others spring from a morbid state of the constitution; and that while local applications were, for the most part, competent to the cure of the former, the successful treatment of the latter must involve a knowledge of something wrong within."

"To this latter division the diseases now under review all belong. The eruption is not the disease, but only one of many modes by which its existence may be made manifest. It is highly probable that there exists, in the majority of these cases, (various and complicated though they be,) a constitutional derangement, like in kind, and common to them all; the particular form of eruption being determined in each case, respectively, by the accidental circumstances of age, climate, or idiosyncrasy. So that we may have, in one instance, psoriasis; in another, lepra; in a third, eczema; in a fourth, prurigo; in a fifth, acne or sycosis; in a sixth, lupus, -all depending upon one and the same cachectic condition of the general system, and all susceptible of cure, therefore, by a similar plan of treat

ment.

Here Mr. Hunt cuts the gordian knot instead of untying it. He takes it for granted that these various skin diseases depend upon one and the same cachectic condition of the system, and, then, on this assumption, he founds the conclusion, that they all are suceptible of cure by " a similar plan of treatment."

He sees the difficulty: he sees the danger of being charged with empiricism, and thus remarks:

"Now, although it be the height of empiricism to propose any one remedy for a large class of diseases, unlike each other in reality as well as appearance:"

True, yet there is a still worse empiricism than this, which is well hinted at in the succeeding remarks by Mr. Hunt:

"Yet it would scarcely be philosophical to reject the testimony which the actual (and generally uniform) success of one remedy in a given number of diseases would afford towards establishing the identity of their origin and character."

True, it is unphilosophical to deny a fact: and it is to be hoped that Mr. Hunt is not guilty of the weakness of which the editor of the Journal in which his essays appear is guilty of, in denying the character of facts to belong to the statements of physicians and practitioners of as good a reputation and of powers of observation quite equal to the editor referred to, in reference to the actual and generally uniform success which they find to result from the use of certain remedies

(arsenic among the rest) in infinitesimal doses, when homoeopathically prepared and homeopathically applied.

Mr. Hunt is, however, quite at loss to explain the fact of one remedy curing diseases so decidedly different. He supposes an identity; but

"In what this identity consists it is not the author's business, as it is beyond his comprehension, to understand or explain."

Mr. Hunt thus proceeds:

"His is the more humble task of calling the attention of his brethren to the power of a well-known remedy to arrest and ultimately eradicate these diseases. That remedy is arsenic, which, should it prove upon trial as successful in other hands as it has been in his own, will be henceforth regarded as a specific for these cutaneous affections, in a sense as extensive, at least, as quinine for ague, and mercury for syphilis."

The specific character of arsenic has been recognised long since by the homoeopathists in the affections for which Mr. Hunt recommends it, and which will speedily be noticed, and the homœopathists further recognised, what Mr. H. has been unable to unfold, wherein the identity consists; they knew that the diseases referred to are cured, not because depending upon one and the same cachectic condition of the general system, but because the remedy, which cures these various skin diseases, has the power of producing a series of symptoms sufficiently extended as to be able to cover the whole of the symptoms presented in these diseases.

This will now be demonstrated by bringing the various diseases noticed by Mr. Hunt under examination, and showing what the features were in each, which, being pathogenised by arsenic, rendered, and ever will render, arsenic, curative of the same.

(To be continued.)

GOOD IDEA OF HUMOUR.

It is an old observation, that the French do not know what humour is. They have seriousness of the most pathetic kind; wit of the most sparkling quality; the broad carried to perfection. But the quiet halfway-house between the tragic and the comic, the serious and the funny, that they never enter.Daily News, July 10, 1846.

SCIENCE BRUTALIZED. THE VETERINARY COLLEGE NEAR PARIS.

The following history of a disgrace to the French government, of an insult to civilization, and of an outrage on organized matter alive, is presented in Murdoch's Notes and Remarks Abroad.

The first feeling produced is a disbelief in the history itself: Mr. Murdoch's character is however a sufficient guarantee of the truth of the facts recorded. The second feeling is that of indignation. The third feeling is that the retribution will come upon the actors, who will be brutalized; upon society, who will suffer from those, thus brutalized; and upon the French government, (permitting these atrocities) in creating a people, unfit for quiet rule.

