ECLECTIC SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

a branch of American medicine originating in a reform movement that began in 1825. The new school opposed the older practice of bleeding, blistering, and other drastic remedies and urged the adoption of milder measures and the use of vegetable medicines. It denounced the methods of the old school as cruel and inhuman and its remedies barbaric. The eclectic school rejects mercury and most other substances in medicine and makes use of native medicinal plants. The school’s adherents, like the ancient Eclectics scout hard and fast rules, and seek the most effective remedies and treatments in medical cases from all sources. The first eclectic clinic and established in New York in 1825, was schools and colleges later came into being in other cities of the country. The school’s modern practice, having developed from the early formative stage ‘and the study of plant remedies, is d on specific medication, or specific remedies for specific conditions of disease on the principle that a fixed relationship exists between drugs and disease. Remedies do not become spec i-| fic for certain pathological conditions until demonstrated by long experimentation. The leading college for teaching the practice is the Eclectic Medical Institute at Cincinnati, O. Practitioners number about 8,000 and have an organization in the National Hclectic Medical A ociation, which meets annually in selected cities.