it does not compare with what is considered crowding in other cities.

Another most important factor in causing good health is an abundance of water unequalled for healthfulness. It is a common joke for the citizens of the North and East to ridicule the hue that our drinking-water at times possesses; but it is a fact well known to seamen that no water throughout the world is so self-preservative as that which stains the blue waters of the gulf for miles beyond the jetties. A cask of Mississippi water may be traveled a year and at the last be sweet, pure and wholesome. It is consumed at the rate of more than fifty gallons per diem to each timating the population at half a million.

person, es

Food of all varieties is abundant, cheap and of the best quality; few markets are better or more lavishly supplied with meats, fish, poultry, game, vegetables and fruits, not only for the rich, but at such rates that the humblest worker may have sufficient.

For our working classes it must be said that as a rule they are temperate and thrifty, the majority looking forward to the possession of house and home.

All these facts furnish sufficient, good and efficient causes for our freedom from epidemics or endemics, favor longevity and healthfulness, and we may confidently anticipate a still further decline in our average mortality.

THE EFFECT OF TRITURATION ON GOLD AND CHARCOAL.

BY C. WESSELHOEFT, M. D., BOSTON.

An article on the effects of trituration, which the writer of the present paper had the honor of presenting as a report to the American Institute of Homoeopathy,* had the effect of stimulating further inquiry into the subject. Although the criticisms were with two exceptions entirely speculative,

*Microscopic examination of triturated metals, etc. of the American Institute of Homœopathy, 1878, page 135.

Transactions

they nevertheless invited a re-examination of the subject, which led to several additional observations and corrections, which I would herewith offer for the consideration of homœopathic practitioners and students who desire to know something in relation to the dose.

The following article will be a synopsis of the report to the Institute, to which remarks concerning more recent observations will be added, as well as allusions to critical views expressed for and against the subject by various writers.

Hahnemann asserts (Chron. Dis., 2d ed., Vol. I.) that by means of trituration with non-medicinal powder, i. e., sugar of milk, certain hard and insoluble substances" undergo a change in their physical and chemical behavior," which renders them "entirely soluble in water and alcohol after they have undergone the change under trituration."

It was for the purpose of observing these asserted physical changes that the microscope was resorted to as the handiest and most available instrument for that purpose; for by its means we ought to be able to detect whether "the changes produced by protracted trituration would prove to be so incredibly great as to border upon the wonderful,”— that is to say, whether they would warrant us in assuming the solubility of these substances in water or alcohol. This is the meaning of Hahnemann's proposition. At his time, the assumption of a transcendent degree of subdivision by trituration was quite admissible. The clinical test seemed to support the hypothesis sufficiently, while microscopic tests were not then, though they might have been, applied.

No estimate can be formed as to the degree of subdivision of matter which Hahnemann assumed to take place, and designated as "wonderful" and "incredible." As will be shown in the following pages, the limit of division by trituration of hard, insoluble substances is from 1-1800 to 1-3000 of a millimetre. At Hahnemann's time this might have been called incredibly small; but at our time we are not warranted in assuming that this size of particles of matter would subvert the laws of chemistry or physics. Hahnemann probably had in mind a degree of subdivision approaching the liquid or even gaseous form, in which case solubility in water or alcohol would have been to a certain

extent possible. It is not difficult to show that such a degree of expansion of surface is not reached by trituration with sugar of milk.

This is a question of pharmacology alone, and is one that every faithful homœopathist should assist in determining. For the purpose of inviting and aiding examination, it will be proper to describe the means to accomplish the purpose.

THE USE OF THE MICROSCOPE AND MAKING PREPARATIONS.

In the article referred to, I stated that magnifying powers of from forty to fifty diameters (inch objectives) would show most particles we are able to produce, and that moderate magnifying powers, from one hundred upwards, would exhibit the limit of trituration. I have not found occasion to retract this statement, but would now lay more stress on the necessity of using high amplifications, from one thousand to three thousand, and higher if possible. Accurate measurements can only be made during the greatest possible amplifications of the object, because small objects, though very distinctly seen (though perhaps not defined), admit only of a more or less accurate estimate, according to the number of particles which may lie between the lines of the micrometer. The cobweb micrometer will give much more exact measurements of highly magnified particles; and we may use the highest magnifying power that will furnish a sufficiently clear outline of the edges, regardless of definition of structure.

