commenced it, on July 1st-taking it three times a day and Codliver oil at night, we continued this treatment for two months.

Change of air was advised, so she went to Folkestone. After her return to London the mental symptoms very much improved, the albumen diminished to a mere trace, she had gained flesh and strength, and the catamenia appeared. The mercurial treatment was continued until the end of September, by which time she made a good convalesence.

Natrum muriaticum. By Dr. USSHER.

WM. COATES, very pale, worn look, works long hours as a printer, complains of tingling sensation in scrotum, with feeling of great discomfort. Every other day there is a sensation of a fluttering in heart and throat, which he compares to a bird. November 3rd: Nat. mur. 6x, a few powders, with such decided improvement both in sensation and appearance that I went to the 30th of the same drug on December 18th; and January 8th he is fairly well, and tells me that several men are suffering from like symptoms in the same shop. They are compositors. The lead in the type handled is, I believe, at the bottom of all this. Not long ago I put some Nitrate of Lead, 2x trituration, on an onychia while the patient was taking it internally. It produced painful swelled testicle immediately. I think I reported it in The Organon, but I forget which testicle was affected. At any rate this feeling of discomfort, which is a very common one, with face of a dirty, pasty, white colour, is well met by Nat. mur. You have the same complexion in those who live in underground cellars, and in climacteric women who are menstruating profusely.

MISCELLANEOUS.

The Lancet and Homœopathy.

OUR trenchant contemporary has been lately airing its views on homœopathy in editorials of enormous length. In the course of its investigations it discovered a notable mare's nest, viz. that homœopathic remedies, though they might be selected in accordance with the rule similia similibus, did not cure in accordance with that rule, but on the principle contraria contrariis. Having made this great discovery it triumphantly exclaimed that it wondered what homeopathists could say to that, for it was undoubtedly true, and being so homœopathy must needs be false. Several homoeopathists replied, admitting that it might well be true that the actual modus operandi of the homoeopathie remedy was contraria contrariis, that many homeopathic writers had already alleged this to be the case, but that that did not affect the truth of the so-called homoeopathic rule, which was merely a rule for the selection of the remedy and not an explanation of its mode of action. The homeopathic rule was expressed by the formula similia similibus curentur, let likes be treated by likes, which, of course, referred only to the principle of selection of the remedy. All this might be admitted and yet homœopathists remain as staunch to their colours as ever, these colours being as has been over and over explained: -1. The proving of drugs on the healthy. 2. The selection for the cure of a disease of a drug that is capable of manifesting on the healthy symptoms similar to those of the disease. 3. The administration of such a medicine alone and in a small dose. Thus, it will be seen that the whole essence of homoeopathy consists in rules for treatment, and that the word does not imply any theory of disease or any theory of medicinal action whatever. The Lancet seems to have been very much taken aback by being thus

informed that its supposed discovery had long since been discounted by the homeopaths, so, though it magnanimously published the letters that showed the futility of its objections, it curtly put an end to the discussion in its columns in the following editorial, which is more remarkable for its display of unreasoning ill-temper and mortification than for any other quality:

"Homœopathic Remedies' do not act Homœopathically.-The medical profession and the public will be interested to learn, on the highest authority, that homoeopathists do not themselves believe that what are called homeopathic remedies' act homeopathically. It seems that no homeopathist has of late years ever pretended that the drugs he employs cure disease on the principle similia similibus curantur! This dogma is simply a statement of the so-called 'principle' on which the homoeopathist selects his remedies! This is obviously a minor consideration, and one in which the public has little, if any, interest. What the patients of homoeopathic practitioners expect from these gentlemen, and fee them for, is homœopathic treatment. It is a matter of perfect indifference to the sick man or his friends how the physician selects his drugs. The only practical question is how he treats his cases, and in what manner the drugs act. Having elicited a frank confession of the facts as to the action of drugs we can only appeal to honest men still connected with the so-called Homœopathic School' to abandon openly a position which they admit does not exist, and which is, therefore, only a name, full of meaning to the lay public, but of no significance to themselves. We do not wish to speak strongly on the subject, but it is certainly the reverse of candid to retain a name which means nothing and deludes the public. With the publication of the letters which appear in another column the discussion must end. The truth is now at length before our readers on the admission of leading homoeopathists, and the only possible inferences are writ large and plain."

