Sr a,—It is not my wish to occupy either your

valuable columns or public atten- tion more than is necessary ; but I am sure you are too liberal not to allow defence where you have admitted attack, and the public too just not to try the question at issue fairly on both sides.

A Dr. Johnson, who has made himself very busy in endeavouring to assail my practice through evidence obtained from my patients, having been completely ex- posed in one instance by the Literary Gazette—the party concerned coming forward and directly contradicting him on every particular he had asserted—has thought he might make himself a little inure notorious by imputing other cases of failure through the far spread medium of the John Roll. These, I beg to say, like his former charges, are utterly destitute of foundation, and are thus answered—the written do- cuments ill proof thereof being offered for your own inspection and satisfaction. Dr. Johnson states that one of the persons mentioned in the Literary Gazette, where the lungs where tuberculated, had since become a patient of his, and that this person declares, " he never transmitted or submitted to the Literary Gazette any such document as that which is published there." No document whatever having been published there, it is only by circumstances that I know the party to whom the Doctor alludes; and I beg you to insert the following extracts from his letters to me,—on which the Editor of the Literary Gazette, not in advocating my cause, but in submitting my pretensions candidly to public scrutiny, had a right to rely. " Prompted no less from a sense of gratitude towards you than duty to the public, I ant" (says the Rev. Mr. N—, the Gentleman alluded to) " most anxious to

testify my strong assurance of time wonderful efficacy of your method of treatment

in consumptive cases. On the 12th of July I reached town from Hastings, and im- mediately placed myself under your care. fly lungs were most decidedly in a tuber-

culated state ; with the help of a stick I was scarcely able to struggle twenty yards; my perspirations were the most profuse ever heard of; my pulse always very quick; my bones plastered in several places to prevent their forcing through; my expecto- ration very copious, and often tinged with blood; and ever since I was first attacked with phthisis. which occurred in March last, my cough, till lately, had been of a most violent and incessant nature. itis now rather more than six weeks since I first

submitted to your treatment, and I am able to walk three or four mites at one time.

fly perspirations left me entirely a fortnight since; my pulse, cough, and expecto- ration are so much reduced, that I feel assured, without the slightest risk of danger,

I can return home into the country. This wonderful faculty which you possess, in at once communicating a healing power to the most diseased state of the lungs, must be acknowledged to be the most enlightened discovery of the present age, &c." It seems, however, that this ill-advised Gentleman has since sought the aid of Dr. Johnson, who declares him to have "ulcerated lungs, increasing emaciation, diarrhwa, cough, a mel all the symptoms of pulmonary consumption ;" to which all I need say, is, that I can only be made fairtg answerable for what was done for him while under may eare,—but that it is rather a stretch of responsibility to make me

anwerable for him when under the care of Dr. Johnson, especially as neither that individual's mode of practice, nor very anxious endeavours, could be expected to be applied in a way most conducive to perfect the cure of uric of my patients. But even after the publication of Dr. Johnson's letter in the John Bull, viz, on the 28th of September, Mr. N. writes to Inc in these words :—

"That through some great Mistake, the simple though truly grateful testimony of thanks which I offered as a humble tribute for the almost miraculous improve- ment which I received when under your care, has thus been used as a weapon for destruction, instead of a shield of defence, cannot furnish a greater source of an- noyance to yourself than to me. In justice to myself, I must express to you that I have never once mentioned the circumstance of having been under your care, with-

out seizing the opportunity of explaining the rapid progress which I then made to- wards the restoration of my health. Contrary, however, to your better judgment, I

considered myself sufficiently restored to remove into the country. An unfortunatc internal comploint then obliged me to apply to some eminent Physician, and I tremu- lously acknowledge that the whole train of bad symptoms, expunged by your skill, are rapidly again re. appearing."

Amid this is my late patient's written testimony of the benefit he derived from con- sulting Dr. Johnson, who now turns round, and, with no common effrontery, ac- cuses me of being the cause of the unfortunate gentleman's aggravated malady ! though even he (as I have it also under Mr. N.'s hand), "on first seeing him, es. presseci himself greaSky parRrited at 44 (wooed (Jam awe! But, as if aware of the futility of his own accusation, Dr. Johnson has called in the aid of a brother physician, Dr. Paris, who tells him a story of a Major Taylor, whom he, Dr. P. same, after three or four months ineffectual attendance on me, "embarked to lay his remains in his native land," Ireland. Whether Major Taylor has so laid his remains, or, more properly, whether they have been so laid fin. him, I am not informed ; but the following was his written case when he originally ap- plied to me, 27th October, 1827, (for brevity's sake I refrain from detailing the early symptoms) :—

" A cold has gradually increased, accompanied by expectoration, until, it is to he feared, the lungs are seriously affected. When first attackedby inflammation in time chest he weighed 12 st. 12 lbs.; he has gradually wasted to 9 at. 10 tbs. The matter expectorated is partly purulent, woolly, and sinks in water ; he finds it diffieult to obtain sleep without an opiate ; his strength is much prostrated ; he is unable to walk two hundred yards without resting," 8m. &c. " all the above symptoms have been much aggravated lately by a severe rheumatic attack," &c.

