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I wish that I might speak with a larger measure of authority in regard to the causes that led to the favorable reception of this new sect in New York, but I am not able to do this, and I doubt whether anybody among my contemporaries is able to do much better than merely to suggest some of the more obvious causes which favored the popularity of the new school of practice. Among such causes I may mention the fact that in those days the practitioners of the regular school were in the habit of prescribing drugs in large doses and with very little effort to render them palatable. Take, for example, senna tea, of which bad-tasting medicine the patient was expected to take a large teacupful shortly after the early crowing of the cock; and if, a day or two later, a repetition of the same dose was ordered by the attending physician, can anybody wonder if the remedy was quickly pronounced by the patient much worse than the disease? Experiences like the one just narrated were by no means uncommon, and, as a consequence, many families did not hesitate to transfer their patronage to a class of physicians who never prescribed any remedy that had a bad smell or taste or that caused the slightest bodily discomfort. Then, beside, it is a well-known fact that, during the period now under consideration, the regular practitioners had, in not a few instances, been guilty of prescribing therapeutic measures which actually inflicted harm. Such, for example, were the giving of mercurial preparations in too large doses, the too frequent resort to bloodletting, etc. For all these reasons, it is not at all strange that for a period of several years (1850–1875) homoeopathy flourished in New York. In all fairness, therefore, it may be said that the great improvement in the manner of administering drugs which took place, both here and in European countries, during the period from 1860 to 1880, may be attributed indirectly to the influence of the new sect.