9. In order to prevent the increase of the number of disabled paupers, it is most important that the health of the healthy inmates should be kept up to the highest standard, for which purpose the masters and matrons of workhouses, as well as all schoolmasters and schoolmistresses should have an elementary, popular and practical knowledge of the injurious and beneficial influences affecting health. This sanitary knowledge should be imparted to the children, whose bodily faculties should be developed simultaneously with their mental faculties.

10. This sanitary knowledge should form a part of the instruction in the training schools of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, of whom we cannot expect that they should bestow more care on the preservation of the health of their pupils so long as they are entirely ignorant on the subject; the preservation of individual health depends upon the parents and schoolmasters, but not on the medical man who enters on his duties, in the great majority of cases, only after those of the educator have been neglected.

11. The importance of a large garden or play-ground as an indispensable part of a workhouse has been sufficiently advocated and proved by the condition of those schools and workhouses which are not sufficiently provided in this respect.

12. The kitchen fire in workhouses and charitable institutions can by the aid of hot water or steam provide the necessary warmth in the various apartments, and sufficient warm water or steam for baths, which are most important in preserving health, in cutting short many diseases at the beginning, or in curing them when developed.

Conclusion. It is most important not only to diminish the amount of ill-health at present existing among our poor population, but we must prevent as far as it depends upon ourselves all the causes artificially producing disease and deteriorating the general health; the number of inmates of our workhouses would thus considerably decrease, and a diminution of poor rates would go hand-in-hand with the improved health of the paupers.

Report of the Homœopathic Congress of 1856.

Homœopathic Congress, held at the Thatched House, London, 30th May, 1856. Present-Dr. Atkin, Dr.Wyld, Dr. Dudgeon, Dr. Roth, Mr. Robertson, Mr. Engall, Mr. Frith, Dr. Drysdale, Dr. Black,

Mr. Hering, Dr. Pope, Mr. Morgan, Dr. Henriques, Dr. Scott, Dr. Tonnsilmann, Dr. Thomas, Dr. Epps, Dr. Hastings, Dr. Drury, Dr. Cronin, Dr. Hamilton, Mr. Bell, Dr. Boddy, Mr. Mackern, Mr. Anderson, Dr. Craig, Dr. Massy, Dr. Kidd, and Dr. Hartmann, viz., 29 present.

Dr. Atkin was called to the Chair.

Dr. Epps proposed, "That the secretary for the next Congress should send out a circular some months previous to the time of meeting, in order that members might have time to prepare papers." Agreed to.

Dr. Black proposed, "That the next meeting be held in Birmingham."

Agreed to.

Dr. Black proposed, "That the Congress be held every second year, instead of annually."

Dr. Drury moved, "That it be held annually."-Carried.

Therefore the next meeting will be held in Birmingham in 1857. Dr. Wyld proposed, "That Dr. Fearon and Dr. Galloway should be requested to act as joint secretaries for the next Congress." Agreed to.

Dr. Scott then read his address.

Mr. Hering rose to thank Dr. Scott for his interesting address, so full of right feeling and ingenious observation.

Dr. Dudgeon in rising to second Mr. Hering's motion, observed in connection with Dr. Scott's observations upon the possibility of finding a law which might apply to the dilution of the medicine most appropriate to any given character in disease-that the idea had been much discussed in Germany, and indeed generally followed by most practitioners, although nothing approaching to the certainty of a law had yet been established on this point.

Mr. Engall asked the question, whether those present were in the habit of continuing to administer remedies appropriate to uterine disease during the menstrual period.

Dr. Henriques had much pleasure in thanking Dr. Scott for his address, but did not believe that a law as to the dilution could ever be arrived at, seeing that individuals were continually varying in their susceptibilities to medicinal influence; for instance, at one time an individual could take a large quantity of wine with benefit to himself, while at another time the smallest quantity acted hurtfully. He had had much experience in the intermittent fevers of the tropics,

and held it as a fact that our infinitesimal doses were often useless in checking the paroxysm in such cases, but that 5, 6, or 10 grains of Quinine were often necessary to cut short such cases.

Dr. Scott rose to explain that he did not mean to imply that a law regarding the dilution might be established universally applicable to different kinds or names of diseases, but only applicable to different characters in diseases.

Dr. Drysdale observed that although full doses of medicine might cut short a disease, this could not be regarded so much in the light of a homœopathic cure as of an allopathic expedient for a temporary benefit only. He feared a law relating to the dilution could not be established, experience being the only sure guide in this matter.

Dr. Wyld observed in connection with Dr. Henriques's observations on the necessity in certain cases of giving full doses of medicine, that he had long believed delirium tremens was a disease requiring full doses of Opium, and this opinion he had lately had confirmed by the testimony of Dr. Keen, of the Royal Army, who informed him that he often failed to cure this disease in the soldier with 20 drop doses of Laudanum, while he invariably succeeded by increasing the dose to the required amount to produce sleep, in which case 24 hours was the usual duration of the attack-the cures remaining complete.

