This is not half the amount of detail, nor medicines, advised in this one affection. Is this leaving the cure to nature? And I might, in this way, pass through the treatment of each and every disease recommended by this standard authority of his school, and not find one of the whole list of the diseases treated there, directed to the cure of nature. No, surely! Nature is only sufficient to cure the cases of the Homeopath; but if DR. LINTON'S patients, or DR. WOOD's get well, it will be by struggling through the infliction of drugs and appliances sufficient to disgust the stomach of an Esquemaux. If nature is such a potent healer, as to cure ninety cases in every hundred, why do these men continually, and in every case, pour down their poisonous drugs?

Let us follow DR. LINTON, as he makes his daily rounds in this city, and, as he calls from house to house, let us pop in after him, and do any of you suppose, for one moment, we should find that out of every ten cases thus visited, the conscientious nature doctor has dismissed nine of them without a single dose of medicine? Nature, indeed! His recommendation of the excellent powers of nature, reminds one of some doubtful character boasting of his acquaintance with lords and ladies at a great distance; and the learned Professor referring as he does to that noble Dame, causes us to enquire how or when he has been honored with her famili arity? Is it not a notorious fact, that he and the rest of them, have been engaged all their lives worrying and torturing herbleeding, blistering, vomiting and purging her, until she has long since ordered them from her presence-eyes, ears, nose, mouth, each fibre of her self-sustaining and universal frame, abhors, repudiates and out-spews their druggeries and violations, and names them swindlers when they claim her friendship. With what assurance do such men talk of nature in their patronizing manner, as though they or their ways would be tolerated by her for a moment! What should be the public verdict after such a confession of impotency, followed by such a practice?

I hasten over much nonsense, to notice one illustration of the "conclusive falseness of the homeopathic law," which the Professor brings to the test of experience. He says: "The patient has inflammation of the eyes-they are red and irritated; apply something that would cause sore eyes-say cayenne-pepper-and a cure will be effected if Homeopathy be not a humbug!" Well,

let us examine the illustration and application of the homeopathic law, in the treatment of inflammation of the eye. Whether remedies are used which are capable of producing inflammation of that organ, or the contrary! The most commonly used remedies by the occulist, and all who know how to cure sore eyes, is nitrate silver, a very irritating and burning caustic; another, sulphate copper; another, violent caustic and irritant. Now, let the Professor explain on what principle these cure this inflamed and delicate organ, if it be not in obedience to the law of "similia similibus currantur ?”

The Professer next criticises the homeopathic law of cure, "similia similibus currantur." He says, that "Hahnemann lays it down as a principle, that we must administer, in disease, a drug which is known to produce symptoms like those of the disease itself." He adds: "The regular physician, following the dictates of common sense, acts on the contrary maxim." That is, he applies medicines to cure diseases which are capable of producing contrary affections; while the Homeopathist holds the exact opposite, viz that diseases are cured by medicinal substances which are ascertained produce similar suffering in the healthy. Let the Professor put his "common sense" principle to the test. The contrary of a disease is another disease identically dissimilar to the first. If it be said, in reply, that health is the contrary of disease, and that by the principle of "contrarie contraries currantur," is only meant to produce health-I reply, then the proposition is but a truism; it stands thus: in order to cure disease we should give medicines to produce health. Do we not see that the proposition is thus destroyed? Of course the object of all medical treatment is intended to cure disease-but now we are discussing the mode or method which may be best calculated to effect that end. Do our opponents reply to this query, that the method to cure disease is to cure it! If their law of cure, which Prof. LINTON makes to be the rule of "common sense," means anything, it means that he and his school make use of remedies to cure diseases which are capable of producing contrary affections. Now, let me ask, has even the shrewd vision of our Professor seen the contrary disease of a Cancer, of a Chorea, of Epilepsy, of Syphilis, of Cholera ? Think of this for a moment. Has he a mind acute and inventive enough to represent it? The old Galenic doctrine is, then, with

out foundation or logic. It is but a monstrous vagary, of which routine has propagated the dogma-of which humanity has borne the terrible effects.

