Page:Quackery Unmasked.djvu/110

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106
QUACKERY UNMASKED.

he has, of all sorts, was thrown into a common receiver, it would not only make excellent provender for hogs, but dyspeptics and delicate children might with perfect safety be allowed to live exclusively upon it, and would probably fatten by its use. As to the poison—a single biscuit which forms a part of our daily food contains more than all the articles this man has ever had, or can have, that are so attenuated.

From what has been said, some might be led to suppose that even the 30th attenuation could never be obtained; and it certainly could not, if the whole quantity used at each attenuation was preserved and carried forward to the end of the process. A moment's consideration will make this evident. At first, one grain of the article, if it is a powder, is to be dynamized, or rubbed in a porcelain mortar with one hundred grains of sugar. This is the first attenuation. Then if it is intended to preserve the whole and carry it through to the end, this hundred grains must be mixed and dynamized with one hundred times as much, which would be ten thousand grains, or about ten pounds in weight; and this would be