There is a principle which is a bar to all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance: this principle is contempt prior to investigation.-SPENCER.

MANY thousands of gallant men have been invalided on account of chronic disease caused by wounds, sickness or nervous troubles contracted in the various campaigns in which they have been engaged. I write for the benefit of these, some of whom may remember this article in days to come, after they have exhausted every effort in their attempts to get cured.

It is not likely that they will try Homœopathy before then, because it is very difficult to shake off the preconceived ideas with which one was brought up, and also because it is hard to swim against the stream. In many instances their efforts to get cured on the ordinary lines will fail, and then some may avail themselves of this comparatively new school of medicine, and obtain from it the same advantages which I and thousands of others have obtained. I write especially for chronic invalids. Acute disease is generally simple to treat, and a very high percentage of cases recover, whereas in chronic disease a very high percentage remain uncured.

Many people will wonder how it is possible to believe in a doctrine like Homœopathy. I admit in my ignorance I laughed it to scorn at one time, and was only convinced by slow degrees, the manner of which I now proceed to relate.

I had been under orthodox allopathic treatment for some seven years, and had taken advice from several specialists in London, but I was gradually getting worse, had become an absolute wreck, and was told I was incurable. By chance I heard of a doctor who did wonderful cures, and decided to try him. About the same time certain articles by "X" appeared in Truth on Homœopathy and attracted a good deal of attention. These articles were entitled Killing and Curing," and strongly influenced my giving a trial to Homœopathy.

I went to "X" in a sceptical frame of mind, but I began seriously to think when I saw in the waiting-room patients all of whom were suffering from what are known as incurable diseases, and who had spent many years in searching for cure by the recognized methods. This made

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me wonder whether the recognized methods were so infallible as I had been brought up to believe.

Being interested, I conversed with some of them on different occasions, and I did not meet one who had not obtained real benefit from the homœopath. I have had the same fortunate experience, and although I do not yet claim a complete cure, I do claim that my health is absolutely different to when I started homoeopathic treatment, and I attribute the retarded cure to the following facts:

(a) My trouble had been pronounced incurable by all the specialists I had visited, and was of very old standing. (b) I had to leave England, and could only continue treatment by correspondence for a short time.

(c) I have lived in unhealthy climates since.

There are certain points about this doctor to which I would like to draw attention. Firstly, he never advertised, but secured all his patients by recommendation from those he had cured. Secondly, there was no sign on his door to show that he was a doctor, and he lived in a neighbourhood not used by doctors. Thirdly, he only took up chronic cases, i.e. cases which are most intractable to treatment.

Each drug he gave was given singly and not in a mixture, so one could say exactly what it was and what its effect should be. He was just utilizing two simple but inflexible laws of Nature. These laws are "Action and reaction are equal and opposite" and its corollary, "Likes are cured by likes."

If you ask people what Homœopathy is they will reply, "It is just nothing," or "It is the method of giving infinitesimal drugs," or "It is a hair of the dog that bit you." This last reply, although intended as a joke, contains more truth than its propounder is generally aware of. It has a similar idea to Homœopathy, and has the same idea as that underlying the curative treatment by inoculation for rabies or tubercle and the prophylactic treatment by vaccines for plague, cholera, enteric, etc. In fact, it is impossible to resist the conclusion that all vaccine and inoculation treatments owe their power and efficacy to the fact that they are based on the homoeopathic Law of Similars. At least, it will not be denied that they are on the principle of Homoeoprophylaxis.

Everything in Nature has two opposite effects. If a person takes too much alcohol, the next day he is likely to feel rather a wreck. The reason is that alcohol is pri

marily a stimulant, and its secondary effect must be in the opposite direction. Again, if you take a large dose of ipecacuanha you will get violently sick, but a small dose stops sickness. This does not mean that ipecacuanha will stop every form of sickness, but it will stop those forms to which it is similar. And every doctor will admit this. It is unnecessary to multiply examples, because in Nature a rule is always general and does not act by exceptions.

Now, Homœopathy is based on a simple natural law of Action and Reaction, and this law, being fundamental, is unchangeable. It is quite useless for people who have never tested the truth of this law to say: 'It cannot be so, because I do not understand it."

The point may be easier to follow if you remember that homoeopathic treatment does not cure by the direct action of the drug, but by the stimulation of the vital force by the drug to act in the direction necessary for cure. A drug is given, and the Vital Force says to it: "What business have you here poisoning my body? There is nothing natural about inserting poisons into my system, so out you go." And in expelling the drug and the symptoms induced thereby, the Vital Force acts towards the expulsion of the disease which has the same symptoms.

Exactly the same action is noticed in vaccine treatment. The dead bacilli injected do not cure the disease by their specific virtue. Their function is to stimulate the Vital Force to act in a direction adverse to the poisons set up by the disease.

