142

REVIEW.

The Outlines of Materia Medica, Regional Symptomatology, and a Clinical Dictionary. By HENRY BUCK, M.R.C.S., Member of the British Homœopathic Society.

THIS book, as its title implies, is divided, like Ancient Gaul, into three parts. The first is an epitome of the pathogenetic action of 404 medicinal substances, the second is a sort of large and loose repertory, and the third is a therapeutical dictionary. "It has always appeared to me," says the author, in a very modest preface, "that there was some necessity for a work on the subject, that would point out, in a clear and decisive manner, the characteristic uses of the remedies, and a simple mode of finding them, so as to induce the student to institute a comparison between the old and the new system of treatment." Of the existence of such a want there can be no doubt, how far the work before us supplies this deficiency is a question which we shall proceed to answer to the best of our ability.

We shall consider each of the three parts separately and in detail. The first division has many merits, it has evidently cost the author much genuine and conscientious labour; it is written with a pen, not constructed with scissors and paste. To some this may seem a very humble meed of praise; but not to those whose duty it has been to peruse all the homœopathic guides, manuals, "et hoc genus omne," that have issued from the press in England for the last twenty years. Every book, deserving of the name, written by a practitioner of experience in homoeopathy, and we learn from the preface that the author has been practising this system for a period little short of what we must call, in a literary point of view, two barren decades, deserves, to say the least, a careful inspection to ascertain whether it will give any real aid in the

difficulties that attend the entrance into the mysteries of the new system by one familiar with the old, or will expedite to those already acquainted with homoeopathy the successful search for the remedies they are in the daily habit of employing.

A cardinal condition of usefulness for such a book is being handy. It must be of such a size, shape, and general getting up that we can handle it with ease. So far as that goes, the work before us is perfect. It is easily held in the left hand while the right turns over the pages. A second condition is, that it shall be well and clearly printed. We are not all in the first bloom of youth, and we observe several of our contemporaries, whom we never suspected of being shortsighted, are in the habit of carrying a little glass, suggestive of a strong preference of large to small type. In this respect, too, Mr. Buck's book is not only unexceptionable, it is positively luxurious. In order that our readers may judge on this point for themselves we have requested our printer to reproduce, as nearly as his type admitted, the following specimen :

EUPHRASIA.

HAHNEMANN.*

EYE-BRIGHT,

Is chiefly used, as the common name implies, for affections of the Eyes; Catarrhal Ophthalmia; Specks on the Cornea; Ulcers on the Cornea; Rheumatic Ophthalmia?

SYMPTOMS.

Eyes.-Smarting as from sand; Stinging, induced by a bright light; Burning and smarting, with lachrymation, especially the result of a strong wind. Night-Agglutination; Gum in the Canthi; Purulent agglutination.

Eyelids.-Swelling, especially the lower; Inflammation and ulceration of the margins, with headache, as if the skull would burst; Sensation as if the eyelids were being drawn

* A fragmentary proving will be found in the British Journal of Homœopathy, vol. xvi.

together; Feeling of pressure; Dryness; Heaviness; he makes a great effort to overcome sleep.

Eyeball. Sclerotic injection close to cornea; Fine stitches; Specks on the cornea; Blueness of cornea; a pellicle covers the cornea; the cornea looks scarred as from ulceration.

Sight.-Dim when looking at a distant object; Obscured when walking in the open air (three days); Photophobia.

(Rheumatic inflammation, threatening blindness, from using the herb three months); Profuse fluent Coryza, with cough and expectoration; Cough only during the day, with tenacious mucus that is detached with difficulty, and difficult breathing; Cramp-like pain in the back; Cramp in the calf when standing.

We think it due to Mr. Buck to be thus emphatic and precise, in describing and illustrating to the best of our power what we find good and useful in his efforts to simplify the arduous task of conducting a homœopathic practice; because we feel compelled, after having thus awarded to him the praise of having executed with pains-taking care and perseverance, a work which sorely taxes the patience of its author, to express our opinion that while the execution of the book is nearly faultless, its design is radically defective. We say this with great regret, and with an ardent hope that even if Mr. Buck comes to agree with our opinion, after he reads what we shall write, he will not be discouraged, but having shown in this undertaking his power of accurate conception and untiring industry, he will continue to devote these high qualities to the prosecution of works which will yield more profit both to himself and his readers.

