attacks. Similia similabus may prove fatally true for once, if
Homoeopathy is killed out by its new-born rivals.

It takes a very moderate amount of erudition to unearth a charlatan like
the supposed father of the infinitesimal dosing system. The real
inventor of that specious trickery was an Irishman by the name of Butler.
The whole story is to be found in the "Ortus Medicinm" of Van Helmont. I
have given some account of his chapter "Butler" in different articles,
but I would refer the students of our Homoeopathic educational
institutions to the original, which they will find very interesting and
curious.

CURRENTS AND COUNTER-CURRENTS

My attack on over-drugging brought out some hostile comments and
treatment. Thirty years ago I expressed myself with more vivacity than I
should show if I were writing on the same subjects today. Some of my more
lively remarks called out very sharp animadversion. Thus my illustration
of prevention as often better than treatment in the mother's words to her
child which had got a poisonous berry in its mouth,--"Spit it out!" gave
mortal offence to a well-known New York practitioner and writer, who
advised the Massachusetts Medical Society to spit out the offending
speaker. Worse than this was my statement of my belief that if a
ship-load of miscellaneous drugs, with certain very important
exceptions,--drugs, many of which were then often given needlessly and in
excess, as then used "could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be
all the better for mankind and all the worse for the fishes." This was
too bad. The sentence was misquoted, quoted without its qualifying
conditions, and frightened some of my worthy professional brethren as
much as if I had told them to throw all physic to the dogs. But for the