well ventilated, and perfectly free from emanations of all kinds. To avoid this they must not be prepared in a room where many tinctures are kept, as evaporation is constantly taking place from them, and the atmosphere of the room is consequently impregnated with medicinal emanations.

The TIME Occupied in triturations is too important to be passed over without notice. The length of time occupied by each separate one is, I am sorry to find, a matter on which we are not by any means uniformly agreed. Hahnemann prescribed an hour, and I see no reason to think it too much. Even when the powerful machine I am about to describe is made use of, I would still maintain the hour, not because there is anything sacred in the exact period of sixty minutes, but because if it is left open, one may say forty-five minutes are sufficient, another may say forty and another thirty, until at length each one triturates just so long as it suits his convenience or caprice, and no longer; and as evidence that I do not speak without occasion, I may mention that I have myself found crystals of corrosive sublimate which had been purchased for the third decimal trituration. For my own part I prefer, and would recommend my colleagues, not to content themselves with anything less than the full hour. It will be a great satisfaction to know that we have done all in our power to secure the full success of the medicine, whatever the result of its use may be.

I have now to describe the machine to which I have already alluded. It is the invention of a working man of this city, and when it comes into general use, will prove to the homœopathic chemist an immense boon. I have seen several triturating machines before this, and read descriptions of others, but previous to Hewitt's invention I have seen nothing at all comparable to the human hand. But by means of this invention we can regulate the motion of the pestle with nearly, if not quite, as much precision, and with much more force and effect than it is possible to do by the hand. It is a machine too, which, for simplicity and efficiency, is truly unequalled, and scarcely leaves anything more to be desired in this direction. They are made of different sizes, but the one I shall here speak of is the smallest size, one which the patentee has, at my suggestion, brought out for the use of homœopathic chemists' triturations, &c. This size is adapted for mortars measuring from four to five and a half inches inside diameter, and small as it is, the force can be so increased by means of weights

(which can be taken off or fastened on in a few seconds), that it will pulverise some of our hardest substances, or decreased so as to describe its own movement on paper with a black lead pencil.

Another advantage is that the mortar and pestle can be changed in less than one minute. Another advantage is that it makes little or no noise or dust; Cantharides or Capsicum can be powdered in it without any inconvenience. And the small amount of power required to move itis also a great advantage; a steady youth could work it for hours without any fatigue.

It would be impossible to convey any idea of its simplicity, ingenuity or utility, by a printed or engraved description; like homœopathy, it must be seen doing its work to be fully appreciated. The subjoined engraving will furnish the best idea we can give of its general form and construction.

The machine consists of an iron pillar, two feet high, secured to a wooden base sixteen inches by twelve. The mortar rests in a ring on this base, and from the pillar, about half way up, extends an arm, at the end of which is a ball and socket, forming a sort of universal

joint, through which the pestle passes, and in which it moves in any or every direction. Near the top of the pillar there is another arm, to which a horizontal wheel is attached, which gives motion to the pestle; in this wheel there is a slide, which, in connexion with a toothed wheel and a worm, causes the pestle constantly to vary the orbit it describes in its movement. Beginning from the centre of the mortar, it gradually enlarges the orbit it describes until it attains the sides of the mortar, and then as gradually diminishes until it again regains the centre, leaving no part untouched. A peculiarity of this machine is, that the pestle has three simultaneous yet perfectly distinct movements, viz., the rotary, the eccentric or varying, and also a rolling motion. This last, which is a novelty and appears at first sight to be a disadvantage, is one of its most important recommendations. This is illustrated beautifully by the following experiment. I weighed a certain quantity each of Quicksilver and Sugar of milk, and triturated them together in the machine in the usual way. In fifteen minutes all the globules of Quicksilver had entirely disappeared; the Quicksilver was killed, as it is technically expressed. I then weighed the same quantity of Quicksilver and Sugar of milk as before, and secured the pestle so as to stop the rolling motion, leaving it in every other respect as before; and without the rolling motion it took fifty minutes to produce the same result. I then had the same quantity of the same ingredients triturated with the human hand in the best manner it could effect it, and found it took twenty-nine minutes and a half to accomplish what the machine effected in little more than one half the time. This experiment, together with others which I have not time to mention, settles two points :-first, that for triturations the machine is nearly twice. as efficient as the human hand; and second, that it is more than three times as efficient as it would be without the rolling motion. And it is not difficult to understand why it is so if we remember that when the pestle is firmly grasped, and only rubbed round the sides of the mortar, it acts only on a very small portion at a time, pushing the mass before it, not actually rubbing over it; whereas with the rolling motion it works on to it, and in doing so, if the substance be brittle, it crushes it by its weight, and if tough and fibrous, by the double simultaneous motion, tears the fibres to pieces.

