ducing both, while, from the premisses, it is absolutely impossible that the latter should be caused by the former; we ought rather to say both have a common origin. We may, therefore, fairly suppose that at Munich, Umballa, and Worthing, other ozone-producing agents have a more influential share than cold and damp in the generation of ozone, when compared with the part they take in some other localities, and hence may justly claim the observations of Seitz, Ireland, and Harris, as illustrations of the homeopathic law; at least the discrepant results of Heidenreich and others are manifestly no refutation of it, while a negative conclusion, such as that of Faber and others, is proverbially difficult of proof, and from its antagonism to that of both the other sets of observers is prima facie at any rate likely to be unsound. The observations of Seitz, Ireland, and Harris, regarding this seem to be illustrative not only of the truth of the homœopathic law, but also of the fact that quantities of a therapeutic agent the effects of which are inappreciable in health may still prove curative in disease when administered according to the law of similars. In the catarrhal stage of phthisis a residence at the seaside (where ozone abounds) is often beneficial—probably another illustration of homoeopathy, and certainly tending to confirm the former. 1 The fact that air impregnated with less than 3,000,000 of its bulk of ozone purifies its own volume of air loaded with the effluvia of four ounces of highly putrid meat demonstrates the strongly disinfectant power of ozone in all cases where infection depends on decomposing organic matter; while the circumstance that air containing only 1,000,000 of its own bulk of ozone possesses a distinct ozonic smell may stagger those who deride so-called infinitesimal doses. 1 Contrariety between the actions of large and small doses is well exemplified by the fact, that while a country air with a fair proportion of ozone is favorable to vegetation, air strongly impregnated with ozone retards the growth of plants. There is no conclusive evidence to show that ozone destroys marsh miasm, or has any relation whatever to malarial diseases. This question is still sub judice. Ozone is said to have been in excess during some diphtheria and smallpox epidemics, and while certain skindiseases prevailed, while a deficiency has been noted during epidemics of continued and relapsing fever, scarlatina, typhus and measles. It is also said to have been deficient in places where the cattle plague raged with peculiar severity, and likewise just before the occurrence of the potato disease at Culloden. These two latter statements require confirmation. Peroxide of hydrogen, or the "antozone" of Schönbein, as we are all aware, was some years since proposed as a remedy for diabetes when administered in ethereal solution; but the early hopes it raised have not been realised, and Dr. Tanner finds it impossible to administer the remedy during any great length of time on account of the violent sickness it occasions. It is difficult to see how it could act otherwise than as a mere palliative in this disease, or rather could do anything more than disguise or conceal its most characteristic symptom by artificially burning away the sugar before the same finds its way into the urine. No relation has yet been shown to exist between the symptoms of diabetes and those produced by peroxide of hydrogen (Schönbein's "antozone)." I subjoin in conclusion a list of the questions to which Dr. Fox hopes that our improved methods of ozonometry may one day enable ourselves or our descendants to furnish satisfactory answers: 1. What are all the sources of atmospheric ozone? 4. Has an excess or deficiency of ozone any effect upon the public health? 5. If so, what is the nature of that influence? 6. What connection has the amount of ozone with the presence of epidemics? 7. Does ozone oxidize only one or all the organic atmospheric impurities? At present I fear we can only reply to all these interrogations with the dying words of Goethe and the prayer of Ajax. ON THE ACTION OF IRON. By ROBERT T. COOPER, M.D., T.C.D.* Ir has always appeared to me that we confine our provings to an unnecessary extent to the healthy, and that in doing so we have practically impeded the progress of medicine, for although it is quite true that we cannot turn our patients into provers we can yet watch with great advantage the way in which drugs affect them, and, by observing care, can in this way learn a great deal of pure drug action. Aggravations will occur, however minute our doses may be, and a little patient inquiry is all that in many cases is required to determine whether these aggravations are pure or not. According to my experience the range of action of each drug can be divided into departments which have certain index lines or characteristic symptoms leading to them; and knowing the one the other can be the more