, has continued well, engaging daily in his occupation." Strange as it may seem, not one of these assertions turned out, upon inquiry, to have one grain of truth in it. Edinburgh not being a large place, and particulars being given of the above case— the "eminent surgeon," the initial of the man's name, and the date of his admission and discharge from the infirmary — induced some gentle:nen connected with the medical press of Edinburgh to investigate the matter. It turned out that the case narrated was that of one William Heslop, for a long time a hospital and an out-door patient of Dr. Duncan. It also turned out, first, that the two sinuses did not communicate with the joint, and that moreover, the homœopathic physicians, although they so stoutly asserted such to be the fact, never probed either of them, i. e. never even tried to ascertain whether such was the case or not; secondly, both on the evidence of the man and of Dr. Duncan, he never had been salivated; thirdly, Dr. Duncan never thought of amputating the arm, and Heslop stated that the reason he left the infirmary was domestic affliction at home; fourthly, to use the language of the writer of the investigation published in the Edinburgh Monthly Journal of Medical Science," the wrist is not yet cured, and the man never went to the harvest, just because it was not cured." Drs. Black and Russell very candidly confessed that Heslop was the man, and in excuse for the statement about the salivation, amputation, &c., stated that they understood so from the patient himself; and for that about the cure, that they understood it was so from the dispensary porter! Any one attentively criticising reports of quackery cases will find tales like this as plentiful as blackberries. Inasmuch, then, as we doubt the accuracy of the reports of quacks, and as, moreover, we know from ascertained laws of medicine that their treatment cannot cure disease, we are quite entitled to deny that any successful termination of a case under quack treatment proves any thing in favor of any system of quackery. And we are not called on to explain in any such cases, when a successful termination is witnessed, to what this cure is to be attributed. We have a right to say to the narrator, "it is not as you say, it is not, as you state, owing to your treatment." If we choose, however, we can take a lower ground, and we can explain how the cure is brought about in such cases. In the first place, all diseased actions (except ing such as are necessarily fatal) have a strong natural tendency to a spontaneous and favorable termination. This is most distinctly witnessed in acute and febrile diseases, but it is also sufficiently obvious in chronic disorders. One form in which it is shown in the latter is in the temporary amendments which so often manifest themselves in these maladies. We may remark in passing, that the office of the physician is to give this tendency fair play,—in a word, to obviate the tendency to death, and also to alleviate pain and uneasy sensations. In the practice of regular medicine, it is sometimes not easy to determine whether the cure is to be attributed to nature or to treatment; but the difficulty mainly lies in the natural tendency of human nature to exaggerate the value of its own interference. And this is often undoubtedly the cause of much, although honest enough, quackery in the profession. The value of remedies is, however, ascertained by testing their efficacy on a very large scale, and, above all, by seeing if their physiological action is, from what we know is taking place in any disorder, likely to prove beneficial. The remedies of quackery respond to neither of these tests. In the consideration of the causes of restoration to health, great weight is always to be attached to the action of a doubtlessly important therapeutical agent, diet or regimen. Both homeopathy and hydropathy lay down strict rules for this. The hydropath removes his patient from home and business and cares, and makes him lead a regular life with a due proportion of exercise. The homeopath does not do exactly this, but, in common with the professor of the cold water system, he enforces a plain diet, from which wine, spirits, even tea and coffee, are excluded. This for a continuance, and for a person in what may be termed a working condition, is an unsuitable system; but there is no doubt of its temporary efficacy, especially when applied to individuals removed for a time from the anxieties of active life, and buoyed up with that certain hope of recovery which the quack confidently announces. Speaking of the influence of hope brings us to the consideration of a most important therapeutical agent to the uninitiated, the unknown cause of an immense number of so-called cures of quackery. We refer to the influence of the imagination in curing disease. We do not mean to say that by strongly impressing the imagination an attack of fever can be checked, or a pleurisy be cured, or a fit of apoplexy be avoided, or the acute rheumatism got rid of. No such thing. But there are classes of disease greatly under the control of the imagination, and which, in fact, when got better of while under the hands of a quack, are cured by the force of the imagination. The most important of