CHAPTER XIX.
ECLECTICISM.
There has sprung up within a few years, in the United States, a class of medical practitioners who style themselves Eclectics. The term is of very ancient date, and appears to have been first employed by a class of pagan divines who lived long before the Christian era. The word is of Greek origin, and signifies to select, or choose, and was supposed to be characteristic of a sect who compiled their religious system by picking out something from each of the religious systems then in vogue. What became of that sect it is not our business to inquire. All we need to know, is, that Archigenes, a Syrian, who was an empiric, and lived about the time of the Christian era, borrowed the term and made it the foundation of his scheme. This sect may therefore lay claim to considerable antiquity, although we believe that the links of its history have been sometimes widely separated. From
