attended the employment of these agents. In 1852, a committee on
"Indigenous Medical Botany," appointed by the "American Medical
Association," acknowledged that the practitioners of the regular school
had been extremely ignorant of the medical virtues of plants, even of
those of their own neighborhoods. The employment of podophyllin and
leptandrin as substitutes for mercurials has been so successful that
they are now used by practitioners of all schools. Although claiming to
have been founded upon liberal principles, it may be questioned whether
its adherents have not been quite as exclusive and dogmatic as those
whom they have opposed. It cannot be denied, however, that the eclectics
have added many important remedies to the Materia Medica. Their writings
are important and useful contributions to the physician's library.


THE LIBERAL AND INDEPENDENT PHYSICIAN.


After this brief review of the various medical sects, the reader may be
curious to learn to what sect the physicians of the Invalids' Hotel and
Surgical Institute belong. Among them are to be found graduates from the
colleges of all the different schools. They are not restricted by the
tenets of any one sect, but claim the right and privilege, nay, consider
it a duty, to select from all, such remedies as careful investigation,
scientific research, and an extensive experience, have proved valuable.
They resort to any and every agent which has been proved efficacious,
whether it be vegetable or mineral.

And here arises a distinction between _sanative_ remedial agents and
those which are _noxious_. Many practitioners deplore the use of
poisons, and advocate innocuous medicines which produce only curative