in all the excellent provincial homoeopathic hospitals of the Kingdom. The Hahnemann hospital in Liverpool is a very important, large, and well-managed institution, doing an excellent work; the Phillips Memorial Hospital at Bromley, that at Bristol, Bath, Tunbridge Wells, Birmingham, the Buchanan Hospital at St. Leonards, at Eastbourne, Plymouth, Bournemouth, and Leicester, all show marked activity and corresponding success in the increase in the number of patients and in the hard work carried on by the medical officers. The marked revival in homoeopathy shows itself, in fact, everywhere, and this inspiriting and militant attitude, evinced all over Great Britain, is perhaps the most salient feature of the whole quinquennium of which I have to speak at this time.

The British Homœopathic Society, which meets once a month at the London Homoeopathic Hospital, evinces the same new life as is visible in other departments. The list of membership of the Society is practically synonymous with the number of homoeopathic practitioners in the United Kingdom, the meetings are largely attended, the papers read at the monthly meetings are excellent in type and spirit, and their devotion to homœopathy is marked. The discussions after each paper show the active and deep-seated interest taken in the subjects brought forward and in their bearing on homœopathy. The Society is, in fact, in a very flourishing and healthy state, and becomes, every year, more regularly attended and appreciated. Its papers and discussions are issued quarterly as a journal, entitled the Transactions of the British Homœopathic Society, and it is transmitted to every member of it.. Two other journals, the Monthly Homœopathic Review, which has this year attained its jubilee, or fiftieth year, and the Homœopathic World, are too well known in America to require from me any statement other than that they exist and flourish as the literary aid to the advance of homœopathy, in the fullest way that is possible on their part.

We have lost by death quite a number of very valuable and well-known members of our profession in the last five years. Most of them are well known in America, and are as highly esteemed there as in Great Britain. I need hardly do more than mention their names, as anything further would be quite unnecessary: Dr. Dudgeon, who lived to the advanced age of eighty-four, and who had all his life been a pillar of strength to homoeopathy. His works, and his various writings in the journals, of the powerful militant type, are such as any one, or any school, might be proud of. Dr. Richard Hughes, as well known in America as here, well known for his writings, his influence, and charming personality; Dr. Compton Burnett, also as well known in America as in England, Dr. Robert T. Cooper, Dr. Eubulus Williams, Dr. Hamilton, who lived to an advanced age, and was a personal friend of Dr. Quinn, Dr. Gibbs Blake, best known and much esteemed in England. These, with others less generally known out of England, have all passed away to the majority, leaving their colleagues so much the poorer, but with an example set before them to follow in their footsteps, and to do all in their power to promote the progress and advancement of homoeopathy.

This paper is already too long, and I have to omit many details

which are interesting to a Briton, but less so to the International Homœopathic Congress. But on the whole we, in Great Britain, have much to be proud of in the therapeutic revival of which we have spoken, and in the general great advance in homoeopathy which has marked the last five years of our existence.

THE STATUS OF HOMOEOPATHY IN FRANCE.*

My dear Colleague:

BY C. LEON SIMON, M.D.

PARIS, May 25th, 1906.

It is already several months ago that I promised to give you a sketch of the state of homoeopathy in France. Pardon my having made you wait so long. Circumstances beyond my control have prevented me from responding to your wish at an earlier date.

On examining successively the various points concerning which you ask for information, it gives me pleasure to note some progress, both in regard to matters of practice and those of theory.

The points which interest us on the practical side are those having reference (1) to individuals; (2) to the societies; (3) to the hospitals; (4) to the successes obtained by virtue of our therapeutics.

1. If we consider the individuals, that is, the physicians taken by themselves, we have the assurance that their numbers are increasing. The increase has been most distinctly marked in Paris since the International Congress of 1900, more particularly during the past year. Within the last few months some ten new members have joined the Homœopathic Society of France, all young and active men of high intelligence who are sure to be an honor to our school. It is impossible to estimate the number of homoeopathic physicians practicing in France, since many are scattered singly throughout the country and are known only to their clientele and our pharmacists. I am sure that they number more than two hundred. One of the cities in which our cause has made the greatest progress is Havre. There we command all the elements of success; two young and intelligent physicians, Dr. Humeau and Dr. Mondin; a layman, Mr. Van der Velde, a fervent advocate of our cause who is making an active propaganda in the highest society of the town; and a pharmacist who fills homoeopathic prescriptions in the most conscientious manner. There are also many eclectics (half homoeopaths). During the past year I met one of them in consultation.

