tively.* We venture to affirm from our knowledge of a universal custom among the fraternity, that not a man of them, whether here or elsewhere, hesitates to administer or to take on occasion a purgative, an anodyne, or even that object of popular antipathy, calomel.

A friend of ours was once called to a homœopathic patient profusely salivating from the effects of sugar powders. And to this we may add our acquaintance with a similar and most distressing case, in which the patient protested that she had taken homœopathic medicine, because it contained no calomel.

We have a vivid recollection of the many instances in which morphine has been given in our presence, as a homœopathic medicine to allay pain.

We confess to having administered, during our tutelage, and in moments of wavering faith, for an attack of colic, first nux

*The following incident is in point:

DEATH FROM TRIFLING WITH HOMEOPATHY.-A coroner's inquest was held in Stockport on the 18th of July inst., on the body of Martin Van Sickler, who came to his death on Friday last, under the following circumstances. He called on Dr. John H. Philip, a homœopathic physician, for some pills for a pain in the side, &c. Dr. Philip gave him two vials of pills, one containing twenty-four, the other thirty-two pills, with written directions to take one three times a day, and if it produced any burning pain, then to take but one half of one at a time. It seemed from the testimony on the inquest, that Van Sickler's illness was feigned, and that there was an understanding between him and Dr. Schermer horn, of Stockport, that he should get the pills and take them, for the purpose of ridiculing Dr. Philip and his medicine. Dr. Schermerhorn assured Van Sickle, that he need not be afraid to take the whole lot, as they would hurt no one. Accordingly, Van Sickler took the whole of the pills, under the advice of Dr. S., and the result was his death about one o'clock the next morning.

Dr. Philip testified that he was called on the night of the 16th, by Dr. Schermerhorn, who wished him immediately to go and see deceased. Dr. P. told him it was useless if he had taken all the medicine he sent at once, as it would produce death.

According to the testimony of Dr. Witbeck, of Hudson, the diseased came to his death by taking an over-dose of strychnine and arsenic pills. Accordingly the jury found that he so came to his death by taking the medicine contrary to the direction of Dr. Philip.-Kinderhook Sentinel.

vomica, to be followed in an hour by colocynth, backed up as a last resource by a stiff dose of morphine.

A druggist informed us, that he was personally cognizant of a case, where the powders, professedly homoeopathic and prescribed for a child, contained croton oil.

Hahnemann opposes anthelmintics, but that does not deter his followers from using them liberally. Our philosopher appears to have resembled Saint Augustine. It is related of the holy father, that when certain parasitic insects fell from his head, he picked them up tenderly, and, in quite an uncle-Tobylike temper, replaced them saying, "poor beast return where thy Creator and mine intended thou should'st reside." Hahnemann had in like manner a fellow feeling for intestinal worms, which his followers incontinently expel.

Farther, we charge them as a body, with wanton falsification. They, forsooth, cure every malady. We have heard them boast of never losing a case of scarlet fever, convulsions, &c. when, we knew of several that they had lost thereby. They tell stories of any complexion to suit the taste of their auditors. They persuade the timid that their medicaments are harmless, should they do no good,t and to the incredulous, on the score of doses, they pretend that the same medicaments are highly concentrated, and endued with terrible energy.

They magnify little diseases by conferring on them sounding titles. A catarrh is with them inflammation of the lungs;

*Organon, p. 12.

Hahnemann also, (p. 90) expressly excepts surgical diseases from the sphere of his operations, but one of his followers in this city adver tise to cure such diseases without the aid of the knife, and actually gave powders for months to promote the absorption of fatty tumours!

Another allowed retention of urine to exist for a whole week in a woman after confinement, and at length acknowledging the necessity for surgical interference, excused himself on the ground of having no catheter. The gentleman who was then called, drew off six quarts of urine.

†A zealons advocate of homœopathy, lately strenuously denied, in our hearing, on the authority of her physician, (homeopathic) that they ever used poisons.

a diarrhoea, inflammation of the bowels; a gastric headache, inflammation of the brain.