"I wish I could now bring my narration of what I that day there (Veterinary College) saw to a close; but I must not. Upon entering into what appeared to be a place of dissection, I found myself surrounded, not by dead, but by living subjects; it was a building or shed open to the air on one side, furnished with many strong pillars rising from the floor to the roof. Here lay six if not seven living horses, fixed by every possible mechanical device by the head and the feet to these pillars, to prevent their struggling; and upon each horse were six or seven men engaged in performing the different surgical operations. The sight was truly horrible. The operations had begun early in the forenoon; it was nearly three o'clock in the afternoon when we entered the place; so the poor wretches, as may be supposed, had ceased being able to make any very violent struggles; but the deep heaving of the still panting chest, and horrid look of the eyes when such were as yet remaining in the head, while the head itself was firmly lashed to a pillar, was harrowing beyond endurance. The students had begun their day's work in the least vital parts of the animal; the trunks of the animals were there, having lost tails, ears, hoofs, &c.; and they were now engaged in performing the more important operations, such as tying the main arteries, and boring

H

holes in the head, and cutting in upon all the most sensitive and tender places, on purpose, as we were informed, upon our expressing horror at the sight, that they might see the retraction and motions of the several nerves and muscles. One animal had one side of the head, including the eye and ear, completely dissected; and the students were engaged when we entered in laying open and cauterizing the ankle of the same animal. What I have described was the result of the observation of a few seconds. I grew absolutely sick, and hastened away from this abode of horrid cruelty.

"M. Blanc vindicated the practice, upon the plea of its necessity for the advancement of science. A young medical friend, who accompanied me in my visit, exclaimed in reply, 'Je suis médecin moimême; and no such practice is necessary.' M. B. shrugged his shoulders. He was not, he said, a veterinarian; he had no right of interference with the prescribed course of study; he was merely the military governor of the establishment."

THE UNPHILOSOPHICAL CHARACTER OF "BOO-ING." PROFESSOR HENDERSON. MEDICAL COMPROMISES. A review of a work by Professor Henderson, pp. 101-111, and an article p. 271, in the first volume of this Journal, sufficiently demonstrate, that the desire existed to give to Professor Henderson the welcome which he, on embracing and publickly acknowledging homoeopathy, deserved.

There was observed in Dr. Henderson's work, a hesitancy in the acknowledgment of Professor Henderson respecting the universal APPLICATION of the homeopathic law in the treatment of disease, which, it was hoped, was owing to a philosophic cautiousness in coming to conclusions. The general tenor of the remarks in Dr. Henderson's work induced a feeling that there existed a strong mental tendency towards that, which, as a national characteristic of his countrymen, has been designated as "boo-ing." Still that "charity that thinketh no evil," crushed the thought at the time. However, it appears, that such mental state is too strongly character

istic, and, for Dr. Henderson's own sake, and for the sake of others, who may be led (by the influence which Dr. Henderson, being a Professor of an University, may be expected to have,) to follow his advice, (the Professor himself, however, let it be remarked, is in homœopathy but a child and not at all a man,) the following masterly, high minded, moral feeling-stratumed statement is extracted from the Popular Record, No. 67.

"The introduction of the homeopathic system of medicine seems to have given rise to a curious question in moral philosophy. The disciples of homœopathy recognise a law for the cure of disease, which requires that medicines should be administered in harmony with the symptoms of the patient; so that, for instance, if a person have a darting pain at the back part of the head, or a difficulty of breathing, or a cloudiness of the sight, the physician would select, as the true remedies for the disease which manifests itself by these conditions, medicines that possess the property of producing similar states; and so in all other cases. The term "law" implies that this principle is all-embracing, and consequently that, without any exception whatever, the speed and certainty with which disease is to be overcome, will depend upon the skill and fidelity of the practitioner in keeping it in view. Hence, although there may be many symptoms of disorder, for which complete homeopathic remedies have not yet been discovered, no homœopathist, in those instances where anything like an approach to a homœopathic remedy is known, would think of administering any other; and rather than administer a medicine in direct opposition to his guiding law he would abstain from action altogether.

"Now, the homœopathic doctrine has for some time been gaining ground in all countries, (and during the last year or two with singular rapidity) but owing to the circumstance that the medicines are administered in infinitesimal doses, (which, on account of their mode of preparation, possess a peculiar power of penetrating the system,) the practice is still, by the majority, and especially by medical men who are ignorant of the cases and arguments by which it is supported,