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"It is solely on the law of electivity that the Italian therapeutic school is based, and, as every one knows, the law of similarity is the foundation of the school of Hahnemann. The Italian school stops short at the first term of the general formula; the German school embraces both terms. what gives an incontestable value to both these therapeutic schools; indeed, to say the truth, in as far as therapeutics are concerned, they are the only schools from which we can seriously expect any scientific response.

"The two therapeutic laws formulized above, are substantially accepted by Professor Trousseau. There is reason in everything,' says the learned therapeutist, even in the most improbable reveries. In the homœopathic doctrine there is a therapeutic truth that was not unknown to the Galenists, that was revived by Paracelsus, and lauded by Van Helmont: it is, that a remedy, in order to be specific or direct, should act on the part where the disease is acting. But howsoever it may do this, whether it causes symptoms of similar appearance, or symptoms of dissimilar appearance, in both cases it acts according to the principle contraria contrariis, that is to say, its effects being incompatible with those of the disease, they exclude and neutralize one another.'-(Traité de Thérapeutique, t. i, Introduction, p. 79, 1855.)

"M. Trousseau wishes to call the law of substitution what Hahnemann has termed the law of similarity. Directing his attention to the object attained, the cure, the Parisian professor exclaims contraria contrariis; whilst the German physician, comparing the symptoms caused by the medicine with those of the disease, proclaims the formula similia similibus curantur. In truth, there is nothing but a verbal difference between the two, and in my opinion, M. Trousseau has followed Hahnemann exactly in the matter of the fundamental law of similarity.

"Let us recapitulate. The only natural method to follow in order to found a positive and rational system of therapeutics, is first to establish a good system of pharmaco-dynamics, and then to determine the relation that exists betwixt the physiological and the therapeutical fact. If the same active powers of observation, that have been so happily applied during the last

fifty years on the domain of pathology and diagnosis, be directed towards these studies, we cannot fail eventually to found something useful and valuable.

"The reign of eclecticism approaches-to remain unattached to any one of the various schools, to keep himself aloof from their reciprocal prejudices and exaggerations, to judge of all of them with independence and dignity, and to constrain himself to introduce into traditional medicine the sum of all the truths scattered among the different schools-such should be the aim of the modern physician, whilst suum cuique should ever be his motto."

We feel that any comment of ours on this remarkable paper would be superfluous. The author takes a large and philosophical view of the whole subject of therapeutics, and though nominally he belongs to the ranks of our opponents, practically he testifies to the truth of homoeopathy, and justly assigns to Hahnemann the merit of having first taught the true law of healing. This paper is the most hopeful sign of the times we have met with for a long time in allopathic literature. It reminds us of the first article of Hufeland on homœopathy, but it goes much further, and acknowledges much more explicitly the universality of the homœopathic law as the truth in therapeutics than the learned but timid German could bring himself to do. When shall we see such a paper written by an English professor of the dominant school, and published in an English allopathic journal?

A few more such articles as this from our opponents, and we shall laugh at all their attempts to revive obsolete laws in order to crush us, at their unanimous votes for our exclusion from their societies, and at all their puny attempts to extinguish a great truth by the arm of the law, and by unreasoning clamour. There is a moral force at work in the very heart of the allopathic school, that acts much more effectually to advance homœopathy, than the physical force measures of our opponents can ever do to retard its sure triumph. It is probably an uneasy consciousness of this, that renders the present attacks on us here and on the continent so very bitter and irrational; as the efforts of a garrison will sometimes become more desperately violent, when all hopes of success and of quarter are at an end.

415

ON THE POISONOUS PROPERTIES OF THE YEW,

BY MESSRS. CHEVALIER, DUCHESNE & REYNEL.

Translated and extracted from the Journal de la Soc. Gall, Jan. 1856, BY DR. ADRIAN STOKES.

THIS important work, published in the July and October numbers of the Ann. d'Hyg. Pub. et de Med. Lég. for 1855, is in many respects too interesting to be let pass without notice, whether we regard it as an experiment on animals and man, or in its therapeutical and toxological relations. We therefore present our readers with the chief points in the memoirs, reserving a few comments of our own for the conclusion.

Two attempts to procure abortion have recently come before the tribunals. One of these cases decided the authors to revive the ancient experiments with this plant, and to collect the information concerning it which was scattered through various scientific publications.

