444 
ALLOPATHY V. HOMOEOPATHY. 
prominent degree the very properties for which the first was 
chosen, and yet homceopatliists do this daily. Alas ! for the 
vaunted law of similars, with all its boasted philosophy and 
infallibility. Sad indeed is its plight, when it has to be 
established by scraping together the isolated and subordinate 
effects of remedies, and is striving to trace their similarity to 
the mere external evidences of disease. But still more absurd 
and illogical is the constant endeavour to magnify some 
similarities which are barely perceptible, and to ignore others 
which are infinitely more clear and obvious. I have ‘already 
noticed several attempts of this kind in Mr. Haycock’s paper, 
and the intelligent reader will discover many others. 
I should have wished, did time permit, to expose the 
twaddle which Mr. Haycock has penned, regarding oil of 
turpentine, and worms, as also the fallacy of his deductions, 
concerning cinchona, quinine, and lemon juice ; but this is 
scarcely necessary, for the same faults invalidate the whole of 
the facts and arguments adduced. In all the instances men- 
tioned, the symptoms caused by the medicine, and by the 
disease, manifest scarcely any similarity in their chief and 
characteristic features. The resemblance, at most only partial, 
and subsisting between subordinate points, often disappears 
on close investigation, and is in all cases purely accidental. 
In no case is it possible to trace any connexion between the 
symptoms induced by the medicine, and the removal of 
the similar symptoms induced by the disease. The two 
actions do not shew any of the usual relations of cause and 
effect, and are utterly independent of, and unconnected with 
one another. 
Allow me, in conclusion, to notice a very serious paradox 
attaching to the law of similars. It involvos the strange 
belief, that every medicine is possessed of two opposite actions 
— opposite, not only in degree but in kind ; — that it is capable, 
in different doses, of producing certain artificial symptoms, 
and in certain other doses, of removing morbid symptoms 
similar to those it produces. In the case of every medicine, 
then, there must accordingly exist what may be termed an 
ascending and descending series of effects, and between these 
two, a portion of neutral ground where the two opposite 
actions antagonise each other, and the medicine is inert, or, at 
all events, exhibits neither the one effect nor the other. A 
single illustration will clearly exhibit the absurdity of this 
position. Sulphur in large doses produces irritation and 
eruption ; and, in small doses, removes irritation and 
eruption. Aconite causes fever, and cures fever. Iodine 
developes and reduces glandular enlargements. And hence 
