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Chemistry, at this period^[109] took possession of the schools, and whilst it was gradually grafted into the theory of medicine, it soon became the only guide to its practice, the absurdity of which has been already dwelt upon.

In tracing the march of chemical improvement during the last century, we cannot but be struck with the new and powerful remedies which it has introduced, and the many unimportant and feeble articles which it has dismissed from medical practice.

In the present century, the rapid progress of Chemistry has outstripped the anticipations of its most sanguine votaries; and even in the department of vegetable analysis, a correctness has been attained, the very attempt at which had been abandoned by the most illustrious chemists of the former age as hopeless and chimerical; let us for instance only compare the results obtained by the Academicians of Paris, and published by Geoffroy, in their analyses of several hundred plants by the operation of heat, with the elegant and satisfactory researches in this branch of science lately conducted in the same country; whilst the former failed in establishing any distinction between the most inert and the most poisonous plants, the latter have succeeded in detecting, separating, and concentrating several of their most subtile constituents. Opium has been at length compelled to confess its secret source of action, and Ipecacuan to yield its emetic element in a state of perfect purity.