A homœopathic treatise on the diseases of children

Front matter

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Author's Preface

In default of any other recommendation, this little work will possess that of being the only one upon the diseases of children which at present exists in Homoeopathy.*

It has been composed from the voluminous files of Notes, collected, as well at Paris, as in the provinces, but more especially during the five summers that the author passed at Bagnoles de l'Orne, in the capacity of resident physician at the baths of that place. The great number of absolutely new therapeutic indications which it contains, are consequently the fruit of experience.

The preliminary remarks by which the autnor has thought it his duty to precede the practical part of his work, are addressed to serious readers, who have as yet no fixed opinion upon the fundamental principles of Hahnemann's doctrine ; — a knowledge of which it is their object to popularize.

The Hygiene of Children, which succeeds this introduction, is especially designed for the use of mothers.

* The pamphlet of Hartlaub cannot be considered as a treatise upon the diseases of children.

(in)

iv Author's Preface

Finally, the Pathological part, properly so called, which forms of itself about three quarters of the volume, is clearly enough exposed (so at least the author hopes), to be intelligible to persons who, without having studied medicine, follow, nevertheless, with interest, the progress of Homoeopathy, and are accustomed to read occasionally works which treat of it.

PEEFACE BY THE TKANSLATOR.

The motives which originally prompted the composition of the present work, as stated by its Author, are also those which incited its translation. It was then the only work in Homoeopathy, upon the Diseases of Children, and it is now first rendered available to a large portion of the world, by being presented in the language of this country.

The incentives, indeed, to its translation, had become even higher than those which were, at first, professionally deemed warrantable for its publication. Its value had been proved. It had survived the assaults of opposition, and become crowned with the clustering laurels of triumphant merit. The intrusive novelty of the greater part of its numerous therapeutic indications, and the unlicensed independence of its attitude, aroused the usual armed resistance to its admission within the guarded portals of science, notwithstanding the many humiliations incurred by proscriptive orthodoxy, in the history of Homoeopathic discovery.

The inveterate objection was, that the author's startling innovations upon established opinions, were predicated solely upon his individual experience, unsanctioned by that of older and higher authorities ; as if this were not almost necessarily the case with every

original contribution to knowledge; and as though

2 Preface by the Translator.

such primary precognitions could be determined, in general practice, before they were made known !

It was in vain that he had diligently explored the voluminous records of juvenile disease, accumulated both in the capital and in the provinces of France ; in vain that he had pursued his investigations, for a period of five years, in a professional position so enviably favorable to multitudinous and reliable results. None of these considerations could be admitted in extenuation of his heretical transgressions.

But it is one of the highest functions of time to vindicate the patience of truth. This author is now esteemed by many of the most eminent Homoeopathic therapeutists and practitioners of this continent and Europe, as a brilliant exemplar of enlightened and untrammeled advancement in their science.

It was at the urgent solicitation of several of these candid and competent physicians, who had fully verified many of the author's new remedies, over an ample field of observation, that the translator commenced the task she has here performed. Such personal incitements, however, would scarcely have sufficed to induce an undertaking so unusual and adventurous, in one of her unprofessional sex, but for those urgent impulses of humanity toward the infantine misery and mortality of our race, in which, that sex may claim at least, an equal participation with the other.

The grand cycle of alternate production and destruction which perpetually controls the whole sphere of terrestrial being, as the only obvious economy of nature, seems to concentrate its intensest action upon the infancy of the human family. And it is among the loftiest mysteries of Divine government, and more

Preface by the Translator. 3

suggestive, perhaps, than any other, of some compensatory progress of mind in a future state, that so vast a numerical majority of the human race should so continually perish in the mental and organic immaturity of their existence, and in the acutest agonies of disease. But it is, apparently, at the same time, one of the most providential mitigations of that destiny, that an improved system of medicine has at length been discovered, which, to say the least, no longer artificially multiplies the number of these gentle victims, nor aggravates their sufferings.

