The Melbourne Homœopathic Medical Society meets once a month, and papers pertaining to cases and other items of interest are discussed. The Society has 14 members; all are engaged in practice in and about the city.

Throughout Australasia are scattered at present 38 avowed practitioners; of these, 16 are in Victoria, 6 in New South Wales, 6 in Tasmania, 4 in South Australia, 4 in New Zealand, 1 in Queensland, and 1 in Western Australia.

We have no periodical nor permanent literature.

All medical practitioners on entering any part of Australasia for the purpose of practicing medicine must first of all pass the State Medical Board, and become registered. The applicant is not required to pass any examination. His certificates are looked into and if from a high standard school are accepted. Lately the law has been amended and applicants in all States, except Victoria, must have a diploma from a school where they have not less than a five years' course in medicine and surgery. The same alteration is talked of for Victoria in the near future.

The old school men of Australia would like to see legislation passed that would keep out all but the holders of degrees obtained in schools of Great Britain and the Colonies, and in some of the States the law has already been altered to that effect. Our relations with the dominent school are much the same as is the case in other parts of the world, and we are generally advised to study the commandments and attend to our own affairs, which most of us try to do.

HOMEOPATHY IN MEXICO.*

BY FRANCIS MCMILLAN, M.D., MEXICO.

The history of homoeopathy in Mexico is one of great interest to its adherents, as Mexico is, I believe, the only country in which homœopathy has received recognition by the Government equal to that given the regular school.

In 1893, through the efforts of four Mexican physicians, who had become homeopaths by reading homœopathic literature, the attention of President Porfirio Diaz and the Ministro de Gobernacion, Sr. Manuel Romero Rubio, was called to homœopathy, and upon considering the facts presented to them by these physicians, permission was granted to establish a homoeopathic hospital. In Mexico all hospitals and medical colleges are supported by the government and an appropriation was made for the homeopathic hospital.

Three years after, in 1896, so successful was the hospital, that, in connection with it, a medical college was established. President Diaz and Sr. Romero Rubio, the father of the beautiful wife of the president, sometimes employed homoeopathic physicians in their families, and so kindly was the feeling for the new school that, in spite of the fact that from time to time much pressure has been Read at the International Homeopathic Congress at Atlantic City.

brought to bear by men of the other school to abolish the homœopathic institutions, they have continued to exist, supported by the Government.

The hospital at first consisted of one building, a part of the old Spanish Arsenal, built during the Conquest, and which still bears the Spanish arms carved in stone over the doorway. This ward contained about fifteen beds and now other buildings have been added and there are sixty beds, and also a ward for contagious diseases, and operating room and lecture rooms for the students, besides a kitchen and nurses' rooms. None of the buildings are large, are only one story high, in Mexican style, and separated from each other by the walks of a pretty garden. The patients are poor people, as there are no pay wards, and usually every bed is occupied. About $500 dollars a month (silver) is appropriated to the hospital by the Government.

Dr. Joaquin Segura y Pesado, the president of the College and Hospital, is the man to whom homœopathy owes its position in Mexico. A man of distinguished family, charming personality and the highest culture, it was due to his personal influence that the President and his minister extended their protection to the new school of medicine. Dr. Segura was at one time an allopath and attended the Post-Graduate School in New York where he became quite friendly with Dr. Reginald Beach, also a convert to homœopathy, and from which I had a letter of introduction to Dr. Segura. After his conversion to homœopathy Dr. Segura's devotion was complete, and Hahnemann has never counted amongst his followers a more consistent or successful believer.

Associated with him in the founding of the hospital were Dr. Ignacio Fernandez y Lara, Dr. Ignacio Montano and Dr. Fernandez Gomez y Suarez-all pure homœopaths.

