group should be compared, placing particular stress on the mental symptoms and modalities studied in connection with the various dyscrasias.

You will notice, that by following this method you will also follow Bonninghausen's advice for making the Homœopathic prescription. The first two points will give you your locations and sensations, the last two your conditions and modalities.

I believe the above method practical and scientific, and therefore Homœopathic.

SECTIONAL TOPIC.

HOW TO TEACH, AND HOW TO LEARN MATERIA MEDICA.

Divided into the Five following Questions:

I. What advice do you give concerning Materia Medica to a student beginning medicine by a year's preliminary study?

II. What is the best method of teaching Materia Medica: (a) for the preceptor to his student; (b) for the teacher to his classes in the college; (c) give an outline of your method of teaching a drug in

the class-room?

III. Which is the best place for teaching therapeutics (1) Hospital; (2) Dispensary; (3) Clinic; (4) Class-room; or (5) Bedside; and how should it be done?

IV. Do you teach the potency of the remedy studied? If not, why not? If you do, how do you explain the potency you advo

cate?

V. When should the Organon be taught, and how?

Including a Paper by Dr. Carl Bojanus, Sr., of Samara, Russia, and contributions by other physicians, native and foreign.

WHAT IS THE BEST METHOD OF STUDYING AND TEACHING HOMEOPATHIC MATERIA MEDICA?

BY C. BOJANUS, SR., M.D., SAMARA, RUSSIA.

"Veniet tempus quo ista, quae nunc latent, in lucem dies extrahat et longioris aevi diligentia."-Seneca Nat.: quaest., L: vii., C. 25.

THE notion, conveyed by the words "Materia Medica," includes in itself not only an idea of the principle of Similia, but also that of its reconstruction and the reform of the whole academical cycle of medical study. This rebuilding includes, not only the active and teaching element, but also the passive element (scholars) and involves at the same time the whole posology.

The close enchainment of the elements of which materia medica is composed, prevents them, strictly speaking, from being examined singly, and whenever one of them is touched, the others have to be taken into consideration at the same time.

The fundamentality, which is a principal condition of such studies, requires, that all the achievements in the field of materia medica, should be brought forward, to obtain an unbiassed opinion and to give a general survey of the question.

Historical investigations must therefore be undertaken to show the paths, which have been partly trodden and partly traced to reach the goal, but this requires time, by far beyond the space allotted to an open discussion, which is no longer than is given to other comparatively less important papers. In the meantime, the importance of the question is such, that the answers which have been solicited, are certainly worth more than a second-rate question of time, so that I will keep to my own plan in the discussion of the topic, which has been proposed to me by the Institute of Homœopathy, as to the best method of studying and teaching materia medica. I must add, that the only materials which I have at hand, are those of my own library, consisting principally of German medical literature.

If we take a general survey of all that is connected with the interpretation of medical symptoms, we will have to consider the remedies, directions and paths followed from the very beginning of the propagation of the new doctrine; this will be a guide for us in the accomplishment of our task. The well-known and clever Dr.

Moritz Müller (Stapf's Archiv., vol. ii., 1823, No. 1, p. 129), says, in relation to subjective symptoms, that our materia medica conceives the finest shades of the symptoms, as was formerly the mode of proceeding of sagacious investigators of disease, and that without these finest shades, the subjective symptoms lose their worth.

What Dr. Moritz Müller means by the finest shades, is evidently nothing else but conditions and circumstances, and the application of these characteristics; it points first of all at the necessity of an accurate and finely defined diagnosis of remedies which was already urgently required three-quarters of a century ago. It is also evident, that Dr. Müller pronounces himself a follower of the diagnostic method, in which the accompanying complaints are particularly weighed in the scale as conditions and circumstances of diseases. At a time, when the whole materia medica consisted of about eighty remedies, Dr. Müller found it advisable to recommend a thorough and accurate knowledge of a small circle of remedies, saying that it is by far preferable to a superficial acquaintance with a larger circle; this advice is doubly to be treasured now when the number of drugs has been tenfold multiplied in the course of seventy years.

It is therefore of the greatest importance, that the scholar should be made thoroughly acquainted at the very beginning of his studies with the polychrests amongst our remedies, and that is by itself a tolerable piece of work; once these polychrests mastered, the secondary remedies can be left to be studied by the student himself, without a master, as he will have already acquired a certain proficiency in this kind of study.

As in the course of answering the proposed questions, I will have to refer to the different points of issue taken by different investigators in determining the sphere of action of a drug upon the pathological conditions of a living organism, I should wish, in the hope of avoiding every misunderstanding, to lay a particular stress upon the fact, that all the methods, which have been either adopted, or proposed, whatever be their names (analytic synthetical, or synthetic analytical, and so on), all converge into the only possible method, the

diagnostical one, for if I draw in my mind the picture of an artificial illness from the symptoms, the pathogenesis, of a drug, or if I represent to myself the picture of a natural illness, taken from the symptoms of a present case of sickness, the work still remains the same; a diagnostic one, and at the patient's bedside it cannot be applied otherwise but in an analytic, synthetical manner, or reversed, but always combined.

The whole process of thought and observation is therefore always founded upon comparison and determination of the differences, which forms what is called diagnosis; this is unquestionable and can be confirmed by the etymology of the Greek word diagnosis: tayyo Staywots which signifies examination, perception, distinction. The following example may serve as an illustration of what has just been said: I have determined a case of pneumonia crouposa by means of auscultation and percussion, and I pass over in my mind the remedies, which may be suitable to the case, such as Aconite, Bryonia, Phosphor., Tartarus emetic and others, to decide which is the appropriate drug in the given case. I have to take note of all the delicate tints and shades, to use Dr. Müller's words, and consider very minutely all the subjective symptoms, different conditions and circumstances of the case; if I compare these with the Phosphor., Tartar emet., Bryonia, and other pneumonics, impressed in my memory, these differences will help me to the choice of the suitable drug.

This is the only possible mode of proceeding at the patient's bedside, and who will dispute the fact? For one and all it is the only normal way. But as the aim of materia medica is not only that of being taught and studied, but principally that of being applied, it is clear that the practical path-and there is no other must be used as the basis for the plan of study and tuition; any other course would be waste of time, and would not bring us straight to our aim. In the realms of intellect the shortest way is not always the one which demands least time, but it is the course which makes us reach the goal in the best and safest way--by means of thorough knowledge. This would be a real application of the sentence Non multo, sed multim. It would be of little use to give in detail a critical report of all the different medical methods, and we will only mention a few in passing. Besides, taking it as a stated fact that the diagnostic method is the only one good for teaching and study,