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E closed an editorial in our January number with this statement; "There is a vast amount of unphilosophical talk being indulged in daily concerning the laws of nature by gentlemen who do not distinguish between the very diverse senses in which that term is used, and who do not see that what is true of laws of nature' in one sense of the term is quite untrue of laws of nature' in another sense. We shall make this matter the subject of an editorial in our next issue, which, we hope, may serve to enlighten some who are better physicians than metaphysicians concerning the use of this term, which has led to so much vague and useless logomachy." We now endeavor to redeem our promise.

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The human mind is so constituted that, given a series or congeries of facts, it seeks to deduce from them general rules. This labor-saving process (for such it is), this passing from the concrete to the abstract has its drawbacks, not the least of which is that persons quite competent to observe and report facts correctly may be quite incompetent to draw correct deductions from the facts observed. Yet, in the discussion of questions of natural science (homoeopathy included), pure matters of fact, the dis

putants, three times out of four, lose sight of the questions of fact to discuss their theories of these facts, theories that are too often nothing but the merest guess-work. Indeed, not seldom, a careful analysis of the discussion shows that gentlemen are discussing different, though somewhat cognate topics under the same name. In such cases, there is, as a lawyer would say, really no issue joined, no definite affirmation and denial of the same thing, and, as a result, there can be no decision of the issue. We have then, we repeat it, a mere logomachy, a war of words that may bewilder but cannot enlighten.

Among the members of our school, there are those (good and able men, too) who, when they have said: "Similia is a law of nature," think that the admission of the statement as true carries with it necessarily the admission of the universality, exclusiveness and irresistibility of that law. Yet, none of these things are necessary implications from the term.

The expression law of nature is used daily in at least three distinct though related acceptations, and, before going farther, it will be necessary to make this fact clear.

First. The term law is applied to the properties of material bodies, as when we speak of the power which matter has to attract other matter as the law of attraction.

Second. It may be used to express the action of two or more bodies so related or adjusted that their properties operate, (for no body manifests properties until some other body is brought into such relation to it that it can act upon the other body). Thus, alkalis and acids have certain properties in reference to each other which are manifested when the two classes of bodies are brought together, and we speak of these properties in action as the chemical laws of their combination.

Third. It may be used merely to express a generalized set of facts, as when we speak of the laws of the distribution of plants; the law of generation that like begets like, the law of averages, etc., etc.

To recapitulate, then; the expression law of nature, may mean first, property or latent force; Second, properties of two or more bodies combining to produce an effect, i. e., cause or manifested force; Third, a classification of similar facts under a general statement.

In speaking of the homoeopathic law of cure, we must perforce think of the remedy acting and the organism acted upon and we may therefore eliminate the first of the above meanings from present consideration. may still, however, mean either of the other two things we have mentioned. We may mean either (first) that when a drug is brought into certain relations with a living human organism the properties latent in the drug and the organism will become manifested as a force that will produce or remove certain states or sensations (symptoms) according as those symptoms.

already do or do not exist in that organism, or (Second), we may mean that all the facts so far observed in reference to the cure of disease with the aid of drugs can be grouped together under the general statement that disease is cured by drugs that produce in the healthy symptoms similar to its

own.

Now, can we predicate of the concept, law of nature, in either of these two senses, as a necessity, universality, exclusiveness and irresistibility? The law might be universal, exclusive and irresistible, but the mere fact of its being a law would not make it such. Thus, chemical elements have their law of combination, but each has its own law with reference to other elements. Unchangeable for each combination, that law applies only to individual bodies placed in identical relations and enjoys only a very limited universality-if we may use so absurd an expression. Does the existence of this law exclude the existence of another or several others? Remember that law in this acceptation really means force and let us ask: Does the existence of one force exclude the possibility of the existence of another and similar force? Without stopping here to give illustrations in other lines, we opine that none of our readers will deny that the vital force, unaided by drugs in any quantities performs many cures. Finally, is this law a force irresistible? If so, it is the only natural force that is such. If so, humanity should be practically immortal, with skillful homœopathists to fit the irresistible remedy to each ill; but, alas, it is not!

In the last sense, the term law of nature referring, as we have already stated, to a mere classification of facts, it conveys no idea of properties or force and therefore no possible conception of irresistibility. Again, as one classification cannot exclude another, there can be no necessary idea of exclusiveness. There may, however,, be universality under the classification adopted, if there be no facts of the same class that conflict. In this sense, we think universality can be claimed for the law of cure formulated by Hahnemann; in other words we believe that we may challenge those who deny it to produce any class of cases at all curable by drugs, in which it is not true that the similar remedy will work a cure. This, we believe, is all that can absolutely be claimed for the law of cure; and if so, we ask whether there has ever been or now is any sufficient cause for all the metaphorical scalping of their brethren in which some homœopathic "big Injuns" seem to gloat whenever they think the latter have been guilty of some infraction of "THE LAW"? Of course, we may be mistaken as to this but we insist that if any one claims for "the law" universality, exclusiveness or irresistibility he must prove these asserted characteristics of the law, just as he would prove any other question of fact, by competent evidence, for a law need not be either universal, exclusive or irresistible.

