481 - 
HOMOEOPATHY V. ALLOPATHY. 
toms, nor cure any morbid symptoms. Required, lastly, in 
the case of all medicines, the precise limits of the curative 
dose.” 
Most readers, in perusing the above, will, I believe, experi- 
ence some little difficulty in understanding it, and when they 
do clearly understand it, they will at the same time arrive at 
the very gratifying conclusion, that the greater portion of it 
is entirely destitute of any rational meaning. In the first 
instance, we are told something about “ a very serious 
paradox” then about opposite actions, and artificial symp- 
toms, and morbid s} r mptoms ; then something more about 
ascending and descending series of effects, between which we 
learn is u a portion of neutral ground where two opposite 
actions antagonise each other, and the medicine is inert” Now 
how Mr. Dun came to know that one thing can produce at 
the same time two opposite actions, and yet at the same time 
be inert, or not act at all, is to me a mystery, — talk about 
serious paradoxes indeed ! here is one which, to use a 
Yankee phrase, “ bangs all creation,” and I quite agree with 
my opponent, “ that a single illustration will exhibit the 
absurdity of” his “ position.” 
Again, with regard to Mr. Dun’s questions, or those 
matters upon which he requires to know so much, let us 
examine them and see whether they contain any more thought 
than what is contained in the paradoxical part of the 
quotation. “ Required , to know in the case of all medicines , the 
exact doses capable of producing the artificial symptoms which are 
to constitute the key to the practical use of the medicine .” To 
fully answer this question would occupy both a considerable 
time and a considerable quantity of paper, and after 
all we should simply prove that a certain quantity of 
medicine of a given kind would produce such and such 
effects, and that is all it would prove ; most certainly it would 
not afford any argument against homoeopathy, but inde- 
pendently of this, the question takes for granted that which 
is false ; it assumes that the mere symptoms which a medi- 
cine is capable of producing, constitute the key to the 
practical use of the same, whereas not anything can be 
further from the truth. The real key to the practical use of 
a medicine, is to be found in its specific pathogenetic action .* It 
is true the medicine to be used must have reference to all the 
important symptoms, objective and subjective, which can be 
observed or made known to the observer ; but what is of far 
greater importance, the remedy must be chosen whose 
* See the Preface to my * Elements of Veterinary Homoeopathy/ London, 
Aylott and Co. 
