HO M (EOP ATH Y
FAIRLY REPRESENTED.
A REPLY  TO PROFESSOR  SIMPSON'S
" HOMIEOPATHY " MISREPRESENTED.
BY
WILLIAM HENDERSON, M.D.,
PROFESSOR OF GENERAL PATHOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH.
FIRST AMERICAN, FROM TEE LAST EDINBURGH EDITION.
PHILADELPHIA:
LINDSAY & BLAKISTON.
1 854.



PROF. SIMPSON'S HOM(CEOPATHY.
LINDSAY & BLAKISTON
L1AVE JUST PUBLISHED,
HOM(EOPATHY:
ITS TENETS AND TENDENCIES,
THEORETICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND THERAPEUTICAL.
BY
JAMES Y. SIMPSON, M, D.,
PROFESSOR OF MIDWIFERY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, IETC., ETC.
IN ONE V OLUME, OCTAVO.
Price $1,25.
WM. S. YOUNG, PRINTER.



CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION,.             13-24
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION,.                            25-55
CHAPTER  I.
Comparative View of Homoeopathy and Allopathy, as adapted to
acute diseases; in which the latter is proved to be a fatal delusion
-Homoeopathic Statistics proved to be accurate — Alleged success
of Lkennec and army surgeons in inflammation of the lungs shown
to be incredible-Allopathic cases, when selected, proved to present
a much greater mortality than the Homoeopathic unselected-Allopathic treatment of pneumonia destroys human life-Acute inflammation of the lungs better left to nature than to AllopathyDietl's experiments-Allopathic fatality in pleurisy, peritonitis, &c.
-Pretended Allopathic cures of consumption more extravagant'
than those of the most ignorant Homceopaths,.           57-108
CHAPTER II.
Outline of the life and labours of Hahnemann; his parentage; early
devotion to learning; medical education; relinquishment of practice from disgust at its uncertainty; distinction as a chemist; his
first conception of the homeeopathic law, and return to practiceAllopathy and Anti-pathy afford no hope to practical medicineThe proving of medicines the road to Homceopathy-First publications on a new principle, or the necessity of ascertaining the actionsof medicines on the healthy-Persecution of, Klnigslutter-Discovery of the prophylactic power of Belladonna-Proofs of its truth,
and refutation of Dr. Simpson's objections,              109-149



Xll                          CONTENTS.
CHAPTER  III.
PAGE
Hahnemann settles in Leipsic in 1810-Poverty and abuse the attendants on his devotion to medical reform-His numerous Essays on
Homoeopathy, and on speculative systems in medicine, &c.-Publication of the Organon in 1810-Small-pox and vaccination as illustrations of homoeopathicity among diseases-Dr. Simpson's gross
misrepresentation of Hahnemann on this subject-Dr. Miihry and
Dr. Willan-The substantial accuracy of Hahnemann's statements
regarding small-pox-Remarkable errors of Dr. Simpson-Measles
and hooping-cough-Dr. Simpson charges Hahnemann with falsehood-Proofs that the charge is untrue-Publication of the Pure
Mlateria Medica, &c.-Persecutions at Leipsic-Hahnemann obliged
to leave it in 1821-Residence at Coethen-Publication of his Chronic Diseases —The Psoric doctrine shown to be an allopathic doctrine
— The itch-doctrine not a doctrine of Hahnemann at all-The Psoric
doctrine substantially correct-Proofs from Willan, Budd, &c;, &c.
— Removal to Paris in 1835; his death in 1843,... 150-181
CHAPTER IV.
Eleven notable charges against Homoeopathy-Hahnemann's change
of opinion; his treatment of Allopathy; his morbid anatomy; his
erroneous notions of the moon; the character of some of his disciples; erroneous estimate of him by Dr. Mure; Homoeopathy countenanced by great folks and by the clergy; Homceopathists don't
agree in every thing; Homceopathy not universally adopted; Homceopathy is witchcraft; Homoeopathy is avarice,..    182-226
CHAPTER V.
The Homoeopathic law, provings, and doses-Dr. Simpson's four "instances " against Homceopathy proved to be in its favour-The use
of cinchona, vaccination, lemon-juice, and iodine, not due to allopathic science, but to chance or popular opinion-Allopathic specifics shown to be properly Homoeopathic-Dr. Simpson's errors and
mis-statements regarding the provings —Homoeopathic doses justified by experience-Andral's experiments conducted in ignorance
and bad faith,.                                           227-285
APPENDIX,..                       287-300



