Athothis : a satire on modern medicine / by Thomas C. Minor.

numerous deductions as to the functions of various viscera. As regards the actions of medicinal agents on these organs we have reached the point of perfection, for our wise experimental physiologists and chemists have practiced vivisections on all manner of animals and birds, and thus scientifically determined what effects toxic agents produce on the human system. Why should you suggest, even by inference, that modern physicians are unacquainted with the laws governing vital action? Have we not dissected millions of bodies, and made thousands of autopsies ? Ah ! Athothis, you know full well that a true knowledge of our noble science was un- known to the ancient Egyptians, who were entirely igno- rant of the first principles of anatomy, physiology, and pathology, if we are to believe the statements of modern scientists." Athothis indulged in a little ripple of spiritual laugh- ter, and replied : " It is very evident that you never wit- nessed, until the present moment, the interior machinery of the body in motion. I am fully aware that the anat- omists and physiologists of this epoch spend much of their valuable time in dissecting and experimenting on animals. I myself have been a victim of their cruel and senseless practices; for, once, while inhabiting the form of a guinea-pig, a celebrated French savant poisoned my system with strychnia, opening the thoracic cavity while my body was yet quivering with life, and, noting the movements of my dying and displaced heart, wrote a learned treatise on the effect of the drug on the cardiac affections of man, basing his conclusions on what he had observed in the differently constructed organism of a guinea-pig. His valuable discoveries were hailed with delight by the medical world. At another period of my