A General Eclecticism.

Twenty years ago, the then renowned president of Rush Medical College, stated that the Eclectic School of Medicine had the method which must be ultimately adopted by the profession of the world. "They must all come to it in time," he said, "as it is the only correct principle."

A writer in the December Medical Times, of New York, defending the use of the word "Regular" as applicable to the old school profession, says: "Members of the Schools of Medicine, established in adherence to certain pretty fixed doctrines, have christened the so-called 'Regulars' as Allopaths. As a matter of fact, the regular profession of medicine has never formally recognized that its treatment should be allopathic, or indeed, guided by any single principle. The only term that could not be as objectionable as 'Regular' which we can think of as at all applicable, is 'Eclectic,' and this has a well known sectarian significance to which the Regulars themselves have ever formally objected."

It has become quite a common practice among those who will recognize the fact that the profession at large is eagerly seeking after a knowledge of those things which our school has determined and taught, to claim that their method is eclectic.

While this word was originally intended to represent a catholicity of sentiment, it now includes a knowledge of the specific action of drugs. This the profession at large is seeking after with an earnestness never before exhibited, and when once attained, as I believe it will be at no distant date, the word eclectic may well be applied to the profession in its entirety.

Ellingwood's Therapeutist, Vol. 2, 1908, was edited by Finley Ellingwood M.D.