cent.

Under Homoeopathic treatment there was collected by Dr. Routh a record of

1,423 cases with a mortality of 15.03 per

cent.

Dr. Buchner gives a record of 2,126 Homoeopathic cases, with a mortality of 13.03 per cent.

setts, 12.7, and the Homoeopathic asylum at Middletown, New York, 15.1.

The late epidemics of la grippe have again demonstrated the success of Homœopathy in diseases of a serious

nature.

A reporter had interviews with some of the prominent Homœopathic physi

a death rate of 10 per cent.

The Melbourne (Australia), Homœopathic hospital, for the year ending June 30, 1891, treated 168 cases of typhoid (enteric) fever, with a mortality of four; or less than 2.04 per cent. During the same period there were treated at the Melbourne general hospital (Allopathic) 211 cases of typhoid fever, with a mortality of forty-two; or nearly 20 per cent. For four years the Homoeopathic treatment of typhoid fever in Melbourne, Australia, has been increasingly favorable, until now it is below 21⁄2 per cent. Pennsylvania hospital, Allopathic, as reported in the Medical Record, for twenty years, had an average death rate in typhoid fever of 19.5 per cent.

Dr. Selden H. Talcott, of the Middletown Homoeopathic Insane Asylum, New York, gives the percentage of recoveries to number discharged, in the three Allopathic asylums in the state, as 38.90. In the Homœopathic asylum 49.89. The average percentage of deaths in the three Allopathic asylums 6.13. In the Homœopathic asylum 4.06.

During the period of five years, the highest percentage of recoveries in the Pennsylvania Insane Asylum was 7.5 of the number treated, and the lowest 4.3. During a similar period the Homeopathic Insane asylum at Ionia, Michigan,

perience during the epidemic in the winter and spring of 1890-1. Five physicians were interviewed. They had treated from sixty to 100 patients per diem, and had had but four deaths.

At a late meeting held in London, in aid of the Homeopathic hospital, Lord Wemyss stated that he knew of 6,500 cases of la grippe treated Homœopathically without a death.

During a discussion of this subject, at a meeting of the Homoeopathic Medical Society of New York city, a similar success was reported.

During the sixteen years of my residence in Jacksonville there has not been a death from pneumonia in my practice, nor in that of my two colleagues, although our old school brethren lose many cases every winter, and this, too, in the balmy air of Florida.

Dr. F. Park Lewis, of Buffaio, at a late meeting of the New York Homoeopathic Medical Society, gave some very interesting facts regarding the difference. in the results of the treatment of Homœopathy and Allopathy. His figures were obtained from the Bureau of Vital Statistics, and their accuracy can not be questioned. They were for the year ending July 1891. There are 300 Allopaths and sixty Homoeopaths in the the city, the proportion being 5 to 1.

It is gratifying to record, as bearing upon the present status of Homoeopathy, that we have forsaken the former defensive attitude of our school, have assumed the offensive, and demand our rights.

The steadily increasing number of public hospitals, and other institutions, and our own boards of medical examiners show what success has attended our work.

In the matter of medical education it is a cause of of just pride that it was a Homœopathic college-the Boston University School of Medicine-that first required a four years' course as necessary to a complete medical education.

At the last session of the American Institute of Homœopathy, all our sixteen Colleges united in requiring a four years' course. Thus we are in the van in the cause of medical education, as we have been in therapeutics.

As to the future of Homoeopathy:

When, seventy-five years ago, Dr. Gram landed in this country to propagate the new faith, he stood alone, the sole representative of our school on this. continent. His first convert, Dr. Channing, of New York, who it is said, had the largest practice in that city, saw his entire clientele forsake him, because of his adoption of Homoeopathy. From that small beginning has the science. grown, until now it numbers at least fourteen thousand practitioners in the United States, probably a large proportion of whom are converts from Allopathy.

Judging of the future by the past, it is easy to cast the horoscope of Homoeo

pathy, and if the spirit of our master, Hahnemann, can look down from the battlements of Heaven, he will see that the science for which he suffered the bitter pangs of poverty and both social and professional ostracism, to be rewarded by a later life of affluence, has spread its benignant influence over the whose earth, and that the application of the law, "Similia Similibus Curantur," has, brought health and life to unnumbered thousands.

Knights of Hygiene, the growing day
Binds Nature to your plastic rule;

Your foemen throw their arms away,
And seek the blessings of your school.
Grim superstitions slowly melt,

Old Want and Usage turn and flee
Where'er their misty ranks have felt
The charge of Thought's high chivalry.
Pale forms, from prison beds, arise
And follow you, with strength renewed,
While age and childhood lift their eyes,
And sing a song of gratitude.

