A. M. The following night she could sleep but very little; the difficulty of breathing increased, and compelled her to sit up all night. And here again arose a great question. Was her disease worse, or was this great aggravation attributable to the seemingly small and very insignificant dose of the remedy? Her left ankle was also more painful and much more swollen after this sleepless night. This often-recurring difficulty- to know whether the disease is worse, and the administration of another remedy advisable, or whether the medicine caused this increase of suffering, is only a real difficulty if we are uncertain about the undoubted correctness of our prescription. As in this case only the previously existing symptoms had become worse, and as these symptoms unmistakably indicated Prunus spinosa, and as we were sure of having made a very careful selection of the remedy, there was nothing else to do but to wait. The next night was much better: she had slept in her bed. The respiratory difficulties gradually subsided, and later the foot and ankle improved slowly. She received no more medicine, and is well; walked out a fortnight after she took a single dose of Prunus spinosa 209.

What deductions can the homoeopathician draw from this case? That the principles on which our school of medicine rests are "infallible"; that the application of the principles taught by our school of medicine, and to be found in Hahnemann's writings, is an infallible guide in our therapeutics and always leads us to a cure; that the provings of Prunus spinosa by Dr. Wahle are reliable. As a precedent, the case proves nothing; and if any one rashly should expect to cure all cases of sprained ankles (left foot) with Prunus spinosa, either in a potency or a tincture, he would be sadly disappointed. This same combination of symptoms will rarely occur again, and a wide field lays open here to be worked out by our scientific friends. Let them stride out, clad in the physiological livery, and let us know what internal injury said patient received while leaping from a carriage and first finding her ankle sprained and then attacked with what science might call a concussive asthma. Will not one of our learned friends grant us the desired, sooften-asked-for explanation of a better way to find, by the scien

tific way opened to us by the physiological discoveries of the day, the curative remedy in just such a case? All the communications by a multiplicity of attempted "illustrations” are “hearsay" testimony, that we reject. What we want to know is the reasoning process, the argument, of the learned professors exhibiting the physiological livery. Can the learned representative of this new departure tell us, for instance, what was the internal injury which this young lady exhibiting such strange symptoms received? and if he does know that, how does he find the curative remedy in a better way than was ours? Again, if the physiological road to cures is a better one, more scientific, followed by better results, than the strictly homoeopathic treatment, would it not be kind, benevolent, and highly meritorious to let the healers (doctors) know it, that suffering humanity might be benefited by such knowledge?

Till then, till Homœopathy has been "superseded” by something better, it would be wisdom to try to apply it as Hahnemann taught it, as his followers developed it, and as it has proved itself to be by far the most successful mode of cure if perfectly understood and faithfully practised. If the principles are true, they must be infallible, and be applicable in all cases of disease: if they fail, and something else is better, then Homœopathy is a failure. And while we, in our ignorance, and with a sincere desire to learn "a better way "if there is one, take the freedom to ask the sage Professor of Therapeutics at the New York Homœopathic Medical College, and at the same time editor of the Quarterly, another question, "What physiological changes, what form of sick physiology indicate bleeding'?" The learned professor will find Hahnemann's remarks on blood-letting in the 5th edition of his Organon, in a foot-note to the 12th page of his Introduction. Have the discoveries of the physiological authorities revealed some new (to Hahnemann and his followers), unknown facts, warranting, nay, demanding "bleeding"? And is Hahnemann wrong when he says in his preface to his Organon (March 25,1833), in a foot-note, " Homœopathy sheds not a drop of blood"? or would he now modify his views, had he the light which was given to Prof. Lilienthal when he said in 1875, in public, "I did bleed him until he breathed

easier it was the thing for the case." Again, when so much is said about the great modern discoveries in medical science, and the necessity of accepting these new discoveries, and applying them in our therapeutics, will not one of the friends of these departures do the profession at large the favor to remember that we, as homoeopathicians, individualize, and do despise to deal in generalities? Will they condescend to individualize and illustrate their proposition, — give testimony thereof, by their own knowledge? Till such testimony shows a "better way," let us hold on to Homœopathy.

HECLA LAVA.

BY L. WHITING, M.D., DANVERS.

