SOME THOUGHTS 
ON A 
New Remedial Source 
Reprinted from the Homceopathic Recorder, 
January and March, 1887.  SOME THOUGHTS 
NEW REMEDIAL SOURCE, 
on a 
With a Working Hypothesis Suggestive of a More Radical 
Treatment of Chronic Diseases; also Some Thera- 
peutic Deductions from Comparative Pathology. 
CHARLES FRANCIS RING, M.D. 
Ward's Island, 
BY 
" The philosopher should be a man willing to listen to every suggestion, but 
determined to judge for himself. He should not be biased by appearances. Have 
no favorite hypothesis. Be of no school, and in doctrine have no master. He 
should not be a respecter of persons, but of things. Truth should be his primary 
object. If to these qualities be added industry, he may, indeed, hope to walk 
within the veil of the temple of nature."-Faraday, Life of, by Bence Jones, vol. 
i., p. 225. 
" Disciples do owe unto masters only a temporary belief, and a suspen- 
sion of their own judgment until they be fully instructed-and not an absolute 
resignation or perpetual captivity."-Bacon, Adv. of Learning, vol. i., p. 45. 
Proem. 
The problem of the aetiology of chronic diseases, notwithstanding the 
most liberal interpretation of the josora-theory of Hahnemann, is still 
awaiting solution. The radical treatment of these diseases, in spite of 
the large number of so-called anfi-psoric remedies, yet remains to be 
discovered. 
The necessity of a knowledge of the fundamental cause, or causes, of 
all chronic diseases, to a full and symmetrical growth of his system of 
therapeutics, was early recognized by Hahnemann. His attempt to 
1 2 
furnish this desideratum has been variously estimated and commented 
upon by his disciples and others. Those of his disciples, more Hahne- 
mannian than the master, regard it as presumptuous and unnecessary to 
inquire as to the essential nature of disease, and content themselves with 
mere "symptom covering " in the treatment. An acquaintance with 
pathology by these physicians is regarded as superfluous and misleading, 
and if asked the nature of a disease they are treating they will reply 
after the manner of Prof. Guernsey, in a recently published case, to 
wit: "The parents asked me what was the matter. I said,'Did you 
not see how he began at 4 p.m., and screamed and moaned and tossed 
and twisted, with one leg drawn up? Was not that plain to be seen, 
and was not that enough ? That is all one need to know about it for 
certain purposes in making a prescription ; these conditions told me 
what medicines he needed. Do you understand?" And he added 
further that " modern pathology can never give us the remedy to cure 
any case of illness." 
We are all familiar with the opinion of the late eminent Carroll 
Dunham on this question-expressed in his inaugural address to the 
World's Homoeopathic Convention-and the war of words it gave rise 
to ! We need not reproduce this discussion here ; but it has borne good 
fruit, not only in calling attention to the position of modern chemistry, 
physiology and pathology, but in directing attention to the divergence 
from the philosophy of Hahnemann of the very men who are claiming 
to teach his doctrines as he himself taught them. The truth is, in order 
to insure progress in our science, we must retrace our steps, and under- 
stand, with Hahnemann, what we have apparently for some time lost 
sight of, the necessity of determining the essential nature of chronic dis- 
eases, if we would more successfully treat them. As we have already 
stated, in our opinion, Hahnemann did not succeed in untying this Gor- 
dian knot, though his effort in this direction, considering the state of 
medicine and its collateral sciences at the time he wrote, is worthy of 
the highest genius. 
Let us here review briefly his consideration of this subject-its full 
discussion we will enter into at a future time from the standpoint of 
comparative pathology-and examine its issue after a lapse of fifty 
years before introducing our own views upon the same. The subject of 
chronic diseases early engaged the attention of Hahnemann, for he dis- 
cerned, with the intuition of genius, that in the successful management 
of them his new system of therapeutics would be put to the severest test. 
He found that their treatment, "even when apparently conducted strictly 
according to the doctrines of the homoeopathic art," was most unsatis- 
factory. " Their commencement was cheering, their progress less favor- 
able, their issue hopeless." And then he asks, " Whence this inferior 
success, this absolute want of success in the prolonged treatment of non- 
venereal chronic diseases?" Hartmann tells us {Chronic Diseases, vol. 3 
i., p. 3), " When Hahnemann first commenced treating chronic diseases 
according to the homoeopathic method he had developed his doctrine to 
a considerable extent; a large number of drugs had already been proven 
by him and his disciples, and he had become satisfied that, in spite of 
the general superiority of the homoeopathic healing art, the treatment 
of chronic diseases by that method was unsatisfactory in the end." 
His disciples suggested that this want of success might be owing to an 
insufficient number of medicines properly proven. But Hahnemann 
dissented from this view, as, despite the continual additions to the materia 
medica, no corresponding progress was noted in the treatment of chronic 
diseases. 
Quick to perceive this unfortunate gap, and to understand its signifi- 
cance-which many of his disciples have not done-Hahnemann, like 
a true philosopher, immediately set to work to bridge it over if possible. 
On this problem his thoughts were engaged, he tells us, " day and night" 
from 1816 to 1827. As the result of his labors, in 1828 his remarkable 
work on Chronic Diseases appeared. 
Apropos of these Dr. Dudgeon informs us: " His reflections led him 
to the conclusion that the cause of the constant recurrence of chronic 
diseases after the symptoms had been removed by the homceopathically- 
selected remedy, and their recurrence with new and grave symptoms 
was that the homoeopathic physician in these diseases had not merely to 
do with the morbid phenomena actually present, but that these phe- 
nomena only represented a portion of the deeply-seated fundamental 
malady, whose great extent was manifested by the new symptoms that 
appeared from time to time; and unless he knew this fundamental dis- 
ease in the full extent of all the symptoms peculiar to it, he could not 
hope to discover any medicines which should correspond in their peculiar 
pathogenetic effects to the whole fundamental malady, and, therefore, 
he would be unable to cure it in its whole extent." 
This fundamental disease, or materies morbi, Hahnemann, after enter- 
taining the " coffee theory " and the " itch theory," termed psora-herpetic 
diathesis of the French. This malady he considered as at the bottom 
of seven-eighths of all chronic diseases, the remaining eighth being of 
venereal origin. 
Whenever this disease is partially destroyed on the skin, without any 
previous cure of the internal psoric disorder ("especially if it be of 
somewhat longstanding and have attained to any extent"), being effected 
by means of the internal employment of its specific remedy, "This in- 
ternal disease then bursts forth rapidly, often in a frightful manner, in 
the form of phthisis, asthma, insanity, dropsy, apoplexy, amaurosis, pa- 
ralysis," etc,, etc., "and it not unfrequently occasions sudden death." 
In 1803-1. e., twenty-four years before he promulgated his psora theory 
-it will be remembered, Hahnemann wrote an essay upon the action of 
coffee in which he ascribed the production of a multitude of chronic 4 
diseases to the action of that all but universal beverage, and he con- 
fesses that he thinks he had ascribed an exaggerated importance and 
gravity to its'use; "since his discovery of psora as the cause of so many 
chronic diseases he is inclined to attribute to that agent the production 
of most of those affections he had imputed to coffee."-Dudgeon. 
Hahnemann's mind was a progressive one, and displayed all the char- 
acteristics of the true philosopher-attacking again and again, undis- 
mayed by repeated failures, the riddles of nature. Concerning the value 
and limitations of this psora theory as the setiological factor in chronic 
diseases, and the pathological basis for remedial indications, we must 
opine with Dr. Dudgeon when he writes: " I am prepared to go a cer- 
tain length with Hahnemann in his psora theory, in the widest sense of 
that term-i. e., not confined to the mere disease itch; and I will readily 
admit that the sudden suppression of many cutaneous diseases will pro- 
duce derangements of greater or less gravity of internal organs. But 
this admission does not go nearly the length of Hahnemann s psora 
theory, which would derive all non-venereal chronic diseases fiom psoia. 
" I think one other great error in Hahnemann's doctrine of chronic 
diseases is in his non-recognition of hereditary maladies. Not only 
does he never in anv place speak of hereditary diseases, but he distinctly 
alleges that every person affected with a non-venereal chronic disease 
must, at one period of his life, have had the itch at one time 01 another, 
however slightly; and he argues in a most vicious circle on this point. 