Dr. Black observed in illustration of the difficulty there existed in arriving at satisfactory information in medicine, that an American physician had lately published a paper shewing that in 80 cases he never succeeded in curing delirium tremens with Opium alone; and with reference to the intermittent fever of the tropics, he had cured such cases most completely with infinitesimal doses, after full doses of Quinine had failed in the hands of allopaths for years. He feared that our discussion was not likely to lead us to the discovery of a law with reference to the dose.

Dr. Henriques did not mean to say that full doses of Quinine were required in all cases, but in certain cases of intermittent fever-that was his experience, and he would mention the case of a gentleman present who took, with his advice and that of Dr. Chapman, 6-grain doses of Quinine, without which he firmly believed that the patient would have perished.

Mr. Hering said he was the individual alluded to, and he also believed that he was a living illustration of the fact of full doses being sometimes necessary to cut short a paroxysm and thus save life.

Mr. Robertson having watched the case of Mr. Hering closely,

believed that without the administration of the large dose spoken of the patient must have perished.

Dr. Kidd sympathised with Dr. Scott in his desire to discover a law applicable to the dose. He gave full doses of medicine whenever he thought it necessary to do so, but instead of giving, as Dr. Henriques did, 5 or 10 grains of Quinine at a time, he should prefer giving gr. j, or gr., doses repeatedly. Two other homœopathists treated a case of passive hæmorrhage from the liver and duodenum for ten days, but without any good result-the patient appeared to be rapidly sinking-and when nearly in articulo mortis, he gave 3 grains of Gallic acid every two hours, and immediately all hæmorrhage ceased, and the patient rapidly recovered.

Dr. Boddy would not deny that Dr. Kidd had acted wisely, still he had lately cured a case of frightful hæmorrhage from the mucous membrane by Arnica 3, in three days.

Dr. Hamilton thought that although Dr. Wyld, Dr. Henriques, and others might have failed to cure certain diseases by infinitesimal doses, that this was no proof that such doses were not sufficient, but only that these gentlemen had failed to hit upon the right remedy.

Mr. Engall was glad to find that the patient alluded to had recovered in Dr. Kidd's hands, but he would suggest whether the patient was not rather cured by the medicine which he (Mr. Engall) had given, and Dr. Kidd's Gallic acid might be regarded as abstinence from treatment. He had lately cured a lady of a troublesome disorder by Sacch. lact., after other apparently appropriate remedies had failed, which convinced him that we often prevented cures by overdosing our patients, and not allowing sufficient time for the remedy

to act.

The Congress now adjourned for a quarter of an hour.

Dr. Roth made some observations (v. p. 499) founded on the statistics of the mortality in poor-houses, and suggested how much it was the duty of the State to interfere in such cases, for he was certain that by a proper system of hygienic treatment the mortality in poor-houses might be much diminished.

Dr. Dudgeon and Mr. Smith made some observations on Dr. Roth's remarks, but feared that the Congress could not enter on the question, which had no connection with homœopathy, although in itself very interesting.

Dr. Drury remarked in connection with an observation by Mr. Smith, as to a low style of living predisposing to disease, that it was

a curious fact that the fever which attacked the Irish was not nearly so fatal among the poor as when it attacked the rich; he could only account for this by supposing that the more active treatment the rich were likely to receive might act prejudicially.

Dr. Kidd corroborated the observation of Dr. Drury.

Dr. Wyld suggested that this state of things might possibly result from the poor being as it were protected to a certain extent by fever inoculation, it being found that strong servant girls coming from the country to town were much more liable to severe typhus than the habitual residents in towns.

Eighteen gentlemen sat down to supper at 9 o'clock.

Strychnine Poisoning.

The recent trial of William Palmer for the murder of Mr. Cook has directed public attention to the subject of poisoning by Strychnine, and the conflicting testimony of the medical witnesses has shewn that the symptoms produced by that terrible drug are not of such a definite character as to enable us to pronounce decisively, in the absence of the discovery of the poison and of strong circumstantial evidence, that the death of an individual has been certainly caused by it alone.

Even in Palmer's case where the circumstantial evidence was so strong, the failure to discover the Strychnine in the body of his alleged victim, has undeniably caused in the public mind an amount of dissatisfaction with the verdict of the jury, which assuredly does not arise from a sympathy with crime, or from a sentimental objection to capital punishments, and which would not have been felt and expressed as it has been, had the chemists succeeded in demonstrating the existence of Strychnine in the body of Cook.

The uneasiness of a large portion of the public has expressed itself in letters to the newspapers and in crowded public meetings, and arises from the fact strongly brought out at the trial, that the symptoms noticed in Cook's case were not of such a precise and determinate character as to exclude the possibility of their having been due to some natural disease.

Although some of the medical witnesses were positive as to the symptoms being attributable to Strychnine, and to that alone; others, while admitting that they were not actually inconsistent with Strych