■(6. rx^J * .•' *.A2*J POPULAR EXPOSE AND DEFE3STSE O^ MEDIOHSTE. BY C. M. DAKE, M. D. Delivered at the First Session of the Livingston County Homoeopathic Medical Society, held at Concert Hall, in the village of Geneseo, N. Y., Dec. 1st, 1857. .-------------------. . ♦ . »----------■-----— Gentlemen of the Livingston County Homoeopathic Medical Society: Ladies and Gentlemen: The public are the patrons of Medicine; with them as well as with Physicians, rests the destiny of the healing art. The mode of treatment, the remedy, and the physician, are at their command. They can choose or reject the one or the other.— They can sustain science or quackery. It is their privilege to place confidene in a nostrum or an advertised compound, the ingredients of which their physician may have no means of knowing. It is also their privilege to sustain and encourage physicians of education and scientific attainments. We do not desire to invalidate their rights or privileges; we con- cede them; but in so doing, necessity follows; if the people have the right of choosing, then all who would exercise this right, should be educated, or informed in relation to the subject of choice. Please accept preceding remarks as an apology for publicly appear- ing before you, iu expose and defense of medicine. At man's deparure from primordial law, disease and death entered the world; and notwithstanding the labor of the philanthropist and the physician, man, and animate nature, must suffer and die. Change is written on everything in nature; blooming health al- ternates with pale disease; joyous hope recedes into desponding gloom; the darkness of night passes away before the rising sun: in all we may behold the work of design. Everywhere the millions are laboring. The Farmer, engaged in Agriculture, giving us the products ou which animate nature mainly subsists. The Mechanic, engaged in invention and construction, manufactur- ing machinery and implements of usefulness for all departments. The Artist, combining taste and perception, penciling, sculpturing, encrraving, and unfolding to ocular view, not only nature and art, but the living and sublime reality,—Man, Modeling and Executing after the Divine plan. 2 ADDRESS. The Banker, devising plans of profit, circulation, and exchange of currency, thus facilitating business transactions throughout the world. The Merchant, buying and selling—importing and exporting pro- ducts of all countries, thus linking together national, and individual interest,—harmonizing and consolidating the great family of man,— rendering the products of labor everywhere accessible and available, sustaining and encouraging manufactures, and making nations and people prosperous, who manufacture and produce. Tho Lawyer, instiuting suits at law, and defending the cause of his client, in conformity to statute and common law rules. The Clergy, pleading tho cause of Zion's King, and pointing the pilgrim stranger to the cross, and to tho regions of pure delight. The Physician, visiting, counseling, and prescribing medicines, rules and regulations for prevention and cure of disease and physical suffering of the sick. Dr. Hahneman, the discoverer of Homoeopathy, in his " Organon of Medicine," [paragraph 1st, 2d, 3d, and 4th, and note after the first paragraph/] defines some of the duties of the physician, which we copy. He remarks: § 1. " The first and sole duty of the physician is to restore health to the sick.* This is the true art of healing. § 2. The perfection of a cure consists in restoring health in a prompt, mild, and permanent manner; in removing and annihilating disease by the shorest, safest, and most certain means upon principles that are at once plain and intelligible, §3. When the physician clearly perceives the curative indication in each particular case of disease—when he is acquainted with the therapeutic effects of medicines individually—when guided by evident reasons, he knows how to make such an application of that which is curative in medicine to that which is indubitably diseased in the pa- tient (both in regard to the choice of the substances, the precise dose to be administered, and the time of repeating it,) that a cure may necessarily follow—and finally when he knows what are the obsta- cles to the cure, and can render the latter permanent by removing them; then only can he accomplish Ms purpose in a rational man- ner—then only can he merit the title of a genuine physician, or a man skilled in the art of healing. § 4. The physician is likewise the guardian of health when he • His mission is not, as many physicians (who wasting their time and powers in the pur- suit of fame) have imagined it to be, that of inventing systems by stringing together emp- ty ideas and hypothesis upon the immediate^ essence of life and the origin of disease in the interior of the human economy ; nor is it that of continually endeavoring to account for the morbid phenomena with their nearest cause (which must forever remain con- cealed) and confounding the whole in unintelligible words and pompous observations which make a deep impression on the minds of the ignorant, while the patients are left to sigh in vain for relief. We have alroady too mauy of these learned reveries which bear the name ol Medical theories, anil for tlie inculcation of which, even special professorships have been established. It is high time that all those who call themselves physicians should cease to deceive suffering humanity with words that have no meaning, and begin to act__ that is to say, afford relief, and cure the sick in reality. ADDRESS. 