dies which have been published in the American Journal of Homœopathic Materia Medica and the Hahnemannian Monthly, viz. Alum, Carburetum sulphuris, Coca, Cuprum, Eupatorium perfoliatum and purpureum, Formica, Mercurius iodatus ruber, Natrum sulphuricum, Nux moschata, Osmium, Phytolacca, Sarsaparilla, Spongia, Stramonium, and Theridion. They are here collected in alphabetical order, and a nosological index appended.

Our remarks upon these monographs will have reference to two points-the first, their materials; the second, their arrangement.

1. The materials which Dr. Hering brings together consist of everything which has been said about the drug in question from the earliest times to our own. He admits that in so doing he collects tares together with the wheat; but he thinks that here (as in the Parable) the attempt to root out the tares is premature, and imperils the wheat. The "harvest to which he would have "both grow together" is practice; as the records of this accumulate, the wheat will become apparent, and the tares can be gathered in bundles to be burned.

There is something to be said for this; and there would be more still were any reasonable discrimination exercised by the compiler. All that was simply doubtful might be given, marked by some sign to distingnish it (like Hahnemann's brackets); but pathogenetic symptoms that are simply misleading, and clinical ones that have no foundation, should surely be excluded. One of the former has already been commented at p. 483 of the present number of our Journal; the Cuprum-symptom in question stands in all its falsehood as S. 814 of Dr. Hering's series. S. 1670 of Stramonium is a specimen of the latter. From this it would appear that the medicine had cured "progressive locomotor ataxia" in the hands of Dr. H. N. Martin. We happen to have been in at the birth of this "cure." We noticed a comment of Dr. Martin's on a symptom observed in poisoning by Stramonium, that the patient could not walk steadily in the dark. He suggested thereupon that the drug might be indicated in locomotor ataxy, in which

disease it is almost impossible to maintain the equilibrium with the eyes shut. Two or three months afterwards we found in the monthly instalment of Stramonium—“ *Progressive locomotor ataxia.-H. N. Martin."

Even when these "clinical symptoms are true ones, it is confusing and misleading to mix them up with those that are purely pathogenetic, as we have often argued. Dr. Hering has added to the mischief here, by altering the traditional sign for denoting them. In Jahr's Symptomen Codex, prefixed to a symptom meant that it had been observed pathogenetically and verified clinically, while° signified observations ex usu in morbis only. Dr. Hering has omitted the latter sign; but uses for his mere "clinical symptoms."

We cannot resist, while upon the subject of material, citing Dr. Dake's comparative view of the plan adopted by Dr. Hering and his followers and the ideal which progressive homœopathy must have before it and must follow.

I. OBTAINING OF DRUG SYMPTOMS.

Discriminate.

1. From reliable reports of cases of poisoning, where no diseases were pre-existing and no antidotes employed.

2. From experiments on the lower animals, carefully conducted under the application of proper tests.

3. From the day-books of a good number of provers, of both sexes, in good health, collected together in one place, under the guidance of a competent director, supplied with all the tests or diagnostic means necessary in the examination of patients; each prover hav

Indiscriminate.

1. From the reports of all cases of poisoning, with no proper allowance for any preexisting diseases or antidotal means employed.

2. From experiments on the lower animals, conducted by any one, in any manner, and without any sort of tests.

3. From the reports of one, two, or a dozen provers, scattered everywhere, some healthy and some not so healthy; some engaged in the harassing and fatiguing labours of medical practice; some having taken doses of the mother-tincture, some the 3rd., some the 6th,

Discriminate.

ing taken the same kind and size of dose; and all being subject to the same rules and regulations as to manner of living, and as to modes of observing and noting drug effects.

4. From no other sources a single symptom, as a proper drug effect.

Indiscriminate.

some the 30th, and some the 200th potency; some observing their symptoms closely and noting them carefully, and some doing the same carelessly; some following one mode of life and some another some locating and describing their sensations after one plan and some another.

