back. Appetite is moderately good. Tongue clean. Bowels regular. Catamenia regular. Belladonna 1, a drop every two hours. Cold water compress to the neck.

21st.-Hoarseness decidedly less, but the throat is still much inflamed and sore. The fauces, &c., are of a dark red colour. Feels as though there were a sore spot in one point in the throat, with occasionally a sharp pricking sensation. The cough continues much the same, but often wakes her at night; the sputa are greyish. Lachesis 12 to be taken three times a day. Continue the compress.

28th.-Improving greatly. The throat is much better, though the fauces are still dusky in colour and there is a feeling of dryness in one spot in the throat. Cough continues in the day, and especially night and morning. The expectoration is much less. Bryonia 3, a drop three times a day.

February 4th. Still improving, but the cough is still dry, and violent in paroxysms. On examination found the uvula elongated and the velum relaxed.

three times a day.

Kali carb. 12

On the 8th I find Carbo veget. was prescribed, but no notes of the patient's condition.

15th.-Patient has been progressing well till last night, when the pain in the chest returned. Pulse 98. Headache. Aconite 3, a drop every four hours.

17th.-Head and back both painful. Cough much the same. Expectoration copious, greyish, difficult to raise. Lumpy, acrid, mucous leucorrhoea. Repeat Lachesis.

21st. The leucorrhoea continuing, and becoming still more acrid, causing a feeling of scalding. She was examined by Dr. Leadam, who reported a state of chronic metritis with ulceration of the os uteri. Other symptoms were improving. Mercurius corros. 3, three times a day.

Bowels

March 4th. The leucorrhoea much improved. constipated, acting every second or third day, with the stools of natural size. Thinks she has contraction of the rectum on account of severe pain and throbbing occurring at times. Has never had hæmorrhoids to her knowledge, but has had fissure of the anus twice (?). Has always very little control

over the actions of the bowels. Aloes 3 three times a day.

15th. Feels better in most respects. The constipation continues. There is desire for stool, but she dreads the pain following the action.

18th.—Better, except that the constipation continues. The leucorrhoea less and much more bland. The action of the bowels is extremely painful, the pain continuing for a long time after. Aloes 3 was continued.

21st.-Better.

The leucorrhoea gradually subsided, and with it the pain in the rectum lessened so that the bowels acted each day, although there was much pain after. Throat is at times irritable, causing paroxysms of barking choky cough.

28th. The improvement was progressive, and the uterine and rectal trouble were so far improved that she was dismissed at her own request much relieved.

334

REVIEW S.

The Specific Action of Drugs on the Healthy System: an index to their therapeutic value, as deduced from experiments on men and animals. By ALEX. G. BURNESS, M.B., C.M., Univ. Aberd.; and F. T. MAVOR, M.R.C.V.S., President Central Veterinary Society. London: Baillière.

THE appearance of the above volume was heralded with the following statement in advertisement :-

"The object of this work is threefold

"1. To point out that each drug, when introduced into the system, acts upon some special parts or tracts, in virtue of its physical, chemical, or dynamical properties.

"2. That the therapeutic value of each drug is to be determined by ascertaining the symptoms produced, and the parts influenced by it, when introduced into the healthy animal system.

"3. That while a toxic dose will effect such changes in a part as to unfit it for any vital action, a lesser dose applied to a diseased part will, by removing that state of combination of the elements which excited diseased action, enable the normal process of nutrition to restore the healthy constitution."

It was very easy to see that this was homœopathy with the name left out. The above propositions embody the three supports of our tripod-the relation of similitude (at least as far as seat goes), the proving of medicines on the healthy, and the reduction of the dose below the level of physiological action. We naturally looked forward with some interest to the appearance of such a work.

It has now been out for some two months, and has received a full review in our Monthly contemporary. As nearly all our readers will have seen the account of it given there, we do not propose to go over the same ground again, but briefly to state our impressions as to the significance and yalue of the book.

1. Its importance as a sign of the progress of our ideas has been somewhat discounted by Dr. Ringer's Handbook. Still, Dr. Burness makes an advance upon his predecessor. The one gives his homœopathic applications of drugs simply as empirical fragments; with the other they are advanced as instances of principles which are homoeopathic in everything but name. We shall be curious to see what treatment Dr. Burness and his book receive from the medical journals. If they are tolerated, on what ground can our ostracism be suffered to continue?

2. As to the value of the work, we are divided in mind. It is of course a cause for rejoicing that homœopathy should find any utterance within the rigidlyguarded portals of the sect which at present usurps the title of scientific medicine; and we must not complain if its accents are somewhat lisping and broken. We are not

inclined to enter at present on the question of casuistry whether the guilt is the greater on the part of those who persecute truth or those who deny or conceal it from motives of self-interest. It is, indeed, disgraceful that Dr. Burness should succumb to the temptation to conceal the name of homoeopathy, but the disgrace belongs far more to the leaders and the mouthpieces of the profession, who alone can withdraw the ban under which the school of Hahnemann is placed. We cannot expect a new recruit and humble private to incur their odium by striking out a different course. But we could have wished that this first essay of the kind had had more to recommend it in point of style, arrangement, and presentation (to say nothing of orthography and punctuation). The patho

genetic effects of the several drugs, and the diseases they are reputed to benefit, are huddled together in such a manner that they make no distinct impression on the mind.

The former, moreover, are so mixed up with chemical explanations, often of the most hypothetical character, that they fail of their own effect as undoubted facts; and this is besides the loss they sustain by standing unsupported by any cited authority. The cases, also, given at the end to illustrate what the authors "mean by specific treatment," are far too briefly and vaguely stated to have any weight with those to whom the method is new and unwelcome. Altogether, we have serious fears that little good will come of Dr. Burness' undertaking. Its manner is not up to the old school mark, and its matter would hardly be adjudged valuable from a homoeopathic standpoint. He would have done better, we think, to have published a brief essay on the homœopathic principle expressed in his own words, and to have deferred treatment of special pharmacodynamics till greater maturity had been reached.

We give a specimen medicine to show how the work is done; and from this our own readers may judge whether or no the book is likely to be useful to themselves. Its original material, in the shape of some experiments on horses by Mr. Mavor, has of course its value, and will receive its due incorporation into our pathogeneses.

IODINE, AND IODIDE OF POTASSIUM.

PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS.

Iodine in a full dose, produces coryza, frontal headache, lachrymation, injection of the conjunctivæ, dryness of the throat, irritation of the air-passages, with cough and dyspnoea. The following effects have been induced by the use of Iodine, viz. Impaired digestion, emaciation, sweating, diarrhoea, and hectic fever, salivation, and wasting of the mammæ and testes.

Catarrh of nasal membrane and frontal sinuses, dry cough, hoarseness, aphonia, and chronic inflammation of the throat, inflammation of the serous membrane, with effusion, eruption on the skin of an erythematous, papular, and pustular character, tremor, twitching and convulsive movements, terminating in paralysis, derangement of sensation, deranged vision, partial deafness, and depression of spirits.

Headache, sense of fulness, giddiness, drowsiness, with epistaxis,