CHAP. IX, was going on too well." He sent her some powders of calomel: the two first acted so violently that he was obliged to be sent for, the patient being apparently sinking. He asked with anxiety whether the nurse had given the third dose. She replied she had not, as she thought the patient would have died from what she had already taken. This patient, who had a tendency to ovarian disease, had the disease excited by this action of the calomel, and from the excessive exhaustion, she passed into a typhoid fever, complicated with ovarian and abdominal disease, and died the day after she was seen by the writer.

No doubt exists that this patient, not thirty years old, was killed by this purging.

What medicine is more extensively used than quinine, and what medicine produces more diseases.

Dr. Heming relates a case of dumbness produced by its use.* Dr. Menage relates a caset where the same effect was produced; and M. Bertin published a similar case in 1839.

A circumstance transpired about three years since, which exhibits the immense amount of injury that old-system medicine has inflicted on society.

M. Louis, a continental physician, published a work on phthisis some years since. This work, deemed highly valuable, was translated by Dr. Cowan, and through his agency presented to the notice of the profession in this country.

M. Louis published, in 1844-5, a second edition of his work, which Dr. Walshe translated and published, making in this no reference to Dr. Cowan's translation. Of this Dr. Cowan complained. Dr. Walshe defended himself thus :

"The first and second editions of the original treatise differ from each other so WIDELY as to constitute ALMOST WHOLLY distinct works. In truth, not only does M. Louis himself say, in briefly recapitulating the changes and additions he has introduced in his last edition, 'thus my first researches are more than doubled in extent, (Advertisement, p. xiv.,) but the doctrines professed in regard of those most important subjects, Curability and Treatment, are ALMOST DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED in the two volumes." "What injuries must have been inflicted by those who followed M. Louis's first directions.

* Lancet, vol. II. (1839-40), p. 306.

+ Lancet, vol. I. (1838), p. 281.

CHAPTER X.

Infinitesimal quantities of medicine.-How Hahnemann was led to discover them.-Propositions demonstrated, That bodies act in infinitesimal quantities; That medicines act in infinitesimal quantities.-Illustrations of infinitesimal action in the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral kingdom.-Actinic chemistry.-Leibig.

Society is indebted to Hahnemann for the discovery not only CHAP. X. of the homœopathic law, but also of the peculiar mode by which that law is, in the treatment of disease, put into operation. This mode is that, in which medicines, homœopathically administered, are exhibited in doses so small, as to have obtained the name of infinitesimal.

Many are apt to consider this mode of administration as the result of some peculiar visionary view of Hahnemann. Instead of this the adoption of this mode was the result of pure experience. The following history given by Dr. Hering demonstrates this:

"Hahnemann had observed that children, who had been poisoned by the berries of belladonna, (an accident of frequent occurrence in Germany), were frequently attacked by an eruption of the skin resembling that of scarlet fever. Applying these facts in accordance with the homoeopathic law, Hahnemann found that the same belladonna, when given as a remedy in the scarlet fever cured the fever, and likewise afforded protection to healthy children against the attacks of this disease.

СНАР. Х.

"In the cases in which he used this remedy to cure the scarlet fever, Hahnemann gave it in very minute doses, according to the prevailing views, viz., in the one-eighth, one-tenth, and onetwentieth of a grain of the extract, or a single drop of the juice. The result was salutary in many cases, but not unfrequently instead of the cure, he observed an aggravation of all the symptoms of the complaint. This was what might naturally be expected indeed, it seems almost self-evident, that the remedy, which in the healthy subject was capable of producing something similar to this disease, must, when administered to patients who were affected in a manner so entirely analogous, in whom it operated more especially upon the diseased organs, and so entirely similar to the disease, necessarily increase the latter, even if the patient were endowed with but a moderate degree of sensibility. To this augmentation of symptoms, however, there commonly succeeded a rapid crisis and perfect recovery; yet sometimes it proved so troublesome, as to call for the employment of antidotes. This almost constant aggravation of the disease, by the remedies which were chosen according to the new law, threatened to embarrass very much their trial, if not to render it wholly impracticable. To avoid these disagreeable results, Hahnemann adopted the most simple and natural expedient, viz., that of lessening the dose. He united one grain of the extract of belladonna with a hundred drops of the spirits of wine. Of this mixture, one drop (which of course contained one-hundredth part of a grain), he afterwards gave, in the suitable cases, for a dose. But to his astonishment he observed that this drop acted too forcibly. He now made the great stride which none had done previously to him; he took a hundred drops of spirits of wine, added to them one drop, which contained one-hundredth of a grain of the medicine, shook them together, and, now had in every drop of the new mixture, therefore, the one ten-thousandth part of a grain. If the one-one hundredth of a grain was quite an unusual dose, Hahnemann went far beyond the limits of previous experience in his second operation, viz., that of administering the dose in the oneten thousandth part of a grain. When he gave one drop of this second preparation in a case adapted to the remedy, he expected a very slight and inconsiderable effect. In the great