3 knows what are the objects that disturb it, which produce and keep up disease, and can remove them from persons who are in health." In tracing the history of the healing art it will be found, that mankind have sought relief from physical suffering in every age. The pain they have indured and the certainty of death excited not only fears and alarms, but the nobler sympathy of man for his fel- low man. And some of the best and ablest talent that God and nature has given have been employed in devising means of relief, and if they failed to whom shall the failure be ascribed ? Man sin- ned, and from that hour disease and death are his sure reward. A dispensation was provided for the suffering of the immortal man—relief by faith and hope. But where is the dispensation for the physical sufferer ? A response is heard—Physical sufferings are to be relieved by experiment and discovery. From the remotest period of recorded medicine onward to Hahn- emann the healing art was governed by experiment. i3inc6 Hahnemann there is another school governed by Law. The school, governed by experiment has been termed by way of distinction, Allopathic. The school governed by law by way of similar distinction has been termed Homoeopathic. These schools, compose the profession of medicine. The Allopathic school was never able to discover the power of drugs. They tested them on the sick and on the dumb animal—in- sufficent test indeed. They imagined that comparison and analogy would aid them in the discovery of the action of drugs; but this rort of information failed to respond to their desires; the experiment was as unsatisfacto- ry, as the test of drugs on the sick, and on the dumb animal. We do not wish to weary your patience, or consume time in reci- ting the allopathic modes of conducting the experimental test; but we do desire to call your attention to the important fact that the en- tire process, including every mode employed by them, in relation to the curative ability and powers of drugs, have been governed by ex- periment, and that up to this hour they have obstinately rejected the natural, central law, discovered by Hahnemann, and whieh must ev- er govern legitimate medicine. To gain knowledge by experiment is usually right and proper; but to continue to experiment as the allopathic school has been ex- perimenting, is not right or proper. _ Physicians and laymen have not been satisfied with the result of such experimenting; and every wise and experienced physician has deplored the sad fact; and the people at large have not only observed the effects of that drugging, but they have become conscious of its dire effects, and utter inability to meet their necessities. This want of confidence in the ability of drugs, as employed by the allopathic 4 ADDRESS. school, is not confined to the lower classes, or the uneducated; but to all classes. If our statements are doubted, turn yoUf attention to tho following interrogatories: Why have drug-stores become the depots of quack medicines, patent medicines, nostrums, and empirical preparations ? Why is the quack, the empiric, the secret pretender, and the bold imposter, patronized so largely ? Are not these things so mainly be- cause the people have lost confidence in drugs, as employed by the educated and experienced physicians ? If physicians were properly educated and rightly experienced, would not their qualifications make them successful ? Would not the people have confidence itl their ability ? And then would not this dark and portentous cloud of quackery,—threatening the subversion of a noble and indispensiblo profession,—pass away. Do not the sick desire a cure; and would they not employ the physician and the practice most successful ? The people desire a cure; but physicians desire more; they desire to cure, so that their experience shall benefit the sufferer, and advance the science and art of healing; so that consciousness may have hope in the reward of well-doing, when the destroying Angel shall fasten his poisoned arrow in their mortal bodies, and they compelled to declare in the language of one of their brethren: "The damps of death arc on my brow, The chill is in my heart, My blood has almost ceased to flow, My