The main objections I have heard to Homœopathy are: (a) Smallness of dose.

(b) That if there were anything in the system it would by now have made greater progress in civilized countries.

(c) That orthodox allopathic doctors have examined and proved the system and found it wanting.

(d) That only the weak-minded believe in it, and such cures as are achieved are purely faith cures.

I now proceed to discuss these matters separately.
First objection: Smallness of dose.

Firstly. It is a mistake to say that the dose has anything to do with the principle of Homœopathy. The dose may be big or small, provided that the drug is selected on the Law of Similars. Generally speaking, small doses are given, because we do not wish to break down the Vital Force by a poisonous drug. We wish to stimulate this force by the natural reaction, and therefore a small dose is found preferable. For instance, to soothe an irritated

nerve anybody can prescribe a big dose of bromide, which simply deadens that nerve and acts as a palliative. This does not requiré much skill. How far more beautiful and scientific is the action of the small dose of drug which causes the Vital Force to soothe the irritated nerve! Here Homœopathy is following the biological law: "To any given stimulus, thermal, electrical, chemical, protoplasm reacts differently according to the dosage of the stimulus. Small doses encourage life activity, large doses impede life activity, very large doses destroy life activity." Of course, the boundaries between large, medium and small doses vary according to the nature and conditions of the living cell experimented on. As an example, arsenic present in yeast in a strength of 1000 stops life activity. If present in 3000 or 5000 it impedes life activity, while if in strength of the life activity will be stimulated.* I would like here to quote the following passage from the recognized Materia Medica of Dr. Hale White, M.D. He writes: "Another law very well exemplified by drugs which act on the brain is that when a drug in moderate doses excites a function, in large doses it often paralyses it."

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1 10,000

or

1

even

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100,000,000,000,000,000

Secondly. It is obviously illogical to quibble at the size of a dose. If it is found to be curative, that is sufficient. The size of the dose will depend on the drug, the type of illness, the individuality of the patient and the degree of homoeopathicity of the drug.

A homœopath may administer (say nux vomica) in its mother tincture, or in medium doses, or in very minute doses, but since he is able to do this he will not, purely for the sake of perversity, choose a minute dose. He chooses a minute dose generally because he finds its curative power greater. To give homœopaths the attribute of perversely selecting minute doses would be to stigmatize them not only as cranks but fools. All that Homœopathy requires is that the drug selected for a patient develops in healthy persons symptoms similar to those noticed in the disease to be cured.

Thirdly. What right have we to say that the remedial action of a drug depends on its weight rather than on the surface over which it acts? We know that matter is indestructible, and therefore even in high potencies there is some of the drug present in molecular form. The number of molecules even in a minute dose of drug may be judged

Extract from a work by Dr. C. E. Wheeler, M.D., B.S., B.Sc.

from the following example: "If a glass globe four inches in diameter were absolutely empty and air molecules admitted at the rate of one hundred millions a second, 50,000 years would elapse before the globe was full."* Accordingly, even in a small dose of a drug there are millions of molecules at work.

It is not disputed that molecular action is the basis of vital action. By minute subdivision the countless molecules of a drug have a larger sphere of activity, and thus in accordance with a natural law acquire an increased energy, as may be seen from the power of steam or high explosives. The molecules appear also to obtain increased potency in the form of energy developed during trituration. The molecules of the drug in this free condition can diffuse through the body just as the molecules of oxygen diffuse through the blood and tissue cells.

This is the natural law of diffusion. Minute subdivision does not entail destruction; on the other hand, it imparts to the molecules power to expand and diffuse through the body so as to reach the very smallest diseased tissue cells. If you will observe these simple and irrefutable matters of fact, you will to a large extent have conquered one of the chief difficulties to the proper understanding of how minute doses are able to act at all.

Fourthly. Everything in nature acts through minute agents. The most solid structure, just like the lightest gas, is composed of molecules. What is the size of a vibration of light? Think of the power of a vibration transmitted by a wireless installation. It is the number of vibrations rather than the size of each which gives the power, just as the number of liberated molecules gives power to homœopathic high-potency attenuations.

Now let us notice the power of minute drugs that we all know. The mere scent of asafoetida or of a rotten cabbage is enough to cause a sensation of nausea, while the most delicate trace of some perfume may bring back far-away memories, or give other sensations with which we are all familiar. A ball of musk will emanate scent for a year, and it is difficult then to trace any loss of weight. This tends to show that inconceivably minute particles of the drug from which the scent is produced, acting on the olfactory nerve, causes an intensely powerful action. Who would be so rash as to say that the olfactory nerve in the body is the only one sensible to such minute influences, and who will deny that, if these effects can * Nineteenth Century, March 1916, "This World's Place in the Universe." VOL. LXXVI

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