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
So short a time (scarcely three weeks) has elapsed between the publication of the first edition of this work, and
the demand for a second, that, besides the correction of such
oversights of composition as were scarcely avoidable in a
treatise written somewhat hurriedly and amidst many interruptions, there is little or no difference between this new
edition and its predecessor.
I have observed nothing in the public journals, which have
noticed the work, that calls for any reply; nothing indeed
but the personal abuse, and the party mis-statements, which
my experience of the habits of some of our professional opponents, and of the blamable partiality of some newspaper
editors, who are of course unacquainted with the subject in
dispute, had led me to anticipate, and accustomed me to disregard. That the more important part of this work, the
statistics of acute inflammations, can be succssfully attacked'
by the allopathic party, I have taken too much pains with
the facts and calculations to have the smallest misgiving.
That they will attempt it is to be expected-they cannot
help themselves, they must put on the appearance of disputing the results to which I have been led, but I defy them
to unsettle a single conclusion which is recorded in that part
of the work.



14           PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
The only event which has happened since the publication
of the first edition, that calls for particular notice, it the appearance of a paper, to which the following observations refer:
In a late number of an allopathic journal,* a passage occurs that would have demanded some notice from me, (acquainted as I am with the particulars of the case to which it
refers,) even though I had no personal concern with, it. And
it is not in the very least degree because I am the" hoinceopathist" referred to in that passage, it is not even on account of the manner in which the reference is made to myself and the practice I prefer, that I think it both expedient
and proper to comment upon it in this place. Personal responsibility for the way in which I discharge my professional
duties, I am of course prepared to incur; and with the support of my deliberate convictions of what is true in medical
science, and right in professional conduct, it is a very insignificant matter to me by whom that truth is condemned, or
that conduct aspersed. It is by no personal motive regarding either myself or the author of the article to which I
have referred, that I am actuated in my present purpose.
The narrative I am about to quote suggests far more important reflections than are merely personal to either of us,
and it'is to these that I wish to direct the attention of the
reader.
In considering the deaths from dysentery and diarrhea,
the author of the "Investigation," after stating that eleven
such deaths had occurred in the quinquennial period, from
1845 to 1850, to which his labours were confined, observes,"A scrutiny of the certificates shows that five of the eleven
* An investigation of the Deaths in the Standard Assurance Company. By
Robert Christison, M. I., V. P. R. S. E., Professor of Materia Medica in the
University of Edinburgh, and Ordinary Physician to the Queen in Scotland.
Monthly Journal of Medical Science, August 1853.



B1G. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
homeeopathist, &c., &c., was quite uncalled for,-a voluntary:ihtrusion of irrelevant and unedifying particulars into a disquisition on life assurance. I draw attention to this matter
in order to remark that, in referring to this case, the author
of the Investigation obviously did not feel himself hampered
by want of space, and compelled by an imperative necessity
of being brief, and of excluding whatever did not bear upon
the immediate and primary objects of his paper, to omit mentioning any important particulars bearing upon the issue of
the case, but considered himself at liberty to say all he had
a mind to say.
Secondly, The reason for the case in question being added
to the list of first-class lives is very extraordinary. It is
solely on the ground that a board of " directors," composed
of non-professional persons, regarded the gentleman as a
"healthy citizen." " The certificates supply no information:"
nothing is ascertained regarding the illnesses he may have
had, or the care in regard to diet, &c., he may have needed
in order to preserve his healthy appearance, and no medical
evidence exists as to any one point in his actual condition at
the time of his being insured, or as to anything in his previous history. I am bound, however, to say, that this is the
only instance throughout the investigation in which the usual
evidences regarding the quality of a life are entirely dispensed with. In all the other cases the strictness necessary
to entitle the Investigation to the confidence of the reader
appears to be maintained with scrupulous propriety.
But, under this second head, there is much more to perplex and surprise than the particulars I have just noticed.
The question occurs, What "directors" are referred to as
the parties whose decision regarding the health of the gentleman is held to be so conclusive?  That it cannot be the
board who presided over the institution when the gentleman
in question was admitted to the benefits of insurance is obvi



