Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1873-03-17
MEDICAL DIFFERENCES.

The differences which have so long
existed between the two great medical
bodies of the State-the allopathists
and the homeopathists-seem, by the
recent decision of the courts, to be put
farther away from settlements than ever
and from the present signs of the times,
we shall be compelled to wait indefinite
| ty for the coming together Of the disa-
greeing parties, an event which, however
unlike to occur. would be public bene-
fit and blessing. Both systems are rep
resented by able, intelligent men, duly
educated and vouched for by the schools
Of their respective beliefs; men honest
and earnest, and, if may be, more or less
prejudiced, but none the less to be re-
spected or trusted on that account.
Each party believes-and very naturally
that its own particular system is best,
and is sustained in that belief by GER
tain portion Of community. But that
does not prevent the existence of
merit in the other There are schools
of instruction and schools of thought,
but the two are not Necessarily Identical.
Men may have studied the same facts,
may have acquired under the same
teachers an acquaintance with a variety
of philosophic scientific systems, and
may yet form for themselves ideas very
different from those which they have
gained from other thinkers, or from their
immediate teachers. In theological
school the professors inculcate generally
under very severe penalties, their own
style of orthodoxy; but the pupils must
be held to be poor theologians unless they
know what the heretics have promulga-
ted, and have learned in what way to
combat these dangerous tenets. In other
sciences there are. for the most part, GER
tain material facts which form the
groundwork Cf Il, deductions and thco-
ries. The phenomena belonging to them
may admit of various modes of explana-
tions; the methods of employing to pro-
duce new combinations to work out de-
sired results, may be diverse but yet
no one pretends to deal efficiently with
the elements of the material world,
unless he is first acquainted with them.
Of all the practical sciences, that of
medicine is perhaps the only one where
the same facts have appeared to lead to
different conclusions; to indicate, in the
obtaining of results, the most opposite
methods.
1t is not so very long ago that bleed
ing was relied upon as one of the most
efficient of remedies, and the physician
lancet was in constant requsition. Now
the practice is almost abandoned. Sc
with many of the most prominent rene.
dies of the past generation. And in the
same way, while one class Of physicians
treat diseases by means of specifics
whose ascertained qualities were discov.
cred in an empiric manner, another class
derives all its practice from the simple
formula that "like cures like" Nc
matter, however, when or by whom the
science of medicine is practiced, it should
be practiced intelligently, by those who
are acquainted with the parts of the hu-
man body and their functions, and with
the natural curative materials and process
ses. He cannot be considered an accom-
e plished physician who has learned only
single system of treatment, and is ig
norant of the ideas which prevail among
the practitioners of other methods thar
his own. We should hardly submit t.
an act of the Legislature which should
lay down the rules of orthodoxy to limi
l the improvements which might be made
0 in curative science. The most sensible
way of disposing of the troubles whicl
now agitate the medical community, i
:, to have our medical schools teach al
e that can be known of the human body
and of the effects produced upon it b
q the various methods of treatment. Hav
q ing thus fitted their students to iudg
: let them be allowed to make proper us
of their reasoning faculties, and iudg
for themselves in all cases submitted t
), them what particular treatment shoul
be followed in each especial case. Thi
would relieve US from quackerv, for a
educated man is not a quack if he diffe
), from his professional brethren upon in
" telligent grounds-and it would at tn
same time rid us of the exclusiveness {
= system which the present state of th
curative art hardly justifes any one Sc
e of men in imposing upon the world
II Boston Globe.
q A FRIGHTFUL RIDE.
! On Christmas morning, a dashing coul
t tesan, agnifcently arrayed, ordered