A OP HOMffiOPATHY. BY THK REV. TH. EVEREST, HECTOR OF WICKWAR, GLOUCESTERSHIRE Mere prattle without practice. Othello. Vigm&i Gigantum humeris impositi plus quam homines vident. Burton. ALLENTOWN, Pa.: AT THE ACADEMICAL BOOK STORE. l'UILADELI'HIA, NEWYORK & BALTIMORE 1835. VTBK NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE 1 D. C. PHILADELPHIA? IUUNTSU BY J. C. WESSELHOiFT, No. i>, BREAD ST. INTRODUCTION. I am exceedingly desirous of calling attention to a question of the greatest importance to the best interests of mankind, which has been neglected for many years, and will probably remain doubtful for many more unless the public insist on its being set at rest without delay. We all entertain the greatest possible respect for the medical Practitioners of our own country, and not without good reason: nor ought they to be mentioned without an expression of that respect. Excellent however as they unquestionably are, it is nevertheless rather too much to expect of them that they should voluntarily step forth to assure you that they have hitherto misunderstood their art, and treated their patients erroneously. We ourselves are startled at the very mention of such a thing. It seems to us impossible that those whose presence has so often been our consolation: to whose meritorious labours we have so often paid the humble but honest tribute of our admiration: whose career has been as honourable as their aim is noble: it seems impossible, I repeat, that these excellent men should have been all the while as mistaken as ourselves. The system of investigation which has been pursued from the time of Hippocrates; the "Baconian principles especially, on which medical science has of late years become firmly based in England," (as they themselves express it) cannot surely be erroneous. The many great men who have dedicated their lives and talents to the study of the art of healing—who have ever shewn themselves such diligent observers, such honest enquirers, such fearless experimenters—who have so long and so zealously exerted their best energies of mind and body in the cause of suffering humanity — who have faced the most contagious plagues with the same indifference with which they 4 would prescribe for the gouty finger of a noble: men illustrious for science, eminent for sagacity, renowned for diligent research; the accumulated knowledge of many centuries, the records of the past, and the labours of the present — all cannot be wrong! Nevertheless an opinion has been started — a bold one surely — but it is gaining ground — that such is the case. The propagators and advocates of that opinion affirm that there is a much shorter, safer, and better method of curing diseases than that which is at present practised; and any medical man, they assure us, may readily convince himself of the truth of their assertion. " If," they say, (and one scarcely knows how to reply to them) "if those who reject our system would but be good enough to read and learn some little about it before they talk about it; if they would but hear before they pronounce, and try before they decide, we should have no objection to let the system rest altogether on their experiments; they are honourable men, and they can discriminate between what is real and what is merely specious; let them come forward, and by their experiments we are willing to abide." A fairer challenge could not possibly be given: it only remains so enquire whether the rank of the challengers will justify attention to it. For it is certainly by no means incumbent on men eminent for their scientific attainments as are our medical men, and fully occupied as they are in the labours of their profession, to give up their valuable time to investigate every idle appeal of this nature. They are too usefully employed already. It would be too much to expect such men to stoop from that pride of place to which their talents have raised them, to study and refute every whimsical theory and bold assertion to which crazed intellects or crafty speculation may give birth. They have other and nobler occupations than to expose the impudent forgeries of every shameless charlatan. Circumstances nevertheless might possibly arise, which would render it incumbent on them for their own sakes, for 5 our sakes, for the sake of truth, to institute those experiments which are demanded. We may conceive a case in which neglect would be culpable, and protracted silence positively criminal. The number and character of its adherents are a fair criterion, not certainly of the truth, but of the importance of any new heresy; and while the frantic leader of half a dozen shouting boys may be contemptuously consigned to the constable and the stocks, it would seem wanton trifling to take no measures against the leader of armies, however unjustifiable his object, however bad his cause. There was, then, a time when no blame could be with justice imputed to the members of the medical profession in England, for not seeking out this new heresy of which we have been speaking, in order to refute the arguments and expose the fallacies by which it was supported. They left it to the contempt of the world: they left it to sparkle and expire with ten thousand other specious schemes of which no trace remains. Be it so. The progeny of error are a numerous, but by no means a longlived generation. Cut it is now nearly six lustres* that they have so left it unnoticed. And if in the course of those years, that despised heresy has struck root in the land of its birth as deep as if it had flourished ten centuries; if in spite of all opposition, and all argument, and all interests, it be spreading rapidly and steadily across the whole of the continent: ** if every week is signalized by some new conversion, and every day adds new adherents: if journals many in number are published, detailing cases of every species of disease triumphantly cured by its aid: if we constantly meet in those publications the frank avowal of some seceding medical Practitioner, whom the force of facts has compelled, against his will, to confess how completely erroneous is the ordinary system of medicine: if pro- * Homeopathy may be said to date from 1S05, in which yoar Hahnemann published his experiments on twenty-seven medicinal substances. ** Fire years ago the very name of Homeopathy was unknown in Franvr Now the presses there teem with works on the subject. 