Maech 25, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



401 



monthly journals devoted to the propagand- 

 ism of the system. Advertisements in the 

 press of Europe and South America an- 

 nounce that certain physicians practice 

 Electro -Homeopathy at given addresses. 

 One of these doctors seeks pupils, to intro- 

 duce the practice into all parts of the world, 

 and the ' people who love to be humbugged ' 

 will doubtless give them cordial support. 



" No class escapes them, from the poor man's pay, 

 The nostrum takes no trifling part away." — Crabbe. 



Thoreau has remarked that "Nothing 

 more strikingly betrays the credulity of 

 mankind than medicine ; quackery is a 

 thing universal and universally successful. 

 In this case it becomes literally true that 

 no imposition is too great for the credulity 

 of men." This is confirmed by the exist- 

 ence of another enterprise recently started 

 and still wilder in its philosophy than 

 Mattel's system, styled ' Hermetic Home- 

 opathy.' Rejecting the modern theory of 

 vitalism, the promoters of this school revert 

 to the old hermetic science of the 16th cen- 

 tury which yielded such marvellous results 

 but is to-day treated with ridicule and dis- 

 dain. They accept the doctrines of Paracel- 

 sus as respects the mumia, advocate cure 

 of diseases by transplantation, and regard 

 astrology as indispensable to a physician. 

 The remedies and elixirs of Hermetic 

 Homeopathy are prepared in the laboratory 

 of two Past Masters in Occult Science, un- 

 der the direction of the Secretary of the 

 Alchemical Society of France, with mag- 

 ical incantations and under the most favor- 

 able conjunctions of the planets. Among 

 the cure-alls offered is the panacea of the 

 alchemists, potable gold. Disciples of 

 Hermetic Homeopathy advocate treatment 

 of diseases by transplantation, their reason- 

 ing is the same as that of Paracelsus : " Man 

 possesses magnetic power by which he can 

 attract good and bad subtile emanations just 

 as a magnet attracts particles of iron. Of 



iron a magnet can be made that will draw 

 to itself iron, and in like manner of vital 

 substance a magnet can be made that will 

 attract vitality. Such a magnet is called 

 magnes mieroeosmi and it can be prepared of 

 substances that have remained some time 

 in the human body and that have become 

 impregnated with vitality. Such are hair, 

 excrements, urine, blood, etc., and a mag- 

 net made of any of these and applied to the 

 diseased organ, or part of the body, will 

 diminish the inflammation in that part be- 

 cause it attracts the superabundance of 

 magnetism conveyed there by the flow of 

 blood. In a similar way diseases may be 

 transferred to healthy animals, or even to 

 other persons, on which fact sorcery is based. 

 This explains, argue the writers, the action 

 of poultices, of plasters and of leeches. 



The difference between ordinary homeo- 

 pathic practice and that of the hermetic 

 school is shown in the manner of treating 

 measles ; an old-fashioned practitioner 

 would prescribe Pulsatilla and aconite, with 

 belladonna. A disciple of Mattel would ad- 

 minister scrofoloso, increasing the dilution 

 as the disease becomes more serious ; the 

 hermetic homoeopathist puts the patient to 

 bed and covers him with blue or violet 

 coverlids and surrounds him with blue or 

 violet curtains. Provided the patient is 

 sanguine or bilious, but if he be lymphatic 

 or nervous then rose or green hangings and 

 bedspreads should be used. At the same 

 time the air of the room must be ozonized, 

 the patients' wrists must be surrounded 

 with metallic gold, and the water in which 

 the hermetic globules are dissolved must be 

 positively electrified. When convalescent 

 the patient must have sun-baths, cold-water 

 douches, water-baths or air-baths, accord- 

 ing to his temperament, lymphatic, nervous, 

 sanguine or bilious. When able to leave 

 the house he must take steam-baths charged 

 with ammonia on four days. 



Of course this school of medicine has its 



