Having trespassed thus far on the attention of our readers, we would conclude by inviting them and the medical profession, generally, to a calm and dispassionate investigation, as far as the opportunities of each allow, of the relative merits of the Allopathic and Hydropathic systems, approaching the investigation, as far as possible, with a mind devoid of prejudice and bigotry. Their duty to themselves and to society demands this inquiry at their hands—two antagonistic (we use the term advisedly) systems are presented for their acceptance—which will they lay hold of? To assist them in determining this point we would recommend for their quiet perusal either or all of the works alluded to in this article, [19] the study of which will be found interesting and profitable. If they conclude that drugs are wholesome, let them by all means be swallowed; but if they are proved to be injurious, deleterious and unnecessary, then away with them;—if opiates are innocuous let them be retained, but if they congest the liver, sicken the stomach, and paralyze the actions of the vital organs, the sooner they are erased for ever from the Hygienic Pharmacopeia the better—let them gracefully retire before the improved system of hot stupes, fomentations, and the abdominal compress. The very simplicity of the processes of the “water-cure,” which people cannot believe capable of producing the effects ascribed to them, combined with a belief, ingrained by long habit, in the absolute necessity for drugs in curing disease, have chiefly militated against a more extended reception of Hydropathy by the lay public; but when they reflect that ALL the powers of the medical art range themselves under two great categories, stimulants and sedatives—blistering, bleeding, drugs, and leeching—acknowledging no other objects, they cannot but admit the possibility of Hydropathy possessing the powers attributed to it, since its bracing and soothing properties cannot be questioned. Were, however, the position of affairs reversed, and Hydropathy become as old a system as the Allopathic this belief, in the efficacy of the old school might be securely entertained; for no one would think for a moment of exchanging a system, fixed, intelligible, and certain in its action, as based on scientific principles, and consonant with the laws of physiology, for the uncertain, groping, empirical, and injurious practice of drug medication.