It has ever been one of the most flagrant reproaches of the Allopathic system, that its violent and repulsive remedies should be so barbarously inapposite to the peculiar sensibilities of childhood. Drugs, so revolting in smell, taste, and quantity, and so inevitably productive of derangement and prostration, in the strongest constitutions, as to severely test the resolution even of adults, have to be forced, by manual cruelty, upon the convulsive repugnance of helpless infants, with the certainty of introducing new distresses, purely medicinal.

It is, therefore, with a maternal sister's liveliest sympathies, that this approved Homoeopathic Treatise on the Acute and Chronic Diseases op Children, is presented to the anguished mothers of America and England. To those heart- wrung watchers of infant suffering, whose yearning hopes and wailing fears have hitherto obtained but slight relief from medicinal resources, the new information furnished in this volume, may restore many a cherished bud, rescued from blight and death to expand in bloom and beauty amid the sunshine of domestic joy.

4 Preface by the Translator.

To professional and literary readers, this Translation is submitted with the deference and diffidence becom ing its feminine source.

For the too obvious literality and versional inele gance of the more technical portions, she can only plead her paramount concern for perspicuity and accuracy, at whatever sacrifice of the graces of style ; and, from all readers of critical discernment, she courts that liberal consideration which she cannot believe will be ungenerously withheld.

CONTENTS,

PAGE

Introduction, 11

What Homoeopathy is, 11

SlMILIA SlMILIBUS ClJRANTUR, 15

PART I. Hygiene of Children, 53

Importance of Education, 53

Nurses — their Duties and Regimen, 61

Regimen during Homoeopathic Treatment, 110

PART II. Diseases of Children ." 115

Diseases of the Skin, 116

Erythema,.. 116

6 Contents.

PAGE.

Cracks, 118

Burns, 118

Frost Bites, 120

Stings, .121

Erysipelas, 122

Zona — Shingles, 125

Pemphigus, • 126

Urticaria, or Nettle-Rash, 126

Furuncles, or Boils, 126

Koseola, 134

Purpura, 143

Miliaria, 144

Sudamina, • 145

Varioloid, 164

Varicella — Chicken-Pox, 165

Vaccina and Vaccinella — Cow-Pox, and Spurious Cow-Pox, 166

Itch, 171

Eczema — Humid Tetter, < 185

Herpes— Tetter, 187

Crusta Lactea — Milk Crusts, 191

Crusta Serpiginosa, 194

Impetigo, 195

Impetigo Rodens, .197

Tinea Favosa — Scald Head, 197

Tinea Granulata, , 201

Tinea Annularis, 202

Pityriasis, , 205

Strophulus, 205

Prurigo, , 206

Psoriasis, , 207

Contents. 7

PAGE.

Syphilis of the New-Born, 221

Stomatitis — Inflammation of the Mouth — Muguet, 229

Aphthae— Thrush, 232

Gangrene of the Mouth, 236

Dentition, 240

Gripings in Infants at the Breast, 258

Colic, 259

Constipation, 260

Dysentery, , 265

Icterus — Jaundice, 276

Peritonitis, 277

Ascaris Lumbricoides, 279

Ascaris Vermicularis,. , .285

Tabes Mesenterica — Atrophy of Children, 290

Coryza, 295

Epistaxis — Bleeding from the Nose, 298

Angina, 298

Asthma of Millar, 312

Bronchitis, 316

Pneumonia, 317

Hooping-Cough,. 320

Phthisis Pulmonalis — Pulmonary Consumption, 324

Diseases of the Circulatory Apparatus, 326

Cerebral Fever, 329

Spinal Meningitis, 333

8 Contents.

PAGE.

Myelitis — Inflammation of the Spinal Marrow, 334

Hydrocephalus, (Chronic) 334

Convulsions, 336

Chorea — St. Vitus's Dance, 338

Balbuties — Stammering, 338

Diseases of the Organs of Sense, 340

Ophthalmia, 340

Otitis, 340

Diseases of the Locomotive Apparatus, 341

Rachitis, 341

NOTE.

