individual will cause symptoms which it will relieve in the sick. 
Experience has proved that the smaller the dose the more 
quickly the patient recovers from the natural disease, and the 
more quickly it recovers from the effects of the drug. The ob¬ 
jection is raised to the smallness of many homoeopathic doses, 
that they can have no effect, as many remedies cannot be de¬ 
tected^ by the most careful chemical analysis after the sixth 
dilution. 
That the effect of the remedy does not depend on the ability 
to detect it by chemical analysis, is proved by the following : 
“ Viper s poison is a yellow liquid, which, when analyzed chem¬ 
ically, cannot be distinguished from simple gum water. Yet the 
smallest portion which can be taken on the point of a needle, 
and inserted by a puncture in the skin, will cause death.”* The 
inhalation of ipecacuanha has nearly caused death in a number 
of cases. The following is quoted from Dr. Scott, in the Med¬ 
ical and Physical Journal , Volume XXIV., page 233, of a lady, 
the wife of a physician : “ One attack, caused by being near 
her husband at the time he put some ipecacuanha into a bottle, 
was so violent as nearly to prove fatal. There was a remarkable 
stricture about the throat and chest., with very troublesome 
shortness of breathing, with a peculiar kind of wheezing noise ; 
the symptoms were aggravated at night. At 3 o’clock in 
the morning she was gasping for breath at the window, pale as 
death, her pulse scarcely to be felt, and in the utmost danger of 
suffocation. She became easier about 11 a. m. till 11 p. m. The 
same scene was continued eight days and nights.” 
This shows that very minute doses may have a powerful 
effect, and it is doubtful if the small quantity inhaled by the 
lady could be detected by chemical analysis. 
The perfume of a flower cannot be measured, weighed or 
analyzed by the chemist, yet we are conscious of it by the 
sense of smell. 
The contagion of scarlet fever cannot be felt, seen or detected 
* 
* Thompson's Animal Chemistry , page 538 . 