Certain medicines, he says, cure these chronic diseases that we meet with 
in persons who have avowedly had the itch, and these medicines we tei m 
antipsorics; if we succeed in curing chronic diseases with these medi- 
cines in persons whom we cannot ascertain to have ever had the itch, 
we may, nevertheless infer that they have at one time had the itch, be- 
cause we can cure them with antipsorics. 
It would seem to follow from this that as none of these seven-eighths 
of all chronic diseases are curable " save by the use of a certain set of 
medicaments, that were mostly unknown or unused before Hahnemann s 
time, 'no such chronic diseases were ever cured before the promulga- 
tion of his doctrine in 1828.'" Yet Hahnemann in 1797 published in 
his essay entitled Are the obstacles to certainty and simplicity in practical 
medicine insurmountable, " a case of well-marked so-called psoric disease 
consisting of ulcers on the legs, that had lasted for forty yeais in an old 
bon vivant of a Colonel. The sole treatment consisted in wiapping up 
the legs in a flannel roller, immersing them daily for a few minutes in 
cold water, and afterwards dressing them with a weak solution of corro- 
sive sublimate. This old gentleman, whom the later lights shed on 
pathology by the psora theory would have inevitably condemned to die 
of apoplexy or some other horrible disease, under such irrational treat- 
ment, wonderful to relate, got well, and, still more wonderful, remained 5 
so for many years, during which, Hahnemann says he had an opportu- 
nity of observing him." 
A modern accredited writer on homoeopathy, Jousset, treating of the 
relative merits of Hahnemann's pathology and therapeutics 
Medicine, p. 6) quotes approvingly from Tessier as follows: " The doc- 
trine of Samuel Hahnemann may be divided into two parts, viz., pa- 
thology and therapeutics. Term for term, the one comprises all his 
errors and the other all his truths. So that in speaking of the pathology 
or the errors of Hahnemann we mean the same thing; and the thera- 
peutics or his truths are also identical. Consequently, in what is called 
Homoeopathy there is the hemisphere of error and the hemisphere of 
truth." To us the above statement appears more epigrammatic than 
scientifically correct; more sweeping than satisfactory. We think it 
would be more in keeping with the facts, as interpreted by us, and as we 
shall hereinafter attempt to show, to rather say, that the results of 
Hahnemann's labors-so far as they form a system-are not fully 
rounded like a sphere, but have a segment missing, not only on the side 
of pathology, but of therapeutics as well. 
We are aware that Hahnemann before promulgating his psora theory 
-and we might add "coffee theory," discouraged investigations with a 
view of ascertaining the causes of disease, and even ridiculed the older 
physicians for efforts made in that direction, saying, " They fancied they 
could find the cause of disease, but they did not find it because it is un- 
recognizable, and not to be found, since by far the greater number of 
diseases are of a dynamic (spirit like) origin and nature, their cause 
therefore remaining unrecognizable." 
Yet later, we find Hahnemann actually developing a theory of the 
origin of all chronic diseases. "And we shall find that this doctrine," 
writes Dudgeon, "and this I say, without thereby implying its fallacy, 
is an attempt at a dogmatical explanation of the essential nature of a 
vast proportion of the maladies that affect mankind, and as all Hahne- 
mann's views and doctrines were made subservient to his therapeutics, 
this pathological hypothesis of his was the foundation of a peculiar 
therapia, differing in some essential particulars from what he had here- 
tofore taught." Here we would call attention to the characteristics of 
Hahnemann's mind again. We find him not the infallible rates or seer 
that some of his disciples of to-day and the past-who have carried his 
teachings in some departments farther than he himself intended-would 
have us regard him--but a diligent philosophical searcher after truth, 
willing to reject a theory or hypothesis the moment further reflection or 
experience convinced him of his error. For our own part we much 
prefer the Hahnemann of the Chronic Diseases to the same of the early 
editions of the Organon. 
Let us now skip over the half century intervening between the publi- 
cation of the psora theory and the present time, and see what this theory 6 
has done-with the aid of a greatly augmented materia medica-in the 
treatment of chronic diseases. 
Turning to page 57 of Jousset's work on Clinical Medicine, we find 
the following unequivocal language addressed to his class of students. 
He says: "To save you from disappointment in the future, let me tell 
you that chronic diseases are incurable." Professor R. Ludlara, the trans- 
lator of this book, emphasizes this ex cathedra statement by one of his 
own, which we shall notice with similar ones in the proper places. 
Dr. H. I. Ostrom, in a thoughtful article in the New York Medical 
Times, February, 1886, on " Induction in Therapeutics," expresses his 
dissatisfaction with the existing state of Medical Science, in the opening 
paragraphs, to wit: "Our present knowledge concerning the nature of 
disease, and the action of drugs-the two premises of the syllogism, the 
treatment of disease-is so limited as to exclude therapeutics from the 
exact sciences, but by no other means than the most carefully conducted 
investigations and experiments in all that pertains to these two premises, 
can we hope to establish the healing art upon the scientific recognition 
that the importance of its relation to human society demands." 
Over against these assertions let us put for a moment by way of con- 
trast the following from Dr. D. Dyce Brown (The Reign of Law in 
Medicine, p. 13). He says, speaking of Hahnemann: "The Organon 
of Medicine is worthy of the greatest genius, and he has literally left 
almost nothing for his disciples to do but carry out his principles. Sel- 
dom has such a complete work been done by one man, and this while 
grim poverty was staring him in the face." This prevailing belief- 
amongst homoeopathicians-that the far-reaching philosophy of Hahne- 
mann has left little or nothing to be discovered is misleading and dwarf- 
ing-and will account for our want of real progress in the knowledge 
and treatment of disease. 
To assert that Homoeopathy as a science has not as yet attained to 
the growth promised ere this through the genius of its therapeutic laws 
(?) is to be guilty of a truism. To affirm, notwithstanding these 
laws enabling prevision, that no discovery of importance since Hahne- 
mann's time has been made thus, goes without saying. Our progress thus 
far, as we may say, has been inevitable. It is without feature of epochal 
importance. It is the combined labor of the majority of the profession. 
It is characterized by industry rather than brilliancy. In short, it is 
an advance of the utmost importance without the aid of genius. 
" The individual withers, and the world is more and more." 
The majority of contributors to our current and standard literature 
grind in the mill of a truism, and nothing comes out but what was put in. 
Changes are rung on the most hackneyed subjects ad infinitum, ad nau- 
seam, without a single new idea or thought being offered to give them 
an excuse for being. 
The future of Homoeopathy as a science is indeed most promising. 7 
We are but just beginning to learn of the wealth of the remedial sources 
at our command, and how it may be best made available. But entire 
fields in Etiology and Pathology as well as in Therapeutics, still remain 
terra incognita, which by the aid of our therapeutic laws, should in the 
near future become familiar to us. Aside from the invaluable assist- 
ance afforded us in the provings of drugs and the matching of their 
symptoms to disease, this law or laws should prove a mighty instrument 
to guide us in prosecuting medical research in general. 
The old school of medicine has been charged with plagiarizing homoeo- 
pathic therapeutics, and, without doubt, there is truth and justice in 
the arraignment, yet it speaks very poorly for the efficacy of our "stolen 
thunder" when one of their representative men-J. Syer Bristowe, M.D., 
in an Address in Medicine before the British Medical Association in 
1881, asks, " What grounds of reason or experience have we to justify 
the belief that for every disease an antidote or cure will sooner or later 
be discovered ?" and he declares it to be " Utopian to expect that dis- 
eases generally shall become amenable to therapeutical or any other 
treatment." Richard Hughes, M.D., the eminent English physician 
and thinker, if we may judge from his writings, has for a long time been 
persuaded that there are gaps existing in our therapeutics, which our 
present methods of advancement can never reach. 
How else are we to interpret the following from his oration on Hahne- 
mann as a Medical Philosopher, p. 10, to wit: " Another Descartes may 
arise in medicine, whose perception in special fields of knowledge may 
be keener, and who may leave his mark more clearly traced on certain 
branches of our art. But Hahnemann, when once his method shall 
have won the acceptance we claim for it, will ever be reckoned the 
Bacon of therapeutics-the fruitful thinker who taught us what was 
our great aim as physicians, and how we should best attain to it." 
If, as we have been told, Hahnemann " has literally left almost 
nothing for his disciples to do but to carry out his principles," we can- 
not imagine where a Descartes could find a relationship existing between 
the algebra and geometry of medicine, that was not already well known 
on which to inaugurate a new era, or base a claim as a discoverer. 
