The result was, that his business became so much diminished as to leave him without a full support, except from past earnings, and he began to make preparations for a removal to the West. But this his friends were unwilling to have him do, and they accordingly raised, by subscription, $300 a year, to induce him to remain. In a few years, however, the subscription failed to be renewed, and in 1839 or 1840 he removed to Ohio, where he still remains. He does a little business, and what he does is attended with great success; and yet, the number of those who follow him is small.
Facts of similar import, in very great numbers, some more and some less striking, might be related, to almost any extent; but can it be necessary? Suffice it to say that some of the oldest physicians in Boston and its vicinity, the oldest physician in Cleveland, and some of the most intelligent ones in New York and Philadelphia, as well as elsewhere, are coming rapidly to the same conclusions with Dr. Jennings, and a few of them have already arrived there.
It is from stumbling on such facts as these, together with my own long experience, all bearing in the same direction, that I have long since renounced dependence on medicine, properly so called, as a means of restoring the system, when out of order, to a state of health. In other words, I have ceased to employ poison to cure poison.
But, lest it should still be thought I make too much of my own experience, and of the facts which have been adduced in this chapter, I subjoin another of kindred character, containing the written testimony of others, especially medical men, on the subject.
CHAPTER XCIX.
ANTI-MEDICAL TESTIMONY.
A very large amount of testimony, going to show the inefficiency and inutility of medicine, might be presented; but I have limited myself to a selection of some of the more striking and important.
Let me begin with Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia. In a published lecture of his, more than half a century ago, he made the following remark:—