400 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VII. No. 169. 



by members of occult fraternities ; they 

 alone understood tbe mystical, spiritual ap- 

 plication of the remedies, while the " pro- 

 fane wearied themselves in vain efforts to 

 discover the arcana of the latro-Chemists, 

 to the great amusement of the initiated, and 

 in spite of whose ironical smiles, they boil, 

 fuse, distil and digest only to find that they 

 are lost in a labj'rinth from which there is 

 no exit." The adversaries of this system , 

 claim that it is nothing more than an old 

 woman's fancj^, but its advocates point to 

 the brilliant careers of Kepler, Dante, 

 Leonardo da Vinci, Shakespeare, Goethe, 

 Sir Isaac Newton and Richard Wagner, to 

 prove the contrary. 



The characteristics of esoteric science are 

 said to be : " The principle of analogy and 

 its consequences ; the relation of the forces 

 and the laws of the macrocosm to those of 

 the microcosm ; logical investigation both 

 experimental and speculative ; the reciproc- 

 ity of cause and effect determining the os- 

 cillations of blind chance." Onlj' students 

 of these principles are able to apply the 

 mysterious remedies of the new therapeutics 

 so as fully to secure miraculous efficiency. 



An important factor in iatro -chemical 

 philosophy is the influence of the sun, moon 

 and planets on diseases ; the moon espe- 

 cially excites dreams, insomnia, somnam- 

 bulism, and governs the periodicity of 

 fevers. But the most potent of all celestial 

 influences is the ' odic-maguetic virtue of 

 the stars.' 



A notable feature, overlooked by official 

 medicine, but rescued from oblivion by the 

 promoters of Electro-Homeopathy, is the pe- 

 culiar way in which ' odic force ' is distrib- 

 uted in the human body ; it flows along 

 three principal axes, head to feet, left side to 

 fight side and back to chest ; this polarized 

 fluid is assimilated by the five vegetable 

 electricities, which explains their efficiency. 

 Physicians who appreciate the importance 

 of the ' three axes of odic-magnetic polarity ' 



place their patients in bed on their right 

 sides ( — ), with their heads ( — ) to the 

 north ( -f- ) and their faces ( -f ) to the wall. 



The chemical philosophy of this school 

 has the merit of simplicity ; the unity of 

 matter and the four ancient elements are 

 the basic principles. Fire is hydrogen ; Air 

 is oxygen ; Water is nitrogen, and Earth is 

 carbon ; the alchemical salts, sulphur and 

 mercury are respectively the principles of 

 soliditj', volatility and liquidity. The Alka- 

 hest, or universal solvent, of spagyrical 

 philosophy is acetone ; the spiritus philoso- 

 phorum is not merely a liquid of superior 

 medicinal potency, it is the " true spirit of 

 the knowledge of control over Nature's 

 forces, which results from unions with and 

 absorption by the Divine Being." 



The position of modern Iatro -Chemists 

 with reference to the transmutation of met- 

 als is entirely favorable to the ancient doc- 

 trine. " Modern science," writes one, "re- 

 gards the creation of gold as a superstitious 

 fable, the product of medieval imaginations, 

 but transmutation is an undeniable fact ; a 

 family beloved by the author preserves as a 

 relic an ingot of gold, which an ancestor, in- 

 itiated in the secrets of Hermetism, had 

 manufactured by a formula now intelligible 

 only to adepts." L' Hyperehimie, the organ 

 of alchemists in France, has recently added 

 Electro- Homeopathy to the subjects it ad- 

 vocates, and contains an enthusiastic review 

 of the latest treatise on this medical prac- 

 tice ; the review concludes with the remark 

 that: "Occult therapeutics is destined to 

 become the system of the future, as it has 

 been that of the past, for it demonstrates 

 with invincible logic the admirable unity of 

 the sacred sciences." 



The literature of this amazing quackery 

 is already large ; books explaining the sys- 

 tem have been published in French, Ger- 

 man, English, Swedish, Polish, Spanish and 

 Hungarian, besides the original Italian. 

 France, Germany and England have their 



