whole of Ohio, differ in several striking respects, from those that are observed in lower latitudes: those, therefore, who undertake to teach medicine in either Louisville, Cincinnati, or Lexington, without having previously acquired a personal knowledge of those of the latter, will never, so long as they remain in those cities, become competent teachers of those who intend practising the profession in the South.

And again:

"But the alumni of the Atlantic schools, as well as those of Kentucky and Ohio, regardless of the great fundamental facts that the pathological phenomena and therapeutical indications of the maladies of the South differ widely from those that are observed in such as occur independently of intense heat and a malarious atmosphere, and believing they have been taught correctly, without hesitation or remorse, subject the southern constitution to rules of treatment that are no less absurd in principle, than they are frightfully fatal in practice. We feel authorized in asserting, as the result of the multiplied experience and observation of all ages in low latitudes, that the liver is the great emporium of both health and disease in hot climates. In all its pathological and therapeutical relations it is an organ of paramount importance to the practitioner, for it is, as we have said, directly or indirectly concerned in most of the modes of morbid action which prevail in the South. A thorough acquaintance with the physiology, pathology, and therapeutics of the great organ, so far as understood, is therefore entirely indispensable to the successful treatment of Southern maladies.”

And he observes subsequently and characteristically:

"The liver, whatever may be said by those, who, in reality, know nothing on the subject, but who, from motives perfectly intelligible, may be disposed to set aside or obscure the perception of the truth, is as much of a pathological autocrat in the South, as the lungs are in Philadelphia or Boston-in Louisville, Cincinnati or Lexington; and the other organs of the body are as completely under the presidency of the former in the South, as they are under that of the latter at the North."

All this, however, is mere twaddle, conveyed, it is true, in a sort of professional language, but not the less twaddle. It is the view which led calomel to be considered in the West, South, and South-west as the "Samson article of the Materia Medica," a Samson whose strength, however, is now gone from it; and this result brought about, we believe, in part, by the teaching of certain northern professors; but assuredly it is not the

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[Sept. view under which the sulphate of quinia is now regarded as the southern "Samson!" And can we, in charity, believe, that the Editor has forgotten that one of the most powerful advocates for the febrifuge virtues of this valuable agent is Professor Mitchell, of Lexington,-a teacher in one of the very schools, which, according to him," are, no matter what ingenious sophistry may be employed to prove the contrary, necessarily disqualified to impart such information as will prepare their Alumni to encounter with success the mortal endemics that annually desolate those regions."

And, then, to prove, that of "the practice so common and firmly established in the South-west of arresting, or jugulating, as the French term it, remittent fever," the teachers and writers of the Atlantic States and of the West are "entirely ignorant," the Editor quotes an article by Dr. Ford of Georgia, published in the Georgia Medical Journal, in which that gentleman refers to different "Practices of Physic" published in the United States; but to do their authors justice-one of them at least-it would have been but proper to refer to the latest edition, and to a part in which the quinia treatment is referred to. It is too much, however, to expect that authors-even so distinguished as he of the "Chronothermal System," whom we find the Editor citing as authority in more than one part of his "discourse"-can keep up with sudden pirouettes in practice, and a more signal one certainly never occurred than in the transition from the calomel to the quinia management of southern fevers. Some of the works cited were published years ago, and when the plans of treatment were by no means as developed and as general as they are at present.

And, what a gross and unfounded libel we have in the following assertion!

"The statistical results of Dance's experience, or rather experiments, as embodied in his Treatise on Fevers, are a melancholy comment on the curative efficacy of French medicine, of which North-eastern practice is almost a literal transcript, for medical expectation, which Asclepiades properly called a meditation on death, constitutes the sum and substance of the former, is the common and current practice of the latter. p. 21.

It appears, however, that epidemics] differ as much as "sec

tional" diseases; and therefore, we presume, we must have a special school for each epidemic!

"No physician has ever witnessed two epidemics of precisely the same character, that would yield to precisely the same treatment, or that would submit to the management followed with success in sporadic cases. There is a tendency to death in a particular way in each epidemic, and this the physician must discover, and if possible resist." p. 23.

And as if to "outherod Herod," we have the following assertion to which we shall not attach an epithet that any one at all acquainted with facts could readily supply.

"The inability of northern physicians, as well as those who reside in temperate latitudes, to treat successfully the maladies of the south-west, is conclusively proved by the enormous comparative mortality which is observed amongst those who, after having resided for months, in succession, in a malarious region, migrate to cold latitudes and subsequently sicken. From what we have actually observed" [in all the northern or middle states of the Union, we presume!] "we do not hesitate to affirm that it is almost equivalent to a sentence of death for south-western men to sicken of any acute disease, and especially of fever, in any of the northern or middle states of this Union."

