Another physician derived all diseases from a redundancy or deficiency of fire or water. He maintained that where the water predominated the fluids became viscid, and that hence arose intermittent fevers and anthritic complaints. His remedies are in strict conformity to his theory. These diseases are to be cured by volatile salts, which abound with fiery particles; venesection in any case is highly pernicious; these fiery medicines are the only efficacious remedies, and are to be employed even in diseases of the most inflammatory nature. “Life,” says Dr. Brown, “is a forced state:” it is a flame kept alive by excitement; every thing stimulates; some substances too violently; others not sufficiently; there are thus too kinds of debility, indirect and direct, and to one or other of these causes must be referred the origin of all diseases. According to this doctrine the mode of cure is simple: we have nothing to do but to supply, to moderate, or to abstract stimuli. Typhus fever, in this system, is a disease of extreme debility: we must therefore give the strongest stimulants. Consumption and apoplexy, also, are diseases of debility; of course the remedies are active stimulants. Humanity shudders, and with reason, at the application of such doctrines to practice. And not less destitute of reason, and not less dangerous in practice, is the great doctrine of debility promulgated by Cullen. This celebrated professor taught that the circumstance which invariably characterized fever, that which constituted its essence, was debility. The inference was obvious, that, above all things, the strength must be supported. The consequence was, that blood-letting was neglected, and that bark and wine were given in immense quantities, in cases in which intense inflammation existed. The practice was in the highest degree mortal; the number of persons who have perished in consequence of this doctrine is incalculable. So far then is it from being true that medical theories are of no practical importance, that there is the closest possible connection between the speculations of the physician in his closet, and the measures which he adopts at the bed side of his patient. Truth to him is a benignant power which stops the progress of disease, protracts the duration of life, and mitigates the suffering it may be unable to remove: error is a fearfully active and tremendously potent principle. There is not a medical prejudice which has not slain its thousands, nor a false theory which has not immolated its tens of thousands. The system of medicine and surgery which is established in any country, has a greater influence over the lives of its inhabitants than the epidemic diseases produced by its climate, or the decisions of its government concerning peace and war. The devastations of the yellow fever will bear no comparison with the ravages committed by the Brunonian system; and the slaughter of the field of Waterloo counts not of victims, a tithe of the number of which