Pura, and in the Chronic Diseases, with his mystic theory of which we have nothing to do at present.

so;

Now I am not the first to find fault with the form of this Materia Medica. Others have long since done for instance, vide the Austrian Journal of Homœopathy, vol. i, first and following pages of the preface. I think, too, that I have proved that the plan which Hahnemann has selected for his Materia Medica does not fulfil his own requirements (vide Homöopathische Vierteljahrschrift, vol. xv, p. 20, and following). Hahnemann does not tell us who the persons experimented on were; but inquiries are necessary in order to know their suitability and trustworthiness; we know nothing of their age, temperament, or manner of life, nor even of any predisposition to particular complaints; and yet all these things exercise the most evident influence on many of the symptoms produced by a medicine. We know not the time of the year when, nor the meteorological circumstances under which the experiments were made; and yet it is selfevident that the same influences may produce different results in summer and in the cold of winter; for instance, damp foggy air arrests evaporation, and the diffusion of watery vapour, whilst the dry atmosphere of summer calls them forth most abundantly. Hahnemann does not always, by many exceptions, scarcely ever in the Chronic Diseases, give the strength of the individual doses, and says nothing regarding the repetition of them, although he knows right well how important these circumstances are in judging of the properties of the respective medicines (vide Organon, 1st edition, § 124 and 125). Lastly, the sequential order of the symptoms on the different subjects of experiments can be ascertained in the Pure Materia Medica only imperfectly, laboriously, indeed, sometimes not at all; so that it is impossible to learn clearly the characteristic, the radical, the fundamental action of the medicines.

Doubtless objections will be raised to this last position which I must not pass over. With regard to all these, the principal question is, what is understood by characteristic

or radical action, and whether the two expressions are to be regarded as conveying the same meaning or not?

He who is satisfied with stating as the characteristic action of Bryonia, “Pain, particularly towards evening, increased by motion, seated especially in fibrous and serous structures," states, without doubt, valuable and indispensable information, and gives an essential point of distinction between it and Rhus toxicodendron, the pains from which are exacerbated by quiet. No one can object, if the idea of what is characteristic should be formed in the manner indicated above; only, one would be equally right in requiring that the phenomena produced by Bryonia most constantly with the majority of provers should be included in its characteristics also; but in this sense it is very difficult or altogether impossible to deduce or pick out the characteristics from Hahnemann's Register of Symptoms.

I will speak further below of what I understand by stem and branch action.

The most important question for consideration now is, what are the objections to Hahnemann's work, viewed from the stand-point which he may be supposed to have occupied in constructing his Pure Materia Medica; to which we must add the circumstance that the "observations of others" taken from the writings of old physicians, are for the greater part very faulty, incorrect, distorted, and occasionally entirely false, and would have been far better altogether omitted.

It is scarcely necessary to remark that Hahnemann cannot be made responsible for requirements which were not felt in his time, or to fulfil which there were no existing means; that he can only be judged with reference to that which he was able to accomplish with the resources at his disposal. Besides, the beginning of everything is difficult, and everything human must enter into existence, grow, and ripen; no science sprang full grown from the head of its founder; consequently perfection cannot be expected from the Pure Materia Medica. And in spite of all the objections already made, and of others still to be made against it, it is

a work of great value, first as being a first attempt, and further as containing a heap of important revelations, explanations, and references to modes of action and relations between different symptoms; all of which may be satisfactorily seen in the case of Pulsatilla nigricans for instance. Professor Sachs, of Königsberg, and Professor Karsch, of Münster, consider Hahnemann's Pure Materia Medica as a tissue of lies, which I am sure it is not; as it appears to me perfectly impossible to invent a proving like that recorded of Pulsatilla, and would require a regular Ahriman of science such as is nowhere to be met with in history.

I quite concede to these two gentlemen that Hahnemann's Pure Materia Medica contains many errors, and does not come up to the requirements of science in the present day; but I decidedly reject the reproach of lying, and intentional deception.