Quis credat? Non ego! Yet the editor says it is so: "and sure he is an honorable man"!

Again:

"It has been alleged in this discourse that a great degree of scepticism in relation to the curative powers of therapeutical agents prevails amongst the dignitaries of the profession at the north, and we may say from personal intercourse with medical men of the highest respectability, and without injustice to them, that it exists to almost an equal extent in the larger cities of the west. Nothing of this sort is observed at the south-west."

All which is, of course, intended to show the superiority in practical knowledge of the south-western physicians.

The Editor now no longer pipes: he actually "bursts the bag"!

"In the south-west, neither the homeopathist nor the anatomopathologist will find countenance or encouragement. Disease is much too violent and malignant, and the efficacy of active and energetic treatment has been too often witnessed, is too well understood, and is too justly appreciated for either of them to be able to take root or to flourish. This is impossible, unless the homœopathist practises secretly what he has not courage or

honesty enough openly to avow, and this it is believed he does in all latitudes; or the anatomo-pathologist abandons the anatomical basis of treatment, and endeavours to relieve human suffering by studying and analyzing symptoms, and observing the effects of remedial agents. Since, therefore, the public in the north-eastern portions of the United States has been reduced to the desperate necessity of selecting between homoeopathy and medical expectation, and as, from a full trial of both, it has been constrained to decide in favour of the former, it must appear to every intelligent and reflecting individual, at all acquainted with the complaints that result from malaria or intense heat" [neither of which is known, of course, in the north!] "the most preposterous of all absurd ideas, to send young men to the northeast or west, in order to prepare them for the practical duties of the profession in the south-west." p. 36.

We have before adverted to the fact, that the editor was a strenuous advocate, at one time, for the appointment of anorth-eastern teacher to the chair of Practice of Medicine in the Transylvania Medical School. It now appears that such professors, and all western professors, are not only absolutely unfit, but must forever remain unfit for any such office in the south-western schools. Speaking more especially of Louisville, Cincinnati, and Lexington, he says:

"In neither of them can a teacher be found by whom the pathological and therapeutical principles, on which the treatment of south-western maladies is regulated, are taught. This every sensible man must regard as a great defect in the organization of the faculties of these institutions, for at least one-half their alumni are destined to find homes and to seek their fortunes in the lower latitudes of the Union. Nor is this all, or the most mortifying or discouraging part of the truth on this subject. Whenever an occasion has arisen which put it in their power to reflect honor and distinction by promotion to the dignity of a professorship, they have almost invariably preferred northeastern men, who know nothing of western, and especially of south-western maladies. That such persons are unfit for the functions they are expected to perform, we have already shown; that they will always remain so we assert from personal observation, as we know it to be impossible to divorce the confirmed and committed anatomo-pathologist from his great pathologica. and therapeutical principles." " p. 37.

And moreover:

"The reasons why they" [south-western physicians]"have not ween permitted to take a more distinguished part in the teaching

of medicine in the United States, are obvious and intelligible. They observe and reflect more but write less than the physicians of the large cities of this Union; because what they do write" [the editor for example !] "is for the instruction of the profession, and not to sustain some 'great pathological principle of universal application;' because they aim to become practically useful as practitioners, and, if need be, teachers, and not to win conspicuous stations by becoming voluminous compilers of the results of other men's experience; because they have less book but more clinical knowledge; and finally, because the trade of criticism is exercised by north-eastern men almost exclusively. The result is, north-eastern books and north-eastern men are praised with little reference to their intrinsic merits, while southwestern books and south-western men are overlooked and neglected or condemned." (?) p. 38.

In no way can this altogether supposititious evil-a creation of the author's own prolific brain-fearfully prolific in such conceits--be successfully rectified, he thinks, except "through their own schools and journals of medicine--through the instrumentality of which the ablest of themselves" [iterum ego!] "are the teachers, and in publications for which the most industrious, observing and talented of them are the writers." p. 39.

But the profession of the south-west require no such absurd vindication. We can affirm, most positively, that the kindest and most liberal sentiments are entertained towards them in this portion of the Union: it would be ridiculous to suppose that it could be otherwise; but if any thing were calculated to break in upon this most desirable harmony of feeling, it would be such loose, gratuitous, and indiscreet statements as those we have just quoted. We do not believe that they will have such an unfortunate effect upon a solitary 'north-eastern' individual, but we will not say what estimate they may cause to be put upon the head and heart of him from whom they emanated. In our opinion they certainly are not creditable to either the one or the other. It is idle, too, for the editor to refer to the difference which he fancies to exist between the physicians of the northeastern cities, and those of the south-west, in the former writing more, but thinking less than the latter. He himself is, perhaps, the most voluminous medical pamphleteer that the whole Union could furnish; and as for the amount of thought--well directed