AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE RHODE ISLAND HOMOEOPATHIC SOCIETY, AT ITS ANNUAL MEETING, MAY 7th, 1851. BY CHARLES NEIDHARD, M. D., PROF. CLINICAL MEDICINE, HOMOEOPATHIC MEDICAL COLLEGE, PENN. PROVIDENCE I SAYLES & MIL LLER, PRINTERS. PREFACE. At the annual meeting of the Rhode Island Homoeopathic Society, holden in Providence, Wednesday, May 7, 1851, Dr. Charles Neid- hard, Professor of Clinical Medicine in the Homoeopathic Medical College, of Pennsylvania, delivered the annual address. A large and discriminating audience listened with great interest and atten- tion, to this, the first popular lecture on Homoeopathy ever delivered in Rhode Island. After the lecture, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted by the Society :— Resolved, That we offer our unanimous vote of thanks to Dr. C. Neidhard, for his able and interesting address delivered before us this evening, and that we request a copy of it for publication. Resolved, That a committee be appointed by the Chair, (the Chair to consider himself one) to present the above vote to Dr. Neidhard, and in case of his acceptance to make arrangements for the publica- tion of his address. Drs. Okie, Preston, Barrows, D’Wolf and Hoppin, were appoint- ed the Committee: whereupon the following correspondence then took place. Providence, May 7, 1851. Dr. C. Neidhard: Dear Sir :—The undersigned are appointed a committee, by the Rhode Island Homoeopathic Society, to offer you their unanimous vote of thanks, for your able and interesting address delivered before them this evening, and to request a copy of it for publication. Heartily coinciding with the above vote of the society, we beg leave to add our individual requests, that an address, so useful to the cause of Homosopathy, may have a more extended circulation, togeth- er with the very high consideration, with which we are, Dear Sir, Your Obedient Servants, A. H. Okie, M. D., H. C. Preston, M. D., Ira Barrows, M. D., J. J. D’Wolf, M. D., W. Hoppin, M. D. Committee. The following answer was returned by Dr. Neidhard : Providence, May 7, 1851. Messrs. A. H. Okie, H. C. Preston, &c., Committee—Gentle- men :—I cannot but feel highly gratified that my address was so favorably received by your society, and by yourselves. It was writ- ten for you, at your request, and although I cannot but believe that you have over-estimated its influence upon the cause, still I can but comply with the wishes of the Society, so flatteringly expressed. Accept, Gentlemen, for the Society and for yourselves individ- ually, my kind regards, Charles Neidhard. ADDRESS. Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rhode Island Homoeopathic Society has honored me with an invitation to deliver its annual address. The object of the society as expressed in their Constitution, is “ the ad- vancement of the science of Homoeopathy,” a vast subject, not only important to the members of the Society, but to the pub- lic generally, which every year take a deeper interest in these annual addresses of medical men, giving a resume of its pro- gress during the year. In former times the public cared very little about medical controversies, because all the innovations in medicine did not establish the science on a sounder basis ; but the discovery of a new and eternal law of cure has natur- ally rivetted all eyes. The people wish to understand the true grounds, which made such a great body of physicians deserters from the regular ranks, being well aware that upon the truth or falsehood of their convictions, their own lives as well as that of their families may depend. Besides, science cannot be retained at the present time, within the narrow cir- cle of its especial votaries. The people will at least under- stand its general principles, even if they should lack the time to enter into its minute details. I only wish that the Society had confided the charge of the exposition of our science to abler hands, to one more ac- customed to a popular audience than myself; all that I may claim, is an anxious and earnest desire to do it the utmost justice within my power. To the professional man, to the Homoeopathic reformer, these annual meetings are a festive occasion, where he reviews the 6 achievements of his favorite science. By meeting face to face, we mutually encourage each other to persevere, we exchange those friendly greetings, and form those companionships for the cultivation of any particular branch of science, which will not unfrequently last to the end of life. The individual man is great; if influenced by a pure motive he can do wonders ; but a body of men fired by the same zeal are invincible !