as it has here been described. Themison and his followers, like their distinguished predecessor, Asclepiades, possessed something more than a mere glimmering of the truth in pathology as we know it to-day; and this idea suggests the further thought that Morgagni, Rokitansky, Lebert, Virchow and perhaps others whose names do not now occur to me, could scarcely have developed a better pathology if they had lived during these first centuries of the Christian era--a period of time when public sentiment did not permit postmortem examinations, when Harvey’s discovery was not even dreamed of, when the microscope was unknown, and when experimental pathology was an impossibility. Many centuries had still to elapse before medicine could gain that freedom of action, that rich equipment of tools, and that stock of accumulated knowledge which enable her in these days to make such giant strides forward as we have witnessed during the past twenty or thirty years. The question will naturally arise, How did the Methodists decide, in the presence of an actual case of illness, which one of these abnormal states (the laxum, the strictum, or the mixtum) was the condition that called for medical treatment? The answer which they gave to this question was, that the condition of the different secretions and the dejections furnished the principal indication as to what particular part or organ of the body was ailing, and also as to what was the nature of the morbid change or process that produced the malady. When, for example, the secretion from an organ or part was excessive, they inferred that the pores of such a part were relaxed and distended, thus permitting an increased flow; and when the secretion was less than it should be, they decided that the pores were contracted. The _status mixtus_ had reference to those cases in which a condition of relaxation was observed in one part of the body, while that of contraction was noted in another. Neuburger mentions the fact that the Methodists were somewhat arbitrary in their classification of the different diseases, most of the acute maladies being placed by them under the heading _Status strictus_, while they assigned the majority of the chronic affections to the category of _Status laxus_.