Review, April 1, 1874. might cost I would set my mind at rest." It was in accordance with such high views of duty and principle that Dr. Ackworth set himself to study homoeopathy. In 1863 our deceased colleague removed to Brighton where he has since resided. For a considerable time his health has been but feeble, but in spite of the remonstrances of his medical friends he insisted on persevering in professional engagements; and it was on his return from an effort to see a patient that his fatal illness commenced with severe pain in the epigastric region. Congestion of the lungs, with, it has been suggested, internal hæmorrhage, followed, and he died on the 17th ult. at his country house, Elfinsward, Hayward's Heath, in the 65th year of his age. The profession of medicine has known no more honourable member than our deceased colleague. A well read scholar and thorough gentleman, Dr. Ackworth will be long regretted and mourned by very many deeply attached personal friends. CORRESPONDENCE. ON INFINITESIMALS. To the Editors of the Monthly Homœopathic Review. Gentlemen,-As the following extract from Dr. Rudolph Leonard Tafel's work entitled Swedenborg, as a Philosopher and Man of Science, may not be uninteresting to homœopathists, you may be induced to give it a place in your pages, when not overpressed with more important matter. In Dr. Tafel's article, p. 229, on Swedenborg's Doctrine of Leasts, the following passages occur: "This doctrine is taught by Swedenborg in the following passages: "It is one of the rules in the doctrine of degrees, that a particle of any volume or homogeneous mass constitutes its least volume or its least mass, or that this particle is a small volume or small mass in its smallest term or boundary, or is a unit of the volume or homogeneous mass in which it is. This particle or unit, how often soever it may be repeated in whatever numbers it may be congregated, however it may be increased in multitude; or on the other hand, to whatever fractions its aggregate may be reduced, however, it may be diminished in number, or decreased in multitude, yet never makes any transition into an inferior or superior degree. Thus water, oil, spirits, whether we assume a part of it, a small drop, a streamlet, a lake, or an ocean, does not cease to be water, or oil, or spirits. . . . Common salt, nitre, alum, stone, metal of any given species, whether it be a portion, a mass, a mountain, does not cease to be salt, stone, or metal belonging to that species... Review, April 1, 1874. The same rule holds in regard to all other things, the division of which continues, without any change of nature, even to their component units, or the constituent elements of that degree.”Econom. of A. K., Part I. n. 156. From this extract and others which I do not quote, Dr. Tafel makes three points, the first and third of which I extract. "1. Every substance of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdom may be divided into its least parts without losing any of its qualities and attributes." "3. The greater the reduction of a substance into its constituent particles, the more distinct are its effects, and the greater its power." The first of these points has been proved in a remarkable manner by the discoveries made by the Messrs. Kirchoff and Benson with the "spectroscope." By this instrument it has been discovered that every elemental substance, especially the alkaline, presents a peculiar image in the flame in which it is burned. These images are minutely described by the spectroscopists; and by their means they can discover elemental substances in immeasurably smaller quantities than by the most delicate chemical tests; thus proving that these alkaline substances preserve their identity and their individual qualities, as far as human ingenuity has been able to trace them. The other point of the doctrine has been proved in an equally convincing manner by the medical system, called "homœopathy." The practitioners of this system have discovered that substances, which in their crude form exercise a scarcely perceptible influence upon the human system, when administered in a triturated or diluted form produce the most marked effects. They have also found, that when the human system (by disease) is rendered peculiarly sensitive, or predisposed to receive impressions from certain substances in nature, it is affected by medicines in the very highest state of mechanical attenuation. Another result of their experience is, that chronic diseases which are deeply seated in the system frequently yield only to medicines in the highest possible attenuated form; because in this form "they are more perfect in regard to form, essence, attributes, accidents, and qualities," and are "less limited, more free, in greater potency, more sensible, more rational, and more lasting.' During the present epidemic, characterized by a blind rushing after brute force and crude forms in the use of medicine among homœopathists, the preceding considerations may be not without their value; and they afford a high probability that science will yet take up the most despised and obnoxious parts of our practice, and hold them forth in its light to the admiration of those who had previously scoffed at them. The vain attempts at a reductio ad absurdum will have a tremendous recoil, when the loudest laughers will feel themselves "infinitely small, and the materials which the builders rejected become the head of the corner." Rochdale, January, 1874. Yours, &c., THOMAS HAYLE. THE HOSPITAL BAZAAR. To the Editors of the Monthly Homœopathic Review. Gentlemen,-As I find that some of our colleagues, notwithstanding your repeated notices of the subject in your journal, are still ignorant of the meaning and working of the Fine Art Distribution, in connection with the Bazaar to be held in aid of the