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.         17
ous, for of the fifteen gentlemen who composed that'iody in1828, when the insurance in question was effectoed I under":
stand that thirteen at least have been long dead, and the
author of the Investigation, whose connexion with the compaiqy is of a comparatively recent date, can therefore have
had no opportunity of learning their opinions on the subject.
Not one of these gentlemen belonged to the board of directors in 1849, the year in which the individual whose case
is the theme of this disquisition died. Nor can any of the
more permanent office-bearers of the company have given
information regarding the opinion of these directors,-for
the manager of 1828 has been for many years in another
part of the world, and the secretary has been long out of the
world altogether. The only other directors who can be supposed to be the parties to whose opinion the reference is
made in the Investigation, are those who were members of
the board during the period embraced by the Investigation,
which includes, of course, the year 1849, when the death in
question took place. But it cannot have been intended by
the author of the Investigation to appeal to the directors of
1849 as cognizant of the existing and habitual state of health
of a citizen twenty-one years before, which they had no opportunity of personally knowing, even were they competent
to judge, and of which they had avowedly no documentary
evidence to enable them to form an opinion. Their testimony, therefore, can only have been reasonably appealed to
in regard to the apparent health of their fellow-citizen, (who
was also, by the by, their fellow director,) at the time he
became affected with the acute disease which made him "a
victim to the delusions of Homoeopathy."
Now, what are the facts? There cannot have been a single director of 1849 who was not aware that their fellowcitizen, during the winter and part of the spring preceding
his death, and down to the time at which he was seized with



18           PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
the acute disease of which he died, had been "breaking up,"
his health undermined by chronic cough and chronic disease
of the stomach, and, for aught I know, by allopathic drugging, until, long before his last and acute illness, he had become sallow, haggard, and greatly reduced in strength and
flesh! All this happening to a man in his sixty-eighth year,
constituted a state of general decay which no medical man of
experience, be he of what party he may, can deny to have
been one of the most unfavourable conditions in which it was
possible for a severe attack of acute dysentery to have occurred. His age itself was an unfavourable circumstance,
but it was as nothing compared to the inroads which chronic
disease had made on his whole constitution. Nearly about
the same time, I witnessed quite as sudden and acute an
attack of dysentery in a gentleman of seventy-six, but he was
not worn with previous disease as well as old age, and he
recovered in a few days.
I was first consulted by the gentleman whose case is adverted to in the Investigation on the 31st of March, 1849.
The notes of his chronic illness, which I committed to writing
at the time, were as follows:In the beginning of December last he became affected with
cough and expectoration, and continues to be so to a considerable degree, though now better than formerly. No
physical signs of disease of the chest.
Tongue clean in front, loaded and pasty behind. Appetite much diminished, and he soon tires of anything. His
habitual sensation is that he is already full, and needs no
food. After eating he experiences an uneasy turning sensation in the stomach, and nausea, producing a desire to vomit,
or a wish that he had eaten nothing. Sometimes he does
vomit, and experiences relief. After eating, too, he is liable
to feel as if a hard lump existed in the stomach. He has
always much flatulence after food, and is liable to be af



