attempts to do so. His recognition of the Homoeopathic law does not signify that he is any the less a physician in general, but rather, that he is more amply qualified to contend against human ailments in all forms and by all means.

The conclusion is forced upon us then, that whatever information as to the powers and uses of drugs the work of the physician requires, he should by all means possess.

Omitting much of the technical knowledge that belongs to the pharmacist, we are safe in saying that the homoeopathic physician should know:

1. The physical or scientific characteristics of each drug he is to employ, so far as to be able to identify it when necessary.

2. Its poisonous or destructive properties, absolute or conditional, together with its antidotes, chemical or otherwise.

3. Its pathogenetic effects in the human organism when used in definite, but not really poisonous quantities.

4. Its stimulant, anæsthetic, soporific, or other palliative influence when used in certain quantities and ways.

To enlarge a little I would say that, the physician, while obtaining his remedies chiefly, if not altogether, from the pharmacist and trusting largely to his capability and faithfulness, should be able to recognize the original articles and understand something of the treatment they must receive to fit them for his use.

Drugs of any considerable power are all more or less poisonous and it is not always easy to draw the line between the poisonous and the medicinal doses. The difference is one of quantity or degree and not one of kind.

In gathering up the pathogenesy or positive effects of a drug the writer of materia medica must cull from cases of poisoning as well as from provings purposely made. He thus gets the more violent or deeper effects as well as the more ephemeral. But the essential point, in all gatherings expected to be reliable and useful to the Homœopathic physician, is to have facts and not fancies.

If the record of symptoms observed in cases of poisoning has been badly made, or if the experimental provings have been carelessly conducted so as not to exclude vitiating influences the pathogenesy must be far from reliable and useful.

It is undoubtedly the duty of the Homœopathic physician to know what the effects or symptoms produced by his drugs are, not in per

sons sick already but in persons otherwise well. But he is subject to a delusion and a snare if he imagines he will know them when he has committed to memory all the symptoms in Materia Medica Pura, in Jahr's Manual, in the Encyclopædia of Pure Materia Medica or in the Cyclopædia of Drug Pathogenesy.

It is a lamentable fact, shown indisputably by the higher medical criticism, that the sources of impurity, the gateways to the realms. of imagination, misapprehension and even fraud were not all shut while the drug pictures were being taken.

Applying all the rules of evidence to the witnesses whose testimony constitutes our materia medica, we must realize that very few of them have come up to the standard requiring "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" concerning drug effects.

Exhaustive provings, conclusive as to the full range and power of any one drug we do not possess; nor can we pride ourselves on having the pathogenesy of any one drug entirely free from spurious symptoms. And, yet, the information we have gathered and confirmed by clinical experience enables us, and enabled Hahnemann, under the law similia, to accomplish in the treatment of the sick what could not be accomplished by the highest knowledge of the old style materia medica, however exercised or employed.

While doing practically the best he can with present light, the Homœopath looks forward to a time when his knowledge of the properties and powers and so the uses of drugs, will be more complete, less vitiated and more in keeping with the demands of his therapeutic law.

In conclusion it should be said that the Homoeopathic student should be taught, not only the symptomatology as required in Homœopathic practice, but likewise, the nature and uses of drugs as pallia

tives and antidotes and how to meet any of their effects as poisons.

1

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF NATRUM MURIATICUM.

BY SAMUEL A. JONES, M.D., ANN ARBOR, MICH.

[The writer never "fought with wild beasts at Ephesus," but he lectured before them now and then at Ann Arbor, and it was for such an occasion that the following paper was prepared.

The use of "table salt"-and especially the thirtieth dilution thereof in disease was a favorite theme for ridicule with both students and professors of regular 7 X 9 dimensions. That salt had ever been used as a "remedy" in their own school was a therapeutical fact of which both professors and students were equally igngrant, and it was a double-barreled charity to enlighten them.

Moreover, salt is indicated for dimness of sight and softening of the cartilages, and these symptoms occurring about then the first in some Homoeopathic students, and the latter in the backbone of a Homœopathic professor of practice-were "characteristics" that also called for this lecture.]

THE Chloride of Sodium plays an indispensable part in promoting the functions of the animal organism. Its importance in the metamorphosis of the tissues is shown by the fact that it forms the greater part of the soluble constituents of the ashes of all animal substances. It is found also in the bile, blood, chyle and in many exudations; in the gastric juice and the pancreatic; in the so-called muscular juice; in lymph, in milk, in mucus, in the saliva, in the sweat, in tears, in transudations and in the urine.

