and managers of the farce sit complaisantly behind the curtain, filling their pockets—not with coppers, but—with sovereigns.
Non-professional men appear to suppose, that, for each disease incident to humanity, nature has provided a special remedy, and that all the secret of medicine consists in the proper selection of that article. This notion prevailed in the earliest times, when superstitious rites were the only remedies employed; and at the present time it is an empirical hypothesis, upon which most nostrums are predicated. This is an obvious error. No disease, of any considerable duration, is found to consist of a single stage only, but most diseases in their course pass through several stages, by which the condition of the patient is essentially changed; so that such agents as might be most beneficial in one stage, would be useless or even injurious in another. Rational medicine endeavors to adapt the treatment to the condition and requirements of the patient in every stage of his disease, always selecting some of the most suitable remedies for each symptom and condition; and no skilful practitioner ever
