Having now laid before our readers these resolutions, with our comments upon them, we leave the matter to their judgment; confidently expecting their concurrence in this conclusion, That we have great reason to congratulate ourselves that the most pleadable reasons which can be alleged in justification of the recent proceedings against us are so illogical, insignificant, and untenable.

A LETTER

ADDRESSED TO

66

DR ROSE CORMAC K.*

Not all the coronets and mitres in England can give dignity to an error, or transform a lie into a truth; and, layman though I be, I hesitate not to proclaim in this public Christian assembly that the sermon (Mr Everest's) from which I have quoted is replete with quackery, heresy, and impious doctrine."... (Dr Cormack's Speech at the Brighton Anti-Homœopathic Congress.)

SIR,-A friend has just placed in my hands the "Medical Times" of Saturday, August 16, containing a report of a speech made by you at Brighton last week to the Medical and Surgical Association, in which you refer to a sermon published by me some months ago. I beg to return you my most cordial thanks for it. I can assure you very sincerely that I take it as a very kind thing of you to do. That sermon was falling into what I am to suppose you agree with me in thinking to be most unmerited oblivion. You have generously advertised it for me all over the world without putting me to any expense; and I must be allowed to say, I think this is very handsome conduct on the part of one who differs decidedly from my views. I was in some perplexity to make my sentiments known, and you descend, the Deus ex machina, and relieve me.

The great satisfaction I feel at having my sermon thus resuscitated and brought under the notice of so respectable a meeting, is certainly somewhat qualified by the language you apply to me and it. Not that I object to being abused

* By the Rev. Thomas R. Everest, Rector of Wickwar. London: William Headland.

-quite the contrary-by an Allopathic doctor; but there is a melancholy reflection connected with you, sir, and that' is that you are the son of a clergyman! Naughty words must have been very cheap where you came from, sir, for you have laid in an elegant assortment of them, and I presume there are "plenty more to be had at the same shop: country orders executed with diligence and despatch." But where can you possibly have learned such naughty words? "Blasphemy," "impiety," "lie," "heresy," "quackery"-in what filthy pool did you find all this mud? I am not much in the habit of seeing your medical journals, and so perhaps it may be only my innocence that causes me to wonder at it, for it may possibly be all normal and correct there; but I do know something of the "interior" of clergymen's families; and indeed I must confess not to have, as yet, heard any such words there. Alas! sir, it is another of the charges against the dreadful art in which you have been initiated, that the education necessary for it and the studies preliminary to it harden the heart and petrify the feelings. How sad it is to reflect that perhaps there was a time when you, sir, were an ingenuous youth, who, educated by a pious father and gentle mother in the faith and fear of God, were accustomed to hear of that blessed charity which thinketh no evil, and taught to restrain thy tongue from speaking it. Alas! alas! sir, the atmosphere of Allopathy does not suit these soft plants. Anatomy, dissection, and their kindred studies have changed many an amiable man into-something that I decline to characterise, and will not imitate. I will practise towards you, sir, that which I see in those sons of clergymen who are brought up as clergymen, and which has not been quenched in me by learning Homœopathy. I pity and forgive you.

I have, however, a few words to say to you. to begin them by telling you a short story.

Permit me

Once upon a

time, it is said, there lived in Dorsetshire an eccentric old

farmer whose name was Cawse. The rooks used to give the old man a great deal of annoyance, alighting on his wheat-fields and committing great havoc there; but he was rather indolent, and bore the annoyance as patiently as he could for some time. At last, one morning the rooks had gone what the Irish call "beyand the beyant,” and Farmer Cawse could stand it no longer; so he seized an old gun, crept slily along the hedge, and fired, not at any individual among them, for he was a humane man, but "promiscuously into the lot," as he said. The rooks rose as one bird, cawing very loudly, on which the farmer was heard to say with great exultation, "Ah! Cawse! Cawse! indeed. Thee mayst call me what names thee do plaze, thee mischievous rascals, it do do my heart good to hear thee, vor I do learn vrom thy chattering as I have peppered zum on ye, and vrightened all the rest.”

You will say, perhaps, sir, that the story is a stupid one, and quite out of place here. It may be so; I will not defend it. You say I am everything that is base and bad and vile and shocking. I am very sorry for it, and hope I may mend by and by. You say the Homœopathic doctors are quacks and impostors. Let it be granted. And you say that all the archbishops, bishops, peers, members of parliament, clergy, and, in short, all those who believe in Homœopathy-who you tell us are many in number-are knaves and fools. Very well, sir. I will concede to you, if you like, that all those children born into the world who may be suspected by their mothers' vigilant obstetric attendants of any leaning to Homœopathy in the paulo post futurum state, should have their necks twisted in infancy, so that Allopathy may have a chance of being left at peace. But we cannot bring about this same desirable wringing of necks. And there is a great public, which cares neither for you nor me, and merely says, when it reads your wellflavoured philippic, "Pooh! it's only another case of Farmer Cawse!' the doctors abusing those who have

been peppering and frightening them." Don't you think, sir, you would produce more effect on this great inert public, if, instead of calling me names, you were to do that which you have been taunted, provoked, and dared to do, over and over again for forty years past, and which I now again dare you to do; that is, publish an account of the experiments you have made with Homœopathic medicines on Homœopathic principles?

You have delivered yourself of a very bitter invective against Homœopathy and me. I think it is but fair play that I in my turn should be allowed to deliver myself of a few pages of common sense against your art and you. It is not a fair match, it is true; for mere idle abuse goes for little, as the case of Goliath of Gath shows-a history which you, sir, being the son of a clergyman, have no doubt read, though without being much edified by it as it would seem. But I did not provoke the match. If Allopathy receives any damage, you are responsible, sir; I wash my hands of it altogether.

Suppose I am taken suddenly ill in London, far away from our "medical man;" if the art you profess has any certainty in it, there ought to be one normal mode of treatment, one correct mode, and one only—and all who deviate from that must be wrong. Is there such a normal mode of treatment, sir? You know the contrary. You know that the treatment I get depends on mere chance. Dr This will put me into cold water, Dr That into hot; Dr Somebody will prescribe bleeding, Dr Otherbody orders calomel. The Green Door is for mild aperients, the Yellow Door for tonics and bracing. This side of the way compounds forty medicines into one dose; the other side of the way says all medicine is humbug, and gives you bread pills. Dr East says you must be lowered; Dr West says you must have "good sound sherry, sir, and mutton chops." In short, take the twenty "medical fellows" that live nearest you, and you shall find twenty professors of the same art