[7] The following anecdote of an ignoramus, who set himself up as a doctor, furnishes a good illustration of this erroneous mode of reasoning. His first case was that of a butcher, who recovered. As he gave his patient beefsteak and wine quite liberally, he referred the cure to these articles, and put down in his note-book—beefsteak and wine will cure a _butcher_. His next case was that of a tailor, which, under the same treatment, resulted unsuccessfully. He, therefore, added to the above note—but will kill a _tailor_. You laugh at the use which this man made of the ‘_post hoc propter hoc_’ mode of reasoning; but, after all, his inference is no farther from the truth than many of the inferences of wise dabblers in physic, promulgated in the newspapers, or even of learned doctors, gravely recorded in the annals of medicine. The only real difference is, that among the many preceding circumstances, to which results might be attributed, he chose one, and they chose some other, a little more plausible, perhaps, than his, but no nearer the truth. [8] The whole course of the medical profession, in regard to discoveries in medicine, has been open and generous, and not secret and mercenary. Dr. Stevens, in his eloquent address before the New York State Medical Society, thus speaks on this point: “Was the introduction of inoculation for the small-pox a speculation? Was the discovery of the preventive power of vaccination, (the labor of close, unremitting, and careful research during a period of several years,)—was that made or conducted with a view to personal emolument? As a matter of course, Dr. Jenner, as soon as he had completed his discovery, published it—made it free to all mankind. When quinine was first discovered, the mode of preparing it was immediately made known. Recently, when some feeble attempts were made to obtain a patent for the use of ether, and to conceal the process of etherization, the indignation of the profession was aroused from one end of our country to the other. The money changers were driven from the temple of humanity.” [9] For example, the famous _Balm of Gilead_, which, in its time, was said to cure all manner of disease, is nothing but brandy spiced with cardamoms and other like seeds, and made a little more stimulating with Spanish flies. The use of this medicine, therefore, was really only one of the modes of dram drinking. Louis XV. purchased, for a considerable sum, of Madame Nouffleur, a nostrum for the cure of tape-worm. The medicine proved to be the powder of the male fern, which was used for the same complaint by Galen in the second century, but which, in spite of the recommendations of this illustrious physician, and the princely reward paid to Madame Nouffleur for her discovery of it—in, shall I say, some musty book—it has somehow lost its reputation. Examples of the same kind might be given almost indefinitely.