We would respectfully submit that the answer to this question must, like the question itself, be twofold:

I. Asepsis, or aseptic methods, as understood by perhaps the majority, having for a prime object the prevention of septic infection, whether by dry heat, hot water, alcohol, “germicides," or extraordinary cleanliness, can claim no relationship whatever with homoeopathy, which is essentially therapeutic. Asepsis, then, is to homœopathy what prevention is to cure. The question of compatibility or incompatibility can logically find no application here.

II. Antisepsis. Considering the almost chaotic state of opinion on this subject, its exhaustive discussion is difficult, and its final and definite solution absolutely impossible at the present time.

Attention is called to one or two points connected with this subject. As for instance, antisepsis by the internal administration of antiseptics or germicides, being directed against the theoretical cause of an existent diseased state, cannot claim to be logically compatible with the doctrines detailed in the "Organon." Antisepsis thus considered is not compatible with homoeopathic methods. But the use of antiseptic methods for the purpose of inducing asepsis in the physician, nurse, patient, dressings, applications, habitation, etc., is as compatible with homœopathy as preventive are with curative methods. What Hahnemann's views on this matter would be is a subject for curious and interesting speculation; nor is it difficult to make, from available data, a working guess.

That Hahnemann had a breadth of view and a prevision greater than most of his noisily adoring disciples accord him, can be easily proven by one familiar with his writings. The "Organon" may indeed be silent concerning antisepsis, a child of modern medicine, but it says much concerning the removal of "causes that disturb health, that produce and maintain disease." "The physician in curing derives assistance from the knowledge of facts concerning the most probable cause of acute disease," etc. § 5 "Organon." This idea is carried so far by Hahnemann that the great majority of chronic diseases are ascribed to the influence of one "fundamental cause," psora.

In § 103 of the "Organon," in connection with "the unvarying, miasmatic, chronic diseases," one reads:

In these cases, also, one patient presents only a portion of these symptoms, while a second and a third, etc., exhibits still another set, which constitutes, as it were, but a detached fragment of the totality of symptoms belonging to the entire chronic disease. A complex like this, particularly that of psora, could only be ascertained by examining a great many chronic cases. Without a complete image construed out of the totality of these symptoms it would be impossible to discover the medicines (particularly the antipsorics) for the homœopathic cure of the entire disease; but having done so, these medicines prove to be the true remedies for individual cases of chronic evils of this kind."

It hardly overtaxes the imagination to see here a striking analogy between antipsorics and antiseptics.

Turning from the homoeopathy of the "Organon Organon" to the homœopathy of Hahnemann, one finds more than an inference as to what Hahnemann would say in regard to the germ theory. In 1831, when the "Organon" was twenty-one years old, its author wrote a pamphlet on "The Mode of Propagation of the Asiatic Cholera." This essay is found on pp. 756-763 of the volume of "Lesser Writings," by Hahnemann, published by Wm. Radde, New York, 1852. It is, on the whole, as satisfactory an explanation of the matter as could be written to-day. That Hahnemann believed that cholera was spread by means of micro-organisms is well established by this essay. A few quotations may be new to many readers; and to thoughtful readers they tell a remarkable story:

"On board ships the cholera-miasm finds a favorable element for its multiplication, and grows into an enormously increased brood of those excessively minute, invisible, living creatures, so inimical to human life, of which the contagious matter of the cholera most probably consists.

"The cause of this is undoubtedly the invisible cloud

which is composed of probably millions of those miasmatic animated beings, which at first developed on the broad, marshy, tepid Ganges

*

now take away

"For such physicians and nurses with them in their clothes, in their skin, in their hair, probably also in their breath, the invisible (probably animated) and perpetually reproductive contagious matter surrounding the cholera. patient they have just visited.

Hahnemann shows plainly how cholera is propagated, and then proceeds to instruct his readers how best to prevent or cure the disease. His directions are to give the patient, when first taken, one drop of "pure unadulterated camphorated spirit" every five minutes, and in the interval to assiduously rub "him on the head, neck, chest and abdomen with the same medicine, poured into the hollow of the hand," until the return of vital warmth, etc. Hahnemann says that if physicians would but follow these directions they would certainly destroy the miasm about the patient; they would cure their patients within a couple of hours, and, "by the cure of the disease with pure camphor, they would at the same time eradicate and annihilate the miasm (that probably consists of innumerable, invisible living beings) in and about the patient, about themselves, even in the clothes, the linen, the bed of the patient (for these all would be penetrated by the vapor of the camphor if it were employed in this way), in the very furniture, and walls of the apartment also, and they themselves (the physicians and nurses) would then carry off none of the contagious principle with them, and could no longer infect persons throughout the town."

