the nervous power we are now considering, for its permanence of colour, its strength, and its growth. This fact in physiology is quite established. It is so continually demonstrated before our eyes, that we may wonder how the inventors and dealers in quack remedies for baldness and grey hairs succeed so well in imposing upon their customers with their bear's grease, and Macassar oil, and balms of strange names, and such like. These men have also published their treatises on the hair; and they tell their readers how much the roots of the hairs are nourished and strengthened by their patent preparations! Their success in deceiving is no such very great wonder, however, when we consider that their customers are of a certain class of mankind -chiefly, I suppose, the young, the vain, and the uninformed, who are so anxious concerning their outward adornment.

A moment's reflection must suffice to settle the point, that no external and local application can possibly furnish nervous power, on which alone the growth of the hair depends. As I wrote before, in the other volume-"Never was there one single hair produced by such means, and most assuredly there never will be."

It becomes quite plain that whatever gives tone and vigour to the nervous system will also favour the growth and healthy condition of the hair; and nothing else will do it. We may understand this when we think on the causes which operate most powerfully in destroying and changing the colour of the hair. Such causes are invariably of an exhausting nature, such as severe mental agony, so often endured by the unfortunate of mankind who mourn in prisons and dungeons.

How much of this was seen at the French Revolution of 1792! It is in the history of that period that we read how many of the victims of human cruelty became rapidly greyheaded and bald, even in a few hours. The poor Queen Marie Antoinette was one remarkable instance; for she could scarcely be recognised on the scaffold as the youthful and beautiful woman previously to her brief imprisonment. Grief had distorted her features, and had caused her dark ringlets to become grey! There have been innumerable instances of a similar

kind; the same effect of the same cause of fear, grief, and care, is of constant occurrence. The relation of a few other authentic cases may serve to impress the interesting fact on your mind, as well as the correct physiological doctrine respecting the same.

A boy of 15 or 16 years of age had a rope

tied around him, and was let down some yards from a very high cliff by his schoolfellow, for the purpose of robbing hawks' nests. He could not draw him up again, and the adventurous youth was left suspended for a few hours. When proper assistance was obtained, and he was rescued from his frightful position, his dark hair had become white.

An affectionate lady of some 20.years of age was affianced to a youth, and the day of their marriage was fixed. He was at a distance, and had to take a sea-voyage in order to be present at the appointed time and place. Instead of the expected bridegroom a messenger arrived to announce to her that her lover was shipwrecked and drowned. She instantly became insensible, and in 12 hours her raven ringlets became white

as snow.

It is a fact in history that the hair of Sir Thomas Moore became quite grey in the night before his execution. You recollect the case of the Austrian soldier John Libeny, who attempted the assassination of the Emperor Francis Joseph in 1855. As related in the Times newspaper-" His hair, which was black, had become nearly snow white in the preceding 48 hours, and hung wildly about his head; his eyes seemed to be starting from their sockets, and his whole frame was convulsed."

And you know that Orsini, who lately erred so greatly in his vindictive attempt to assassinate the Emperor Napoleon III. at Paris, had the hair of his head changed from black to white during the brief period between his arrest and his execution.

The horrid dungeons of the Neapolitan and Austrian despot could furnish, at this moment, many instances of the physiological fact I am alluding to-instances of cruel imprisonment and torture of unoffending men. The correspondents of our

leading newspapers inform us that it is no uncommon circumstance for such prisoners to have their hair blanched through mental agony.

You can now comprehend the fact that the water treatment has so frequently produced very favourable effects on the hair of the head, as I have witnessed, in both improving its quality and causing its reproduction in individuals of suitable age. The action of the water processes, with that of the auxiliary means, is markedly on the nervous power, to exalt and increase it.

You can now also account for the destruction of the hair by the use of tobacco, which destroys nervous power. Of this effect of tobacco I am quite convinced by the very numerous instances which I have witnessed, and many of them were of a very striking character. Hence, also, the debauchee, the drunkard, and the gourmand become bald and greyheaded before their time. Frequently, also, the hard student and close thinker becomes so prematurely, from over-exertion and consequent exhaustion of the nervous power.