Certainly, out of the stock-work of drug provings and the verification 
of their symptoms in disease, another Descartes could not very well 
arise ; yet one thing is very certain, in our opinion, viz.: That we may 
gather up in our Materia Medica not only twelve hundred remedies 
from the present remedial sources-with only the law of similars to 
guide in their selection in disease-and the majority of chronic diseases 
will still remain as incurable as they are now. 
"A true faith in medicine," writes Dr. Kidd (Laws of Therapeutics, 
p. 95), " is possible only to those who see natural laws of cure. When 
accurate observation and experience corroborate the exactitude of law, 
faith in medicine becomes unswerving and perfect. It is, indeed, truth 8 
that is wanted, and not one-sided advocacy or partial exaggeration- 
not only truth, but all truth." 
Dr. J. P. Dake, writing concerning the outlook for therapeutics in 
his late able work on Therapeutic Methods, p. 190, believes, that " The 
prospect for the discovery of more reliable principles to guide the thera- 
peutist, and for the more ready acceptance of what is established as 
true, is encouraging." " Yet, at the present time," writes Dr. J. D. Buck, 
" our boasted homoeopathy has for its proudest boast, that it kills a few 
less than its heroic rivals. Whatever it can justly claim more than this, 
is a pittance of its proud and beneficent inheritance. Our Jaw of cure, 
when rightly understood and correctly applied, will cover every dis- 
eased condition, and the apprehension of every diseased condition, whether 
manifested objectively or subjectively, depends on a thorough knowledge 
of physiology." 
And now a few words, before turning to our subject proper, relative 
to the proper instruments with which to prosecute scientific research. 
The official organ of the pure Hahnemannians-i.e., those claiming to 
follow the teachings of Hahnemann to the letter (The Homoeopathic 
Physician)-has, for its motto, the following, from one of the last articles 
which Dr. Hering wrote: "If we ever give up the strict inductive 
method of Hahnemann, we are lost, and deserve to be mentioned only 
as a caricature in the history of medicine." We are not a little sur- 
prised, not only that Dr. Hering should write the above, but that The 
Homoeopathic Physician should accept it apparently so literally; for, 
every student of the writings of Hahnemann knows that he largely 
used the deductive method, and it is notorious, that Dr. Hering, both 
in early professional life, and in late, almost wholly ignored the induct- 
ive method, quod vide Dudgeon's Lectures on Homoeopathy, Hering's 
late writings, etc. 
The Baconian, or rather the Aristotelian method of inductive reason- 
ing (vide J. W. Draper's Intellectual Development in Europe, vols. i. and 
ii., pp. 176, 175) has been sharply attacked by Professor Jevons, The 
Principles of Science, etc., p. 576, as follows: "Bacon's method was a 
kind of scientific bookkeeping. Facts were to be indiscriminately 
gathered from every source and posted in a ledger, from which would 
emerge in time a balance of truth. It is difficult to imagine a less 
likely way of arriving at great discoveries." " All induction is but the 
inverse application of deduction, and it is by the inexplicable action of 
a gifted mind that a multitude of heterogeneous facts are arranged in 
luminous order as the result of some uniformly acting law." "Hypo- 
thetical anticipation of nature is an essential part of inductive inquiry, 
and it is the Newtonian method of deductive reasoning combined with 
elaborate experimental verification which has led to all the great tri- 
umphs of scientific research." 
Professor Whewell writes (History of the Inductive Sciences, vol. i., 9 
" Epoch of Kepler "): "We may venture to say that advances in knowl- 
edge are not commonly made, without the previous exercise of some 
boldness and license in guessing. The discovery of new truths requires, 
undoubtedly, minds careful and scrupulous in examining what is sug- 
gested ; but it requires no less such as are quick and fertile in suggest- 
ing." 
J. S. Mill teaches (System of Logic, vol. i., p. 580): "Deduction is 
the great scientific work of the present and of future ages. The portion 
henceforth reserved for specific experience in the achievements of science, 
is mainly that of suggesting hints to be followed up by the deductive 
inquirer, and of confirming or checking his conclusions." 
Sir John Herschel, writing on the combined use of the inductive and 
deductive methods, says : "They form an engine of discovery, infinitely 
more powerful than either taken separately, and that which promises 
the most for research." 
Professor Tyndall (The Forms of Water, etc.,) insists upon the use of 
the imagination in the prosecution of science. And Professor Haeckel 
(History of Creation, vol. i., p. 79) says: "If we consider and compare 
the most important advances which the human mind has made in the 
knowledge of truth, we shall soon see that it is always owing to philosophi- 
cal mental operations that these advances have been made, and that the 
experience of the senses which certainly and necessarily precedes these 
operations, and the knowledge of details gained thereby, only furnish 
the bases for general laws. The purely empirical naturalists, who do 
not trouble themselves about the philosophical comprehension of their 
sensuous experience, and who do not strive after general knowledge, can 
promote science only in a very slight degree, and the chief value of their 
hard-won knowledge of details lies in the general results which more 
comprehensive minds will, one day, derive from them." 
In pursuing one's inquiries, it is necessary that one should have faith 
in one's work, in one's convictions, and be not afraid to express them. 
The time is past when 
" Men grow pale lest their own judgments should become too bright, 
And their free thoughts be crimes and earth have too much light." 
"No one," writes John Stuart Mill (on Liberty), "can be a great 
thinker who does not recognize, that, as a thinker, it is his first duty to 
follow his intellect to whatever conclusion it may lead. Truth gains 
more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, 
thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold 
them because they do not suffer themselves to think." 
Opposition does not always mean defeat. Time will decide, if we be 
in error. Hahnemann, the " Columbus of Rational Therapeutics," per- 
secuted by apothecaries and physicians, may now inquire after the man- 
ner of his great prototype in physical science- 10 
Were you at Leipsic? No? 
We fronted there the learning of all Germany ; 
All their pathologies, all their posologies. 
Guess-work they guessed it, but the golden guess 
Is morning star to the full round of truth. 
Tennyson's Poems : Columbus. 
" To discern likeness amidst diversity, it is well known, does not require so fine a 
mental edge as the discerning of diversity amidst general sameness. The primary 
rough classification depends on the prominent resemblances of things ; the progress 
is towards finer and finer discrimination, according to minute differences."-George 
Eliot, Impressions of Theophrastus Such. 
" It is unnecessary at the present day to insist upon the importance of a knowl- 
edge of chemistry, and particularly of physiological and pathological chemistry, to 
be the student of medicine. Physiological chemistry promises much even in the 
treatment of disease; for, it is beginning to be seen from the investigations of the 
molecular constitution of different bodies, that there exists a distinct connection 
between their specific atomic grouping and their physiological action."-T. Crans- 
town Charles, M.D., etc., Physiological and Pathological Chemistry, London, 1884. 
" Amongst the organic proximate principles which enter into the composition of 
the tissues and organs of living beings, those belonging to the class of proteid or 
albuminous bodies occupy quite a peculiar place, and require an exceptional treat- 
ment." " They are indispensable constituents of every living, active animal tissue, 
and indissolubly connected with every manifestation of animal activity."-Arthur 
Gamgee, M.D., etc., Physiological Chemistry, vol. i., p. 5. 
"On the other hand the inorganic substances are exempt, as a general rule, from 
chemical change. The large proportion of them are reabsorbed from the tissues in 
which they were deposited, and discharged unchanged with the excretions. They 
do not, for the most part, participate directly in the chemical phenomena of the 
living body, but rather serve to facilitate by their presence the necessary changes of 
nutrition in other ingredients of the animal frame."-Dalton, Human Physiology. 
A New Remedial Source. 
The attempt of Schtissler to introduce, as an abridged system of thera- 
peutics, the inorganic tissue formers has not resulted in enriching the 
materia raedica to the extent hoped for-nay, claimed-by its author, 
much less supplanting the elaborate system of minute and varied drug 
symptomatology created by Hahnemann and his immediate followers. 
Schiissler's sweeping assertion that these twelve inorganic tissue rem- 
edies are quite sufficient " to cure in the shortest way all diseases that 
on the whole are curable," certainly displays a narrowness of mind 
and a lack of impartial judgment not usually found in a true philosopher. 
