"I hesitate not to declare, no matter how sorely I shall wound our vanity, that so gross is our ignorance of the physiological disorders called diseases, that it would perhaps be better to do nothing, and resign the complaint we are called upon to treat to the resources of Nature, than to act as we frequently do, without knowing the why and the wherefore of our conduct, and at the obvious risk of hastening the end of our patient." DR. GOOD, the great nosologist, asserts that "The science of medicine is a barbarous jargon, and the effects of our medicines on the human system are in the highest degree uncertain; except, indeed, that they have already destroyed more lives than war, pestilence and famine combined." SIR ASTLEY COOPER, England's greatest surgeon says: "The science of medicine is founded on conjecture and improved by murder." But, it may be said, these men lived in the past, and since their time the science of medicine has improved and its practice has become more rational and safe. * * * * * Let us then come down to a later period, and listen to DR. CHRISTISON, the present eminent Professor of _Materia Medica_ at the University of Edinburgh. He says: "Of all medical sciences, therapeutics is the most unsatisfactory in its present state, and the least advanced in progress, and surrounded by the most deceitful sources of fallacy." SIR JOHN FORBES, Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians: Physician to the Queen's Household, late editor of the "British and Foreign Medical Review," after a frank admission of the imperfections of Allopathic medicine, says: "FIRST. That in a large proportion of the cases treated by Allopathic physicians, the disease is cured by Nature and not by them." "SECOND. That in a lesser, but still not a small proportion, the disease is cured in spite of them; in other words, their interference opposing instead of assisting the cure." "THIRD. That, consequently in a considerable proportion of diseases, it would be as well, or better with patients, in the actual condition of the medical art, as more generally practiced, if all remedies, at least active remedies especially drugs were abandoned." And finally adds, "Things have arrived at such a pitch that they cannot be worse. They must mend or end." But, I may be asked, what are the views of the Professors and writers in our own country. Have they no more confidence in the healing art than their brethren in the old world? Let us see: DR. RUSH, one of the lights of the profession in his day, remarks: "The healing art is an unroofed temple, uncovered at the top and cracked at the foundation." And again: