one studying the proving for a particular case in practice to be able to find at once the other medicines having the same symptom, yet that advantage is so far superseded by the Cypher Repertory which was not in existence when the Hahn. Mat. Medica was begun; and as the concordance would add much to the trouble of doing a medicine and somewhat to the cost of printing, it may be omitted. At the same time, if any striking resemblance of the more or less characteristic symptoms to other medicines occurs, that can be noticed in the commentary. There remains, then, only the question of the schema, which I cannot but consider the cardinal point in the arrangement of a medicine, and, in fact, the position taken by any practitioner in discussing the question becomes a kind of test of his own fidelity to homœopathic practice. For he who shows an indifference to the schema or some equivalent mode of easy access to the minute symptomatology of the medicine unwittingly betrays the fact that he is little in the habit of adapting the symptoms to the case in hand, but rather of trusting to clinical and general indications, which might be quite as well learned and used empirically without any reference to the homœopathic principle at all. For example, every homoeopathic practitioner prescribes Aconite daily, probably several times, on the general indications summed up as inflammatory fever, but how many consult the materia medica before doing so to see how far the minute symptoms correspond to the case in hand, and thus justify the differential diagnosis between it and other medicines for inflammatory fever? Nay, how many have ever in their lives studied the pure symptoms to discover the facts which justified Hahnemann in the pathological induction that Aconite was the homoeopathic remedy in inflammatory fever of any kind?

The mode of settling the question by voting at a meeting of practitioners who have not specially worked at the matter practically is not a likely one to attain to success. Accordingly, we see that the chief opponents of the schema, viz. Drs. Moore and Nankivell, in their laudable wish to obviate the difficulties and imperfections of the Hahnemannic schema if standing alone, must have had in their mind's

eye a very imperfect picture of the superabundance of minute details, the apparent total want of sequence and connection of the symptoms, and the numberless perplexities which beset one when he endeavours to bring the proving diaries into any kind of coherent arrangement. The only kind of tangible suggestion I can gather from the remarks made by the speakers is that all the proving diaries should simply be printed as they stand, somewhat pruned of redundancies and repetitions; the same should be done with histories of poisonings, and the whole rendered accessible by a complete index.

To judge how far this would suit the wants of the real homœopathic practitioner, let any one take up Watzke's Colocynth, which consists simply of the proving diaries describing the symptoms in the natural order of their occurrence, and imagine an index added referring to the individual symptoms by a number. Supposing, then, it was wished to know all the varieties of any symptom of this drug, say. giddiness, we should have a list of ten, or twenty, or thirty referring to that number of sentences or paragraphs where' giddiness is mentioned scattered up and down the proving. To hunt up all these would be quite impossible for the practitioner. Suppose, then, to obviate all that searching through the pages of the proving, pretty full details of each variety were given in the index, that would be so voluminous as to amount to a complete schema, and involve printing the whole proving over again.

This is, in fact, what has been done in several of the Austrian re-provings, and it is not the worst plan independently of the size and expense of the work. But it has also a drawback in a scientific point of view, for the schema, is then made in the old form of a badly-done Hahnemannic one, where the symptoms are torn from their natural group-connection. The practitioner having first to refer to it, soon comes to shirk the trouble of referring to the symptoms in their natural connection scattered up and down in the proving diaries, and falls back on the exclusive use of a badly-made schema. To obviate these difficulties I proposed a combination of the schema and index, the schema,

however, being made up of groups in their natural connection. This, I still think, affords the most feasible mode of meeting the difficulties, although it is not easy in all cases to carry out in practice. Still it is founded on natural laws, for if we prove medicines ourselves, or attentively study the proving diaries of the effects of moderately small doses, we soon see that a great many symptoms appear either quite isolated or in small groups, and independently of these the prover is in perfect health. Such symptoms and small groups there can be no objection to arranging in the Hahnemannic order of the schema and they require no index. Other larger groups can also be arranged in the schema and alluded to by the index and in other departments. Other larger and more narrative groups, again, and poisonings, may require a separate department, and be merely alluded to in the index. Thus we shall have no need of reprinting the proving twice over, and shall be able easily to find all the symptoms and groups in the accustomed order of the Hahnemannic schema.