Had he included in his therapeutic system the proximate principles of 
all classes, he would have, we believe, with his superior knowledge of 
chemistry, reclaimed a terra incognita, upon which we can only hope to 
throw an uncertain light, and carried our school of medicine to a point 
which "our friends, the enemy," with their present scientific method are 
incapable of ever attaining. It is on this line, so abruptly terminated 
by Schtissler, that we will endeavor to turn our thoughts at this stage 
of the subject. 11 
"The organic substances," Schiissler tells us, JVew Treatment of Disease, 
p. 11, "are only influenced by inhaled oxygen, and by the inorganic 
salts. Nitrogen and carbon, therefore, remain useless as therapeutical 
agents. If in the animal organism nitrogen should or could be wanting, 
then albuminous substances would be wanting, of which nitrogen is an 
integral part." Without entering into consideration of Schiissler's 
objections to the organic physiological constituents for therapeutic pur- 
poses, we will now give a brief outline of some of them, going more into 
detail when we come to consider the treatment of disease. 
The works of Flint, Carpenter, Foster, Dalton, Kirk, Landois, 
Bennet, on physiology, and of Gamgee, Charles, Vaughan, Kingzett and 
Liebig on physiological chemistry, and of Thudichum on the Chemistry 
of the Brain, have been consulted for the following: 
Albumen of Blood. 
This substance is the most abundant inorganic ingredient of the blood- 
plasma, where it exists in the proportion of 53 parts per thousand. 
Cholesterine. 
Is very widely spread in the body. It occurs largely in the 
cerebro-spinal axis, and in nerves, and is also present in the blood. 
Cholesterine is likewise found in yolk of egg, in the spleen, in certain 
dropsical fluids, pus, atheromatous deposits and strumous cysts and in 
many lipomas, goitres and tubercular deposits. It is possibly excreted 
in the bile, forming the chief ingredient of biliary calculi. According 
to Bibra, " it forms about one-third of the cerebral fat along with the fats 
constituting one-half the total solids of the white substance and more 
than one-fifth of the solids of the grayIt seems to be, without 
doubt, absorbed from the substance of the nervous system by the blood 
transported in this way to the liver, and thence discharged with the bile 
into the alimentary canal." (Dalton, Flint.) The physiological relations 
of cholesterine are obscure as compared with those of true fatty sub- 
stances. It crystallizes in large thin rhombic tablets. 
Haemoglobin. 
As the principal constituent of the red corpuscles of the blood of 
vertebrate animals, healthy human blood contains on an average twelve 
per cent, of haemoglobin. It exists not only in the blood corpuscles, but 
also in some muscles and in solution in the blood of some invertebrates. 
Keratin 
Is found in all the tissues developed from the ectoderm or horny layer 
of the embryo. It seems to be the chief component of epidermic struc- 
ture, and is closely related to albumen, yielding, like it, leucin and 
tyrosin. 12 
Leucin 
Belongs to the fatty bodies and is found normally in many of the 
organic tissues, particularly the pancreas, spleen, lungs, brain, etc. It is 
a constant decomposition product of the albumen and nitrogenized sub- 
stances, as horn, etc. When pure it forms very thin, white, glittering, 
flat crystals. 
Tyrosin. 
Almost all products furnish this body under the action of strong oxi- 
dizing agents. It is prepared with facility from horn, nails, hair and 
the skin. Together with leucin it is one of the products of normal pan- 
creatic digestion. It is found in diseased epidermis, thickened nails 
and atheromatous cysts; also preformed in the substance of the liver, 
spleen, kidneys, suprarenal capsules, thyroid and salivary glands and 
in various degenerations of these organs. 
This is a neutral crystallizable substance which exists in the muscular 
tissue, both voluntary and involuntary, of man and animals, its propor- 
tion in human muscle being, according to Neubauer, about two parts 
per thousand. It has also been found in minute quantity in the blood, 
the brain and the kidneys. 
Kreatin. 
Kreatinin. 
This, which is simply a dehydrated form of kreatin, occurs normally 
as a constant constituent of urine and of muscle extract. It acts as a 
powerful alkali, forming with acids and salts compounds which crys- 
tallize well. 
Sarkosin. 
This substance is formed from kreatin. It is not itself a constituent 
of muscle, and is of interest on account of its derivation. It forms in 
large colorless, rhombic prisms, which are soluble in alcohol and in 
water. 
Xanthin 
Mixed with hypoxanthin is met with in different parts of the organism, 
as in muscle, spleen, pancreas and liver. Its formation precedes that 
of uric acid, from which it differs in containing one atom of oxygen 
less. First discovered in a urinary calculus and called xanthic oxide. 
Sarkin or hypoxanthin is found in muscle generally in the proportion 
of about 0.02 per cent.; it is also present in the spleen, liver, thymus 
and in the blood and urine of leukaemia, generally accompanying xan- 
thin. 
Carnin. 
Discovered by Weidel in extract of meat, of which it constitutes about 
one per cent., though doubtless it is a regular constituent of muscle. 
(Gamgee.) It crystallizes in white, very irregular crystals. 13 
I NOSIT. 
This saccharine body is met with in the muscle substance of the heart, 
and in most of the organs of the body, as the brain, liver, spleen, lungs, 
kidneys, etc. It crystallizes in brilliant little, lamellae, somewhat like 
those of cholesterine. 
Of the well-known organic constituents of the urine, this is the 
only one which contains sulphur. It is sometimes found as the sole or 
principal constituent of urinary calculi of men and of dogs. At other 
times it may be detected in urinary deposits or in solution in the urine. 
The liver is supposed to have some influence over the formation of 
cystin. It is probable that it results from the splitting up of the 
albuminous constituents of the food. 
Cystin. 
Uric Acid 
Occurs sparingly in the human urine, abundantly in that of birds 
and reptiles where it represents the chief nitrogenous decomposition 
product. It occurs also in the blood, spleen, liver, and sometimes is the 
only constituent of urinary calculi. The chief product of its decompo- 
sition is urea. 
Has been found in the human liver, spleen and faeces, but does not 
occur as a common It is related to xanthin, hypoxanthin and 
uric acid. It has been found combined with calcium in the scales of 
some fishes, and has also been extracted from the muscles, liver and 
pancreas of man. 
Guanin 
Allantoin 
Is one of the oxidation products of uric acid which on oxidation gives 
urea. 
We would just mention the alcohols and fatty acids in passing: 
Cerebrin. 
This is one of the non-phosphorized nitrogenous constituents. Besides 
occurring largely in the brain it is also found in the axis cylinder of 
nerves, in the yolk of egg and in pus corpuscles, etc. Is more abun- 
dant in the white than in the gray substance of the brain. It may be 
regarded as a nitrogenous glucoside. Is undoubtedly a constituent of 
the medullary layer of nerve fibres. Cerebrin forms a soft, light, amor- 
phous, moderately hygroscopic powder. 
Lecithin. 
This substance is present in nerve tissue, particularly the gray sub- 
stance; also in the yolk of egg, semen, blood corpuscles and serum, 14 
milk, bile, etc. Also occurs widely spread throughout the body. The 
lecithin of brain forms a colorless, slightly crystalline powder. 
Protagon 
Forms the principal part of the white substance of Schwann. (Foster, 
Charles.) Liebreich, who discovered this substance in the year 1865, 
gave it the above name, as indicating it as the first definitely ascertained 
specific constituent of brain. (Gamgee.) It is a crystalline body con- 
taining nitrogen and phosphorus. 
N euro-Keratin. 
This is the same sulphur-containing body that is found in the epidermic 
structures, such as hair and nail. The central and principal nervous 
system are developed from the same layer of the blastoderm as the 
epidermis, and one point in common which remains between them is the 
fact of their both yielding keratin. Like keratin it yields much tyrosin, 
but less leucin. It forms a yellow powder. 
Phrenosin 
Is the substance prepared by Thudichum {Chemistry of the Brain). 
It is white, tasteless and odorless, and crystallizes, from absolute alcohol, 
in white rosettes. 
Many substances, it will be observed, have been, omitted from the 
above list. Allusion will be made to them when treating of the different 
diseases. Some of these preparations we have just furnished to Messrs. 
Boericke & Tafel for trituration. Others will follow as soon as they can 
be obtained from the laboratory of E. Merck, Darmstadt. And now a 
word in explanation of the immaturity of thought shown in our work. 