' As the term ounce and ounces of water has been used in different formulas in this book, it may be necessary, for the benefit of persons unused to this mode of measuring fluids, to state that, a fluid ounce is equal, in quantity, to two tablespoonfuls.

Preface To The Second Edition

The first appearance of Dr. Teste's work on the Diseases of Children, created quite a lively attention among the practitioners of Homoeopathy. Many of his therapeutical propositions were entirely new, and seemingly -unwarranted by a close reference to the pathogenesis of the proposed remedies ; the distrust and suspicion, therefore, with which at first the profession regarded them, were just and excusable. But these were soon dispelled by frequent and successful trials on the sick, and some of them have proved to be exceedingly efficacious.

Though we may not agree with Dr. Teste in all his propositions, as we certainly do not in many of his pathological views, yet we cheerfully admit that by his singular method in arriving at therapeutical conclusions, he has opened a new and easier way of selecting the proper and specific remedy. In the Pneumonia of children, for instance, which is mostly complicated with hepatic congestion, he precedes the application of pulsatilla and spongia, which he considers specific, by that of chelidonium, which has a specific relation to hepatic disorders. This method seems to shorten the attack very considerably, as I had frequent occasion to observe. The application of chelidonium would generally be followed by the peculiar greenish discharges characteristic of liver -affection.

x Preface to Second Edition.

In croup, on the contrary, his ipecac and hryonia is only efficacious in its catarrhal form, not in the inflammatory, where I still was obliged to exhibit the formerly known remedies. In a like manner does his ipecac and petroleum relieve only the catarrhal dysentery, not the bilious inflammatory or typhous. In many other cases he is deficient in pathological distinctions ; his generalizations are too sweeping, and may induce the heedless to condemn them on the first unsuccessful trial. Yet these faults are outweighed by much that is good.

At this day, I should think, no Homoeopathist would like to dispense with the aid he may derive in his practice from consulting Dr. Teste's suggestions.

It is hoped, however, that the present work will receive, as it certainly deserves, a thorough revision and greater completeness, particularly in its pathology, which should be accomplished by the distinguished author himself.

As this is not yet done, the American publisher contented himself to issue the second edition with such revisions and notes by the undersigned, as slight alterations of the plates would permit, without increasing the cost of the book.

J. H. Pultb, M. D.

Cincinnati, May, 1857.

INTRODUCTION,

Section I. What Homoeopathy Is

Samuel Hahnemann, to whom we are indebted for the fundamental laws of Homoeopathy, is, notwithstanding the insults, that folly and ignorance still offer to his memory, one of the finest geniuses the world has produced.

Among all the benefactors of humanity, no one, perhaps, has a larger claim upon its gratitude. We may safely predict that his reputation will increase with time, and that generations yet unborn will bless his name.

Sixty years have passed since Homoeopathy made its appearance in the world. In consequence of the obstacles which, in the beginning, it encountered from the folly of some, and the envy of others, its progress was at first slow; it shared, in this respect, the fate of all great discoveries. At present, however, it has ceased to be a novelty; no medical school counts more adherents. It is practiced in all civilized

12 What Homoeopathy Is.

countries ; it has its representatives in Turkey, in India, in the two Americas, its dispensaries and its hospitals in most of the capitals of Europe. The books which treat of it would already fill libraries. These works, many of which testify to the great mental superiority of their authors, possess this remarkable feature in contrast with the medical books of the Old School, that they are all devoted to the development of the same principle. It is in fact the unity and invariability of this principle which constitutes the strength of Homoeopathy, and which so forcibly distinguishes it from those deceptive Utopias which, under the usurped name of medical science, have reigned in the schools from Empedocles to Broussais ; that is to say, for more than twenty centuries.

