n is at hand. It might seem to some
preposterous to speak of a _demand_ for another _domestic_
Homoeopathic Practice, when half a score or more of such works are now
extant, some having come out within a very short time. The demand
arises, not from the want of Books, but from the defects of those that
exist. There is in most of them, too little point and definiteness in
the prescriptions, and a kind of vague doubting recommendation
noticeable to all, which carries the impression at once to every reader,
of a want of _confidence_ by the author in his own directions.

Again, in some of the works there is too much confusion, the symptoms
not being laid down with sufficient clearness to indicate the best
remedy. Some of the works are unnecessarily large and cumbersome, while
the real amount of valuable practical matter is comparatively meager,
obliging the reader to pay for paper and binding without the contained
value of his money. I do not claim entire perfection for this work, yet
I do claim it to be several steps in advance of the books now extant.

* * * * *

This work is my own, being the result of my practical experience and
observation. I have introduced several remedies that, though they are
familiar to me, and have been used in my practice for many years, are,
nevertheless, comparatively strange and new to most of the profession.
Of some we have no extensive provings yet published, still the provings
have been made, both upon the healthy and the sick. Their use, as
directed in this work, is in strict accordance with their
Homoeopathic relation to the symptoms for which they are prescribed.

Some may object to my practice of giving several remedies in alternation
or rotation and in quick succession. To such I would say, When you try
this mode of practice and on comparing it with the opposite one of
giving only one remedy, and that at long intervals between the doses,
find my mode to be less successful than yours, _then_ it will be time
for you to make your objections. _You_ may rely upon the vague
hypotheses of the books, and give your high dilutions singly, at long
intervals, and let your patients die for want of _real_ treatment, while
I will use lower dilutions and give two or more remedies in quick
succession and cure mine. I only speak what is in accordance with
universal observation, where the two modes are compared on equal
footing, when I affirm that, while the former _may_