To the physicians we must add the pharmacists. We have in France twelve special pharmacists; seven in Paris and five in the departments. Besides these pharmacies we have in nearly all the larger cities a pharmacist possessing a stock of homoeopathic medicines. There are also homoeopathic veterinaries. I know one in Paris and another in the East; but there are more with whom I am not facquainted. Furthermore, there are several dentists, warm advocates of our principles, living in Paris and in the provinces.

*Read at the International Homœopathic Congress at Atlantic City. Written to and translated by Walter Wesselhæft, M.D.

This brings me very naturally to speak of our relations with our allopathic colleagues. This relationshp is undergoing a marked amelioration from day to day. The greater number among them. notably the specialists, readily consent to meet us in consultation. Many of our own men are on committees of hygiene, fill the positions of medical inspectors of schools, etc. One of our pharmacists, M. Ecalle, has received the diploma of Doctor of Pharmacy, a distinction. possessed by very few, and the professors of the College of Pharmacy have received M. Ecalle with high praise.

2. We are grouped in one Society which has grown very flourishing: the Homœopathic Society of France. It constitutes practically our one society. There is, however, a local society at Bordeaux, and I hope soon to be able to announce the organization of a third society at Lyons. In this second city of France are found all the necessary conditions: a homoeopathic hospital, many homœopathic physicians, young and energetic. It awaits only that one among them shall take the initiative in gathering his colleagues about him. Our cause will certainly gain by the multiplication of these centers of activity.

3. Of journals we have three, the Revue Homœopathique Francaise, which is the organ of the Societe Francaise d'Homœopathie; l'Art Medicale, one of the oldest homoeopathic journals in Europe, as it is in existence upwards of fifty years; le Propagateur de l'Homœopathie, published at Lyons by Dr. Gallavardin, a very recent journal existing only since last year, but one meriting success.

4. We have four hospitals, three in Paris and one in Lyons, but they will hardly bear comparison with those which you possess in the United States. The whole number of their beds does not exceed two hundred and fifty. The two most amply provided with means are the hospital at Lyons and the Hospital St. Jacques. This latter possesses an operating-room as perfectly appointed as those of the allopathic hospitals, and also a bacteriological laboratory given. by Dr. P. Jousset. Our eminent confrére has there pursued many interesting researches which have been published in l'Art Medicale.

I am unable to give you the exact number of our dispensaries. There are some everywhere. Paris alone has not less than ten, but in addition there are several at Lyons, Bordeaux, Marseilles, and in every city where there are homoeopathic physicians. They are established chiefly in the most densely populated quarters and are always very fully attended. The working classes, who are interested only in results, remain much attached to homoeopathy wherever they give it a trial.

5. We have scored two successes during the past year which have attracted attention to our school. One of our fellow practitioners was called to treat the son of the President of the Republic and treated him with complete success after the total failure of the most eminent physician of Paris.

The Hahnemann Hospital has recently received a legacy of two thousand dollars. The physicians of the hospital had no knowledge of the testator who conferred the bounty on their institution, and she herself knew nothing of the hospital. She simply wished to

bestow the sum on the best hospital of Neuilly, a town situated in the suburbs of Paris, where the Hospital Hahnemann is located. This latter was proposed to the executor by a third person and the needful inquiries proving favorable, the legacy was very properly made over to our institution.

