HOMOEOPATHY IN VETERINARY PRACTICE. 
767 
by the sense of smell. Yet no one will question its power. That 
ordinary allopathic doses are frequently followed by grave conse¬ 
quences no one can doubt. Samuel Cooper, in describing the best 
modes of administering mercury, says : “ Occasionally it attacks 
the bowels, and causes violent purging, even of blood. At 
other times it is suddenly determined to the mouth, and pro¬ 
duces inflammation, ulceration, and an excessive flow of saliva.” 
“ Mercury, when it falls on the mouth, produces in. many con¬ 
stitutions violent inflammation, which sometimes terminates in 
mortification.” * Dr. Sharp says : “ I have seen it cause in a 
young lady, who had taken blue pills for an attack of fever, the 
mortification and separation of the greater part of the lower 
• >> 
jaw. 
Moliere asserts : “ Most people die of their remedies and 
not of their diseases.” 
I am often asked how the small dose administered can act, 
to which I am compelled to answer : I do not know. If I were 
to ask an allopathic prescriber how the large dose acts, I should 
receive the same answer. 
Sir Isaac Newton says: “ I have not been able to discover 
the cause of the properties of gravity from phenomena, and I 
frame no hypothesis, for whatever is not deduced from the 
phenomena is to be called an hypothesis, and hypotheses, 
whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities 
or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. To 
us it is enough that gravity does really exist and act according 
to the laws which we have explained! ”f So, with the homceop- 
athist, it is enough to know that the small dose does act accord¬ 
ing to the law of “ similia similibus curantur ,” of which we have 
ample proof by experience. “ It is certainly true,” says Dr. 
Routh, an eminent allopath, in an argument against homoepathy, 
“ that small doses, and especially in large dilution, will oftentimes 
act very satisfactorily. I have seen this repeatedly.” Every 
* Cooper s Surgical Didioaary. Art. Mercury, 
■j* Close of the Principia. 
