324 
MR. HAYCOCK ON HOMOEOPATHY. 
warrant the conclusion that the remedy most eminently 
adapted for the cure of any disease should, Homoeopathically 
considered, be one capable, if possible, of “ inducing the same 
disease.” With this idea, I endeavoured in my book to 
describe Homoeopathy in as clear and favorable a light as 
possible, and to avoid that ambiguity which attaches, as I 
shall afterwards show, to the expression “ similar symptoms.” 
If Mr. Haycock still demurs at my rendering of the Homoeo- 
pathic doctrine, it might be as well for him to declare the 
exact limits of similarity, likeness, or resemblance, which, 
according to orthodox Homoeopathy, ought to subsist between 
the symptoms of the disease and those produced by the 
remedy. Some similarity is affirmed as requisite “ to effect a 
mild, certain, and permanent cure” ( Veterinarian , May); “as 
much similarity as possible” is authoritatively declared as 
most favorable to success ; but when the similarity becomes 
too close, when resemblance passes into identity, or in other 
words, when the symptoms of the malady and the effects of 
the medicine become the same , then, if we understand 
Mr. Haycock, all curative efficacy ceases. It would surely 
be an immense boon to Veterinary Homoeopathy, if the exact 
limits of similarity requisite to ensure successful Homoeo- 
pathic practice were distinctly indicated. 
Since Mr. Haycock has come forward as the champion of 
Veterinary Homoeopathy, and has published a book in its 
defence, it would have been well had he established the 
premises and position of the new system. This he has 
hitherto failed in accomplishing. In his paper in The Veteri- 
narian , as well as in his ‘Elements of Veterinary Homoeo- 
pathy, 5 he has, however, advanced some strange assertions 
and extravagancies, to a few of which 1 shall now briefly 
advert. Quoting from Hahnemann’s ‘Organon,’ he says : “ To 
effect a mild, certain, and permanent cure, choose, in every 
case of disease, a medicine which can itself produce an affection 
similar to that sought to be cured.” Now, I should have been 
glad if our author had indicated those medicines which he con- 
siders capable of producing symptoms bearing even the most 
remote similarity to such affections as thick-wind, roaring, 
pleurisy, strangles, or hydrophobia, for I know of no medicines 
which induce affections at all similar to these. Again, as to the 
homoeopathic medicines, they do not in the great majority of 
cases develope “any affection similar to that sought to be 
cured. 55 Oil of turpentine, sulphur, arsenic, iodine, bella- 
donna, lemon juice, aconite, cinchona; with many others, 
certainly do not induce any affections at all analogous to those 
in which they are administered. 
