with any visible effect, so that ever since I have quite given it up."

While Dr. Mülller speaks thus doubtfully or despondingly of the action of the medicines omitted in the London Hospital list, let us hear what he says of those most frequently used there. Sulphur was prescribed no less than 428 times in the few weeks during which the record was kept. Of this medicine, Dr. Müller says, "with this I have effected a great many glorious cures." Nux Vomica was prescribed 332 times. "To this Polychrest I am indebted for so many cures." Belladonna 332 times. "This is above all the remedy from which I believe I have seen the greatest number of decided and quite indubitable effects, and the most splendid cures." Mercurius was prescribed 185 times. "Mercurius belongs to the class of medicines to which I am indebted for my best and most frequent successes against a great variety of diseases," and so on. From this we learn that there is now a well established hierarchy in our own Materia Medica. We have our archbishops, our bishops, our archdeacons, our rectors, and our curates. The position of each is acknowledged wherever our new medical faith has penetrated. Surely it is time that in framing our practical compendium this fact should be accepted as the guiding principle, and that a share corresponding to its practical importance should be allotted to each. We do not find a rural dean occupying a Lambeth palace, nor an archbishop housed in a vicarage. If the framing of such a treatise as we are now imagining were to fall into the hands of one of our bold, practical, experienced practitioners, if he were to take his manual and run his pen through every medicine which he had not found of use, he would then have a manageable group of probably under one hundred; if he were then to winnow from the multitude of the symptoms recorded under each of these medicines, every one which he felt to be frivolous and irrelevant, we should have, for the first time in our possession, an entirely trustworthy handy book of practice. It might be about the size of Mr. Buck's, viz., about 800 pages, and each medicine would have from four to twelve

pages, according to the magnitude of its sphere of action and its general importance. Such a book would be eagerly bought by a large number of the old school, and at once turned to account. The stimulus to the study of Homœopathy would be very great, and at the present time, when there is so much restless unbelief, and yet dread of scepticism abroad in medicine, the effect of a work so constructed as to be intelligible to every one, and yet not repulsive to the cultivated members of our profession, would, we believe, be almost unprecedented in the annals of the art. Homœopathy thus made easy, would spread like a river in flood over its present limits, and carry its benefits into every town and village of our country.

Is there no danger from such a book? There is this obvious and most serious risk, that there would be little temptation to increase our stock of medicines, and to acquire that kind of knowledge of the action of those we now possess, which enables us successfully to confront a new form of disease. When the Pestilence of cholera was signalled in the offing, the great prophet Hahnemann announced the means of arresting the terrible invasion. A new Pestilence is among us; "the cattle plague" occupies the attention of the nation, but there is now "no prophet in Israel," there is no one who can tell us with any degree of certainty what we ought to do, we have to feel our way after the inferior tentative method of analogy and experiment, instead of piercing the heart of the mystery and recognising its true similitude, and therefore its probable antidote. And thus it is, what we gain in width we lose in depth.

We have left ourselves little space to speak of the other two portions of Mr. Buck's book, the "Regional Symptomatology" and the "Clinical Dictionary." The former, we apprehend, is somewhat of too vague a character to be of so much use as one could wish, considering the amount of labour bestowed upon it. The latter is a tempting subject for some remarks; but unless we could give our opinion on the whole question of nosology, as applied to homœopathy, we should be afraid of being misunderstood, or doing rather harm than

good by broaching it. Perhaps the writer already referred to in the June number of the Monthly Homœopathic Review, is right when he says, "Dr. Russell believes in nosology, he believes in the possibility of classifying disease on a pathological basis, and in applying homœopathic remedies to diseases so classified. If the pathological school of homœopathy can prove this point, we predict a very rapid spread of their method among the more advanced men of the allopathic school." Perhaps, on the other hand, such an attempt is premature except in reference to a limited class of cases. At all events, whether it be altogether the best sphere of exertion for us or not, it seems to have the advantage of stimulating inquiry among our elder brethren, and is certainly productive of keen discussion among members of our own school, and doubtless "from the collision of error and the active spirit which generates hypothesis, truth may eventually arise, while a confident and indolent scepticism must be for ever stationary." We, as a school, may err in being too confident in our dogmas, and too sanguine in our expectations; but these are the faults of the young and enterprising, and even if they lead to frequent disappointment they are more hopeful than the perfect resignation to the vis lethalis Nature, which now divides-so far as the cattle plague is concerned—with the poleaxe of the butcher the complacent recognition, not to say welcome, of the appointed Guardians of State medicine.

