BY B. F. JOSLIN, M.D., NEW YOEK.

March 9th, 1846, at 10.45 A. M., I took on the tongue three dry pellets of Rhus radicans³.

1. Burning in the throat, after four minutes.

2. Burning and smarting of the tongue; after six minutes, with increase of saliva; after seven minutes.

3. Mucus in the throat and posterior nares; after eight minutes.

4. Pressive pain in the right chest; after fifteen minutes.

5. Pain at the left quadratus lumborum muscle, with nausea; after fifteen minutes.

6. Pain at the middle of the radius of the left arm; after seventeen, twenty-eight and thirty-five minutes.

7. Pain under the right scapula; after eighteen, twenty-one and twenty-two minutes.

8. Rheumatic pain in the left shoulder and arm in the region of the deltoid muscle; after twenty-four minutes.

9. Pain in the left thigh; after twenty-five minutes.

10. Pain in the right wrist; after thirty and thirty-five minutes.

11. Pain in the region of the ascending colon, with pain in the right wrist and at the middle of the radius of the left arm; after thirty-five minutes.

12. Pain in the middle joint of the left forefinger; after thirty-eight minutes.

13. Pain in the metacarpal joint of the left forefinger, and in the middle of the right upper arm; after forty minutes.

14. Pain in the left side of the forehead; after forty-one minutes.

15. Pain in the middle joint of the right ring finger; after forty-three minutes.

16. Pain in the left chest; after forty-five minutes.

On the same day, at forty-two minutes P. M., having dissolved seven pellets of Rhus rad.³ in as many tea-spoonfuls of cold water, commenced taking it in tea-spoonful doses, one every minute.

17. Felt nausea and great disgust for this tasteless watery solution; in three minutes after commencing it.

18. Pressive pain in the left side of the occiput; at fifty-six minutes P. M.

19. Pain in the left chest, also four and seven minutes later.

20. Pain in the middle of the ulna of the left arm; at five minutes past one P. M.

21. Pressive pain two inches to the right of the middle of the sternum; at one and a half P. M.

22. Pain above the Tendo Achillis of the left leg, when walking up stairs; at 2 1/4 P. M.

23. Pain in the rectum when urinating; at 3.8 P. M.

24. Itching in the calf of the left leg when walking; 4 P.M. March 10th, 1/4 P. M.

25. Transient pain in the rectum; after 1 day.

11th. 26. Dull headache.in the forenoon; after 2 days.

27. In the night succeeding: Incubus, with inability to move, and sensation of pressure on the right upper portion of the chest, with superstitious fear connected with the supposed presence and agency of some invisible, sly and malicious being; after 2 1/2 d.

28. On waking from this sleep with nightmare, felt a pressive pain at the left clavicle; after 2 1/2 d.

12th.-29. Pressive pain in the right hemisphere of the cerebellum, after intellectual labour in the forenoon; 11 1/2 A. M., after 3d.

30. Pain over the right eye after intellectual labour in the forenoon; after 3d.

31. Flatulence with pain in the hypogastrium; 2 P. M., followed by pain in the right chest; after 3d.

32. Cutting and burning pain in the anterior portion of the urethra, during and after urination; the last portions of the urine milky; the urination followed by a sensation of heat in the rectum, 3 1/2 P. M.; about 3 1/4 d. after the first dose.

33. Cutting, burning and smarting in the anterior portion of the urethra during urination, and severe burning and smarting pain in it after urination, with irritation and sensation of heat in the rectum; 6 1/2 P. M.; about 3 1/4d. after the second dose.

13th.-34. Pimples large, deep-seated and irritable to the touch, on the nates, especially on the median side near the os-coccygis; they attain this state after four days from the dose, and two from their commencement on the 11th.

35. On the same day, a pimple described by the same words, and situated on the upper lip, opposite the alveolar process near the root of the left posterior bicuspid tooth; also a scabby pimple, one inch above the left parietal protuberance; after 4d. The former remained with but little change for at least three days, the latter became a scab in four.

14th.-36. Weakness of the legs in the forenoon; after 5d. 14th and 15th.-37. Dull aching and sensation of weakness in the legs and ankles; after 5 and 6d.

15th.-38. Pain at the right hemisphere of the cerebellum and over the right eye at the eyebrow; after 6d.

16th.-39. Pain over the left eye at the eyebrow; after 7d.

40. Feeling of unsteadiness in the head; after 6 and 7d.

41. Stool thin and tinged with blood, the evacuation preceded by lassitude; after 7d.

42. Pimple large, deep-seated and irritable to the touch, on the chest, two inches above the left nipple. It is so tough that scratching does not readily break it, but produces redness, burning and smarting in it and the surrounding skin; after 7d.

17th.-43. Re-appearance, at the bend of each elbow, of a red furfuraceous eruption, which had once existed there for a short time, but had long since disappeared; after 8d.

19.-44. A kind of tough pimple at the bend of the right elbow, similar to the tuberculoid and imperfectly suppurating elevations which have appeared on different parts of the skin, from four to ten days after the dose; after 10d.

45. On the same day, headache in the forenoon, with sleepiness.

REMARK.-The palpable symptom, 34, re-occurred in three months, after some handling of the Rhus radicans, and inhalation of its effluvia whilst gathering and preparing it during the two preceding days. The symptom being first produced by the millionth, is one among a thousand instances I could adduce in opposition to the boldly gratuitous assumption, that before the potencies can have any sensible morbid effect, the system must be “first saturated with the tincture” or crude substance. Such an idea is a sheer fancy. If entitled to a more respectful appellation, if a kind of reason, as well as imagination, had any agency in its development, it is at best but a hypothesis unsupported by facts-a pyramid standing on its apex.