as members of the committee. Suffice it to mention the names of His Grace the Most Rev. Doctor Cullen, the Lord Chancellor, the Provost of Trinity College, the President of Maynooth College. There are some who have not waited to join a public demonstration, but have at once commenced to do good service. Dr. Stokes has generously undertaken to educate Hogan's second son in the medical profession; Trinity College is to make him free of its course; and the Jesuit Fathers have two of the children attending their college, Great Denmark Street. It gives us great pleasure to add that Madame Croft, Superioress of the Convent of the Sacré Coeur, Roscrea, has most kindly intimated that the first vacancy which occurs in that estab lishment shall be assigned to one of Hogan's daughters. We trust these noble examples will speedily be followed by other institutions.

In spite of these individual instances, Dublin is tame enough in Hogan's cause. We are sure the provinces will do better. The City of the Treaty, the scene of the great sculptor's latest triumph, will not be backward. After honoring the father the citizens of Limerick will not forget to protect the children. Cork is working well in the cause, and her liberality takes not the air of a late restitution, but is only the continuance of an enlightened patronage. The first work of Hogan's son is now certain to be a monumental statue of Father Mathew for the great artist's early home. There is plenty of true Irish blood in the cities and towns of England; shall the cause be an alien one to them? We think, if the press try, it shall be found not so. And America-where we turn so sadly yet so trustingly when the hard time presses-will the Irishmen, prosperous yet exiled, who labour in the wild plains of Canada, and toil so honorably in the cities of the States, will they, we say, turn a deaf ear when we speak of the sorrow and the need of the children of so great a countryman? Let the press, many-voiced and trumpet-tongued, try again. Hogan's family must be the wards and cherished children of the people, no matter where the Irish race be scattered—and another bright young genius must be sent to Rome, to study and to work, and to walk in his father's footsteps, that Ireland yet may boast she possesses, in her long line of great names, a second JOHN HOGAN.

ART. V.-LIFE IN A TUB.

1. The Water Cure in Chronic Disease. M. D., London: Churchill.

By James M. Gully,

2. The Water Cure. By James Wilson, M. D. London: Trubner and Co.

3. Hydropathy.

Churchill.

By Ed. Wm. Lane, M. D. London:

4. Confessions of a Water Patient. By Sir E. Bulwer Lytton.,

Bart.

5. A few Facts Forgotten by the Faculty. By S. B. Birch, M. D., London. H. Baillière.

Perhaps there is nothing more characteristic of the march of intellect of the present day, or more indicative of a healthy tone of mind, than the suspicion with which the public in general, and many physicians in particular, are beginning to regard the use of drugs as curative agents-that chiefest engine of the allopathic physician for the relief of suffering humanity.

The freeing of the mind from old and preconceived ideasfrom practices, with which we have been familiarized from childhood-the looking with distrust upon a system which since the times of Esculapius and Hippocrates has held undisputed sway, arrogating to itself the name of Orthodox, and dubbing its opponents as quacks-such a change in public opinion is of good or evil omen, according to the causes from which it springs, whether from a calm investigation of the question presented for examination, in which strong arguments, based on scientific principles, and supported by occular demonstration of effects, are found to preponderate in favor of a new system, or from a revolutionary love of novelty, indicative of versatility and want of faith in established institutions, a love of change which would espouse and propagate any doctrine irrespective of its merits, merely because it was new.

That this change of opinion to which we refer, viz., the want of confidence in drugs, is not altogether frivolous, would appear from the following confession of Dr. Forbes, a distinguished allopathic physician, who thus sums up the experience of a long professional career.

"Firstly. That in a large proportion of the cases treated by allopathic physicians, the disease is cured by nature and not by them. Secondly. That in a lesser, but still not a small proportion, the dis

ease is cured by nature in spite of them; in other words their interference opposing instead of assisting the cure, and Thirdly, that consequently in a considerable proportion of diseases it would fare as well or better with patients, if all remedies, especially drugs, were abandoned.'

Again, one of the most eminent of living medical writers says, "When healthy properties are impaired, we know of no agent by which they can be directly restored, when vital action is perverted or deranged, we possess no means of immediately rectifying it, but we must be satisfied with using those means under which it is most likely to RECTIFY ITSELF."

It is the knowledge of these facts that has produced discontent with the usual mode of medicinal treatment, and has encouraged the belief, that it does more harm than good in cases of disease. Dr. Gully states :

"By it (the drug system) the body is placed in the most unnatural position, and its efforts at relief constantly thwarted. Disease, which is quite as natural a process as health, is not allowed to go on as nature would ; the internal organs whose morbid action alone can cause death, are made the arena for all sorts of conflicting and inflicting medical stimulants; and between the action which these excite, and that which originally existed, their vitality fails, their efforts towards restoration flag, and their functions are at last extinguished."

