According to this, no objection can be made to the truth of my representation of the case. But notoriously, of late, these fundamentals have been, both by friends and foes (i. e., to speak more truly, by opponents), either variously explained or flatly denied; so that different views are promulgated on these important facts, which seems to me a sufficient inducement to subject the whole affair to an exact inquiry, to test with precision all evidence pertaining to the question, and to make known the result fearlessly and unreservedly. Since, however, in spite of all precautions, errors cannot always be avoided, I must beg my kind reader to follow me accurately, and to oppose, with the strictest argumentation, every error whatever on my part, bearing in mind the scientific maxim "Veritati nocet, qui errori pepercerit ;" and again, "Res spectanda sit, non autor!"

As, in the whole of the following treatise, the question must be chiefly about Hahnemann, none of my respected readers will find it unreasonable to see the first word devoted to him.

Let us, then, first hear the celebrated remark which Hahnemann added to the article on China in his translation of W. Cullen's Materia Medica, pages 108 and 109 of vol. ii, 1790:

"By combining the strongest bitters and the strongest astringents, one can obtain a compound which, in small doses, possesses much more of both those properties than the Bark, and yet no specific for fever will ever come of such a compound. This the author (Cullen) ought to have accounted for. This will perhaps not so easily be discovered for explaining to us their action, in the absence of the Cinchona principle."

Yet, observe what follows:

"Substances which excite a kind of fever-as very strong coffee, pepper, aconite, ignatia, arsenic-extinguish the types of the fever. I took, by way of experiment, twice a day, four drachms of good China.

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My feet, finger-ends, &c., at first became cold; I grew languid and drowsy; then my heart began to palpitate, and my pulse grew hard and small; intolerable anxiety, trem

bling (but without cold rigor) prostration throughout all my limbs; then pulsation in my head, redness of my cheeks, thirst, and, in short, all those symptoms which are ordinarily characteristic of intermittent fever, made their appearance, one after the other, yet without the peculiar chilly shivering rigor. Briefly, even those symptoms which are of regular occurrence and especially characteristic-as the stupidity of mind, the kind of rigidity in all the limbs, but, above all, the numb, disagreeable sensation, which seems to have its seat in the periosteum, over every hone in the body-all these make their appearance. This paroxysm lasted two to three hours each time, and recurred if I repeated this dose, not otherwise: I discontinued it, and was in good health."

We must

The importance of this remark, being, as it were, the foundation-stone of all Homœopathy, is evident. next regard it from two points of view:

1. What does Hahnemann aim at with the experiment of taking Cort. China in health?

The theory propounded by Cullen of the curative powers of China in intermittent fever did not satisfy him, nor can it to this day satisfy any one: so he sought after one that was clearer, and in accordance with nature. As for the fact that he interrogated Nature for this purpose, and did not

rove at random, under the blue sky of theory," which would have been always more convenient, that I hold to have been a signal merit. Moreover, that he began with a trial of the effect of Bark on the healthy can be considered in no other light than as a proof of eminent acuteness; just for this reason, that it is obvious, and yet was tried by no predecessor and by few followers. In my Weihnachtsferienarbeit I have, by quotations from adverse writers (e. g., Henle's Rational Pathology), adduced proofs that it is precisely provings of medicines on the healthy that are indispensable.

Here, I ask, is it not quite natural and à propos to learn the way in which Bark acts upon the healthy-i. e., upon men living under normal conditions, and then to compare the relation of the morbid conditions thus induced to those which constitute intermittent fever. A priori, one would

expect that the China disease would stand in an opposite relation to the fever, and the investigation of this theoretic opposite of the fever, viz., the China disease, was Hahnemann's object.

It will not be denied that this object was as praiseworthy as it was rational. Also, the carrying out of this by taking twice a day four drachms of good Peruvian Bark (no doubt in powder) must be considered suitable; the dose is so strong that one may well expect from it alterations of health, and also alterations of the functions of individual organs. The form of powder, too, is a simple one; and then, at least, when the alkaloids of China were as yet unknown, could not have been exchanged for a more appropriate one.

