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ing the majority vote of the Institute at Waukesha. But it was destined to be otherwise. A few persons seemed to think that the session would be a tame affair if politics could not enter into the matter, and so with the secret manoeuvering and wire-pulling, the electioneering and securing pledges, under the pretence that Dr. McClelland had declined, and that the leading members of the Institute were opposed to him, and that their candidate must be elected to save the Institute from the eternal disgrace of putting some disreputable fellow into the chair, an hour before the election took place it seemed doubtful whether Dr. McClelland would be elected. But an informal ballot, made without nominations or fulsome speeches - which have at times disgraced the scientific character of the Institute — resulted in a large majority for Dr. McClelland, much to the discomfiture of the political wire-pullers, who had fruitlessly spent so much time in their midnight sessions and cabals. Let us hope that such means will always furnish similar results in the American Institute! Other officers elected were: First Vice-President, Dr. C. E. Fisher of San Antonio, Texas; Second Vice-President, Millie J. Chapman of Pittsburg, Pa.; Treasurer, E. M. Kellogg of New York city; Assistant Treasurer, Dr. T. F. Smith of New York city; General Secretary, Dr. Pemberton Dudley of Philadelphia; Provisional Secretary, Dr. T. M. Strong of Boston; board of Censors, Drs. Rush, Coperthwaite, Smith, Hoag, and Kenyon.

THE NEXT PLACE OF MEETING.

Unanimously, and without the suggestion of any other place, the Institute voted to meet next year at Chicago. As at Atlantic City last year, a congress will be held, in which the homoeopathic physicians of the world will participate. The sessions of the Institute will be for business only, while the scientific work will be done in this congress which will form an auxiliary to the Columbian Exposition. The most extensive preparations are being made for this, and there is little doubt that the session will be one of unexampled interest and value. While, therefore, we look back with the greatest satisfaction upon the last two sessions, we may look forward to one of still greater importance and value in the congress at Chicago in 1893. Let every homœopathic physician, who feels any interest in medical progress, do something for the success of the next session.

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A LAST CHANCE to secure one of the most valuable scientific works of the generation, the Cyclopædia of Drug Pathogenesy at cost price, is offered to the members of the Ameri

can Institute of Homœopathy. The facts on the subject are thus stated by Dr. Kellogg, the treasurer of the Institute:

"This most important work is now complete in sixteen parts, including Appen dix, Supplement, and General Index. The Editors are now preparing a Reperto rial Index, which will form a separate volume, and which, it should be remembered, is not included in the original subscription.

The cost price of each part is about seventy cents, to which should be added the present tariff duty (seventeen cents each), making the total cost of the sixteen parts complete, $14.00. To facilitate its distribution and to enable members to ob tain the work in bound volumes, arrangements have been made with Messrs. Otis Clapp & Son, of Boston, who have been constituted the authorized agents for the sale and distribution of this work. The agents have been instructed to accept subscriptions for complete sets from members of the Institute, up to July 15, at the following prices :

Sixteen parts, unbound, $14.00;

Bound in four volumes, cloth, $16.50;

Bound in four volumes, half morroco, $20.00.

Postage or expressage extra, and, as the books are sold at cost, it will be strictly a cash transaction, and the money should either accompany the subscription, or goods will be forwarded for collection on delivery.

The books will be delivered as soon as received from London.

The right is reserved to increase the price after July 15, for the benefit of the Institute, and the agents will be authorized, after that date, to accept subscriptions from others, not members of the Institute, until all the sets shall have been sold.

The subscriptions are to be sent direct to the Institute's agents, Messrs. OTIS CLAPP & SONS, 10 Park Square, Boston. It will be noted that the above holds good only until July 15. Members of a procrastinating turn of mind, can take a significant hint from the fact that, in England, the price of the work has already advanced from about seventy cents to a dollar and a quarter (five shillings) per fascicle.

The absolute indispensableness of the Cyclopædia to every progressive and thoughtful student of homoeopathy needs no dwelling upon. No study of the possibilities of homoeopathy can rest upon securer foundation than that drawn from this rich treasure-house of tested facts.

COMMUNICATIONS.

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"THE SCIENCE OF HOMEOPATHY."

BY W. BUIST PICKEN, LONDON, ENGLAND.

To the Editor of the New England Medical Gazette:

Sir,- In reply to the editorial which you honor me with in the GAZETTE of April, pray believe that my motive is not of selfdefence, nor of anything else personal, but is simply one with your own the desire for more light, more fruitful truth.

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Taking the several points of your criticism in the inverse order, let me first remark that there is a misunderstanding somewhere on the subject of similia as distinct from doctrines.

of attenuation. It is some years since I openly took up the position which you somehow believe me to oppose. I cannot think from what part of my pamphlet you have derived the erroneous opinion, and would be obliged by having it pointed out to me, so that any misleading expressions may be corrected for future use.

I do not participate in the common confusion of thought about the homoeopathic rule and "infinitesimalism." My own differentiation takes this form: Contraria contrariis curantur is a method of treatment with drugs in their positive relation to the organism; while similia similibus curantur is the complementary method of treatment with the same forces in their negative relation to the organism. A positively related drug is an external force, working inwardly (as disease works), and producing its specific effects by domination of organic states and tendencies. A negatively related drug is an interior force, working outwardly (as the vis medicatrix nature works), and inducing organic ends through restoration of dynamic equilibrium. Hence reaction in the one case, and the absence of it in the other.

