Forty Years in the Wilderness of Pills and Powders

Forty Years in the Wilderness of Pills and Powders: Cogitations and Confessions of an Aged Physician is a classic medical anecdotes collections by William A. Alcott. In the sub-title to the following medical biography, I have used the word "Confessions"--not to mislead the reader, but because to confess is one prominent idea of its author. It is a work in which confessions of the impotence of the healing art, as that art has been usually understood, greatly abound; and in which the public ignorance of the laws of health or hygiene, with the consequences of that ignorance, are presented with great plainness.