6 fessorships are founded in foreign cities to publish and preach and teach the new doctrines: if hospitals are confided to the care and superintendence of the disciples: if the profane public, deaf to the logic and blind to the success of the old system, will besiege the doors of these disciples: if, in short, a vast and flourishing school of medicine on the new system is founded and making many proselytes: and lastly, if among the thousand cases of extraordinary, nay extravagant, cure related in their journals and scientific works, not one has ever been contradicted: if, in the fierce war of words which has been so long raging on the subject, no imputation of bad faith has yet given us cause to suspect the accuracy or fidelity of those reports; then indeed we cannot but allow that Homoeopathy has assumed an attitude which challenges, and a rank which entitles it to attention even in this country. Investigation it demands: it ought to have received it long ago: it must and will receive it soon: it is too late to treat it with contempt. When the world is ringing with the echoes of strange cures, it is no longer a time to fold the arms and wear a placidly benignant smile, as if the whole gift of healing were confined to the Westminster Society, and all worth knowing on earth concentred in the Pharmacopoeia Londinensis. Equally useless is it to swagger and bluster, and "speak plain cannon, fire and smoke and bounce," and denounce as pestilent fellows the Founder of it and all his adherents to the tenth generation. The curse of Ernulphus would not make truth withdraw a foot which she had once planted. Step back she will never, no not one fraction of an inch, though all Apothecaries' Hall were to arm against her. With all submission therefore we conceive, that much more wisdom would lie in making at once the experiments which Homoeopathy so loudly demands, than in venting indignation in great swarths of state words, or sending out the light horse of small jokes, or in arguing and debating for months and years together what a few trials would effectually determine. 7 Be that as it may however, if the medical men shall conceive it to be more consonant with their interests to forget Homoeopathy, or more befitting their dignity to give no other reply to its advocates than abuse, we take leave to assure them, in all sincerity, that we, the public, shall neither do the one nor rest satisfied with the other. The truth or falsehood of a system like that does not in the least depend on the talents of its defenders. They may possibly be all that they are called, shallow, deluded, conceited persons, and yet what they maintain be not the less true. We are all very willing to submit our opinions to the better judgment of the medical men, if that judgment be founded on facts. But we are not by any means willing to adopt their forgetfulness, or to abandon a system which promises so largely as Homoeopathy, merely because it is weakly defended, or proscribed by some who are even more ignorant of it than we ourselves are. It may be proper to explain why so very humble an individual as the present writer has quitted a retirement which is suited to him, for a publicity which he does not covet, to occupy a station for which he is ill qualified. It is, believe it, no slight sacrifice to abandon the habits of years, to exchange the tranquillity of private life for the rude jostling of polemics, to step forth from the lowly valley, above which the storms of this world sweep harmless, and almost unheard save in their distant reverberations, and to assume a position exposed to all the thunders of medical indignation. Small wisdom lies too in provoking a contest in which talents and numbers, stimulated by danger and united by interest, make common cause against one feeble assailant; in which defeat would bring no sympathy—success give no advantage; for if Homoeopathy should turn out to be false, who would recollect the motives which induced him to bring it forward 1 if true, others would reap the whole profits. The soldier who leads the forlorn hope is rudely opposed by multitudinous adversaries whose station gives them every advantage over him 8 and even, should his party eventually gain the day, long before that event takes place, he is overborne and trodden down in the struggle, or indistinguishably blended in the mass of his triumphant comrades: while Fame, disdaining such mean crests, records the names of some of the more brilliant leaders, or passes on to bind one more laurel wreath around the brows of the oft-crowned hero of a hundred fights. If then the writer was so well aware of the consequences, — if he knew how much was to be risked, how little gained, why did he leave an obscurity where none molested him'? The reader will, perhaps, bear with him awhile, while he endeavours to explain that which some regret and others censure severely. Homoeopathy is a subject which long ago attracted his attention sufficiently to induce him