al 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
appellation of PSORA, but to the less refined portion of the community by
the name of ITCH. In the words of Hahnemann's "Organon," "This Psora is
the sole true and fundamental cause that produces all the other countless
forms of disease, which, under the names of nervous debility, hysteria,
hypochondriasis, insanity, melancholy, idiocy, madness, epilepsy, and
spasms of all kinds, softening of the bones, or rickets, scoliosis and
cyphosis, caries, cancer, fungua haematodes, gout,--yellow jaundice and
cyanosis, dropsy,--"

["The degrees of DILUTION must not be confounded with those of POTENCY.
Their relations may be seen by this table:

lst dilution,--One hundredth of a drop or grain.

2d " One ten thousandth.

3d " One millionth, marked I.

4th " One hundred millionth.

5th " One ten thousand millionth.

6th " One million millionth, or one billionth, marked II.

7th " One hundred billionth.

8th " One ten thousand billionth.

9th " One million billionth, or one trillionth, marked III.

10th " One hundred trillionth.

11th " One ten thousand trillionth.