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ELEMENTS OF MATERIA MEDICA.

that the medicine sets up a new kind of action in the part affected, bywhich the previous morbid action is superseded ; and that the new actionsubsides when the use of the medicine is suspended or desisted from.Sometimes it may be suspected that the influence which certain medi-cines exercise in diseases of remote organs, arises from their particlesbeing absorbed, and, through the medium of the circulation, earned tothe parts affected. Thus the beneficial influence which the turpentinesoccasionally exert in affections of the mucous membranes (as in gleetand leucorrhcea) may perhaps be owing to a topical influence of thiskind; as also strychnia in affections of the spinal marrow.

b. Medicines which indirectly influence diseased action. —Under thishead I include all those agents operating on some one or more parts of thebody, which have a relation with the diseased part. Thus emetics mayinfluence a disease by the mechanical effects of the vomiting which theyinduce. Alterations in the quality of the food relieve diseases dependingon morbid changes of the blood,—as when we substitute fresh meat andvegetables, and the use of vegetables acids, for salt provisions in scurvy.Opium relieves spasm and pain, as in colic, or in the passage of calculi.Purgatives relieve cutaneous and cerebral affections; diuretics, dropsies ;blisters, internal diseases, &c.

Fundamental methods of CURE . —According to the homceopathiststhere are only three possible relations between the symptoms of diseasesand the specific effects of medicines—namely, opposition, resemblance,and heterogeneity. It follows, therefore, that there are only three imagina-ble methods of employing medicines against disease; and these aredenominated antipathic, homoeopathic, and allopathic.

1. Antigmthia (from ’A vA, opposite, and ItdOoc, disease). —The antipathic(called also by Hahnemann , enantiopathic or palliative) method consistsin employing medicines which produce effects of an opposite nature tothe symptoms of the disease, and the axiom adopted is “ contraria con-trariis opponenda." Hippocrates may be regarded as the founder of thisdoctrine ; for in his twenty-second Aphorism ( Aphorismi, Sectio 2 nda ,) heobserves—“ All diseases which proceed from repletion are cured by eva-cuation ; and those which proceed from evacuation are cured by repletion.And so in the rest; contraries are the remedies of contraries.”

We adopt this practice when we employ purgatives to relieve consti-pation ; depletives to counteract plethora; cold to alleviate the effects ofscalds; narcotics to diminish preternatural sensibility or pail.; andopium to check diarrhoea.

But purgatives are not to be invariably employed in constipation, noropium in pain. Reference must be constantly had to the cause of thesesymptoms. If confinement of bowels depend on a torpid condition ofthe large intestines, powerful purgatives may be administered with greatbenefit; but if it arise from acute enteritis or strangulated liernii, theywill probably increase both the danger and sufferings of the patient.Again, opium may be beneficially given to relieve the pain of colic, butit would be highly improper in all cases of acute pain, as in pleurisy.

The homceopathists object to antipathic remedies, on the ground thatthough the primary effects of these agents may be opposite to tke phe-nomena of a disease, the secondary effects are similar to them. “ Con-stipation excited by opium (primitive effect) is followed by diarrhoea(secondary effect); and evacuations produced by purgatives (primitive