38 VETERINARY HOMCEOPATHY. 



scopical orifices on the surface of the leaf and thus reach the 

 primary elements of plant life; what saj's the " Word'' on this 

 subject: "J/)' doctri7ic shall be as the rain, My speech shall distil 

 as the dezv as I he s)>iall rain upon the tender herb.'' If such min- 

 ute provision has to be made in nature's laboratory for the appro- 

 priation of ordinary nutriment in the vegetable world, should it be 

 cause for surprise that at least a similar amount of care and 

 trouble is called for in the animal world when the healing of the 

 sick is concerned! 



We hope that this simple illustration will serve to point a lesson 

 as to the necessity of the careful attenuation of drugs and that the 

 importance of this pharmaceutical process, peculiar to the homoeo- 

 pathist, will be fully appreciated. Some persons have an idea 

 that animals require stronger medicine, and very much more of 

 it at a dose, than do human beings, physiologically. We cannot 

 now, nor ever could, see a reason for this, and experience cer- 

 tainly does not confirm the suggestion. Some allowance cer- 

 tainly is made, as a matter of practice, for size and bulk of body, 

 but whether it is absolutely necessary, is open to considerable 

 doubt. 



The adoption of the word ' ' strength ' ' in its application to the 

 various processes of attenuation is apt to mislead because it con- 

 veys the idea only of the relative quantity of the crude drug 

 present in the preparation; for instance, a remedy such as Arseni- 

 cum marked 3. means that the preparation contains the one mil- 

 lionth part of the drug arsenic; in other words, it has been sub- 

 mitted to three processes of trituration on the centesimal scale; take 

 Arsenicu?n 6x, this, like the former, contains the one millionth part 

 of the drug arsenic in its composition, but it has been submitted 

 to six processes of trituration under the decimal scale in conse- 

 quence of which the arsenic in this form must be worked up to a 

 much finer state than the sample that has only been triturated 

 three times, and according to the author's belief, which is based 

 on practical experience, this sample under the decimal scale pos- 

 sesses powers of action which that under the centesimal cannot 

 have, inasmuch as the latter has only been triturated three times. 

 So far for the attenuation of drugs; we will now pass on to the 

 dosage. 



As a rule lo the larger animals such as the horse, it is usual to 



