Belladonna: Rigid os. IN LABOR. Patient twists and clenches the fists with each pain; red face. Bloodshot eyes; livid lips; hour-glass contraction (Cactus, Chamomilla.) Chamomilla: Nervous hyperesthesia. Cannot bear the pain hour-glass contraction. Cimicifuga: Violent backache; sharp pains going down to vulva; heavy downward pressure; cervix sensitive to examination. Gelsemium: Abnormal activity of the abdominal muscles before the cervix is dilated. Acts on the uterine contraction (Cimicifuga acts more in allaying the pain.) THE DYNAmic power OF DRUGS. BY DR. WALTER WESSELHOEFT, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. The subject of the dynamic power of drugs has been so fully discussed on so many occasions from the earliest days of Homœopathy, that but little remains to be said, more especially since all the discussions have led to no agreement. The probability is strong that discussion never will lead to agreement on this subject, nevertheless it is of such vital importance to our very existence as a school or organization, within the great body of the profession, that each one of us according to his lights should take a distinct position on the question involved. The stand to be taken must be a purely practical one, one resting wholly on individual experience. It cannot in the nature of things be a scientific one because as yet science has given us no data of a sufficiently positive character to enable us to form a definite judgment. Science so far has advanced no farther than to make it certain that substances in a state of extreme attenuation are capable of causing distinct reactions in living organisms. On this subject so great and so determining, an amount of material has now been accumulated, that we cannot too often or too fully review the evidence it presents in favor of one of the main contentions of our school. We are bidden to do this constantly for the reason that on this point rests the chief objection - I should say the strongest prejudice-against our method and our principles. The average lay and professional mind is not yet trained or in any sense prepared to entertain the thought of curative or any other effects produced by infinitely minute quantities, therefore we must constantly reiterate that which is positively known on the subject in order to gain a position from which to reach a rational understanding. Such an understanding, I believe, may be reached by establishing certain probabilities even before we have it in our power to adduce positive proof and demonstration. In support of such probabilities I will recall to your minds certain incontrovertible facts of which the profession is constantly losing sight, notwithstanding that advancing science is forever thrusting them on our attention. The wide field of radio-activity which is so germane to this subject I will leave to others to discuss. It offers the most convincing proof and demonstrable evidence of the effects of matter in inconceivably fine subdivision, but I prefer to confine myself to certain physio-chemical phenomena or more general application to pharmaco-dynamics, inasmuch as they deal with substances in common use and not possessing attributes of a character so exclusive as the radio-active bodies. All the circumstances bearing on the question of the effects of substances in varying degrees of concentration and subdivision have been studied exhaustively during the past fifteen years by professors Arndt and Schulz of the University of Greifswald. It was Arndt who first formulated what he denominated a fundamenta biological law: viz., "strong irritants destroy vital processes, moderate ones favor them and minute ones arouse them to their highest activity." Hugo Schulz demonstrated the application of this law to pharmaco-therapy. For the purpose of proving the effects of extremely attenuated substances he made use of corrosive sublimate, studying its effects upon yeast cells, and found, as is well known, that in attenuation of 1:20,000 it checked and even destroyed the growth of these cells. Beyond this degree of attenuation a point was reached at which no effect was apparent, the growth of the cells remaining uninfluenced. But when the attenuation was carried to the degree of 1:500,000 and higher, the opposite of the first named observation was seen to take place; the yeast cells grew or were proliferated much more actively than in the absence of the corrosive sublimate. The evidence afforded by these experiments which, by the way, have been repeated within the last three years with precisely the same results is supported by the researches of Loew into the action of Uranium salts. Loew found that these salts exerted a poisonous or destructive effect on the young plants of oats and peas, while in a dilution of 1:10,000equal to the 4th x (decimal attenuation)— the growth of these plants was accelerated, as shown by extensive comparison with patches of plants not so treated. In the same way salts of Manganese exerted an unmistakeable inhibitory effect, in strong solution, on plant growth; while highly diluted they favored the growth. ww Some recent and very interesting