4. From the sick, as symptoms removed by the drug administered; again from the sick, as symptoms aggravated by the drug; and still again from the sick, as symptoms not properly belonging to the disease, but supposed to be the effects of the drug administered.

II. VERIFYING OF DRUG SYMPTOMS.

1. By a critical examination of the sources of all symptoms, to determine their character as to genuineness, excluding all the spurious from the materia medica.

2. By a critical examination and comparison of the daybooks of all the provers, to learn by how many of them the same symptoms were experienced, and so to determine the comparative value of the various symptoms, which must

1. By an acceptance of all symptoms as furnished in good faith, not daring to gather up the tares" lest we "root up also the wheat with them," and so letting the genuine and the spurious together go into the materia medica.

2. By taking all the symptoms at par, whether reported by one prover only, or a dozen provers, allowing none but clinical brokers to determine their real value and to attach a premium to some and to lower others by a proper dis

Discriminate.

Indiscriminate.

be regarded as characteristic count, from time to time.

and which as common, which

as constant and which as casual.

3. By such a careful practical trial of each drug, pointed out by a similarity of symptoms, as will leave no doubt as to " cause and effect" in each case; obtaining thus some evidence in favour or against the original pathogenesis.

4. By the gathered clinical experiences of physicians who follow the homoeopathic law closely in the selection of remedies, recording their cases carefully and at the moment, and, in all things, being not over confident in their own powers of discernment, nor over credulous as to the statements of others; nor yet itching to figure as great clinical discoverers and authors of such key-notes and characteristics as are born of clinical experience.

3. By an impartial reliance upon all the symptoms of a drug found in the materia medica, and pointed out by repertories and comparative arrangements, each symptom being marked as verified as soon as its morbid likeness in a patient is reported by any one as having been removed by the drug in question.

4. By the gathered clinical experiences reported in the journals from month to month by practitioners of all grades of intelligence and reliability; by practitioners using crude doses or the 3rd, 30th or exclusively the 200th potency of drugs; by practitioners who

III. COLLATING OF DRUG SYMPTOMS.

1. In an arrangement based upon the several tissues of the body and their physiological functions, showing the general pathogenetic range of each drug.

2. In an arrangement based

1. In an arrangement based chiefly upon the supposed results of clinical experience, showing the general range of each drug.

2. In an arrangement based

Discriminate.

upon the number of provers, -the symptoms occurring in the greatest number being being marked as characteristic, and those occurring in but one prover being set aside as casual or common-and all having proper exponents of value attached, showing in the records of how many provers each one had appeared.

3. In a complete display, giving the day-books of all the provers, as submitted to the director of provings from day to day, with his marginal notes thereupon, the whole preceded by a proper description of the respective drugs and followed by their medical and toxicological history as gathered from reliable sources.

Indiscriminate.

partly upon the regions and tissues of the body, partly upon their functions and partly upon pathological distinctions, with no marks to show whether a symptom had appeared in the reports of one prover or a dozen provers, or simply in some clinical or toxicological report, found in a recent journal, or in a musty volume of an age long past.

3. In an arrangement, with the names of the several drugs, their clinical uses and then their symptoms, as gathered from all quarters, variously grouped and described, with little if any indication of source or value, except in occasional accompanying clinical notes or subjoined pathological observations.

We may think Dr. Dake a little too exclusive; but there can be no doubt of the superiority of the discrimination he advocates over the hodge-podge with which Dr. Hering insists on furnishing us.

2. When we come to the arrangement of these monographs, we are glad to be able to speak much more favourably. Each commences with a (chronological) list of the authorities from whom the compilation is made, giving more or less full details as to the nature of their work, the subjects of poisonings and provings, &c. Reference being made to this list under every symptom, we are generally able to gauge its worth for ourselves. The order of the schema is Hahnemann's, but subdivision has been fully and usefully carried out. Care has been taken to preserve the natural groups of symptoms, wherever known, by references