hopes of life depart." Though myalloopathic brethren failed to make discovery, or regard the great central and governing law which in time is to redeem a benign art from obloquy and confusion; and thongh I stand here in defense of the old law, recently discovered by the great, the learned, the favored and lamented Hahnemann; yet I must be al- lowed in the fulness of my heart to vindicate my brethren who have labored long and nobly by the lamp of experience. They did what humanity was permitted to do. From Hippocrates and Galen onward to Hahnemann, (a period em- bracing about two thousand, three hundred years,) bright stars have shown out amid surrounding darkness pointing the profession—on- ward! In the beginning they employed drugs from*the vegetable king- dom, thus exciting an interest that led on to the analysis, classifica- tion and arrangement, into works on Botany, nearly every vegetable on the face of the earth. Whatever mistake they may have made in relation to their cura- tive action, their effort in the department of Botany has been suc- cessful. Classification, order, genus, the essential characters, the secondary characters, the specific characters, the artificial characters and natural history of each are so well arranged and described, it is not difficult to understand the family, the class, the order, the ge- ADDRESS. fl nus, and finally tho vegetable without mistake. They have also given geographical position or locality, and some information of their qual- ity, power and use. Chemistry is another department in which they have labored with some degree of success. Their highest efforts have been directed to the discovery of the laws which govern the formation of chemical compounds, and to determine the action of one substance upon the other. Art, manufacture, and mechanics, are indebted to chemistry for their rapid advancement. And agriculture will yet more extensively appropriate the aid it can furnish. Medical jurisprudence and courts of law aro now and then benefitted by its detective ability in the analysis for poison. Chemistry has been able to announce nearly if not all substances in the physical universe, compound in form and na- ture—and, that two or more elementery fcrms of matter, each differ- ing in their nature or property, are capable of decomposition and combination, the process resulting, in simple forms, and in the forma- tion of new compounds possessing new powers. Chemistry has al- so enabled them to discover the gaseous form of matter, that man lives at tho botom of an immense ocean of gaseous matter which presses upon him and every thing else with a force incredible. The discovery of matter in gaseous form, though easily proved, was a discovery of infinitesimal atoms of matter more highly attenu- ated than tho usual preparations of drugs employed in homoeopathy. Anatomy is another branch of the profession which the allopathic school has conducted to its present proud position. Well do the no- ble martyred students deserve a eulogy. Scores of volumes would not contain their labors—the labors of anatomists. Gladly would we follow them in the dangerous paths they have trod, and notice the obstacles with which they have had to contend, and victories they have won. Let mortal honors tower a monument of enduring praise above their sleeping dust. Until within a few years, dissection, or even inspection, of the bodies of the dead were prohibited by public opinion and statutory enactments, rendering it penal for even the phy- sician to disturb the lifeless remains of a fellow mortal, but thanks for the intelligence of latter years, such hindrances are being remov- ed, the public have observed the mistake, and are every day receiving the benefit conferred from a knowledge of the structure and arrange- ment of the human body. Surgery, the pride of the allopathic school, and heretofore the corner stone and dome of the medidal edifice, requires no vindication at our hands. It is fully able in its operative department to answer the law of necessity requiring the knife and mechanical aid, or man- uel operations. But while we thus accredit, permit us to remark,— the time is near at hand, when many of the operations so long deem- ed necessary will cease to require the aid of the knife. When can- 6 ADDRESS. cers and other malignant tumors, will be removed by mild specific medication---when compound fractures and comminuted injuries will not so often require amputation. When important parts and members, in which disease exists, will escape excision, and manual op- eration ; and when the governing law that rules drug powers will be regarded by the profession, and all the benefits named, and more will be appreciated. Our time will not permit the notice of but one more of the de- partments of the profession—Therapeutics. This is the branch at which the allopathic school has been labor- ing so long by the dim