to furnish data by which you may estimate the comparative merits of soidisant legitimate medicine, and the rational method of the new school, which is one of the principal advantages I anticipate from these lectures.

To return then to Arnica: this may be called the antiphlogistic of homœopathy in certain cases of local injuries, whether given internally or applied externally to the injured surface. The action of this remedy is evidently on the circulatory system, through the instrumentality of its direct action on the nervous tissue; when applied locally, it first smarts, but this is soon followed by a corresponding soothing feeling, it then becomes very grateful to the patient. You ought to be aware, gentlemen, that Arnica not unfrequently produces erysipelas of a character sometimes that is very alarming to one unaccustomed to the use of this topical remedy. I have never seen it produce any serious consequences; and this specific cutaneous irritation readily yields if you discontinue the lotion as soon as you perceive the slightest erysipelatous blush,-in 24 or 48 hours after you will find all traces of inflammation and with it the traumatic effects of the wound disappear.

As an external application Arnica is extremely useful in all cases of mechanical injuries, where the continuity of the surface is not interrupted, hence in such cases as ecchymosis, concussions, strains, dislocations and fractures, it will be found a most valuable antivulnerary; on the contrary, whenever incisions, lacerations, contusions, and excoriations occur, Arnica is, in general, contraindicated, because the irritation it creates is apt to determine excessive suppuration, and thereby retard cicatrization of the wound.

As it would be important to ascertain whether the erysipelas observed in any case of accident where Arnica had been applied resulted spontaneously from the injury or the result of the remedy, I take this opportunity of establishing the diagnosis of artificial erysipelas produced by Arnica. There is

1st-Absence of heat in the affected part.

2nd. Its redness is neither transparent nor shining, as in traumatic or spontaneous erysipelas.

3rd. There is always observable a sort of roughness or miliary eruption on the parts.

Besides these signs, you will have other evidences, in the feeling of amelioration of the local injury, and in the absence of corresponding constitutional disturbances or febrile action. In the case of Lucas, Arnica was administered internally likewise; it was suitable to the local injury, it was indicated against the rheumatic pains and paralytic feelings, and it served to restore the nervous system, and through it the whole organism to its normal influence, which is always more or less deranged by shocks from mechanical injuries.

The next remedy administered was Bryonia, an agent that is much used in homoeopathic practice to combat diseases of the respiratory organs. You will, perhaps, recollect that on the 2nd of February, that is three days after Lucas entered the hospital, he complained of great uneasiness in the chest, stabbing pains in the fractured ribs, and several other symptoms indicating a commencement of pleuritis or an attack of pleurodynia: to combat these symptoms Bryonia seemed most homœopathic. It was further indicated by the constipation that was present, which it ultimately relieved, at the same time that it arrested all traces of local inflammatory action. After the use of Bryonia he progressed favorably, and without any other remedy in eighteen days the patient was discharged perfectly cured.

Gentlemen, I have endeavoured in this lecture to discuss as briefly as possible the fundamental principles of surgery, to indicate the distinguishing characteristics of the new surgical school, and likewise to demonstrate the efficiency of the homeopathic method of practice, by citing cases which have been treated in this hospital under your own inspection. From these observations I flatter myself that you must be impressed with the conviction that surgery, such as it is practised in the old school, is destined to undergo a great reformation. The lofty, noble and philanthropic mission of homœopathy, gentlemen, is the transformation of the reigning principle of destruction into that of conservatism. The principal objects of the antiquarian school surgery consist in devising highly ingenious instruments for maiming and mutilating the body,* and in acquiring manual *[We must object to this statement. The boast of modern surgery is that it avoids operations as much as possible.-EDs.]

dexterity for executing it in the most expeditious manner: the principal object of the modern school is the discovery of specific pharmaco-dynamic agents, whereby diseases may be cured without painful surgical operations; and, if allowed to judge, from the success already attained in this path, I have no hesitation in expressing my belief that homeopathy, in its progressive march of remedial discoveries and its daily increasing conquest over disease, will ultimately reach the happy goal of abolishing the fire and the knife from the domain of surgery.

REVIEWS.

HOMOEOPATHY AND THE HOMEOPATHS, by J. Stevenson Bushnan, M.D., F.R.C.P.E., &c. London: Churchill. 1852. Writings against homœopathy that have hitherto appeared in England may be divided into two great classes. 1. Violent diatribes against the followers of Hahnemann, and unfounded imputations against them of all sorts of nefarious practices and mercenary and despicable motives; coupled with fierce denunciations against having any professional communion with such unprincipled quacks. 2. Adverse criticisms of the principal peculiarities of Hahnemann's system, and attempts at a logical refutation of the novel doctrines promulgated by the Founder of homeopathy; together with wouldbe exposures of our statistical fallacies, mixed up with much harmless banter or more elaborate ridicule, which like the hyæna's laugh serves but to betray the lurking spite and cordial hatred of those who use it. Each of these classes of writings has its own circle of admirers and readers, and we presume it was with an eye to securing for his book both sorts of readers and admirers that Dr. Bushnan has in this little work of his given us a combination of both the above styles of treating the great Medical question of the day.

