or have been wantonly sacrified, since the first of January, 1834, during the five most healthy months in the year. Taking these five healthy months, as being the months best calculated to test the success of the empirical practice, as the months when empiricism is most popular, (diseases being the mildest, and the principle of life the strongest,) 128 individuals have died, over and above the number which did die in twice the time and half the population, before the empirical practice was introduced, and before public confidence was shaken in the medical profession. If these healthy months were made the standard of comparison, Natchez would lose 331 individuals in five years over and above the number she lost, in ten years and half the population, under the regular exercise of the medical profession, unmixed with quackery. The empirics will no doubt try to evade the issue by disowning the unreported cases, or may even lay them to the charge of the physicians. But the main and essential fact, that the mortality of Natchez has greatly increased since they came to town and commenced a pretended reformation in medicine, will still stand in bold relief against them. If they could prove that the physicians neglected to report all the deaths which occurred in their practice, the physicians, on their part, could prove that many of the cases they did report, had previously been subjected to steam, or that the sick had eked out the first period of their disease in the use of nostrums and quack medicines. The medical statistics of Natchez prove in the clearest and most undeniable manner, that previously to the introduction of quackery the annual average mortality for ten years in succession, embracing a very sickly period, rife with epidemic diseases, was much less, or at least very little, if any greater, than the average mortality of most other towns and cities. in the world which are reputed healthy. But since the intro

duction of quackery, the annual average mortality has greatly increased. To charge the increased mortality to the present regular physicians would avail empiricism nothing, unless it could blot out from the records of the city the diminished mortality under the regular physicians, before it was permitted to obtrude itself among them. The present physicians, and those of a former day drank at the same well of science. When the empirics came to Natchez the annual average mortality, including strangers, still-born children, and the deaths occurring among the negroes brought here for sale, was only 1 in 30.6-and had been at this rate for the ten preceding years, while the mortality among the citizens proper did not exceed 1 in 61; but the very month in which the empirics commenced, in good earnest, to reform a science they had never studied, the mortality suddenly increased to one death in every 21 inhabitants per annum, notwithstanding that Natchez had, in the mean time, ceased to be a market for the sale of negroes, which formerly added very considerably to the bills of mortality, not only from the deaths which occurred among them, but likewise from the contagious diseases, as measles and whooping cough, which they almost annually introduced into the city.

The important fact, that the mortality of Natchez has greatly increased since the introduction of quackery, cannot be evaded by saying, that I have rated the population too high at one period and too low at another. The population in 1830 was known to be 2789. The number of deaths which occurred in that year is likewise known to be 80-which would make the average for that year only 1 in 34. 8-10. The population in 1837 amounted to 6160. The number of deaths which occurred in nine months of that year, omitting entirely the deaths which occurred during the period of

the epidemic in August, September and October, amounts to 186-this would give an average mortality of 1 in 24. 4-10 per annum. But if the population since the empirics have been permitted to practise medicine in Natchez, be put at the highest enumeration, and at the lowest enumeration previously to their introduction, still would it be found that the mortality of the city, since the introduction of quackery, has increased in a manner sufficient to demonstrate that the city has gained nothing by the pretended reformation in medicine, but has lost much. I do not say, nor do I believe, that the empirics have actually carried a sufficient number of patients through a full course of steam and No. 6, to account for the great increase of mortality; but I do say, and believe, that the war they have waged against the known and welltried remedies of the Materia Medica, and the measures they have taken to destroy public confidence in the medical profession, are nearly sufficient of themselves to account for the increased mortality, without taking into the estimate those who died under their scalding treatment.

I owe to the empirics, en masse, a public exposition of my opinions in regard to the "reformed system," for having wantonly and wilfully spread, far and wide, a report which was most industriously circulated, that I had, in a good degree, become a convert to their doctrines. This, like many other reports, I viewed as a trick in their trade of deceiving the public. It is true I have used red pepper and lobelia in my practice, but I have used these articles of the Materia Medica in my practice before I ever heard of steam doctors or botanical reformers. If the fanatic Thompson had ta ken a fancy to calomel and the lancet, instead of red pepper and lobelia, I should not have thrown aside calomel and the

lancet for fear of being classed among his disciples by employing the remedies which he and they abused.

The empiric is known by his nostrums and secret combinations, and by his ignorant and indiscriminate use and application of the known and established articles of the Materia Medica. It is not the medicine, but the man, who ignorantly uses the medicine, which constitutes empiricism. No one medicine can be proper in all cases of disease. The empiric treats all cases, however different, very nearly alike, with the same articles, whether vegetable or mineral substances, whether calomel or red pepper and lobelia; but the physi cian draws his remedial agents from the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms, he knows, or should know, the properties and virtues of all; consequently in the treatment of the various diseases, he makes such selections of medicinal agents, for every individual case, as the lights of science, conjoined with his own and the experience of former ages and other countries, may, in his judgment, after a careful examination of the case, seem to be the most appropriate.

In the collection and publication of the medical statistics of this city, my first object was to bring about some action, at home, which might prevent any further and unnecessary sacrifice of human life among my neighbors and fellow-citizens. But I have supposed, that a full and free inquiry in regard to this important matter by the profession in other quarters, might be attended with happy results, and I trust that my essay will be followed by other expositions on the same subject, which will at length open the eyes of the community to the extent and enormity of this evil. It may not be in the power of the profession to induce legislatures to enact laws for the suppression of empiricism; but it is their duty to inform the public as to the evils of quackery. These statis

tics, it is not in the power of empirics, or of those who countenance them, to gainsay or resist; and if they be extended by physicians in other places where the "reforming system" has been in operation, a mass of testimony will be collected which, in the end, must exercise a controlling influence upon public sentiment. It is by the exhibition of such facts as have been presented in this paper, that the judgments of men are to be convinced.

ART. II.-Practical Observations on the use of Sulphate of Quinine. By JOHN W. MONETTE, M.D., of Washington, Mississippi.

In the 13th volume of the "American Journal of Medical Sciences," I gave my views of the medical properties of the sulphate of quinine, as a remedy in febrile affections, and of the proper cases for its use in the treatment of fevers of the remittent and intermittent type. In the article referred to, it is contended that the sulphate of quinine is a powerful febrifuge in fevers with increased action and tone, and acts somewhat analogously to antimony and other contra-stimulants; that it is by no means a direct stimulant to the circulation or nervous and cerebral energy; but is calculated to reduce the tone of both: that it is not by any means a tonic in the general acceptation of the term: that it is not adapted to the treatment of fevers attended with direct debility: nor to cases of debility without fever; and that it will produce pernicious effects in such cases if administered freely.

I propose in the present article to offer a few additional remarks in illustration of my views of the therapeutic proper