
272 NATURE AND LIFE. 
periments of Davaine, which exhibit the degree of venom 
as increasing in an inverse ratio to the apparent quantity 
of the poison, have been repeated and confirmed by sey- 
eral eminent physiologists, among others by Bouley, and 
have produced a sensation which still continues in the 
schools of physiology and medicine. Apart from the in- 
herent difficulty of forming a notion as to the influence of 
those infinitesimal doses, they seemed to yield an argument 
of a kind to support the assertions of homceopathy. If the 
difficulty is real, though it may be got over, the argument, 
we take leave to say, is worthless. Let us look at the diffi- 
culty first. This drop which is still mortal, though rep- 
resenting only an infinitely small fraction of the original 
quantity of poisonous matter to which it is distantly re- 
lated, permits no corpuscle to be detected. That is true, 
yet it contains the germs of them, and germs such in number, 
size, and reproductive power, that nothing prevents them 
from breeding again indefinitely, in spite of all efforts tried 
to getridof them. The discussions that have just occurred 
in the Academy of Medicine on this grave subject, almost 
at the same time that the question of ferments was under 
debate in the Academy of Sciences, leave no doubt as to 
the reality of this progressive breeding of virulent germs 
by culture. But is this any argument for the homceopa- 
thists ? None whatever. They attribute curative effects to 
extremely small doses of certain inorganic substances most 
evidently inert, which can in no way reproduce themselves. 
If the virulent elements occasion disturbances so profound in 
animal organisms, it is not by reason of their extreme minute- 
ness, but itis because they multiply with prodigious rapidity 
in the depths of the tissues and humors, where they labor 
in a manner opposed to the harmonious life of the body 
However this may be, the vibrios and bacteria have an 
undeniable share in the production of human maladies, 
They are found in the blood of persons attacked by infec- 