That the positive state is the ideal relation of the organism to drugs, is manifest; antipathic action, therefore, implies an inversion of the ideal relation. The antipathic dose must be large enough to produce its own specific effects in spite of organic resistance, the dose varying with the resistance to be overcome. And as antipathic treatment is the great hereditary feature of "allopathy," a characteristic "allopathic dose" inverts the ideal (or best or right) relation of drug to organism, and through compulsory function effects arbitrary ends it may be said to attack the organism on "the good old rule, the simple plan, that he should take who has the power, and he should keep who can.” Homœopathic action, on the contrary, is secured only by having the dose small enough to keep it in the negative relation, the dose varying with the organic impressibility. If the dose be "too strong," then the drug becomes positive, and "an aggravation" results. The homoeopathic remedy, as such, is absolutely dependent; firstly, on its qualitative relation of similarity, and, secondly, on its quantitative relation of negativeness. Hence it can never effect arbitrary ends, having of itself no compulsory tendencies. It is thus in the ideal relation to the organism, "renouncing self," that the organism may attain to its own salutary ends, under the divine law of right is might. In ethical language, we may say that the homoeopathic remedy dies to itself, and thus saves.

There is, therefore, in the most philosophical sense, an "allopathic dose" and a "homoeopathic dose.' The former is the positive, independent, compulsory force of autocratic chemistry,

and is arbitrary, self-seeking, "prone to do evil"; the latter is the negative, dependent, persuasive power of republican medicine, and is constitutional, self-denying, instinctively altruistic in action. In technical phraseology, I should term the characteristic dose of allopathy the pathogenetic dose; the ideal or typical dose of contraria contrariis curantur, the physiological dose; and the dose of homoeopathy, the dynamic dose.

These are the three species in posology under which all varieties may be scientifically classified: the positive, the passive, and the negative.

The fifth point of criticism a little surprises me. It is objected that the interference theory implies instantaneous curative action, since the illustrations of interference in light, sound, etc., notably exhibit this quality of action.

In dealing with two-wave series of sound or light, we have two relatively simple forces to do with, under the control which is rendered possible to us by the nature of inorganic laws. The powers of even two drugs in complementary relation are quite fixed, and may be controlled by the experimenter with practical precision, in their own sphere, i. e., in relation to inorganic bodies or forms of force. But all this is necessarily changed vastly when a relatively simple inorganic force is brought into relation with an organic force of comparatively infinite complexity and scope of action into a veritable world of forces, which the human organism certainly is. Surely it is not necessary to state the difference between the chemist's power over the inorganic things of his laboratory and that in his dealings with animalspiritual organisms.

When a drug is administered, in any dose, to a human being, a relatively simple force is brought into relation with a whole world of forces which, in their several powers and unified equivalence, is never even approximately known; hence the always varied effects from similar use of the same agent. Moreover, this world of forces exists under conditions of Space and Time, like the stellar worlds, which are objective to us all. And, bearing the foregoing in mind, I affirm that this very quality of instantaneousness of action which characterizes interference in the inorganic relations I am accustomed to observe in the interferential action of remedies in disease. Let it be remembered that in disease a world of forces are, more or less, disordered, and, therefore, that the phenomena of therapeutic interference must be looked for as it progressively occurs in the curative processes taking place throughout this immeasurable world.

The reference to typhoid fever is wholly irrelevant. When we discover a drug which will be capable of developing all the characteristic phenomena of typhoid fever in any subject at any

time, then, but not till then, shall we be logically entitled to expect from a typhoid remedy therapeutic results through interference absolutely analogous to the phenomena of interference in the inorganic world. Diseased conditions which are called by the same name are never the same in any two cases; nor does any diseased state remain strictly unchanged for two seconds of time.

Little need be added with reference to the fourth point, in which it is said that I take it "for granted that the homœopathic principle is an established law of science." I contend that the law of homoeopathy is a law of nature, however scientists may classify it; and that this law, like any other, may be applied by us under the natural conditions which regulate the application. The third and first items or criticisms may be taken together. En passant, permit me to make a single remark with reference to the second point, in which it is stated that my argument assumes an hypothesis to be an established and demonstrable scientific certainty." There are, I take it, two general classes of demonstrations, namely, demonstrations directly through the senses, and demonstrations directly through the reason. Now, certain matters are naturally demonstrable after the one manner, and other matters after the other manner. And I am unable to see how the hypothesis in question can, from the very nature of things, be demonstrated to be either false or true except directly through the reason.

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The cardinal objection to my argument is, that "it is an argument for isopathy, but not at all for homœopathy." Well, I'm pleased that this question has arisen, for it seems to me quite time that the cloudy thought in solution about isopathy and homœopathy should be shaken up and then properly crystalized. I cannot pretend to do this in a letter; but if nobody else gives the subject the attention due to it, what lies in my power that way will be done, as opportunity is found. In the meantime I offer some useful data.

The fatally weak point of the argument from inorganic phenomena of interference is asserted to be, that these phenomena do not result from similar, but from identical forces. It is conceded that the phenomena of interference do occur as described; but it is said that they are manifestations of "force counteracted by identical force." The phenomena of interference being acknowledged to follow from natural law, the question is of similarity versus identity. But if the law of interference related to identical forces, we should expect the repeated doses of daily medical practice to cancel each other. How, then, comes it that the phenomena of two consecutive doses of the same drug are not those of interference, but the opposite? They do not coun

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