Towards
the close of his painstaking and steadily-progressive career the
aforesaid Master—in the last edition of his leading work, 1833—gave the
most expressive evidence of his belief in the virtue of attenuations,
by saying that he could scarcely name one disease which during the past
year he, and his assistants, had not treated with the most happy
results, solely by means of " olfaction," (or the practice of smelling
the highly subtilized medicinal substances) ; and he added that a
patient, even when destitute of the sense of smell, may expect an
equally perfect action, and cure, from the medicine, through the act of
olfaction, or smelling thereat; but only one such medicine may be used
(in this way) at a time. As a striking illustration of such
exquisitively refined, yet absolutely sure potency for cure, which
external means, mineral or metal, when correctly chosen serve to exert,
we would refer our readers to the instance of the Bloodstone, as given
fully at a following page. Well authenticated cases will be found
related of severe chronic bleedings becoming arrested solely by the
patient's outward use of such a stone ; and remaining arrested (in one
instance) only so long as this stone was retained in wear. The raison d'etre for
these curative effects may be sufficiently accounted for by the
recognisable presence within the substance of the Bloodstone of Iron
Oxide, in red specks, or streaks ; this Iron being of long, standing
repute with doctors as an active, and effective astringent of
bleedings. And similarly with respect to the Mineral Silica,
(Flint),—which proves quite insoluble, as hitherto supposed, and
medicinally inert,—this substance, under skilful trituration, has been
converted into a most useful medicament for cures. When applied to
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