ical Schwaal 524-43 248068 PREFACE. We have now completed six years of labor as a medical editor. The first of these years, our publication was styled THE NEW ENGLAND MEDICAL ELECTIC AND GUIDE TO HEALTH. The remaining five years, it has borne the name of THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANIC MEDICAL AND SURGICAL JOUR NAL. The object to which the publication has been devoted from year to year, has been unchanged. Our undivided aim has been to assist, to the extent of our ability, in establishing a system of medical practice involving, simply, an innocent and sanative medication. In our mind, it is a misnomer to speak of poisons as medicines. According to Dr. Noah Webster, a poison a substance which, when taken into the stomach, mixed with the blood, or applied to the skin or flesh, proves fatal or deleterious." Or, again, he defines it, "Any thing infectious, malignant, or noxious to health.' But, by medicine, is universally understood a substance which has the property of curing, or, at least, mitigating disease in animals, particularly in the human species. Now, by what magic power any thing which, when applied according to the quotation from Webster, "proves fatal or deleterious," can be made conducive to health, we were never able to understand. The same article, we know, which is poisonous to some animals is healthful to others. Thus, man can eat some things which are deadly to the horse, and vice versa. Again, certain articles, as cheese, beefstake, &c., though poisonous to particular individuals, yet to most people constitute a healthful diet. And more than this we cheerfully concede. We admit, that the same article which is injurious to a person in one condition of the physical system, may be innocent and even salutary in another. When, however, all these admissions are made, what is the extent of the uncertainty necessarily involved in the administration of medicine? Why, simply this, that the idiosyncrasies of individuals cannot always be understood, until the effects of particular agents are witnessed. It is, after all, true, in regard to mankind generally, that the agents usually employed as medicines have each its peculiar and nearly uniform effect. There are agents, as mercury, arsenic, antimony, and the like, which are known to act, invariab.y and necessarily, in direct contrariety to the powers of life and health. There are other agents, the influences of which harmonize entirely with physiological laws, and do no injury to the system, while the effects wrought are specifically and positively beneficial. Of these latter, the greater the cogency, the greater, by so much, is the benefit resulting. Not so with the former. With them, the greater the power, the greater the injury done. The vital forces, even unaided, may rally enough effectually to resist the united influence of the disease and the poison; but the poison itself can never favor the efforts of nature. Still impressed with these views, we propose to continue our exertions to advance the cause of scientific medicine. Our next volume, we trust, will, in some respects, be superior to any preceding it. EDITOR. |