The college course covers five years and there have been about thirty graduated from the school. The usual curriculum is followed but the greatest stress is laid upon materia medica and the study of the Organon. The purest homoeopathy is taught, though not in the high potencies. Few operations are done compared even with homœopathic hospitals in other countries. These men believe in the indicated remedy above everything, and their results are simply marvelous. Only clear water and gauze are used in dressings. Much of the college instruction is given directly at the bedside. Every day clinics are held in the wards under the different professors. Advanced students are assigned cases as they come in and report the history from day to day to the professor in charge.

On first coming to Mexico, I went to the hospital three times a week to these bedside clinics held by Dr. Fernandez de Lara. I presume none of the physicians or students had ever seen a woman physician before, but never, even in my college days in Cleveland where they are particularly courteous to their women students, have I met with such courtesy and chivalry as shown me by these gentlemen. The best place was mine, the first opportunity to examine the patient after Dr. Lara, was offered me, and my scanty Spanish was

always supplemented by English explanations either from Dr. Lara or one of the students who possessed that accomplishment.

Ever since I have been in Mexico I have invariably met with the greatest friendliness from these physicians who have been genuinely interested in my success in my practice among the Americans.

There are at present about twenty-five students in the college. Nearly every year a class of from four to five is graduated, but the examinations are strict and there is no hesitation about "plucking" a student. These men wish only thorough homœopaths to hold their diplomas. There are in all thirty-eight homoeopaths in Mexico who hold diplomas, but unfortunately many pretend to be of our school who are not legitimate graduates.

The faculty of the college has the privilege of examining foreign homoeopaths who come here. Dr. Ezra Lines is the only American who has passed the examination. It covers about three days and is a fair practical test, though only a pure homoeopath would be successful. My deficiency in Spanish has heretofore kept me from attempting it, though I hope to do so before the year is out.

On Dr. Hahnemann's birthday, the faculty and students hold a celebration-sometimes in the form of a dinner, sometimes a fiesta at the Tivoli. I doubt if more enthusiastic homoeopaths exist in the world than these in Mexico. Many of them speak English, and all of our best books are found in both the college and their private libraries. They admire Kent greatly, and Nash is their model. To have known either of these men is at once a passport to their hearts.

From time to time, homoeopaths from the States, visiting in Mexico, have called upon me and I have taken them to visit the hospital, and their reception is always most cordial. Dr. Hanchett. of Council Bluffs and Dr. Sarah J. Millsop, of Kentucky, were both much interested in the work done here.

My own position in Mexico is somewhat different from that of the Mexican physicians. A foreign physician, by paying a license each month, may practice but may not sign a death certificate or collect a fee in law. Out of about twenty-four American physicians. I am the only homoeopath (or woman physician) in the city, and, since Dr. Lines, of Monterey, has had to give up his practice because of ill health, the only one in the Republic.

Naturally in the American colony there has been a demand for an American homoeopath and a woman physician, so that I have established a very good practice in the four years and a half of my residence here. It has been pioneer work, however, but I think I have upheld my school with credit, and I hope in the coming years to put homœopathy on the top of the heap. The best allopathic physicians have been friendly to me and are quite ready to meet me in consultation. This is sometimes necessary, as Americans are rather inclined to prefer American physicians to any others. There is a very good American hospital here, with American physicians and nurses in charge, supported by contributions from Americans. All American physicians take patients there, and mine are as well cared for as those of the other school. Tourists who are taken ill here can have as good care as in any hospital in the States.

One very interesting feature of my practice is that I have patients from all the different homoeopaths in the United States, and even have one man who came from Dr. Clarke of England. I am always very happy to see the physicians from the States who come here on pleasure trips, and trust any coming in the future will look me up. I enjoyed a call from Dr. Runnels, of Indianapolis, last winter, and recently one from Dr. Dewey of the Century.

San Juau de Letrau No. 12,
Mexico, D. F.

THE CONSIDERATION OF MODALITIES IN PRESCRIBING HOMEOPATHIC REMEDIES.*

BY W. A. DEWEY, M.D., ANN ARBOR, MICH.

