essentials to that which surpasses all wealth, _health of mind and
body_.

925. Homoeopathy.

926. Principle of Homoeopathy.

As homoeopathy is now practised so widely and, indeed, preferred to
the older system in many families, the Domestic Pharmacopoeia could
scarcely lay claim to be considered complete without a brief mention
of the principal remedies used and recommended by homoeopathic
practitioners, and the disorders for which these remedies are
specially applicable. The principle of homoeopathy is set forth in the
Latin words "_similia similibus curantur_," the meaning of which is
"likes are cured by likes."

The meaning of this is simply that the homoeopathist in order to cure
a disease, administers a medicine which would produce in a perfectly
healthy subject, symptoms _like_, but not _identical_ with or the
_same_ as, the symptoms to counteract which the medicine is given. The
homoeopathic practitioner, therefore, first makes himself thoroughly
acquainted with the symptoms that are exhibited by the sufferer;
having ascertained these, in order to neutralize them and restore the
state of the patient's health to a state of equilibrium, so to speak,
he administers preparations that would produce symptoms of a like
character in persons in good health.

It is not said, be it remembered, that the drug can produce in a
healthy person the disease from which the patient is suffering: it is
only advanced by homoeopathists that the drug given has the power of
producing in a person in health, symptoms similar to those of the
disease under which the patient is languishing, and that the correct
mode of treatment is to counteract the disease symptoms by the
artificial production of similar symptoms by medicinal means, or in
other words, to suit the medicine to the disorder, by a previously
acquired knowledge of the effects of the drug, by experiment on a
healthy person.

927. Allopathy

Allopathy is the name given to the older treatment of disorders, and
the name is obtained from the fact, that the drugs given, do not
produce symptoms corresponding to those of the disease for whose
relief they are administered as in homoeopathy. The introduction of
the term is contemporary with homoeopathy itself. It was merely given
to define briefly the distinction that exists between the rival modes
of treatment, and it has been accepted and adopted b