to make himself acquainted with its leading principles. There was no denying that much of it wore a semblance of ingenuity and plausibility; but it must also be "confessed that part of it was very startling. There was in it such a complete defiance of all settled opinions and established maxims on the subject of healing; such a total disregard of all that had been taught in medicine for many centuries, and recognized and adopted by so many able men in even these days of practical improvement ; it denounced so recklessly all that mankind had been accustomed to regard as anxioms; in short, it shocked, and that so rudely, all preconceived notions, habits, and practice, that, ingenious as it undoubtedly was, he could not prevail upon his understanding to assent to it. It was thrown by, in consequence, for many months; nor was it until circumstances, which would interest no one, again forced it on his notice, that he could think of it otherwise than as one of those hardy but, nevertheless, dazzling speculations, in which the German mind seems to be peculiarly prolific. This time, however, he had no choice left him, whether to accept or reject it. It would be tedious, and, as his opinion could influence no one, it would be useless to detail the reasons he 9 had for altering his mind, and the train of circumstances which brought conviction with them. It will suffice to say, that, aware of the power of the imagination—aware of the extreme fallibility of human judgment — aware more especially of his own incompetency to decide, no precaution was neglected to avoid error. Having then, or, if you will, fancying that he had good reason to suppose that much suffering might be alleviated, by the aid of Homoeopathy, which ordinary medicine cannot reach, he waited with considerable anxiety for the appearance of some work on the subject which might call public attention to a question of such vital importance. Week after week, month after month slid away, and nothing appeared. The columns of advertisements were eagerly perused; alas! they were filled with eulogies on quack medicines. The name of Homoeopathy seemed almost unknown, excepting indeed to the authors of two or three silly Reviews,* who wrote a little about that of which they had read less, and talked more nonsense than ought to have been admitted into ten times the quantity of matter. This notice of Homoeopathy is published by one who (as has been said) believes it to be capable of relieving much suffering of mind and body, at present pronounced incurable; it was published because the subject was neglected entirely by those who are alone capable of doing it justice,—because he has deemed it a solemn duty to his Maker and his fellowcountrymen, to task his slender abilities to the purpose of procuring it notice, in order that the question of its truth or falsehood may the sooner be settled. To this feeling of duty he has sacrificed every other. Had he consulted prudence, interest, comfort; had he listened to any of those anticipations of annoyance and vexation which could not but be suggested to his mind, his name had never been found among the advocates of a system whose Founder would long ago have * Vol. 50 of the Edinburgh Reviow, however, contains a very fair general outline of the principles of Homceopathy. But even there it is treated rather as a good joke than in a serious strain. 10 been crushed, if power could crush him; —whose followers have met with "war to the knife" wherever they showed themselves; and whose very humblest abettors woidd probably have found "the heaven that is over their heads to be brass, and the earth that is under them iron," if human passions could have availed to " bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades." England is of course not included in these remarks; yet, even here, if ever he dreamed of courtesy, he has been somewhat rudely awakened. Be that as it may, his only object is to call attention to the subject of Homoeopathy, and to endeavour to force on those who, by their previous studies and habits of observation and long experience, are alone qualified to decide the question, an examination of a system which, if true, ought to be at once and universally adopted; if false, ought to be instantly (not said, but) proved to be so. Be Homoeopathy right or wrong, it is, in either case, equally cruel not to settle the question for us by some decisive experiments. He has been told, however, and that by some whose opinions he is bound to respect, that this is a purely medical question, in which no person not belonging to the Profession has any right to interfere. " The last and greatest exception," as saith old Burton, "is, that I, being a divine, have meddled with physicke." " Tantum ne est ab re tua otii tibi Aliena ut cures, eaque nihil qua? ad te attinent." Have the public, then, really no interest in the question 1 Is there no other party but the Medicine-givers concerned in the success of medicine-taking] We have heard it said, "Q,uidquid delirant reges plectuntur Achivi;" or, in plain English, "if the doctor mistakes, the patient suffers." — Interfere? What when the question has been left to the Profession for thirty years, and remains still undecided, unexamined, unthought of, have we no right to interfere? Are another score or so of years to be wasted, and are we to wait 11 reverently with bated breath and whispering humbleness until these great men shall graciously condescend to vouchsafe their attention spontaneously 1 Qnousque tandem — How much longer is our patience to be abused . l With all deference to their better judgment, we beg to say, that we claim a right to protect our own interests, if our natural