It is so uniformly present in vegetables that Lehmann thought the ordinary articles of vegetable food sufficient to supply the quantity of salt necessary for the animal body. Moreover, Liebig has shown that tempests carry salt from the ocean far into the interior, and thus supply the spring water with it.

These are significant facts, and in accordance with them physiological chemistry uniformly recognizes the chloride of sodium as

indispensably essential to animal life. "All food," says Michael Foster, "contains certain saline matters, organic and inorganic,. having in themselves little or no latent energy, but yet either absolutely necessary or highly beneficial to the body. These must have important functions in directing the metabolism of the body; the striking distribution of them in the tissues, the preponderance of sodium and chlorides in the blood serum, and of potassium and phosphates in the red corpuscles, for instance, must have some meaning, but at present we are in the dark concerning it. . . . We know that the various saline matters are essential to health, that when they are not present in proper proportions nutrition is affected, as is shown by certain forms of scurvy; we are aware of the peculiar dependence of proteid qualities on the presence of salt, but beyond this we know very little."

Professor Foster indicates the sphere of action of the Chloride of Sodium when he says that it must have an important function in directing the metabolism of the body. It is, indeed, largely and indispensably instrumental in that series of functions by which food is converted into tissues, and tissues are broken down and expelled from the organism; in other words, it is a nutrition agent. It makes the proteids soluble, it enhances endos- and exosmosis by its influence upon the absorbing power of the blood. It preserves the form and color of the red blood-corpuscles; it enables the hæmoglobin to take up oxygen and the blood to absorb gases. Through these various means it is an essential aid in elaborating the plasma from which all tissues are made. "A certain quantity of the chloride of sodium," says Vogel, "appears to be absolutely requisite for the production of many of the secretions, for the purposes of assimilation, the secretion of the gastric juice, of the bile, and for the formation of many of the tissues, especially of the cartilages; and, on the other hand, an excess of Chloride of Sodium in the body may act hurtfully, and, in particular, by interference with the blood formation and [the] destruction of the albumen. This interference with the "destruction of the albumen" means diminished metabolism, and this would evince itself by a lowering of the body temperature and a decrease in the urea quantity; in other words, by sub-oxi

dation.

Hofmann declares that the Chloride of Sodium "increases the capacity of the constituents of the blood for oxidation." Lehmann

answers that this assertion requires proof. We find other discrepant testimony in regard to the physiological action of sodium chloride, and dependant, as we believe, upon differences in the bodily conditions of those upon whom the experiments were made. For instance, Neubauer and Genth investigated the action of the baths at Wiesbaden, which contain chiefly the Chloride of Sodium. In Neubauer the amount of urea was increased 6.57 grammes in twentyfour hours, in Genth it was diminished. At that time the health of these observers must have been oppositely different, for the rule in regard to the physiological action of this chloride is: If the balance of nutrition is at equilibrium, the sodium chloride in sensible doses will eventually decrease the amount of urea by interfering with the tissue metabolism, while if the rate of metabolism is below the physiological mean, the same chloride will increase the elimination

of urea.

Boussingault experimented upon six oxen by supplying salt in the fodder of three and withholding it from the others. The animals which were deprived of salt presented a less smooth and shining coat, the hair matted and in part fell off, their gait was heavy, and they exhibited a cold temperament; that is, the nutrition was impaired and the temperature fell from sub-oxidation. It is, then, an essential to normal tissue-oxidation.

Parkes cites an experiment with sodium chloride that extended over seventy-two days, during which 443 grains were taken daily. for thirty-six days, and 169 grains daily for the remaining thirtysix. The urea increased only 13 grains per diem. "This increase,' says Parkes, "is quite immaterial, and from these experiments it might be concluded that the Chloride of Sodium does not, in any affect the urea in man."

way,

Did not these doses defeat the object of the experiment? M. Fernet says that excess of Chloride of Sodium lessens the capability of the blood to absorb all gases, and therefore oxygen, and this would limit the transformation of tissue. And Vogel affirms that an excess of chloride of sodium in the body interferes with the chemolysis of the albumen. Both of these conditions would bring about the end stated by Parkes.

The quantity of the agent administered determines the quality of the resulting action. Rabuteau found that salt, in considerable quantities, greatly increased tissue-change and the excretion of urea,