From The Saturday Review. ulants, warm rooms, open windows, have each been tried in turn-and, as it seems, THE most ancient, the most universal, and without any marked advantage one over the the most necessary of all the applied sci- other in effecting cures it was not surprisences-that which seeks to restore the human ing that sceptics should doubt the inspirabody from disease to health-is just now in tion of the oracle whose utterances were a singular condition. Medicine and its pro- found to be so changing. Those who examfessors have long held sway over the hopes ined further, and discovered that the docand fears of mankind. The science officially trines which were successively invoked to taught in universities and lecture-rooms has authorize each new system of treatment over and over again been forced to alter its rested on arbitrary assumptions, not demonfundamental principles and its outward prac-strated, nor for the most part capable of tice; yet one-half of mankind has continued demonstration, began to suspect that the to look up with unswerving confidence to difference between regular medicine and the authority of the Faculty, while the other half has been ever ready to run after the new sectaries who constantly arise to question the doctrine of the schools, and to propound some new remedy for human suffering. To no purpose have the orthodox professors exposed the manifest short-comings of their opponents. Quackery has continued to thrive-being commonly a mere impudent speculation upon the public credulity, sometimes a sincere and ignorant confidence in the virtues of a nostrum, and now and then the partial appreciation of some truth neglected or overlooked by the regular practitioners. It has been a convenient doctrine to set down the success of dissenting medicine to the general want of scientific instruction, and to an ignorant impatience of disease among the unreasonable mass of mankind, prompting them to have recourse to whatever irregular short-cut might be offered for escape from bodily suffering. But in this, as in some other matters, men in general are not such fools as wise professors think them. Cold water and hot air, nay, even such coarse specifics as those of Morrison and Holloway, have not recruited their votaries exclusively amongst the ignorant and the credulous. The plain truth is that people have followed quacks because they have not found in the doctrines or the practice of the regular profession reasonable ground for confidence. Even those who knew nothing of the numerous revolutions that have over and over again upset the prevailing doctrines as to the nature of disease and remedial action, have seen that there could be little certainty about a system which changes all its outward practices every ten or twenty years. If bleeding, calomel, starving, stim quackery was not so profound as they had been used to believe. Both appeared to be in the dark as to first principles, and to appeal for support to empirical evidence. After analyzing all that medical science could say in the great majority of cases of disease, the only reason to be given why you should swallow a given drug was the fact that many others who seemed to be affected in a way similar to yourself had taken the same drug, and had survived the dose. The doctor, often uncertain of the nature of your disease, was quite ignorant of the cause of it. He had no evidence as to the action of his drug, or even whether it had acted at all upon the cause of disease, and lastly he had no certainty that the drug would affect you in the same manner as others who had taken it. The very utmost that he could urge was a belief, more or less probable, that the same drug had been serviceable in cases presumed to be similar. Was there any essential difference between his process of reasoning and that of the honest quack who, by a nearly similar process, had worked himself into a belief in the virtues of a specific? The doubts which have been gradually spreading amongst reasonable men as to the trust that could justly be put in medicine as a scientific system based on ascertained truths, have of late received unexpected confirmation from the highest authority. One after another, a succession of men eminent in the medical profession have declared the final result of their experience. All unite in limiting within a narrow range the possible utility of the physician's efforts. With but a small number of special exceptions, we may abandon the search for antidotes to cure disease. For the chief-in most cases the sole-curative agent, modern science expected to shorten or reduce the intensity has no better name than that given by the of the attack. The option lies between a system of slight palliatives, almost or quite inoperative, and the application of stronger remedies whose action is uncertain. Fortunately, the effects of medicine in general are far less considerable than is commonly supposed. The statistics of hospitals in which the most different systems of treatment have been adopted do not, indeed, prove that all the systems have been equally good or bad; but they do show that in many diseases there is no known system of treatment that has any marked advantage over others. It is not too much to say that, for one case in which the medicine administered has been of real use, there are ten where the patients would