— The most stubborn mudbanks of error must give way before them ! With such feelings, I am at liberty to say, I left my home to meet you here. It is a pleasant task, when the physician, whose sympathies are almost exhausted by a reiteration of the same routine du- ties, can for a moment at least free himself from his arduous calling and look back with his friends and fellow physicians to the past. The Homoeopathic reformer is then particularly inclined to ask himself, if the faith of the community in his favorite doctrine has been strengthened. Have the eyes of the people generally been further opened to the light of the new science ? and do our colleagues of the ancient system still persist in what we must call their blindness ? On all these points a favorable answer may be given. Homoeopathy has never made more progress than at the present period.— At our commencements and at our lectures, Homoeopathy can command audiences which leave those of the old school far behind. Homoeopathy has at an early day enlisted in its favor the voices of some of the most intellectual and noble men of the age. It has on its side the good wishes of the hopeful and generous, and above all the sympathies of a vast number of those restored to health by its means. Some of the most distinguished men of the old system, like Tessier, of the Hos- pital St. Marquerite, in Paris, and Dr. Yarley, in a discourse before the Royal Belgian Academy of Medicine, have only lately offered their testimony in favor of the science, and emi- nent Professors in our own country have acknowledged their belief in the truth of the Homoeopathic principle ; but strange and paradoxical as it may appear to you, not in the Hahne- mannian doctrines. I trust they have been sincere. 7 These annual addresses, would, however, be of little value in our estimation, did we not entertain the hope, that among those who come to listen to our explanations of Homoeopathy, there are not a few who will carry home with them sounder views and a surer foundation for their faith in the science.— This must encourage us. It is on this account well worth while to canvass the whole length and breadth of our doctrine on occasions like the pres- ent, in order to be again reassured, whether we, the advocates of this doctrine, are on the right track, whether the great law, which we have selected for our guiding star, is truly that great law of nature, which we claim it to be, and which was revealed to man by a superior power for the cure of his dis- eases. Such an analysis, however deeply we may be con- vinced practically of its truth, by witnessing its effect during its daily application at the couch of the invalid, may never- theless instil into our minds that thorough strength of internal conviction, which the busy physician is sometimes liable to forget in the hurry of his engagements, but possessing which will alone enable him to continue his struggles for the higher cultivation of his doctrine undaunted, rejecting all overtures of the enemy, which might lead him in a trying moment to adopt some Allopathic measures. I hope to be successful in this lecture in convincing my audience in some degree at least, of the supremacy and universality of the Hahnemannian law of cure. When Hahnemann first promulgated it to the medical world, the latter felt perfectly amazed. Not a few independ- ent medical men were struck with its inward truthfulness ; many openly confessed their belief of its consonance with other laws of nature, but at the same time declared that it was by no means new ; a few vain-glorious Professors at the Universities, and authors of very sublime systems of medi- cine, completely denied the existence of such a law. But al- though many had more or less faith in the Homoeopathic law of cure, few physicians nevertheless adopted it at that early stage, because it was connected with another doctrine, that of 8 the infinitesimal doses, which they were not prepared to adopt, although it was but a necessary consequence of the former.— Let us endeavor to grasp some of the hidden meanings of this law, although in our obscure human mental vision, we may never be able to unravel its whole inward mystery—never fathom its whole depth. Let us examine the reasons and ar- guments, which may be advanced for placing it on an unim- pregnable basis. These may be drawn from the realms of facts, history, familiar illustrations, laws of the mind, from science, nature and poetry. In the first place stands the great fact, that from the time of Hahnemann, from the time of Hippocrates, and as far as any records are left, from the beginning of all times, all true cures of diseases were always performed according to the Homoeopath- ic law. This is a bold assertion, but a by no means profound analysis of all the cures performed and recorded in medical writings will sustain this fact. Hahnemann, in his Organon, quotes about fifty cases of such Homoeopathic cures, which he has collected from the writings of different Allopathic physic- ians of all times. You will naturally ask, are these all the cures ever performed by the adherents of the ancient method ? These are probably nearly all, where the Homeopathic ac- tion of the remedy could be clearly ascribed to this law, par- ticularly as he at the same time has taken pains to quote the pathogenetic action of these remedies from Allopathic authors. In the great majority of cases, published by Allopathic authors as generally more than one remedy was used for the cure of the disease, the Homoeopathic action is very difficult to ascertain. All that we know is, that cures took place ; but true Homoeo- pathic cures we claim to be only such as will be able to shorten the natural duration of the disease, and which will not be performed at the expense of the vital power. The closest and most intimate correspondence between the charac- ter of the remedy and the disease must be established, in order to constitute such a remedy a true Homoeopathic curative.