"A vapour eddying in the whirl of chance,"
and the distressing frequency with which we were called on to attend the remains of a fellow being to the gloomy prisons of the dead, imperatively demanded a radical and extensive reform.
But fortunately for the human species, the "March of Mind" has led to medical discoveries which have chained up the monster Death in impotence, and rendered him a plaything to "the faculty." The long and pompous pageants of M. D.'s diplomas, &c &c. have ceased to overawe the eager aspirant for medical celebrity, and he now steps forward in the path of fame at the age of nineteen, maximus in magnis, greatest among the great! Diseases that formerly baffled the utmost skill of science, and preyed upon their victims for years, are now thoroughly extirpated in an hour! The long catalogue of noxious medicines with which the pharmacopia was crammed, and which served no other purpose than to swell
"The beggarly account of empty boxes,"
which the shelves of a rascally apothecary presented to view, are now discarded; and their places are supplied by medicines so simple and so efficacious, that the value of life, once considered so inestimable, has actually undergone a considerable diminution, merely because of the ease with which it may be enjoyed. It is now no longer necessary to watch the various diagnostics of an obdurate disease through their origin and development; it is no longer important that the unfortunate patient should be bolstered up in bed for months, and his stomach annihilated by a nauseous diet of mush and water gruel. This was but the quackery of the rapacious cormorants, who grew rich upon the credulity of their dupes. The patient may be on his feet in half an hour, by the salutary operation of some harmless medicine, which produces no other evil effect than a remarkable elongation of the visage, and divers contortions of the abdominal viscera! Instead of first ascertaining to what extent the body of the patient has been debilitated by the ravages of his disorder, it is only requisite to refer to a mystical talisman, vulgarly called a teetotum, which entirely supersedes the necessity of thought or reflection; and whose final position, after performing sundry gyrations on its point, informs the practitioner with unerring certainty, whether his patient should be puked, sweated, or blistered! The result is certain. The most complicated case of pulmonary consumption is instantly and thoroughly cured by steam; and an obstinate fever, produced by a superabundance of bile upon the stomach, is effectually extirpated by an injection of cayenne pepper! As revolutions never retrograde, these important changes in medical jurisprudence will only terminate in the actual resuscitation of a dead body, by an external application of camphorated salts! a "consummation devoutly to be wished," and most certain to be effected, by the rejection of all mineral medicines,—which the "March of Mind" has demonstrated to be hurtful,—and the substitution in their stead of a few simple vegetable remedies, accurately arranged, classified, and numbered!
But enough. No man can reflect upon these things, without applying, as I do, the trite quotation, "tempora mutantur," &c. Although it has been used for the ten thousandth time, by the whole tribe of newspaper scribblers and juvenile poetasters, yet it has never been more apropos. Times are changed; and "oh, how changed!" What mind does not expand at the delightful contemplation of these grand revolutions; and who does not look forward with eagerness to the memorable era when all the vulgar bourgeois qualities of common sense, common decency, and common virtue, will fade into nothingness before the resistless and all powerful "March of Mind!"
V.
Lynchburg, Oct. 30, 1834.