It was so, doubtless, that they cured so much larger a proportion of cholera patients, than their competitors. An authentic case in point occurs to us. During the prevalence of cholera, a woman was picked up at night in the streets of Munich, and carried to a private homœopathic hospital. She was comatose. The sisters of charity, who undressed her, reported with pale faces that she was in articulo mortis, for that her lower extremities were already livid. Homœopathy was applied apparently with success. Next morning, the doctor called his friends to witness the miraculous cure, when lo! it was ascertained that the woman had been drunk, and that the blueness of her legs was owing to her having worn stockings of that colour.

In fact, they rarely have a case of acute disease to treat, the symptoms of such diseases generally frightening the patient and his friends into calling a physician, who will "do something," as the phrase is.

Homœopathists plume themselves on their success in securing the patronage of the rich, forgetting that the fact makes against them, since that class are little exposed to the invasion of acute diseases, while they are the victims of hypochondria, hysteria, and the various forms of nervousness.*

When indeed inflammation of an important organ falls into homœopathic hands, its course being unchecked, its end is la

*The extirpation of quackery can only be effected by enlightening the people; and no object is more worthy of the kind attention of beneficent men who have bequests to make. Instead of pouring their superfluous wealth into the coffers of already plethoric institutions, we would respectfully suggest that some of them bestow means to found lectureships for the free and general diffusion of popular information upon Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology, and the grand principles of the treatment of disease.

When they have learned the capability of unassisted nature, often to correct aberrations from a state of health, as in fevers, and in slight inflamomations, the public will cease to rely on the futilities of infinitesimalism, or to believe that because recoveries sometimes occur after the use of quack nostrums, they are necessarily attributable to them.

mentable, unless unassisted nature be competent to expel it. A gentleman of this Society, has now in treatment a case of severe pnuemonia, where a homoeopathist attended during an entire week, diligently plying, we presume, his aconite, pulsatilla and bryonia; in spite of which the disease had marched steadily

on.

And herewith we bid adieu to homœopathy, a system holding to singleness of prescription, yet itself compounded in equal proportions of fraud and folly; advocating minuteness of dose, yet commending immense doses of nonsense to the gullibility of its patrons; claiming to be strictly scientific, and to demand the profoundest learning from its professors; yet well and properly practised by a crazy old woman, who has furnished herself with a medicine chest, and a homœopathic pamphlet. Time will overthrow this mansion of mud, which the rats who inhabit it expect will be eternal. Let them beware lest it tumble down about their ears, and bury them in its ruins.

May the profession, as heretofore, be true to themselves and their noble art, opposing quackery in its every manifestation, and despising, in the consciousness of a manly integrity, whatever present disfavour a foolish public may therefore show them.

Thus will they touch, as with the spear of Ithuriel, the lying toads that have the ear of the world, and Time at length will be their vindicator.

Newark, May 4, 1847.

THE SELF-ADJUSTING OR SELF-EXTENDING SPLINT, FOR FRACTURES OF THE OS FEMORIS.

D. Perinæal

A. Main shaft. B. Grooved slide. C. Foot board. crutch. E. Spiral springs. F. Pin to attach shaft and slide. a. Ratchet for spring d. to play upon. b. Button to attach strap from f. f. C. C. Holes containing spiral springs. d. Steel spring to play upon ratchet, a. e. e. Legs of crutch to press upon spiral springs in holes, c. c. f. f. Buttons for strap fastened at b. g. g. Holes for pin, F. h. h. Holes on foot board for gaiter straps.

This splint, to fit a common sized man, should have a main shaft about twenty-six inches long, four inches wide at the superior, and three inches at the inferior end, and nearly one inch thick, with bevelled edges. In the centre of the inferior end is an open tongued mortice, fifteen or sixteen inches long, and an inch or more wide. In the superior end are two parallel auger holes, an inch or more apart, running lengthwise with the shaft, and seven or eight inches in depth, between which externally is a steel ratchet, seven or eight inches long. A grooved slide is made to fit and move in the mortice of the main shaft, as a means of adapting the splint to a limb of any length. At the inferior extremity of this slide is attached a square foot-board, perforated with four holes. When the required length is obtained, the slide may be fixed by means of pins passing through holes which perforate it in its whole length, at about an inch apart, communicating with three or four holes at the inferior end