Hahnemann wrote this forty years after the idea of similars had occurred to him, and thirty-five years after he had written his famous "Essay on the New Principle, etc." His views on homoeopathy were by this time, doubtless, as definite and as authoritative as those of his disciples are to-day; yet here we find him recommending an antiseptic or germicidal treatment for cholera without appearance of concern as to its compatibility or incompatibility with the "Organon."

"Doctor: The Institute will speak authoritatively on the relation of the Germ Theory to Homoeopathy, at Washington. The perfect accuracy of its diction will depend largely upon your answering the above questions with fidelity. THOUGH YOU SHOULD

CHANCE TO BE A NON-PRACTITIONER OF OBSTETRICS AT PRESENT,

With the above remarkable utterance ends the circular, quotations from which form our text. It is an utterance so remarkable in its naïveté, and in its innocent arrogance, that we trust it will be read by few physicians without a smile, and that the spirit it embodies will have scant representation at the Institute session. The assumption that any physician, or any body of physicians, can speak, at any given moment, "authoritatively" on a great mooted question of medical science, is an assumption unworthy of an adult mind. Physicians, or societies of physicians, may put on record their opinion on such questions; but to suppose that such opinions settle anything whatever except the fact that they are held by the individual, or society expressing them, is to suppose something very queer, anachronistic and impossible. Opinions do not alter facts; the wise man seeks after facts, and accords to opinions the speculative interest which is all their due. "Authoritative" utterance is a droll thing, in the light of history. The power of "authoritative" opinion over scientific fact is instanced in cases which teach a grim lesson. The Inquisition "authoritatively" condemned Copernicus, punished Galileo, tortured his adherents and supporters, burned their books, prohibited the teaching of their heretical doctrines, and pronounced the world a fixed and immovable sphere. The Old Church "authoritatively" established and upheld the medical teachings of Galen, and condemned Vesalius to exile for unorthodox teaching. Theologians have repeatedly denounced Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and the host of scientific workers whose names are immortal; and to what end? The Facts of Science, the Truths of Nature, are not affected by any authoritative" utterances of man. Not infrequently the more "authoritatively" man speaks the less he sees and knows. Opinions may be expressed by individual physicians and societies, but the germ theory, like the world's motion, will not be established or disproved by the "authoritative" speech of the Institute, or any other organization.

It is to be hoped that the Institute, with the modesty of the

true scientific spirit, will consider, discuss, listen to much speech and weigh many arguments, and wisely decide to investigate further before it "speaks" at all, where "authoritative" speech, or speech to any practical issue, is out of the question. Hahnemann's attitude toward antiseptic methods may be shrewdly guessed from the quotations offered above. The attitude of several earnest, scholarly and experienced homœopathists on antiseptic methods is set forth in a brief symposium, published elsewhere in our present issue. But the attitude of no man, not of Hahnemann, nor another, can affect the usefulness or the harmfulness of antiseptic methods. And whether they be most useful or most harmful, let us set ourselves, like adult and scientific thinkers, to discover by adult and scientific work.

EDITORIAL NOTES AND COMMENTS.

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A NOVEL PLEA FOR SMALL DOSES is made by Dr. John Aulde in his new book, "The Pocket Pharmacy," etc. This plea is as astonishingly original as are many of the recent discoveries by old-school therapeutists of the virtues resident in drugs well known to and traditional among those outcast "sectarians" called homœopathists. The doses recommended by Dr. Aulde are only small by comparison; and gr. of morphine, although small in itself, means a fair-sized dose when repeated every ten minutes for an hour. A few of these small doses might be enumerated to give an idea of their curious resemblance to "low potency" homœopathic prescribing.

Morphine hydrochlor.

gr. once daily for constipation.

Trinitrin (glonoine), 1 gr. for cerebral congestion.

Atropine sulphate,

gr. for scarlatina, erysipelas, erythema,

delirium, tonsillitis, aphonia (of neurotic type), etc.

Mercury biniodide, 1 gr. for diphtheria, diarrhoea, two or three times a day in syphilis, etc.