TIIK STRENGTH OF DRUGS AND THE DOSE. 37 



and on this ground furnish a reason for a belief in the greater 

 activity of a highly attenuated drug: we take it that no one will 

 question the assertion that six, twelve or fifteen processes of trit- 

 uration must of necessity reduce the particles of a drug more and 

 more as each process is effected, namel}', that those particles of the 

 drug in the fifteenth decimal attenuation would require a much 

 higher power of the microscope to discern than do those in the 

 third decimal, for instance; now let us consider in what way med- 

 icinal agents so broken up are better qualified to do their work 

 than those administered in their original state. To this end we 

 must remember that the various parts and organs of the body are 

 built up of tissues peculiar thereto; for instance muscle, fat, carti- 

 lage, bone, nerve, etc.; each of these tissues consists of special 

 elements varying in structure and density but in all alike, not- 

 withstanding their various modifications as recognized by the 

 naked eye, can be traced back as the starting point of their 

 ultimate structure what is described in phj'siology as the cell, to 

 ■discover w^hich one has to call in the aid of a microscope. 



Of these simple materials the body is built up, and before a 

 drug can exercise its own peculiar power it must be rendered 

 capable of penetrating the walls of these cells, the first elements 

 of the tissues of the body; and whereas the cells themselves are 

 so small, it follows as a natural consequence that drugs to per- 

 meate or pass to them must be reduced to a condition to render 

 such a process phj'sically possible: to further illustrate our mean- 

 ing, look what takes place in the vegetable world as ordained by 

 the great power that made and rules the Universe; how do plants 

 appropriate nutriment which comes to them through the media of 

 rain, sunshine and air? It is generally acknowledged that this 

 takes place through the leaves only, if }-ou examine a leaf under 

 a high magnifying power, you will observe that the surface is 

 studded with thousands of minute openings; microscopic pores, 

 and through these the rain has to pass if the chemical products it 

 contains are to be utilized as nutriment; can a drop of rain pass 

 through these ? Certainly not ! But nature has her methods and 

 plans of attenuation; each drop of rain the size of a pea can be 

 broken up into millions upon millions of molecules, and this is 

 effected in the form of dew or condensed vapor; so fine, indeed, 

 that the moisture in this form can freely pass through the micro- 



