40 VETERINARY HOMCEOPATHY. 



essential quality of the drug used, and can readily be cleansed 

 with very hot water; moreover these bottles are made of glass 

 that is so hard and tough they will even bear the force which a 

 horse can exercise with his jaw without breaking: horns are very 

 frequentl}' used for the purpose but cannot be recommended 

 because their porous nature decidedly favors the absorption of 

 whatever agent is used, and whereas the homoeopathically pre- 

 pared drugs are very sensitive their influence may easily be neu- 

 tralized by coming in contact with what has been previously 

 administered from a vessel made of horn. 



Great care must be exercised in the use of triturations, not to 

 administer remedies of lower attenuation than are prescribed 

 herein; in all such drugs as arsenic, mercury, copper, etc., noth- 

 ing of a lower attenuation than the third decimal should be used, 

 otherwise a poisonous dose may easily be given: it must be 

 remembered that the third decimal attenuation is equivalent to 

 one part of the crude drug in a thousand parts of the attenuated 

 powder, while in the second decimal scale one part of the crude 

 drug is contained in a hundred parts of the triturated powder; 

 were one to give continuous ten-grain doses second decimal of 

 such dangerously powerful drugs as arsenic and mercury serious 

 and quite unlooked for consequences might be the result. There 

 is still another side of this question bearing upon the influence the 

 process of trituration has upon certain agents like sulphur, which 

 in the crude form are practically inert, there is no doubt that this 

 process wakens up a sort of new energy and acquires for them a 

 physiological activity which in their natural condition was quite 

 dormant so far as their influence upon the animal organism is 

 concerned; gold, silver and flint are further illustrations of this 

 kind of agent, in whose case it is not the lower attenuations that 

 have to be guarded against so much as those of a higher order; 

 hence it is important that those, who practice according to the 

 information laid down herein, should allow themselves to be 

 guided by us as to the attenuation to be relied upon in specific 

 disorders: it is moreover peculiarly interesting to note what the 

 effects of these pharmaceutical processes upon different drugs are, 

 because they serve to entirely upset the theory that drugs are 

 most efficacious in action when used in the crude form as is the 

 custom of the allopathic practitioner; undoubtedly, from a busi- 