and insufficient light of experience, aided by comparison and analogy. It is not surprising that this school should have failed continually in every attempt to discover the curative action and preparation of drugs. They never had any just conception of disease—how then could they form a plan of cure ? Their trial with drug substances did not amount to a test; a proposition to test implies the necessary knowledge of the means of trial—they did not discover the means. Hahnemann did, but they are slow in accepting. The allopathic school has no knowledge of the therapeutic ability, or action of drug substance worthy of notice, excepting what they have obtained by trying them on the sick. At first sight this would appear right and proper, and to gross minds quite natural, but on close inspection the mistake has been now and then observed, especially by strong minds in the profession. Drugs may be tried on the sick, but the operation cannot be regarded as a test; such a test from the very nature of the case, would be a diseased test. Look at the facts, and observe the result: The sick have sufferings, and these are presented in the symptoms; while in this state drugs are administered, and they have the ability to ex- cite more suffering, and the symptoms thus excited are also presented, so the case is partly the symptoms excited by drugs. The allopathic school in these trials, tested drugs in huge doses, sometimes singly, sometimes extravagantly compounded, generally combined. It does not require a large amount of intelligence to canvass the claims of such a school of medicine, but it does require some amount of cour- age to confess the error. The allopathic Materia Medica is an unirapeachablo witness, and capable of substantiating the remarkable failure accompanying every attempt at trials of drugs on individuals in a state of disease. It is this sort of experimenting that has brought so much discredit on an honorable profession. It is this sort of testing drugs, that has opened the flood-gates of quackery—admitting every sort of device, that avarice, knavery, cunning, ignorance, and boldness, are capable of inventing. When the knowledge required for the experiment is not regarded, ADDRESS. 7 there will be as little practical valne in the experiment of a man of i science as in the experiment of a quack; but when the necessary means are regarded it is then far otherwise. The man of science, trained in the school of thought, can come to the test with a university of knowledge, fully prepared to work under the rule, and execute the plan. I Some have supposed physicians had been idle, indifferent, and prejudiced; that they would not employ or experiment with the sim- i pier drugs—especially vegetable substances. This is a mistake; they ; have experimented: they have tried nearly every vegetable, mineral j and animal substance known in the universe. Indeed they have done : more; they have mixed and compounded these substances to an ex- : tent almost incredible. They have also employed the aid of chein- ' istry, by which new powers have been developed. Physicians have labored and experimented with a diligence unknown to other profes- sions. Drug substances have been employed in every possible way j that human ingenuity could devise. Could the sleeping millions who | have been the subjects of these experiments, awake from their dusty beds, do you not think they could attest that physicians had experi- mented—that they had been industrious ? Let us now turn our attention from allopathic tests and experi- menting, and canvass the claims of another school. When the profession, and mankind generally, had lost nearly all confidence in the ability of drugs to cure—when one of the ablest and most enlightened physicians in Europe had declared that "Medicine ! must either mend or end." When the hope of the physical sufferer > was expiring at the altar, a voice was beard:—" similia similibus \ curantur. Drugs possess the ability to excite on individuals in j health, similar sufferings to those they cure in the sick. This com- prises the law that governs therapeutics, and which Hahnemann was so fortunate as to discover. Many persons—and some who ought to know better—do not aj>- pear to understand this natural law: it is a law of similars, not iden- ticals. If you scald your finger in hot water, and then attempt to cure it by thrusting the finger into scalding water, such practice would not be similar, but it would be identical. But if you burn your fingers with fire, and the pain, and other symptoms thus excited, are like those which potash, or another drug is capable of exeiting, then potash, or the other drug, in a milder form, is the remedy; and being similar, it is Homoeopathic, solely by virtue of its ability to excite like sufferings, or symptoms like the burned finger. The Atropa Belladonna, which is capable of curing Scarlatina, (Scarlet