We wonder who informed the Lancet that our patients are not concerned as to how we select our remedies, a subject on which we are all agreed, and which constitutes the peculiarity of our system, but only as to how these remedies act, a subject on which the greatest diversity of opinion prevails and always has prevailed. This is an afterthought of the Lancet, and is only

introduced for the purpose of enabling it to retire from a contest in which it has been worsted with a pretence of an unanswerable objection, which can deceive none who have paid the slightest attention to the controversy, but may serve to throw dust in the eyes of those who have not. The fact is that all along the Lancet has been deceived by its own erroneous interpretation of our formula similia similibus curentur or curantur as it reads it. It has thought that this means 66 likes are cured by likes," and that it conveys an explanation of the mode of action of our remedies. It cannot yet take in the true meaning of the Latin motto, which is "let likes be treated by likes" or "likes are treated by likes," which merely prescribes the way in which drugs are to be selected for diseases, but gives no hint of their mode of action. When told of its mistake the Lancet cannot conceal its irritation that homeopathy is not what it had ignorantly supposed it to be, and it vents its illhumour on us, as if we could help it that the Lancet knew nothing about the subject on which it chose to write ex cathedra. It is, however, rather too bad that the Lancet should exclaim "habemus confitentem reum" when it should be humbly saying "peccavi."

The Ethics of Mongrelism.

OUR colleagues who are suffering from that "bee in the bonnet,"the high dilution mania, have a craze for giving themselves extraordinary names. At one time they are "Hahnemannists," then "homœopathicians," then members-or knights, perhaps-of the "Legion of Honour," and now we have still another name assumed for his practice by Dr. Skinner, viz., "mongrelism," the ethics of which he professes to set forth in a pamphlet of twelve pages, which he intends as a supplement to the defunct Organon, the paging of the last and only number for this year of which it follows. It seems rather a pity that Dr. Skinner should only have found the appropriate name for the very peculiar practice he endeavoured to engraft on homoeopathy in his periodical, The Organon, after that publication had ceased to exist. The editorial

chair of The Organon must have been rather an uneasy seat, we should imagine, for all except Dr. Skinner and his transatlantic alter ego Dr. Lippe; for we find that during its brief existence of three years and a quarter its editorial staff was changed several times. The first two and a half volumes were carried on more or less harmoniously by Drs. Skinner, Berridge, Lippe and Swan. With the third number of Vol. III the tetrarchy became a triumvirate by the defection of Dr. Swan, and in the first and only number of Vol. IV the personnel of the editorial triumvirate was changed by the substitution of Dr. Bayard for Dr. Berridge. Though lost to the editorial staff Dr. Berridge still continued his connexion with The Organon as a contributor, but since its decease-perhaps from sorrow at its premature extinction-he has taken to writing on "Euthanasia" in The Homœopathic World.

"Of comfort no man speak,

Let's talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs."

About the appropriateness of the term "mongrelism," as applied to the singular practice of Dr. Skinner and his associates, there can be no two opinions. Hahnemann's homœopathy we know, his directions are precise and unmistakable, and it is astonishing how an advocate of the high-potency "mongrelism' can claim at the same time to be one of the "upholders and true followers of Hahnemann." It is hardly sufficient to say one is a true follower of Hahnemann if in practice one departs so far from the rules laid down by Hahnemann, but this we suppose is an illustration of the "Ethics of Mongrelism."

Hahnemann, as we know, was very anxious to establish a uniform dose for all medicines, and he fixed on the thirtieth dilution as the standard potency, beyond which it was not desirable to go, even though he admitted the activity of still higher potencies. "I do not approve," he wrote in 1829, "of your dynamizing the medicines higher (as, for instance, up to XII and XX [thirty-sixth and sixtieth dilutions]). There must be some end to the thing, it cannot go on to infinity. By laying it down as a rule that all homœopathic remedies be attenuated and dynamized up to X (thirtieth dilution), we have a uniform mode of procedure in the treatment of all homeopathists, and when they describe a cure we can repeat it, as they and we operate with the same tools. In one word, we would do well to go on uninterruptedly in the