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REVIEWS. 
“ SECTION I. 
“ ON THE GENERAL ACTIONS AND USES OF MEDICINES. 
“ Every medicine is endowed with certain iuherent characteristic actions, 
which distinguish it as decidedly as its physical and chemical properties. 
Thus, some medicines act on the bowels, causing purgation ; others on the 
kidneys, stimulating the secretion of urine; and others on the brain and 
nervous system, causing insensibility ; in fact, there is no part or organ of 
the body, except the spleen and pancreas, which is not influenced, and that 
often in several different ways, by some medicinal agent. It is impossible, 
however, to explain why a medicine should act in one way rather than in 
another ; why, for example, aloes is purgative, and not diuretic, narcotic, or 
anaesthetic ; or why chloroform is anaesthetic, and not vesicant, diuretic, or 
purgative. The student must therefore endeavour to conceive of these 
actions, or dynamical effects of medicines, in the same manner as he does of 
their more familiar properties of colour, odour, taste, or density. 
“ In order to facilitate the discussion of the general actions and uses of 
medicines, I shall divide this section into the following heads : — 
“ I. The manner in which medicines establish their actions. 
“ II. The manner in which medicines are believed to cure disease. 
“ The arrangement of medicines according to their physiological actions. 
“ The circumstances w r hich modify the actions of medicines.” 
Skipping the consideration of the first of these topics, we 
shall proceed to transfer the second into our pages, for the 
double purpose of continuing to show the masterly manner 
in which our author handles his subject, and of giving the 
outline of homeopathy he has presented us with, together 
with his opinions on that questionable subject as applicable to 
animal medicine : 
“About sixty years ago another method of cure was propounded by 
the German physician, Hahnemann, who taught that the cure of a disease is 
effected by the administration, in small doses, of such medicines as would, 
when given to a healthy subject in large quantity, induce the same disease. 
This is the doctrine of homoeopathy ( opoiog , homoios, like or similar; and 
7 raQog, pathos), the principles of which are enunciated in the aphorism, 
similia similibus curantur. According to this doctrine, cinchona cures ague 
and intermittents, because it produces such febrile symptoms when given to 
healthy individuals in considerable doses ; aconite is the appropriate remedy 
for reducing inflammatory fever, because in large doses it produces that con- 
dition ; and strychnia is the best remedy for palsy, because in large doses 
and in healthy subjects, it produces that disease. But this law of similars, 
as the homceopathists phrase it — a law on which the whole system is said to 
be founded — is unsupported by adequate facts and arguments, and is quite 
insufficient to account for the action of most remedies. Oil of turpentine 
destroys lumbrici and other intestinal worms ; but no one will assert that it 
is capable of producing such parasites in what doses soever it may be given. 
Sulphur is notoriously one of the best remedies for removing lice and many 
skin diseases, but does not produce either. Arsenic, iodine, and belladonna, 