— All the other modern systems of medicine are founded on no universal principle of cure and are nothing but somewhat 9 modified Allopathic practices. But one thing has been ascer- tained with considerable accuracy by the investigations and researches of the Homoeopathic school; that is, where nature cures, where the empiric cures, where the people or the Indian savages instinctively gather their simple herbs for the cure of diseases, these cures are always performed, although uncon- sciously, according to this law. Had the eminent men of science taken the same pains in investigating the simple vir- tues of herbs and other substances as they did in constructing speculative systems of medicine, and investing certain reme- dies with properties which they had never discovered by pure experiment; had they not disdained to gather the experience of the people, however crude and imperfect it might have been ; had they not always united two and more remedies in one prescription ; even Allopathic Medicine would have nearer approached to certainty than it does at the present day, and the necessity for a supreme law of cure in order to arrange the numberless fragments of facts, would have been sooner felt. The evidence in favor of the Homoeopathic law from men distinguished in medical science, is not unimportant. In the writings attributed to Hippocrates, there occur the following remarkable words : “ Vomiting is cured by vomiting. There are diseases whose cause and remedy are of the same nature or homogeneous.” A Danish army physician by the name of Stahl, says dis- tinctly : “ The rule generally acted on in medicine, to treat by means of oppositely acting remedies is quite false and the re- verse of what it ought to be. I am, on the contrary convinc- ed, that diseases will yield to, and be cured by remedies, that produce a similar affection (similia similibus)—burns by ex- posure to the fire, frost-bitten limbs, by the application of snow and the coldest water, inflammation and bruises by distilled spirits, and in like manner I have treated a tendency to acidity of the stomach by a very small dose of Sulphuric acid, with the most successful result, in cases where a number of absor- bent remedies had been fruitlessly employed.” Dr. Saint 10 Marie at the head of the Lyonnese faculty has said in his me- dical formulary : “ It is certain, that we sometimes cure by act- ing in the same direction as nature does, and by completing through our means the salutary efforts which she has com- menced, but which she has not the power to accomplish. It is thus, that at an epoch, where quinine was unknown, irregu- lar intermittent fevers, characterized by sopor, have been cured by Opium.” He also refers to diarrheas as having been re- moved by drastic purgatives, and epilepsies cured by an em- piric by means of a remedy which in the first twenty-four hours caused more violent attacks of the disease. He contin- ues : “ It is impossible that these cures should be nothing but lucky hits, they are undoubtedly to be ascribed to some great Therapeutic Law.” Messrs. Merat and Delens have written : “ It is a remarkable circumstance to see some remedies recommended to cure near- ly the same diseases, which other practitioners see them pro- duce. Messrs. Trousseau and Pidoux(Therapeutics, 2d edi- tion) “ Experience has proved, that a great number of diseases are cured by therapeutic agents, which seem to act in the same manner, as the cause of the evil, to which they are opposed.” Dr. Fodera: “ a disease of irritability may be cured by irritants.” Haller, Stahl and Linnee, are of opinion, that to treat diseas- es by contraries is completely false and absurd. Descartes in his outlines of medicine has established the fact, that “ like cures like.” Professor Eshenmayer says : “Homoeopathy is the direct method, and Allopathy the indirect. Of direct methods there can be only one, of the indirect many, as the antiphlogistic, resolvent, revulsive,, deobstruent, etc. By the direct method an impulse is given to the specific reaction of the healing power, so that the disease is not only attacked in its effects upon the different organs, or systems, as with the indirect method, but in its origin and seat, whereby it is prevented from passing through its different stages. Why should this not be possible ? Why should we not be able to find agents having a direct effect upon the specific reaction of the healing power ? There is no rea- 11 sonable ground to doubt it. With Homoeopathy, experience has already strongly corroborated this, by facts. To pretend to deny it, displays