these are chronic functional diseases of the nervous system, especially those of the kind called habitual. Of this nature are many cases of nervous and neuralgic pains in different parts of the body; the protean forms in which hysteria shows itself, cases of imagina ry spinal disease (a very common malady), some cases of epilepsy, and the like. To these we must add a class of diseases unfortunately now very common in this country, and in which the disorder exists solely and entirely in the imagination, and in which there is no functional disorder of any kind whatever. To give many illustrations of this effect of imagination would exceed our space. One or two, however, we must find room for. Indeed, the very common disappearance of toothache at the sight of the dentist is an illustration of it. We can quote, however, more striking instances. A very amusing one happened to Sir Humphry Davy. When the powers of nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, were first discovered, Dr. Beddoes imagined that it might be useful in chronic paralysis. Am anafflicted with this disorder (undoubtedly in this case depending upon functional disease merely) was procured, and Davy was requested to make him inhale the gas. Previous to doing so a small thermometer was inserted under his tongue, to ascertain his temperature, with a view of comparing it with that after the inha tion had been begun. The patient was quite ignorant of the process to which he was to submit, but was firmly impressed with the idea that it was to cure him. No sooner was the thermometer placed under his tongue than he declared that he felt already its benign influence throughout his whole body. This was too tempting an opportunity to lose; nothing was done to the man except applying the thermometer. This application was repeated every succeeding day for a fortnight. The man's health gradually improved, and at the expiration of that time he was quite recovered.* One of the most remarkable examples of the truth of what we are saying, of the actual and undoubted influence of the imagination in curing disease, inasmuch as it was on a large scale, occurred in the effects of tractors, metallic or otherwise, which were noticed some half a century ago. About this period an American quack, of the name of Perkins, introduced a new therapeutical (?) agent. This was composed of two small pieces of metal joined together, and named a tractor. This was applied to painful parts, and, if we remember aright, some theory of a magnetic fluid generated by the tractor was entertained. The metals employed were a secret, and the tractors sold for a high price. The application of them was often said, and with truth, to be followed by great relief, and they became very fashionable. A public establishment, called the" Perkerian Institution," was set afoot for the *Vide Dr. Paris's Pharmacolgia. purpose of curing the diseases of the poor. An intelligent physician would, of course, much to the indignation of the admirers of the tractors, have attributed such cures to the imagination. And this, fortunately, was in due time ascertained to the satisfaction of every body. Among other places, the tractors became fashionable at Bath. Their efficacy was tested by Drs. Haygarth and Falconer. Wooden tractors were made of the same shape, and painted so as to look exactly like the metal ones. Five cases, stated to be chronic rheumatism, but un doubtedly mixed up with neuralgic pain, were selected, and the patients were led to believe that they were about to be touched by the potent and mysterious metallic tractors. The wooden ones were drawn over the skin, so as to touch it in the slightest manner possible. All the patients except one declared that they felt reliev ed, and three stated that they experienced much benefit. One felt his knee warmer, and, with much satisfaction, showed that he could walk better. Next day the metallic tractors were employed with the same, but with no greater, results. Mr. Smith, of the Bristol Infirmary, carried the matter still further. He had a patient afflicted with a painful affection of the shoulder, which rendered the arm quite useless. He was operated upon with leaden tractors: In the course of six minutes no other effect followed the application of these pieces of lead than a warmth upon the skin. Nevertheless, the patient declared on the following day that he had received so much benefit that it had enabled him to lift his hand from his knee, which he had in vain several times attempted on Monday (the previous day) evening, as the whole ward had witnessed. But although it was thus proved that the patent tractors possessed no specific powers independent of simple metals, he thought it advisable to lay aside the metallic points, lest the proofs should be less complete. Two pieces of wood, properly shaped and painted, were next made use of. In a few minutes the man raised his hand several inches, and he had also lost the pain in his shoulder. He continued to undergo the operation daily, and with progressive good effect, for on the 25th [i. e. in a week's time] he could touch the mantelpiece. On the 27th, two common iron nails, disguised with sealingwax, were substituted for the pieces of mahogany before used. In three minutes