Page:Quackery Unmasked.djvu/328

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324
QUACKERY UNMASKED.

error; and although its effects may not be seen immediately, it will eventually succeed. We are aware that opposition to errors sometimes makes their advocates more desperate, and it would not be strange if such manifestations should be witnessed in the present case. But these struggles may always be regarded as the expiring throes of morbid existences. Truth must eventually triumph over error. "Veni, vidi, vici," is inscribed upon her banner.

Although the human race has tenanted this globe nearly six thousand years, rational medicine may be considered even now to be in its infancy. During all the dark ages, a superstitious priesthood claimed supreme dominion over all human institutions. Medicine was held to be within their exclusive province, and none were allowed to question clerical authority or to offer any changes in medical matters. Under that state of things, generation succeeded generation, and century followed century, whilst medicine continued chained to the blind car of a bigoted priesthood. Whenever laymen attempted to detach the art of healing from clerical embrace,