The following table shows the date of the first symptoms of Scarlatina and of the first indicatious of Dropsy observed, and the number of days intervening between, together with the result:

Of fifteen cases in which the time of attack of Scarlatina

Two of these cases are recorded as occurring at very short periods after the eruption. One at two and the other at three days. The first case is perhaps somewhat doubtful, and may have been the ordinary œdema which occurs in the early stage

*In this case the date of commencement is merely approximate, as no record was found until the appearance of dropsical symptoms, it is then stated that he had the Scarlatina three weeks before.

of Scarlatina. The only reason to doubt this is, the fact that slight oedema of face remained on the 18th of April, three weeks after it was first observed. The second occurring in three days after the appearance, is less ambiguous. Albumen was found in the urine on the same day (third), and a few days subsequently, fluctuation of abdomen was discovered and dulness of left chest observed. Several cases which appeared doubtful to us have been excluded. The case which showed evidence of dropsy sooner (ten days) than any but these two, was the most formidable, and after the symptoms were fully established the most rapidly fatal of the whole (case twelve).

I have been thus particular to note the intervening period between the eruption and the dropsy, because considerable discrepancy is found among the most respectable authorities on this point.

Watson says:-"According to the observations of Dr. Wells, the dropsical symptoms commonly show themselves on the twenty-second or twenty-third day after the commencement of the preceding fever. They have been known to begin as early as the sixteenth and as late as the twenty-fifth day.

West (Diseases of Children, p. 419,) says:-" Dropsical symptoms generally show themselves within a fortnight, or three weeks from the appearance of the rash."

Wilson (Diseases of the Skin, p. 417,) says:-" During the period intervening between the tenth and twelfth day, and sometimes as early as the fifth or sixth day, anasarca is developed."

He says further:-"Anasarca sometimes proceeds from anemia." This form " may occur as early as the fourth day of the eruption." The "urine is pale, and contains neither albumen, blood corpuscules nor epithelial cells." This kind of "ædema begins in the vicinity of the joints."

Case eleven, which commenced in three days after eruption, does not coincide with this description of anasarca from anæmia as the oedema commenced in eyelids, and as the urine was decidedly albuminious and contained epithelium.

Neither do any of the cases reported, agree in their characteristics with the above description. The urine was examined in five of the dropsical cases, and in three (eleven, twelve and sixteen) albumen was found; and in two cases (one and and fifteen) none was discovered. Heat promptly produced a floculent precipitate in the specimens of urine which contained albumen, but the action of Nitric acid was more dilatory than is usual.

In

In cases eleven and twelv eepithelium and mucus, and in case twelve tube casts and blood globules were found. case sixteen, the urine was not examined by the microscope for want of time. The same reason prevented me from making a microscopical examination of the urine of case one, but in case fifteen epithelium, mucus, tubes, and globules having the ring appearance of blood globules in urine were found, notwithstanding no traces of albumen could be discovered. Case eleven, where the urine was clear and normal, afforded the most albumen of any. The high colored smoky looking urine of some of the other cases which contained blood globules, as seen by microscope and hæmatosine (coloring matter of blood) as shown by tests, contained very little albumen.

This is strictly in accordance with Golding Bird's observations on "Bright's Disease." The smoky appearance is characteristic of the presence of blood. The clear normal colored urine contains none.

I made careful examinations of the urine in two cases, not included in the present article, in both the presence of albumen was doubtful, but epithelium, tubes and mucus were found, and one deposited uric acid in beautiful lozenge crystals, united in clusters and in rhombic prisms.

I much regret that want of time prevented me from making more examinations of the urine. In regard to the presence of albumen in the urine, my experience coincides with the following extract from Wilson on Diseases of the Skin:

"Albumen is commonly, but not always found in the urine during the period of desquamation. Dropsy may even supervene without the urine becoming albuminious.

"Simon further observes, in reference to the contradictory opinions put forth with regard to the presence of albumen in the urine."

"We have dropsical symptoms with albuminuria, dropsical symptoms without albuminuria, and albuminuria without dropsical symptoms."

ARE HOMEOPATHIC DOSES NOTHING OR

SOMETHING?

BY DR. HENRY GOALLON.

(TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN.)

BY C. WESSELHOEFT, DORCHESTER, MASS.

Homœopathy considered from the practical and natural philosophic stand-point, &c.

Hahnemann originally used larger, i. e., customary doses, even according to his method; he soon found, however, as every subsequent experimenter must find, that these produced considerable aggravation of the condition they were intended to heal, before an improvement took place, whence he drew the very simple conclusion-that smaller doses were more to the purpose. Gaining experience by repeated experiments, he diminished these doses so far that they hardly seemed to contain matter at all. Hereon was founded the accusation so contradictory to the former one of poisoning patients, that homœopathic doses were no better than nothing; on the ground that a millionth, a trillionth, &c., of a grain of some drug was equal to nothing. Over this nothing, a flood of cheap stale wit was poured out, without, however, stifling the living spark of truth. Mathematics even were brought to bear upon the subject, in order to prove that a trillionth part of a grain was an impossibility, unless the intention were to expand it to the size of this planetary system.

Let us first inquire how Hahnemann diluted drugs, and we

shall see that he created millionths, &c., without incommoding the ocean and infinite space, if indeed we may here speak of matter as such any longer. It is well known that he mixed one drop of some powerful vegetable extract with ninetynine drops of alcohol by vigorous shaking, one drop of this was again mixed with ninety-nine drops of alcohol, and so on. In this manner he triturated, intimately, one grain of a metal or a mineral with ninety-nine grains of sugar of milk, of which one grain was treated in like manner, and so on. The third trituration was dissolved and then treated as a fluid substance. He carried this process to the thirtieth degree, which is now falsely called the decillionth solution.*

Hahnemann therewith connected the highly conceived idea not only to dilute medicines, but also to set free the inherent medicinal force, which he called potentizing.

Herein opinions differ, even among Homœopaths; some preferring the higher, some the middle, others, again, the lower dilutions. We shall, hereafter, see under what condi

tions each deserves preference.

But reverting to the first question, whether the finest doses are still something, it becomes certain, by the aid of mathematics, so often abused for the annihilation of Homœopathy, that a thing never can become a nothing; air, for instance, though continually diluted by the air-pump, can never leave an absolute vacancy. Though we may make the admission to our opponents, leaving aside the results of mathematics so frequently based on wrong suppositions, that even before the thirtieth dilution a body can no longer exist as such, having given up its form, the conclusion cannot be drawn, that also its ultimate component parts, and with these its force, have become extinct.

In order to illustrate the subject closely, it becomes necessary to inquire what number of fundamental forces, to which all others are related, as colors are to light, exist on this planet, and how they are connected with matter and with one another.

*We shall subsequently see that a decillionth particle of matter is an impossibility.