222 
REVIEWS. 
nents discover in the system of practical medicine, it must ever be regarded 
as made up of two distinct parts : — 1st, The original and peculiar part of the 
system, consisting in the use of medicines selected in accordance with a law 
embodied in the axiom similia similibus curantur , and administered in infini- 
tesimal doses, usually varying from one grain to one millionth of a grain, and 
carefully prepared according to certain precise directions ; and, 2d, Attention 
to diet and regimen — the only effectual and rational part of homoeopathy — 
the true source of all its boasted cures — and that very department of medical 
treatment which has been insisted upon from the most ancient times by all 
scientific and successful practitioners, both of human and veterinary medicine. 
The value of the first part of the treatment, viz., of medicines given homoeo- 
pathically, has never been satisfactorily shown, and never can be so, until 
two series of cases, as nearly as possible alike, be treated, the one in the 
usual homoeopathic fashion, the other with the same attention to diet and 
regimen, but without the globules. If, in a sufficient number of well regu- 
lated experiments, the former method proves itself superior to the latter, 
then of course it would be fair to infer that the medicine had some real 
curative effect. But no such superiority had been observed where impartial 
observations have been made. In a few experiments made at the Edinburgh 
Veterinary College, as to the treatment of pleuro-pneumonia and other dis- 
eases according to these two modes of cure, it appeared, that those cases 
which were treated by diet and regimen alone, were as speedily and effectu- 
ally cured as those treated with the globules in addition, so long as these 
globules were given in homoeopathic doses. I say, so long as the doses given 
were homoeopathic ; and this, I think, is an important fact ; for many of the 
medicines, which are used homoeopathically, are, in ordinary medicinal doses, 
capable of producing prompt and often powerful effects, and become effectual 
means of cure, in virtue of their physiological properties, but not in virtue 
of any homoeopathic action. 
“But though the principles of homoeopathy are unsound, and though its 
practice among the lower animals has not been more successful than that of 
many more modest modes of treatment, still it has done some service to the 
cause of practical medicine, by showing more forcibly than before the great 
power of the vis medicatrix nature , and the inestimable importance of 
regimen and diet as auxiliaries to the medical treatment of disease. Fur- 
ther, it has aided in the advancement of a more rational system of veterinary 
practice, by discountenancing those copious and repeated bleedings, and 
large and reiterated physickings, which were often indiscriminately pre- 
scribed for all patients; and it has also acted beneficially in elucidating 
various subjects connected with therapeutics, and in inducing the opponents, 
as well as the supporters of homoeopathy, to institute numerous and careful 
observations on the actions of remedies both on man and the lower 
animals. 55 
Having with this lengthened extract concluded what we 
have to remark on the introductory section^ of the work, we 
now come to 66 the consideration of the medicines used in 
veterinary practice.” The different articles of the Materia 
Meclica included therein are treated of in alphabetical order ; 
the properties of the more “ remarkable and important” of 
which, and such as are particularly attended to, being, “ Its 
name, history, and sources — its preparation — its chemical 