In regard to theoretical matters a change is in progress which demands consideration. The proving of drugs on healthy individuals is giving place to experimentations on animals. Hence we have ceased to enrich our materia medica. The greater number of our acquisitions in this department come to us from allopathic sources. We borrow them from cases of poisoning or from the injurious effects of drugs administered improperly or without judgment. But we have also veritable pathogenesies derived from X-rays, radium and other imponderables and these prove that the agents in question act on the homoeopathic principle. The same may be said of the serums. It is necessary to bear in mind that sero-therapy is no other than a form of isopathy. The serums are nothing less than nosodes prepared by a particular method. Pasteur and his school, in causing these nosodes to pass through several animal organisms, have the merit of readily obtaining products possessing the most constant and certain activities. Dr. Pierre Jousset, who is a most enthusiastic bacteriological investigator, has established a laboratory in the Hospital St. Jacques, where he has already made a number of highly interesting experiments, the results of which have been published in l'Art Medicale.

It should be said, however, that it would be unjust to declare the provings of medicines on animals to be useless. By poisoning rabbits slowly with tartar emetic he has produced characteristic ulcers of the stomach.

The younger homoeopathic physicians are occupying themselves earnestly with radioscopy, radiography, and radio-therapy. I believe that the side will gain thereby and our system lose nothing.

In conclusion I will mention a mode of practice growing less and less rare and which I am unable to look upon as an advance. I mean the practice of polypharmacy. Many of our confreres even among the best employ more or less frequently composite or mixed medicines. Until the present time neither adherents or opponents of the method of polypharmacy have brought forward other than theoretical arguments and as yet we do not know of any observation in favor of mixing medicines which are free from objections. Up to this time the question has been badly presented and imperfectly studied.

Without wishing to enter into a discussion of the question, it appears to me that polypharmacy favors laziness and too readily offers escape from doubts to those who examine their cases superficially. Thus I am no partisan in this matter. In order to solve the question it would be necessary to administer mixed medicines to the healthy as provings. It would then be possible to draw legitimate conclusions from the results obtained.

Please believe always, my dear Confrere, the sincere esteem in which I hold you and all your able fellow-workers.

HOMEOPATHY IN AUSTRALIA.*

BY W. K. BOUTON, M.D., MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA.

All the interests of homeopathy throughout Australia bear some kindred relation with the hospital in Melbourne, because many of the homœopathic practitioners have at some time or other been connected with the institution either as resident doctors or as members of the honorary Medical Staff. Of all our hospitals the oldest and largest is the one in Melbourne established in 1869. It has the advantage of an ideal situation in every sense, only about eight minutes walk from the busiest part of the city, on the finest avenue in Australia. The hospital has 86 beds and half a dozen cots, and cost £50,000, or a quarter of a million dollars.

The honorary officers are divided into a medical and surgical staff, totalling eight members.

There are two resident doctors, recent graduates of Bostor University School of Medicine, who take alternate terms of six months, changing from the medical to the surgical side of the hospital. A fully recognized and well managed training school for nurses with a three years' course, has been carried on at the hospital for many years, and the number in training at present is 30. Last year over 1,000 in-patients were treated and about 1,000 operations were performed (minor operations included).

On the premises, as a part of the hospital, is also carried on work for out-patients in connection with the dispensary, where a fully qualified and registered chemist is in attendance every day in the week. During the morning hours on week days, members of the honorary medical staff attend the out-patient department. The different specialists attend on their appointed days.

Last year about 9,000 out-patients were treated, and about 21,000 prescriptions were made up.

Substantial donations during the last two years have greatly aided in the effective working of the hospital. One was a gift of $2,500 (£500) towards the building of a new operating theatre. Additional help enabled us to carry out the work, the annex having been completed at a cost of about $7,000. The result is the most up-to-date and best equipped operating theatre in Australia. Additional gifts of city property have fallen into the hands of the Hospital Board, so that the outlook is considerably brightened at the present time.

In Sydney a hospital with 30 beds was established about four years ago. Good work is being done there. There are four honoraries and no resident doctor.

Queensland, South and Western Australia have not yet established homœopathic hospitals. In Tasmania are two hospitals, one at Hobart with 24 beds, a resident doctor and training school for nurses, and one at Launceston with 18 beds, two honoraries and no resident.

We have no educational institutions where homoeopathy can yet. claim recognition.

*Read before the International Homœopathic Congress at Atlantic City.