CLINICAL RECORD.

Acidum Fluoricum in Secondary Syphilis in the tongue and throat. By Dr. JOSEPH LAURIE.*

R. S., æt. 30, affected with secondary symptoms for five or six months. Two months previous to the constitutional poisoning,

* The following cases by Dr. J. Laurie derive a melancholy interest from the circumstance that they were sent to us only a few days before his untimely and sudden death.-[ED.]

he had primary sores on the glans and prepuce, which had been treated allopathically with mercurials. For the secondary symptoms he had imbibed quarts of sarsaparilla ineffectually; temporary amendment being regularly followed by aggravated relapses. During the last week or two prior to his consulting me, this tendency to exacerbation had been rapidly increasing.

Symptoms: tonsils, uvula, and soft palate of a livid red colour, and considerably swollen; tongue deeply and widely fissured in all directions, and presenting a large and deep phagedeniclooking ulcer in the centre. The suffering on swallowing, and also when conversing, was excessive. General health impaired; little appetite, and the act of mastication attended with so much torture in the tongue, that small quantities of beef-tea, without salt, and milk, formed his main sustenance. Sleep restless and unrefreshing, and materially disturbed by accumulations of mucus in the fauces. Great diurnal languor, and much emaciation. A scaly eruption sparsely distributed over chest and arms. Prescription; Acid. fluor. 6 gtt. ij. in aq. destil. 3ss. mane et nocte. On the return of the patient for inspection, at the expiration of a week, he exhibited little apparent change, but stated that he felt better, and could swallow and converse with somewhat more facility. Medicine repeated.

Ten days later the improvement was unequivocal: tonsils, uvula, and palate free of redness, swelling, and other morbid signs; volume of tongue diminished, and the ulcer cicatrizing healthily. Acid. fluor. 6 was continued daily for a fortnight longer, and then every other day for fourteen days more, at the close of which period the cure appeared to be complete. No relapse of any kind has occurred for six months and upwards.Another case presenting closely analogous features to the foregoing the condition of the tongue being, if anything, even worse was cured in six weeks or so, by the same remedy, administered ut supra, under the supervision of Dr. Mackintosh, of Torquay.

A. T., æt. 24, had a primary venereal sore (character uncertain) on the corona glandis, two years ago. It disappeared under the internal employment of blue pill, and the topical use of black wash. Between three and four months afterwards he became affected with secondary ulceration of the throat, which healed under a further liberal administration of blue pill. The throat, however, remained irritable, and peculiarly sensitive to cold; the

slightest exposure resulting in inflammatory action, with increase of pain, and impeded deglutition. The tongue was always more or less tender, and never exempt from a distressing feeling of rigidity throughout its entire extent, accompanied by restricted mobility. In consequence of a more than ordinarily severe return of soreness in the throat, the patient consulted me in the month of May last. The soft palate and uvula were intensely red, and much tumefied; breath foetid, voice nasal, and articulation so indistinct as to be scarcely intelligible. No other abnormal indications of any importance.

Prescription:

Acid. fluor. gtt. vj.
Ag. destil. 3iij.

Dosis, Coch. med. ter. die.

On the fifth day the inflammation, and the above described peculiar sensation, &c., in the tongue, were entirely removed. No recurrence of throat or other secondary symptoms up to this date, November, 1865.

Acidum fluoricum in chronic looseness of bowels and bilious
vomiting. By Dr. JOSEPH LAURIE.

E. Y., æt. 40, has been subject to indigestion and attacks of bilious vomiting and diarrhoea nearly all his life. Tongue vivid red at tip and margins, and coated yellow in the centre; appetite good; evacuations never less than twice a day for several months past, and generally consisting of liquid bilious fæcal matter intermixed with frothy mucus; no griping, and no tenesmus; some sensibility to external pressure in the right hypochondrium, but nowhere else; face pale; muscular development good, but soft and flabby. The attacks of bilious vomiting occur after trivial errors in diet, and are always attended with an increase in the number of alvine discharges, which, on such occasions only, are preceded by tormina. Acid. fluor. 6, two drops twice a day, in a tablespoonful of water, for a fortnight, produced, thereafter, a normal stool once a day. In other respects the patient improved in health and strength, and had merely one or two comparatively slight recurrences of vomiting and purging, owing to his own imprudence. He was speedily and then permanently relieved by the fluoric acid, in these milder attacks likewise.