guardians neglect them. Yes, and moreover we will exercise that right, let who will forbid it. If blame does rest somewhere, it is surely not on those who have so long and so anxiously awaited the decision of men of science on a subject of such vital importance, and awaited it in silence. But, after all, this objection is moonshine of the purest water. If the present writer had stepped forth to assert or to teach—to pull down or to set up—to judge and to decide, the objection might have had some force. But it is not so. He asks, and asks respectfully, of those who alone have power to answer the question, whether Homoeopathy be what he learns in foreign journals that it is, and he gets abundant abuse by way of reply. He asks for bread and gets a stone, not given him, but thrown at his head. Now abuse is a species of argument which always implies a consciousness of weakness in him who uses it; and he is of course more convinced than ever of the truth of Homoeopathy, and more desirous than ever that the question should be settled. Once more, therefore, he appears before the public, beseeching them to enforce and obtain inquiry. Homoeopathy is either false or true. If false, let them not suffer it to spread; if true, let them not allow it to be swamped. Nothing but experiment can decide. If the members of the medical Profession have made those experiments, we have a right to call for them; if they have not, the more burning shame for them all, from tho leader of the Profession to the lowest pupil in the hospital The best recompense they can offer us for such neglect, is to institute them at once. We ask for no opinions—we want facts. We will not be satisfied with hearing Hahnemann and 12 his supporters called silly names, for we are able to do that ourselves if need were. Experiment we want —we want the system tried. Alas! to criticise my style in the most florid oratory of Billingsgate is somewhat easier than to establish the falsehood of Homoeopathy; possibly, also, somewhat more grateful than to establish its truth. The means of defence with which nature has provided animals are various. Wlxile some will meet an adversary boldly and fight him fairly, others decline the conflict altogether. But the Cuttle-fish, it is said, is furnished with a very ingenious contrivance of another sort: when pursued so closely that he has no other means of left, he discharges against the aggressor a cloud of black mud, under cover of which he eludes observation, while his disgusted adversary retires from a pursuit in which nothing is certain but that he would soil his fingers. I will vouch neither for the truth of the story, nor for the correctness of its application. But one thing I will vouch for — that, undeterred by anger or abuse, I will persevere in the endeavour to call the attention of the public to Homoeopathy, until some one shall condescend to treat us with something better than mere invective. Personalities I leave with pleasure to those who do not think themselves degraded by using them. The object I have in view does not render it necessary to scold like an angry schoolboy, whose plum cake is in jeopardy; still less does it exact such a painful sacrifice as to compromise my own dignity by insulting a gentleman or calumniating an opponent. It seems probable that this object would be more readily attained by showing that Homoeopathy is not so totally absurd a thing as has been asserted; and that, whether true or false, it has in fact a show of reasoning about it which has never been fairly stated in this country. The system is strange— the name of it is new—the practice of it is unlike any thing we have been accustomed to: and the culpable silence of 13 medical men respecting it, has hitherto kept in the dark all who are not in the habit of seeing foreign journals. When, at length, after a lapse of time which ought to conjure a blush in cheeks unused to such a phenomenon, after an incessant struggle—after having won its way, foot by foot, and inch by inch, against all opposition, it has taken its station as a science; then, at last, a few pages in a periodical are perhaps dedicated to it. But even then we are not told of the progress it has made, or of the ground it occupies—we are not told of the facts on which it rests, or of the arguments by which it is supported. No one speaks of the almost miraculous cures it has wrought—no one mentions the hostility it has met with, and the converts it has made; or, that for a quarter of a century it has withstood the most violent efforts to extinguish it. Travestied off in the broadest caricature, it js announced as a sort of excellent joke — a thing perhaps of yesterday — an amusing instance of German credulity, and — English acuteness we are to suppose by implication. And thus, when at last it is known, seen only through the distorting medium of some Medical Review, it is regarded as something just dropped from the moon — a monstrous incarnation of mysticism—a strange title for a system, hit upon last week by a strange doctor, with a strange name, which has had the luck to obtain half a dozen crazed advocates and cure as many Hypochondriacs as did the rival system of Prince Hohenlohe. It is to endeavour to set the subject before the British people in somewhat of its proper light; to give them some notion, however faint, of the principles of this science, and of the chain of reasoning on which those principles depend; to prove to them that if not true, it is at least not unlike truth: to convince them that if there be anything strange about it, it is strange to those only who have been little accustomed to see light thrown on the art of healing; that if there be novelty in it, it consists in the application of common sense to medics.l practice; it is for these purposes that these remarks are written. 