position with respect to the Medical Profession, that any trouble I, or
any other member of that profession, may choose to bestow upon it may be
considered merely as a matter of self-defence. It began with an attempt
to show the insignificance of all existing medical knowledge. It not
only laid claim to wonderful powers of its own, but it declared the
common practice to be attended with the most positively injurious
effects, that by it acute diseases are aggravated, and chronic diseases
rendered incurable. It has at various times brought forward collections
of figures having the air of statistical documents, pretending to show a
great proportional mortality among the patients of the Medical
Profession, as compared with those treated according to its own rules.
Not contented with choosing a name of classical origin for itself, it
invented one for the whole community of innocent physicians, assuring
them, to their great surprise, that they were all ALLOPATHISTS, whether
they knew it or not, and including all the illustrious masters of the
past, from Hippocrates down to Hunter, under the same gratuitous title.
The line, then, has been drawn by the champions of the new doctrine; they
have lifted the lance, they have sounded the charge, and are responsible
for any little skirmishing which may happen.

But, independently of any such grounds of active resistance, the subject
involves interests so disproportioned to its intrinsic claims, that it is
no more than an act of humanity to give it a public examination. If the
new doctrine is not truth, it is a dangerous, a deadly error. If it is a
mere illusion, and acquires the same degree of influence that we have
often seen obtained by other illusions, there is not one of my audience
who may not have occasion to deplore the fatal credulity which listened
to its promises.

I shall therefore undertake a sober examination of its principles, its