expects to take a position at all prominent or be known and respected as a successful physician.

Who is there that has enjoyed a busy practice for even a small number of years, who has not to his discomfiture observed the great seeming or real disloyalty and ingratitude existing among quite a percentage of his patients; and with what effort and I might say apparent premeditation do they seek to deceive and mystify the one friend with whom above all others they should be frank, open and truthful, and from whom, like the Lord, no secrets should be hid.

How often after a painstaking and lengthy examination of a given case and a most careful prescription, we are surprised and disappointed with the report "no better" only to learn to our added chagrin later, that the action of our carefully selected medicines had been sidetracked or entirely terminated by some drug dose or other which our foxy patient or his foolishly zealous friends had surreptitiously sandwiched in on the

side.

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And again how another class of patients who suffer from dietary excesses, drink, tobacco, sweets, tea and coffee poisoning, as well as other habits that offend good living, come to the doctor and try to deceive him by untruthful statements, and after you have finally, by close questioning and observation rived at a point where you can almost read their thoughts, and you have prescribed a remedy whose curative action is unquestioned if given a fair field and no favor, and you have given good counsel as to what they should do to recover that crown jewel Health, how disappointing it is just as you flatter yourself that you have them convinced that Homeopathy and correct living is the secret of good health, good morals and. good fortune, and they are almost well,

when some good-hearted but meddlesome friend or neighbor, one whose name is legion, and whose intelligence is superhuman, comes in loaded to the brim with advice quite contrary to that you have given, and often much more fascinating and always with a sure cure and a short cut to even better health than you have offered, and with testimonials galore from people and persons whose cases were much worse than yours; until it ends in both your medicine and your advice being disregarded.

How many relapses, delayed recoveries, yes, and funerals have been made necessary by this too kindly purveyer of strange nostrums and dietary monstrosities, and all offered in the sacred name of friendship!

Is there one among us who is not almost daily meeting some dear old mother of Israel, some time honored monthly nurse long past her early usefulness, the not infrequent widow who knows by experience how husbands should be boarded, badgered and buried; old maids, whose lore concerning the correct way to bring up children would if published make a companion volume to Webster's Unabridged Dictionary; the tall, thin, prayerful somebody who tells your patient that there is no such thing as disease, and consequently no need for medicine.

And now for the one we all know so well, the fat bustling woman with the ha ha! the know it all lady, she of the encyclopedic knowledge, and still noticing things! She is not only a past master concerning things medical but there is nothing known, dreamed of, or guessed at concerning law, theology, love, marriage, or the incubating of chickens of which she has not a superior knowledge.

But disease and medicine she just dotes on, and being frequently a woman of means, and alas! of infinite leisure, she

scents your patient from afar, and this is her manner of attack: "Who is your doctor? Ah! What does he say is the matter with you? Bosh and nonsense! all you need is to have your liver stirred up; these doctors are more often wrong than right anyhow. How long have you been sick? What! two weeks, well I'd do something right away. Did you ever take Quackum's tablets? No? Well I'll send you a box and I just know they will cure you as soon again as any Doctor's medicine."

And so she goes from one sick-bed to another, and there is no pill, powder, or potion, no linament, ointment, or lotion, no food, drink, suppository, or climate or clothing, no pathyism, creed, or school of healing, that she is not better acquaint

ed with than the discoverer or founder himself.

Such people, and they are of both sexes, are so impregnably intrenched in their self esteem and importance, that any argument is lost time; they are usually so self satisfied with their own opinions that they are not even open to dis

cussion.

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They frequent health resorts sometimes love to pose as semi-invalids, and always have the newest and most fashionable disease, gleaning as they go, from one resort to another, frequently trying experiments on themselves as well as on others; oftimes temporarily disappointed and made ridiculous, they are never vanquished or quite counted out, but come up to the scratch smilingly confident to prescribe, and absolutely full of advice for all who will listen.

When really ill, they send for a physician, if frightened and fearful, the old doctor, if merely indisposed, for the new medico who is really so very interesting and so thorough, "don't you know."

Once out of danger the old desire to deceive makes itself felt, and how they

to

juggle, as while protesting the purest loyalty to "dear doctor" they begin again dose on the side, and tell their intimates that they really believe that Madame Quick-Trotter's pellets are what cured them after all, and while they just love Dr. Pink Pills and think him very successful, they cannot help wondering how he can do it, or even know what ails one, considering the little mechanical exploration he indulges in.

Why, they do say that young Dr. Shiner refuses to prescribe until he makes a bacteriological examination of the blood, sputa, perspiration and ear

wax.

Have you ever thought of how beautiful and yet how much more simple the practice of our loved profession would become, if our patients would all be loyal and truthful and frank and honest with the men in whose hands they often place their lives and happiness?