either ignorance, stubbornness, indolence or dread of the new system. Similar admissions with regard to the truth of the Homoeo- pathic law might be quoted from the works of Paracelsus, Hunter, Sydenham, Hiester, Stoerk, Yanhelmont, Brera, and many others. At a later period Dr. Amador de Rosnero, one of the most distinguished Professors of the University of Montpelier, ut- tered the following language : “Practically, Homoeopathy is a method which may be added to those already existing, but generally surpasses the others. It is one road more, but one more direct, on which one passes with greater celerity and with more speed, and comfort even. The new Therapeutics address- es itself to the vital forces in order to cure a disease, as the Vi- tal Pathology investigates these forces in order to understand their growth. The doctrine of vitality has always professed the great principle, that above all, the vital force was the origi- nal source of the disease, and therefore it was, above all, against these same forces, that the agent was to be directed, which was to destroy the morbid changes. By the great and beautiful discovery of Hahnemann the sphere of vitalism has been greatly enlarged, and what is more, he has placed this doctrine on a practical basis, which will continue to exist hence- forward beyond a doubt. In addition to the above, an advanced section of the Allo- pathic school, comprising some of the most eminent physicians of modern times, acknowledges the truth of the Homoeopathic law in a limited sense, it strenuously, however, denies its uni- versality for which we contend. These physicians for instance could never disavow those familiar illustrations of the Homoeopathic law, which are now known and understood by every one, such as the prevention of small pox by vaccination, the cure of frost-bitten limbs by snow, burns by application of heat, the quicker and more per- manent removal of heat from the body by a cup of hot tea, 12 than by a drink of cold water. Sea-sickness is best cured by following the motions of the ship as every sailor knows. Says Hahnemann: “ Why does the brilliant planet Jupiter disappear in the twilight from the eyes of him who gazes at it? Because a similar but more potent power, the light of breaking day, then acts upon these organs. By what means does the soldier cunningly remove from the ears of the com- passionate spectator the cries of him who runs the gauntlet? By the piercing tones of the fife, coupled with the noise of the drum. By what means do they drown the distant roar of the enemy’s cannon, which carries terror to the heart of the sol- dier? By the deep-mouthed clamor of the big drum.— Neither the compassion nor the terror could be suppressed by reprimands or a distribution of brilliant uniforms. In the same manner, mourning and sadness are extinguished in the soul, when the news reaches us of a still greater misfortune occurring to another.” To the quotation from Hahnemann with regard to the simi- le of the sense of sight and hearing, I will add that of the taste. It is a well known fact, that the confectioner hardly ever partakes of the dainties he prepares with so much skill. Their very sight and odor is often disgusting to him. The natural appetite is destroyed as soon as the sense of taste is over-stimulated by rich food. I will now review the different faculties common to man and animals, and then those common to man alone, which strikingly illustrate this law. We are most cognizant of our faults, and we are most dis- posed to correct them, if we see another exibit the same fault or vice in a still greater degree, particularly if we despise this latter for his general bad character. We beeome ashamed and alter our course. What means did the Greeks devise to dis- gust their young men of the vice of intemperance ? They exhibited to them a slave in a state of intoxication. The most appropriate lecture on intemperance would hardly have pro- duced an equally salutary effect. Neither can criminals be .cured bv the annihilation of other criminals. The statistics 13 of crime clearly prove this proposition. That would be an al- lopathic measure. He who keeps society in fear of him must be cured by the restraints of society. But how 1 Cer- tainly, not by destroying him; this would not mend the mat- ter. The treatment of such a character must consist in the constraints of a thorough physical, mental and religious edu- cation, which may be to the delinquent worse than death, but which however, will finally harmonize his whole being. You have often heard it laughingly said, that the best cure for love is the possession of the beloved object, which is quite true. Opposition to it on the side of parents, guardians, or friends, will only strengthen this passion, as the experience of all ages has shown. The love of Romeo and Juliet was par- ticularly kindled and kept alive by the opposition of their re- spective families. Abelard and Heloise, furnish another ex- ample in proof of our position. Nostalgia, home-sickness, that singular disease, with which the Swiss nation are particularly affected, is cured by nothing but a return to their mountain home, or the removal of the patient to a mountainous country, similar to his own. A Swiss lady of my acquaintance, whose health, strength and spirits were rapidly failing from this dis- ease, whilst living in a large and crowded Atlantic city—she was only the shadow of her former self—was immediately re- stored by removing with her family to a beautiful and roman- tic region in the Blue Mountains, which somewhat resembled her own Swiss home. Fear.