surround the table, a very different account must | parapet upon the pigmies below, "Here's a tarnabe rendered; for some of the very dregs of society tion tall place, by gum! I shouldn't care aboutfind their way to the rooms, less to try their own a-tumbling down here-for I could think well fortunes than to take a ready advantage of any about it afore I got to the bottom, and say a lot of description of error that may arise on the part of prayers-meanwhile." the novices. The whole system, indeed, is sub- At this period of our wanderings Damon pro versive of all social enjoyment; for gambling is a ceeded to realise an idea which I am quite sure vice which affects the mind as drunkenness does he conceived before he left England, that of getting the body. It was in these rooms that the inces-to Paris as soon as he possibly could. I believe sant cry of, "Messieurs, faites le jeu, faites votre that his failure to elicit anything like sound politi jeu!" and the more common one of, "Le jeu est cal information from the chambermaids of our hotel fait !" gave birth to the sound that never left me. gave an additional impulse to his desire. He had I told Damon of this strange echo; and further- already tendered but a very questionable assent to more added, that it must have been a fay (fait) my proposition to visit Switzerland; and the which accompanied me! Damon said nothing, weather not proving fine gave him an excuse for but packed up his things for Strasbourg. Our relinquishing the notion. The proposal to travel departure was celebrated by a salvo of Nature's from Strasbourg to Paris, partly by rail and partly artillery. Close to the gaming-rooms runs a line by diligence, I must confess was not very agreeable; of small shops, covered with projecting roofs made but illness augments docility, and in a mistaken of wood. Over these flourish an avenue of horse-hour I booked my place with Damon at the office chesnuts; and on the afternoon of our leave-taking, of a new company called the Parisienne. Notwhile I was sauntering along, looking at the ques-withstanding we were in good time, places could tionable goods exposed in these said shops, and only be procured in the second coupé, a small box while the eternal scream, "Le jeu est fait !" was amongst the luggage, capable of holding one perstill ringing in my luckless ears, I received a blow son tolerably at his ease in a horizontal position, on the rim of my hat, which was immediately fol- that is to say, if he packed himself like a port lowed by such an unearthly tattoo on the roofs as manteau and lay longwise on the seat. Into this made me fancy an army on the heights was bom- carriage, however, were thrust four persons, inclu barding us. I soon discovered, however, that the sive of a fat conductor. After due time we rattled chesnuts having unbuttoned their coats, that is, through the streets of Strasbourg to the railwaysplit their outer shells, were ready for a battle station, and were lifted upon the train by machi royal; and a gush of wind blowing them on the nery-a process which occupied very nearly an sheds, they fell like bullets on a drum, and cele- hour, and which I believe in England would have brated in a volley their newly-emancipated condi- been accomplished in ten minutes. At length the tion. In the evening, the German frontier was long black serpent, hissing and projecting its fiery passed, and we found ourselves in "la belle France." tongue, moved onward; and hoping soon to settle Here my gentle goblin took his flight; but, ere he down, or rather to shake into my place, I bore went, screeched, in almost prophetic tones, the the horrors of our black-hole in Alt with what eternal refrain of, "Le jeu est fait !" The cathe- fortitude I could muster. Before long, however, dral with its spire, the highest in the world, is symptoms of my Baden fever threatened me; Strasbourg's chief attraction, the wonderful clock whereupon, much to the conductor's astonishment, its chief folly, and the pâté de foie gras its great at a town called Saverne I ordered my luggage to article of commerce. I left Damon in the cathe- be disengaged from the huge pile on the roof of dral cross-examining the functionary in gold lace, the diligence; and taking leave of my good Damien as usual, upon municipal affairs, and climbed to for the present, the train whisked past, and for the the top of the spire in company with two Ameri- first time I found myself alone-alone, too, in the cans, the most perfect specimens of vulgarity I most literal sense of the word. When several ever met. They were meagre, sallow incarnations weeks have been passed in agreeable companion. of the worst side of the American character, scoff-ship, and when that companionship suddenly ter ing at religion, growling at art, mocking at beauty and sneering at everything. While examining the cathedral, they commenced their display of bad taste by exclaiming, in the true nasal cadence, "I guess-God Almighty don't-care tarnation much--about them fine paintings-any

how!"

