usually confounded with scarlet fever, and Belladonna prescribed, which will do little or no good. It is easily distinguished from scarlatina by the dark redness of the eruption, and pressure of the finger leaves no white imprint. There is more of a papular appearance to the eruption than is usually present in scarlatina.

It controls many of the diseased conditions following scarlet fever, when it should be used low, and in sensible doses, which bear repetition.

I have seen it control copious, continuous, and exhausting sweats; in which condition sponging the patient with water as hot as can be borne, often helps.

It will cure colic in horses, when they turn upon their backs, extend their legs into the air, and wriggle like a dog. It will also cure thumps in horses.

FRAGMENTARY NOTES.

J. D. TYRRELL, M. D., Toronto, Ontario.

THEA CHINENSIS.

Mrs. W, reports that every time she drinks a good strong cup of tea, she has startings just as she is "going off to sleep." Dreams she is falling off some high place, or sliding off a roof, and wakes up in fear. This symptom is so constant and so troublesome that she has given up the use of tea-she always used best uncolored Japan.

SACCHARUM ALB.-QUINIA SULPH.

Called to see Miss M, suffering from periodic headache; gave her Lachesis 75m. (Fincke), two powders, an hour apart, followed by Saccharum album in solution, one teaspoonful every fifteen minutes; dissolving a few pellets of pure Saccharum alb. in water, churning it violently with a spoon. Next day I found her down stairs, and much better; but she accused me of giving her Quinia sulph. I never gave her or any one else a dose of crude Quinine as I do not keep it lower than 200th, and do not believe in violation of our law.

She said that as soon as she began taking the medicine in the tumbler (Saccharum alb.), she became deathly sick and faint, thought she would die, could not raise her head, and felt as if she would sink bodily through the bed. Each dose made this symptom more pronounced, and it ceased only when she stopped taking Saccharum alb.

The Sulphate of Quinine always produced that symptom no matter how her physician disguised it, or how small a dose he gave, hence she thought I had given her the drug. This Quinine symptom is a true one, and I regard its production by Saccharum alb. as equally genuine; and have made note of it (as is my rule), for future and further verification by proving or clinically. Some of our most valuable symptoms are elicited by individual provers, and also by provers when in peculiar conditions, but are nevertheless valuable. Just as we recognize validity of peculiar mental or physical peculiarities in like persons, or still finer shades of distinction in twins which none but close observers can or do distinguish, so must we allow for personality, as it were, in drugs and the more closely they are similar the more carefully must we search for the delicate lines and shadings that go to make a true portrait. The other remedies having like symptoms are-and I thank Drs. Berridge and Skinner for the information-Belladonna, Dulcamara, Rhus tox., and Lachesis, which have "feeling of sinking through bed."

Arensicum alb. has "every time she awoke from sleep, a faint and sinking sensation as if bed had gone from under her and she had alighted on the floor." I have since found this last in "The Homoeopathic World," January 1887, page 46.

CUPRUM SULPH.

A lady remarked in my presence, that she could not use powdered Cupri sulph. for "stamping" fancy work, because it made her face hurt and swell so she could scarcely see and her lips became everted, "turned inside out" she said. I purposed finding out a more detailed account, but have not yet succeeded.

DOCTRINES OF THE ORGANON.

PRIMARY AND AFTER-EFFECTS.

LEWIS BARNES, M. D., Delaware, O.

**

We are told in section 63 that "Every drug *** produces a certain change in the state of health of the body," and that "this is called primary effect;" that there is a reaction of the vital force which "endeavors, to oppose this effect *** and it is called after-effect or counter-effect." And that (§64) "during the primary-effect * * * our vital. force seems to be only receptive or passive," "compelled, as it were to receive the impression made upon it by the drug," but that afterwards "it seems to rally," "and the result may be twofold,"--first, "the exact counterpart of the primary effect;" second, "where nature affords no exact opposite condition," the vital force appears "to put forth its superior strength" to extinguish the effect of the drug and to establish "the normal state of health, which is the after-effect, or curative-effect."