—We can best cure a timid man of fear, by placing him in situations of great danger, where all his courage must be exerted, causing him to disregard all fear. Thus the young recruits are seldom able to stand the first onslaught of the ene- my, they will only gradually become accustomed to scenes of danger, while the veteran of a hundred battle-fields, like the war-horse in Job, “ mocketh at fear, and is not affrighted, neither turneth he back from the sword.” People of the same temperament, if they come in contact with each other, will never agree, until one or the other is sub- dued, or the stronger subdues the weaker. The Taming of 14 the Shrew, in Shakspeare’s play, however paradoxical it may seem, has a deep meaning in it. We must only be sure in such cases, that we hit the right specific, and avoid the too much or too little. Quarrelsome characters become human- ized with those who are like them. Do we not see every day fencers and bullies become very gentle and give up their over- bearing humor, when in the company of their equals ? It has well been said, that the present reactionary policy of the crowned potentates of Europe is best calculated to pro- mote the cause of liberty in future revolutions, rousing the dormant energies of the people, which will at once elevate them from their abject condition. Tyrannical Laws passed for the oppression of nations or of any peculiar race of men, although deemed sometimes very efficient, will tend to the dis- comfiture of the enemies of liberty, and we, who are convinc- ed of the truth of the Homoeopathic law even in this respect, might well be tempted to say, God speed to the authors of such laws, well knowing that they will hasten the triumph of lib- erty. But if despotism and tyranny will be in the end their own executioners, liberty on the other hand will be creative of liberty. From free men alone will freedom spring. It is only, because our revolutionary ancestors had all the elements of a free race within them, that they consecrated this soil to lib- erty. In the oratorical contests of our legislative halls, our courts of justice, our congress, the power of this law is felt. Do we not see, that violent measures will never succeed in curing the evils under which the country labors. It requires the wise statesman, the powerful and sagacious mind to devise the ex- act and true plan for th(f impending emergency. Pride.—A proud man is never cured of his pride by the ut- most exercise of humility on the part of his dependent, but only by a dignified and manly behavior. The more the lat- ter humbles himself, the more arrogant becomes the former.— In the intercourse of our daily walks of life the due cogni- zance and exercise of this law will save us many a heartache. Those who do not help themselves, will never be helped by 15 others. “ To him who hath, shall be given, and from him who hath not, shall be taken away even that which he hath.” The misanthrope in Shiller’s play was finally cured by the influence of other misanthropes of a similar character. The covetous man is the first to be tired of the riches and possessions he has so much coveted, as soon as he possesses them. It is well known, that hereditary wealth makes the possessor of it most indifferent to it. The proud baron or no- ble of the old world, spends his money too lavishly, only be- cause it is not the fruit of painful toil. A French gentleman wished to convert his son, who had been educated by distant relations in utilitarian views, to his love of arts, sciences, and all that embellishes and enriches life. Would he have suc- ceeded in convincing his son of the ultimate tendency of his utilitarian views by violently opposing them ? He would only have roused the spirit of opposition of the latter, and caused him to cling with still greater tenacity to them. What course did he pursue to change the views of his son ? By apparent- ly seeming of his opinion, but overstepping its limits, he open- ed his eyes to the folly of merely living for the useful. For this gentleman to live, was not merely to keep alive the spark kindled by God in us all, but also to increase and brighten it by other sparks. He had been at the head of every enterprise in favor of literature, science and art, and the French mu- seums had been enriched by his presents. He lived in the country and his residence was such as the taste of a gifted mind was able to make it. But in order to cure his son of his utilitarianism, he had the flowers in his garden uprooted and the shrubs torn up. Two fine lilacs, which shaded the win- dows with their balmy flower-tufts, were cut down to make firewood. The hall in his manor was cleared of the curiosi- ties with which it had formerly been filled, and in their places stands were arranged for canes and cloaks. In the saloon all the drawings and paintings had also disappeared, and the walls were completely bare. The whole house had under- gone the same transformation. That which had no object but to please the taste had been sacrificed without pity.