66

minates in the heart of a strange country; when you see the whiskers or nose of that friend dart away as he waves his hand out of the carriagewindow; when you listen in vain for one word of English, and when you know that for weeks you will not again see one-familiar face; when illness, too, waits on your steps, and your system is lowered first by German wines and then by German medicines; I say again, at such a moment, when the reality of these combinations strike you, you do feel alone in the literal sense of the word, more especially when you are waiting a return train to waft you from the land of French, franks, sous and centimes, back again to the land of German, tha Damon walked off, and, when I reached the top lers, kreutzers and groschens. A voluntary of the edifice with these bright specimens of hu-neur, however, has no right to grumble; so the manity, one of them exclaimed, looking over the first thing I did was to attempt to cure the guard

Ah," said Damon, "religion is in the heart, and this is only its outward manifestation; but don't you wish you possessed men in your country with minds capable of building such a cathedral ?" "So we could," they replied. "We Ameri-cans think the dollars could build another world-and clear away this—we do!"

garru

at the station of a tooth-ache, with a compound I to friends, and in the next, because they act had accidentally in my carpet-bag, for which ser- as warnings. Upon this principle, therefore, I vice his wife seemed to be more grateful than he must explain that at Brussels I put up at the Hôtel was, and she rendered me some little civilities in de Flandres, and very soon after my arrival was return with a grace and sweetness which made in every way ready for a good night's rest, being me consider her husband rather a lucky fellow, not only fatigued but still suffering from indisponotwithstanding his teeth. The train back to sition. I had not long been asleep, when the Strasbourg came at last; and when I alighted at the chimes of a clock close to my bed-room wall awoke hotel where we had previously stopped, I had me. "Ye powers!" I exclaimed, "four separate some difficulty in persuading the landlord and times every hour will these bells strike, and four waiters that I was not the ghost of my former separate times every hour shall I be awoke." The self. I must say I never regretted my retro- thought was not agreeable, but in seven minutes grade movement, for I desired to see more of and a half another chime sounded, and another Germany_than I had hitherto seen; and for this after, and another. I now discovered, to my dispurpose I proceeded next morning to embark may, that the restless piece of machinery struck once again on the Rhine, but this time my eight times every hour; and, as if adding insult to route was down the river. As this sketch does injury, anticipated the hour by striking it at the not pretend to be a description of places, I shall half hour, as well as again in the regular way of only add of Germany, that when I had visited business. And so it kept on all night long, resuch towns, including Bonn and Aix-la-Chapelle, as minding one of Mrs. Caudle's lectures, the I had not previously made acquaintance with, and lous chimes being the sharp tones of that celewhen at length I found myself at Brussels, it was brated lady, while the deeper notes of the hour impossible not to regret leaving a country where and half-hour were the voice of the unhappy husthe good temper and politeness of the people band. Between them both, sleep was out of the makes travelling a source of unmitigated enjoy-question; so I was compelled to leave this otherwise ment, and where a simplicity and almost innocence excellent hotel, where the table-d'-hôte is the best of character is in rare harmony with its high posi- in Belgium. I discovered after, that many comtion as regards literature and art. The politeness plaints of the incessant chimes had been made to of the German, although wanting, perhaps, in a the Padré belonging to the Church, but his reply grace of manner, arises from sheer kindness of heart, invariably was, that the master of the hotel maand is therefore of a more genuine description naged his house as he pleased, and he, the Padré, than that of many of his neighbours. Travelling should do likewise with his establishment. generally, either by rail or post, is cheap and hinted the propriety of setting up a cauldron agreeable: the first being due to the excellent for boiling asafoetida, wondering, in that case, arrangements of the Government, which manages whether the Rev. Father would have made this everything; the second being attributable, in a response. great measure, to the civility and attention of the officials. All travellers should bear in mind that to get on comfortably abroad a certain air of good temper is a coin almost as current, and certainly as graciously received, as the money in your pocket. The English have a sad character for going about on the nil admirari principle, and of grumbling because things abroad are not exactly like things at home. If they expect them to be similar, why on earth do they leave their own shores?

