We do not deplore the fact, that there are different schools in medicine, for this science has not reached perfection, and they tend to stimulate investigation. The remarks of Herbert Spencer on the "Multiplication of Schemes of Juvenile Culture," may be pertinently applied to the different schools in medicine with increased force. He says: "It is clear that dissent in education results in facilitating inquiry by the division in labor. Were we in possession of the true method, divergence from it would, of course, be prejudicial; but the true method having to be found, the efforts of numerous independent seekers carrying out their researches in different directions, constitute a better agency for finding it than any that could be devised. Each of them struck by some new thought which probably contains more or less of basis in facts--each of them zealous on behalf of his plan, fertile in expedients to test its correctness, and untiring in its efforts to make known its success--each of them merciless in its criticism on the rest--there cannot fail, by composition of forces, to be a gradual approximation of all towards the right course. Whatever portion of the normal method any one of them has discovered, must, by the constant exhibition of its results, force itself into adoption; whatever wrong practices he has joined with it must, by repeated experiment and failure, be exploded. And by this aggregation of truths and elimination of errors, there must eventually be developed a correct and complete body of doctrine. Of the three phases through which human opinion passes--the unanimity of the ignorant, the disagreement of the inquiring, and the unanimity of the wise--it is manifest that the second is the parent of the third." We believe the time is coming when those maladies which are now considered fatal will be readily cured--when disease will be disarmed of its terrors. To be successful, a physician must be independent, free from all bigotry, having no narrow prejudice against his fellow-men, liberal, accepting new truths from whatever source they come, free from restrictions of societies, and an earnest laborer in the interests of the Great Physician. * * * * * CHAPTER II. REMEDIES FOR DISEASE. It will be our aim, throughout this book, to prescribe such remedies as are within the easy reach of all, and which may be safely employed. Many of those of the vegetable class are indigenous to this country, and may be procured in their strength and purity, at the proper season, by those residing in the localities where they grow, while all others advised may be obtained at any good drug-store. We shall endeavor to recommend such as can be procured and prepared with the least trouble and expense to the patient, when it is believed that they will be equally as efficacious as more expensive medicines. PROPRIETARY MEDICINES.