The "twofold" action referred to, called counter-effect and after-effect, amount to the same thing, for in (§ 65) they are no less than four times employed thus together.

Hence our drugs are to be so given that the so-called primary effects must correspond with the symptoms of disease. They are, indeed, the chief, if not the only forces of the drugs, those that come afterwards in an opposite or counter form being the opposing powers of the vital force. The point here is, that cure results, not really from the drug, but from vital action excited by it; this is opposite the disease, because it is against the drug which acts like or with the disease. But medicines given in seeming opposition to disease are really in opposition to the vital force, which is acting or reacting against the disease. This action of the drug, therefore, may serve to check disease in a measure, that is to palliate it, but in so doing it weakens and impairs the vital force, which is the only really curative agency. And thus permanent mischief is likely to result.

Such is the clearly expressed doctrine of the Organon. It is not my present purpose either to approve or deny its truth, but simply to show what the Hahnemannian teaching is, and, as far as his authority is concerned, to settle the vexed question as to whether cures are wrought by the primary or secondary effects of drugs. The point is clearly in favor of the primary as the essential agency. It is important to have this fixed in the mind. If any one is in doubt about it he should examine the sections above quoted and see, for a serious matter hangs upon it.

The matter is this: Our provings appear to be made up of an indiscriminate mixture of primary and secondary effects--drug effects and counter-effects of the vital forces, those that are like and those that are unlike. Here lies before me now, while writing this, a published account of a proving, in one of our very best magazines. A drug, no matter what, or what potency, was taken--three, six and nine doses--on three successive days. Would the primary and secondary mix during that time? Let us wave that, for we have ten pages of symptoms recorded day by day for seventy-four days—all given as medicinal effects of the drug! recorded as guides for its use! What a mixture of primary and secondary, allopathic and homoeopathic, even supposing them all to be drug effects! How much of our Materia Medica has been composed in a similar way? Perhaps you will say that it is reliable and proper for all that, and will appeal to cures in favor of your statement. I have nothing at present to say in reply except that it violates the clear teaching of the Organon.

I am aware that it is said (§ 112) that after-effects "are rarely if ever perceived after moderate doses administered to healthy persons for the purpose of experiment; and they are altogether absent after minute doses." This looks, at first sight, as if all effects might be chargeable to the drug as primary. But it may be answered that the implied reason why they do not appear is because they are too weak to be "perceived." We may conclude, therefore, that if counter-effects do appear, it is evidence that they belong to the vital force, and not to the drug; and have no proper place in the drug record.

We are told further (§ 115), that some drugs produce effects which appear to be counterparts of other symptoms, but which "are not to be regarded as actual after-effects or counter-effects of the vital force, because they merely vindicate an alternation or fluctuation of the various stages of the primary effect."

These contrary symptoms, moreover, appear only "in regard to certain minor features," and in characteristically important ones. And since they constitute a mere "fluctuation," they should appear in close connection with the characteristic primary effects. If they appear some hours afterwards, can they be called fluctuations? If some days after, are they not "after-effects"? If new symptoms appear after days or weeks, whether contrary to those of the first days, weeks, etc., or not, should they not be assigned to reactions of the system instead of being counted as primary effects of the drug? This is upon the idea that they come in consequence of the drug. But who knows or can know that such is the case? After-effects are not necessarily counter or contrary. Most symptoms, the most important ones, indeed, have no opposites. Such are all the pains. Their opposites are mere absences-states of ease -which are not recorded among symptoms. Such are mental disturbances, the most important of all, since their opposites are normal states. But when the system is impaired or disordered by a drug, or any evil agent, its reaction may appear in many disordered states, depending perhaps upon its comparatively weaker or stronger points. Why count them as characteristics of the drug?

After-effects may be called responses of the system, and each system may respond in its own way, each somewhat differently from every other, just as each man's mind may respond differently from other minds-to the same invading influence. After-effects, therefore, should not be assigned to the drug so much as to the peculiarities of the "prover," which may not appear in another person, or perhaps in the same person at another time. This is an important reason why the experiences of provers should not

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