5. An occasional use of remedies in the ordinary doses. This is practised more often than is commonly supposed, and especially by those who have from mere pecuniary motives left the ranks of the ‘Allopaths’ and adopted the Homœopathic practice. They _know_ that in acute diseases especially, there is sometimes pressing need of something more than the tiny doses, and they resort for the moment to their old mode of practice. And it is easy to do this secretly if they wish, for calomel, morphine, &c. are not very bulky medicines, and a good dose of them can easily be put into a very few little globules. Many a Homœopathic patient is thus saved from death by the ‘old practice,’ while Homœopathy gets all the credit of it.[17] Mr. Constantine Hering, in his introduction to Jahr’s Manual, complains that some of his brethren are not strictly orthodox—that they are guilty of the inconsistency of mixing the practice of the old and of the new school together. This complaint however comes with an ill grace from him, for I once knew this prescriber of decillionths of a grain of such inert things as salt and oystershell, direct for a patient a nightly dose of half a teaspoonful of red pepper—a dose quite large enough to suit an ‘Allopath’ or even a Thompsonian.[18] 6. The facility with which people are imposed upon in their attempts to estimate the comparative merits of modes of practice by their _results_, is another source of the popularity of Homœopathy. Most persons, as I take occasion to show in the chapter on Good and Bad Practice, have an opportunity of witnessing but a _limited_ range of facts in medical practice—altogether too limited to enable them to arrive at any just conclusions. And then the flying reports abroad in the community on this subject are exceedingly vague, and are not to be relied upon. Yet these limited observations, and these reports bruited about by the loose tongue of Madame Rumor, are the boasted facts, by which Homœopathy, like every other delusion, has gained its popularity. Such being the sources of the popularity of Homœopathy, I do not wonder at all that it has acquired so extensive favor with the public. Neither do I wonder that many very sensible persons have been captivated with it; for the evidence upon which they base their preference is so limited and so loose, that it is calculated to mislead any who rely upon it. And I would not reproach nor ridicule them for this preference; but I would simply ask them to look carefully at the nature of the evidence, on which the success of Homœopathy is so confidently asserted. If they will do this, they will find that the evidence is insufficient and deceptive.