Illustration: One of the Private Consultation-rooms, Gentlemen's Department.
One of the Private Consultation-rooms, Gentlemen's Department.

The destinies of institutions, like those of men, are often determined by pre-existing causes. The destinies of some men are like those of way-side plants, springing up without other apparent cause than the caprice of nature, developing without any apparent aim, yielding no perfected fruit, and finally, dying, leaving scarcely a trace of their existence. Thus it is with institutions which have their origin only in man's caprice. To be enduring, they must be founded upon the needs and necessities of humanity. Many of the great men of the world owe their greatness more to surrounding circumstances than to the genius within them. The highest genius can be dwarfed or deformed by the force of adverse circumstances; hence the poetic truth of Gray in those exquisite lines:

"Some mute inglorious Milton here may lie,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood."

Opportunity is the guiding star of genius. Without it, genius would drift hither and thither upon the restless, ever-changing waves of circumstance, never casting anchor in a secure haven. Upon opportunity, too, depends the success of institutions. By opportunity we mean a real and acknowledged public want. Whoever undertakes to supply this want finds himself upon the crest-wave of prosperity. It was to supply such a want that this institution was erected.

A REMEDIAL HOME.

Of the seventy millions of people living in the United States to-day, it is estimated that nearly twelve millions are sufferers from chronic disease. Think for a moment! Twelve millions of people slowly but surely dying by the insidious and fatal development of chronic diseases! This is an appalling fact. And yet this is the very class of diseases with which the general practitioner is least familiar.

As a general practitioner of the healing art, fresh from curriculum, the founder of this institution early realized that the grand unpardonable sin of the medical profession was the neglect to more thoroughly study and investigate this class of diseases.

The profession is diligently cauterizing and poulticing the sores which now and then appear on the surface, but the internal chronic disease, of which these are merely the external signs, is too often overlooked or neglected.

Some years ago we devised and put into practical operation a method of

TREATING PATIENTS AT THEIR HOMES,

without requiring them to undergo personal examinations. We reasoned that the physician has abundant opportunity to accurately determine the nature of most chronic diseases without ever seeing the patient. In substantiating that proposition, we cited the perfect accuracy with which scientists are enabled to deduce the most minute particulars in their several departments, which appears almost miraculous, if we view the subject in the light of the early ages. Take, for example, the electro-magnetic telegraph, the greatest invention of the age. Is it not a marvelous degree of accuracy which enables an operator to exactly locate a fracture in a sub-marine cable nearly three thousand miles long? Our venerable "clerk of the weather" has become so thoroughly familiar with the most wayward elements of nature that he can accurately predict their movements. He can sit in Washington and foretell what the weather will be in Florida or New York, as well as if hundreds of miles did not intervene between him and the places named. And so in all departments of modern science, what is required is the knowledge of certain signs. From these, scientists deduce accurate conclusions regardless of distance. A few fossils sent to the expert geologist enables him to accurately determine the rock-formation from which they were taken. He can describe it to you as perfectly as if a cleft of it were lying on his table. So also the chemist can determine the constitution of the sun as accurately as if that luminary were not ninety-five million miles from his laboratory. The sun sends certain signs over the "infinitude of space," which the chemist classifies by passing them through the spectroscope. Only the presence of certain substances could produce these solar signs.

Illustration: Medical Library and Council-room.
Medical Library and Council-room.—Invalids' Hotel and Surgical Institute.

So, also, in medical science,

DISEASE HAS CERTAIN UNMISTAKABLE SIGNS,

or symptoms, and, by reason of this fact, we have been enabled to originate and perfect a system of determining with the greatest accuracy the nature of chronic diseases without seeing and personally examining our patients. In recognizing diseases without a personal examination of the patient, we claim to possess no miraculous powers. We obtain our knowledge of the patient's disease by the practical application of well-established principles of modern science to the practice of medicine. And it is to the accuracy with which this system has endowed us that we owe our almost world-wide reputation for the skillful treatment of all lingering, or chronic, affections. This system of practice, with the marvelous success which has been attained through it, demonstrates the fact that diseases display certain phenomena, which, being subjected to scientific analysis, furnish abundant and unmistakable data to guide the judgment of the skillful practitioner aright in determining the nature of diseased conditions.

