almost half a century his mind had been wholly abstracted from the regular profession. He had been engaged in a great variety of pursuits, and had wandered far and wide, in the wild fields of the fairies, without gathering either fruits or flowers. He had never been engaged in the practice of medicine, and at that advanced period of his life, if he retained any traces of his youthful acquirements, they were at least half a century old. So far as his medical knowledge was concerned, he was like a man who had been incarcerated in a dungeon during the preceding half century. Since his exile from the profession, it had undergone the most rapid and important improvements. Chemistry had become almost an entire new science. The theories of Haller and Van Swieten, which were taught Hahnemann, had long been exploded. Practical medicine had undergone an entire reformation, and every year, month and day, witnessed continual improvements in the science and art of medicine. And as Hahnemann never studied medicine after this time, it is very certain that up to the day of his death he remained profoundly ignorant of all that truly pertained to it as a science.
