[18] In the Domestic Physician, intended as a guide for families who practice Homœopathy, this same Dr. Hering, who has adorned the book with an engraving of himself represented as learnedly poring over some work, (I presume one of that same 15 octavo volumes,) thus discourses of physicians, under the head of Effects of Mercury. “This is the universal elixir of the quacks in all diseases—who, whilst they pretend to restore their patients to health, destroy their constitution. They administer it as calomel in powders, or dissolved as corrosive sublimate, or in pills—those abominable blue pills.” And then, “that no one may be deceived, at least not those for whom a physician prescribes,” he goes on to give the different Latin names of these preparations of mercury, as they are written in the prescriptions of physicians, or quacks, as he so modestly calls them: This is a little impudent in one who prescribes as remedies, and in this very book, two preparations of mercury, and one of them the most powerful of all, corrosive sublimate, made more powerful too, according to his theory, by the ‘dynamic power’ imparted to it by Homœopathic subdivision and trituration. [19] It is proper to remark here, that some, who at first adopted Homœopathy from mere pecuniary considerations, may afterwards have come to a full belief in it. For if, previous to their adoption of this practice, they were undiscriminating over-dosers, _as most of those physicians who have turned Homœopathists once were_, they find themselves actually more successful in the treatment of disease than they were before their conversion. This is owing only to the discontinuance of their over-dosing, but they of course refer it to the “dynamic power” of their globules. What I have said of the general character of Homœopathic physicians will probably provoke them to pour out upon me the vials of their wrath. But as they will undoubtedly administer it in _Allopathic_ doses, and will not stop to give it a “dynamic power” by “dilution” and “attenuation,” I shall, I think, be able to stand up against it. [20] So also says Turner, the founder of a new system just rising into notice, styled Chrono-Thermalism. [21] This fact, though well authenticated, is carefully omitted in all notices of him by his followers. CHAPTER VII. NATURAL BONE-SETTERS.