INTRODUCTION. IX 



can onlj' be due to the fact that few persons have ever troubled 

 themselves to investigate and find out the truth concerning the 

 system; they have satisfied themselves with the result of the 

 practice of Homoeopathy either in their own experience or that 

 of an intimate friend, and there the matter has ended, but to 

 avoid any misiniderstanding let it be distinctly understood the 

 matter of the dose is one of experience only and has nothing 

 to do with the pri)uiplc\ this alone depends upon a law based 

 on the relationship which exists between a given drug and 

 the symptoms it is capable of producing on a healthy sub- 

 ject and the sjanptoms which present themselves in a subject 

 when affected by disease. The various strengths of drugs 

 as defined in the Homoeopathic Pharmacopoeia and the very 

 precise methods of their preparation are the results of ex- 

 tensive practice after Hahnemann introduced the Law of selec- 

 tion to public notice, and it is very necessary that they should 

 be observed and adopted, for there is no doubt that very frequently 

 the drug which is homoeopathically selected and administered in 

 its crude form not only fails to do good but actually does harm by 

 intensifying and rendering more acute the very condition it is 

 intended to alleviate; further the methods of preparation, which 

 Hahnemann laid down for the guidance of the Pharmaceutical 

 Druggists should be conscientiously observed, as there is no doubt, 

 whate\-er some Practitioners may say to the contrar\-, that the 

 succussion or shaking of the tinctures and the persistent tritura- 

 tion with the pestle and mortar of the powders brings out in some 

 mysterious way the active power of the drug, without which it is 

 absolutely ineffectual and useless, and to the absence of these pre- 

 cautions are traceable the failure and disappointment which un- 

 fortunately will crop up in homoeopathic practice; there is a great 

 tendency in the present day to ignore the value of what are called 

 high attenuations, simply because the practitioners who attribute 

 little importance to the value of highlj- potentized drugs appear 

 incapable of appreciating the fact that in this condition they are 

 more (under certain conditions) effective than in the crude state; 

 the fact that they are so, — these learned gentlemen notwithstand- 

 ing, — has been prov^ed among the lower animals very frequently. 

 But to return to the main subject, viz. the Law which consti- 

 tutes the principle of Homoeopathy: it does not call for the ex- 