For sacred studies underlie
Your helpful words and deeds of cure,
And Justice sits in honor high
Your creed humane, your record pure.
Truth, like a star in darkness hung,
Views not the midnight depths with fear,
But utters with unfaltering tongue,

"The steadfast day of God draws near.

[This poem was written by Mrs. Julia Ward Howe for a meeting of the American Institute of Homoeopathy held in Boston several years ago.]

Clinical Medicine.

CLINICAL MEDICINE.

BY W. W. FRENCH, M. D., CHATTANOOGA, TENN

THIS bureau covers a vast field of ex

perience and observation, which, to. gether, form the basis for a successful practitioner. Without these two important qualities, well studied and ap

plied, we, as Homœopaths, would be as nothing.

Drugs have certain and definite action upon the human system; men, women, youth, childhood and infancy, are all created of bones, muscles, nerves and blood vessels, all having their origin and termination the same, fed and nourished alike, yet acted upon by drugs in a different manner; as Kent says: "Sick to some drug;" one to Aconite, another to Belladonna, another to Nux Vomica, another to Mercury, another to Sulphur, and so I might mention the whole vocabulary of remedies.

Thus, to find the true clinical effect of medicine, requires close study by observation, coupled with experience, and a picture of a disease painted upon the canvas of vision by a brush from our brain, steadied by the easel of memory, and tinted with the oil of sense. When such a picture of a drug is drawn and compared with the ailment of a patient and a remedy is administered according to our law, restored health is the result. Some of our colleagues consider that the action of drugs are poisonous when administered below the 6th decimal, while there are others who claim remedies have no action unless given in material doses. Therefore to arrive at a just and curative dose one must rely upon his or her observation, coupled with experience, which constitutes Clinical Medicine.

All of us are more or less dependent and influenced by the experience and observation of physicians who have had a wide and extended practice and marked the action of remedies. When such men as Dunham, Lippe, Wells, Kent, and many others, inform us that Lycopodium acts clinically better in the 200th, Carbo. Veg. in the 30th, Arsenicum in the 1,000th, and Sulphur still higher, and

their sayings and writings are corrobo rated by the testimonies of hosts of others, certainly such testimony is good foundation for us to base a trial upon. On the other hand, when such men as Helmuth, Dowling, Pratt, Green, Orme, Dake or Paine, and many others of equal fame, use both the high and low dilutions of remedies, we ought to place confidence and have faith in their success and experience, when supported by observation. I could tire you with these references and comparisons, and yet we have our Allens, Kents, Paines, Dowlings and their followers, who do not yield their opinions, nor are they conservative in their expressions and actions.

In looking over the various journals of the past few months, one is lost in the jungles of language, experience, observations, failures and success of many physicians and their modes of prescribing for the sick and diseased. Some mention diagnosis first, others consider only the symptoms, others look for symptoms, name the disease from them, and give remedies for both. Those who give a remedy for the name and those who give in accordance with the symptoms only, are equally at fault. The one who couples the symptoms and causes arrives at a diagnosis understandingly and administers his remedies accordingly, will cure the disease by removing the cause, and no further study for symptoms is required; for, when a cause is obliterated, there will be no effect. All of these methods embrace clinical medicine, and to be effective, couple experience and observation. It should be our aim and study to work in harmony, and upon the same plane, becoming more scientific.

There is a fault somewhere. Our teachers in our colleges are not united in this work, which is the most important branch of medicine. Their clinics are

not the same; one college will teach one line of treatment, another a different line, and so on, each by itself and no two alike; one highly attenuated medicine, another low, another both, leaving their students to work out their own solution of cases.

Until our colleges do unite upon a carefully studied plan and uniform mode of holding clinics and prescribing, clinical medicine will be, as now, like the stars in the distance, and brilliancy so far that a Lick telescope can not see which is the better way.

When a physician gives a dose of Morphine, either hypodermically or by the mouth, he knows what the result will be either a short or a long sleep. If called to see a strong, stout, heavy man, writhing in agony, bent double, with chin and knees touching, moving like a rocking horse, or swaying like a tree in a tempest, howling like a hungry wolf or a whipped cur, snapping his answers to his physician like a turtle at a provoking stick, we are able, from observation, coupled by experience, to, arrive at the cause of all this commotion, and picture upon our canvas (the brain) some remedy, which, when given in accordance with our law, relieves the agony and suffering, which proves true clinical medicine.

