On the side of “Nature” we have had, first of all, that remarkable discourse on Self-Limited Diseases, [On Self-Limited Diseases.  A Discourse delivered before the Massachusetts Medical Society, at their Annual Meeting, May 27, 1835.  By Jacob Bigelow, M. D.] which has given the key-note to the prevailing medical tendency of this neighborhood, at least, for the quarter of a century since it was delivered.  Nor have we forgotten the address delivered at Springfield twenty years later, [Search out the Secrets, of Nature.  By Augustus A. Gould, M. D. Read at the Annual Meeting, June 27, 1855.] full of good sense and useful suggestions, to one of which suggestions we owe the learned, impartial, judicious, well-written Prize Essay of Dr. Worthington Hooker. [Rational Therapeutics.  A Prize Essay.  By Worthington Hooker, M. D., of New Haven.  Boston. 1857.] We should not omit from the list the important address of another of our colleagues, [On the Treatment of Compound and Complicated Fractures.  By William J. Walker, M. D. Read at the Annual Meeting, May 29, 1845.] showing by numerous cases the power of Nature in healing compound fractures to be much greater than is frequently supposed,—­affording, indeed, more striking illustrations than can be obtained from the history of visceral disease, of the supreme wisdom, forethought, and adaptive dexterity of that divine Architect, as shown in repairing the shattered columns which support the living temple of the body.

We who are on the side of “Nature” please ourselves with the idea that we are in the great current in which the true intelligence of the time is moving.  We believe that some who oppose, or fear, or denounce our movement are themselves caught in various eddies that set back against the truth.  And we do most earnestly desire and most actively strive, that Medicine, which, it is painful to remember, has been spoken of as “the withered branch of science” at a meeting of the British Association, shall be at length brought fully to share, if not to lead, the great wave of knowledge which rolls with the tides that circle the globe.

If there is any State or city which might claim to be the American headquarters of the nature-trusting heresy, provided it be one, that State is Massachusetts, and that city is its capital.  The effect which these doctrines have upon the confidence reposed in the profession is a matter of opinion.  For myself, I do not believe this confidence can be impaired by any investigations which tend to limit the application of troublesome, painful, uncertain, or dangerous remedies.  Nay, I will venture to say this, that if every specific were to fail utterly, if the cinchona trees all died out, and the arsenic mines were exhausted, and the sulphur regions were burned up, if every drug from the vegetable, animal, and mineral kingdom were to disappear from the market, a body of enlightened men, organized as a distinct profession, would be required just as much as now, and respected and trusted as now,