10 HOMOEOPATHY. 



and that disease was more speedily removed 

 than when stronger preparations were employed. 

 The great point with Hahnemann was to select a 

 medicine homoeopathic to the symptoms of the 

 disease, and then to administer just strength 

 enough of it to effect his object in the safest man- 

 ner. It matters not with regard to the homoeo- 

 pathic law, whether this or that strength is 

 employed, provided the remedy is homoeopathic to 

 the disease, and exactly the requisite impression 

 is produced upon the affected parts. The only 

 strength to be decided is, which strength cures 

 most safely and quickly ; and if facts prove, as all 

 homceopathists believe, that a preparation weaker 

 than the tincture is the most safe and efficient, 

 then it is our duty to give these preparations the 

 preference. The size of the dose, although inde- 

 pendent in theory of the law of similarities, is 

 nevertheless, a natural practical consequence 

 which cannot be separated from the curative prin- 

 ciple of Homoeopathy. Hahnemann found this 

 minute division of medical substances by tritura- 

 tion and shaking, instead of decreasing, increased 

 their properties in an extraordinary manner ; and 

 substances which were considered inert, such as 

 charcoal, lycopodium, etc, became active agents 

 when prepared as he pointed out. Like caloric, 

 electricity and magnetism, the strength remains 

 latent in the. crude state of the substance, and can 

 only be developed by the important agency of 

 heat friction or trituratipn. These small doses, 

 if well chosen, effect the seat of the complaint 

 almost exclusively, because in disease, the suscep- 

 tibility of the affected parts to the action of the 

 remedies, is vastly greater than in the same parts 

 in a state of health ; they possess a preternatur- 

 ally acute sensibility to be strongly affected by 