Chloride of Sodium is very necessary for man and beast, as an ingredient of fuel. Nature has so established the fact, and we cannot gainsay it. Experience has taught us that, as a medicine, it has certain clinical effects and uses; observation has taught us how best to use it in our practice. Water is formed by the combination of two simple elements. Experience has taught us their combination, and obrervation has taught us its uses, when and where to apply its virtues. Thus I might enumerate the various elements, organic and inorganic, showing

their qualities as displayed to us by experience-observation clinically.

One physician will tell you he gives. China, Belladonna, Spigelia, Santonine, etc., etc., for worms; another says, “I never treat worms, but the patient ;" one says: "I treat pneumonia with Aconite, Bryonia and Phosphorous;" another says: "I don't know the name of diseases; I treat symptoms only." Certain diseases always present the same symptoms and conditions. Why should we haggle over these things? Consumption, measles, scarletina, mumps, small pox, syphilis, gonorrhoea, typhoid fever, pneumonia, pleuritis, etc., etc., each and all have their characteristic conditions which are displayed with so much exactness and plainness that no physician need err in his diagnosis, and doctors and many lay people can name these diseases when seen. Then, why not treat them in the same way? Clinical experience and observation have taught us we can not. Some people are susceptible to the action. of certain drugs and others to a difierent one, or, as I said before, "Sick to the remedy." When the functions of the system are out of "whack," order or repair, they need a particular remedy to restore them to their normal energy.

Climate has an influence upon the same disease in different localities. Therfore, diseases should be treated by the attending physician according to the idiosyncrasies of his patients and not empirically. When I give Aconite for croup, followed by Hepar; Phosphorous for juandice, followed by Sulphur; Gelsemium for fever, followed by Bryonia; Rhus tox. for rheumatism; Tartar emetic for sciatica, followed by Lycopodium, and Arnica, internally and externally, for bruises and concussions, result of falls and injury, I might be called a routinist but experience and observation have taught me

these remedies are the most sure in perfecting a cure of my patients. Hence, they are my clinical medicines for these ailments, because, in my diagnosis of these diseases, I have coupled the symptoms presented with those experimented upon, and observed upon other patients. I am of the opinion that the best diagnosticians are the closest observers of the symptoms. Though we find certain cases, that it seems not possible to diagnose, and can only prescribe from the symptoms as presented.

Case: A boy, 3 years old, had been treated by an old school (no, call things by their right name, Allopath), for typhoid fever and meningitis, for four weeks, dismissing the case cured. Three days after, I was called in. I found the little fellow blind, speechless and deaf, moaning ant tossing about the bed, biting his hands and everything that came in contact with his mouth, so weak and emaciated he could not sit up or stand on his feet; had been drinking black snakeroot tea while sick. I felt the case was too serious to quibble over the name of the trouble, but gave Belladonna, the 3x, in some water, a small teaspoonful every two or four hours, giving as a prognosis that the child would die. In two days I called and found patient could see and hear a little and speak a few words, biting and moaning very nearly stopped, could eat a little; administered Belladonna once in four hours. Called again in a week; all symptoms better; no biting or moaning, nor tossing, could talk, walk, see, and hear, and was soon as well and fat as before sickness. I was not then, nor am I now, certain as to what was the name of the trouble. Suffice it to me and the parents and friends, the child was cured with Belladonna, given for the presenting symptoms.

has two children, had been sick and under the care of an Allopath. I was called in council; found the woman in great pain in the lower part of abdomen, which was covered with a blister, the skin so sore one could hardly touch her but that she screamed with pain. The doctor said she had peritonitis and ulceration of the Os, which he had cauterized, and a tumor in the womb, of some kind. Upon examination, I found pulse 90, respiration 22 and temperature 99°, which the doctor said had been the same while he had attended her. The pain in the womb was very severe, especially when pressed upon or upon moving any part of the body; was very nervous and afraid she would never be better. She had been dosed with Morphine, Digitalis, Bromides, Quinine and Calomel, till she was completely discouraged. I could not agree with the doctor as to diagnosis nor prognosis; nor treatment, after consulting. The woman being dissatisfied with the Allopath he was excused and I took charge of the To satisfy the questions of the husband and patient; I said she had a uterine tumor, and no peritonitis; gave Nux first, followed by Belladonna and Bryonia, the latter every two hours, the other two or three times a day for the nervousness. After the blister healed I then was ready to give a diagnosis of the tumor and gave Arsenicum Iodide, 2x. In two weeks the lady was able to sit up. and in three weeks walked across the room, with very little soreness in the region of the tumor, and a steady diminution in size. . This was another case of treating symptoms till the true cause. could be arrived at, and then the tumor was treated as a tumor and as symptoms tallied with it.

case.