What are usually termed the modalities of a drug, when referring to our pathogeneses, are the influences which change or modify its action.

In all nature we have these modifying influences; in plant life we find them in the temperature, humidity and environments of soil and climate; in animal life we note similar conditions.

In sickness and disease these modifying influences are almost legion. We find our patients better or worse on certain days or times in the day; position, temperature, heat, cold, humidity, day and night, all modify for better or for worse many illnesses, or perhaps better said, many patients.

The modifying features of a given illness may be due to that illness itself. We find deep breathing aggravates invariably certain stages of pleurisy. We find that heat will invariably relieve certain pains. These are what we might term pathognomonic modalities and belong rather to the disease than to the patient, and consequently are of less importance, I believe, in prescribing than those modalities that are characteristic of the patient.

In our pathogeneses we recognize the modalities as serving to indicate the character of the drug, to individualize it, to precisionize it. Without these modalities our knowledge of a drug's action would in many instances be devoid of clearness and hence crude. Withdraw from the pathogenesis of rhus toxicodendron all its modalities and what would we have left upon which to prescribe this medicine? And not only with rhus, it is the same with nux, sulphur, in fact every remedy.

Every drug has an environment for the full and free manifestation of its individualities, just as a plant thrives best in soil and climate suited to it. To be sure, it will grow in soils and climates unsuited to it, but it will be dwarfed and stunted. Drugs likewise may act where the environment is lacking, but the best effect will be where it is present.

A good example of a drug that depends largely upon its modali

*Read before the International Homœopathic Congress at Atlantic City.

ties for its accurate employment is lachesis; most of its good characteristics are modality characteristics; thus the aggravation after sleeping, from touch, from tight clothing about the neck, are examples of this. Indeed, it would be difficult to prescribe it as its pathogenesis now stands without paying attention to its modalities. It is sometimes difficult to determine the value of a modality. and doubtless our pathogeneses teem with many that are valueless, often exciting ridicule.

It is our belief that too much value for the purposes of accurate prescribing, cannot be placed upon a well and repeatedly observed modality. It often serves to decide between drugs of similar action, or to apply a drug in difficult patients with similar diagnosed diseases. In other words it frequently diagnoses our prescription.

In re-proving our materia medica we should be particular to elicit all possible modalities, for they are in reality an essential part of every symptom and we do not believe that a real good homœopathic prescription can be made without them.

IS HOMEOPATHY A PART OF RATIONAL MEDICINE?

EDITOR NEW ENGLAND MEDICAL GAZETTE.

My dear Sir: It goes without saying that if the broadest meaning of the word rational is to attach to it in the term rational medicine, we homoeopathists regard homoeopathy as eminently belonging to rational medicine. With this broadest meaning of rational the term rational medicine would include, too, such empiricism as is based upon past practice. Indeed, if the broadest meaning of the word rational is to attach to that word in the term rational medicine, rational practice is really the whole thing, for any practice for which there is good reason is rational.

But to clear thinking and to intelligible discussion classification of practices is necessary, and it is customary to divide medicine into at least two classes, viz., rational medicine and empiricism- the former characterized by regard for a priori reason, the latter by regard for a posteriori reason. Now, whatever the reasons leading one to accept the law of similars (whether chiefly a priori or chiefly a posteriori), the law once accepted becomes an a priori reason for the administration of a similar in a particular case. If, therefore, we consider, as the only characteristic of rational practice, its regard for a priori reason, we shall have to insist that homœopathy is a part of rational medicine. In that case we may note one thing which differences homoeopathy from, and marks it as transcending the possibilities of, anything else in rational medicine. In any given practice of homeopathy there is sought an immediate end (i.e. an end to which no other end is mediate) not in itself knowable, while characteristic of the rest of rational medicine is, that an end must be sought in itself knowable. To make the point clear, let us define the cure of which similia similibus curantur is the law. It is an im