For a long time pharmaco-therapeutic research devoted itself to its task in a very unsatisfactory manner, since drug action was studied upon the healthy human or animal organism, whereas the goal can be approached only from the new direction taken by experimental therapy, that of influencing experimentally the cause of the disease, or the dis ease process itself. So the laboratories unite in their efforts to add, in the form of organ and serum therapy, new specifics to the few (e.g., mercury, iodine, and quinine) which observation at the bedside gave to us long ago. Of the innumerable drugs which act only upon certain organs, or systems of organs, many arc of real value, while others owe their vogue only to tradition. That the latter, because of their empirical basis, should be cast aside without further ado is hardly to be advised, when one considers, for instance, the increase in weight which follows the improvement of appetite (all other conditions remaining unaltered) produced by the administration of a bitter remedy (tinctura cinchonie composite) in spite of the fact that up to the present time experi mentation can offer no explanation of its action. And finally, it cannot
be wondered at, that the action of many remedies--of water cures, for instance—is not entirely clear, inasmuch as under certain circumstances the functions may be restored to normal through influences which are almost imperceptible and outwardly are scarcely recognizable. If we have previously, among the physical methods, learned to appreciate the action of the bath, we have no right to deny an increase of its activity through the addition of chamomile tea, because the manner of this action is unknown to us excepting through the sense of smell. It is impossible to know the details of the action of a large number of reme dies, used for identical purposes, and if the selection is merely a matter of fashion, it is always well to take into consideration the degree of toxicity and the price.