What then is this radical defect in the design of this book? Is it the idea, that it is possible in 404 pages to give a useful epitome of 404 remedies? Partly, but not altogether. It might be done by a very bold practical hand, if such an one had personal experience of all these 404 medicines. But this is what no one person has, or we venture to say, ever will have. This is a point to which we

shall return, but in the mean time we assume it. As an inference from this assumption, it follows that any writer of a book who attempts to epitomize the description of the action of all these medicines, gets into the position of making a merely literary reduction of larger works, and while doing so, attempts to do this faithfully rather than critically. The consequence is, that we have far more than we want of some medicines, and far less than we require of others. It is as if a clever artist got an order to make a copy of all the pictures in the National Gallery: no copy to exceed one foot by nine inches, though some might be less. No great injustice would be done to Paul Potter and Teniers, but would it be fair to Paul Veronese and Michael Angelo? So it is in this epitome. Rhus radicans, a medicine which we doubt if the author of the book ever prescribed in his life, occupies three pages; Sarsaparilla, which we do not find named by Dr. Clotar Müller, in the paper published in the July number of the last vol. of this Journal -a paper full of interest, as showing incidentally his range of medicines, occupies three pages and a half; while Nux vomica, which we venture to say, Mr. Buck prescribes, at least once a-day, has only four pages allotted to it.

Suppose the author of this book, instead of taking for his guidance the rules which regulate a man of letters in preparing a clear and accurate abridgement of the works of others, had allowed himself to be directed by his own experience alone, what would have been the result? This we may guess from the following remarks of one of our most experienced and highly esteemed practitioners, of whose writings we have had occasion, in a former number of this Journal, to express our high estimate, we mean Dr. Yeldham. In the last number of the Annals of the British Homœopathic Society and London Homœopathic Hospital, at p. 372, we read

"Most homœopathic practitioners must have felt that our Materia Medica is overburdened with a host of trivial and often incredible symptoms, which so far from aiding in the selection of a remedy, serve only like chaff, that hides the precious grain, to obscure the really valuable symptoms. VOL. XXIV, NO. XCV.- ―JANUARY, 1866.

K

Their very number makes them valueless; for to remember them would be impossible, and to be compelled to wade through them in every case of illness would simply be to render homœopathy an impracticable science. What we require is, not to see our Materia Medica mutilated by reckless hands; but such a careful and scrupulous reproving of the medicines as shall give us only the leading and permanent symptoms. These, I am persuaded, would in the majority of cases, be so few in number, and would stand out in such bold and distinctive characters, that any ordinary mental capacity would be able to retain them, to interpret their meaning and to use them with confidence in the treatment of diseases."

reverse.

We cannot help suspecting that Dr. Yeldham in this passage unconsciously misrepresents his idea of the kind of improvement in our Materia Medica which he desires to effect. We do not find that a reproving of a medicine, after the plan of Hahnemann, as was done by the Vienna Proving Society, tends to reduce the number of the symptoms—rather the We are of opinion, that when Dr. Yeldham speaks of reproving he thinks of rescinding: that his real notion is that we might probably revise our Materia Medica, starting from the therapeutic point of view. His leading and permanent symptoms would be those not necessarily the most prominent in a catalogue of the physiological actions of a drug, but those most characteristic of some well-marked form of disease. The observations we have quoted are made apropos of the action of China in ague. Now does Dr. Yeldham mean, that we require to institute a new proving of this medicine, in order to enable us to use it successfully in that disease? Certainly not. The whole tenour of his argument is on the opposite direction. He prescribes China in ague, because it is known to cure the disease, not because it is homœopathic. And unless we entirely misunderstand his drift, it is to this effect. Let us have a Materia Medica in which the groups of symptoms are so arranged as to correspond with those presented by disease. Let the word symptom cease to be applied to morbid sensations produced by a medicine, and confined to a sign of a distinctly