HOMEOPATHY AS A SCIENCE. 737 



have one billion cubic feet of air saturated with the smell. Not only 

 is this space filled once, but it is kept filled for an hour, radiating out 

 indefinitely into space ; from which it is clear, according to our critic, 

 that a passer-by, an hour afterward, deceives himself by a suppositi- 

 tious shock to the sense of smell caused by the decillionth part of the 

 drop of skunk-odor. But the involuntary clapping of the hand to the 

 nose affords conclusive proof that both the sensor and motor nerves 

 have been sensibly affected. 



That in a chemical laboratory there is no appliance so sensitive as 

 a diseased nerve, does not argue the inefficacy of the atomic dose, 

 but proves the want of adaptation of the chemical apparatus to deal 

 with the subject. 



Hahnemann's method of trituration is urged as an argument against 

 his principles, without showing that it has anything to do with the 

 principles, or that it fails to accomplish the object sought. The work 

 is now done with great exactness by machinery. 



It is said that since the discovery of the Sarco}rtis hominis, or itch- 

 insect, the dogma about psora being such a powerful factor in the 

 causation of diseases has fallen to the ground ; that is to say, that 

 those who supported this theory have been, by this discovery, forced 

 to abandon it. Why ? Evidently because the theory is inconsistent 

 with the itch-insect. But who proves it ? Is the disease the cause of 

 the insect, or the insect the cause of the disease ? Do maggots breed 

 carrion, or carrion maggots ? Was Hamlet trying to shift the respon- 

 sibility of Polonius's death from himself to the worms ? 



" Now, Hamlet, where's Polonius ? " 



" At supper." 



"At supper! Where?" 



" Not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A certain convocation 

 of politic worms are e'en at him." 



That is, the worms killed Polonius. 



But it is clear that Hamlet was not so mad as that, for he said, 

 " For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god-kissing 

 carrion " 



So will psora breed the Sarcoptis hominis, but so will not the in- 

 sect breed the itch. Being but the effect, it can not produce the cause. 

 It is not its own causa caicsans. 



Homoeopathy has suffered, and is likely to suffer, more from its 

 friends than from its enemies. 



Persons who adopt it as an easy means of gaining a livelihood are 

 apt to fail, and fall back upon the allopathic school, with its nosology 

 and procrustean prescriptions. Few are those in any calling who have 

 either the frankness to confess or ability to perceive the cause of fail- 

 ure to be from within. The convenience of a name for every disease 

 is apparent. It relieves from further investigation. How little Dr. 

 Shepherd knows of the laws of homoeopathy may be demonstrated 



TOL. XXIII. 47 