have thriven as well or better without it. A further difficulty in medical practice has been less noticed than it deserves to be. All that is known of the effect of remedies is the general or average result of a large number of cases in which they have been applied. But no two men are exactly alike in the manner of action of their various organs. When the chemist who has once tried an experiment brings the same substances together under similar conditions, he is absolutely certain that they will act on each other as they did before. Not so is it with the living organism. The idiosyncracy of each patient is more or less unknown to the physician; and till the experiment has been tried, he can have no certainty as to the result of his treatment. It is quite true that the exceptional cases that sometimes arise present apparent rather than real anomalies. There is no reason to suppose that the laws of physics have been suspended by an independent disturbing power when a drug produces on a particular patient an unusual effect. The conditions of the experiment have doubtless been changed by some peculiarity in his organization, which the present means of science are powerless to detect. It would be strange, however, if the education which puts into a man's hands the accumulated results of the experience of others and which, if it does no more, should teach him how short a distance his own knowledge reaches-were not to make him a safer and a more useful adviser than the pretender who, in utter ignorance of the structure and functions of the human body, administers at random his pill or potion to every applicant. If there is but little apparent difference between many regular practitioners and the quacks whom they denounce, the explanation is to be found in a variety of causes which combine to the same end. In the first place, the practice of medicine is full of difficulty. Modern science has done something to aid in the diagnosis, often the most difficult part of the physician's task. Auscultation and the use of the microscope have substituted certainty for conjecture in many cases. But, for this essential preliminary of ascertaining what is the matter with the patient, a combination of faculties is often needed which cannot be communicated in the schools. The power may be developed and improved by use, and corrected by careful observation, but it is born with certain men, and it is not to be gained by teaching or study. Then, sup-ogy-the first taking cognizance of all the posing the disease to be ascertained, it constantly happens that there is little or nothing to be done that can with any confidence be The main cause why medicine is still so little advanced is to be found in the backward condition of the science on which it mainly rests. Physiology, including pathol vital functions of organized beings, the second of the disturbance of those functions by disease—is far from maintaining its place in the general march of physical science. though it is only fair to add that he has in Some important steps in advance have, how- some degree diminished the utility of a very ever, been gained, and quite enough is firmly interesting book by making it at the same established to make the science one of the time controversial. Thoroughly versed in most valuable, as it is certainly one of the his subject, and well skilled in the literary most interesting, branches of human knowl-art, Mr. Lewes has found it easy to convey edge. If the study were more generally pur-accurate knowledge in a form calculated to sued, sounder notions of the conditions of excite attention and interest. The least inhealth and disease would prevail, and the formed reader finds it easy and pleasant to medical profession, while abating somewhat accompany him so long as he travels on the of its pretensions, would gain in the opinion beaten track of generally admitted doctrine. of all the reasonable and well-informed. But in physiology this does not extend very When physicians no longer deem it a point far. We soon reach the limit where the way of honor to affect a confidence in their art becomes uncertain, and, all ignorant as we which they do not really feel-when they are, we find that our guide calls upon us to frankly own, as the best amongst them often decide between himself and the most emido, that the diagnosis is uncertain, or the nent professors of the science, and say along case one in which medicine is of little avail which of two or three different paths the road -the judicious portion of the public will to truth may be found. By extensive knowl discern what it is now sometimes difficult to edge and observation Mr. Lewes has fully trace the line of separation between the proved his right to maintain his own opinscientific practitioner and the ignorant ions against any authority in the science, quack. however weighty. His reasoning is always acute, though sometimes pressed rather farther than a cautious logician would approve; and in regard to the part of his book upon which he has bestowed the greatest amount of labor, there is much reason to believe that his views of the nature and laws of nervous action will be admitted as substantially correct. In some cases where Mr. Lewes calls in question the conclusions of his predecessors, the difference between his conclusions and theirs seems to be more apparent than