experiments along these same lines, by two French botanists, are worthy of mention. Already as early as 1875 Boehm in Germany had noted with surprise and recorded the fact that beans are readily made to germinate in spring-water, while they refuse to take on any action in distilled water. He believed this passiveness to be owing to the absence of lime and other mineral constituents, but Dehérain and Demoussey, in France, by repeating and extending their researches discovered that the inaction. observed in the distilled water was attributable to the presence of exceedingly minute traces of copper, derived from the copper vessels from which the water had been evaporated. When the same beans which had refused to germinate in this water were placed in distilled water, evaporated from glass vessels, they took on the normal action promptly, but again became passive if a copper coin was placed in the vessel. The same results were obtained by another French investigator, Mons. H. Coupin, from extensive experiments with the germinating process of wheat grains. He found that among all deleterious substances, copper acted most injuriously upon the growth of the rootlets, even in a dilution of 1:700,000,000; that is, in an attenuation corresponding to the 9th decimal of our dilutions. It will be seen, therefore, that in a most extreme state of attenuation copper is capable of exerting a distinctly poisonous effect upon plant organisms, and it is highly probable that in still higher solutions, as in the before-named experiments of Loew, the same metal would have been found to have a vitalizing or stimulating effect. However, we will content ourselves with the fact that a botanist free from all homoeopathic taint, has proved the 9th homoeopathic dilution to be not merely water or alcohol, but an active agent affecting organic pro cesses. The well-known experiments of Naegeli, the Swiss investigator, have led to similar conclusions in so unmistakable a manner as to influence the Agricultural Department at Washington in the direction of germicidal experiments for the purification of drinking water by highly attenuated copper solutions. Among the most striking observations, however, are those upon the fecundation of the non-flowering or cryptogamous plants, such as ferns and mosses. This fecundation occurs as a rule in this manner that female cells, ovular cells and male cells, i.e., seminal cells are secreted by separate organs and disseminated broadcast, leaving it, apparently, to accident to unite the female and male cells for the formation of a new plant. But nature has wisely planned that mere accident. alone shall not be instrumental in the propagation of these plants. On the contrary, she has contrived that the female cells shall actually attract the male, as though by conscious intention. Keen botanical investigators have discovered that certain chemical substances possess the power of directly attracting the male spores toward the female, and proved conclusively that it is sugar in the germs of mosses and malic acid in those of ferns by which this attraction is exerted. These facts are easily demonstrated by the very pretty experiment of adding the male spores of mosses and ferns to a vessel with water, mixing them well together. Into this water are placed capillary tubes filled with highly diluted malic acid and others with like solutions of sugar. The germs are at once seen to be set in motion, swimming towards the glass tubes and into them, not one missing its goal. Strange to say, the fern spores tend with unfailing certainty towards the tubes with malic acid, while the moss spores turn towards the sugar tubes. And they find their way, be it noted, when the substances within the tubes are diluted to the degree of 1:100,000. - If we reflect that these extremely minute quantities of matter produce not only a marked, indeed we may say, an animated motion among the seminal cells, but also that by this means most complex processes are liberated within them that is, something akin to a conscious perception of the direction from which the attraction emanates and what may be called an intentional motion towards the decoy or object of attraction we cannot fail to be struck by the dynamic power residing in the particles of matter reduced to extreme. subdivisions. The effects of ammoniac phosphate on the leaves of the Drosera rotundifolia and other carnivorous plants, so fully studied by Darwin, and manifesting themselves in a dilution even of 1:20,000,000, are too well known to be repeated here. But it is not in the vegetable kingdom alone that these phenomena have been demonstrated. Among those to be fitly mentioned here are the effects of highly attenuated solutions of poisons upon infusoria, shown in the experiments of Sand. This investigator found that arsenical solutions in the proportion of 1:1,000,000 destroyed the microscopic organism, and that solutions of 1:1 mill. retarded their multiplication. This, as you well know, takes place by simple partition or segmentation, a process which was markedly favored by an arsenical solution of 1:10,000,000. In the space of eight days |