Another objection made to Homeopathy by our Professor, is that we direct but one medicine to be given at a time. How otherwise shall the real action of a medicine be ever ascertained, except by pursuing this method? All drugs being poisons, it might have been anticipated that, in using them as remedies, the plan to be adopted would have been to try cautiously each one by itself, in the hope that, by so doing, some positive knowledge might be obtained respecting its medical virtues. The knowledge thus had would be serviceable to all future ages, and a stepping stone to future advance. But the fact has not been so; the plan universally adopted has been that of combining several of these drugs together, and administering them to the sick thus combined. This polypharmacy has been the bane of all true observations of the effects of remedies. The extent to which this accumulation of remedies in a single prescription has been carried, would be incredible were it not the fact could be readily ascertained. I will give as examples, two very celebrated medicines, as prescribed in the London Pharmacopia of the Royal College of Physicians-the Theriaca Andromachi or Venice Treacle, and the equally world-famed remedy, called Mithridate. The former, as given in the Pharmacœpia contains sixty-five ingredients; the latter consists of fifty articles. Such was the condition of the Pharmacœpia of the 17th and 18th centuries; happily though, those of the 19th century have advanced toward a comparative simplicity. There is no ground of defence of this hotch-potch proceeding of our Allopathic brethren, except it be the one quoted by Dr. Paris, as the reason given him by a physician of London, viz: he always increased the complexity of his remedies in a ratio with the obscurity of his cases; "if, said he, I fire a great profusion of shots, it is very extraordinary if some do not hit the mark." A patient in the hands of such a practitioner, has not a much better chance than a Chinese mandarin, who, upon being attacked with any disorder, calls in twelve or more physicians, and swallows all the potions which each separately prescribe. On no other ground can the love of their complicated combinations by our Professor be imagined, except he be influenced by the same desire.

of using a blunderbuss, instead of a rifle, as the London physician quoted by Dr. PARIS.

Let us pass on to another difficulty the Professor finds in Hahnemann's system. He complains, that "Hahnemann drew a broad distinction between medical and surgical diseases." I suppose, by this, that Prof. LINTON does not draw such distinctions, and that he regards surgical and medical diseases the same, and subject to the same methods of cure. If so, it is a new and wonderful discovery! He adds: "It is a remarkable fact that quacks rarely meddle with surgery." Perhaps this accounts for the gentleman's selection of the Chair of Theory and Practice of Medicine, for his field of operations.

We will pass, briefly, to notice the alarming calculations of the oceans and lakes of liquid requisite to produce the "30th dilution ;" and, to ease his mind and his arithmetic, on that point, can assure him that any Pharmaceutist's boy will, at any time, prepare this dilution for him by using less than a fluid pound of alcohol. As we pass on in the examination of this gem, it becomes so silly and coarse in its texture, that we cannot notice some of its ignorant assertions.

The fact is, the Homeopathic method is not an absolute novelty, which contradicts former things of the same kind. Any medical reader, who will take the pains to read the learned introduction to the "Organon of the Healing Art," will be astonished to find how easily a multitude of the best attested and most striking cases in the annals of medicine explain themselves only by this law. I might quote some of the most obvious and striking, had I time. Neither has the initiative idea of Homoepathy ever been wanting. Thus we find, that Basil Valentine, Paracelsus, Stahl, DeHaen, Bouldeac, Detharding, Bertholon, Thoury, Störck, and others, have inculcated the law of "similia," with more or less generality. There does not exist any inseparable connection between our therapeutical maxim and the minuteness of the dose. But, still, as the universal practice of Homeopathy is with infinitesimal quantities, such a bond, to all practical intents, is real. Not only so, but there are no rules of art constructed for the practice of the Homeopathic principle, without extremely diluted remedies. And those who will practice Homeopathy otherwise, must first address themselves to the task of working out an elab

orate code of practical directions for themselves and their followers. The practice with infintesimal doses is so incorporated with the Homeopathic formula, that they cannot be separated in the sick-room. And I venture to assert, that it is alone this connection with minute quantities which has rendered the principle of Homeopathy so odious. It is the insensible medicines the profession fights against! And the Homeopathist, who is anxious to escape the odium of his Old School colleagues, has only to abandon the administration of the infiutesimal doses, to be considered as having abandoned Homeopathy, and be received to their communion with open arms. I might show illustrations of the "power of littles," drawn from the region of pure physics, as distinguished from the study of living beings-but this is not a physical, but a physiological inquiry. Every thing that could be said about material forms, into which the breath of life has not yet been inspired, must be affirmed still more urgently of the living frame with its fearful complications. The physician and his forces have to deal with a quivering epitome of all the species of susceptibility in creation—one kind reacting on another, so as to create a harmony so intensified, that the prick of a pin shall grate upon every fibre, and a cooling odor in a hot atmosphere impart refreshment and delight to every nerve!

Illustrations, drawn from various sources, might be presented, did time permit, showing the effect of insensible influences in producing our gravest diseases, such as malaria-the atmospheric cause of cholera, scarlatina, typhus and yellow fever, &c.-the atmosphere pure, as far as any of the nicest tests have been able to distinguish. Not all, however, who may be subjected to these miasmatic influences suffer from them; there must, at the same time, exist this internal disposition. Hence, Homeopathists do not hold that the insensible dose can react so powerfully on the sound and healthy frame as to produce symptoms of disease. A specifically exalted susceptibility must concur with the specific reagent, in order to eliminate the diseased phenomena. We all know that for the provocation of maladies by miasmata, there must be the specific alteration of susceptibility in the frame to become diseased. Now it is this which contains the principle followed by Hahnemann-it is in organisms where sensibility to the re-action of a medicine, is for the time unnaturally exalted,