At Brussels and Antwerp there is too much to study to bear discussing in a few lines, so I must hurry on to the close of my peregrinations. The Fleming appeared to me a sort of enervated Frenchman, without his vivacity, fierceness, gesticulation, or verve. The capital is a miniature Paris, and contains much in decoration and art to amuse and instruct. As the place, too, where the booming of cannon came thundering on the air while the fate of Europe was decided, it presents pictures of deep and eternal interest. Within hearing of its very walls, the great gambler, rattling his dice-artillery, called for his last goblet of blood and played his last stake; while the hazard of the die was, for once, on the side where the angel of peace in trembling looked on.

I

Antwerp is a city to live in for weeks, if only to study the great works of Rubens, and the glorious ones of Vandyke. The "Descent from the Cross" is at present under repair; but its companion, the "Erection of the Cross," is to be seen for a frank, having been removed for the purpose of clearing from its usual position in the Cathedral. The Cathedral itself takes one's breath away; not to mount, but to regard from a distance, so proudly does it rear its head to the blue skies. Perhaps there are no cities in the Low Countries which will so well repay a visit as Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp; for the admirer of the ancient and grotesque, as well as the lover of general art, may drink his fill at these fountain-heads.

But now no more of this. Hey! for Paris and a merry dinner with Damon and other choice spirits at Vachettes, or the Bonnefoy! Hey! for the fairy city of bright sky, gilding, fountains, brilliant shops, neat boots (Apollo, how neat !), pretty bonnets, graceful figures, slender waists, politics, and flitting bats! Hey! for the garden of the Tuileries, dotted with picturesque bonnes, with caps from the provinces of every shape and size, smiling mothers and coquettish children, who, throwing up their little paper balloons, shake a The misfortunes of others are always listened to perpetual kaleidoscope in the air, while their with pleasure (which assertion, by the way, is the merry voices make the flowers look glad! Even spirit of that one eternal quotation from Rochefou- Damon, whom I had now rejoined, here thought cault), in the first place, because they are agreeable | less of the ministerial crisis; and as we looked up

the long vista of the Champs Elysees, to the glorious "Arc de Triomphe," it was impossible not to record the heartfelt hope, that through another

vista of political events there may loom, ere long, another triumphal arch of peace and prosperity And now, reader, “Le jeu est fait."

ON HOMEOPATHY.

BY DR. KEIN THALER.

THE present age is generally stigmatised as one of philosopher's stone, which was the pet delusion of universal incredulity and indifference. Everybody that gorgeous quack, Paracelsus, is, in all essentials, affects a critical philosophy, and strives to wield a still extant. The boundless wealth and eternity logic, which have at least the merit of simplicity; of life which this talisman was to confer seem to inasmuch as their chief character is that they be still hoped for in defiance of Smith's "Wealth doubt or deny everything. The little boys of all of Nations" or the registrar-general's statistics. ages (the a Tada) are hopelessly blasés; and But a few months ago there were thousands who having exhausted every passion and sentiment thought that the whole nation might be suddenly lounge about in a state of profound apathy to all enriched at nobody's expense, like the two Yankees things earthly, with scarce the strength necessary who found, after an hour's barter, that they had to lisp out the few monosyllables to which their each gained a thousand dollars. And as regards conversation is reduced. And our American increase of life and protection from disease, so brethren, who have already given us so considerable many means offer themselves, that it is all but ina whipping in the matters of lock-picking and credible any man should be so foolish as to die; ship-making, have still further humbled our na- and we are almost justified in calling all mortality tional vanity by first reducing the spirit of the suicide, and life-assurance an astounding error, age to a terse formula. "There's nothing new, equally discreditable to assurers and assured. For there's nothing true, and it don't matter." we have at least a dozen systems, any one of which, like the pills mentioned in Rabelais, "cures seventyeight kinds of diseases, the least of which is the evil of St. Eutropius of Xaintes, from which good Lord deliver us!" By the kind assistance of the Earl of Aldborough and Mr. Blair, gout has become extinct; or, at most, is only patronised by those who affect the manners of the higher classes. It is well known that, thanks to Morison's pills, cholera has since 1832 been banished from our shores. Swallow a few pulmonic wafers, and hap what will, your invigorated thorax will never "breathe its last." By attaching a light truck of Holloway's pills and ointment to every train, the railway-companies need never pay higher damages than the price of the suit of clothes worn by the comminuted traveller at the time of the collision. And it is not impossible the ingenious inventor of these invaluable medicaments might be induced to modify them so as to make them equally appli cable to the shattered locomotive and carriages.