2. How do the results of the experiment bear upon intermittent fever?

In the symptoms experienced by Hahnemann we cannot decidedly recognise a perfect intermittent paroxysm (ague fit), because, first, there were not the chilly feel with shivering, chattering of the teeth, goose-skin, &c. (see Cannstatt's, Virchow's, and Neumann's Manuals), lasting one to two hours, as Hahnemann himself states in plain terms; secondly, because there is no mention of the setting in of the sweating stage, which, as a rule, occupies the greater portion of the fit, and commonly about half a day (Virchow's Handbook of Spec. Path. and Therap., vol. ii., part 2, page 18; Diseases of Infection, by Griesinger), even if beating in the head and redness of the face be considered symptoms of the hot stage. (See above in Hahnemann's note.) But independently of this, and even admitting that a regular attack of fever has set in, accompanied with rigors, heat, and sweating, still this is no proof that the attack has been intermittent fever.

An exacerbation of suffering, setting in more or less regularly, at stated periods, alternating with intervals free from fever (not always free from all sickness), is just a characteristic of intermittent fever; and I can only understand Hahnemann's remark to mean that after each dose of Cort. Chine, a feeling of indisposition followed, as he describes it, which continued from two to three hours; VOL. XXIV, NO. XCV.-APRIL, 1866.

and that, after suspending the medicine, no further paroxysm occurred.

It is very difficult to demonstrate that an individual attack of fever belongs to the intermittent species, even admitting that it really is such; and probably in 1790 it was altogether impossible. We shall return to this subject presently in discussing the cure of intermittent fever, and see that cases may be reasonably imagined, in which a cure may be effected immediately after the first paroxysm; and others, where it is quite possible that the most obvious symptom of intermittent fever, namely, the periodical, more or less regular, return of the attack, may be wanting altogether.

How then shall an attack of fever, which has clearly been the result of a medicine administered to a healthy person, be pronounced of an intermittent character ?

"The most essential characteristics of malaria fever are; the intermission, the rhythm of the fit, the rapid development of higher degrees of heat during the attack, and an equally sudden diminution of heat." C. Wunderlich, Handbook of Pathol. and Therapeutics, vol. iv., 2nd Ed. Stuttgard, 1856, p. 482.

Thus, in our case, there wants only the rapid development of higher degrees of heat up to 33° R., and even higher in the hot fit, and then the peculiar gradual fall of temperature in the sweating stage.

But as Hahnemann did not experience the sweating stage at all, and there are no data regarding the circumstances of temperature (nor indeed could there be any, seeing that in 1790 the thermometer was not used in medical investigations), we lose, ad interim, all warrant for pronouncing Hahnemann's symptoms to have been those of an attack of intermittent fever.

But these symptoms may have easily comprised a mere indication, a rudimentary form of intermittent fever. It is well known that drugs cannot produce any specific disease, for instance typhus, pneumonia, hooping cough, and so on, consequently should we not expect appearances merely resembling those of intermittent fever?

Very good. But then how far is this resemblance to go, if we would discuss the subject of resemblance with intermittent fever with correctness and convincing probability? Rigor, increased action of the heart, heat and sweating, or at least increased perspiration, belong alike to all feverish derangements, and are therefore not referable to any particular feverish complaint, if not supported by additional data.

Now Hahnemann has at all events specified some of these additional data, and we have to elucidate them first of all.

We will avail ourselves for this purpose of the Medical Phenomenology by Dr. Robert Küttner, Leipzig and Vienna, 1836.

"The

"The feet and tips of the fingers were first cold," Küttner, vol. i, p. 321. "Coldness of the limbs." limbs are those parts of the body which become cold the easiest. Consequently a temporary affection of the limbs may arise from the most varied causes." Feverish chills, foul stomach, languid circulation, precursory symptoms of diarrhoea, are data applicable here.

"I was languid," Küttner, vol. ii, p. 60. The causes are extremely diversified, but all coincide in this, that they induce a checking, or oppression, or actual exhaustion of strength. We find over-loading of the stomach, irregular circulation, disturbed digestion, and great languor precedes chilly, aguish fever (query intermittent ?).

"Sleepy," Küttner, vol. ii, p. 246. Drowsiness. Under the numerous causes of drowsiness might be mentioned congestion of the brain, intense mental labour, over loading of the stomach, disturbed digestion, as also that drowsiness invariably precedes intermittent fever.

"My heart then began to palpitate, and my pulse became hard and quick."

These are, of course, fever symptoms, but still common to all feverish states, and not peculiar to intermittent fever. "An insufferable anxiousness," Küttner, vol. i, p. 28 and following, anxiety, &c. Anxiety is always a symptom of some interference with the normal activity of mind or