The first mentioned style is decidedly the most attractive, the easiest, and the most popular with the opponents of homeopathy, and accordingly Dr. Bushnan puts the portion of his work that condemns and abuses homœopathists first, contrary to what the title of his work, "Homœopathy and the Homœopaths," would lead us to expect, and quite as felicitously as if the judge should condemn the prisoner to the gallows or the hulks before summing up the evidence against him.

The first part of Dr. Bushnan's work we shall not condescend to notice further than to say that it is a mere repetition of the absurd accusations and transparently false and calumnious vituperations that have disgraced the pages of the defunct or transformed (let us hope regenerated and reformed) Medical Times. We cannot conceive how a man of Dr. Bushnan's learning and acknowledged ability could condescend to indulge in such a style of writing as an introduction to a serious examination of homœopathy, unless it was that he knew his book would not be relished by some of his fraternity unless he wrote down to their low level of vulgarity and bad taste. The introduction is not only wicked, it is more intolerable for it is stupid.

The rest of the work consists of a summary of Hahnemann's doctrines as contained in the Organon, and a critical analysis of these. The summary is a condensation into 40 pages of the matter that occupies 230 pages of the original Organon of Hahnemann. This part is executed with tolerable fairness and ability, and seems to indicate a desire to state the homœopathic doctrines as nearly as possible in the words of the Founder; a plan which has not hitherto been followed in this country, where the opponents of homeopathy have usually amused themselves with constructing straw-figures which they called the homoeopathic doctrines, but which were as unlike the originals as possible, and shewing their ability in demolishing their own constructions, whereby their wonderful logical powers were exhibited to great advantage, and gained great admiration from their readers, but the real homœopathic doctrines were left erect and unscathed. Occasionally, but we feel assured not designedly, Dr. Bushnan mistakes the precise meaning of the idea he wishes to condense. Thus in his abridgment of sect. cxxxvi of the Organon at p. 35, he makes Hahnemann utter great nonsense. What Hahnemann means to say, and does in effect say, though in a roundabout fashion, is this: "Though a medicine does not develope all the symptoms it is capable of exciting, in every prover, it possesses the power of curing morbid states which it may not be able to excite except in a very few individuals." But with the exception of a few such misconceptions of Hahnemann's meaning, we acknowledge the general accuracy of Dr. Bushnan's abridgment, and proceed to the consideration of his critical remarks upon the Hahnemannic doctrines.

The first of Dr. Bushnan's objections that strikes us is this: "Hahnemann," he writes, "considers the external symptoms alone, whereas

we take into account the external phenomena and the internal likewise. Here is a main difference between us on a matter which may be regarded as the foundation of medical science, viz., a correct knowledge of disease." (p. 60.) Now what Hahnemann says is, that we must take into consideration the totality of the symptoms cognizable by our senses, and the symptoms so cognizable must include everything that we ascertain by means of the most careful observation, aided by all the means placed at our disposal by the latest advance of what is called physical diagnosis. What Hahnemann deprecates distinctly and forcibly is the attempt to found a treatment of diseases upon mere hypothetical speculations concerning the nature or proximate cause of diseases; a system which has in all ages led to the most irrational, diverse and unsuccessful methods of treatment, varying with each new pathological hypothesis. The essential nature of diseases (and this is what Hahnemann means, as is perfectly obvious, by the internal morbid processes and changes) cannot be ascertained by our senses, but can only be surmised or guessed at, and the science of therapeutics is too important to human life and health to be built up upon conjecture and speculation; our endeavour should be to found it on what is distinctly cognizable and palpable, and the perceptible symptoms of disease alone have any claim to this character. The symptoms of disease may and must include everything that we can observe in the patient, and every new means placed at our disposal for the purposes of diagnosis, only enables us to ascertain the actual symptoms with greater exactness and fulness. If Hahnemann makes no mention of the improved methods of diagnosis put within our reach by Laennec and Piorry, this is because he was not practically familiar with them, but his directions for our guidance in the observation of disease do certainly not preclude us from making use of every means whereby the symptoms of disease may be most perfectly discovered. The crepitating râle and the bronchial respiration revealed by the stethoscope and the dulness heard on percussion are no less symptoms of pneumonia than the febrile excitation, the shooting pain, the cough, and the rusty expectoration observable without these aids. The homœopathist avails himself of all the improved methods of diagnosis as eagerly as the allopathist, and in doing so he believes that he still adheres to Hahnemann's directions, to take note of all the symptoms cognizable by the senses. There may be and doubtless are some old-fashioned homœopathists