We venture, however, to try a higher flight in this kind of philosophy, and take upon us to be incredulous of the incredulity and doubtful of the doubters. Where all the real energy of their lives goes to will only be revealed when we write our great article on "Spare Steam," which will immediately follow those hitherto unpublished chapters on Chambermaids," and on "Buttonholes," which Sterne long ago promised mankind. At present, however, we content ourselves with the assertion, that in spite of the examples of those philosophers, credulity lives and flourishes; and that, although we are apt to boast that our own superior good sense rejects the superstitions of our ancestors, it would not be very difficult to show that every old error has its modern parallel; in which, as by a kind of metempsychosis, it lives again, to receive the homage of a large part of

mankind.

Thus the fear which formerly invested a wretched octogenarian with supernatural powers of destruction now cowers trembling before a kind and pious clergyman, from whose dark "Puseyite" designs the old women of both sexes can but augur the approach of individual, parochial and national ruin. Similarly distorted apprehensions find the destruction of a vast and industrious empire involved in a slight fiscal modification. Romantic aspirations after unlawful power formerly depicted a magician commanding the elements, or unloosing by a word the mail-clad warriors waiting in some And similar vain hopes may yet be discovered pulsating beneath the vast waistcoat of many a country squire who awaits the return of Protection.

cavern.

Nor is it difficult to show that the notion of a

But after all, why should we waste time in pur suing these peddling details of longevity, when we can secure it at once? Take a few life-pills, and you will not only attain the age of Old Parr, but, to judge from the engraving which accompa nies the advertisement, get a very handsome beard into the bargain. On presuming that you possess greater self-denial, hydropathy offers you an exist ence which, though somewhat uncomfortable, promises to be literally interminable. For it must be evident to the meanest capacity, that as long as you hourly apply plenty of cold water, it is a physical impossibility your frame should ever return to dust.

science we have lost all those ideas of dangerous and Nor need any man regret that with dawning

For the present we must defer the consideration of what many will think the most important as it is certainly the most striking element of homoopathy: we mean, the question of the superior efficacy of drugs in doses of infinitesimal minuteness. Confining our attention to the original and essential doctrine as above defined, it is evident that the admission or denial of its claims must altogether depend on the answers accorded to these two questions: 1, Will drugs produce diseases similar to those which arise without such interference? And, 2, Does the artificial disorder rc