Fever,) is also capable of exiting a similar train of sufferings, on persons who are in health. Tho following symptoms, in some species of hydrophobia and rabi- es canina, are excited by the bite of a rabid dog. " Tho patient in vain 8 ADDRESS. endeavors to sleep; the respiration is embarrassed; ho is consumed by a burning thirst, attended with anxiety; the moment any liquids are presented to him ho rejects them with violence; his countenance becomes" red; his eyes fixed and sparkling; ho experiences a feeling of suffocation while drinking, and for the most part is incapable of swallowing anything; he is alternately actuated by terror and a de- sire to bite the persons wdio are near him; he endeavors to mako his escape.'' The Atropa Belladonna is capable of exciting similar symptoms on persons in health, and it is also capable of curing the sick when like symptons are presented. Ipecacuanha—Ipecac—is capable of exciting nausea, pallor, and vomiting on individuals in health; it is also capable, in milder doses, of removing such symptoms from the sick. The cases cited are inteded sipply to illustrate the great law of cure. The facts that prove the law comprise more reliable evidence than either of the other departments of human knowledge. Like the law of gravitation, the evidence is conclusive. More than 500 drugs have been proved on persons in health, and the symptoms they have been found capable of exciting, have been carefully noted, and arranged into a pure materia medica. The moral symptoms are recorded first, then those of the head, and so on, with all the divis- ions and subdivisions, organs and parts of the body, including com- mon ailments, fever, and spasm,—covering the entire capability of each drug, in their action on the human body in health. And these drugs have been separately administered to the sick in conformity to the Homoeopathic law; and with success truly incredible. The number of those who have observed the operation of this law are not few; they are to be numbered by thousands. Homoeop- athy is not a dogma, a theory, a doctrine—it is verity—truth: it can nes'er be controverted; drugs do possess the ability to excite sim- ilar sufferings to those they cure. Since this truth has been discov- ered, it becomes the duty of the profession to cease controversy—re- ject the drugs of experiment and experience, and employ only such as have been proved under the governing law rule. There is no salvation for the profession, nor reliable cure for the sick, only in ob- serving this law of nature, which God hath made,—not man,— though Hahnemann discovered it. With all the candor and earnestness we possess, we declare to you, Homoeopathy is true. And we invite the aid and co-operation of the whole profession. Come and help us in the proving of drngs in obedience to the central law, and then an art and a science that you and I love, will be placed, very soon, beyond the reach of reproach. The sufferer, the sick, are entitled to the benefits to be derived fn.m this law; they will ask it—they are asking it,—will you re- i spond ? We know, in some respects, you are responding—uncon- sciously it may be—nevertheless you are responding. You compound ADDRESS. 9 j your drugs much less—your doses are smaller—you are employing , • Belladonna, Mercury, Phosphorus, and many other drugs, homcepath- ; leally. The leaven is at work—not far in the distance Ve behold the sublime reality of conquering truth. Welcome, and thrice joyful the day when you shall have worked the last problem in medicine, when man shall be delivered from the curse of indiscriminate drugging,__ when the suffering race shall receive the benefits of natural^law*and therapeutics takes its place along side other departments of the pro- fession^ Until that time shall come, our art will be humbled, and on every side quackery will feast and fatten on our errors. Hydropathy j will continue to eliminate, or soak out disease, and a thousand fash- j ionable, inefficient and deceptive modes patronized. The people are | not so much to blame,—the mischief emanates from the profession, j and they will be held responsible. And now, a few words to the people, and* to our brothers of the ^ Livingston County Homoeopathic Medical Society/' and our sub- ject will close. Each of the departments of the profession of Medicine, except one, has kept pace with the other professions and arts, and which marks this age as one of improvement. Only that department I which employs drugs is deficient. Homoeopathy at no distant day, - will supply that. All that is required to effect it, is necessary aid ! and encouragement, and yours will do much towards it. Shall we have it? Give us aid and encouragement, and in return we will give you more than a pledge. We will not only elevate this department and make the profession respectable in all its parts—but we will re- store health in a prompt, mild