The British and Foreign Quarterly Journal-the leading journal of drug medication-thus writes:

"This mode of treating disease (Hydropathy) is unquestionably far from inert, and most opposed to the cure of diseases, by the undisturbed processes of nature. It in fact perhaps affords the very best evidence we possess of the curative power of art, and is unquestion. ably when rationally regulated a most effective mode of treatment in many diseases. Still it puts in a striking light, if not exactly the curative powers of nature, at least the possibility-nay, facility-with which all the ordinary instruments of medical cure, drugs, may be dispensed with. If so many and such various diseases get well entirely without drugs, under one special mode of treatment, is it not more than probable, that a treatment consisting almost exclusively of drugs may be often of non-effect-sometimes of injurious effect ?" Dr. Headland, in his prize essay on the action of medicines on the system, thus writes :

"On no question perhaps have scientific men differed more than on the theory of the action of medicines. Either facts, essentially opposed and incompatible, have been adduced by the disagreeing parties, or which is nearly as common, the same fact has received two distinct and opposite interpretations.

Such quotations as the above show that enquiry is abroad amongst the medical profession, and that some at least of its members are dissatisfied with the truth of the system which

would consider drug medication an essential instrument in the cure of disease.

As the mode of treating disease promulgated by the followers of Hydropathy, in consequence of the great success which has attended its practice, has perhaps mainly contributed to that change in the public mind to which we have alluded, we propose very briefly to direct the attention of our readers to its mode of action, and by investigating the principles which it advocates, inquire whether it can fairly lay claim to public support, and how far it can prove the title which it lays claim to of being a true, rational, and natural mode of curing disease.

The most eminent physiologists of the present day agree in regarding disease in general, as an effort of nature to relieve the system of matter injurious to its well-being: this being the case, the natural and common sense mode of curing disease, would obviously consist in assisting nature in its efforts to expel the morbid substance from the system, and thus relieve it from the danger which threatened it. Now this is exactly the principle on which Hydropathy proceeds; it aids, encourages, and strengthens the efforts of nature to heal herself, instead of irritating, thwarting, and weakening those efforts, by the pernicious administration of drugs.

To render the foregoing position intelligible to our readers, it is necessary to premise, that the action of all active medicines depends upon the principle, (admitted by all physiologists,) that nature ever makes a continued effort to cure herself, never ceasing in her attempts to relieve the body from whatever injurious matter may be present in it; and it is this effort of nature to expel the irritant matter from the system, which makes the drug produce its effect: thus when a preparation of sulphur is administered, as a medicine, nature in her effort to get rid of the sulphur, opens her pores to expel it. This is proved by the resulting perspiration, and by the circumstance that everything in contact with the patient is found on analysis to be largely impregnated with the constituents of the medicine;-the well known fact of all articlesof silver about the person, being tarnished, being an illus. tration of this effect; in addition to this the stomach is weakened. and irritated by the medicine which has been poured into it; and further, if the dose is repeated, nature getting gradually accustomed to the intruder, ceases from her inhospitable exertion to expel it, and as a consequence the medicine fails in producing

its intended effect. We have here referred to the successful administration of a drug, but in many instances it entirely fails to produce the desired result, acting injuriously upon other organs of the system, quite contrary to the effect intended. We will now compare this treatment with the hydropathic mode of producing the effects aimed at by sudorifics; their usual appliances consist of the lamp and Turkish baths, and the result is this, that by their method a most powerful effect is produced on the skin in the course of about half an hour, after which the patient feels lightened, strengthed and invigorated, no deleterious substances are passed into the stomach, irritating its membranes, and the process may be repeated as often as may be necessary with undiminished effect. Who ever saw a patient recovering from the perspiratory process according to the orthodox allopathic mode of treatment, who was not weakened and somewhat dejected, whilst buoyancy of spirits and invigoration of the system, are the usual accompaniments of the hydropathic process. Take another example from the process of wet-sheet packing, and examine its effects in subduing inflammatory and febrile affections; by this simple process the pulse is often reduced from 120 pulsations per minute to 65, in the short period of three-quarters of an hour, the circulation equalized throughout the body, and a soothing effect produced on the patient, which it is almost impossible to describe: what no drug or combination of drugs in the whole of the pharmacopeia, is capable of producing; in this case again little lowering of strength is produced, and the stomach is again saved from the injurious and irritating effects of Tartar emetic and other drugs; instead of the fever raging for a period of three weeks, it is generally subdued in as many days, when the patient goes forth, but little reduced in strength, instead of being weak, miserable, and emaciated with the prospect of some six weeks elapsing before he is restored to his wonted strength. Sir Lytton Bulwer thus describes from personal experience the process of wet-sheet packing:-"The sheet after being well saturated is well wrung-out,-the patient quickly wrapped in it-several blankets bandaged round, a down coverlet tucked over all; thus, especially where there is the least fever, the first momentary chill is promptly succeeded by a gradual and vivifying warmth perfectly free from the irritation of dry heat,-a delicious sense of ease is usually followed by a sleep more agreeable than anodyne ever produced. It seems a positive cruelty to be taken out of this magic girdle in which pain is lulled and fever cooled, and watchfulness lapped in slum