What better or sadder evidence of the natural depravity born in human-kind is needed than that shown by the educated man or woman who seeks by stealth, God knows why, I don't, to deceive the physician of their own selecting, the man whom they love, or at least profess to, the man who has studied their tem

peraments and idiosyncrasies for as many years as he has known them.

He, the one living human being who knows them even better than they can know themselves, knows them in their strength as well as weakness, who has for years delved deep into their past inheritance of health or disease, and who feels in any illness for which he may be called to treat them, that he is thrice armed by this priceless knowledge, and so goes with courage to meet the treacherous foe.

Who can solve the riddle? yet blame them not too strongly, for is it not said,

May not this untruth and deceit be the unhappy heritage handed down from some foxy forbear whose very existence depended on these very qualities of intrigue and dishonor? Who can but excuse the insolence of ignorance?

How interesting is the study of personal idiosyncrasies, how fascinating the close observation of physiognomies, and how each face soon becomes an open book to the life student of character.

To become a face linguist, so to speak, one must study the types as one meets them as strangers, and after verify or disprove according to resultant facts.

One of the easiest ways to impress ones mind with the peculiar relations existing between drugs and people, is to practice Homeopathy using the potencies and observing the various drug and food intolerances that emphasize themselves so positively that we can but see and wonder at the strange and hidden mysteries of the house beautiful.

And how much more we would see and know and enjoy if we all lived less grossly.

No doubt you have each and all had patients before now who could not take even a high potency of a well indicated remedy without a marked aggravation following; among the polychrests I recall the following, Arsenic, Bell., Rhus. Apis, Act. Rac., Phos., Sepia, Sec., and many times Sulphur.

And lots of individuals there be to whom strawberries, oysters, fish, tomatoes, shrimps and lobsters are veritable poisons.

Oh, what glowing possibilities there are for the medical student of to-day who starts out keen with desire to make of each case an individual study.

When I first began to study Materia Medica I soon began to know people ac

istic, until finally I found I could spot the drug picture almost at first glance, and it is even now amusing as well as interesting to look upon strange and unfamiliar faces and recognize characteristic drug indications cropping out in large type.

Personally I think it is great fun to be able to step into a crowd and pick out a Sulphur patient here and a Bell. patient there, and over near the edge clothed with fear and apprehension, he of the Aconite garb talking with grief stricken Ignatia, or fixing with a glance the man who is labeled Nux Vomica, while pushing and elbowing her way in frantic haste through the crowd comes Mrs. Arg. Nit. who just knows she will miss her. car if she already has not, and who always finds she has half an hour to wait in spite of her fears of being left.

And the proud disdainful Miss Platina who calmly lifts her skirts and skilfully avoids the tub like proportions of Lady Graphites, as she feelingly thanks God she is several cuts above ordinary humanity and not at all like one of these.

And poor Malodorous Psorinum, give him room, don't crowd him; and then there is Echinacea and Hepar, and Phos. and Sec., Cham., Cina, Bellis, and Arnica, all more or less conspicuous as the crowd changes.

And thus a doctor who has indulged in the habit of careful observation for many years, can easily find drug pictures of the entire list of Polychrests in a week's time.

Yes, it is a fascinating study, the whys and hows and other conundrums of things Medical that salute one in one's study of humanity. Why, for instance can Mrs. B. eat strawberries with impunity (and sugar) while her robust husband is at once made ill with acute Rheumatism for a similar indulgence,

and the little boy has hives to beat the trolley if he eat but one.

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And why again does that most harmless and natural of all foods, pure milk, obstinately constipate Jones, while small cup drawn from the same cow will cause Smith to go rapidly way back and sit down.

And so we might go on and on, mentioning a dozen or more of good, natural, innocent foods, that go to make up the dietary of saint and sinner alike, all wholesome and healthful to the majority of human stomachs.

Why these exceptions? The finding out why is the most valuable asset in the knowledge box of the family physician, and is an equally bad handicap to the new doctor who is called hurriedly to prescribe for your life-long patient, and who has it all to learn with no time to do so.

Oh, what a race of giants were our early provers and thinkers and observers: those self denying men who worked early and late and poorly paid were they, save in the consciousness of well doing, and without honor were they, and yet failed not to work without ceasing, burning the midnight oil that the present working formulas of practical Homeopathy might be made plain to you and me, their unworthy followers.

Hark to the names of Hahnemann, Jahr, Hemple, Baehr, Hartman, Boeninghausen, Stapf, Hering, Lilienthal, Dunham, Allen, Raue, Lippe and many others that have gone to their reward, and whose names and memories should be revered by us later day drones; and then recall to mind if you can what has been done for Homeopathy by any one. man now living that would entitle him to be spoken of in the same breath, or invite words of equal eulogy or praise.