Allopathic Journalism and Justice.

The fact of the temperate, concise, and circumstantial refutation which we publish in the subjoined letter of the most unjust and injurious attack made by the Medical Times upon the character of the writer, having been refused a place in the columns of that journal, is one of the most degrading exhibitions of the low condition of the medical press in this country which has yet come before our notice. It is rather singular that at the time when in obedience to an impulse first received from Edinburgh, the organs of medical opinion in the south should be still pursuing their reckless game of persecution to the utmost of their power, the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh would seem, by their recent conduct, to be repenting of their ill-advised and discreditable course, for we learn that on the motion of Professor Christison, Dr. Macdonald a professed homœopathist, has been received to the full honours of a resident fellow in the northern metropolis.

The insulting terms in which the Medical Times and Gazette rejected Mr. Anderson's letter, deserve to be recorded, as an instance of the injustice and absurdity to which our adversaries have recourse in order to crush their rivals. Like the priests of Beranger's song, their refrain seems ever to be

"Eteignons les lumières

Et rallumons le feu."

"We cannot insert Mr. Anderson's letter, which is left for him at the office. Believing, as we do, that homoeopathy is neither more nor less than a system of quackery, we can no more insert a defence of it in a medical journal, than we could publish a eulogium on Holloway's ointment, or Morison's pills."*

To the Editor of the "Medical Times and Gazette."

SIR, My attention has been directed to some recent editorial articles in your journal, entitled "Difficulties of Homœopathy," in which reference is made to three out of the twenty-six cases of malignant cholera returned by me to the General Board of Health, in November last.

On a careful analysis of the articles in question, it will be found

* Med. T. and Gaz., Oct. 27, 1855.

that, inter alia, the three following grave charges are preferred (by implication) against those homeopathic practitioners who furnished returns of cases of cholera and diarrhoea to the Board of Health. As the largest contributor amongst private practitioners, as an old correspondent of the Medical Gazette,* and as a convert to homœopathy, from conviction, after nearly twenty years ordinary practice, you will assuredly do me the justice to insert a refutation of these charges in an early number of your Journal.

1. The first implied charge is, that there is not the slightest reliance whatever to be placed on any homoeopathic return. I quote your own words. "We must state broadly, that we are perfectly unable to place the slightest reliance on any homœopathic return whatever; and that it is manifest that many cases are described as cholera without collapse, which in the hands of physicians would not have been called cholera at all, but severe or choleraic diarrhoea." † This is a most serious allegation, which if proved, would for ever cover the homœopathic body with infamy and shame. The charge itself may have reference either to the integrity or to the diagnostic capabilities of the practitioners in question. Now, it happens most fortunately that on both these points positive proof can be afforded, for the forms sent by the Board of Health are so arranged, that in the event of falsehood, detection is quite easy, and an inaccurate diagnosis almost impossible. To explain, in the second column of the blank forms the heading runs, "Residence when attacked, street and number of house," in the third column the " sex," in the fourth the "age," in the fifth the "rank and occupation." These particulars secure identification; but to remove all possible doubt in this matter, as far as my own cases are concerned, and with these I have chiefly to do, the name in full or the correct initials were given in each case, and in a note the identical symptoms upon which the diagnosis was based. Now, supposing that a false or incorrect return had been made, how easy to enquire at the residence mentioned, whether a case similar to the one reported had occurred there; nay, more, to enquire in reference to certain symptoms, such as cramp, vomiting, diarrhoea, collapse, which in cholera are so marked that no difficulty could possibly arise in obtaining the neces

* Vide several Essays and Papers in the Medical Gazette for 1835-6. † Medical Times and Gazette, Aug. 11, 1855, p. 138.

Report of the Committee for Scientific Inquiries in Relation to the Cholera Epidemic of 1854, p. 84.