i 5 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The method for making fluid dilutions is the same, but instead of 

 sugar of milk alcohol is used. The scrapings and triturations are ex- 

 changed for shakes of the bottle in certain directions. Toward the 

 close of his life Hahnemann reduced the number of his shakes. He 

 says, "A long. experience and multiplied observations upon the sick 

 lead me within the last few years to prefer giving only two shakes to 

 medicinal liquids, whereas I formerly used to give ten." 



Now to give one an idea of the potency of these drugs : to obtain 

 a grain of the original substance in the third attenuation, one would 

 have to swallow four hundred-weight of sugar ; or, to get a drop of 

 the original tincture, a barrel of alcohol would have to be imbibed. 

 Now, this is only the third dilution. In the eighth dilution, to obtain 

 a drop of the tincture the whole Atlantic Ocean full of alcohol would 

 be necessary. Dr. Black, to whom I have referred, says he uses the 

 first, third, sixth, ninth, up to the thirtieth dilution. Imagine the 

 effect of one-drop doses of the thirtieth dilution ! The finite mind can 

 not comprehend the infinitesimal when thus expressed. 



Homoeopathy, although not yet deceased, retains hardly anything 

 of its original character but the name. The efficacy of infinitesimal 

 doses is doubted by the leaders of the school, and even the doctrine of 

 slmilia similibiis curantur is not now considered universal. Dr. 

 George Wild, Vice-President of the British Homoeopathic Society, in 

 a letter to the London "Lancet," June, 1877, says that he believes 

 " palpable doses of medicine are generally more efficacious in the treat- 

 ment of disease than infinitesimal ones." Also, that "some diseases 

 are best treated by similars and some by contraries." 



The third dogma, with regard to the psora, or itch, has been, since 

 the discovery of the itch-insect, effectually disposed of forever. As 

 Dr. Holmes remarks, "What there is left of the three-legged stool 

 after one of its legs is pulled out, and the other two sawed half or 

 three quarters through, seems hardly worth sitting down on." 



The name homoeopathy has a charm for the public, and so is re- 

 tained to juggle w T ith. When, in 1833, the edition of the " Organon " 

 from which I have quoted was published, the translator, in the pref- 

 ace, mentioned that this new system of medicine was spreading 

 through the Continent of Europe with the rapidity of lightning. In 

 1880, in an address read before the Institute of Homoeopathy, in Mil- 

 waukee " How can we best advance Homoeopathy ? " the author 

 says : " It can not be denied that homoeopathy has not advanced, and 

 is not advancing, as rapidly as we once had just and reasonable 

 grounds for expecting. In Great Britain there are but two hundred 

 and seventy-five homoeopathic physicians, and in the United States 

 there is not one legally recognized school of homoeopathy." He con- 

 cludes by saying that there seems to be everywhere stagnation, if not 

 retrogression. Dr. Smyth, in his book on " Medical Heresies," men- 

 tions that a short time since the County Hospital, Sacramento, was in 