The provings of medicines recorded by Professor J. Ch. G. Jörg in his Materials for a future Materia Medica, as also in No. 2 of his Critical Pamphlets, are free from most of the objections above made to Hahnemann. Jörg gives us statements of age, sex, temperament, constitution, manner of life of the persons experimented on, exact records of the dose each time of administration, chronological enumeration of resulting phenomena, and critical hints in the resumés which follow the enumeration of the results of the proying of each medicine. I allude to these elucidations of Jörg's purposely, because they furnish, amongst other things, the proof that the statements of Hahnemann are not mere fictions (as Sachs says) but facts, of which any one may easily convince himself who will compare Hahnemann's preamble to Opium in the Pure Materia Medica, 2nd edit., p. 278, with Jörg, l. c., p. 437. Such a harmony of previous lies with the results of subsequent accurate investigations is really something more than strange.

I prefer, however, Jörg's account of the trials instituted by his proving society, to the statements of Hahnemann.

Hahnemann's trials may have been instituted with equal carefulness; but his results are not related with the same exactness, clearness, and perspicuity as Jörg's, and we can only rely on accuracy of this kind. But it does not therefore appear to me desirable that Hahnemann's Pure Materia Medica should be thrown aside. I intend rather to show further on how a good and safe use of it may still be made.

I wish, therefore, a revision, a completion, a form suitable to the design, and an extension suited to the present time, of the Pure Materia Medica; and that the name of the new work, the new science should be "Physiological Pharmaco-dynamics," because it will teach the operation, and manner of operating, of medicines on healthy human bodies, and must bear no party name, because, as before said, the turning of this knowledge to account according to this or that principle, has nothing to do with the effects of medicines intrinsically.

Though we take no notice here of the certainly numerous, and, generally speaking, valuable provings of medicines, which have been carried on by individual provers since the appearance of Hahnemann's Pure Materia Medica, and his Chronic Diseases; for instance, Messrs. C. Hering and his American colleagues, H. Geyer, Noack, Hencke, Cl. Müller, and many others; yet we must allude to the investigations which the members of the Vienna Proving Society have contributed to the Austrian Journal of Homœopathy, because they furnish numerous confirmations and supplements to the statements of Hahnemann, and are free from the objections urged against Hahnemann himself. For here, as with Jörg, the age, sex, individuality, and so forth, of the persons experimented on is exactly marked, the relative doses given, and finally the symptoms are communicated chronologically by each prover. There can be no hesitation in classing these provings among the best extant.

But the proving of remedies on healthy persons took quite a new direction through the solid labours of the late Royal Prussian Counsellor of Health, Dr. F. W. Böcker, of Bonn,

formerly of Rade vorm Walde. As Lavoisier formerly introduced measure and weight into chemistry, in the same manner Böcker established their use in the examinations of medicines. He analysed urine altered by medicines, pointed out what ingredients had been increased or diminished or had temporarily entirely disappeared, as, for instance, uric acid when proving Opium. He fixed the quantity and quality of expired air; also the quantity and contents, liquid and solid, of the fæces (Investigation of Beer) followed up the changes of weight in the body of a person under trial, and noted at the same time the subjective symptoms with the utmost carefulness; thus he became the author of a perfectly new system of investigating, which ensures him abiding praise, and thankful remembrance.

The labours of Böcker placed within our reach the means of knowing and controlling the modifications of the changes in constituents of the organism: when, for instance, at and during the proving of Opium, the weight of the person experimented on remained the same, although much less nourishment had been taken than before, the inference followed with certainty that this remedy lessened the excretions of the body, and delayed the retrogressive metamorphosis; and, when also, during the proving, uric acid entirely disappeared from the urine, it may be assumed, at all events until further investigations have excluded or indicated other possibility (for instance, quicker oxydation of the uric acid into urea), that Opium diminishes, checks the metamorphosis of all those ingredients which were decomposed by this metamorphosis into uric acid. The principal and fundamental action of Opium therefore is a retarding of the changes of matter, a fact which may perhaps be conjectured from Hahnemann's proving, but which has only been proved by the labours of Böcker.

This paper is not written for unprofessional persons. To physicians I need not further insist on the immense importance of Böcker's enrichment of the Materia Medica by the introduction of measure and weight; in future this method of investigation must not be neglected in any Materia Medica. Compare the Hom. Virteljahrschrift, vol. i,