Dr. Hughes objects to the use of the index, and thinks that natural groups can be broken up so as to avoid the need of it by adding the number of the scattered components at the end of each symptom. This is, however, just an index, and the only question is simply whether it is a better kind. In some cases the index can quite well be so given, but in the majority it would lead us back to the fatal dismemberment of groups which is the present defect of the Hahnemannic schema. I still maintain that single symptoms or small groups which occur alone in a proving are most valuable to stand alone in the schema; there can be no doubt about them being independent. But when once you begin to tamper with natural groups for mere convenience of arrangement, you are in danger of losing the whole meaning of the morbid picture.

In the very example given by Hughes in the proving of Belladonna we have part of a group of a poisoning given under delirium, and at the end we are referred to three other symptoms in the schema many pages distant, and what are these? Some trivial accessory, or some parts of the case

which have no pathological connection with the delirium? Not at all, for one is temporary total blindness, the next suppression of urine, the third dry hot skin, with a scarlatina-like rash. In none of these three is there a counterreference to the first symptom, viz. delirium, and to the last there is an additional reference to a fourth symptom, viz. pulse 170. Surely this group should never have been divided. How is the busy practitioner to find time to piece it together and fifty other such when he studies a case.

No doubt the practical difficulties of arranging the incoherent details of the proving diaries in the above way will still be very great, and I do not believe that any à priori plan will ever be found which shall altogether obviate them. So they must just be combated in detail to the best of our ability in each individual case.

One great desideratum is to prune the narrative of much redundancy and repetition, and also to find as far as possible by internal evidence which symptoms really belong to the drug by the confirmation of one prover's symptoms by those of another. Here also no hard-and-fast line can be drawn. On the one hand, Hering seems to lay down the doctrine that all symptoms, from whatever source, should at once be incorporated with the schema, and leave it to time and the clinical experience of the general body of practitioners to distinguish the true from the false, which latter can then be expunged. To allow, as he says, the tares to grow up with the wheat till the time of final trial. Others, such as the American Institute of Homœopathy, forbid its executive committee to publish the reported symptoms of any drug which has had but one prover. If a hard-and-fast line were desirable I would rather side with the latter than the former plan of Hering's. Indeed, I think we cannot well be too scrupulous or severe in refusing doubtful symptoms admission to the schema, and I consider Hering's plan quite impracticable for the verification of symptoms, and worse than useless, as it throws discredit on the true symptoms and damages the proving so much that it becomes valueless till sifted or even re-proved.

Of course I do not mean that single observations should

not be made and published somewhere, but let them remain in our serial literature till a sufficient number are collected to throw light on each other and allow a complete treatise to be possible.

The subject of perfecting the materia medica being now before our body in a practical form, I hope that every one of us will make some sacrifice of time and trouble in contributing to that great work. It is much to be regretted that a want of unanimity has so often prevailed among even our small body, and hindered us putting forth our full strength for united work. Even now, since this project has become practical, our forces have been divided by the recent action of the British Homœopathic Society, who have proposed devoting a certain portion of labour and money to an imperfect revision of the materia medica on the plan indicated by Aconitine in the October number of the British Journal of Homœopathy. That plan can be of little or no use to the homœopathic practitioner, and can at most do good by doing part of the work which has to be done in the complete materia medica of some future time, for the drugs selected first are not those which are to appear in the first volume alluded to throughout this paper. Would it not be better that the time and money thus spent should be devoted to the preparation of one or two more medicines for this volume ?

THE ACTION OF DRUGS UPON THE EYE.

By Dr. HUGHES.

LECTURE II.

RESUMING Our study of the action of drugs upon the eye, we begin to-day with the most important member of the group,

Belladonna.

The deadly nightshade and its alkaloid atropia have, as