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290 ESOTERIC ANTHROPOLOGY.
and even to the skin. There are many phenomena in
the cure of disease by hydropathy, which give, to say
the least, a violent presumption of truth to this hy
pothesis.
But in whatever particular way nature deals with the
matter of disease, whether the product of the system
or introduced from without, the general fact is well
ascertained, that these matters are sometimes cast out
at once, and sometimes after a long course of years,
during which they remained in the system, always
oppressing it, and liable at any time to be a cause of
disorder, like the aforesaid prisoners in an enemy's
country.
All this will be denied. We have, in the medical
world, five schools of —the pathology nervous, solidist,
the humoral, the chemical, and the mechanical. They
believe, respectively, that all diseases arise from irregu
lar nervous action, from disease of tissues, from humors
in the blood, from chemical changes, and from animal-
cular or mechanical irritation. My pathology includes
all these theories, and all the facts on which they are
founded. Those who take any narrow, one-sided view
of nature, run into error and bigotry.
Modes of practice are based on these exclusive theo
ries of disease. The nervists deal in sedatives, anti
spasmodics, and poisons, which directly affect the
nervous system ; the solidists on rely mercurial and
other alteratives; the humorists purge; the chemists
give alkalies and acids ; and the animalculists strive to
poison the enemy, forgetting, as an old doctor said of
worm medicines, that man is but a worm, and is liable
to be killed by the same poisons.