real, and in a work intended for beginners in the study, and for general readers, it would certainly have been advisable to reduce rather than to increase the number of polemical discussions. With this slight drawback, the book may be fairly recommended as the best extant introduction to Physiology for ordinary readers who are not prepared to undertake a course of systematic study. There is no branch of science which touches us all so nearly, and none in regard to which it is so desirable that the general ignorance should be dispelled. Like other branches of natural science, physiology cannot be thoroughly mastered without actual observation and experiment. Facts presented to the eye have not merely the advantage of exciting the attention more vividly, as the Horatian maxim runs-they are also retained more permanently, and are more suggestive, than mere description, however vivid and accurate. Yet it is quite possible to gain by reading a general knowledge of the results of physiological inquiry, and an acquaintance with the leading facts on which the more important conclusions have been founded. It is not, indeed, easy to point out any single work which completely answers the purpose of the general reader; but there is one which does so to a very great extent, and which is not yet as widely known as it deserves to be. In his Physiology of Common Life, published a year or two ago, Mr. G. H. Lewes has achieved the object which he seems to have proposed to himself, by producing a work which is at once popular and scientific; LIVING AGE. 954 THIRD SERIES. From The London Review. FORGERY OF BANK OF ENGLAND NOTES. in the way of successful forgery; but so long as the means of reproducing copies from such a negative was confined to the ordinary process of photographic printing, no successful imitation could be expected. Here and there an unwary person might be taken in, but the risk of detection would be far too dangerous pastime. Recently, however, discoveries have been made by which it is possible to transfer the negative image from the glass plate in all its minute integrity and exquisite accuracy on to metal or stone; and this once effected, impressions can be worked off in printer's ink of absolutely the sam tint and material as that used in printing th original note. The photozincographic proc ess of Sir Henry James, as practised a Southampton for the production and reduc tion of maps; and the photolithographi process of Mr. Osborne, employed for a sim ilar purpose at Melbourne for the Colonia Government of Victoria, have each bee brought to a sufficiently high state of perfec tion to render the successful forgery of a bank-note mere child's play to any one pos sessing the manipulatory skill of either of the above gentlemen. THE recent robbery of paper from the Laverstock Mills has naturally caused public attention to be directed towards the subject of bank-note forgeries. The general impression appears to be that although first-great to induce any one to embark in this rate artists might succeed in producing a very good imitation of a bank-note, so as to deceive an unsuspecting person, yet it would be impossible for a forger, however skilful, to imitate a note well enough to deceive the bank authorities themselves and induce the cashiers to convert them into specie. The Bank of England has, therefore, considered its position as impregnable: everything which could be expected for protection of the public had been done, whilst they consider their own safety from deception absolute. A few years ago something was heard of photographic forgeries of bank-notes. These were undoubtedly done in a very skilful manner, but, at the same time, no persons who had ever examined a genuine banknote could have been led astray by them: and whilst it was conceded that the imitation was very good, the idea that photography could ever be seriously employed by the The editor of the Photographic News in forger was generally dispelled at the first in- drawing attention to the specimens of these spection of these photographic imitations. processes exhibited in the International ExSince then the matter has been lost sight of hibition, gives it as his firm opinion, that by by the public, and the greatly extended fa- these means, copies of Bank of England cilities which recent photographic discoveries notes might be produced which would enhave placed at the disposal of the forger, tirely defy detection. It so happens that have been apparently overlooked by those these notes offer very especial advantages for who should be most upon their guard. It imitating in such a manner. The design is may, therefore, be with some little surprise clear, bold, and well-marked; they are prothat the Bank authorities will learn that pho- duced, not from engraved plates in intaglio, tographic processes are not only known, but printed at the copper-plate press (the printed are actually in constant operation, by which impression of which always presents a slight fac similes of their notes might be produced amount of relief which may be felt by the so perfectly as to defy detection by the most finger); but by block-printing at an ordinary practised expert. It is admitted that the typographic press. Such an impression can, image of a bank-note produced in the camera therefore, be imitated by the photographer is as absolutely perfect