Excerpt from The Composite Man as Comprehended in Fourteen Anatomical Impersonations

About twenty-five years ago the author was an ardent stu dent of anatomy, and was ambitious to popularize the subject, believing that an intimate knowledge of the human organism would prove to be of practical service, not only to medical men, but to people generally, and with this end in view, for a number of years, he delivered a series of popular lectures on the structure of the human body, in a considerable number of communities adjacent to the city Of Chicago. The audi ences were always appreciative, but the task proved too ardu ous to be long continued, and the hope of popularizing the subject by means of lectures at least died out, until it seemed necessary of late years, for humanity's sake, to aid in unifying the medical thought of the times.

Practical medicine has been split up into various special ties, each full Ofits own importance. Manual therapeutics has achieved a widespread appreciation of its own merits, and sug gestive therapeutics has grown to such substantial proportions as to clamor for universal recognition, while the old, time honored temple of medicine has industriously striven to meet the ever-changing and increasing wants of humanity to the best of its ability. Each means Of cure has its appropriate field Of Operation, and all possible remedial measures that have been found helpful in the healing of the sick are sorely needed in the great campaign of humanity against disease and premature decay. There should be no rivalry between the various'methods of cure, but, on the contrary, they should enjoy mutual appreciation and helpfulness. This desirablestate Of affairs can be attained only when the nature of man, both physical and spiritual, is better understood. SO long as one set of healers has a care merely for the physical part of the human being, ignoring, as far as possible, all consideration of his spiritual nature and necessities, and another set refuses to recognize the claims of man's material part, but hopes to rescue humanity from its aches and pains by purely psycho logical processes, sick humanity can have little hope Of per feet and permanent recovery. But when the dual nature Of man becomes universally recognized and the fact that, so far as his present existence is concerned, he is not a mere body nor a mere soul, but both, and that each acts and reacts upon the other in both health and disease, becomes universally appreciated, practical medicine, manual therapeutics and sug gestive therapeutics can sit down in friendly counsel with some hope of successfully solving the great problem of humanity's emancipation from the thralldom of sickness and suffering.

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