In the action of all causes of disease, be they of mental or of physical nature, the innate curative force is depressed or deranged by them. They act primarily on the nerves. Yet they do not uniformly and equally affect the entire nervous systems, animal and organic. Some physical causes, we know, act more decidedly on certain textures or organs. Mental causes, likewise, have their action directed to certain organs, to disturb their functions. The ancients noticed this circumstance; and seeing that the indulgence of certain passions induced derangement of certain organs, they assigned accordingly a local habitation for each. Thus the heart became, with them, the seat of love; the liver was supposed to be the seat of jealousyjaundice-eyed jealousy; the brain was the seat of anger.

Further, you must have observed that certain mental emotions more particularly affect certain nerves-that joy, acting on particular nerves, gives rise to the muscular action which constitutes smiling-that a certain combination or greater degree of this will cause laughter-that hatred, through other

nervous influence, will cause the frown, by corrugating the skin of the brow. Again, grief gives rise to sighing.

I have further to apprize you, that a special tendency of action belongs also to different medicines; so that their operation is directed to particular textures and organs of the body. The knowledge of this fact has led to the classification of medicines in the old or Allopathic mode of administering them, according to their supposed power or tendency of action; as purgatives, diuretics, emetics, sudorifics, &c. &c.

The action of such medicines on the human body is always in relation to its condition at the time of their administration; as I noticed to you respecting the function of absorption. This becomes most active, and is most easily affected by drugs, in a lowered, exhausted, and empty state of the body. In the opposite state of plethora, or fulness, it becomes very difficult to move the absorbents to action. Again, as to the allopathic drugs called tonics, or strengthening ones, they will only act beneficially in a weakened state of the system. And sudorifics, or sweat-causing medicines, will only act as such under certain states of the body. The action of medicines is ever very precarious and uncertain.

As correctly remarked by Dr Paris in his Pharmacologia, "The modus operandi of remedies (medicines), or the great principles upon which they effect salutary changes in the morbid states of the body, is involved in considerable obscurity, and has given rise to much ingenious speculation and scientific controversy."

On the special action of medicines is founded the more modern system of Homœopathy. But it rests on a much more definite and intelligible principle than does the old system of medical practice termed Allopathy.

LETTER IX.

HOMEOPATHY AND ALLOPATHY-THEIR DEFINITION-DR F. R. HORNER'S LETTER TO THE GOVERNORS OF THE HULL INFIRMARY-BRIEF EXPLANATION OF HOMEOPATHIC SCIENCE-CASES OF CURE-THE WATER CURE, AND CASES OF DOMESTIC TREATMENT-CASE OF SUDDEN DEATH-CHRISTIAN TRIUMPH-BONAPARTE AND BARON LARRY, &c. &c.

MY DEAR SIR,

In order to prepare you for the few following remarks, I will here tell you the meaning and derivation of the two terms Homeopathy and Allopathy. I must, firstly, apprize you that the maxim of Homœopathy-similia similibus curantur -like are cured by like—includes its fundamental doctrine, namely, that the cure of a disease by drugs is most rapidly and safely effected by that medicine which has the power of producing, in large doses, and on the healthy body, a morbid state most similar to that of the disease to be cured. For instance, Peruvian bark will produce, in a healthy individual, and in large doses, the morbid state most similar to ague, or intermittent fever. And mercury will produce the state most similar to venereal diseases. And sulphur will produce an eruption on the skin most similar to the itch. And these three drugs become the proper Homœopathic remedies for the three diseases here mentioned. On the same principle of simile are all Homœopathic remedies administered.

But further, in order to ascertain what morbid states of the body any medicines will produce, and consequently against what diseases they will become the best remedies, they must be tested or proved singly on the healthy body.

Again, That medicines must be administered singly and alone when used for the cure of disease. Again, That for the cure of disease, medicines must be given in much smaller doses than for the production of the morbid state on the healthy body.

Remember, that it is a fixed law in physiology that no two