THERAPEUTICAL EFFECTS OF MEDICINES.

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effect) are succeeded by costiveness, which lasts several days (secondaryeffect).” {Hahnemann , Organon, ^ lxi). The only mode of meeting state-ments of this kind is to appeal to experience. Is opium ever beneficialin diarrhoea ? Are purgatives useful in any instances of constipation ?The homceopathists reply to both of these questions—-No. We answer—Yes. Here, then, we are at issue with them on a matter of fact.

2. Homceopathia { from "Ogaioc, like or similar, and UdOoc, a disease ).—■The homoeopathic method of treating diseases consists in administering amedicine capable of producing an affection similar to the one to beremoved, and the axiom adopted is “ similia similibus curantur .”

Hahnemann ’s first dissertation on homoeopathy was published in 1796,in Hufeland’s Journal ( Preface to the English Translation of the“ Organon") In 1805 appeared his “ Fragmenta de viribus medicamen-torurn positivist But the first systematic account of this doctrine appearedin 1810, in a work entitled “ Organon der rationellen Heilkunde.”

The following, says Hahnemann , are examples of homoeopathic curesperformed unintentionally by physicians of the old school of medicine:

The author of the fifth book, ’Et iSiyptfiv, attributed to Hippocrates ,speaks of a patient attacked by the most violent cholera, and who wascured solely by white hellebore ; which, according to the observations ofForestus, Ledelius, Reimann, and many others, produces of itself a kindof cholera. The English sweating sickness of 1485, which was so fatalthat it killed 99 out of 100 affected with it, could only be cured by theuse of sudorifics. Dysentery is sometimes cured by purgatives. Tobacco,which causes giddiness, nausea, &c. has been found to relieve theseaffections. Colchicum cures dropsy, because it diminishes the secretionof urine, and causes asthma in consequence of exciting dyspnoea. Jalapcreates gripes ; therefore it allays the gripes which are so frequent inyoung children. Senna occasions colic; therefore it cures this disease.Ipecacuanha is effectual in dysentery and asthma, because it possessesthe power of exciting hannorrhage and asthma. Belladonna producesdifficult respiration, burning thirst, a sense of choking, together with ahorror of liquids when brought near the patient; a flushed countenance,eyes fixed and sparkling, and an eager desire to snap at the by-standers ;in short, a perfect image of that sort of hydrophobia which Sir Theodorede Mayeme, Munch, Buchholz, and Neimicke, assert they have completelycured by the use of this plant. When, indeed, belladonna fails to curecanine madness, it is attributable, according to Hahnemann , either to theremedy having been given in too large doses, or to some variation in thesymptoms of the particular case, which required a different specific—perhaps hyoscyamus, or stramonium. Drs. Hartlaub and Trinks havesubsequently added another homoeopathic remedy for hydrophobia—namely, cantharides. Opium cures lethargy and stupor, by converting itinto a natural and healthy sleep. The same substance is a cure for con-stipation. Vaccination is a protection from small-pox, on homceopathicprinciples. The best application to frost-bitten parts is cold, either bythe use of some freezing mixture or by rubbing the part with snow. Inbums or scalds the best means of relief are the exposure of the part toheat, or the application of heated spirit of wine or oil of turpentine.

Hahnemann thinks that it is of little importance to endeavour toelucidate, in a scientific manner, how the homoeopathic remedy effects acure; but he offers the following as a probable explanation. The medi-