— 16 Everything left had a daily positive use. The agreeable had entirely given place to the necessary. His botanic garden was to become a manure store, and the gravestones of his family cemetery were to be used for paving the yard. But before the latter was accomplished, the son was already cured. The vigorous application of his own principles did the deed. He began to understand the sacred sentence, that “ man lives not by bread alone.” Vanity.—A lady of my acquaintance lately wrote from the West Indies, that according to her opinion ladies could be easi- est cured of their love of finery by seeing the West India ne- gresses extravagantly indulge themselves in the same propen- sity without measure or sense. The best lecture on the sub- ject would not have an equally beneficial effect. Insanity.—Mental diseases of various kinds have long been instinctively cured according to the Homoeopathic law. I will give a few instances of the kind. A lady fancied that she had swallowed a pin, which she supposed was laying cross- wise in her throat; under this belief she refused to receive food, saying that it was impossible for her to swallow. Pre- vious to the time she supposed she had swallowed it, she was a woman of stout constitution and strong habit, but had now dwindled almost to a skeleton. Her throat was repeatedly examined by several physicians and they all agreed there was no pin there. There was a complete absence of inflammation in the throat, externally or internally, as far as could be seen, and she did not complain of pressure at the parts. After the physicians had several times told her that there was no pin there and that they could do nothing for her, she still contin- ued sending for them. They thought at last of a plan by which she might be cured of this strange fancy. The attend- ing physician provided himself with several surgical instru- ments and a rusty pin which he crooked for the purpose. He inserted in her throat, several times, one or more of these in- struments having a hooked point, and at his last and greatest effort, pretended to draw out the very pin that had given her so much pain and trouble, producing it in his hand. This 17 satisfied her. She knew that it was then out and thanked the Doctor with the warmest expressions, for the preservation of her life. The modern treatment of the insane is entirely conducted on Homoeopathic principles. The physician never flatly con- tradicts the absurd vagaries or ravings of his patient, but ap- parently enters into his feelings, and gradually seeks to draw him out of it by his own inward impulse, by addressing the small portion of good sense that is still left to him. Thus a very beautiful girl in a state of insanity fancied she had be- come very ugly, and was inconsolable. Her parents, friends and admirers did not contradict her, but pretended that they could hardly look at her on account of her extreme ugliness. This had the desired effect and she again became sane. The celebrated Sir Astley Cooper had the misfortune on a journey to be carried by mistake into an Insane Asylum, and to be subjected to the medical treatment of a madman, who gave himself out for a physician. His prescription was the following : First, venesection; then the Douche-bath and starvation; finally the great shower-bath, extraction of three teeth, bastinado and incarceration. Astley Cooper himself says:—“I trembled all over, for such treatment would cer- tainly have made me insane.” On analysis of the different faculties of the mind, we find that they are all strengthened by their due exercise and use. But if you wish to disgust a person with a certain profession or faculty, let him only exercise it too much, let the scale of weight preponderate too much on one side, he will be the first to abandon the pursuit, however dear it was to him at first.— Daily experience points out to us numerous examples. On the other hand, if a young man be forced into a particular oc- cupation or profession, he will seldom or never succeed ; but gi ve him one which he has himself selected, and which suits his individual nature, he will nearly always excel in it. You can easily perceive how much this subject might be extended, to furnish examples in explanation of our Homoeopathic law, which throws new light upon the workings of all professions. 