My attention was first directed to this subject by an editorial in the American Medico-Surgical Bulletin from the able pen of Dr. Wm. Hy. Porter, in which he very forcibly portrayed the evil of stock prescriptions in the hospitals. At first I rather thought, that like most reformers, he had represented the practice and the evils thereof in somewhat extravagant terms, but closer personal observation has convinced me of the correctness of his views.
Vibration is nature's law; everywhere do we notice action and reaction, condensation and rarefaction, crest and trough. Even the forces that apparently move in straight lines, when more closely studied, are found to be an aggregation of an infinite number of minute vibrations too small for the unaided eye to measure.
The noble art and science of medicine is no exception to nature's law of vibratory motion; indeed, notwithstanding her boasted conservatism she is largely the