or

it be in solid form, the same object is achieved by prolonged trituration, the object being not merely to mix or dilute the medicins with alcohol or to break up and divide the particles of the drug, as is erroneously supposed by some, but the object is to impart to the vehicle with which it is being succust or triturated the immaterial medicinal force of which the material crude drug is only the custodian. And experience, a most valuable coadjutor, has taught, nay has proven, that the limit has not yet been reacht in which that mys terious unseen medicinal force may be carried forward from one potency to another, and to attempt to determin the limit by chemical analysis or by microscopical investigation is sheer folly. As well try to investigate magnetic force or the force of gravity by the same appliances. Like all the great energies of nature, medicinal force can only be known or measured by its results; and is unlike toxic materials, the function of which is to disturb or destroy, according to the quantity administered, the physiological action, and to depress the vital force; and whilst the amount of poison in a given quantity of a crude drug can be determined by the application of chemistry, etc., no such investigation can possibly determin medicinal force.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD: Having received a copy of THE MEDICAL WORLD, I am enuf interested to enclose check for $1.00 for a year's subscription. I have carefully read the several articles upon dilution or potency, as well as your comment on same. There is nothing to be gained by argument on the potency question, either as to absolute quantity in a given potency, or how, if present, that quantity acts in the system. I am not a frequent prescriber of high potencies, but have been forced to believe in them by actual experience. Many years ago a drayman, sixty years of age, came under my care for "falling spells," as he called them. He had been treated by a number of doctors; none were able to say what his trouble was, or to help him. I was unable to satisfactorily diagnose the case, but was inclined to think it one of fatty degeneration of the heart. The attacks often occurred twenty and more times a day, coming instantly and irregularly.

When standing or walking he would fall, always backwards, often being injured by the fall. He was obliged to abandon his work and remain at home. Satisfied, from symptoms obtained, that belladonna was the remedy, it was given in the 3 x dilution; the result was complete control over the trouble. I then determined this a fine opportunity to test virtue of higher potencies. Gave bell. 30 x, then 200 x; each prescription controled the case perfectly. Without knowledge of patient I gave a placebo. In twenty four hours the attacks returned. Again giving bell. either 30 x or 200 x, the attacks would cease after taking a few doses. I experimented some time in the above manner, often not visiting the case for three or four days. When taking the placebo the attacks would return and grow more and more frequent. My patient lost confidence, and during one of the placebo intervals was fully convinced by a friend that another friend was cured of "just such spells" by wearing steel bracelets on the wrists. He insisted upon procuring and wearing the bracelets. At the appointed date for applying the bracelets I was on hand and left bell. 30 x, which he took as directed in connection with the bracelets. Calling three days later I found my patient happy and confident. No "spells" since I saw him last. I said, 66 now which do you have most faith in; my medicin or the bracelets?" He replied, "well I don't know Doctor, I have a pile of faith in them bracelets.' My thought then was, "old fellow, I'll cure your faith in those bracelets in short order." I left the placebo. Did not see him again for a week, and found the man thoroly discouraged; the attacks were as severe and frequent as ever. I then left bell. 30 x, and from that time as long as he lived he had no more attacks. I kept him supplied with a vial of belladonna 30 x or 200 x, no difference in effect, and had him take a dose night and morning. It is my opinion that faith must be considered "nil" in this case. I cannot see how any one can question the fact that there was virtue in the potency. I trust the length of this will not annoy you. Will state that I am Ex-President of the Minnesota State Homeopathic Institute (State Society), also Ex-member of the Minnesota State Medical Examining Board. Duluth, Minn. C. B. PILLSBURY, M.D. [It seems probable that the above letter

was not intended for publication; but as it is interesting in connection with what we have been discussing lately, and from a representative man, it will doubtless be of interest to all.-ED.]

Regrets Departure From Strict Homeopathy.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-I am a graduate of both schools of medicin. Have attempted to practise homeopathy for over fifty years. Before the war between the north and south I was a strict follower of the old Hahnemannian practise, but during the war I got into a kind of eclectic practise of a slouchy form of homeopathy, mixing and using compound homeopathic remedies, which I shall regret all my life. Now, in my seventy-third year, I am too lazy to abandon it. I wish I could.

Phosphorus is the remedy called for in Dr. Chapman's case, from the keynote symptom. Pus, when falling on a hard surface, will break and fly like thin batJ. H. HENRY, M.D.

ter.

Montgomery, Ala.

A Case Like Dr. Chapman's. Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-Am only an infant in reading your journal. I don't allow my pneumonia patients to get where Dr. Chapman's case arrived. Yet I did get a case from other hands. I gave phos. 3 x, as prescription. Yet I prescribed elix. codea and terpin. co., as an adjunct. Am a homeopath, but a condition like this seems alarming. Was trying to do all I could for my patient, and also myself, to beat the other fellow. Patient recovered. Which prescription cured? Jerry City, O.