readily committed to memory. Thus, taking chloro-anæmia as a department in the action of iron, the true specific indications for the Iron will be the symptoms of this affection; or, again, supposing, as we intend to show this evening, that Iron produces irritability of fibre marked by painlessness, we have only to discover the symptoms of this irritability to arrive at characteristic indications for Iron, and, by the one, to fix the other in * This paper, originally intended to be read at an evening meeting of the British Homœopathic Society, is published in its present form, as it was found impossible to compress the matter of it within a compass sufficiently narrow to admit of after discussion. memory. The irritability will be the department or condition of system; its symptoms the index lines. The investigation of the remedy must in this way proceed pari passu with that of the disease, and the effect will be a mutual clearing away of obscurities. The morbific influences at work in the production of disease must be acknowledged, and the resulting symptoms must be classified in a different manner from what they are now before we can attain to any general simplification of our methods of treatment. Hahnemann dimly fore shadowed this when be divided chronic disease into psora, syphilis, and sycosis; but Rademacher came nearer to the truth in supposing the existence of an epidemic constitution varying in its nature and its required modes of treatment. We can safely say that there are present in drugs, diseases, atmospheres, and individuals, peculiarities that modify and cause to vary the course disease will assume, and all these must be allowed for in enunciating laws that aim at the systemisation and simplification of treatment. The pertinence of these remarks will be apparent as we proceed. You will remember that I read a paper before you on the action of Iron some seven years ago, in which stress was laid upon its vesical action, and testimony borne to its effects upon irritability of the neck of the bladder, the characteristic symptom of which I was the first to show could arise independently of a calculus; a constant and pressing desire to urinate during the daytime only. If you afterwards followed me through the pages of the British Journal of Homœopathy you must have seen in my articles upon diseases of the bladder how beautifully this symptom was developed in Rademacher's provings. As we proceed we intend to prove that it forms but one symptom of a condition of system characterised throughout by irritability of fibre without much accompanying pain. Fanny G-, a single woman, of thirty-four, of delicate arterial complexion, had ulcerated womb four years before coming under treatment, succeeded by bearing down, aggra vated by standing erect; dry cough worse at night and in the morning, each paroxysm of which increases the forcing down. Pain in the stomach through to the back, and pain in the lower back going up to the shoulders, both which are worse before the monthly period. Period too profuse; no leucorrhoea; other functions natural. There are several circumstances connected with this case that point to Iron as the appropriate remedy. First of all, to what do the symptoms point? there is a cough worse at night and in the morning; there is then a bearing down of the womb aggravated each time she coughs; there are antecatamenial pains and increased menstrual flow, but beyond these symptoms no disturbance of the general health; in a word, an irritability existed in the neck of the womb the remnant of a former congestion, and this irritability caused a greater flow of blood to the ovario-uterine region at each catamenial period than would normally occur, as we see by the back and left side pains, and a similar kind of irritability existed in the mucous membrane of the larynx, giving rise to cough; there is, in fine, an absence of all symptoms but those that might be explained by the existence of a tendency to irritability throughout the system, selecting as its site the larynx and the neck of the womb, parts that are markedly acted upon by Iron. This affection, this painless irritability, I must look upon as a distinct and independent disorder as classifiable and as uniform as neuralgia, myalgia, or any other variety of chronic disease, and we ought to have an accurate knowledge of its symptoms, as it constitutes a very important department among the specific spheres of Iron. Our patient after taking Phosphate of Iron in the first decimal trituration presents herself next week, and we report the pain in the left side under the ribs through to the back remains, and she has to undo her clothes from a swelling of the stomach, worse after standing; the monthly period has passed by with much less pain, the cough has quite gone, and the bearing down nearly gone. You see, therefore, that the irritation at the neck of the womb is relieved, and that the cough has gone, and, from |