We had not thought of writing out our views on this subject as yet until 
a recent interview with the editor of this journal and a reading of the 
late address of Dr. Billings (U. S. A.) on "Medicine in the United 
States and its Relation to Cooperative Investigation," decided our doing 
so, knowing the difficulties attending the practical undertaking of the 
work unaided. We regret to be able to offer at this time no data result- 
ing from the crucial test of experiment in the place of new hypothesis. 
When opportunity shall present for practically testing our views, we 
shall not feel that we have lessened our obligations in the least to carry 
our views to decisive issue by invoking cooperation therein. In prepar- 
ing this installment of our communication to the Recorder we have 
labored at a disadvantage due to the limited time allotted us in order 
to appear in this issue. We trust, however, that nothing essential to 
the clearness of treatment will have been omitted. Our plan has for its 
object at this time chiefly the stimulating of thought on a most impor- 
tant subject, viz., the nature and treatment of chronic diseases. 15 
Carcinoma. 
The New York Medical Journal and Obstetrical Review, July, 1882, p. 
110, contains, under the caption " The Radical Cure of Cancer," the fol- 
lowing communication, to wit: " The undersigned, who, in October last, 
was delegated to receive competing essays on the subject of the radical 
cure of malignant disease, announces that three essays were presented. 
In the consideration of their merits the assistance of Dr. George B. 
Shattuck, editor of the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, was in- 
voked, and it has been decided that no essay is worthy of a prize. The 
same subject-namely, 'The Probability of the Discovery of a Cure of 
Malignant Disease, and the Line of Study or Experimentation Likely 
to Bring Such a Cure to Light'-is proposed for essays to be presented 
in competition not later than the 1st day of December, 1883, to the 
undersigned, who, with such assistance as he may select, will be the 
udge of their merits. For the best essay on the subject a prize of $1000 
will be given, the right being reserved to withhold the prize in case no 
essay of sufficient merit be presented. For the donor, J. Collins War- 
ren, M.D., No. 58 Beacon Street, Boston." 
This communication we have thought it worth while to quote in part, 
as interesting from its frank avowal of the little known at the present 
time concerning a radical treatment of the disease under consideration ; 
and when we learn from a recent publication that none of the essays 
called out by the above prize, and one of 10,000 francs, offered a few 
years since by L' Academic de Medecine of Paris, for a similar purpose, 
were deemed of sufficient merit to claim them, we think it is in order 
to ask the question, Is the intimate nature of cancer, then, so hopelessly 
environed in obscurity that any attempt to throw light upon it, or to 
search for remedies more efficacious in its treatment, must result in a 
mere waste of time and labor? The results of centuries of investiga- 
tions into this subject by the brightest and most philosophical minds in 
the profession have only tended to render the confusion worse con- 
founded, and the answer to our query would, therefore, seem to go 
without saying. 
The obstacles in the way of the attainment of a better knowledge of 
cancer would appear to be insurmountable, in view of the fact that 
neither the thirst for fame, pecuniary rewards, nor the greatest incentive 
of all-the desire to be of service to mankind-has been rewarded by 
the discovery of a rational treatment of this class of affections. 
But what has homoeopathy, with its endless resources, its boasted law 
of cure, its voluminous Materia Medica, and its superior instruments of 
research, to say in the premises ? Can it do anything but echo the mel- 
ancholy verdict of the dominant school of medicine? At present we 
cannot see that it can. To sustain this point it may be well to make a 
few citations. Doctor Kidd, writing in Laws of Therapeutics, p. 193, 
makes this very encouraging statement: " In an extensive practice dur- 16 
ing thirty years, with a large number of unsuccessful cases, I have been 
three times encouraged as to the possibility of curing cancer." Profes- 
sor Lilienthal writes, Homoeopathic Therapeutics (a work of forty years' 
practice), p. 79 : " There are no remedies yet for cancer. The individu- 
ality of the patient, the cause of the affection, and the concomitant 
symptoms, may aid us in selecting the remedy which for the time being 
will alleviate the suffering" (italics are my own). Dr. H. I. Ostrom, at 
p. 278 of A Treatise on the Breast, has this to say : " I would be only too 
willing to believe that surgery will not always be obliged to bear the 
opprobrium of being able to offer nothing better than the knife for car- 
cinoma, but at present this is unfortunately true; after the stage of ac- 
tivity begins, the period at which a correct diagnosis is possible, medi- 
cines will palliate, but seldom cure." The same writer, in an article on 
" The Relation Between the Treatment of Tumors and Their Diagnosis," 
in The New York Medical Times, November, 1886, recapitulates his views 
as follows: "Those growths that have their origin in inflammation, and 
find their histological prototype in granulation tissue, even when this 
continues wholly embryonic, may, in a limited degree, be under the in- 
fluence of the dynamic force of drugs, and that the instances in which 
such means have been effective in removing tumors illustrate and prove 
such a genesis and such a drug action, while those growths that have 
been called pathological new formations, that are in no sense connected 
with repair, and that find their histological prototype in the embryonic 
cells of the tissues that compose the neoplasm, are not susceptible of the 
dynamic power of drugs, and that the failure of such means to remove 
a given tumor affords one proof of its true neoplastic nature, and is, 
other things being equal, a justification for operative interference. Upon 
these premises it maybe assumed that medicinal means should be ex- 
hausted before resorting to the knife, but such an assumption is unwar- 
ranted. Experiments in medicine, where positive knowledge can serve 
as a guide, are without sanction, and can under no circumstances enter 
into modern surgery." Let us compare this statement with the forego- 
ing: " Notwithstanding this grave outlook, to medicine must we turn 
for a cure if one is possible at this stage of its development." It will 
thus be seen that carcinoma has forever been logically relegated to the 
class of incurable diseases. 
The history of carcinoma we need not enter into. Suffice it to say it is 
the same intractable, painful, fatal malady to us as it was to Hippocrates, 
Galen and Paulus jEgineta. This disease, as is well known, is not com- 
municable, no instance being on record where it has been transmitted 
from one individual to another. Nor is it inoculable on man, or any of 
the lower animals. The theory of its origin in an accidental poison is 
inconsistent with any of the facts bearing upon the subject. Its alleged 
venereal descent is also untenable. Again, cancer is not derived from 
without, as a parasite, as some maintain. Its histological character 17 
is well known, and its independent existence and growth can be other- 
wise explained. The assertion that malignant disease is caused by trau- 
matism will not sustain an examination. We may readily admit, how- 
ever, that where a strong predisposition to the disease exists external 
violence may serve to start it into activity at the point injured. This 
statement likewise applies to the smoking habit, for cancer was known 
centuries before tobacco was introduced as a luxury. Apropos of the 
reports (very commonly believed among the public) that General Grant's 
condition was due to cigar smoking, the British Medical Journal, March 
14th, 1885, makes the following sensible remarks : " A little knowledge 
of pathology is sufficient to demonstrate that smoking cannot cause 
cancer, although the irritation of a pipe sometimes sets up ulceration of 
the lip, which, when of very long standing, may become cancerous, pro- 
vided that the patient has a hereditary tendency to cancer. There is 
no evidence whatever that cigar-smoking causes cancer of the tongue." 
A history of improperly treated, or latent psora (diathese herpetique of 
the French) has been invoked as a cause, but without sufficient reasons, 
and the so-called anti-psoric treatment is utterly without effect in stay- 
ing its progress. Moreover, cancer occurs in animals not subject to this 
diathesis; and Dr. Crisp has even discovered the disease in the pike. 
The supposition that cancer is a blood disease is altogether too vague, 
and is apt to discourage all search for its cause. Carcinoma is almost 
independent of most of the diseases of the body. It has been observed, 
however, that organic affections of the heart are rare amongst cancer 
patients, as is also tuberculosis. The effect of erysipelas upon some 
cancersis remarkable. When this disease sweeps over a cancerous ulcer 
every trace of the original disease is removed, but in a few days, or 
weeks at most, its well-known character reappears. The most common 
concurrent affection with cancer is some form of innocent tumor, thus 
marking, to our mind, a state of altered nutrition, which only requires 
an element heterologous to the tissues to develop into malignant disease. 
That cancer is a growth of the body, though a misdirected and morbid 
one, is borne out by the analogy of other tumors, and is certain when 
its minute structure is demonstrated. The heredity of cancer cannot 
well be doubted. Mr. Sibley, who has made a special study of this 
question, traced it in one of every nine, and Mr. Paget in one of every 
four cases. We do not, of course, mean to say that the actual disease 
is transmitted, but only a tendency to it. 
