ASCENSION DAY

In the Romish Calendar, the 39th day after Easter Sunday. A festival in commemoration of Christ's ascension. HOM-iEOMERIA. (Yunanca köken — orijinale bakınız.) Fhe name given to the physical theory of Anaxagoras, a Krecian philosopher of Clazomenaj, who flourished in the fifth century B.C. According to this hypothesis, every material substance is made up of infinitely small parts similar to itself. Hence the growth and nourishment of animals and vegetables was accounted for, by supposing the alimentary substance to be analyzed into its various component parts corresponding to the parts of the substance nourished. For instance, corn was supposed to contain particles of blood, bone, flesh, skin, , which by the proce of digestion were separated from each other, and added to the corresponding parts of the animal body. This theory bears some resemblance to that of the monads of Leibnitz in modem times. See Monad. HOM^EOPATH Y. (Yunanca köken — orijinale bakınız.) The homffiopathic method of healing diseases was first proposed by Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician, in 1796. It consists in the administration of medicines which are presumed to excite in healthy persons symptoms similar to those of the disease which is to be treated, upon the principle that similia similibus curantur. Thus they maintain that sulphur produces a pustular eruption upon the skin, and therefore cures pustular eruptions; and that quinia produces febrile symptoms, and therefore cures agues, and so forth. Not the least absurd part of this practice is the smallne of the doses in which the homo:opathic remedies are administered, it being presumed that by infinite subdivisions the virtues of remedies are proportionately refined and exalted. A grain, for instance, of any active remedy, such as aloes, is triturated with 1000 grains of sugar of milk; when this mixture is complete, a grain of it is again diluted with 1000 of the vehicle; and so of medicines which the ordinary practitioner administers in doses of one or two grains or more, the homa:opathist prescribes in the quantity of a millionth or the decillionth of a grain, or even le . It is not surprising that enthusiasts of this cast should occasionally start up; but it is remarkable that they ihould find converts among persons in their right senses. HOMAGE.564 (Lat. homagium, or hominium, from homo, [s. 578]