Spongia Usta. (Burnt Sponge).

Take of ordinary sponge a sufficient quantity, cut it in pieces, and burn it in a chose iron vessel until it is brown and can be pulverized without much trouble. Now, take of this powder four ounces, pack in a percolator, and gradually add Alcohol 76° Oj. Dose of the tincture from the fraction of a drop to ʒss.

I give the formula for the preparation of a tincture of burnt sponge, not because I think it possesses all the properties attributed to it by Homoeopaths, but that it may be tested. I have used it in some cases with seeming advantage, and have seen results following its prescription by others, that in the ordinary use of medicine we would call remarkable cures. A quotation from Jahr's Repertory will show the Homoeopathic uses:

"Diseases of the lymphatic vessels and glands; heat, with dry, hot skin, thirst, headache and delirium;; redness of the eyes, with burning and lachrymation; frequent eructations, with cutting and tearing in the stomach; relaxed feeling in the stomach, as if the stomach were open; orchitis; induration of the testes; pain in the larynx on touching it and turning the head; burning in the larynx and trachea; dryness, husky and hoarse voice; inflammation of the larynx, trachea and bronchi; croup; laryngeal and tracheal phthisis; cough, deep from the chest, with soreness and burning, or chronic cough with yellowish expectoration and hoarseness; wheezing inspirations; asthma with amenorrhoea; goitre; hard goitre."

Specific Medication and Specific Medicines, 1870, was written by John M. Scudder, M.D.