and permanent manner. And for the unusual and cruel modes employed by the old school—such as bleed- ing, blistering, scarifying, setons, issues, and moxa,—externally; and caustic, potash, iodine, mercury, opium, chloroform, and a long list of crude drugs,—internally; we will substitute the efficient power of drugs—a power undeveloped in tho crude form of drugs—a pow- ' er attainable by trituration and successive concussion—whereby the I particles are made infinitesimally small—so small they are capable of I influencing gaseous or vital atoms, composing disease, and of restor- ; ing health in obedience to the laws of life. TO MV COADJUTORS. Until this day our labor at promoting medicine in the County of i Livingston has been divided; now we are organized. Our Legisla- ture has conferred upon us all the legal rights, immunities and privi- j leges enjoyed by Allopathic Societies of this State; and it is credit- able to them, showing ability and soundness in discriminating and legislating. Being organized we have duties to perform—may we perform them well. If encouragement is needed, look onward for the reward. HUMAN VITALITY AND DlfS'iaiSILAiTll^lBI IT© tfHEl&AIPlSQD'iFil®©* .A. REPOR T=* TO THE HOMEOPATHIC STEDICAt SOCIKTY OF TI1K COINTY OF LIVINGSTON, DEC. 1, 1857. BY C. M. DAKE, M. D. No subject within the grasp of human reason has been so much neglected, and so badly understood as Human Vitality. It has been termed '• The principle of animation, or of life," " The act of living; animation; life." Human Vitality, like many other actions in natnre, can be known only by its manifestation. If the action manifested is moral, and physical, and they are observed, and found to be essential in the constitution of human vitality, then physiological action is com- pound, and the symptoms manifested in disease would consist in moral and physical suffering. In man there is action, unless the body is dead, and that action is the essential condition in the preser- vation of the body; the functions of the body must act; nutrition and assimilation must be performed, etc. Human vitality is made, constituted of these essential acts; or in other words, it is composed of the physiological action, excited by combination and elimination of the homogeneous atoms and forces which support and compose the human body. It has been supposed by some physiologists that Human Vitality being a binary action, or an action resulting from the joint action of mind and matter, any attempt to obtain information of its true na- ture, would be a failure. They were mistaken in the conclusion of their supposition. It is immaterial how many, or what the character of the forces that unite to produce another force. When the new force is formed and its action known, its true nature is known, The action that composes Human Vitality may be known by its manifes- tations; some denote health, others denote disease. The actions that denote health are congenial; mind and matter harmonize; and a consciousness of health exists. The actions that denote disease, are uncongenial; expressions of mind and matter characteristic of disturbed vitality exists. The human body is incapable of manifest- ing any other evidence of its vitality than such as denote and char- acterize health and disease. Atoms that compose the body and not connected to vitality constitute a corpse; and any evidences the body presents in this state, are such as denote death, that characterize it, [The vitality of the human body begins when the fecundating el- ments meet and theembryon begins; and it continues through all the j • Tnis Rkpoki formed a part of the Addrkss, delivered at Concert Hall, Dec. 1, 1857. HUMAN" VITALITY, ETC. 11 gradations of human existence; operating or acting, appropriating the elements that support the embryo, the foetus, the infant, the adult; thus maifesting Human Vitality until it terminates.] Tho causes that excite the body to health, produce no such effect on a corpse. Disturbance of the atoms that compose the dead body, excite neither health nor disease. Animation of the body is the essential condition of either health, or disease. It is only when ani- mation exists that the body is capable of expressing and manifesting the actions that compose health and disease. Some writers have declared that human vitality cannot be prima- rily affected; others have announced that it may. I hold that such knowledge is not essential, so long as it is known that the vitality is influenced, and so as to manifest health and disease. The due performance of the physiological action composes health. The disturbance of the physiological action composes the pathologi- cal action, which is disease. When drugs disturb the physiological action, the disturbance has been termed pathogenetic. The manifest action of disturbed vitality in the human body, are symptoms. Disease being composed essentially of