J. F. Wollam, M.D.

reabsorption being tardy, phosphorus, thirtieth, used as the others, is the remedy. Sometimes sulfur is indicated, according to symptoms. I have been treating pneumonia occasionally for twenty-three years as above, and they all recovered. No other been used. Of course the remedies change treatment internally or externally has according to the various deviations from the normal standard.

Newark, N. J. JOHN K. MULHOLLAND.

Why the Remedy in Dr. Chapman's Case is Phosphorus.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-There can be but one remedy for Dr. Chapman's test case of pneumonia, as outlined in your current number, pages 343 and 344. It is phosphorus.

Great dyspnea.

Tightness of the chest.

Scanty and difficult expectoration. Thin and dirty-looking sputa. Sputum spatters when ejected. Respiration rapid and labored. Hepatization of almost whole of right lung. What could it be but phosphorus?

It might have been bryonia, with its severe pleuritic and pulmonic stitches, its acute congestion, its painful breathing, its dread of motion and its bright rusty-colored sputum in the first stage. But now we are in the second week [7th day]; the dyspnea is worse than the pain; the lung is hepatized and the expectoration is dirty and spattering; the blood cells which engorged the tissues having broken down into a degenerated sputum. Bryonia's time and symptoms have past and those of phosphorus are on.

It might be iodin, but it isn't. Iodin is best adapted to right-sided pneumonia, but it suits the tubercular subject with re

Given.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-I offer my method of treating simple uncomplicated croupus pneumonia, homeopathically. From stage of invasion (or chill) to and including bloody infiltration, aconite anywhere from sixth to thirtieth potency, eight to ten drops in half a glass of water, teaspoonful every two hours, until better; then every three, four or five hours..

Second stage-From infilteration to and including red hepatization: Bryonia, same potency and frequency.

I have rarely had a third stage to treat. If it should occur, however, exudation and

dyspnea is that of a general debility and constitutional invasion rather than that of acute hepatization. Its sputum is viscid and blood-streaked. In chronic or uncured pneumonia-the caseous degeneration of Niemeyer-iodin is king. Likewise in acute pneumonia on a phthisical base.

It might be rhus toxicodendron, but it isn't. The case isn't typhoidish enuf for rhus. rhus. There is not laid down the muscular soreness, the bodily fatigue, the bruised and battered and lame feeling of this remedy. Furthermore the illness didn't start from a ducking or drenching, and we

always take the cause into consideration in prescribing homeopathically, when Rhus covers the symptom of possible. rotten sputum (if the inelegancy of the word can be forgiven), but its concomitants are not present and it is not rhus.

With hepatization on in full blossom, with great dyspnea, with right-sided pneumonia, and with degenerated sputum, it is Phosphorus, "with a capital P."

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Why is it phosphorus?" do you ask? Because in the proving of this remedy upon healthy human beings, for the purpose of ascertaining its range of action uninfluenced by the presence of any condition of disease, and from accidental and suicidal poisonings by phosphorus, it has been shown that it produces a counterpart of the symptoms presented in Dr. Chapman's test case; and because every homeopath, who is a homeopath and not an 'alf-and'alf," knows that any drug or remedy whose carefully conducted proving test shows it capable of producing a given chain of symptoms, will most certainly remove, or cure, those symptoms in the sick, if given in doses which will not add to the trouble by setting up a drug aggravation, and if given in a potentized form and not repeated often enuf to spoil the

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case. A hunter doesn't shoot at a bird

till he kills it and then keep on shooting at it. No more should the physician shoot his doses at a disease condition and keep on shooting at it, at certain stereotypt hours of the day or minutes of the hour, without knowing what his first shot has done.

In good homeopathic practise three cardinals stand out prominently:

First. Select the remedy, not haphazardly, carelessly or routinely, but according to the clearly defined law that medicins have affinities for organs, tissues and parts, upon which they act in a positiv, unerring and uniform manner.

Second. Always give the least possible amount or dose capable of producing the desired result, whether the "lightning

calculator" of Wurtzboro can calculate its potentiality by mathematics or not.

Third. Repeat the remedy upon the indications of the patient and the known duration of action of the drug in hand, not by either the Julian or the Gregorian calendar, the hands of grandfather's or any other old clock, nor by the dial of your Waterbury.

