In 1836 to 1840 Richard Bright, an English physician, made important researches and discoveries in relation to the functions and diseases of the kidneys, and established the nature of the so-called “Bright’s disease.” [Illustration: FIG. 175.--VERDIN’S SPHYGMOMETROGRAPH, FOR RECORDING THE ACTION OF THE PULSE.] _Schools of Medicine._--While the regular school of medicine (called by some “Allopathy”) has held the leading place in medicine, various other schools have sprung up in the Nineteenth Century, all of which represent advances in a knowledge of the laws of health, and the modes of preventing and curing diseases. Hahnemann, in his “_Organon der Rationellen Heilkunde_,” in 1810, gave homœopathy its name, and reduced it to a system. The doctrine of _similia similibus curantur_ (like cures like), has gained great popularity in the latter part of the century. Hydropathy, as a school, also made its appearance in the early part of the Nineteenth Century. Priessnitz was its first disciple, and the _Grafenberg cure_, established in 1826, was a noted institution for many years. The useful application of water in the form of baths and cold packs, has been known for centuries, and will always be used as a valuable agency in sickness and in health. The “Thompsonian” system of treating diseases was covered by patents in 1813, 1823 and 1836, and attained considerable notoriety in the early half of the century. Sweating by hot bricks and hot tea made of “Composition Powders,” vomiting with lobelia to produce relaxation, and a fiery liquid for cramps, called “No. 6,” were the chief remedies, and very few boys who had once taken the treatment were ever willing afterwards to admit that they were sick. In the latter part of the Nineteenth Century _electro-therapeutics_ has received a large share of attention, many forms of medical batteries have been devised, and probably no more promising field of study and research exists in the whole domain of medicine.