Biochemic remedies are administered in minimal doses.

The curative virtue of small doses may be deducted from the following facts:

Throughout nature, atoms and groups of atoms or molecules form the basis of her operations. The growth of animals and plants is the accretion of new atoms or groups of atoms to the existing mass of molecules.

In view of the fact of the action of light, itself imponderable, causing molecular movements in living plants by which carbonic acid is decomposed into carbon and oxygen, and again the action of light on the photographic plate and retina of the eye, it seems impossible of contradiction that infinitely small imponderable particles of matter can act upon the living body. The use of small doses in biochemical treatment is a chemico-physiological necessity. For instance, it is desired to have Glauber's salt reach the blood. It cannot be done by giving it in a concentrated solution. Only the intestinal canal is affected thereby, producing a watery diarrhoea in which the salt is cast out from the organism. But a diluted solution of this salt (Natmm sulph.) will enter the blood and intercellular fluids from the mouth and cesophagus; and by virtue of its hygrometric property will induce passage of an excess of water in the tissues into the venous blood, and an increase of urinary secretion.

Every biochemic remedy must be sufficiently diluted to avoid destroying the function of healthy cells, and to restore disturbed function wherever present.

In the healthy organism, animal or vegetable, the salts are found in solution, corresponding to the third, fourth and fifth decimal dilution of medicines.

The following table of analysis of blood cells in relation to the human organism will show this:

In 1,000 grammes of blood cells the amount of inorganic substances are, according to Bunge's "Text-book of Physiological and Pathological Chemistry," as follows:

In 1,000 grammes of intercellular fluid (plasma) the proportion of inorganic substances is the following:

Compare with these analyses that of milk. Of this 1 litre or 1,000 grammes, contains

One litre (a little over a quart) suffices for the daily food of an infant weighing about 6 kilogrammes (13 1/4 pounds).

Now if 6 centigrammes (3.5 of a grain) of magnesia are sufficient to cover the needful daily supply of magnesia for an infant, how minute must be the dose of magnesia to be given for a neuralgia which is caused by an inconceivably small deficiency of this salt in a minute portion of the nerve tissue.

The mineral contents of one cell are infinitely small. According to the calculations of C. Schmidt, the physiologist, each blood corpuscle contains about one-billionth part of a gramme of Kali mur. This corresponds to the twelfth decimal trituration.

Similarly active in very small doses are some of the remedies used by the old school; for instance, corrosive sublimate, of which Prof. Hugo Schulz says that a solution of 1-600,000 to 1-800,000 brings about quite powerful fermentation, one far above the normal, in a grape sugar solution to which yeast has been added. (See Berliner Klinische Wochensckrift Nov. 4, 1889).

The inorganic substances which serve plants for nutrition are taken up by them only in minimal quantities. Liebig, in his chemical letters, observes that the strongest manure of earthy phosphates in a coarse powder cannot be compared in its action with a much smaller quantity finely divided, which by its sub-division can be diffused throughout the soil. Each rootlet requires but a small quantity of nourishment where it is in contact with the soil, but for its functional activity and existence it is requisite that this minimum be present just at that spot. The insoluble mineral substances found in the soil must be dissolved by the acid juices of the fibres of the root before they can reach the vegetable organism.

A mineral, when it reaches the human stomach, is acted upon by the muriatic acid contained in the gastric juice. If this is a salt of iron, the chloride will be formed. Now if it is desirable to administer the phosphate of iron for therapeutic purposes, it must be kept out of the stomach. For this purpose a minimal dose is required - the medicine must be diluted to such a degree that its molecules may penetrate the epithelium of the mouth, pharynx, oesophagus and reach the blood through the capillary walls. Those substances that are insoluble in water must be triturated to the sixth decimal potency at least; those Soluble in water may penetrate the epithelial cells in lower dilutions.

In some of the mineral waters, the mineral salts are present only in quantities corresponding to the 6th and 8th decimal dilutions; thus in the waters of Rilchingen Magnesia phosph. is present only in the 8th, Kali mur. in the 5th and Silicea in the 6th dilution.

Dr. Behneke, in his balneological letters, correctly observes that the relative proportion and the degree of concentration in which the salt is present in the mineral water is of great importance. Many of the most famous springs owe their good results to the fact that the curative constituents are present only in greatly diluted states, and that the best results are frequently obtained from doses usually considered very minute.

The adaptability of minimal doses to the end in view is in entire harmony with physiological and chemical facts, as may be seen from the following words of Professor Valentin, the well-known physiologist:

"Nature works everywhere with an infinite number of small magnitudes, which, whether in homogeneous or heterogeneous aggregations, can only be perceived by our relatively obtuse organs of sense when in definite masses. The smallest picture which our eyes perceive proceeds from millions of waves of light; a granule of salt that we are hardly able to taste contains myriads of groups of atoms which no sentient eye will ever view".

This fact is also illustrated by the well-known experiments of Professors Kirchoff and Bunsen with common salt by taking three milligrammes (less than 1/20 of a grain), which are blown into a room containing 60 cubic metres of air. In a few minutes sodium lines appear in a flame standing at a considerable distance, which can be distinguished by the unaided eye.

Modern science gives numerous illustrations of the power of infinitesimal quantities. We will refer only to very few: one is by that most excellent observer, Darwin. In his work on Insectivorous Plants he says: "It is an astonishing fact * * * * that so inconceivably minute a quantity as 1 - 20,-000,000 of a grain" [a much smaller quantity than the 6th decimal trituration, the usual prescribed strength of the Tissue Remedies] "of ammonia phosphate should induce changes in a gland, sufficient to cause a motor impulse to be sent down the whole length of the tentacle, this impulse exciting movements through an angle of about 180o".

Now, although the presence of common salt can be perceived by the nerves of taste, even if the crude salt touch the peripheral ends of these nerves, still in such a crude and un-diluted form it is questionable whether the salt can enter and be taken up by the ducts of the neurilemma. For this purpose it seems much more reasonable to suppose that the degree of attenuation attained by the triturations is more appropriate to meet the want of the required molecules of salts.

Atropin, even when diluted more than a million-fold, produces, according to Reuter, dilatation of the pupil in man and the lower warm-blooded animals.

A litre (a little more than a quart) of milk contains about four milligrammes of iron, and a child nourished upon milk only receives therewith less than one milligramme or 1/85 of a grain of iron at a dose. If four milligrammes represent the daily supply of iron contributed to the nourishment and growth of the child (for it is distributed to all the iron-bearing cells of the organism), how small should be the dose, therapeutically considered, of a salt of iron given to allay a molecular disturbance occurring in a small cell territory, such a disturbance, for instance, as determines the hyperemia of irritation?

The amount of fluorine contained in milk has, as yet, not been quantitatively determined; the amount of it in the organism is much less than that of iron. It may be assumed that the amount of fluorine contained in milk is represented by a tenth of a milligramme; therefore, one milligramme of calcium fluoride, pro dosi, if prescribed as a remedy, would be a large dose.

The dose of a remedy prescribed according to chemical therapeutics had better be too small than too large; for if too small a repetition of it will attain the desired end, but if too large it will fail to accomplish the purpose in view.

Large doses of iron, given to cure chlorosis, disorder the stomach, pass off unused with the faeces, and in most cases leave the disease unaffected.

Hydrochloric acid, when diluted a thousand-fold with water, dissolves with ease at the temperature of the body fibrin and gluten, and this solvent power does not increase, but diminishes, if the proportion of acid in the dilution be increased. - Liebig's Chemical Letters, vol. ii, p. 119.