THE Editors of the AMERICAN HOMOEOPATHIC REVIEW introduce their periodical to the profession and the public, with a profound sense of the responsibility they have assumed, and with a full appreciation of the time and labor necessary to success. As standard-bearers of a new truth, they anticipate the criticisms of its enemies, but hope to escape the fault finding of its friends. Fully aware of the differences existing among Homoeopathists, they are nevertheless certain that the doctrine of “similia similibus curantur” is a common ground upon which all can meet-and upon this principle the Review takes its stand.

A belief in this law characterizes the homoeopathic physician, and the quantum of the dose of the similimum has, within certain limits, no necessary relation to the abstract principle involved.

The editors of the Review consider the homoeopathic law unexceptionable, and look upon it as the foundation of all science in medication. The uncertainty of experiment attaching to the therapeutics of other schools is nearly absent under this dogma. If the drug is similar in its pathogenesis to the totality of the symptoms in any given curable case, that drug is certain to cure in some one or other of its potencies. If a drug fails to cure, it is generally because the practitioner has failed to find the true similimum or its appropriate preparation. The field for experiment in the homoeopathic practice is therefore extremely narrow, and the chances of failure are correspondingly small.

Though the editors are in favor of “attenuations” high, low, or medium, believing them preferable in a large majority of cases, yet, considering the Review as an organ of the Homoeopathic School, they will not feel at liberty to reject well-written articles not repugnant in principle to the great Hahnemannian law, nor to criticise those admitted, however different from the individual preferences of the editors, as to the potencies to be employed. The writers, whose names will always appear, are to be held responsible for the teachings of their articles-the editors, for their publication only.

It is hoped to retain the support of those who have so earnestly come forward, in favor of the undertaking; and through the means thus afforded, to conduct a Review creditable to the cause of Rational Medicine.