action of a remedy upon the human
system depends upon properties peculiar to it. The effects produced
suggest the naming of these qualities, which have been scientifically
classified. We shall name the diseases from their characteristic
symptoms, and then, without commenting upon all the properties of a
remedy, recommend its employment. Our reference to the qualities of any
remedy, when we do make a particular allusion to them, we shall endeavor
to make as easy and familiar as possible.

DOSE. All persons are not equally susceptible to the influence of
medicines. As a rule, women require smaller doses than men, and children
less than women. Infants are very susceptible to the effects of
anodynes, even out of all relative proportion to other kinds of
medicines. The circumstances and conditions of the system increase or
diminish the effects of medicine, so that an aperient at one time may
act as a cathartic at another, and a dose that will simply prove to be
an anodyne when the patient is suffering great pain will act as a
narcotic when he is not. This explains why the same dose often affects
individuals differently. The following table is given to indicate the
size of the dose, and is graduated to the age.

YEARS DOSE
21. . . . . . . . . .full
15. . . . . . . . . . 2-3
12. . . . . . . . . . 1-2
8 . . . . . . . . . . 1-3
6 . . . . . . . . . . 1-4
4 . . . . . . . . . . 1-6
2 . . . . . . . . . . 1-8
1 . . . . . . . . . . 1-12
1/2 . . . . . . 1-20 to 1-30

The doses mentioned in the following pages are those for adults, except
when otherwise specified.

THE PREPARATION OF MEDICINES. The remedies which we shall mention for
domestic use are mostly vegetable. Infusions and decoctions of these
will often be advised on account of the fact that they are more
available than the tinctures, fluid extracts, and concentrated
principles, which we prefer, and almost invariably employ in our
practice. Most of these medical extracts are prepared in our chemical
laboratory under the supervision of a careful and skilled pharmaceutist.
No one, we presume, would expect, with only a dish of hot water and a
stew-kettle, to equal in pharmaceutical skill the learned chemist with
all his ingeniously devised and costly apparatus for extracting the
active, remedial principles from medicinal plants. Yet infusions and
decoctions are not without their value; and from the inferior quality of