majority of cases, indeed, a more rapid cure followed it than in CHAP. X. the case of the preceding preparation, but to his great astonishment, much more frequently-the same impetuous aggravation of symptoms. In short, it was not to be mistaken: the virtue of the medicine had by no means been taken away in these high dilutions. How striking soever this phenomenon was in itself, and however wonderful and strange it must have appeared to Hahnemann, it had nevertheless, been indisputably the result of his manipulations; and as a quiet observer of nature, he proceeded, hand in hand with experience, still further. He added one drop of his second (the ten thousandth) dilution, to another one hundred drops of spirits of wine, shook them together, and thus procured a third mixture, in which each drop contained but the millionth part of the first grain of the extract of belladonna. On administering this new preparation to his patients, he did not yet witness the desired and expected decrease of medicinal energy, the remedy remained as active as before, and in sensible children it operated frequently in quite as drastic a manner as the extract had at first; nay, it appeared as if it operated with even greater violence than before-and therefore rendered necessary the exhibition of an antidote. Hahnemann, who knew that the secrets of nature had not yet been fully unveiled to us, and that any thing new and important, though ever so striking, if its truth be attested by repeated experiment, ought to be investigated, continued to prosecute this great discovery. He added one drop of each successive dilution to a successive portion of one hundred drops of spirits of wine, and united them by shaking. He perceived in the progress of these manipulations, that every successive dilution was still operative, and though attenuated a hundred fold at every step of the process, yet by no means did it become in the same proportion a hundred fold less efficient; in fact, each dilution differed in activity, very little from the dilution immediately preceding. He continued, therefore, these processes with the medicine, until experience taught him, that it had, at length, become entirely mild in its operation. The troublesome increase of the morbid symptoms became gradually less and less considerable by dilution, nevertheless the succeeding salutary effect remained equally decided, and even the extreme dilutions themselves, were always sufficient to effect a cure.

CHAP. X. Remarking even from the thirtieth dilution, in very sensible subjects, an increase of the symptoms, he diminished the dose from one drop of this dilution, to a small portion of a drop. He discovered a mode by which a drop could be accurately divided into any desired number of parts, and from the one-hundredth, and even a smaller fraction, decided effects were witnessed from the medicine.

The results from medicines, thus exhibited in infinitesimal doses, have thus become matters of experience; as such they can, ought to be, and must be tested.

In fact, though the law, regulating the action of remedies, is quite distinct from the dose, in which the application of the law is carried out, yet so extensively has Hahnemann and his disciples established the efficacy of all homœopathic remedies in infinitesimal doses, that all skilled homoeopathists are quite willing to recognize as fundamental both the law and the infinitesimal doses. In fact these form a dualized truth.

It is willingly granted that the infinitesimal doses form the great antagonistic power against the reception of Homœopathy: it is willingly granted, that if homoeopathists could administer their medicines in accordance to the homoeopathic law, in doses commonly given, homœopathy would make, it is likely, a much more rapid progress. But no honourable mind will ever consent to bow to prejudice in such a matter as this, when he knows that such bowing may be attended with injury to the patient, and will be refusing the homage due to truth. The true disciple of Hahnemann adheres to infinitesimal doses; and though he is not at liberty to bow his mind to the prejudice against these doses, he feels it a pleasant duty to strive to make others bow to the truth, by establishing the rationality of the asserted efficacy of these doses.

The best step to establish this will be to demonstrate that the efficacy of infinitesimal quantities is a scientific truth; and the demonstration of this will be received if it can be proved, first, that bodies act in general in infinitesimal quantities; and second, that medicines act in infinitesimal quantities.

The first proposition, THAT BODIES IN GENERAL ACT IN INFINITESIMAL QUANTITIES, can be demonstrated even in reference to masses of matter.