And while we certainly owe our success very largely to those men who toiled

and spun that we who follow might reap the benefits, what have we done, what are we doing that makes us deserving of the fruits of this priceless legacy? In other words are we adding even a little of value to hand down to those who will follow our footsteps?

Technical skill and good anatomical knowledge will frequently enable a surgeon to mar and mutilate "the house beautiful," but its nothing but patchwork at best, and leaves at best, an imperfect man or woman, a cripple, a something that is doomed to go on through life lacking in grace and symmetry, a limping, halting, nondescript, who knows not what moment the same morbid cause that first made trouble, may again appear.

But not so with the skilful, thoughtful prescriber, with a good working knowledge of Materia Medica, he seldom fails, and when the mutinous microbes are quelled, and the indicated remedy has made nature's pendulum swing once more true, life's glorious mystery resumes its even tenor; perfect restoration is the result, and the man who was ill and in danger is well and happy, without mar or scratch or blemish, and he proceeds to at once do the doctor out of his well earned fee and thinks no more about it.

Nothing in the world of medicine but the Homeopathically indicated remedy will cure a diseased condition. When cutting off a toe will cure gout, then I will believe that cutting off a breast will cure cancer and not until.

There are no secrets in our Materia Medica that are hidden from him who seeks diligently and earnestly for them.

Cancer and Consumption are surely curable, not alas for the patient and physician who are in a hurry-there is no routine treatment, no specifics, no one, two or three sure cures, the curative

agent may be Aconite or it may be Zinc or any one between the A and Z-but for the man who will take time to prescribe carefully, not for the disease name, but for the greatest number of reliable indications he can place to the credit of any single remedy, giving it in not too frequently repeated doses, and of a strength far removed from the crude drug, with careful attention to diet and hygiene.

What pleasant surprises await such close prescribing, and how beautiful become the names of Hahnemann and Homeopathy!

THE LAW OF SIMILARS, ILLUSTRATED BY A STUDY OF COCCULUS INDICUS. By Edward Cranch, Ph. B., M. D., Erie, Pa.

The question frequently asked by laymen, students and practitioners, in regard to medical practice is, "What is the difference between homeopathy and the so-called 'regular' practice?" As illustration is more convincing than precept, let us consider the use of Cocculus Indicus, from which the alkaloid Picrotoxin (Fish poison, from its use in disabling fish for capture), is derived, and ascertain how it is regarded by each school.

To quote Gould and Pyle, Cyclopedia of Medicine and Surgery. "Picrotoxin stimulates the motor and inhibitory centers in the medulla, especially the respiratory and vagus centers; it causes epileptiform spasms by irritation of the motor centers of the cerebrum or cord and medulla, the spasms often having the character of manège (circus-ring) movements. Its action is much like the of strychnine. It has been used as an ointment (10 grains to one ounce of lard) in tinea capitis and in pediculosis. It is useful for the night-sweat of phthisis, and in the complex of symptoms known as vasomotor ataxia. Dose 1-60 to 1-20 of a grain. It has been tried in epilepsy, but has proved useless."

1156, Fourth Ed.), "The poisonous effects of Picrotoxin on vertebrate animals are described as exhibiting the phenomena of the epileptic paroxysm. They may be ushered in by a cry, and begin by tremor of the muscles of the head and face, which extends to those of the remainder of the body. There is unconsciousness, with tonic and clonic convulsions, discharge of urine, rotation of the eyeballs, projection of the tongue, arrest of breathing and of the heart. Picro

toxin appears to differ from strychnine in its effects by producing alternate clonic and tonic spasms, and by occasioning vomiting. They agree in exerting their power chiefly, if not exclusively, upon the spinal motor functions. On man, its chief effects in excessive doses appear to be slight giddiness and lightness of the head and partial loss of power in the lower limbs-epileptiform spasms, profuse sweating, diarrhoea, and gastro-intestinal irritation."

Medical Uses. The resemblance between the actions of picrotoxin and of strychnine led to the use of the former in paralysis of the extremities, and of the sphincters of the bladder and rectum, but the degree of its success does not appear to have been very great. . . Planat reports sixteen cases of epilepsy cured by a saturated tincture of cocculus, beginning with two drops twice a day, gradually increasing to thirty drops, then reduced and intermitted for a fortnight, and so on for a period of six months. . But the observations of Gowers and Ramskill render it probable that picrotoxin aggravates the paroxysms in epileptic patients. Planat further recommends it in infantile eclampsia, in chronic spasm of the limbs, and in chorea. A case of labioglossopharyngeal paralysis was benefited (Gubler). Much more positive are the effects of picrotoxin in controlling night