Produced by David Edwards, Josephine Paolucci and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.) [Illustration: Engraved by J. C. Buttre, expressly for Fireside Lectures. Doct. W'm. A. ALCOTT.] FORTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS OF PILLS AND POWDERS; OR, THE COGITATIONS AND CONFESSIONS OF AN AGED PHYSICIAN. BOSTON: JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY. NEW YORK: C. M. SAXTON AND COMPANY. ROCHESTER, NEW YORK: E. DARROW AND BROTHER. 1859. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the district of Massachusetts. LITHOTYPED BY COWLES AND COMPANY, 17 WASHINGTON ST., BOSTON. Printed by Geo. C. Rand and Avery. PREFACE. The present volume was one of the last upon which its author was engaged, the facts having been gathered from the experience and observation of a long life. It was his design to publish them anonymously, but under the changed circumstances this is rendered impracticable. A short time previous to his death, the writer spoke of this work, and said, in allusion to the termination of his own somewhat peculiar case,--"This _last chapter_ must be added." In accordance with this desire, a brief sketch, having reference chiefly to his health and physical habits, with the closing chapter of his life, has been appended. Boston, June, 1859. TO THE READER. In the sub-title to the following work, I have used the word "Confessions"--not to mislead the reader, but because _to confess_ is one prominent idea of its author. It is a work in which confessions of the impotence of the healing art, as that art has been usually understood, greatly abound; and in which the public ignorance of the laws of health or hygiene, with the consequences of that ignorance, are presented with great plainness. The world will make a wiser use of its medical men than it has hitherto done, when it comes to see more clearly what is their legitimate and what their ultimate mission. These remarks indicate the main intention of the writer. It is not so much to enlighten or aid, or in any way directly affect the medical man, as to open the eyes of the public to their truest interests; to a just knowledge of themselves; and to some faint conception of their bondage to credulity and quackery. The reader will find that I go for science and truth, let them affect whom they may. Let him, then, suspend his judgment till he has gone through this volume once, and I shall have no fears. He may, indeed, find fault with my style, and complain of my literary or philosophic unfitness for the task I assigned myself; but he will, nevertheless, be glad to know my facts.