multiplied observations upon the sick lead me within the last few years
to prefer giving only two shakes to medicinal liquids, whereas I formerly
used to give ten." The process of dilution is carried on in the same way
as the attenuation of the powder was done; each successive dilution with
alcohol reducing the medicine to a hundredth part of the quantity of that
which preceded it. In this way the dilution of the original millionth of
a grain of medicine contained in the grain of powder operated on is
carried successively to the billionth, trillionth, quadrillionth,
quintillionth, and very often much higher fractional divisions. A dose
of any of these medicines is a minute fraction of a drop, obtained by
moistening with them one or more little globules of sugar, of which
Hahnemann says it takes about two hundred to weigh a grain.

As an instance of the strength of the medicines prescribed by Hahnemann,
I will mention carbonate of lime. He does not employ common chalk, but
prefers a little portion of the friable part of an oystershell. Of this
substance, carried to the sextillionth degree, so much as one or two
globules of the size mentioned can convey is a common dose. But for
persons of very delicate nerves it is proper that the dilution should be
carried to the decillionth degree. That is, an important medicinal
effect is to be expected from the two hundredth or hundredth part of the
millionth of the millionth of the millionth of the millionth of the
millionth of the millionth of the millionth of the millionth of the
millionth of the millionth of a grain of oyster-shell. This is only the
tenth degree of potency, but some of his disciples profess to have
obtained palpable effects from "much higher dilutions."

The third great doctrine of Hahnemann is the following. Seven eighths at
least of all chronic diseases are produced by the existence in the system
of that infectious disorder known in the language of science by the