stomach contained a small quantity of excessively viscous brownish fluid. The mucous membrane throughout its length was of a lively red; the intestinal canal was not altered; the lungs were reddish and crepitated, appearing to be but little affected.

2. About three o'clock an opening was made on the inner surface of the leg of a little dog, and one and a half drachm of the aqueous extract of Chelidonium dissolved in a little water was laid on the wound. About five o'clock nothing new was observed. At 9 a.m. next day he was found dead. The alimentary canal exhibited no perceptible lesion. The wound was inflamed, and the lungs were of a brownishblue.

3rd. About 7 a.m. the same experiment was repeated on a dog of moderate size. By 4 p.m. he was suffering nothing particular. About 10 he was but little sensitive, lay on his side and could no longer move. He died that night. The digestive canal showed no alteration; the lungs were brownishblue, congested with blood, and crepitated very little. The wounded leg was swollen and inflamed.

4th. Four ounces of freshly prepared Celandine juice were introduced into the stomach of a middle-sized dog, and his œsophagus was tied. The animal strained to vomit, howled, and became insensible. He died ten hours after. The mucous membrane of the stomach was inflamed; the lungs exhibited here and there brownish-blue spots filled with blood (Allgemeine Toxicologie nach dem Französischen des Herrn Orfila, von Hermbstedt, Berlin, 1818, iii, 7).

Two goats fed with the herb were soon seized with severe diarrhoea, which continued till their death on the third day. Small quantities do them no harm. Cows and sheep reject the plant in grazing.

MY OWN PHYSIOLOGICAL PROVINGS.

The symptoms adduced by Hahnemann are not sufficient to enable us on the ground of his results to employ Chelidonium in disease. The few symptoms observed by Schönke, and

the equally few by Liedbeck and Lembke failed to establish by any means an extensive employment of it, on account of the brief duration of the proving, and the insensibility of these three provers to the effects of this medicine.

The most recent provings carried out by Teste, certainly present some symptoms of congestion of the lungs, and irritation of the pleuritic and facial nerves, which had never been observed before; they have, however, already incurred blame, because Teste had made his provings mostly with the 6th dilution (Neue Zeitschrift für hom. Klinik, v. i, 23), and are too meagre to admit of a hope that Chelidonium would ever be a polychrest medicine by means of such provings.

I allow that provings with dilutions of vegetable medicines do not suffice to attain a complete totality of symptoms; yet it seems to me that, in the case of very sensitive provers, provings with dilutions may call forth symptoms which, in experiments with mother tinctures, might, according to physiological laws, not be able to be developed, because of too powerful irritation of individual organs and systems.

Just so in the case of Chelidonium, which, under certain circumstances, exhibits such powerful action that Emmanuel König has already warned us against the internal use of it on account of its "horrible symptoms." I therefore considered it sufficient to institute provings with the 6th dilution; principally with a view to satisfy myself whether one could rely on Teste's provings, of which I also at first had my doubts. Now I have no doubts, after my own provings, that Chelidonium, even in the 6th decimal dilution calls forth symptoms in sensitive provers.

I have also, during the medicinal employment of dilution 6, observed aggravations which I could only ascribe to the action of Chelidonium. Frequent small doses produce, on an average, a greater multiplicity of symptoms than one larger dose could, as is sufficiently clear from the following protocols of provings.

I have kept an eye upon the provers, as far as the engagements of my calling allowed, and selected only such provers as undertook the thing for love of it. Not one of them knew

the medicine beforehand. Symptoms inaccurately reported I struck out, unless the provers were able to describe them more accurately; and in general, I sought to avoid everything by which the truthful picture of the physiological action could possibly be distorted or effaced. Lastly, I set before the provers the importance of watching themselves accurately at least eight days before the provings, and noticing, respecting every symptom, and also those occurring amongst the sufferings during provings, to see whether a symptom has been ever observed before; and in general always to put down the symptoms immediately after observing them, i. e. under the first impression.

In order to make subsequent provings unnecessary, I have neglected no means of procuring all symptoms that Chelidonium can call forth. Above all, it seemed to me necessary to continue the provings very long, in order to see whether certain symptoms would be brought on more at one or at another season of the year; so I continued the provings, with the aid of the unwearied provers of both sexes, for more than nine months, so that I could not expect to obtain any essentially new symptoms by longer continued provings.

