So of small-pox, one of the most instructive of all diseases. All the things favourable to small-pox are entirely opposite to those which conduct the patient safely through this alarming disease; and so clearly is this the case, that, if known beforehand, its virulence can be indefinitely moderated, so as to become a comparatively innoxious malady. We might go on multiplying these illustrations to almost any extent. What, then, is the meaning of the _similia similibus curantur_? This we will endeavour, so far as there is any truth in it, to explain. The truth is, that Nature has but one mode, principle, or law, in dealing with injurious influences on the body. Before we offer the few hints we propose to do on these subjects (and we can here do no more), we entirely repudiate that sort of abusive tone which is too generally adopted. That never can do anybody any good. We believe both systems to be dangerous fallacies; but, like all other things, not allowed to be entirely uncharged with good. We shall state, as popularly as possible, in what respect we deem them to be dangerous fallacies, and in what we deem them to be capable of effecting some good; because it is our object to show, in respect to both, that the good they do is because they accidentally, as it were, chip off a small corner of the principles of Abernethy. Homœopathy is one of those hypotheses which show the power that a minute portion of truth has to give currency to a large quantity of error; and how much more powerful in the uninformed are appeals to the imagination than to the intellect. The times are favourable to homœopathy. To some persons, who had accustomed themselves to associate medical attendance with short visits, long bills,—a gentleman in black, all smiles,—and a numerous array of red bottles, homœopathy must have addressed itself very acceptably. It could not but be welcome to hear that all the above not very pleasing impressions could be at once dismissed by simply swallowing the decillionth part of a grain of some efficacious drug. Then there was the prepossession so common in favour of mystery. How wonderful! So small a quantity! What a powerful medicine it must be! It was as good as the fortune-telling of the gipsies. There! take that, and then you will see what will happen next! Then, to get released from red bottles tied over with blue or red paper, which, if they were not infinitesimal in dose, had appeared infinite in number, to say nothing of the wholesome repulsion of the palate.