HOMCEOPATHY 785 the same drug that he swallowed with impu- nity when he was well. Will physicians ever learn how infinitely small may be the dose that is sufficient for a cure, when the system of the patient is raised to a condition of intense id morbid sensitiveness? So powerfully do ich small quantities act upon the over-sensi- tive frame, that the most serious disease is )metimes subdued in a few hours." Dr. Jorg, one of the most distinguished opponents of Hahnemann, says: "Medicines operate most powerfully on the sick when their symp- toms correspond to the disease. Where there is inflammation of the intestines, a very minute dose of mercury will produce pain and other symptoms. It is in the very nature of things that a medicine must have a much greater ef- fect when administered to a person already suffering under an affection similar to that which the medicine is capable of producing." Photography, according to homoeopaths, pre- sents a striking illustration of this idea. The Wealthy body, they say, may be compared to he plate before it has been washed, when it eflects the rays of the sun without its surface being at all affected by his influence ; and the unhealthy body to the same plate washed by a chemical process, and thus rendered so sen- sitive to light that the faintest ray makes on it an indelible impression. Thus far Hahne- mann's knowledge of the specific action of medicine had been derived mostly from his collection made from medical history. But this, although sufficient to establish in his mind the truth of the law of similia, was not suffi- ciently accurate to serve as a foundation upon which to build the structure of a thoroughly scientific system of therapeutics. In 1805 he published a work on the positive effects of medicine and the effects produced by them on the healthy body, containing his observations upon 25 substances, most of them powerful vegetable medicines, in which their toxicologi- cal action, as shown by actual experiment on the healthy living body, is minutely de- scribed. In conducting his experiments, the substance to be tested was distributed among his assistants, who each took a succession of doses and carefully recorded the symptoms. These were compared with his own ;" and sev- eral years after, when the same drugs were re-proved by a society at Vienna, every one of the observations of Hahnemann was confirmed. In 1831 the cholera first invaded Europe. In Hungary 8,000 died out of 10,000 who were seized. Medicine seemed powerless, and the consternation was universal. Hahnemann, lided by his law of similia, selected camphor i the appropriate remedy to be given at the
- st onset of the disease ; and experience has
ice justified the wisdom of his selection, ther remedies were pointed out in the differ- it stages of cholera, but the usefulness of imphor, given according to Hahnemann's di- ctions, is now generally admitted. To be tided intelligently by the law of similia, the keynote of their system, homoeopathists be- lieve we must have an accurate picture of the pathological changes resulting from the drug as indicated by the appearance of tissues after death, and its action as shown upon the living structure in vivisection. For this the most careful observation is required not only the selection of cases of accidental poisoning, and others from historical records and daily prac- tice, but the actual placing of the system un- der the direct action of the drug, and the careful noting of each individual symptom. Hence has arisen the plan of " proving" med- icines, as inaugurated by Hahnemann, and which they claim as the only correct basis of a true scientific materia medica. Their materia medica is made up of drugs so tested by seve- ral observers, and the symptoms corresponding noted as the characteristic ones of the drag. Growing out of this law, as a natural sequence, and forming the second grand division of the system, is that of the dynamization of medi- cines. The system having become sensitively acute to the action of a drug, this, when given homceopathically, or in accordance with the law of similia, should be given in a dose so minute as only to act on the part morbidly sus- ceptible. If given in too large doses, so as to produce its primary or drug action, no relief would be obtained, but harm might ensue ; while if given in too small doses, no action whatever would result. Hence the importance not only of the homoeopathic selection of the remedy, but its administration in doses of only sufficient strength to produce its tonic or cu- rative .action. The homoeopath insists upon the positive purity of his drugs, and in those of a vegetable character usually prefers the expressed juice, discarding the inert mate- rial. By the process of dynamization, in which the particles are more completely broken and subdivided, it is believed the latent power or life of the drug is often set at liberty, and ma- terials which in their crude state are almost inert are found to possess a strong influence as remedial agents. Thus mercury or quick- silver in its crude state has no medicinal ac- tion ; but when its particles are subdivided by trituration with a non-medicinal substance, the conserve of rose, we get blue mass, or blue pill, whose power is well known. So, in the preparation of homoeopathic attenuations, the crude drug, carefully divested of impurities, is triturated thoroughly with a non-medicinal substance, sugar of milk, or dissolved in alco- hol or distilled water. One grain of the crude drug triturated with nine of sugar of milk, or dissolved in nine drops of alcohol, forms the first decimal attenuation ; and one part of the drug combined with 99 of the sugar of milk or alcohol forms the first centesimal attenuation. To get the second decimal or centesimal, one part of the first is combined with 9 or 99 parts of the non-medicinal substance; and so on through the successive steps of the process. The first step is to select the drug homoeopathic