So successful has been this method of treating patients at a distance that there is scarcely a city or a village in the United States that is not represented by one or more cases upon the "Records of Practice" at the Invalids' Hotel and Surgical Institute. In all chronic diseases that are curable by medical treatment, it is only in very rare cases that we cannot do as well for the patient while he or she remains at home, as if here in person to be examined. But we annually treat hundreds of cases requiring surgical operations and careful after-treatment, and in these cases our Invalids' Hotel, or home, is indispensable. Here the patient has the services not only of the most skillful surgeons, but also, what is quite as necessary in the after treatment, of thoroughly trained and skilled nurses.

What should be the essential characteristics of an Invalids' Home?

CLIMATE.

Obviously, the most important of these characteristics is climate. Climatology, from being a mere speculative theory, has arisen to the deserved rank of a science. The influence of the climate of a country on the national character has long been observed and acknowledged. The languid but passionate temperaments of the South are like its volcanoes, now quiet and silent, anon bursting forth with terrible activity, flooding entire cities with molten fire; or, like its skies, now sunny, cloudless, an hour hence convulsed with lightnings and deluging the earth with passionate rain; or like its winds, to-day soft, balmy, with healing on their wings, to-night the wind fiend, the destroying simoom, rushing through the land, withering and scorching every flower and blade of herbage on its way. On the other hand, the calm, phlegmatic temperament of the North accords well with her silent mountains, her serener skies, and her less vehement, but chilling winds. The South, too, is the native home of the most violent acute diseases, such as yellow fever and cholera. But, aside from this general climatic influence, there is the yet more restricted one of locality. It has often been observed that certain classes of diseases are most prevalent in certain localities, the prevalence in every instance being due to peculiarities of climate.

EXTREME HEALTHFULNESS OF BUFFALO.

In the published records of the examination for military service in the army, during our late civil war, this fact was clearly and definitely stated, and maps were prepared and presented showing the comparative prevalence of certain diseases in the several States and districts represented. The maps are prepared by a graduation of color, the lighter shades indicating the localities where the special disease under consideration is least prevalent; and it is a very significant and important fact that in all chronic diseases not due to occupation or accident, Buffalo and its immediate vicinity is marked by the lighter shades. Thus, in epilepsy, paralysis, scrofula, rheumatism, and consumption, our city is little more than tinted with the several colors used to denote these diseases.

Illustration: A Patient's Room.
A Patient's Room.—Invalids' Hotel and Surgical Institute.

There is a popular, but unfounded, belief that Buffalo is a hot-bed for pulmonary diseases. This idea could have originated only in an ignorant disregard of facts; for medical statistics prove that in her freedom from this class of diseases she is unrivaled by any city in America, not excepting those on the seaboard.

EVIDENCE OF HEALTH STATISTICS.

Compare, if you please, the statistics of Buffalo with those of the great Eastern cities in this respect. In Boston and New York the death-rate from consumption shows a ratio of about 1 to 5 of the whole number of deaths. In Baltimore and Philadelphia the ratio is 1 to 6, while in Buffalo the death rate from consumption is only 1 to 10—very remarkable difference in favor of our city. Only last summer a gentleman residing in the eastern part of our State collected and compared the health statistics for 1876 of all the prominent cities in the United States. The result showed that

BUFFALO OUTRANKS ALL IN HEALTHFULNESS.

A great deal of precious breath has been expended in blustering about "Buffalo zephyrs," as our delightful lake breezes are sometimes ironically termed. It seems to be a popular belief among our sister cities that old Boreas has chosen Buffalo for his headquarters. When we hear a person dilating upon "Buffalo's terrific winds," we are reminded of one of our lady acquaintances who recently returned from a European tour. She was asked how she enjoyed her sea voyage, and she replied, "Oh, it was delightful, really charming! There is something so grand about the sea!" We were not a little surprised at this enthusiastic outburst, as we had been told by a member of her party that the lady had industriously vomited her way to Hamburg and back again. But the lady's enthusiasm was easily explained. It is fashionable to characterize sea voyages as delightful, charming, etc. Now, we suspect this popular notion about our "trying winds" is traceable to the same source. It has become customary to call Buffalo a "windy place," and so, when the traveler feels a slight lake breeze, he imagines it to be a terrific gale. Whatever may have originated this notion, certain it is that it is utterly, undeniably false; and, in making this denial, we are not alone dependent upon observation, but upon the

FACTS OF SCIENCE.