"BELLY RIPPERS," GIVE US A REST.

O month passes by, but that one or more of our exchanges contains reports of laparotomies (in the median line (?)) ovariotomies, etc. performed by unknown surgical celebrities, reports that contain nothing new in operative technique or after-treatment, that really convey no other information than that the reporter has operated upon a certain number of cases with certain alleged results; reports that, in view of their evident self-advertising purpose are of little value, even as statistical material. The average practitioner, when he comes to a contribution of the kind, looks at its title, mutters "chestnuts," or something more forcible, and shows his good sense by passing to the next article.

Not only are such reports devoid of practical value; they even fail in the accomplishment of their purpose of advertising the operator as a skillful surgeon, since this class of operations can now be performed by any third-class surgeon if he has only the temerity which third-class men usually possess. We have read of even a cow executing a laparotomy with good after-results, and we may all, therefore, take it for granted that Tom, Dick and Harry can rip bellies successfully without giving them from three to thirty pages of valuable space in which to herald the fact, which is wonderful or even interesting to no one but themselves.

Brother Editors, will you not join us in asking the now Ancient Order of Eminent Belly-rippers to give us a rest, and if they are unwilling or unable to do so, to start an organ of their own in which they can swap lies (or belly-ripping truths) to their hearts' content, without roiling the feelings of more than ninety-nine per cent of your readers.

THE MISSOURI INSTITUTE MEETING.

IN less than two months, the 1894 meeting of the Missouri Institute of

Homœopathy will be a matter of history. At the date of the present writing (Feb. 7), we have received no announcement from the Institute officers, but we doubt not they are at work, stirring up the members to make this coming meeting one worthy to be remembered. The Missouri meeting is the first of the State Society meetings in point of time and is usually second to none in point of interest. The meeting this year is here in St. Louis, and our friends know that we always try to make it pleasant for them. We hope to see not a few representative men from other States and we should have a large representation from this. Members whose papers are not ready should get to work without delay. Missouri homoeopathists who are not members should come and become such. In a word, now is the time to make "a long pull, a strong pull and a pull all together."

ID you wonder, gentle reader, what new process swettage of the uterus might be, when you read the article entitled "The Confessional" in last Well, that was only the printer's way of spelling curettage...... It is singular how similar the phenomena produced by mercury are to those which result from syphilis. - Ringer...... Nervous people should eat fat food. Every irritable and exhausted nerve should, if possible, be coated with fat. Fat is to a tender nerve what an air-cushion is to a tired invalid; it eases jolts wonderfully. With the fat should be combined grain foods and vegetables for strength, and fruits to keep up a healthful and judicious consistency of the blood. Dr. S. H. Talcott... ... The long continued use of morphine leads to atrophy of the female generative organs. - Dr. Passower...... The thoracic type of respiration in women is entirely artificial and is not, as physiologists have claimed, a wise provision of nature having in view the restriction of the movements of the diaphragm during pregnancy. Dr. J. F. Barbour...... It is claimed that some cases of violent asthma that cannot be relieved by drugs, grow rapidly better under the application of ice-packs over the pneumogastrics... ... The Medical Visitor is strong for the similimum, and it gives one not down in the books. It says that an English lady cured herself of somnambulism, after trying every known remedy in vain, by sewing up her night-dress at the bottom and at the sleeves. Whether she then wore it or not, and if she did, how she got into it our confrere fails to tell us...... During the administration of ether the secretion of urine is completely arrested. Lawson Tait...... I said fourteen years ago what I say now, that, for surgical purposes, experiments on animals are wholly untrustworthy and have been, in very many instances grossly misleading. - Lawson Tait...... Every case of depressed fracture of the skull, whether great or small, with symptoms or without, ought to be trephined. Dr. J. F. Binnie.. Dr. J. F. Binnie...... If the intermittence of the pulse comes on when sitting or lying and is removed by exercise, it is probably due to hepatic disorder. Dr. E. M. Hale...... Let us cease uterine applications, except for specific iudications and we shall soon have rational instead of empirical gynæcology. Dr. J. N. Felty ("regular"). . . . . . . Since the introduction of sterilized milk, we meet constipation in infants more than ever. The feces are formed into dry, ill-smelling masses, much like those seen in the lower animals. Dr. Henry Roplik...... Constipation in infants may be the effect of lycopodium, when the nurse is so imprudent as to use this substance as a dusting