maladies of this age. To do this it is necessary to point out and
teach these few how to reason on the subject, and how to weigh with
something like exactness the various important symptoms that present
themselves under varying styles of treatment.

If a young physician is guided in his opinions by authority--if he
believes that the last word has been said, because he has the last
book from the leading authority, and if said authority has not yet
learned that there is a true and a phantom diffuse peritonitis, said
young man is not in line for saving life; on the contrary, he is
liable to mismanage and meet with as great a failure, and be the
cause of as unnecessary a death as was the good doctor from whom we
are quoting and of whose _medical sophistry _I am trying to give the
true qualitative and quantitative analysis.

Rupture into the gut is exactly what will happen every time, in all
cases, if left alone and no food nor drugs given.]

_"Treatment: _Warm, followed by hot, flaxseed poultices; rest,
freshly expressed meat juice or beef tea, in all 200 grams; thin
gruel made with milk, 200 grams; wine, 100 grams in twenty-four
hours, small portions to be taken every two hours; no drugs."

[A little over six ounces of meat juice and six ounces of gruel made
with milk! The starch contained in the gruel will always create gas
in these cases and stimulate peristalsis; the gas inflates the cecum
and drives the contents of the bowels into the abscess cavity; this
sets up secondary inflammation. The meat juice and wine could have
been left out to the patient's betterment. It is refreshing to know
that no drugs were given, and if the case had been treated from the