remedies, notwithstanding the
promise in the preface that "some remarks upon the doses used may
be found at the head of each medicine"? Possibly because it makes
no difference whether they are employed in one Homoeopathic dose or
another; but then it is very singular that such precise directions
were formerly given in the same work, and that Hahnemann's "experience"
should have led him to draw the nice distinctions we have seen in a
former part of this Lecture (p. 44).]
And proceeding on the common data, I have just made a calculation
which shows that this single drop of Tincture of Camomile, given in the
quantity ordered by Jahr's Manual, would have supplied every individual
of the whole human family, past and present, with more than five billion
doses each, the action of each dose lasting about four days.
Yet this is given only at the quadrillionth, or fourth degree of
potency, and various substances are frequently administered at
the decillionth or tenth degree, and occasionally at still higher
attenuations with professed medicinal results. Is there not in this as
great an exception to all the hitherto received laws of nature as in the
miracle of the loaves and fishes? Ask this question of a Homoeopathist,
and he will answer by referring to the effects produced by a very minute
portion of vaccine matter, or the extraordinary diffusion of odors. But
the vaccine matter is one of those substances called morbid poisons, of
which it is a peculiar character to multiply themselves, when introduced
into the system, as a seed does in the soil. Therefore the hundredth
part of a grain of the vaccine matter, if no more than this is employed,
soon increases in quantity, until, in the course of about a week, it is
a grain or more, and can be removed in considerable drops. And what is a
very curious illustration of Homoeopathy, it does not produce its most.
characteristic effects until it is already in sufficient quantity
not merely to be visible, but to be collected for further use. The
thoughtlessness which can allow an inference to be extended from a
product of disease possessing this susceptibility of multiplication when
conveyed into the living body, to substances of inorganic origin, such
as silex or sulphur, would be capable of arguing that a pebble may
produce a mountain, because an acorn can become a forest.
As to the analogy to be found between the alleged action of the
infinitely attenuated doses, and the effects o
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