The history of medicine, during this long period, is a compendium of all the dreams, all the extravagances, and all the absurdities which it is possible for the human mind to elaborate, when it strays without an axiom in the domains of abstraction.

To judge it by its history, we must believe that, the medical art, which ceased to be anything when it endeavored to become a science, claimed always to ally itself to metaphysics. If by this ambitious alliance, it escaped the inconvenience of remaining within reach of the vulgar, it incurred the still greater one of losing itself in the clouds.

This strange substitution of sophistry for the pure and simple observation of nature, has its root in an

What Homoeopathy Is. 13

almost invincible tendency of the human mind. " Man," says Broussais, u is tormented by a desire to know the first cause of what he sees, and when the impossibility of discovering it is demonstrated to him he takes refuge in a supposition. " #

We need not then be too much astonished if, from the most remote ages, physicians supposed the first causes of diseases ; and if, this first step made, proceeding from hypothesis to hypothesis, they have supposed even to the virtues of the remedies they prescribed.

The exposition of the system of Galen, whose sterile branches reach even to the present generation, is a summary of all the systems which have succeeded each other, from the infancy of rationalism down to the too famous so-called Physiological School. Abstractions of the closet, chimerical hypothesis, fantastical intervention of three spirits and four humors, whose harmony produces health, and disagreement disease; mysterious connection of these spirits and these humors with the four elements of Aristotle; in short, empiric expedients taken at hazard, to equalize, correct and purify at need, these imaginary principles : such was humorism in its cradle, and such the humor - alism which was the favorite practice of our ancestors, and of which the grossest errors are perpetuated in the medical practice of the present day.

Thank Heaven, Homoeopathy has nothing in com-

* Examen des Doctrines Medicales, tome 1, page 9.

14 What Homceopathy Is.

mon with these fatal extravagances which have so long made medicine a subject of laughter to the philosopher and of deception and dread to mankind in general.

Homoeopathy is not a creation, but a discovery.

It is not a system, but a method.

It has no other theory than the logic of facts ; no other principle than a certain law of nature, as evident as an axiom in geometry — as certain as gravitation and the rotation of the earth.

If the honor of being the first to signalize this law, whose incidental manifestation had struck from time to time some of his predecessors, may be contested with Hahnemann, his glory, his great glory consists in having proved that it was not an exceptional phenomenon, as was believed before him, but a general and constant physiological fact.

We shall consecrate the second paragraph of this introduction to the examination of this axiom of modern medicine.

SlMILIA SlMILIBUS CtJRANTUR. 15

SECTION II. SlMILIA SlMILIBUS CURANTUR

As we have before observed, the system of Galen served as a model to all succeeding writers. In studying them, in fact, we may remark, that the object aimed at by all of them was to reduce to a certain number of entities, or, if you will, to connect with a limited number of morbid agents, material or dynamic, the diseases, so numerous and so dissimilar, to which man is exposed ; then, to oppose to each of these entities, or to each of these morbid agents, a group more or less heterogeneous of therapeutic means. Thence two orders of artificial, arbitrary, forced, unnatural classifications : classification of diseases — classification of remedies.

Let us first observe, that between these conventional diseases and the remedies to be opposed to them, no one thought of seeking to establish any relation. The idea of specific remedies was incompatible with the spirit of the system; so that no suggestion of this idea appears until toward the close of the middle ages ; that is to say, until the epoch when empiricism succeeded in stifling in its brutal grasp an art false from the beginning, and which, notwithstanding its

old scientific pretensions, was still more worthless

16 SlMILIA SlMILIBUS OuRANTUR.

and more dangerous than empiricism itself. But le* us consider things in their origin.