the same patient felt something moving from his arm to his head, and soon after he touched the board of rules, which was suspended a foot above the mantelpiece. We say it with deliberation and firm conviction, that the intelligent physician can, in the immense majority of cases of disease which have come to a successful termination under the treatment of hydropaths, homoeopaths, and the like, clearly mental phenomena, are in accordance with known general principles of mental philosophy. Want of space, however, forbids this. On the many melancholy disasters produced in this world by quackery — the mourning mother, the curtailed domestic circle, the young widow, the starving orphan, and the like- we will not dwell. We began by saying that the two great causes of quackery are ignorance and presumption. Both are surely great crimes. A man who is ignorant of that which he ought to know the ploughman how to make his furrows, the railway driver how to manage his engine, the statesman how to rule (at least in those happy countries where rule is still committed to statesmen), and every one how to conduct himself in that state of life to which he is called, as a man of common sense, of honesty, or honor, and as a moralist and a Christian — has deserted a great trust committed to him, and has incur distinguish which of the three-the tendency to a spontaneous favorable termination, the effect of diet and regimen, or the influence of the imagination has been the cause of cure. It may, perhaps, be said, If the imagination have so powerful a control over disease, and if, as is undoubtedly the case, the quack can influence it (for he holds out hope of certain relief to all) more than the regular physician, then is the former after all a benefit to society. This is, however, a very superficial saying. The quack holds out hope to all, and a minority recover. But what becomes of the many, whose expectations have been raised but to be crushed, when they find that they have bartered the hope of a possibility of recovery, and the undoubted assurance of relief from pain, or at any rate comparative ease, for the impossible boastings of a charlatan? Is not the dejection and the misery they and their friends now experience far greater than the temporary hopes they so inconsiderate-red a deep responsibility. But there is a crime ly cherished? Nor is this all the evil. If, as many learned and cautious men who have had every opportunity of forming an opinion believe, and if as men similarly situated have believed for centuries, regular medicine possesses the power of prolonging life, of shortening disease, and of alleviating pain,-if this, we say, be true, how cruel is it to deprive those whose lives are in danger, whose strength is prostrated by sickness, or whose bodies are racked by pain, of the remedies provided for them? And yet this is what every system of quackery does. We had proposed to have made a few remarks upon animal magnetism. The tales that have been and are told about clairvoyance, prophesying, and the like, are just so many falsehoods. But that by its practices so many per cent. of ordinary people can be thrown into a state of insensibility, or, if numbers be present, be made unconsciously to do very extraordinary things, is true enough. We purposed, however, shewing that this ordinary somnambulism, the state described in some religious books as reverie, spectral illusions, and many other extraordinary greater than that of ignorance, and that is presumption. A landsman will not venture to steer a ship, nor does a man unacquainted with mechanics presume to govern an engine or a locomotive. Yet thousands who know nothing of medicine rush into the arena of medical strife as judges for it is notorious that the grand promoters of various forms of quackery are layadmirers, busy bodies who know nothing of medicine - and we may safely say that these individuals commit more havoc, destroy more human happiness, and crush more of that singular bounty, human life, than if every ship in the navy were committed to the mercies of the waves, with only lunatics at the helm, or than if every engine on every railway were driven by the wildest of the inhabitants of Bedlam. When we think of the conduct of such presumptuous people, let us hope that either their mental constitution is originally so feeble, or that vanity and conceit have so unconsciously crept upon them, that they are not morally answerable for all the misery, and anguish, and woe that they cause. - Fraser's Magazine. - "THE MERCIFU' ESCAPE." Among the vestiges of former times remaining in the town of Dundee, is a wynd, or rather court, leading from the High Street, and known in native parlance as "the Voults." It is so called from being supposed to pass over extensive vaults belonging to an ancient monastery, whose site is no longer discernible; and the popular belief is in some degree confirmed by the hollow reverberations which its pavement gives back to passing steps or vehicles. Time and fires have considerably diminished their numbers, especially of late years; but it is evident that the Voults was once as densely inhabited as city wynds were wont to be in the days of our ancestors; and those antiquated mansions, that look as if they had seen and |