18 Agriculture furnishes some important data for our consider- tion. The scientific agriculturist, in his endeavor to fertilize a particular soil, selects that manure which is best adapted to its nature, that one which exercises the most powerful influ- ence on the quality of the soil, and which, in consequence will produce the largest and most perfect crop. The modern sys- tem of agriculture may therefore, not inaptly be compared with the Homoeopathic mode of treatment, which also selects, with the nicest accuracy that agent, which has a specific re- lation to the worn out or diseased soil of the human body, in which it is to produce an abundant crop of rich and beautiful fruit, or health, and not like the old Allopathic mode of farm- ing, which by exhausting the field by draining all its resources destroys its very aptitude for producing any fruit at all. For it is now well ascertained that if a particular soil produces a good crop of one kind of vegetable but not of another, it is de- ficient in the characteristic mineral elements necessary for the developement of the latter. In other words there is a speci- fic relation between the quality of the soil and its vegetable product. But the analogy does not rest here. This specific manure is supplied in definite proportions to the different plants. Thus apples have affinity for lime, pears for iron and car- bon, cherries for silex, and they will not be developed in a per- fect manner, unless the soil has these specific substances so necessary for their growths of which infinitesimal quantities are quite sufficient. The minutest quantity of Iodine is neces- sary for the developement of the whole species of seaweeds. In this way all vegetables have in nature their correspond- ing minerals, twin-brothers of a common father — without which they cannot exist or flourish. The Chemist has point- ed out only a few of these correspondences, but more will yet be discovered. It is the great aim of the Homoeopathic school to trace these analogies from minerals through plants to man, and that which we left in a simple state in mineral and plant, we shall find re-united in the wonderfully and mysteriously formed man. It will thus become clear to us, that there ex- 19 ists no particular plant or animal, which does not owe its dis- tinguishing peculiarities or characteristics to the most effica- cious and powerful substances of the mineral kingdom. The relations of different substances in the human body are quite similar to those of agriculture, and if it was consonant to the purposes of this address an immense number of facts might be quoted to verify this statement. A few will suffice to show in what direction the progressive Homoeopathic school is extending the boundaries of the great Homoeopathic law. According to Hausman the proportion of nearly 2000 equiv- alents of carbon, water, nitrogen and oxygen to only one equivalent of sulphur is just as necessary a condition for the formation of the texture of the Crystalline lens, as e. g., the proportion of two equivalents of copper to one equivalent of sulphur, in order to obtain from the melted mass of both, the sulphuret of copper in Octoedrons. Microscopical observations have shown, that disease is something foreign, extraneous to the organic elements of the body, something akin to crystalization, but in its structure is nevertheless very similar to the structure of the body. In the same proportion as there exist combinations of indi- vidual minerals, there exist combinations of individual dis- eases, forming distinct family groups. Hence diseases form a complete kingdom of individualities, like that of organic bodies or of minerals. As iron, manganese, nickel, cobalt, copper, in combination with one of the chlorine groupe are decomposed by sulphates, in the same way diseased ligaments or cartilaginous tissue are decomposed by one and the same diseased marrow of the bones. The law “similia similibus” can never refer to diseases which decompose each other, much less to such as combine ; but only and alone to those diseases, which mutually extinguish each other in the same body. In many places of Central Europe the botanist has discov- ered a plant which takes a middle ground between Yerbascum 20 Thapsus (the great mullein) and Yerbascum nigrum, partaking of the nature of both. It is called Yerbascum semi-nigrum. When Kohlreuter made his experiments with mixing plants, he found that the Yerbascum semi-nigrum originated in a mixture of both plants. In the mineral kingdom precisely similar relations take place. After the formation of diseases, their combinations and Homoeopathic extinction have thus been traced by the light of these new discoveries, there still remains to be regarded the interior life, of which these forms merely are the outward ex- pression. This life, this inward individual character is already visible from the first germ of the disease in the same way as we can prognosticate, however feebly, the future man from the original character and first budding qualities of the child. There is a power behind all these individual formations, which, 1 will not say, the chemical writers altogether disre- gard, but which according to the very nature of their inves- tigations they have no time to examine. If I am told by them, e. g., that the oil of turpentine, juni- per, savine, pepper,