I have always kept in view the influence of change of weather when possible.

As for epidemics prevalent during the proving time, no influence on the symptoms can be supposed, as only ordinary sporadic sicknesses occurred here and there, and no generally extended maladies were observed. At the outset of the provings there were some cases of typhus; and up to the beginning of winter inflammation of the lungs showed itself.

In February influenza set in for a short time without attacking any great number, since which no epidemic prevailed till the beginning of August, when hooping-cough set in.

I have experimented on both sexes and also on children, for which purpose I could only avail myself of my own, to enable me the better to observe the objective symptoms. In all, eighteen persons. I thought I ought not to take fewer, because it was to be foreseen that one or the other would VOL. XXIII, NO. XCIII.-JULY, 1865.

H H

give but few symptoms, or would lose patience for continuing the proving.

The Chelidonium provings on animals I should gladly have carried on through a longer period, and in a more extended sphere. Circumstances however, were not sufficiently favorable; want of time, the difficulty of selecting suitable animals, the refusal of the owners of those that were appropriate to allow us to experiment upon them (because in consequence of the provings hindrance easily occurred to the use of domestic animals!) obliged me to abstain from further researches. (To be continued.)

PROFESSOR OWEN AT ST. MARY'S.

WHAT! at St. Mary's, Cambridge? Not quite. What then? not at St. Mary's, Oxford, surely? Ah, no. The Professor has once figured at Exeter Hall, where, to a certain extent, he instructed in a most salutary strain a certain class of would-be or soi-disant savans. But his hearers then sat under an unordained minister; nor is he, to this day, "the REV. Richard Owen;" and neither of our Universities has as yet opened her pulpit to lay preachers, though they listen to some sermons vastly inferior, in doctrine as well as talent, to those with which Richard Owen Esq. could favour them. The "remarkable oration" with which (according to the Medical Times and Gazette, June 10th, p. 606) he edified the medical students of St. Mary's, Paddington, was one which none of them can ever forget, and which some of the faculty can never forgive; though, in reality, they have to thank him for trying to open their eyes to the sad reality of their chronic status in quo. "It is sometimes asked," quoth he, "Is medicine a science?" What a question! regarding a branch of knowledge (or learned ignorance) which has been growing up-if such an expression is applicable to the life of such

"permanent tadpolos" as the Mexican Axolotl and poor old Medicina-ever since the days of Hipprocrates, passing through the fostering hands of some of the keenest observers, the most patient investigators, and most accurate generalisers the world has ever produced. Yet, says the Oration of last month, "Is medicine a science ?" After ages of such cultivation, the simple answer, Yes, is simply impossible. Professor Owen, with his wonted urbanity-quæ ejus est humanitascourteously avoids the other (ugly) monosyllable, No; and then, after conveying the fullest force of it by a most mortifying comparison with the real sciences, chemistry and palæontology, tells his ge-pflohred and pflabbergegastet hearers,—

"The great question for you is, Can medicine become a science?" Now, as his odious comparison might have been borrowed from the late Mr. Everest's excellent pamphlet, so his answer to his own question " Can medicine become a science," is a quasi-echo of our own literature from Hahnemann's Organon to the last brochure on homœopathy. We give the Professor's reply verbatim from the Med. Times.

"From every analogy of the progress of human intellectual endeavours to raise, by observation and experiment, a body of facts and phenomena to the status of true science, the reply to the latter question would be emphatically, Yes!

Anatomy; physiology; pathology, or a knowledge of deterioration of structures, to the minutest degree in which the microscope can show such changes for the worse, in the fluids and elementary tissues of organs; chemistry, especially organic; the nature and powers of medicines-in short, all three bodies of doctrine worthy of the name of sciences must be cultivated-if possible mastered as the indispensable basis on which a lasting superstructure of a true science of Medicine can be raised. Medicine can only become science by and through the subservient bodies of doctrine that have become science-the unknown must be reached by the known."

This last brief sentence perhaps conveys the most severe chastisement that was ever inflicted upon Medical Science by either foe or friend. "The unknown"-hear this ye