as the note itself. without difficulty, and in such a manner Every stroke and line, each accidental flaw that, if printed on the proper paper, the Bank or secret mark is as easily produced as the authorities themselves would be incapable most commonplace design. The optical of detecting. In corroboration of these remeans employed can, in fact, transfer on to marks we would refer our readers to the the prepared plate as exact a fac simile of specimens shown by Sir H. James, Mr. Os the bank-note as would be found on the plate borne, and Mr. Ramage, of Edinburgh, in from which the note was in the first instance the photographic garret at South Kensing printed. As far as the negative is concerned, ton. Copies of maps, engravings, manu there never has been the slightest difficulty scripts, printed books, etc., are exhibited, which cannot be distinguished from the orig- | free people. Till it fall, every mere attempt inals, and there is no question that had one to promote material intercourse between the of the copies been a bank-note, the deception two countries tends probably but to deepen would have been equally perfect. In fact, the bitterness of France. The abolition of we understand that Mr. Osborne, wishing to passports for English subjects, whilst these call the attention of bankers in Melbourne were retained for French, was felt as an into this danger, produced to them photolith-sult to the nation, and galls Frenchmen ographic copies of which they admitted they every day to the quick. The benefits of the would be unable to repudiate the genuine ness. If the danger of photographic forgeries of bank-notes be as great as the above facts lead us to imagine, it is imperative that the bank authorities should at once take steps to ascertain the real extent of the danger to which the public as well as themselves are exposed. Let one or all of the above gentlemen be invited to produce a fac-simile of a note of some considerable value (say £500); let all reasonable facilities (which would be possessed by a forger) be given to them, and a sheet of bank-note paper be supplied them to print their copy upon. We venture to affirm that if in addition to this the governors of the Bank would undertake to cash the successful forgery, provided it passed the ordinary scrutiny of a majority of their cashiers, they would soon be convinced that the boasted impossibility of any forger ever taking them in was a fallacy, cheaply found out at the price of the forged note. commercial treaty are not visible yet in France to the many; its mischiefs to the few are palpable. The International Exhibition. will certainly have created more jealousies than it will have allayed. The very shopkeepers of Paris, the class above all others who have most benefited by late commercial changes, talk freely (though not, of course, to their English customers) of the future war with England. - For in truth the old Roman historian's definition of a firm friendship-" to will and not will the same things"-holds good between nations as between men. The only true bond of union between a free people and an oppressed one must lie in the sympathy of the former with the sufferings of the lat ter, in their common hatred towards its oppressor. Now, partly by our fault, partly without our fault, this state of things does not yet exist between England and France. We are not in general accustomed to distinguish sufficiently between France, and the tyranny which weighs on France. Most Englishmen probably do hate Napoleon III. From The Spectator, 18 Oct. -perhaps even Lord Ranelagh himself at FRANCE AND ENGLAND. the bottom of his heart (if his heart have a WILL the terrible realities of the Ameri- bottom). But they hate him as the embod can struggle between men speaking the same iment of French ambition, not as the oplanguage, enjoying hitherto the most unre-pressor of France; whilst at other times our stricted freedom of commercial intercourse, statesmen, our journalists, our public spoutbound together by the closest commercial ers, carry even their folly so far as to speak bonds those producers, those consumers, traders, manufacturers, capitalists-suffice to awaken the commercial school out of its fool's paradise as to the effects of abolition of passports, treaties of commerce, international exhibitions, and other devices for facilitating the material relations of mankind with each other, for promoting a real unity among them, where moral sympathy is want-" attention" these many weary years, not ing, where some institution, some form of polity, juts out as a wall between nation and nation? As slavery stands between the North and the South on the American continent, so stands the imperial despotism between France and England, or any other of him, or practically to treat him, as our bulwark, our trust, our ally against France herself. A more stupendous absurdity surely never entered into the brains of men, or one which the facts more palpably contradict. Is it against the French Republic or against the French constitutional monarchy that the whole world stands, so to speak, at daring to pile arms? Is all history a blank, that despotism, with its secrecy and promp titude of self-will, should be considered for one moment a better safeguard for peace than freedom, with its publicity, its deliber ations, even when most tumultuous? It is |