Adherence to these, the "Golden Rules

Indications for Phosphorus.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-In answer to the test case proposed by Dr. S. E. Chapman, pages 343 and 344, I would say:

The case as given is very meager in symptoms. We would have liked to know, for instance, the mental symptoms, condition of the tongue, bowels, micturition, thirst, hour of aggravation, which remedy was given for the first stage, etc. Not knowing these additional circumstances (which might modify or corroborate our selection), we are yet able to prescribe for the case as it stands. There are several indications for bryonia, but on the whole we would unhesitatingly prescribe phosphorus, for these reasons: Phosphorus 1. Broncho-pulmonary 2. In that pathological condipneumonia,' espetion which we call " cially in its second stage. 3. Hepatization of the lung, especially of the lower part of right lung. 4. In pleuritis its peculiar symptoms are: 5. Expectoration difficult, rust-colored, tenacious mucus; thin and dirty looking, and "when falling on paper, breaks and flies like thin 6. Respiration short, labored, 7. Suffocating contriction of chest. 8. Cannot lie on left

is indicated in catarrh.

batter."

panting, anxious.

side or back, and is obliged to sit up when side or back, and is obliged to sit up when coughing. 9. Pulse rapid, accelerated, weak, small. 10. Threatening paralysis of the lungs.

Comparing with the conditions as well as the symptoms given in the test case, we see that almost all (not to say all) the symptoms are covered (as we express it) by that one remedy-phosphorus. And as no other remedy has the totality of symptoms as clearly as this one, we have no hesitation in prescribing it for the case. The potency is left to the judgment of the prescriber. I would use the 30th or 200th. J. LOPES CARDOZO, M.D.

Brooklyn, N. Y.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-I subscribed for THE WORLD on one of your taking offers, and because I am with you on the great public questions of the day. While I am a "regular," I admire the spirit of fairness that actuates you in opening THE WORLD to different schools of medicin. In common with other "regulars" in this section, I am ignorant of homeopathy, but if those who contribute to THE WORLD are representatives of the system, I am glad to learn of such men. I thank you for giving me this opportunity of meeting the brethren of another medical faith, and I hope we will all be the better for it. J. M. TEMPLETON, M.D.

Cary, N. C.

Calls It a "Kindergarten” Case. Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-I should prescribe for the "kindergarten "case of Dr. Chapman as follows: For the initial chill, two or three doses of aconite would have ended the attack in twenty-four hours. Aconite is not fully indicated for "fever" as "fever," but is indicated in a chill mixt with flushes of heat, brought on by external means (like a draught, while warm); but when the chill has past away and a sthenic inflammation has set in with fever, aconite will only check the inflammation, but will not stop the pathological process; it should not be given longer than twenty-four hours: it must then be followed with another remedy indicated by the symptoms of the case as then presented. In Dr. Chapman's case the remedy on the seventh day was phos phorus. All this from the homoepathic standpoint. I have called this case a "kindergarten" case because any medical student in the third year at a homeopathic college ought to be able to prescribe for it correctly. CHAS. B. GILBERT, M.D.

Washington, D.C.

Why Some May Have Been Led to Prescribe Lycopodium.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD :-Being a homeopath and prescribing only a single remedy at a time, I would advise phosphorus in such a case as Dr. Chapman mentions. In one of our reference books, "Gentry's Concordance," there is a typographical error, and lycopodium is stated instead of phosphorus. This may lead some of our homeopaths to prescribe lycopodium. But a reference to Hering's Guiding Symptoms will soon convince them of their mistake.

Toronto, Ont. E. A. P. HARDY, M.D.

An Advocate of Lycopodium. Editor MEDICAL WORLD: -Possibly I do not catch the meaning Dr. Chapman intends by his challenge. Certainly prescribing for a hypothetical case will prove nothing for or against the success of the method used. I take it the Doctor expects to impress upon the profession the fact that the homeopathic prescribers are systematic in their method of applying drugs, and that all other systems are most unsystematic. More than this, I venture that the Doctor has had precisely such a case as he presents, and found the remedy indicated saved his

The Doctor's article, from beginning to end, is clear, dignified and honest. It would be well for many to read, reread and read again. Much of untruth has been so continually promulgated by nonbelievers in homeopathy, it is refreshing to those who have made this system a life study to read in a journal which probably is read by a goodly number of fair meaning men of all schools Dr. Chapman's statements.

From the symptoms given, the prescriber he at once thinks of aconite, bryonia, phosphorus and tartar emetic. But here is a desperate condition confronting him on the seventh day of the disease. No matter how he should have been treated up to the seventh day, now all is lost unless relief comes sure and quickly. The relief will be obtained by administering lycopodium 30x, 10 drops in glass of water; a teaspoonful every hour. The adjunct management of this case, taking for granted he has an experienced and, to the doctor, satisfactory nurse, is of minor consequence. The demand is for a remedy, if such can be found to meet the conditions. Lycopodium covers the totality of the symptoms, and is sure to save the case if any treatment can save it.

