32 
HYDROPHOBIA AND HOMCEOPATHY. 
febrifuge in the sick man, because it has the singular property 
of exciting a certain degree of fever in a healthy one. 
The dose of the medicine to be administered is calculated in a 
manner precisely the reverse of the common one. If a powerful 
effect is wanted, the quantity of the drug is proportionally dimi- 
nished : a grain is far more active than a scruple, and the 
^-^■th part of a grain has a hundred times the influence of a 
grain. This is carried on to an extent which reminds one of the 
indivisibility of matter. The dose is often only the billiouth or 
trilliouth part of a grain, or an incalculably less quantity than 
this. Suppose that a tincture of opium is made, consisting 
of one grain of the drug to 100 of spirit ; then taking a drop of 
the mixture as equivalent to a grain, it is evident that one drop of 
this tincture will contain -j^-th part, or, for the sake of even 
numbers, T £<jth part of a grain : this is called No. 1. One drop 
of this tincture is then diluted with 100 parts of water or spirit, 
and each drop then contains but a ten-thousandth part of a 
grain (100 multiplied by 100 gives 10,000). This is called 
No. 2, and the dilution is occasionally carried on to No. 30 or 
No. 40. I leave it to the ingenuity of the idle part of the 
readers of this Journal (if there are any such) to calculate the 
proportion of the opium in No. 50. Put 79 cyphers after 
the 1, and these figures will give the portion of a grain which 
each drop contains. 
M. Hahnemann thought that he had observed effects produced 
by belladonna, hyoscyamus, datura stramonium, and cantha- 
rides, similar to the usual symptoms of rabies ; and it occurred 
to him that rabies might be cured by the administration of 
one of them. A writer in the Bibliotheque Homceopatheque for 
March 1835, says that he was not deceived. The reader shall 
have the history of these marvellous cures. 
The contributor to the Bibliotheque must be considered as 
speaking. “ On March the 1st 1833, a bull-dog was bitten by 
a rabid dog that had bitten several others, all of whom have 
since died rabid. Four hours after the accident”, says M. La- 
ville de la Plaigne, “ I washed the wound with water to which 
I had added two drops of the tincture of belladonna, No. 1 ; 
and I gave to him four drops of the tincture of belladonna 
No. 30 (will our readers calculate the actual quantity of bella- 
donna contained in this ?). Eight days afterwards, four drops of 
the No. 30 were again administered, and four drops more on the 
16th day. On the 17th day he exhibited symptoms of rabies. 
He tore to .pieces every thing around him ; he began to gnaw 
the door, although the door was not shut , nor ivas he confined 
at all. This state of fury lasted during an hour, after which 