unlawful knowledge which flattered the pride of finally, its general bearings upon the public welthe ancient magician. For, simultaneously with fare. the cure of disease, mesmerism offers opportunity We may gain something towards the knowledge of gratifying the most unlimited thirst for such ac- of the system by examining the hideous polysylquisitions. First catch your conscientious clair- lable which names it. On dissection, it turns voyante, and then, through her eyes (we beg par-out to be of Greck extraction: Moos, like, don, her occiput) you may realise the liberal pro-abos, disease. We may fill up the not very mises of the Greenwich showman, who offered his intelligible hiatus between the two words, and infantile auditory a sight of "everything as ever define homoeopathy as meaning, "a system of mehappened afore they put their blessed little eyes to dicine according to which we treat a disease by the the peephole." The past, the present, and the artificial production of a similar one." future-history, science, and morals-are all open to your choice. The feast of knowledge is converted into a Parisian restaurant, where, for a small sum, you may indulge in ever so many "plats" at choice. Whatever be the information you desire, whether it be the price of consols in Timbuctoo, the full particulars of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the minute structure of your own femur, the probable date of the millennium, or the fate of the lost barrel of oysters which you despatched a fortnight since to your friend in the country-the clairvoyante can reveal all. But as unbelieving and observant witnesses very much affect the emanations from the mesmeriser, you had better go To each of these the homeopathist would doubtalone. Apply (if by letter, prepaid) to Mademoi- less return a ready affirmative. "We will say selle Dudu, No. 100, Rue de Plusieurs Colifichets. nothing of the discoveries made by our science; But led away by these glowing visions of the you may doubt of our good faith, or suspect that nineteenth century, we have forgotten the real pur- enthusiasm leads us to see cures where none are pose which directs our erratic pen, which is, to in- effected. We are content to refer you to methods troduce to your notice a claimant whose pretensions, of cure which you and your predecessors practise, though somewhat more modest than those hinted in the strictest but most unconscious accordance at above, are yet sufficiently striking to command with the doctrines of homoeopathy. For ages our attention. She is, as you observe, a middle- dysentery and diarrhoea have been removed by aged lady of somewhat forward manners. One violent purgatives, such as hellebore and ipecahand grasps that substitute for the caduceus which cuana. The great sweating sickness which ravaged distinguishes all these illegitimate offspring of Es- England in the fifteenth century was best cured by culapius, viz. the trumpet. The other sustains her sudorifics. You remove the sore throat of scarsole armoury and storehouse, a neat little maho- latina by giving belladonna, which, administered gany box. Nor is its small size to be wondered to a healthy subject, produces a dry and inflamed at. Being on bad terms with her cousin Polly-state of the same part. You prevent small-pox by Pharmacy, the lady in question limits herself to two vaccination. You recover a frozen limb by rubor three drugs, and while the clumsy champions of allopathy, like the folks in Plautus,

In fundas visci indebant
Grandiculos globos,

move the natural one?

bing with snow; a burnt one by repeating the application of heat. In all these processes you are practising the very principles you ignore; for the time, you are homoeopathists. Every one of these ad-remedies acts by substituting a new and preponderating disorder in place of the original one. The stronger new-comer ejects the first from the organism, and itself subsiding on its own removal, leaves the patient void of all disease; in one word, cured."

homoeopathy contrasts their large and often hering pills with the smallest of globules, sliding gaily over each other in smooth and glittering silver jackets.

And now, having fairly broken cover, it is our intention to assume a becoming gravity, and write a solid, heavy article to the great instruction of the reader.

Fifty-five years have now elapsed since the founder of that system of medicine which bears the name of Homoeopathy first promulgated his remarkable views. It is not our object to write a history of their rise and progress, or to chronicle their alternate victories and defeats. But most of our readers will probably agree with us that the subject has at present sufficient interest and importance to deserve a little attention. The present short article will successively consider the claims of homœopathy as a scientific doctrine, its efficacy as a system of medical treatment, and

Some of these examples-examples, be it remembered, brought forward in very similar phraseology by homoeopathists themselves-are such palpable fallacies that we must eliminate them at once from the argument. Thus, in the instances of the burnt or frozen part which have just been alluded to, although the patient is again exposed to the very agencies which produced his injuries, and in so far might seem to have been treated on the rule of "similia similibus curantur," yet a moment's examination will show that this is not the case.

By rubbing a frozen nose with snow we do not freeze it again, nor do we inflict a new burn by holding a scorched finger to the fire; and yet this is what

any

a conscientious adhesion to homoeopathy would | experience of hundreds of years has shown to be demand. Far from this, our production of the two satisfactorily treated by remedies that in of respective conditions in a lesser and continually their effects imitate the disease, we should almost decreasing degree amounts in reality to their slow be content to leave out of sight their numerical removal. And hence one might more plausibly insufficiency, and to take our stand on the fact that say that since the ablation of one of these states and in no case can these drugs produce, or even accuthe induction of the other (which is merely its ne-rately simulate, a disease of spontaneous origin. gative) must be one and the same process, our Many of the more visible phenomena of disease practice is in point of fact anti instead of homoeo-are with justice regarded as forming parts of its pathic. The limited advantage really obtained has, however, very little reference to any system of pathology represented by either of these two words. Any efficacy which such a treatment possesses is entirely attributable to a very different cause. By effecting a gradual instead of a sudden transition to the natural thermal condition, we lessen the inflammatory reaction which follows such great alterations of temperature, and give nature time, as one may say, to adapt herself to the circumstances of the past.