The first elements of therapeutics were a deduction from the precepts of hygiene. As this considered health an equilibrium resulting from the reciprocal neutralization of certain opposite forces in the economy, the first pathologists believed themselves wisely imitating nature in provoking artificially, against the abnormal and excessive tendency of a function at a certain time, a tendency equally excessive, of the same function, in an opposite direction. Thence, naturally, the dogmatic inclination for all the contrasts, whether physiological, or purely physical, which it was possible to obtain. The corrective of cold was heat; of humidity, dryness ; of satiety, abstinence, etc. More abstract considerations did not fail to give rise to new oppositions. The error of the hygienic precepts, generalized by the successors of Hippocrates, was especially in assimilating the living economy to inert matter, and in eliminating theoretically the power of reaction against the external world, which characterizes animal existence, and whose character is such that the same physical causes have almost always upon organic and inorganic being, very dissimilar results. But if, as we begin obscurely to foresee, the harmlessness of these precepts was already very questionable, conceive what medical practice must become, when, to imaginary morbid principles, they ventured to oppose as contraries remedies absolutely unknown !

However, this fatal doctrine of contraries, invented by Galen, seduced away even the finest minds, which then exhausted themselves in vain endeavors to enlighten the chaos of medical art.

Points of departure the most opposite did not hinder its advocates from meeting, almost by fatality, upon this field of fiction, there to labor in the idle search of those abstractions which, under different names, form the basis of the vitalism of Stahl, as well as of the materialistic systems of Brown, of Easori, and of Broussais.

The theory of contraries is then the common tie of all the medical doctrines anterior to Homoeopathy. Let the falseness of this theory be demonstrated and all the systems of which it is the key -stone will crumble at once.

This is what we shall endeavor to do, and this labor of analysis will cost us no great effort.

To cure a disease by means capable of producing in the patient attacked with it, a pathological condition contrary to that which it presents : such is the fundamental law of the theories of the Galenists, in other words, the ideal end of all the schools of medicine from Grecian antiquity down to the present day. But the theory of contraries necessarily supposes between two things certain relations of form or substance, implying, so to speak, a sort of negative similitude, without which, all comparison becoming impossible, there is nothing for the mind to seize upon. In metaphysics, for example, affirmation and negation are contrary things, when relating either to two abstractions of the same category, or to two perceptions exercised by the same sense.

Thus, to the eyes, light is the contrary of darkness, as sound, to the ears, is the contrary of silence. We understand in the same manner, by analogy, but without prejudging, lest we err with regard to the nature of the phenomena, that cold is the contrary of heat ; dryness, the contrary of humidity; hunger, the contrary of satiety. In being but purely relative to our senses, these dychotomies are not on that account the less legitimate, since, after all, the abstractions which they place in contrast have always for each couple identity of substance. But is health then the contrary of disease ? No ! for if, in an abstract and general sense, which represents nothing obvious to the senses, it be so considered, it is by no means the contrary of any definable disease. The contrary of a disease is another disease, at the same time analogous and identically dissimilar to the first. What a problem, just Heaven I Who had ever wittingly the temerity to state it, and above all, the pretension to solve it !

I admit in all strictness and concede, for the moment, to the system-makers, the truth of their hypothesis; that bleeding is the contrary of hyperemia ; leeching the contrary of a local inflammation ; a purgative the contrary of the inertia of the intestines ; but the contrary of variola, of psoriasis, of cancer, of tubercles, of

SlMILIA SlMILIBUS CtJRANTUR. 1\)

herpes, of syphilis, of hysteria, of chorea, of epilepsy, etc., etc. Who has seen it? Who knows it? Who can conceive it ? Who has a mind acute, and inventive enough to represent it ?

The doctrine of contraries is then without foundation. It is but a monstrous vagary, of which routine has propagated the dogmas — of which humanity has borne the terrible effects — and of which physicians themselves have not seldom deplored the emptiness. " Medicine does not advance," says Van Helmont, "it turns upon its axis." And the celebrated Boerhaave, still more pointedly asked himself, in a moment of doubt and discouragement, if it would not have been better for humanity if there had never been a physician in the world.*

Nevertheless, empiricism, that is to say, chance, had from the most remote antiquity sown the germs of a doctrine opposed to that of contraries, which only waited the appearance of a man of genius to be fecundated.

