power of removing some forms of secondary eruption, they neither prevent the occurrence nor recurrence of the symptoms in the same way as mercury. He believes that the reputation of the iodide has mainly been founded upon the treatment of soft sores which are not usually followed by secondaries.

With respect to the syphilization theory advocated by Dr. Boeck, the author's expressed views of the non-auto-inoculability of true syphilis present, at the very outset, an impossibility of agreement. We infer, indeed, from the experiments adduced by the author from various sources, that the explanation which satisfies his own mind as to the success of inoculation in Dr. Boeck's numerous cases is this, "that the virus of syphilis, in its evolution, engenders a proclivity in the skin to react upon the application of slight irritants. This points to a natural tendency to eliminative action in syphilitic subjects, and explains, it may be, the results of the inoculation of pus in syphilization" (p. 280). He states even that these results have been obtained from inoculation of the pus taken from pustular scabies in a patient affected with secondary syphilis by Roder and Kraus, at Pick's suggestion.

His chief practical conclusion is, "that the time required for the treatment of syphilis in this way is so long, and the inconveniences attending it are so great, that it is not at all likely to be generally adopted in practice." Upon this we may observe that whatever may be thought as to the force or conclusiveness of the author's theoretical reasons hereupon, one can have no hesitation whatever in subscribing to this opinion.

We should strongly recommend the perusal of the melancholy chapter on Hereditary and Infantile Syphilis to those wellintentioned and indignantly virtuous, but ignorant people who have agitated so furiously against the Contagious Diseases Act. The premature death and the maimed and repulsive life of so many innocent victims of the sins of their guilty progenitors, distinctly traced out by the light of modern science in the hands of Jenner, Farre, Virchow, Barnes, and Hutchinson, form a terrible forecast of the destiny which awaits the race and people who neglect the plain warnings given by intelligent observation. The pegged teeth indicated by Hutchinson as the effect of syphilitic disease during dentition are, unfortunately, so common in all classes of modern society as to indicate to all who are open to instruction the fatal extent of this moral and physical ulcer which preys upon the vigour of the race. The author inclines to the belief that syphilis may be transmitted from father to child without implicating the system of the mother, although somewhat contravening this view is the curious fact pointed out by Colles, of Dublin, that mothers are never inoculated at the

nipple by syphilitic children, while wet nurses frequently are so. This, of course, points directly to a syphilized condition of the mother's system.

Mr. Hutchinson also believes that a foetus affected only from the father may infect the system of the mother while " in utero." In the chapters on Gonorrhea we find (p. 329), in addition. to the ordinary description of the disease and its consequences, that "the symptoms may be produced by various agents other than the application of a gonorrhoeal pus," and in support of this opinion the statements of Ricord, Diday, Skey, Sir H. Thompson, and Whitehead are alleged; while, on the other hand, the experiments of Van Rosbröck and Piringer, and the conclusions of Gullie, Macgregor, and Simon are also in favour of the idea that the action of inflammations of every kind are, to some extent, contagious.

The opinion of Hunter that the poisons of syphilis and gonorrhea were more or less identical, does not seem, even in the present day, to be entirely disproved; and it seems to be allowed by the author that a syphilitic vaginal or uterine discharge may give rise to gonorrheal discharge in the male at the same time as the primary syphilitic disease, and he quotes a case in the Medico-Chir. Transactions' (vol. xlv, p. 425) in support of this.

We unhesitatingly endorse the author's opinion as to the uselessness of strong injections employed early in the disease, and the dangerous consequences which often follow attempts at the abortive treatment. We believe that even Ricord himself has latterly come to the same conclusion. The copious use of weak injections to wash away the infectious discharges frequently is a much more rational proceeding. A good deal depends upon the efficiency with which the syringe is used, and the patient should always have its use well explained or demonstrated. It is a common mistake to suppose that the specific inflammation is limited to the first inch or two of the urethra.

The author prefers camphor as a remedy for chordee. We think that he scarcely gives sufficient importance to the bromide of potassium as a remedy. He commends the use of the older remedies, copaiba and cubebs, internally administered, as well as of the sulphate, acetate and chloride of zinc, and also of the recently introduced sulpho-carbolate of zinc as an injection. Like the author, we have found this latter of decided benefit in all stages of the disease, with the addition of carbolic acid in the later and more chronic stages. To the statistics of Professor Sigmund he adds observations of his own as to the limitation of the inflammation in gonorrhoeal orchitis to the epididymis, tunica vaginalis, and cord.

This fact, already sufficiently well established, has an important bearing upon the practice of M. Petit, Vidal de Cassis, and Ricord, of puncturing the tunica albuginea in these cases, with a view to relieve the supposed congestion of the interior of the testis. The relief afforded by this simple operation (and such relief is unquestionable) is due to the evacuation of the effused scrous fluid from the distended tunica vaginalis, and may be equally well obtained by limiting the puncture to that structure, and thus avoiding the complications that sometimes result from interference with the tubular spermatic structures.

In respect to the cause of gonorrheal rheumatism the author is inclined to agree with Dr. Wilks as to its subacute pyæmic character. In very many cases, doubtless, it is simply due to the development of a rheumatic predisposition, consequent upon the lowering effect of the gonorrheal disease, with its complications, and its remedies.

In conclusion, while we award a very high encomium to the practical shrewdness, intelligent experience, and extensive mastery of current literature shown in the bulk of the second volume treating of syphilis (a subject with which the author's labours will be ever inseparably and honorably connected), we think the last chapter on Albuminuria to be decidedly a weak point in the work, and one which might, like some others in the first volume before alluded to, be either omitted with advantage or much improved, in future editions.

