To this there are many unanswerable objections, though these means at first sight appear conformable to reason, and sometimes produce a very prompt effect. It is evident, in the first place, that, in order to employ this method, the proximate cause of the disease should be contrary; and it happens that we have no positive knowledge of the proximate causes of the greater number of diseases. The greater number of diseases have no contraries that the routine practitioner is capable of pointing

out.

In the second place, a close examination shows that the relief given by such means is only momentary. They simply palliate, and that not unfrequenly at the expense of health and life; because the indirect effect of large doses is generally the reverse of their direct effect. The organism reacts against every foreign influence, and opposes to it an opposite state.

As, indeed, each dose only excites new re-action, the disease becomes aggravated, or returns with redoubled strength.

An inactive state of the digestive organs is momentarily relieved by purgatives or tonics, but their constant use aggravates only the disease. Stimulating remedies produce an agreeable excitement of the system; but in order to produce even the same effect, stronger and stronger doses, and more frequent repetitions of them, are necessary, till, at length, insusceptibility, or a sort of paralysis of natural function is induced.

Wine produces an unnatural gaiety, but corresponding depression ensues; and to re-produce the gaiety, wine is not only taken again, but increased in greater and greater quantities, until the constitution is undermined.

This is the general way to make a man a drunkard. Remedies applied according to the law of contraries, have often the disadvantage, that, in exciting one organ, the other parts (as a secondary effect) become more paralyzed in their action. (It is a common saying, what we gain on one side we lose on the other.) Most of the bitter extracts increase (primary) the muscular power of the intestines, lessen however, the muscular activity generally. Their protracted use untunes tho mind, and makes the system feel dull and heavy. The equilibrium between the nervous and muscular system is, as it were, suspended.

Cremor tartari, and all other salts, increase the activi ty of the kidneys, and the mucous membrane of the stomach and intestines, but weaken its muscular power.

Sulphuric acid excites the intense activity of the arterial, end weakens, antagonistically, the nervous system. This action has too often been overlooked. Hemorrhages are often checked by this acid; but when used too freely, nervous debility is the consequence.

Peruvian bark is considered to be (but unjustly) an excellent tonic; having made, the observation, that it increases irritability: but in doing so, it lessens the activi ty of the veins and absorbent vessels, and causes therefore,

abstractions, swellings. The abuse of this drug, also quinine, in intermittent fevers, produces swelling of the feet Hepatitis chronica, icterus, etc. Finally, amongst the effect of every medicine, it has justly been observed, that there are some altogether irrelevant to the nature of the disease for which it is exhibited, but which, in the large doses necessary when administered antipathically, generally form new complications with the original disease, so as after to distort its principal features; and to obviate this inconvenience, remedies are added to lessen their primary effect. They are called correctors, corrigentia, which again have the same effect; and, by the addition of new symptoms, add to the confusion.

3. The third method. The specific, or homeopathic method-which teaches the truth, that discases are cured by remedies which produce similar symptoms on healthy persons to those of the disease.

Agents, medicinally administered, are curative of those sufferings of the sick, which, pathogenetically administered, they generate in the healthy, which is chosen in conformity with the well known principle, "similia similibus curantur" -like cures like.

The word homoeopathy is derived from the Greek words omoios, like, and pathos, affection.

E

THE HOMEOPATHIC LAW.

Enunciation and explanation of the law.

An opinion has very generally prevailed, that the art of medicine is purely conjectural, and that it is not in the nature of things that it can ever be placed in the rank of positive sciences. This opinion receives support, indeed, from past experience; for until now, no system has been based upon any such fixed and invariable principles as those which form the foundation of the sciences called positives, and therefore the multitude of doctrines which have succeeded and destroyed each other, may be regarded as the inevitable consequences of their hypothetic origin. The fixed laws, or axioms, of mathematics and natural philosophy, have not however, any more than those of medicine, been always known. It is not yet a great many years since Newton gave to astronomy the laws which govern the movements of the planets in their revolutions; and Hahnemann, the founder of homœopathy, established also, to his perfect conviction, his great principle, similia similibus curantur. He created an entirely new science, the science of pathogenetics, which, based on multiplied experiments upon divers uges, soxes, temperaments, and constitutions, should teach what are the sufferings which each agent, singly administered, has power to generate in the healthy. Fortified in their determination by the opinions of such men as Van Helmont, Stahl, Hoffman, and Haller, and animated by a devotion which nothing but the fullest conviction of the truth and impor

tance of their cause could have kindled, a devotion unparalled in the history of medicine. Hahnemann and his followers, in less than fifty years, have carried this science to an extent or precision perfectly incredible to those unacquainted with its details. Suffice it, however, to say, that through its instrumentality there have been, at length, accumulated upon record, thousands of well attested cases, besides the multitude unrecorded, demonstrating, that agents, proved in the healthy organism specifically adverse to the functions or forces yielding in the sick, if employed within conservative limits, invigorate the re-active energy of these forces in opposition to the progress of disease. Availing ourselves of these innumerable facts, into the details of which our limits forbid us to enter, we now confidently appeal to them in obvious support of both the universal laws of life. Contraria contrariis corroborantur and its inevitable corollery, the fundamental doctrine of the homeopathic school, "similia similibus curantur;" and we cannot but feel, in view of the wide extension of our introduction, the argument demonstrative of these great principles, has acquired a force which absolute scepticism alone can resist.

Observation, reflection, and experience, have convinced me that the best and true method of cure is founded on the

principle similia similibus curantur. To cure in a mild, prompt, safe, and durable manner, it is requisite to em