The poisonous qualities of the yew were known to the ancients, who made it a funereal emblem. It is called Euvλa in Greek, Muhos by Theophrastus; and in Latin Taxus baccata. It grows to ten yards in height on its native mountains, but seldom reaches this height under cultivation. The bark is rough and liable to crack and exfoliate. The branches are numerous, horizontal, and droop a little towards their extremities. The foliage is of a blackish green, and gives the tree a heavy, sombre appearance. The leaves are linear, persistent, and disposed like the teeth of a comb in double rows, along the branches. The flowers are monoecious or dicecious, axillary, sessile, showing but little; the males most numerous. The fruit is a little nut covered by a cupule, first round and fungous, then hemispherical and membranous, finally fleshy, berryshaped, red, and perforated at the top. It encloses an indehriscent kernel, which contains a white fleshy nut, agreeable to the taste. The wood is hard and takes a fine polish.

This tree grows in the sombre valleys of the Alps, on the mountains of Savoy and Switzerland, and is found cultivated in

many parks. Many yew trees are known of prodigious size and great antiquity. There are several varieties of it called. Taxus canadensis, T. capensis, T. elongata, T. falcata, T. latifolia, T. macrophylla, T. montana, T. nucifera, T. spinulosa, T. tomentosa, T. verticillata.

The Bark-Harmand de Montgarni has related two observations on the powdered bark of the yew, which we shall mention when we come to speak of its therapeutic action; at present we shall only mention one of them, from which it appears that the yew bark has caused secondary disorders of some gravity.

"In 1777 a journeyman potter of 40 years of age, and of spare but good constitution, had suffered during 16 months from a quartan fever which he could not get cured. He drank on the day of the attack a pint of white wine, in which an ounce of yew bark had been infused the previous day. The fever returned no more: there was no evacuation save two stools on the day he took the draught; but about a month afterwards his body became covered with pustules, all the hairy parts became denuded, and the man remained imbecile during two months that the skin was diseased. Since then the hue of the skin remains of a dirty leaden grey, and although his health is commonly good, he has had two attacks of black jaundice very difficult to remove."

We have only made one experiment with the bark infused in wine, but felt nothing more than a slight bitterness in the mouth, from its taste.

The ancients believed it to be dangerous to stand or lie under the shade of yew trees. Ray seems to think so, for he says that the gardeners at Pisa could not remain more than half-anhour at the work of trimming the yew trees without suffering violent headaches.

Harmand de Montgarni relates that a dog, subject to convulsive movements of the extremities, used to go and lie under the shade of the yew in his garden, when he was immediately freed from his ailment and fell into a lethargic state lasting several hours. He also relates that one of his father's servants passed a night under the same tree. When she awoke the next

morning her body was covered with a copious miliary eruption, and she was as if intoxicated for the space of two days. On the third day the rash disappeared, and there was an abscess formed at the right knee, which broke on the eleventh day, and was followed by the girl's death on the fourteenth.

However it is asserted by Pena, Daléchamp and Bulliard, that the shade of the yew tree exercises no injurious influence. Mr. Puteaux, chief gardener at Versailles, has kindly given the following information on this subject:

'The workmen who have trimmed the trees for years have never felt any inconvenience therefrom. In summer we daily see plenty of people lying on the grass under the yews in the park without being in the least affected by so doing. And every year many species of birds build their nests in the branches."

§ I.-On the Effects of the Green Leaves on Man.

The ancients knew the toxic, and even the fatal qualities of the yew Julius Cæsar tells us" Cativulcum, Eburonum regem, ætate jam confectum, cum labores, aut belli, aut fugæ, ferre non posset, taxo se infecisse: an foliorum succo, an foliis potius ipsis determinari nunquam potest!"-A matter of very small importance.

Percival says that three children who took fresh yew leaves as a vermifuge at seven in the evening, were taken at nine with chills, drowsiness and convulsive movements. One of them vomited and was griped: the two others showed no signs of pain, and all three died the same night without convulsions.

In Hufeland's Journal it is stated that a young woman, pregnant, died suddenly. The body was opened, and crushed yew leaves were found in the stomach, the mucous membrane of which, as well as that of the intestines, was inflamed.

The cases of poisoning by the fresh leaves are very few: and it is not certain that they were used, or the juice, in those we know of. The bitter and nauseous taste of the leaves when chewed would make it difficult to take a sufficient quantity to produce a fatal effect.

VOL. XIV, NO. LVII.-JULY, 1856.

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