VI. Rogers on Therapeutics.'

THIS is a book which well deserves study, and yet a book which will hardly appeal to the great bulk of medical readers, the men who aim at practice rather than theory. Nevertheless, it is one of the most careful inquiries into therapeutics we have seen, and likewise one of the best aimed blows we have encountered at the tenets of Hahnemann. With regard to this subject the author says, "I readily admit that it has been repeatedly and satisfactorily proved that most of its secondary principles are quite unfounded; but it by no means follows that the fundamental principle itself, similia similibus, must likewise be false." In point of fact only Jörg has fairly grappled the principles, and by a series of long continued experiments on himself and others signally overthrown the basis of homœopathic practice. To this task also, but in a more exhaustive manner,

1 On the Recent State of Therapeutics, with some Suggestions for placing it upon a more Scientific Basis.' By JAMES ROGERS, M.D., formerly Physician to the British Legation, and to the Abouchoff Hospital, St. Petersburg.

Dr. Rogers girds himself, and for this purpose he selects these cardinal instances, on the proof or disproof of which must rest the establishment or overthrow of Hahnemannism.

The remedies selected were cinchona, sulphur, and mercury. The trials were made on healthy individuals; in each instance the trial was unfavorable to homœopathy. It is well known that on the effects of bark and its supposed powers of inducing fever, Hahnemann founded his system, but extended and careful trials go to show that in no instance does the drug produce symptoms at all assimilating to those of intermittent fever. The experience of our cruisers on the coast of Africa ought to be decisive on this point, but Dr. Rogers has thought it right not only to cite unquestionable authority, but to experiment in the matter himself. His results we have above stated.

The next remedy chosen for experiment was sulphur. The import of sulphur provings may be hardly so well known to the bulk of the profession as those of quinine, and to those acquainted with them anything further would seem needless; nevertheless, Dr. Rogers has thought it necessary to enter further into the matter. In the days of Hahnemann the nature of itch was unknown, and in his theory of chronic disease suppressed itch played a most important part. Any form of disease which he did not readily understand was explained by suppressed itch lying at the bottom of it. To us, knowing the existence of the itch mite, the idea that sulphur should act homœopathically in destroying it seems utterly absurd; were the doctrine true, sulphur given to a healthy person should have the power of developing the itch mite, or something like it, a proposition utterly preposterous. In point of fact the only effects observed from the continued use of sulphur were lax bowels and a tendency to the formation of sulphuretted hydrogen gas.

The third remedy experimented on was mercury, the analogy of whose effects to those of syphilis have been so often quoted as to be very generally believed. Some, indeed, have gone so far as to credit the whole of the symptoms of secondary and tertiary syphilis to the effects of the mercury given to relieve the earlier form of the malady. Any man of sense knowing the history of syphilis, especially as it prevailed towards the end of the fifteenth century, ere yet mercury had been prescribed as a remedy for its relief, knows how utterly false such assertions are. But as it cannot be denied that both mercury and syphilis tend to induce a cachectic state of the system (as many other things do), it has been roundly asserted that their effects are the same, and that mercury cures syphilis by virtue of the law of similars. Most of the arguments adduced in favour of this view have undoubtedly been imported from the use of mercury in disease,

a kind of argument which should be rejected by true homœopaths. The prolonged use of mercury in massive (as opposed to infinitesimal) doses would hardly be admissible in the healthy subject, but it so happens that in certain classes of workmen— those engaged in quicksilver mines, and in those employed in silvering looking-glasses by a process, however, now seldom adopted-we have the means of testing the validity of the theory. The experience derived from this source flatly contradicts the assertion that mercury can produce the symptoms of syphilis; what illustration have we of mercurial tremor being produced by syphilis? or of syphilitic paralysis as the result of mercurial erythism? Tested by these cardinal instances, the doctrine of similia similibus falls to the ground.

Nor does the cause of Hahnemann succeed better in the next chapter, which deals with instances of natural diseases affecting each other homœopathically. Of all here enumerated we shall select but one, which, though at first sight most promising to the homœopathic school, is, in point of fact, that which tells most against it. If one disease or one remedy can be called homœopathic to another, surely vaccinia is to smallpox, and vice versa, but let us examine the two. If the two be introduced into the system about the same time, each runs its course independent of the other. Should the vaccine virus have a fair start, it modifies the disease of the smallpox first, it shortens the period of the vaccinia. According to Hahnemann's doctrines, each should remove the other. This, and certain other instances, have induced advanced homœopaths to say of Hahnemann that they place his judgment or his love of truth in no favorable light.

But yet, again, the homoeopathic doctrines preclude the spontaneous cure of disease-one can be removed only by setting up another. How much this is opposed to modern doctrines, and, let us add, to modern practice, it needs but a moment to consider, and of all men in the world homoeopaths, if our estimate of their practice be correct, should, we had almost said must, be the last to deny, and yet they are bound to uphold the doctrine. A word on the homoeopathic doctrines of drug action, and we have done with this part of our subject. A disease, say they, can only be cured by a more powerful affection of a similar kind, artificial or natural, as smallpox arrests vaccinia, according to Hahnemann. Thus, mercury given for the cure of syphilis acts by inducing a specific malady closely resembling syphilis, and more potent, inasmuch as it arrests the other, but what is to arrest it? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Here the power of nature is called in, which although powerless against the primary disease is not the law similia similibus ?-shows itself more potent than that which, being more powerful, expelled the