The subscriber to this article, after 23 years' experience in practise, and having been in close relation with the regular profession, where he has observed their methods of handling pneumonia, confidently asserts that the above prescription is practical, scientific and life preserving ; whereas "supporting treatment," oxygen, all empirical efforts, impress one with the feeling that "he who enters here leaves hope behind."

Duluth, Minn. CHAS. B. PILLSBURY, M.D.

Lycopodium Again.

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-In the case of pneumonia described by Dr. Chapman there are two remedies that present themselves to my mind; one is aconite and the other lycopodium; and as lycopodium is the only remedy in the materia medica that covers all the symptoms recorded by the Doctor, I should give the patient lycopodium cc., prepared by hand, and expect it to cause the disease to disappear.

The guiding symptom in the case is this: "Expectoration scanty and difficult, thin and dirty looking, flying to pieces like batter when falling on paper." Aconite might help, but not cure.

Portland, Ore. GEORGE WIGG, M.D.

matter

[Besides the above homeopathic articles on the test case, there has been a monotonous stream of short letters and postal cards, nearly all recommending phosphorus. Nearly half say nothing about the potency, quantity or frequency, but merely recommend phosphorus. Others say "3x," "3x up," "not lower than 3x," "low potency preferred," "no "no matter about potency, but suggest the 6th,"" 6x,' "6x to 30x," "3x, 30x or 200x-any potency above 3x," "30x to cm.,' "200," "200x or above," "1,000th," "prefer Dr. Fincke's 40,000 or 50,000, but if I could not get these I would be satisfied to use the 2,000th," "only the 'high and higher' potencies," etc. There are still three letters undisposed of; two prescribing lycopodium, one not mentioning the potency, and the other saying "lycopodium

cm.'

,

and one recommending "bryonia alb.," not going into any particulars. This is as fair (and brief) an analysis of the remaining correspondence now on hand as the Editor is capable of making. It shows that we who are "regular" must admit that our homeopathic brethren are much the more uniform, except in the matter of potency, and many of them claim that if the right drug is chosen, the potency is not important.-ED.]

Replies to Test Case From Miscellaneous Sources.

From a "Hybrid."

Editor MEDICAL WORLD:-I have been much interested in the prescriptions for Dr. Chapman's test case of pneumonia. Possibly their aspect from the point of view of a hybrid might prove of interest to others. Prescriptions written after reading your last issue would be regarded with suspicion of being influenced by its contents. An analysis of those received

66

prior to its issue shows that 24 homeopaths would give phosphorus straight, and this uniformity seemingly became so monotonous that you buncht the rest as several others." We will say that 30 homeopaths prescribed phosphorus only, 5 prescribed lycopodium-enuf to show the diversity of men's minds (provided always homeopaths have minds), one classed by you as a regular school man but evidently like myself, a hybrid, also prescribed phosphorus. Seven regular school men (including the hybrid) prescribed (1) strych., (2) nux vomica, (3) morph., (4) atrop., syr. scillae co. [(5) senega, (6) tart. ant. et potass., (7) squills], (8) acetanilid, (9) aconitin, (10) codein, (11) creasote carb., (12) whisky, (13) tartar emetic (uncombined), (14) ipecac (uncombined), (15) quin. sulph., Dover's powder [(16) ipecac, (17) opium, (18) sulfate of potassa], liq. ammon. aromat. [(19) carb. ammon., (20) water of ammon., (21) oil of lemons, (22) oil of nutmeg, (23) oil of lavender, (24) alcohol], (25) digitalis, (26) sulph. of magnes., (27) calomel, (28) castor oil, (29) turpentine, (30) normal salt solution. In addition to these 30 remedies to school men prescribe externally (31) cold be used internally, these seven regular water sponging, (32) alcohol baths, (33) flaxseed and mustard, (34) bleeding freely, (35) blisters, (36) hot bathing of feet, (37) hot bathing of whole body, (38) mustard poultices.

regular school man prescribe but two To sum up, 35 homeopaths and one remedies; and of the 36 medical men 31 prescribe the same remedy. Seven regular school men prescribe 38 remedies.

My interest in this symposium of therapeusis is intense, and has been stimulated by the fact that last spring a young patient of mine, whom I treated for pneumonia some two years ago, was again attackt, progrest well for several days, when, for reasons unnecessary to mention, he had a relapse-or what is more scientific nowadays-a fresh infection. He quickly assumed a condition very similar to Dr. Chapman's case I called counsel, and not all, but many of the prescriptions and proceedings recommended above by regular school men were used, including saline normal solution; and in addition oxygen inhalations were constantly and persistently employed at an expense of from $25 to $30 a day. Result-death.

Since I began to browse the thera