The issue of July 18, 1874, of the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, contained a series of tables, furnished by the Signal Service Bureau, showing the velocity of the wind at eleven prominent cities for the year 1873. An examination of the table shows that the total velocity for the year was the lowest in Buffalo of any of the lake ports; while Philadelphia and New York showed far higher aggregates of velocity than our city. On this subject, in the issue of August 21st of the same year, the editor pleasantly remarks: "Only the interior and southern seaboard cities, and not many of them, show a lower total velocity of wind than is marked against this city; and as for those places, heaven help their unfortunate inhabitants in the sultry nights of the summer season, when they are gasping in vain for a breath of that pure, cool lake air, which brings refreshing slumbers to the people of blessed, breezy Buffalo."

EQUABILITY OF CLIMATE.

Illustration: One of our Physician's Rooms
One of our Physician's Rooms—Bureau of Correspondence—Invalids' Hotel and Surgical Institute.

Then, in regard to equability of climate, the great desideratum for invalids in any locality, here again sentiment and science are greatly at variance. An examination of the official records of the Signal Service Bureau, and the statistics of the Smithsonian Institute, showed that out of a list of forty cities on the continent Buffalo ranked highest for equability of climate. Thus we quote from an editorial in the Advertiser of the same issue: "While the aggregate of change for Buffalo stood at 67 for the year, that of Philadelphia reached 204, Washington was 224, Cincinnati 205, St. Louis 171. Winchester, in one of the healthiest parts of Virginia, reached as high as 201. Aiken, in South Carolina, a famous resort for invalids, touched 220. St. Augustine, one of the lowest in the list, showed a much less equable climate than that of Buffalo, being 94 to our 67." The transition from summer to winter, and vice versa, is exceedingly gradual, and, consequently, Buffalonians are seldom afflicted with those epidemic diseases which generally appear in other localities during the spring and summer months. Thus the thermometric readings of the Signal Service Bureau for 1873, show that the average temperature for July and August was 74°. For September it was about 64°, which was again reduced by about 10° for October. The monthly average for November was 73°, and for December 25°, which was also the average for January. Then the readings for February showed an average of 26°, for March 32°, and 43° for April. A more equable and gradual transition from midsummer heat to midwinter cold cannot be shown by any locality on this continent. Seldom does the mercury rise above ninety during our warmest summers, or fall below zero in our most severe winters. In J. Disturnal's work, entitled "The Influence of Climate in North and South America," published by Van Nostrand, in 1867, the climate of Buffalo is thus characterized: "From certain natural causes, no doubt produced by the waters of Lake Erie, the winters are less severe, the summers less hot, the temperature night and day more equable, and the transition from heat to cold less rapid, in Buffalo than in any other locality within the temperate zone of the United States, as will be seen by the following table." The table referred to shows that, "during the summer months, the temperature of Buffalo is from 10° to 20° cooler than that of any other point east, south, or west of the ports on Lake Erie; while the refreshing and invigorating lake breeze is felt night and day." The author further adds that "during the winter months the thermometer rarely indicates zero, and the mean temperature for January, 1858, was 20° above."

A careful investigation into the comparative climatology of the several great social and commercial centers, proved Buffalo to be superior to all others in the climatic requirements for the invalid. Besides, it has the important advantage of being a central point of traffic and travel between the West and the East.

ADVANTAGES OF LOCATION.

The second important consideration in projecting this home for invalids was location. It has generally been customary to locate institutions of this character in rural districts, removed from the advantages of city life, on the plea of escaping the confusion and excitement so detrimental to recovery. The result is well known. Invalids have regarded them more as pleasure resorts than health resorts, spending the summer months there, but fleeing to their homes at the fall of the first snow-flake. The good that was done in the summer is undone by carelessness and exposure in the winter. A location that would combine both city advantages and rural pleasures, seemed to us, upon reflection, to be the desirable one. Fortunately, Buffalo afforded the happy mean. Our extensive parks, our unsurpassed facilities for yachting, fishing, and all aquatic sports, our many sylvan lake and river retreats, our world-famed Niagara,—certainly a more desirable selection of rural scenes and pleasures cannot be found in another locality in America.

A GENUINE HOME.