essence. But even popular experience has long testified that the evacuations of the different excretory organs are frequently to be regarded as rather efforts of nature to remove the disorder than as constituting the disorder itself. Every man, perhaps, has found a cold relieved or removed by a copious perspiration; or has known a train of uncomfortable symptoms suddenly disappear on the access of diarrhoea. And just as in each of these cases the more prominent symptom referred to was preceded by an interval of constitutional disturb

As little can we regard the prevention of small-ance and distress, so very often we see a patient pox by vaccination as a genuine instance of homoeopathy. It is well known that small-pox belongs to a class of diseases all of which have the peculiarity of rarely occurring more than once in the life-time of any given individual. The milder modification of small-pox which has previously passed through the system of the cow, retains this its specific character; and, in a certain majority of instances, equally secures the organism of the patient against its own further assaults. To call the protection thus afforded a cure of the disease by the artificial production of a similar complaint is such a sophistication that we need only point out to dismiss with

out a word.

But some of the instances mentioned above, while they are equally susceptible of being included in one emphatic denial, require a little more explanation to render this quite palpable to the general reader. We may begin by remarking, that as there are many diseases which no drugs can possibly imitate, so, on the other hand, there is an equally large number to which an homoeopathic treatment would be utterly inapplicable. We might safely challenge their whole pharmacopeia to produce even a tolerable imitation of an attack of typhus-fever or measles; and we may leave it to the common-sense of every man to decide what would be the probable result of treating an ordinary apoplectic attack on the "similia similibus" plan, and giving remedies likely of themselves to produce a state of congestion similar to that which preceded the bursting of the vessels of the brain. Now speaking logically, the mere existence of two or three of these numerous contradicting instances is quite enough to destroy the system. It claims to be a general statement of certain pathological and pharmaceutical facts: we bring forward exceptions; and thus not only invalidate the statement, but with it the system of universal medical practice which is built upon it.

But we will neither rely upon the numerous examples of this kind, nor ask our readers to reason by analogy as to whether other instances may not be equally though less obviously incorrect. Small as is the number of complaints which the medical

lying almost at the point of death, with scarce a symptom except that general failure of functional activity which we denominate " prostration." That man must therefore have a very imperfect notion of disease who regards it as showing itself only or chiefly in the more or less perfected products by which a moderate disorder generally seeks its exit from the body. The essential disease precedes these evacuant disturbances. They are the ordinary results of its presence; but they are not its essence. That essence lies more deeply in the economy; and little as we can define its exact seat for all cases, at any rate we are justified in saying that in a large majority of cases it is probably the blood itself which is at fault, and that it is rarely or never confined to the various organs where we most readily detect its effects.

Yet it is to an imperfect imitation of these very effects that we are referred for the "similar disease" which the drug produces. Because the man suffering from dysentery is purged, and the man drugged by ipecacuana is also purged, therefore ipecacuana and dysentery are similar disorders! We might as well argue the identity of a glyster and a violent death, because each generally empties the large intestine!

It is not improbable that the few lines above have already suggested to the reader a better explanation of the benefits occasionally derived from these so-called evacuant medicines. They encou rage the flow of blood to the very surface from which nature is striving to eliminate a morbid product. They thus probably assist the formation of this product, and so tend to the removal of the disorder which its presence in the organism causes. With respect to the remaining effects produced by an evacuant drug, in no instance will they be found to coincide accurately with those of a spontaneous disease. Even with the imperfect means of diagnosis which we possess, a moment's examination generally suffices to distinguish a poi soned individual from one simply suffering from disease; and the further history of the disorder rarely leaves any room for mistake. But the ten thousand and one trivial and unmeaning words in