they consider as antiquated affairs—pyramids, indeed, but containing nothing but putrid mummies. But eclectics, instead of being ahead of what they choose to call the old system, are far behind it. They are only gleaners, and poor at that. They call themselves eclectics, which signifies persons who cull, or pick out from something already prepared; therefore, if they are true to their name, they wait for others to prepare the material from which they are to purloin whatever suits them. They are not pioneers, but capricious followers. They originate nothing, but are unthankful borrowers and imitators. All the knowledge and skill that they do possess, has been learned, as the parrot learns to talk, by mocking others.
It is no matter whether the physician is a member of this or that medical society—it is no matter in what school he has been educated—if he pretend to practise two or more ways to suit his patients. It is evident that neither the patient nor his friends can ordinarily be proper judges of the most suitable means to be made use of in any given case; for if they were thus