In erecting the Invalids' Hotel and Surgical Institute, our paramount design was to make it a genuine home—not a hospital—a home where the child of fortune would miss none of the comforts of her palatial home, while the poor man would find not only health but his pleasures multiplied a thousand fold.

OUR TERMS MODERATE.

The wholesale merchant's prices are far less than those of the retail dealer. He can afford it, his sales are so much larger. It is on precisely the same principle that we are able to make the rates at the Invalids' Hotel and Surgical Institute comparatively low. If we had only a limited number of patients, we should be obliged to make the charges commensurate with our expenses; but our practice having become very extensive, and the income being correspondingly large, we are enabled to make the rates at the Invalids' Hotel and Surgical Institute so moderate that all who desire can avail themselves of its medical, surgical, and hygienic advantages.

Illustration: Prescription Department
Prescription Department—Invalids' Hotel and Surgical Institute.

FACILITIES FOR TREATMENT.

Of the many advantages afforded by the Invalids' Hotel and Surgical Institute, in treating disease, we can make only brief mention of a few of the more prominent.

DIVISION OF LABOR.

In the examination and treatment of patients, our practice is divided into specialties. Each member of the Faculty, although educated to practice in all departments of medicine and surgery, is here assigned to a special department only, to which he devotes his entire time, study and attention.

ADVANTAGES OF SPECIALTIES.

The division-of-labor system proves as effectual in the exercise of the professions as in manufactures. In the legal profession this has long been a recognized fact. One lawyer devotes his attention specially to criminal law, and distinguishes himself in that department. Another develops a special faculty for unraveling knotty questions in matters of real estate, and, if a title is to be proved, or a deed annulled, he is the preferred counselor. In a certain manner, too, this has long been practiced by the medical profession. Thus some physicians (and we may add physicians who call themselves "regular," and are specially caustic in their denunciation of "advertising doctors") are accustomed to distribute cards among their patrons, certifying that they give special attention to diseases of women and children. In this institution each physician and surgeon is assigned a special department of medicine or surgery. By constant study and attention to his department, each has become a skillful specialist, readily detecting every phase and complication of the diseases referred to him. Not only is superior skill thus attained, but also rapidity and accuracy in diagnosis.

Thoroughness and efficiency in any branch of learning can be secured only by devoting to it special study and attention. When the faculty of a university is to be chosen, how are its members selected? For instance, how is the chair of astronomy filled? Do they choose the man who is celebrated for his general scholastic attainments, or do they not rather confer it upon one who is known to have devoted special attention and study to the science of astronomy, and is, therefore, especially qualified to explain its theories and principles? Thus all the several chairs are filled by gentlemen whose general scholarship not only is known to be of the highest standard, but who devote special attention to the departments assigned them, thus becoming proficient specialists therein. The same system of specialties is observed in the departments of a medical college. The professor who would assume to lecture in all the departments with equal ease and proficiency would be severely ridiculed by his colleagues; and yet it is just as absurd to suppose that the general practitioner can keep himself informed of the many new methods of treatment that are being constantly devised and adopted in the several departments of medicine and surgery.

PROGRESS IN MEDICINE.

In no other science is more rapid and real progress being made at the present time than in that of medicine. Even the specialist must be studious and earnest in his work to keep himself well and accurately informed of the progress made in his department. Thus it so often happens that the general practitioner pursues old methods of treatment which science has long since replaced with others, acknowledged to be superior. The specialist, on the contrary, by confining his studies and researches to one class of diseases only, is enabled to inform himself thoroughly and accurately on all the improvements made in the methods and means of practice in his special department.

The difference between the practice of specialists and that of general practitioners is aptly illustrated by the difference between the old-fashioned district school, in which the school-master taught all the branches, from a-b-abs to the solution of unknown quantities and the charmed mysteries of philosophy, and the modern seminary, with its efficient corps of teachers, each devoting his or her whole attention to the study and teaching of one special department of learning.

We attribute the success which has attended the practice at the Invalids' Hotel and Surgical Institute, in a great measure, to a wise adoption of this system of specialties.

ADVANTAGES OFFERED TO INVALIDS.

Obviously, the most important of these advantages is facility of treatment. Of the thousands whom we have cured of chronic diseases, we have probably not seen one in five hundred, having accomplished the desired result through remedies sent either by mail or express, and advice given by letter. Yet in some obstinate forms of disease, we can here bring to bear remedial means not to be found or applied elsewhere.