London Homœopathic Hospital, will you allow me to state that it is based on the plan of the old and well-known Art Union, only our prizes are in kind, instead of cash. The Committee, through the kindness of friends, have already collected about sixty works of art of different kinds, amounting in money value to between seven and eight hundred pounds; and others are promised. These will constitute so many prizes, of which each guinea subscriber will stand an equal chance of winning one, or more, according to the amount of his subscription; and every subscriber, whether a prize-holder or not, will be entitled to a photographed copy, executed in the permanent autotype style, of the principal prize, "The Captured Banner," by Houston. I cannot conclude without expressing an earnest hope that our medical brethren, both in town and country, will avail themselves of this excellent opportunity of lending the Hospital a helping hand, by procuring subscribers to the scheme amongst their friends and patients. Judging from my own limited experience, there must be a vast number of persons who could not, or would not attend the Bazaar, who would, yet, readily subscribe to this Fine Art Distribution. The burden of supporting the Hospital has, of late years, been thrown too exclusively, and very heavily, upon comparatively a few handshands that must naturally weary of the continual struggle with the ever-increasing claims of the charity. But why should it be so? What is the Hospital to them, more than to the rest of us? As the national expression of the reality of our principles and practice, we are all equally interested in its prosperity, as we should equally suffer in the eyes of the public, from its failure. I am afraid we are many of us too ready to excuse ourselves for inaction, under the selfish plea, that as the Hospital has hitherto flourished through the exertions of others, there is no need of our troubling ourselves now. I trust this plea will no longer be allowed to prevail, but that we shall each of us do what we can to render the forthcoming Bazaar and Fine Art The Hospital needs it. Distribution a great success. I am, Gentlemen, your obedient servant, March 18th, 1874. S. YELDHAM. NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS. We cannot undertake to return rejected manuscripts. MARSTON ORPHAN FUND.-Dr. Bradshaw has received the following additional subscriptions:-Mrs. Ozanne, 10s.; Dr. Haughton, 10s.; Dr. ROWAN, £1; Dr. S. Morgan, £1 1s.; Dr. Ruddock, £5. Dr. A. DE NOÉ WALKER.-You would be rendering a great service to homœopathy, if you would take up the last edition of the British Homœopathic Pharmacopoeia-published in 1870-and send a list of the corrections that you deem desirable to Dr. Drury, the Chairman of the Committee appointed to prepare the revised edition of the Pharmacopoeia. A HOMEOPATHIC PRACTITIONER is much desired—Mr. HARMAR SMITH has requested us to state-in Shrewsbury, Dr. Cartwright having recently retired from practice. Communications, &c., have been received from Dr. SHULDHAM (Maidstone); Dr. MASSY (Brighton); Dr. SHARP (Rugby); Dr. SIMPSON (Liverpool); Dr. YELDHAM (London); Dr. DYCE BROWN (Aberdeen); Dr. MOORE (Liverpool); Mr. POTTAGE (Edinburgh). BOOKS AND PERIODICALS RECEIVED. 1874. By E. A. MURPHY, M.D. Cleveland: Notes in Electro Surgery, with Cases and Operations. By E. A. The Homœopathic World, March. London: Jarrold & Son. The Chemist and Druggist, March. London. The Calcutta Journal of Medicine, Oct., Nov., and Dec., 1873. Boericke & Tafel's Quarterly Bulletin of Homœop. Literature, Feb. The United States Medical and Surgical Journal, January. Chicago. The Medical Investigator, February. Chicago. The Hahnemannian Monthly, March. Philadelphia. The New England Medical Gazette, February and March. Boston. The Am. Journ. of Hom. Mat. Med., February. Philadelphia. Bulletin de la Soc. Méd. Hom. de France, February. Paris. Bibliothèque Homeopathique, February. Paris. Allgemeine Hom. Zeitung, March. Leipsic. La Reforma Médica, January and February. Madrid. Rivista Omiopatica, February. Rome. Papers, Dispensary Reports and Books for Review to be sent to Dr. RYAN, 2A, West Street, Finsbury, E.C., to A. C. POPE, Esq., Moselle Villa, Lee, Kent, S.E., or to Dr. H. NANKIVELL, Penmellyn, Bournemouth. Business Communications and Advertisements to H. TURNER and Co., 77, Fleet Street, London, E.C. THE MONTHLY HOMEOPATHIC REVIEW. THE MATERIA MEDICA. THE study of the action of drugs upon the health, and of their application to the cure or relief of disease, comprises the portion of the field of practical medicine which homocopathically-practising physicians have most successfully cultivated. The records left by HAHNEMANN of experiments with more than a hundred remedial agents of this class, those which we owe to Trinks, to Stapf, to Hering and others, are an addition to the resources of the physician, of incalculable value. They have served us, and served us well, in many a hard-fought battle with disease; they constitute a monument to the industry and selfsacrifice of those who performed and published them; while they remain as an example to us, and to all who desire to practise the art of medicine, of the way in which the hidden virtues of plants and minerals may be revealed and turned to the advantage of the sick. Similar experiments have been made with many of the indigenous plants of the United States, by some of our indefatigable colleagues in that country. These have been somewhat damaged in reputation from their having been placed before us mixed up with a large number of empirical observations, which have too often proved misleading. So far, however, as the pure experiments are concerned, we have every reason to be satisfied with the results we have derived from them. Of late years a number of new No. 5, Vol. 18. 17 |