out leaving any part of it in the lower stages, he will soon find it impossible to proceed. The ratio of increase being one hundred; a few manipulations will soon convince him of his inability to complete the process. But if he carries forward only one drop each time, he can easily arrive at the thirtieth attenuation.
Let the drop of medicine used in the beginning be whatever it might, of the deepest color or most virulent poison, no perceptible vestige of it will be found in the last hundred drops. No mortal can, by any sensible or physical signs, by any chemical tests or any medicinal effects, distinguish the vial containing the last hundred drops from another vial of simple alcohol. The quantity of the medicine in this hundred drops is only equal to that which would be contained in any hundred drops taken from an ocean of the size of the earth multiplied sixty-one times. But we are told that much higher attenuations are often used, and that the drops so obtained possess immense power. Can human credulity be taxed beyond this? The idea surpasses the utmost stretch of the most gigantic imagination. After
