jaw for osteo-sarcoma, by Dr. Mott; tying the right subclavian artery without the scaleni muscles, by Dr. Wright Post; tying the left subclavian within the scaleni muscles, by Dr. J. K. Rogers; tying of the arteria innominata, and primitive illiac, by Dr. V. Mott; division of the masseter muscle for immobility of the lower jaw, by Dr. J. M. Carnochan; the formation of artificial joints by excision of a portion of bone, by J. Rhea Barton; exsection of the knee joint to remove deformity occasioned by anchylosis, by Dr. G. Buck; the effectual separation of web fingers and toes, by Dr. J. K. Rogers; tying of both corotids within a few days of each other, by Dr. R. D. Mussey, of Cincinnati; the introduction of setons for the cure of artificial joints, by Dr. P. S. Physick; the cure of aneurism by anastimosis, by the application of hot needles, by Dr. G. S. Patterson; successful operation for the removal of introsusception, by J. R. Wilson, of Mississippi; and many others, by such men as A. H. Stevens, Physick, Dorsy, Parrish, Pancoast, White, etc.,

etc.

The profession in no country is, probably, more purely eclectic in its character than our own. Deprived, in a great measure, of the accumulated wealth of many of the countries on the other side of the Atlantic, but few members of the profession

here find time and means to devote their lives to experimental inquiries; and hence we have none who can fairly be compared to a Bell, a Majendie, etc. But owing to the rapid re-publication of books, and the numerous medical periodicals in our country, the profession is readily supplied with the valuable investigations occurring in Europe, whether written in English, French, or German; and those investigations are as readily and thoroughly sifted for whatever they may contain susceptible of practical application. We have now finished the strictly historical part of our task, and shall proceed, in a supplementary chapter, to enter more fully into the present condition and wants of the profession, and the proper means for supplying those wants.

CHAPTER IV.

THE PRESENT CONDITION AND WANTS OF THE PROFESSION, AND THE REMEDIES FOR THOSE WANTS.

There are, probably, between thirty and forty thousand practitioners of medicine in the United States, claiming to belong to the regular profession. Of those residing in the eastern and middle states, far the larger portion have regularly studied three years, attended two courses of lectures, and obtained a diploma from some medical college. According to a report made by a committee, and found in the annual volume of Transactions of the American Medical Association for 1848, it appears that of nine hundred and seventytwo physicians practicing in seventy-five towns and counties of Virginia, taken promiscuously from all sections of the state, only six hundred and seventy-eight were graduates of any medical school, or possessed any form of license to practice. Of the remaining two hundred and forty

nine, one had attended two courses of lectures, ten had attended one course, leaving two hundred and thirty-eight, or one fourth of the whole number, without having attended any medical lectures, or pursued any systematic course of medical study.

This may, doubtless, be taken as a fair sample of the state of the profession, in this particular,. throughout the southern states. In most of the western states, I am satisfied, both from inquiries and personal observation, that scarcely one-half of the whole number of practitioners have ever been examined or licensed, either by colleges or societies, and very many of them have never attended a lecture in any medical institution. While, as I have already shown, the legislatures of most of the states have freely granted charters for medical colleges, and passed acts incorporating medical societies, scarcely one of them present, now, any practical provisions for protecting the health and lives of the citizens from the grossest and most fatal impositions, both from within and without the regular profession; hence, every species of medical delusion and imposition is allowed to spring up and grow without any legal restraint. The public press, that engine all powerful alike for good or evil, lends itself freely as the hired vehicle, for heralding every variety of

pretended medicinal compound or nostrum, that the ingenuity of man can invent. Indeed, without this aid of the public press, and the patronage of the patent department of our government, neither the various forms of quackery, nor the gigantic system of nostrum vending, which annually take millions of dollars from the credulous and unsuspecting, would ever find access to popular favor. In this matter, the conductors of the political, literary, and even religious press, are unconsciously bearing a responsibility of tremendous weight-we say, unconsciously, for surely we cannot suppose that this large class of enlightened men are aware of the nature or extent of the evils of which they are the chief supporters. Did they know what a little serious investigation would soon teach them, viz., the greediness with which persons, laboring under chronic or imaginary ailments, catch at the confident, alluring, and certain promises of relief, held out in the medical advertisements of every newspaper that reaches their fireside, and the consequent millions of money which they are thereby induced to pay for what is to them of no value whatever, and what, in reality is, in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of every thousand, a simple mixture of the common drugs, known and used by the medical faculty for ten centuries, we are sure they would cease to lend