Observations concerning heredity in general have in recent years, in 
the hands of Francis Galton (vide Hereditary Genius, English Men of 
Science, Their Nature and Nurture, and Heredity), been reduced to a 
science. Brown-Sequard, at a meeting of the French Academy of 
Sciences, March 13th, 1882, presented a communication on experiments 
made on guinea pigs, which prove that accidental affections of the pa- 
rent are sometimes transmitted to the offspring. 18 
In connection with influence of the emotions upon nutrition writes 
Dr. Tuke (Influence of the Mind upon the Body, p. 276): " Its generally 
iecognized effect in inducing cancer should be mentioned, a predisposi- 
tion in the system being probably necessary. Bichat maintains that 
cancer of the stomach frequently owes its origin to powerful emotions- 
1 impression vive lessentie an pylore dans les fortes emotions, 1'empreinte 
ineffaceable qu' il en conserve quelque fois'." 
Velpeau, writing on cancer (Marsden's Translation, p. 116), says: "I 
ought to say as much of the moral condition, sadness, chagrin, distress 
of mind, mental agency of all kinds, so much blamed by the public aud 
even by certain observers, have no share whatever in the production of 
cancer, and if we be permitted to notice such cases, it is rather to please 
the patient than to fill up a scientific void." Dr. Richardson, in his well- 
known work on Diseases of Modern Life, makes no allusion whatever in 
the chapter on " The Reel of the Passions,'' to the fact that these states 
of mind are in any way responsible for the production of cancer. 
Walshe writes, On the Nature and Treatment of Cancer, p. 155, " Much 
has been written on the influence of mental misery, sudden reverses of 
fortune, and habitual gloominess of temper on the deposition of can- 
cerous matter. " It should be recollected that cancer is very rare before 
the thirtieth year, and that the number of persons fortunate enough to 
reach that age without having suffered under disappointed hopes and 
wasting grief is in all probability comparatively small." But what 
shall we say of the aetiology of cancer in the lower animals? Surely 
an emotional state in them can influence nutrition to but a slight ex- 
tent. Imagine, if you please, "Rab" (Bab and His Friends, by John 
Blown) the victim of malignant disease as the result of prolonged grief 
ovei the death of a friend; anxiety, worry, anger, etc. (For informa- 
tion concerning cancer in the lower animals, vide Pedigree of Disease, 
by Jonathan Hutchinson; A Treatise on Cancer, by Robert Mitchell, 
London ; recent volumes of the Journal of Comparative Medicine and 
Surgery; American Veterinary Review, April, 1884; A Treatise on Dis- 
eases of the Dog, by J. W. Hill, London.) 
The late Dr. Willard Parker, in his treatise On Cancer, "A study of 
three hundred and ninety-seven cases," says: "It is a noteworthy fact 
that a majority of my cases occurred among people in good circumstances, 
many of them wealthy and living luxuriously, and that., as a rule, the 
most rapid and malignant cases were those surrounded with the greatest 
comforts." " Lower animals are much more subject to the disease when 
in a state of domestication than in their natural wild condition." Walshe 
writes (lbid.,g. 156): " Wherever the disease" (cancer) " is particularly 
rare it may be remarked that a low state of civilization prevails ; where- 
ever social organization is of a highly perfect kind, there cancer flour- 
ishes. May we then infer that, as has more than once been contended, 
cancer, like insanity, follows in the wake of civilization, and that, as 19 
the ferment of a high state of social advancement is among the most 
active causes of destruction of intellect, so, too, it plays a prominent 
part in generating one of the most terrible physical evils to which hu- 
manity is subject ?" 
Dr. Walter Whitehead, in a recent address before the Birmingham 
(England) Medical Society, called attention to the alarming increase of 
cancer in England and Wales during the past fifty years, and predicts 
that if the disease continues to increase in the same ratio in thirty years 
cancer will be about the only disease physicians will be called upon to 
treat. 
The health of persons usually attacked by cancer is remarkably good. 
This is strikingly shown in the tables in Dr. Parker's work just quoted 
from. Mitchell writes (A Treatise on Ccmeer, London, 1879, p. 99): 
" Cancer, though so terribly fatal a disease, is, I believe, itself the off- 
spring of health. Health, the good health of the individual, I hold to 
be an almost necessary precursor of cancer. In its rise and develop- 
ment in good health it forms an exception to all the received and ac- 
knowledged laws that govern the accession of all common and simple 
diseases." 
C. H. Moore says (The Antecedents of Cancer, p. 54) : " Cancer is 
eminently a disease of persons whose previous life has been healthy," 
and " that there is probably no disease surpassing it in the pedigree of 
health, and that it may be looked for in long-lived families." 
Let us now see what deductions may be drawn from these facts. 
Why cancer is so rare a disease before the age of thirty ? Why it usually 
selects the most healthy persons? Why the liability to the disease de- 
clines after the age of fifty, and why it may be looked for in long-lived 
families ? , 
Dr. Charles writes (Physiological Chemistry, p. 15): " In early life 
the nutritive powers of the tissues are more active than the oxidizing 
processes, and so growth and development occur. In adult life they are 
nearly balanced, and more or less of an equilibrium is maintained; but 
in old age the processes of nutrition are defective and the wasting pro- 
cesses are in excess, and accordingly a failure occurs in tissue regenera- 
tion, and in the maintenance of the animal temperature." 
Landois, writing on the " Equilibrium of the Metabolism " (Physi- 
ology, vol. i, p. 477), says: "As long as the body continues to grow" 
(the full stature is reached about thirty-but not the greatest weight, 
Landois, Thoma), "the increase of the body corresponds to a certain 
increase of formation, whereby the metabolism of the growing parts of 
the body is greater than that of the parts already formed. Conversely 
during senile decay there is an excess of expenditure from the body." 
Thus it may be seen-regarding carcinoma as due to misdirected or 
hybrid growth of a part-that, the metabolism of the growing parts 
being in excess of those already formed-is, so to say, a means of pro- 20 
tection against cancer until between the period of full growth and senile 
decay-(the metabolism being then more in equilibrium) when the dis- 
ease is most rife. 
We have seen that cancer is most prevalent in those who live luxuri- 
ously-and most rapid in its course in those surrounded with the greatest 
comforts-and who naturally eat to excess of nitrogenous food. 
Upon this observation, the following from Foster (Physiology, p. 599) 
may have some bearing. He says : " The characteristic feature of pro- 
teid food is that it increases the oxidative metabolic activity of the 
tissues, leading to a rapid consumption, not only of itself, but of non- 
nitrogenous food as well." " But it must be borne in mind, that by the 
very nature of its rapid metabolism, the proteid food must tend to load 
the body with the so-called extractives-i. e., with nitrogenous crystal- 
line bodies. How far these are of use to the body, and what part they 
play, is at present unknown to us." "When in excess these nitrogenous 
products may be highly injurious as indicated by the little we know of 
the connection between the symptoms of gout and the presence of uric 
acid." 
Professor Ziegler (Text Book of Pathological Anatomy, p. 360) sums up 
his views of the setiology of cancer in the following general statement, to 
wit: "The entire behavior, anatomical and biological, of tumors justi- 
fies us in regarding them as formations more or less emancipated from 
the matrix tissue. It is true, they draw their nutriment from the organ- 
ism, and cannot grow without its support. In other respects, however, 
they behave like independent growths isolated from the rest of the or- 
ganism. It is in this independence or quasi-isolation that the setiological 
difficulty really lies. How does the neoplasm thus assume properties 
distinct from those of its surroundings? We believe the phenomenon is 
xdtimately due to some change affecting individual elements of a tissue " 
(italics my own) " whereby they are rendered dissimilar to their neigh- 
bors. The change is manifested especially in this-that the normal 
checks to the indefinite growth of the proliferous cells are inoperative or 
inadequate, either because the formative and productive energy is in- 
creased, or because the restraining influence of the surrounding structure 
is diminished or from both causes together." 
What now, let us inquire, are "the individual elements of a tissue" 
that may become subject to special change, " whereby they are rendered 
dissimilar to their neighbors "? We know that they cannot be the " in- 
organic acids, bases and saline compounds, which properly rank as con- 
stituents of the body, for they are, for the most part, applied to its con- 
struction in the forms in which they were introduced into the food ; and 
they reappear under the same forms in the excretions."-Carpenter. 