It is twenty-two centuries since Democritus wrote to Hippocrates : "Hellebore, which restores reason to the insane, produces derangement in the healthy." Hippocrates himself had said : " Vomiting is cured by vomiting."

These two propositions, put forth by the two greatest physicians of antiquity, contained the most

20 SlMILIA SlMILIBUS CuEANTUR.

complete contradiction to all received ideas which it is possible to imagine.

Later, the popular observation of facts analogous to the singular curative virtues of hellebore and of emetics, propagated certain practices of which the experience of centuries only confirms the efficacy.

Everybody knows, for example, that the best means of alleviating the pain caused by a superficial burn, is to hold near the fire the burned part ; while this pain, momentarily suspended by immersion in cold water, is reproduced with increased intensity as soon as the immersion is discontinued.

Everybody knows also, that frictions with snow are, so to speak, specific for freezing, in cases where the contrary influence of heat would h^ve no other result than to produce gangrene.

But by the side of these striking facts, empiricism, which, without suspecting it, undermines all systems, hatched other facts still more conclusive. They saw purgatives arrest diarrhea, that rationalism, at the end of its resources, had abandoned. They saw opium, on the contrary, that they had cried up against diarrhea, triumph over constipation, which the use of purgatives had greatly augmented.

These apparent singularities were so often repeated, that it was at length admitted that the greater part of purgative substances, at least, contained contradictory properties, and produced, successively, two orders of phenomena; first, the primary effect, augmentation of

SlMILIA SlMILIBUS CcRANTUR. 21

the peristaltic action, and of the intestinal secretions ; the other, secondary effect, dryness and inertia of the intestines ; so that we need not be surprised to find, in ancient treatises upon medical substances, the same substance, rhubarb for example, figuring at the same time in the class of purgatives and in the class of tonics.

This succession of contrary effects, generally established in regard to purgatives, is by no means a mode of action peculiar to this species of remedies. With closer attention, and above all, with fewer prejudices, physicians would have had no difficulty in understanding that all medicines, without exception, are subject to the same law ; and this first observation would infallibly have led them to verify that other capital point, that the primary effect of medicines, upon which turns the whole system of therapeutics, hardly ever constitutes more than a crisis of short duration, and generally insignificant results ; while the secondary effect, of which little notice was taken, persists for a long time, and in reality represents the virtues and final action of the remedies.

Thus it is easy to comprehend, that the generalization of such observations upon the double action of therapeutic agents, would have had the immediate result of completely overturning the reigning theories. But matters were not yet ripe for such a revolution.

However, this was very nearly accomplished in the sixteenth century, under the auspices of a wonderworker.

Paracelsus, a sort of visionary and pseudo-savant — inventor of the famous doctrine of sympathies, and of the sympathetic ointment, and especially a great seeker after the real — Paracelsus discovered, one day, in one of the ingredients of a combination which, according to him, ought to produce the philosopher's stone, a marvelous remedy for one of the most dreadful diseases known. The remedy had this peculiarity, that it cured without provoking either purgation, sweat, diuresis, or any other species of trouble, apparent in the functions of the organism. This remedy was mercury , and the disease it cured, was syphilis.

The discovery of this fortunate employment of mercury, the insensible, silent, and as it were, secret manner, in which this precious medicine acted ; in short, and above all, the speciality of the cases in which it proved itself salutary, opened evidently new views of therapeutics.

The great problem of specifics, so long laid down by empiricism, had finally, for one disease at least, received a solution. The doctrine of specifics, in a word, ceased to be a dream, to become an unquestionable reality. The whole future of medicine was contained in this ; but unfortunately no one thought of seeking the laws of specifics. It was still necessary, as in the past, to trust to chance, and grope along in the search for specifics ; and, as chance is a bad guide, a blind, a dumb guide — the more dumb the more you interrogate it — it happened that several centuries passed before another medicinal substance was discovered to take rank by the side of mercury.