14 It will not, however, I trust, be supposed that the truth of Homoeopathy depends on any theoretical reasoning, still less in any the very minutest fraction of a degree on such feeble advocacy as any non-medical man can give to it. It has advanced steadily for one simple reason only, that it performed cures which nothing else could perform; and if it do not effect the same end here, all words will be as useless as they would be if it were attempted to reason the stars out of their courses. Nevertheless to make known some of the arguments in its favour may tend to familiarize the mind with it, and thus smooth the road for its progress, if it be destined to progress. To apologize to the reader for the errors which have inevitably crept into the following pages is a duty which seems almost superfluous. Would that I could hope that with those errors enough truth is blended to awaken curiosity, and excite a thirst for draughts from the spring. In the Organon, in the Materia Medica Pura, and especially in the Chronic Diseases, and in the other writings of Hahnemann, the reader will find the pure fountain head of Homoeopathy, unmuddied by the awkward attempts of vis blunderers to guide little rills of it to plains which have been hitherto barren — May he " drink there and live; " —he will then pardon the errors of the work winch first taught him the way to it. Whatever be the result, if the march of truth be in the slightest degree accelerated, my only aim is answered. To destroy the system of two thousand years, and build up in its room another and a better; to rise superior to follies and prejudices and faults, however specious, however venerable, however hallowed by the general acceptance of mankind; to shake off the heaped error of eenturies as the. awakening lion shakes off from his flanks the forest-leaves which have fallen on bin in the night: this is the work of One on whom we cannot look without remembering bow many years have passed away since there was a Giant on the earth. To us, the ordinary and diminutive race, it may 15 be permitted to scan and measure the trace of the mighty step beneath which so many old opinions are crumbling into nothing. Tut, man, one fire burns out another's burning; One pain is lessen'd by another's anguish; Turn giddy and be holp by backward turning, One desperate grief cures with another's languish. Take thou some new infection to thine eye, And the rank poison of the old will die. Romeo and Juliet. Before the curing of a strong disease, Even in the instant of repair and health The fit is strongest: evils that take leave On their departure most of all show evil. Ring John. CHAPTER I. Amidst the improvement which has of late years been introduced into almost every branch of human knowledge, it is not a little surprising to find the most important of all, the knowledge of the art of healing diseases, if not remaining stationary, yet at least making none of that progress to perfection which might have been anticipated. While the severer Philosophy of more modern days has been so indefatigably and so laudably engaged in sifting the grain from the chaff, and in most instances has rejected much that was worthless, — while experiment has eyery where else begun to assume the place of conjecture, and little been permitted to remain which did not rest on a firmer basis than hypothesis or assertion, — in the science of medicine, either the dogmas of schools still retain their authority, and where most caution in admitting any thing not rigorously and repeatedly proved was necessary, there least seems to have been used—or else * " medical men plagued themselves with wandering among theories and idle schemes," grasping to-day without enquiry what was to be rejected to-morrow without reason. The kindred art of surgery indeed has made large and quick strides to perfection, so large as to leave little probably to be discovered by posterity, or desired by patients. The art of the physician meanwhile, the knowledge, that is of the properties of medicines, and the power they possess of healing diseases in the human body, seems to have remained almost unaffected by research. A few new medicines have been discovered, and some obtained by the aid of chemistry in a concentrated form; but little, comparatively with any other branch of human knowledge, * This is no assertion of mine, but quoted from the Medical Gazette. If it be true, it is no doubt very fair of the author to confess it; but it dies not give one n very exalted idea of the " Baconian principles," &c. of the scicuee. 17 has been effected by the combined skill and perseverance which have been applied to the subject: disease baffles medical skill now as it did formerly, and pain remains unrelieved: and disease without remedy, without relief are tolerable evidences that medical science has not reached perfection; and if so, the greater the talents which have been employed to improve it, the greater the probability that the path followed must have been a mistaken one, and that the principles adopted without previous investigation are erroneous. However this may be denied by those on whom education and interest have combined to impose the belief that human intellects are incapable of admitting any more knowledge on the subject of medicine than has been already revealed to the members of the College of Physicians, there is one circumstance which ought not to be lost upon the profession, strongly corroborative as it is of what has been asserted. Let them but reflect on the infinite number and vast sale