but if we had all done as you did, it would have been better for us.'




THE DOCTOR VERSUS THE MEDICINE.


We have not taken any part in the controversy now raging between the
Allopathists and Homoeopathists; but we think it our duty to point out a
signal benefit which appears to have resulted from it. Allopathy means
simply 'another suffering,' and Homoeopathy 'the same suffering;' from
which the ingenious may conclude, that our regular doctors pretend to
cure diseases by inducing other diseases, and the new school by inducing
symptoms identical with those of the existing disease. But there is
another difference between the schools. The one gives the medicine
boldly by the grain, the other cautiously by the millionth part of a
grain. Both sometimes fail; both sometimes cure. Which is right?

We cannot pretend to answer the question; but in practice we hold with
the regular doctors. We do this because we are used to it. We may be
said to have been born with their silver spoon in our mouths; and we
should be terrified if the ghost of a grain went in instead. We have
done our duty from our youth up by pills, boluses, and draughts: we can
lay our hand, with a clear conscience, on our stomach, and avouch that
fact. We have ever held our doctor in too much reverence to disobey him;
and we revere him more and more every day, since we find him grappling
closer and closer with the Homoeopathists, and meeting them manfully on
their own ground. 'We will not,' says he, 'give in to the absurdity of
attempting to counteract a disease by a medicine that produces the same