[Reported to the Massachusetts Homœopathic Medical Society.] THE pathogenetic action of this truly valuable remedy seems to closely resemble that of Silicea. According to Prof. Morris of London, Hecla Lava contains silex, calcium, alumina, magnesia, iron, and traces of some other minerals usually found in the products of volcanic eruption. All our pathogenetic knowledge of the lava is derived from Danish accounts of its effects on the cattle that graze in the vicinity of the volcano, the herbage being covered with the fine ashes from the crater. These animals are all affected after a short time with exostoses and necroses, first manifesting its action in the maxillary bones, then as the disease progresses in other parts of the osseous system. These simple but certain indications of its power and sphere of action led Dr. Wilkinson, of London, to make use of the attenuated Hecla Lava in similar diseased conditions, with the most gratifying results. It has also proved curative in odontalgia, particularly if the teeth are very sensitive to pressure, this condition being an indication of congestion or inflammation of the fang-capsule, which, if unchecked, goes on to alveolar abscess.

In many cases of facial neuralgia, where the irritating cause is a carious tooth, Hecla Lava commands order, and the refractory nerves are not dilatory in obeying its dictates. I herewith pre

sent a few cases confirmatory of its range of action in addition to those reported at our last meeting.

Case 1, Sept. 12, 1874, Miss æt. twenty-seven, had an inferior molar of right maxilla extracted some two years ago, since which the tissues have not healed. The patient has had a continuous slight discharge of bad tasting pus, at times containing small particles of a soft, gritty substance; Hecla Lava, 4th cent. trit., cured in one week.

Case 2, Mr., æt. thirty-five, had a carious wisdom tooth extracted three days before the case came under my observation, during which time the pain in the wound, and at times in various localities in the head and face, had been so severe that he was not able to eat or sleep. Hecla Lava, 4th cent. trit., improved the case with the first dose, and in a few hours he was entirely free from the pain, and enabled to rest from the excessive fatigue of the three days of agony.

Case 3, June 3, 1875, Mr. F. presented a case of conjunctivitis of right eye, for which various remedies were prescribed during a period of eighteen days, with relief.

On June 21 our patient again called at office his eye not improving, but rather getting worse to obtain advice in regard to having right cuspid of upper jaw extracted. He then informed me that he had had trouble with the tooth for several weeks past, but had deferred having it extracted, hoping that the member would cease to offend. On examination I found the tooth very sensitive to slight pressure on the crown. A perceptible swelling, and indurated tumor of the size of a large pea just under the right alæ nasi, also very sensitive to touch. For this combination of symptoms I prescribed the lava, which in a week had cured the tooth and the conjunctivitis.

IODINE IN CHRONIC JAUNDICE.

BY J. O. MOORE, M.D., Haverhill, MASS.

[Reported to the Massachusetts Homœopathic Medical Society.] MRS. B., æt. thirty-five, the wife of one of the leading clergymen of the Free Baptist denomination, requested my services in August, 1861.

Her husband had been a settled pastor over one of the churches in Manchester, N. H., but his wife's illness proving so serious, he resigned his office and moved to Saco, Me., in order that his wife might have the sympathy and kind attentions of her friends (who resided there) during what they supposed to be her last sickness.

Mrs. B. had always enjoyed excellent health until within the last three years; was of a nervous, sanguine temperament, inclining to a scrofulous diathesis; about the medium height, weighing one hundred and sixty-five pounds, habits of life inclined to the epicurean. She had at that time become so much emaciated that she weighed only ninety pounds.

The eyes, skin, and nails were completely jaundiced, and had been for a year and a half. The case presented the following symptoms nausea and vomiting after eating,-induced by eating almost all kinds of food, the quantity making but little difference; intense canine hunger all the time. About every third day she had a violent attack of gastrodynia, which she thought could only be relieved by an emetic. Frequent empty eructations, heart-burn after eating solid food, distension of the stomach, pain when pressing upon the epigastrium, pain in the right hypochondria, extending through to the lower margin of the right shoulder-blade; constipation, urine scanty, dark, and turbid, menses absent for the last six months.

The patient had been thoroughly drenched by an allopathist for six months; treated with brandy by another of the same persuasion for about the same length of time; and to finish, an eclectic brought up the rear with emetics. I gave the patient a few doses of Nux Vomica to prepare the way for treatment, and after carefully looking over the case, gave for general treatment Iodine 1st dec. attenuation, ten drops in half a tumbler of cold water, one teaspoonful of which was to be taken every fourth hour. The patient began to improve very soon after commencing treatment, and every week a higher attenuation of the remedy was used. The fourth week she was put upon the 30th attenuation, a powder night and morning, which was followed by Sac. lactis. The menses had returned, and the patient was discharged cured in about three months. Fourteen years have