We must therefore conclude that it is in the organic elements of a tissue 
that this marked change or influence occurs, whereby a peculiar state 21 
of altered nutrition is induced that rapidly goes on in its work of de- 
struction and death. 
" In the Journal de Medecine of Brussels "-New York Medical Record 
some time since-" Doctor W. Rommelaere publishes a series of clinical 
observations illustrating a new fact in the pathology of cancer. He 
finds in thirty-four cases that in persons subject to cancer, the amount of 
urea daily eliminated progressively diminishes until it is below twelve 
grams. By studying the urea eliminated in cases where doubt exists 
between gastric ulcer and cancer, a diagnosis can be made. In twelve 
cases of gastric ulcer the daily elimination of urea was about twenty- 
five grams." 
Of the value of these observations we are not now in a position to speak. 
They may be incomplete, worthless, or of great diagnostic value. 
They furnish, at any rate, a hypothetical waif, that may point to the 
discovery of a new setiological and therapeutical world. Although we 
may probably never be able to penetrate, as it were, into the mechanism 
of the body and there take cognizance of the changes-chemical and 
otherwise-continually taking place ; yet the "scientific imagination " 
may be able to do so; and this may be all that is needed for practical 
purposes. 
Now as urea is the principal product of the retrograde metamorphosis 
of nitrogenous material, the question of interest naturally arising is 
this: what became of the large amount of urea not eliminated in those 
thirty-four cases of cancer? That it was not retained in the body as 
such, we must at once concede, for no mention is made of any of the 
well-known symptoms that would have followed had such been the case; 
and we cannot but conclude that owing to some local or other disturb- 
ance too little understood to enter into here, the proper balance between 
the evolution and the involution of the tissues is lost, and that the oxi- 
dative changes that should have resulted in the production of urea, or 
of those constituents which precede its formation, did not take place, and 
the result of this is, misdirected work, and a heterologous growth of a 
part, which is termed cancer. 
From this view of its genesis, it would seem that malignant disease 
has usually, if not always, a merely local manifestation, and that the 
tissues of the part are the essential factors of the new growth. The way 
in which the general system becomes involved in cancer is simply a 
process of progressive infection from the primary growth and is now well 
understood by pathologists. Cancer returns after operation in an im- 
mensely large proportion of cases; in 520 cases observed by Mr. Sibley 
at the Middlesex Hospital, the recurrence took place in tissues not ordi- 
narily the seats of primary cancer. 
To argue that recurrence after an operation proves a constitutional 
origin, proves too much, since this may be also alleged of benign tumors. 
We think the philosophy of their recurrence may be explained either 22 
on the theory of "Unconscious Memory in Disease" (vide the work of 
this title, by Charles Creighton, London, 1886), or by the inhibitory 
influence of the cerebro-spiual nerves. 
And now a few words showing the lack of unanimity of opinion on 
this subject in general. Dr. H. F. Formad, in an exhaustive paper on 
the aetiology of tumors, " Transactions of Pathological Society of Phila- 
delphia," September 1879 to July 1881, has classified the various theo- 
ries relative to the origin of these tumors and has given under each 
heading the names of the pathologists who have supported the hypothesis. 
1. Predisposition and Inflammation Theory. Virchow, S. D. Gross, 
Woodward, Samuel Wagner, Birch-Hirschfeld, Cornil and Ranvier, 
Peris, Tyson, Fritz, S. W. Gross. 
2. Dyscrasia Theory. Rokitansky, Paget, Billroth, Simon. 
3. Embryonal Theory. Cohnheim, Thiersch, Waldeyer, Lucke, Masse, 
Hasse, Ebstein. 
4. Idiopathic or Spontaneous Theory. Rindfleisch, Stricker, Nan- 
crede, Payne. 
5. Nervous Theory. Vanderkolk, Lang, Snow. 
Treatment.-" There can surely be no ground for doubting that, sooner or later, 
the pharmacologist will supply the physician with the means of affecting, in any 
desired sense, the functions of any physiological element of the body. It will, in 
short, become possible to introduce into the economy a molecular mechanism which, 
like a very cunningly contrived torpedo, shall find its way to some particular group 
of living elements and cause an explosion among them, leaving the rest untouched."- 
Professor Huxley. The Connection of the Biological Sciences with Medicine. Trans. 
Int. Med. Congress, 1881, p. 96. 
Had Hahnemann made no other discovery than that medicinal power 
could be liberated from apparently inert substances by the processes of 
trituration and attenuation, it would have been sufficient, when its im- 
portance to the healing art became fully known, to have immortalized 
his name. 
It is now well known to Homoeopathic physicians that the physio- 
logical constituents of the tissues have an elective affinity, as remedies, 
for the parts where they are normally found. Schiissler has done an 
important work in calling special attention to, and demonstrating this 
fact. Vide The Biochemical Treatment of Disease by the Inorganic Tissue 
Cell Salts ; O'Connor's translation. 
The organic substances which we shall here call attention to-Keratin, 
Tyrosin, Leucin, Kreatin, Kreatinin, Sarcosin, Carnin, Inosit, Melanin, 
Hsematin, Hsemin, Sarkin (and probably others) are normal constituents 
of the tissues, and of the class giving birth to cancerous growths, there- 
fore they have an elective action on these several tissues, and it is not a 
scientific gratuity to affirm that the remedy indicated will, " like a very 
cunningly contrived torpedo, find its way to the particular group of 23 
living elements, and cause an explosion among them, leaving the rest 
untouched." In other words, it will reinstate, if we may be allowed 
the expression, the polar equilibrium of the cells of the part, and thus 
will a cure take place. 
• This therapeutic law, the elective affinity an element of a tissue has 
for the tissue or group of tissues of which it is a normal constituent, will 
have a limited but very important application. It will apply in all 
progressive, non-infectious, non-contagions, non-inoculable diseases-i. e., 
in diatheses, in tissue degenerations, in diseases, in short, that present 
but few characteristic symptoms, and these, even when fully met by the 
ordinary remedies, surely return, often aggravated by their temporary 
removal. This rule of remedial selection cannot be said to be consonant 
with the law of Similars; yet it discovers a law within this law, that 
promises much toward the advancement of the healing art. 
For fear our meaning may not be fully apprehended, we would say 
here that this mode of treatment is not Isopathic-i. e., administering the 
product of a disease for the cure of the same, which can never accom- 
plish anything-but is as purely Homoeopathic (?) as the selecting of 
Calc. carb, or Calc. phos. for the over-distended, parchment-like skull of 
the infant; and many similar illustrations. But the extended applica- 
tion of this principle to the diseases we shall consider, and with the sub- 
stances briefly alluded to, has never, we believe, been even suggested 
before. 
Relative to the specific indications for the above remedies in cancer, 
we can only say that experiment must decide to what form or forms 
they severally belong. 
Venturing to generalize, we would suggest for eptheliomata-Keratin, 
Leucin, Tyrosin. For scirrhus-Tyrosin, Kreatin, Karnin, Sarcosin. 
For encephaloid-Kreatin, Kreatinin, Haemoglobin. For melanotic 
cancer-Melanin, Kreatin, Hsemin, Hsematin. For colloid cancer- 
Leucin, Sarkin. For osteoid cancer-Leucin, Tyrosin. For innocent 
tumors-The proteids and the carbo-hydrates. For semi-malignant 
growths-both the crystallizable and non-crystallizable proximate prin- 
ciples. 
Provings of these substances will doubtless furnish additional infor- 
mation for their specific applications. 
Having now, as we believe, offered plausible " suggestions by which a 
search for a cure for cancer may be instituted," we will turn to the con- 
sideration of another important diathetic disease. 
" It is becoming clear that a vast class of diseases will be proved to be errors of 
chemical action-interferences caused either by want of regulation or by the genera- 
tion within the body of substances that increase or diminish or change the oxi- 
dation which is necessary for the working of the body."-H. Bence Jones, M.D., 
F.R.S., etc., Applications of Chemistry and Mechanics to Pathology and Therapeutics. 
" Drugs act upon protoplasm ; but in so doing they make manifest that which is 24 
otherwise ascertained to be true, that all protoplasm is not the same protoplasm. 
