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178 from every available source, and apply it in every available mode as may be demanded by the circumstances of the practitioner or the patient; the object of the exercise of the art being the relief or cure of the patient as promptly, safely, and pleasantly as possible, without any formal restriction as to the means or mode. This sectarian class therefore separates itself from the catholic profession by following professedly an exclusive method. Of the followers of Hahnemann (designating themselves homœopathists), there are reported to be three hundred in the United Kingdom. (See Homœopathy.) Of the followers of Priessnitz (the hydropathists) and of Mesmer (the Mesmerists), the numbers are much less. Indeed, the latter are not unfrequently homœopathists also.

"The 'quack doctors' are a motley body, comprising every kind of specialty—worm doctors, water-casters, bone-setters, astrologers, herbalists, 'wise men,' and 'witch-finders' (who prove to be occasionally, as of old, professed poisoners and procurers of abortion), curers of syphilis and diseases of sexual organs (with hardly an exception a group of scoundrels), the 'falling sickness,' &c. In this class may also be found venders of secret remedies in connection with some absurd hypothesis, as Coffin's herbs,