disturbed vitality, and the manifestations of disturbed vitality consisting only in symptoms, all the symptoms must be regarded coequal to disturbed vitality, which is disease. An ensemble of the symptoms of a disease, furnish the entire evidence of it; the totality of the symptoms compose disease. In estimating the value of symptoms it has been difficult, impossible to determine which were of most value or importance. A symptom that had been a constant attendant on a disease, and regarded as characterizing and distinguishing it, has disappeared, and sometimes re-appeared in other diseases; and such changes have been so frequent, they have ceased to characterize and distinguish diseases: all the symptoms that can be obtained of individual diseases are alone avail- able ; they compose the only complete expression of disease the mind of man is capable of conceiving. Another fact in relation to the symptoms should be considered. It is known to every observing practitioner, that many attendant symptoms occur in every disease, which could not have been known, until they appeared in the course of the disease, and that such symp- toms characterize and distinguish the disease as certainly as those ob- served in its beginning. It is only by individualization that ade- quate knowledge of disease can be obtained; knowledge thus ac- quired is reliable; with such information therapeutics is aided. Symptoms are the legitimate and genuine working power of disease, and the physician or school who would lightly regard them, will fail in the beginning of the process of cure. Health and disease are vital operations. Humau Vitality, being composed of physiological action, and disease being composed of dis- 12 HUMAN VITALITY, ETC. turbed physiological action, remedies are therapeutic when they re- store the physiological action. Drugs possess the ability to restore the physiological action by vir- tue of "their ability to excite a similar disturbance of the physiologi- cal action; or drugs are capable of exciting on individuals in health similar disturbance of the physiological action, to the natural physio- logical disturbance which they remove or cure. And experiment | and observation have shown that the infinitesimal atoms of drug j substances are more capable of swaying and influencing vital action, I and act more favorably in the cure, than cruder drugs; and that the physical body suffers less from infinitesimal atoms, than from crude forms of drugs. What is usually termed reaction of the vitality of the body, is nothing less than increase or excess of the physiological j I action, when compared with its previous natural, or diminished state, j When reaction is excessive, it afterwards usually subsides into a cor- responding diminished state; and the two opposite states may favor | or injure the vitality of the body. If too excessive-, or too much di- minished, death of tho body is the inevitable result. Severe, acute, and chronic diseases are never cured by large doses of drugs, whether employed allopathically or homoeopathically. Infinitesimal atoms of drug substances attack the vitality of the body so mildly, and yet I so potently, patients are not usually conscious of their action; no one I but a careful and well informed physician is able to observe and ap- | preciate the mild and triumphant reaction which restores health by | the employment of infinitesimals, in obedience to the law of cure '■ revealed in Homoeopathy. Physicians have had but little difficulty in observing and acknowledging the efficiency of infinitesimals in tho production of disease. They have concedad the following, and many other substances, capable of exciting diseases on the healthy in their infinitesimal state: Miasma of swamps from decomposing vegetation; Effluvium of animal matter in a state of decomposition and exhala- tion; small-pox virus; psora; syphilis, etc. If infinitesimal atoms of such substances are capable of exciting disease on persons in health, who is at liberty to deny to drugs, in their infinitesimal state, the same or similar ability ? In disease there is increased suscepti- bility : vitality when depressed or augmented, is more capable of re- ceiving impressions from like than opposite influences; it is also ca- pable of resisting, in an eminent degree, the influence of drug action, when such action is opposite to the action of disease; hence, incred- ible, toxical, and destructive doses of drags are frequently adminis- tered to the sick, and borne with apparent impunity. But when such inordinate doses of drugs are administered to the sick, who have like sufferings, or sufferings similar to the drug, the case is dif- ferent; they then become fearfully destructive, removing the lastves- tio-e of vitality by exciting too great reaction, or by crushing vitality and thus preventing reaction. _______________------------------------------------ -A