They do not affect all parts of the body indiscriminately and alike, but select one 
or more organs or tissues or regions, and there expend their power. The elective 
action of drugs is no novelty," "but it receives very little recognition in the ortho- 
dox school of medicine, and even in homoeopathic philosophy has hardly taken the 
place it deserves."-Richard Hughes, L.R.C.P., etc., Pharmacodynamics, 4th ed.,' 
p. 60. 
The subject of treatment of cancer having been brought rather ab- 
ruptly to a close in the preceding installment of this article, it may be 
well briefly to reopen this important question and consider also the 
treatment of innocent and so-called semi-malignant growths. 
To complete the class of atypical epithelial tissue formations the col- 
loid, alveolar or gelatiniform cancer should be mentioned. By some 
writers this form of growth is considered to be only a scirrhus or ence- 
phaloid that has undergone colloid change, while others regard it as a 
distinct form of cancer. It is found most frequently in the stomach, in 
the intestine, ovary, peritoneum, breast, parotid, etc. 
The remedies indicated will be those mentioned for other forms of can- 
cer, but with the addition of Mucin. Mucin is characteristic of the endo- 
derm, i.e., of the intestinal and glandular epithelium. It is contained in 
the cement substance of the connective tissues, but it is especially abun- 
dant in the embryonic condition of these tissues and in the jelly-like 
variety. It is met with also in the cement between the cells of the epi- 
dermis, and is likewise one of the excretion-products of the epithelial 
cells lining mucous surfaces, and of the secreting mucous cells of the 
submaxillary and sublingual glands. (Landois, Charles.) 
Authorities being so widely at variance in the classification of tumors, 
it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, at the present time to 
more than approximate to correct indications for the remedial proxi- 
mate principles by the rule of elective affinity we have proposed. To 
illustrate this embarrassment, Green writes {Pathology and Morbid 
Anatomy, p. 177) : " The question of genesis of carcinoma involves that 
of the genesis of epithelium generally. It is maintained by most his- 
tologists that epithelium can originate only from epithelium, and that 
the epiblast and hypoblast are the sources from which all epithelium is 
subsequently derived. Others admit .that epithelium may originate 
also from connective tissue. A like difference of opinion exists as to the 
source of the epitheloid cells of cancer. By many-as Waldeyer, 
Thiersch and Billroth-they are regarded as originating only from pre- 
existing epithelium. Others-amongst whom are Virchow, Lucke, Rind- 
fleisch, and Klebs-maintain that they may be derived also from 
cells belonging to the connective tissue. It is believed also by some-as 
Koster-that many cancers originate from the endothelium of the lym- 
phatics-i.e., specialized connective-tissue corpuscles." 
It may thus be easily seen that remedies indicated, from one stand- 
point, in the sarcomata, from another will be called for in the carcino- 25 
mata ; also that the treatment of innocent growths may, in certain cases, 
be not unlike that for malignant disease. 
Type of Fully Developed Connective Tissue (after Green). 
(a.) Type of Fibrous Tissue.-Fibroma. 
(5.) Type of Mucous Tissue.-Myxoma. 
(c.) Type of Adipose Tissue.-Lipoma. 
(d.) Type of Cartilage.-Chondroma. 
(e.) Type of Bone.-Osteoma. 
, . . f Lymphoma. 
(f.) Type of Lymphatic Tissue.- s T , 
v J 1 (Lymphangioma. 
Following is a list of preparations that, according to the law of elec- 
tive selection, would seem to be indicated in the above tumors. After 
isolation the substances are placed in a desiccator with either sulphuric 
acid or calcium chloride, to extract the H2O, and then triturated for 
medicinal purposes. 
(a.) Fibrin, fibrinogen, elastin, myosin. 
(6.) Mucin, globulin, vitellin, serine. 
(c.) Stearin, glycerin, fatty acids. 
(cZ.) Chondrine, collagen, chondrogen, elastin. 
(e.) Ossein, chondro gen, gelatin. 
(/.) Neuclein, globulin, xanthin, syntonin. 
The above substances may probably be found more efficacious in cancer 
than the ones we have suggested : e.g., Scirrhus (a), Encephaloid (a) (6), 
Epithelioma (a) (/). 
Type of Embryonic Connective Tissue.-Sarcomata. 
Mucin, fibrinogen, fibrinoplastin, elastin, sarcosin, sarkin. carnin, myosin, 
kreatin. Green, writing on the " Development of Tumors " (ibid., p. 116), 
says: ''What determines the ultimate development of the young cells, 
why they produce such various forms of growths, is as far from our 
knowledge as what determines the ultimate destination of the cells in 
the embryo." 
These physiological preparations will, we believe, in the great majority 
of instances be found sufficient to cure, both innocent, semi-malignant 
and malignant growths; yet only by the crucial test of experiments, 
aided possibly by provings, shall we be enabled finally to determine 
for each several type the corresponding remedies with scientific accu- 
racy. As Hughes tells us: Drugs do not affect all parts of the body 
indiscriminately and alike, but select one or more organs or tissues or 
regions and there expend their power; so it will be necessary to individ- 
ualize the remedy as well as the kind or class of tumor in order to 
insure complete success in the treatment. 
The philosophy of action of these medicinal physiological substances 
would seem to consist in restoring normal vital activity to tissues diseased 
from either a plus or a minus of their characteristic constituents. In sys- 
temic affections, of course, this rule of elective selection cannot be so obvi- 26 
ously applied : yet the break in the chain of normal oxidation will fre- 
quently be announced by the presence in the urine of abnormal ingredients 
which often will indicate the nature of the disturbed nutrition and furnish 
the means foi' its cure; not, be it understood, on isopathic principles, but by 
restoring the equilibrium of the metabolism resulting in waste or over- 
production of certain tissue elements and consequent disease. In 
undertaking this necessarily very imperfect study of cancer, the 
difficulties besetting us were fully appreciated by the late eminent Dr. 
Woodward (Assistant Surgeon U. S. A.) in " The Toner Lectures, 
on the Structure of Cancerous Tumors and the Mode in which Adjacent 
Parts are Invaded " (1873). In the preface he says: " After much hesi- 
tation as to a suitable subject for such an occasion as this,I determined 
to invite your attention to certain considerations with regard to cancer, 
a disease which merits study both because of the considerable mortality 
it produces-more than six thousand deaths annually in the United 
States-and because of the obscurity which surrounds every question 
connected with its origin, its nature and its treatment." And he adds, 
further on: " I shall make no attempt to solve this most difficult of all 
pathological problems. The time has not yet come for any one to tell 
why cancers originate or how they may be prevented or cured." 
This statement, coming from a recognized authority on the subject, 
certainly challenges admiration for its frankness, however much we may 
deplore our ignorance; a fit commentary on which is the opinion of the 
late Professor Gross (A System of Surgery, vol. i., p. 257) that " the sci- 
ence of the nineteenth century must confess, with shame and confusion, 
its utter inability to offer even any rational suggestion for the relief of this 
class of affections." Though the time may be still far distant when it 
shall be possible to say precisely to what influences cancer is due, or 
what will certainly cure it, yet it nevertheless is high time that 
strenuous efforts were being made with new weapons to crush the secret 
out of this the most terrible disease that afflicts humanity. 
In dealing with so recondite and evasive a theme we have not hesi- 
tated to avail ourself of the methods sanctioned by science for such pur- 
pose, the most strategic of which is in anticipating nature; in other 
words, of bringing before the mind " multitudes of relations in which the 
unexplained facts may possibly stand with regard to each other, or to 
more common facts." 
Whether or not we have finally approximated to correct conclusions, 
the crucial test of experiment must, as we have said, determine. If it 
shall be found that we have not pointed out the solution of this diffi- 
culty, so much at least will have been accomplished by exclusion that 
we shall begin anew our inquiry, feeling that only by such assaults can 
this subject be gradually stripped of its obscurities and the truth finally 
joyfully laid bare. We are prepared to appreciate and take courage 
from the statement of Faraday that " the world little knows how many 27 
of the thoughts and theories which have passed through the mind of a 
scientific investigator have been crushed in silence and secrecy by his 
own severe criticism and adverse examination; that in the most success- 
ful instances not a tenth of the suggestions, the hopes, the wishes, the 
preliminary conditions have been realized." 
It may be mentioned here that forty-two of these physiological 
preparations have just been triturated by Messrs. Boericke & Tafel, 
Philadelphia, and may be procured of this firm.