I have during my first researches made use both of direct and transmitted light. The latter I have mentioned in numerous places, yet some readers have supposed that I had used direct light exclusively. For the purpose of definition of opaque substances, direct light is indispensable, as in case of the metals, charcoal, etc. If examined by transmitted light, we shall have to guard against the error into which Dr. O. Buchmann* has fallen, of regarding them as transparent; an appearance which is very closely simulated by the well-known phenomena of diffraction. This can readily be guarded against during the use of high powers, *Allgem. Homœop. Zeitung, Vol. XCIX. Nos. 1 to 12.

by carefully adjusting the thickness of the glass cover to the capacity of the ocular, either by measuring the latter or making use of the screw collar to obtain accurate adjustment, position of mirror, etc.

The sugar of milk, though hard to get rid of when we are unfamiliar with its action in the beginning of our researches, is less formidable when we have become acquainted with it. The following are the best methods of preparing triturations for microscopic examination:

1. By dissolving a portion of a grain of a trituration upon a slide, and slowly drying it till it is transparent like varnish. This will show all triturated particles of matter in a state of rest.

2. Balsam-mounted preparations are indispensable, if we wish to view particles separated and unconglomerated; especially pure precipitates of metals and powdered silica, glass, etc. Triturations may also be examined this balsam causes the sugar of milk to vanish, and to bring out opaque particles.

way, as

3. Crystallization of triturations upon a slide under a cover causes perfectly clear spaces to appear, upon which the particles of metal, etc.. may be distinctly seen.

4. By dissolving a particle of a trituration upon a slide, in a drop of water warmed over a spirit lamp. ~ Beneath a cover this will exhibit all non-soluble particles of triturated matter absolutely free from sugar of milk, but disturbed by molecular motion and capillary currents.

These may be examined with transmitted and direct light, clear white daylight, or direct sunlight, applied with or without condensing lens. Oblique direct sunlight is very advantageous in many cases.

Those substances which have been described in my first essay on this subject will be but briefly mentioned here, for the purpose of modifying or making additions to previous statements. In this connection it is necessary to remark that my observations related to triturations made in the centesimal scale, which is the one originally recommended by Hahnemann, and that which, in its third degree, is assumed to admit of solubility. Those who repeated or attempted to criticise my observations from the standpoint

of rigid Hahnemannians have invariably employed triturations in the decimal scale, which, though preferable in other respects, cannot properly be used to refute observations made upon the standard centesimal triturations; for, as I have shown, the less vehicle we use the more even and rapid is the comminution of metals, etc.

The observation applies most particularly to leaf gold. This is the most difficult to bring to an evenly fine degree of subdivision by hand trituration, the method mostly employed since Hahnemann's time. Dr. J. Edwards Smith, of Cleveland, has shown* that triturations made by machines are of much more uniform fineness and evenness of subdivision. The triturations made by hand contain a very great number of exceedingly large and uneven particles, especially where they are prepared in the centesimal scale. When less sugar of milk is used, the uniformity in size is more marked.

Triturations of the centesimal scale show particles up to the VI., but it must be remarked that it is extremely difficult, and requires long and patient labor, to discover them beyond the III., and that it is much easier to examine triturations of the decimal scale.

When all particles thus found in the three successive triturations are properly measured, but a very slight difference in size will be detected, where a great and progressive comminution had been assumed. We find that in the first trituration some of the gold has already attained its minutest subdivision.

In the first essay, I did not state this accurately, giving the dimensions from 1-25 to 1-400 millimetre. I would here correct this statement by adding that even leaf gold cau be made to reach a minuteness of 1-1800 to 1-200 of a millimetre. Such particles are less frequent in the first than in the third trituration, and more numerous in decimal than in centesimal triturations. In those measured by Dr. J. Edwards Smith, the particles of leaf gold are somewhat smaller than according to my measurements.

It will be found upon comparison that the minutest particles of leaf gold are of the same average size as those of *Forthcoming Transactions of the American Institute, 1879.