I cannot forbear to notice here one circumstance, which exerts a great influence in favoring the unsettled state of medicine, and consequently in encouraging the fondness for new things. I refer to the fact, that there are no authorities, properly so called in medicine. The theologian has his standard authors, who are a kind of authority to which he appeals, and above all, he has the Bible as an unerring standard, and every opinion which is advanced he can bring to this test. The lawyer also has his standard works, in which are embodied the principles of law, and they are settled authorities to which he can appeal. In medicine, on the other hand, though there are works which contain the principles of the science, they have none of that fixed and undisputed authority, which standard works on other subjects are apt to have. There is therefore a contempt of authority in matters of opinion in medicine tolerated by the community, and even by the profession, which is not tolerated in regard to any other subject. While the lawyer appeals to ‘the law,’ and the divine to ‘the law and the testimony,’ the doctor often assumes the right of disputing all authorities from Hippocrates down to the present time. If a lawyer should, with bold and thoughtless assurance, call in question a decision of Chief Justice Marshall, he would be treated with contempt by both the bar and the community. But the most ignorant pretender in medicine may even gain credit, and what is of more importance to him, money too, by setting up a bold front against the whole faculty, and declaring, as Hahneman and Thompson each has done, that the medical world was in total darkness till he arose to enlighten it. So in theology, such gross delusions as Mormonism and Millerism are looked upon with mingled pity and contempt by the public, and yet that same public will patronize delusions in medicine which are not a whit less fanciful and ridiculous.[31]