Such was the case which Dr. Paris says (and I hope he knows it), I failed to cure; and for this I um called empiric, quack, and other abusive epithets. It is, there- fore, I must suppose, and so must the public, assumed by the faculty, that I mon competent to cure every case which I undertake, and restore to health every patient who seeks my assistance ; for if not so, why should the alleged want of success in one or two isolated instances subject me to these virulent tirades ? But I do not pretend to this omnipotent power; nor, I trust, does Dr. Johnson or Dr. Paris, or any one doctor, or the whole faculty of physicians put together. If they do—if they can certainly arrest the decay of nature and the arm of fate, why du their pa- Rents ever die 1—and if they do not, is it liberal to attack me for a failure among my hundreds of cases, nine out of ten of whose patients are desperate cases, which they, with all their skill, learning, and experience, have given over as incurable ? Indeed, I ask no further proof of my successful practice than the weakness, un- fairness, and malice of these imputations. Having thus, Sir, justified you and every other honourable and inquisitive portion of the press, for the share that has been taken in discussing my system and its effects, I trust you will allow me a little more of your space, in order to show you, by still further exposing my adversaries, that I am not unworthy of the favourable opinions that have been expressed of me. Doctor Richard Reece' a worthy coadjutor of Doctor James Johnson, both as an assailant of mine and as the editor of a medical periodical, has a long article in his last publication against my mode of treatment in consumption ; and Ime cites the case of Miss Bridge, withsundry names attached, as an evidence to my dis- advantage. With this I will not trouble you, except to say (see her father's letter in may possession), that the young lady was sent home by Dr. Drake, " on the 17th of Au- gust, lest she should be too weak to be removed in another week, and she continued to get worse, with frequent vomitings, cold feet, diarrhaei cold chills, constant fever, and for the last month 'unable to move or put her fool to the ground." In this hopeless condition she was brought to me on the 1st of November, the nipping commencement of winter, and Captain Bridge bears this testimony to my ex- ertions, on the Iiith of the seine month • " In live days she could walk, hi ten days the night perspirations had nearly ceased, and all the symptoms much abated; she sleeps well, has regained her appetite, and suffers no pain or inconvenience, except from occasional nausea and weakness, and has taken no medicine," te.c. Although I refused at first to undertake the cure of this almost dying person, Iliad effected so much that I began to entertain sanguine hopes of her recovery, when, during an absence in the country other practitioners were called in; they interfered with my system, and I was obliged to abandon the patient, who died a few weeks after. But, perhaps, the only thing in Dr. Heece's paper deserving of notice is a challenge from him, in the name of his fellow-physicians, to me. Ile says,— " If Mr. Long really thinks he has discovered a successful mode of treating pul. monary consumption, a disease to which mammy thousands of our fellow-creatures fall a sacrifice in the prime of life, in this metropolis, how easy would it be to put his treatment to the test of experience. There is not a respectable physician in this metropolis who would not supply hint with cases for this parpose; and if he ebould stuccoed in curing one well-marked ease, who would not most cheerfully attest the cure ? We would propose that six fair eases be selected by a physician, from which Mr. Long may make choice of one m and in case he should restore that one to health let him have the merit of the cure, and a national reward, to which he would be justly entitled. By fair cases we mean cases in the second stage, and not in the last or hopeless stage." And this is the proposition of the faculty ; this is their regard for the lives of their patients, or it is their unbounded confidence in the efficacy of my system. What ! would every respeetable doctor among them supply me with experimental cases ; would they place the lives of one or six individuals in a fair, or curable stage of consumption, at the mercy of a person whom they call an ignorant quack ? The challenge is incredible ; but since they have such an opinion of my skill, I will do more—if not satisfied with what I have already performed, and for which I hare min- qnestionable vouchers, they will bring to me twelve or eighteen persons in three di- visions of incipient," fair,' and desperate consumption, I will undertake the charge, and put my practice to their test but, after the unhandsome attempts already made, I must insist on their being persons of respectability, whose evidence would be irresistible with the country, and who are above being bribed or tampered with by my opponents.

I am, Sir, your most obedient servant.