The present age witnesses a notable departure from previous methods of healing disease. The change is a striking one, yet neither extravagant nor absurd to the thoughtful mind that has noted the progression in material methods, from the salivation by calomel, the black draught and the blood-letting of our grandfathers, to the higher attenuations of the homeopath and the manipulations of the magnetic healer.
The evolutionary process which has been going on in the science of medicine, has reached its present stage naturally. All decided change in medical treatment has been a step forward, not backward, in that it has been a growth away from the purely and grossly material.
The time when a fever-patient was shut up in a darkened room, denied both air and sunlight, and even a drop of water, has, I trust, gone by forever. In their day those things seemed right, and the proposition to give a patient all the water he wanted, and a constant supply of fresh air, would have met with a horrified refusal, and the maker of it would have been considered what is known to the present time as a "crank."
