[1] The total inefficacy of this medicine in the hands of British Practitioners, while its virtues are so palpable and evident at Geneva, that not only Physicians, but also the inhabitants in general, are convinced of their reality, had always surprised me. I was at a loss to account for testimony so contradictory. It seemed as if medicine were a science so uncertain and futile, that its plainest facts depend more on the authority of name than on the substantial evidence of observation and experiment. I lately obtained an explanation of this difficulty from a quarter in which I can place implicit reliance. It seems that the chemists are much in the habit of substituting charcoal for burnt sponge, of which an undeniable proof is the fact, that burnt sponge is sold at an inferior rate to the same article before it has undergone the process of combustion.—I may also be allowed to state in this place, that I have sent prescriptions for the hydriodate of potass to several chemists in London—that my prescriptions were said to have been made up; but that a few days afterwards, when I called at their shops, in order to examine the medicine, I discovered that they were not even aware of the existence of such a drug. If such frauds continue to be committed with impunity, the sick had better submit patiently to their pains, than have recourse to physicians, whose science is rendered unavailing for the profit of tradesmen. It may easily be imagined, with what joy the discovery of a certain remedy for bronchocele was received in a place where that disease is extremely common. Many used it, and many were delivered from their unseemly and most inconvenient malady. But this state of things was not of long duration. Familiarity with the remedy begat too great liberality in its use, the effects of which were speedily apparent.