of quack medicines in this much-physicked country. Nothing is more painful than to read the advertisement of thrm. Every impudent and hungry knave who wishes to make money in the readiest manner possible, without the trouble of labouring for it, provided only that his assurance is greater that his conscience, has nothing to fear; it is but to put a flaming name to some bottle or box of deadly mixtures, and he is provided for for life. What is it to these merciless empirics if crowds die beneath their bottles 1 One remedy is coined and compounded as fast as another is exploded, and, big with fate, the sweltered venom is dispersed abroad to the four winds, carrying with it one only hope for the poor sufferer whom desperation drives to shut his eyes and swallow it, that if it does not cure it will kill. In this system, what do the really amiable and benevolent, and scientific medical practitioners read, but that their art is in many instances unavailing. It is easy to attribute it to folly and ignorance, and to reprobate the extreme stupidity 18 which can encourage such a portentous and prodigious mischief. If the art of healing had improved as it ought to have done, men would soon have had the wit to find it out; if it approached any thing in its results, if people could get cured of their complaints completely, and surely, and easily, by the honourable and honest members of the profession, they would never defile their fingers even with the outside of those dark atrocities quack remedies. It is sheer despair — mere catching at straws. If ever the day shall dawn when the art of healing becomes what it ought to be, — an art whose results are not dubious, — that day will witness the expiring struggles of the worst Hydra that ever devastated a country. The uncertainty of cure is the parent of all these desperate expedients. Amidst that uncertainty, however, there area few instances wherein medicine is eminently successful. A few diseases which invariably appear a tended with the same symptoms, are completely in the power of the medical attendant, who, employing the medicines which experience has taught him to be proper, triumphs over the disorder with ease and certainty. There is no doubting, no guessing, no hesitation, no compounding of drugs: the symptoms are declared, and the remedy is known at once. These cases are, as I mentioned, those only in which the symptoms are invariable: these remedies are called Specifics, It does seem somewhat singular that the attention of the profession has been so little directed to these invaluable remedies. In almost every other branch of human knowledge the registration of facts has only led to the deduction and establishment of the laws by which those phenomena are regulated. Why should the phenomena of healing be the only exception? Why has it not been sought when and under what limitations medicines have the power of removing maladies ? If nature acts invariably by certain fixed laws, why are not the laws of specificity discovered, as well as those of gravitation or of 19 motion? Is it not quite natural to expect that there are constant and fixed laws referring to the one as well as to the other! For more than two thousand years, however, the same system has been silently acquiesced in, nor was it until lately that any one thought of investigating a subject so full of importance to mankind. Some years ago, however, the attention of a native of Meissen, in Saxony, who had been educated for the medical profession, was attracted to it, and led by some striking phenomena which appeared on his first essay with Cinchona, he determined to institute a series of experiments for the purpose of determining, if possible, first, whether there was in fact such a thing as a law of specificity, and secondly, if such turned out to be the case, to apply that laAV to the curative properties of all other medicines, so as to establish the case in which every other individual medicinal substance became a specific. It will be, at once, evident that the first step in such an extensive enquiry must be to determine with accuracy the peculiar properties of each individual medicament, those by which each was distinguished from every other; and, as the knowledge of the medical world on this subject was very defective, extending no farther than to some general properties which belonged to several in common, he determined first of all to discover, by actual experiment on himself, all the properties of those substances which acted as specifics, and next to continue those experiments carefully on other therapeutic agents. It cannot be doubted that his sufferings during the course of tliis investigation, continued as it was for many years, must have been very great. Whatever they were, he bore them with a fortitude and perseverance which are more worthy of imitation than likely to find imitators, until, having with the greatest accuracy noted down every symptom which each medicament was capable of producing, he found himself in possession of a copious index, not merely to all the symptoms 20 which the various medicines he tried could produce in the human organism, but to nearly all those which morbific agents are capable of producing as well; that is to say, he had produced by some medicine or other symptoms corresponding to almost all those of natural maladies. He had been in the beginning struck with the singular resemblance between the symptoms caused by some specifics and the diseases which those specifics cured. He found that Peruvian bark excited a species of ague very similar to that which it cured; that mercury caused symptoms so like syphilitic ones as to be at times indistinguishable from them,