That thousands of cases of chronic disease, pronounced incurable, have, by our rational and scientific treatment, been restored to perfect health, is conclusively proved by the records of practice at the Invalids' Hotel and Surgical Institute. Here, in obstinate cases, are brought to bear all the most scientific remedial appliances and methods of treatment.

A system of mechanical movements, passive exercises, manipulations, kneadings and rubbings, administered by a large variety of ingeniously-contrived machinery, driven by stream-power, has been found especially efficacious and valuable, as an aid to medical and surgical treatment, in the cure of obstinate cases of nervous and sick headache, constipation, paralysis, or palsy, stiffened joints, crooked and withered limbs, spinal curvature, tumors, diseases of women, especially displacements of the uterus, or womb, such as prolapsus, retroversion and anteversion, chronic inflammation, enlargement and ulceration of the uterus, and kindred affections; also in nervous debility, sleeplessness, and other chronic diseases. Mechanical power, or force, is by these machines transmitted to the system, in which it is transformed into vital energy and physical power or strength. This mechanical, passive exercise, or movement-cure treatment, differs widely from, and should not be confounded with, "Swedish movements," to which it is far superior in efficacy. Coupled with our improved and wonderful system of "Vitalization" treatment, it affords the most perfect system of physical training and development ever devised. For the restoration of power to wasted, undeveloped, or weakened organs or parts, for their enlargement, this combined movement and "Vitalization" treatment is unequaled. It can be applied to strengthen or enlarge any organ or part. We also employ both Dynamic and Static electricity, "Franklinism" and Electrolysis, and chemical, Turkish and other baths, in all cases in which they are indicated. Inhalations, administered by means of the most approved apparatus, are employed with advantage in many obstinate lung, bronchial, and throat affections. We have no hobby or one-idea system of treatment, no good remedial means being overlooked or neglected.

Illustration: A glimpse of some of the rooms for the application of Electricity,
A glimpse of some of the rooms for the application of Electricity, Mechanical Massage, "Vitalization" treatment, and other agencies prescribed by our Staff; furnishing a perfect system of physical and remedial training, carefully adapted to the wants of the most delicate and feeble, as well as to the more robust.

A FAIR AND BUSINESS-LIKE OFFER TO THE AFFLICTED.

Reader, are you accustomed to think and act for yourself? Do you consult your own reason and best interests? If so, then do not heed the counsel of skeptical and prejudiced friends, or jealous physicians, but listen to what we have to say.

You perhaps know nothing of us, or our systems of treatment, or of the business methods we employ. You may imagine, but you know nothing, perhaps, of our facilities and advantages for performing cures in cases beyond the reach or aid of the general practitioner. Knowing nothing, then, of all these advantages, you still know as much as the would-be friend or physician who never loses an opportunity to traduce and misrepresent us, and prejudice the afflicted against us.

Now to the point—are you listening? Then permit us to state that we have the largest, the best, and the finest buildings of any like Association, company, or firm in this country. We employ more and better Medical and Surgical Specialists in our Invalids' Hotel and Surgical Institute than any similar Association, company, or individual, and actually have more capital invested. We have a thoroughly qualified and eminent Specialist for every disease that we treat. We treat more cases, and absolutely cure more patients than any similar institution in America. In addition to those we treat medically, we perform all the most difficult surgical operations known to the most eminent Surgeons, and so frequently do many of these operations occur with us that some of our Specialists have become the most expert and skillful Surgeons on this continent.

We wish to add further that we are responsible to you for what we represent; we therefore ask you to come and visit our institutions; and, if you find on investigation that we have misstated or misrepresented in any particular our institutions, our advantages, or our success in curing Chronic Diseases, we will gladly and promptly refund to you all the expenses of your trip. We court honest, sincere investigation, and are glad and anxious to show interested people what we can do and are daily doing for suffering humanity. Can a proposition be plainer? Can an offer be more fair and business-like? If, therefore, you are afflicted, and are seeking relief, come where genuine ability is a ruling feature, where success is our watchword and the alleviation of human suffering our mission.

Whether arriving in our city by day or night, come directly to the Invalids' Hotel and Surgical Institute, 663 Main Street, where you will be hospitably received and well cared for.

Address all correspondence to

WORLD'S DISPENSARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION,
663 Main Street, BUFFALO, N.Y.