of nature, are getting to predominate in medical treatment over the more active and direct measures for overcoming disease. ‘The golden axiom of Chomel, that it is only the _second_ law of therapeutics _to do good_, its _first_ law being this—_not to do harm_—is gradually finding its way into the medical mind, preventing an incalculable amount of positive ill.’ So remarks Dr. Bartlett in a work,[32] which I deem to be one of the best and most effectual efforts, which have been made in promoting the revolution, which is now taking place in the practice of medicine. It is a work which, if I mistake not, is to exert a thorough and extensive influence upon the interests of medical science. I cannot conclude this chapter without paying a passing tribute to the memory of one, my preceptor and friend, who stood among the foremost in the work of reform now going on in the medical profession. I refer to the late Dr. Hale,[33] of Boston. He was eminently a man of accurate observation. His enquiry always was after the _facts_. He asked not what a man _supposed_, but what he had _observed_—not what he _thought_, but what he had _found to be true_. His valuable contributions to the recorded experience, and the literature of the profession, bear him witness on this point. His labors, so deservedly prized by his brethren, are ended, but we have reason to rejoice, that he has left behind him so many of a like spirit, who are endeavoring to redeem our science from the dominion of fanciful theory and loose reasoning, and to place it under the control of a true and rigid OBSERVATION. FOOTNOTES: [29] Hunter in one of his lectures thus speaks playfully, but most truthfully of the various _theories_ of digestion, which have arisen from exclusive views of different sets of facts. “Some physiologists will have it that the stomach is a mill;—others, that it is a fermenting vat;—others again, that it is a stew-pan; but in my view of the matter, it is neither a mill, a fermenting vat, nor a stew-pan—but a _Stomach_, gentleman, a _stomach_.” [30] If this be a suitable charge for this operation, it would be proper to ask at least an hundred dollars for extracting a tooth, if the prices of operations are to be regulated by their magnitude, or by the amount of skill required in performing them. [31] ‘Have you ever looked into Homœopathy,—have you ever read Hahneman’s Organon?’ said an eminent divine to an equally eminent physician. ‘No,’ replied the physician, ‘and let me ask you, in return, if you have read the Mormon Bible?’ The clergyman of course answered in the negative, and his medical friend said to him very properly, ‘when you take the trouble to examine Joe Smith’s Bible, I will take the trouble to examine Hahneman’s Organon.’ [32] An Essay on the Philosophy of Medical Science.