At last, however, quinine appeared, to double the number of specifics.

It was asserted that quinine * cured intermittent fever, in the same manner that mercury cured syphilis ; that is to say, without causing any of those violent perturbations that all other medicines produced, and from the nature of which were inferred the dominant quality and generic denomination of each.

Quinine provoking neither vomiting, purgation, urine, sweat, nor sleep, was not then an emetic, or purgative, a diuretic, sudorific, or narcotic ; for the grand reason that it was bitter, and under the not less specious pretext that it tanned the gastric fluid, as the bark

* The Allopathic physicians include iron, also, in the number of their specifics. Let it be so — they have then three. What wealth ! And what a proof of the fecundity of clinical experience ! Three specifics in two thousand years ! And yet, it is well to observe that specificity, in the absolute sense, as understood by Allopathy, is really but a gross and lying fiction. There really exist specific remedies against such or such a group of definite symptoms, (we employ no others) ; but from the moment that these symptoms are absent, or no longer exist, the specificity ceases, and the remedy no longer cures, although the disease still exists and has not changed its name. This is equivalent to saying, that it is almost always necessary to have recourse to the employment, successively, of several specifics to cure one disease. This is the reason that Allopathists, who for the most part do not suspect these facts, see so often, what never fails to astonish them, mercury fail in syphilis ; quinine, in intermittent fever, and iron, in chlorosis.

of the oak did leather, they made it a tonic. But this silly denomination, while deceiving practitioners upon the real effects of quinine, was very far from explaining to them how it cured fever. In spite of the persistence and the sophisms of the classifiers, Peruvian bark remained simply and purely & febrifuge, as mercury was an anti'Syjphilitic. That is to say, that they admitted only as primordial facts, that quinine cured fever, and mercury, syphilis. But why did quinine cure fever ? why did mercury cure syphilis ? The science of the most skillful was silent upon this point.

But this terrible why ? — a stumbling-block to the doctrine of contraries — was destined to become the very corner-stone of an opposite doctrine ; that is to say, the supreme law of true medicine.

We borrow from the excellent works of M. Auguste Eapou, the interesting history of this great discovery:

" Tired of the errors of the practice, the vagueness and insufficiency of the precepts of the schools, this celebrated reformer, (Hahnemann,) had abandoned the exercise of the art, in order to devote himself entirely to the labors of the closet. One day, occupied in translating the materia medica of Cullen, at the chapter on quinine, he was struck with the numerous and contradictory therapeutic properties attributed, without criticism, to this remedy, and the various hypotheses, more or less singular, to explain its anti-febrile action. Then, in one of those sudden inspirations of which th e history of great discoveries offers some examples, "Let us cut the knot," he exclaimed, "I will try quinine upon myself, and observe its effects." He took a strong decoction of this bark, and was attacked with an intermittent fever, accompanied by its premonitory symptoms, and by its three stages of cold, heat, and sweat. To argue from cause to effect, of the febrific properties of quinine from its anti-febrile faculty, to generalize this mode of action, and apply it to all specifics, such were, for so ardent a genius, the results of this remarkable experiment. He reflected upon these facts after the manner of Newton, and the conception of the law of similars was accomplished. "The generalization of the facts was, however, an exaggerated application of the analogy. This law of similitude was as yet but a preconceived idea, which could have little other value than as a possibly true hypothesis ; it was now to be proved by showing that it is manifested not only in the effects of quinine, but that it belongs to the mode of action of the various other medical substances. The certainty of this could only be established by a long series of experiments. Hahnemann devoted himself entirely to this object. Endowed with perfect health, he w T as willing for several years to put himself into a state of permanent disease. He tried, successively, the action of the specifics already known, and established for each this remarkable property of producing upon him a totality of symptoms analogous to the groups of symptoms against which, according to the writers, they showed themselves