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.         19
fected with nausea, and filling of the mouth with water, at
any time. Bowels pretty regular. In the evenings after
dinner he is inclined to sit cowering over the fire, is taciturn
and chilly. All these symptoms date also from the beginning of winter. He had some homoeopathic remedies prescribed.
5th.3pril.-Cough and expectoration much less.  No
flatulence till last night, after an indigestible meal; appetite
much improved. No "burden " about the stomach till yesterday, after the indigestible food referred to. No sickness,
Altogether better, and feels a new activity and pleasure in
business. Much less chilliness. More medicine.
16th. —Ias been really very well. Knows a great difference in his strength. Continue medicine.
It was while thus improving in health, but before time
enough had been afforded to enable the improvement to repair the ravages made by the previous months of disease,
that he was seized, on the evening of the 22d of April, with
dysentery, in consequence of prolonged exposure to cold;
and on the following day, the first of my attendance for the
acute disease, it had acquired a character of significant severity: the pulse was 100 in the minute, skin hot and dry,
thirst, and the evacuations already sanguineous and slimy.
Had the history of this case prior to the last illness been
even hinted at, however inadequately, in the Investigation,
I should not have considered myself called upon to make any
comments on the opinion of the allopathic author regarding
the unsuitableness of the homceopathic treatment. It was
not to be expected that, with his views and practical unacquaintance with Homceopathy, he should have entertained
any other opinion, or have hesitated to express it. Those
who practise homceopathically have no right to demand that
their cases shall not be commented on by physicians' who dissent from their principles.  IHomceopathists may, indeed,



20           PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
even when their cases are represented by their opponents
fully and fairly, very reasonably observe that they do not
pretend to cure every case of acute inflammation that may
occur in their practice, and they may, with undeniable justice, retort on their too stringent critics, that Allopathy, in
every city and hamlet in Christendom, in the best as well as
in' the worst hands, loses many a case of acute inflammation,
dysentery among the rest, at every age and in every phase
of general health, good and bad, that human creatures can
possess. These remarks remind me of an anecdote which I
have heard in connexion with the case I have been~describing. At a dinner party in this city, soon after the decease
of this gentlemen, two allopathic physicians commented with
much emphasis on the unhappy event: "' It was very melancholy,-really dreadful,-a sad, sad business," &c., &c.; and
many the shake of the head, and half-sorrowful, half-indignant phrase, betokened or appeared to betoken their wounded
feelings. A non-medical friend who had reason to think
more favourably of the offending pra ctice, began to shake
his head too, and to groan in concert, while now and then
he muttered to the gratified ears of the two, " Sad, very sad,the most melancholy case I have known for years."  "Yes,"
said the two; "dreadful,-you may well say so."  "I was
thinking," said the other, "of poor J. I.; a man in the prime
of life; little above 50; a rising man; really a great loss;
and so likely to have lived long."  "But, but," said one of
the Allopaths, "he wasn't treated homceopathically!" " True,
true; but still a very melancholy case,-very melancholy,
-and of dysentery too! "
Though we have no right, as I have said, to demand that
our cases shall not be commented on by our opponents, we
have a right to expect and to require that they shall not be
misrepresented, or, what comes to the same thing, represented in such a way as to leave abundant room for misconstruc



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.        21
tion. In the present instance I am far from saying or insinuating that the misrepresentation or room for misconstruction was deliberate and intentional. But I do say, that care
was not taken by the author of the Investigation so to represent the case as to allow his readers to judge for themselves whether it was really such as would have made recovery a probable occurrence in any circumstances or under
any treatment. And, in addition to the previous history of
the patient, he should have mentioned that, on examination
of the body, the mucous membrane of the stomach was found
to bear traces of the chronic disease which had for so long a
time made healthy and healthful digestion impossible. My
informant as to this point was merely a non-medical member
of the family, to whom the fact had been communicated,
so that I am not prepared to say to what extent the anatomical change had gone.
In other particulars, of minor importance, the Investigation is so incorrect as to furnish the clearest proofs that the
author wrote without reflection, and without notes to assist
his memory., What does he know of the "swift and steady
advances" of the disease? Nothing. On the second day of
my attendance, I had hopes that the disease would yield, for
the pulse had fallen in frequency from 100 to 78 in the minute,
during the previous twenty-four hours.  And though the
amendment did not advance, the pulse on the last day of my
attendance had not risen above 86, while it continued of good
size and strength. Besides, though they always maintained
the peculiar character they exhibited at my first visit, the
other symptoms did not increase so swiftly and steadily as
the author of the report very uninformedly asserts. At my
last visit, about 5 P.M. on the fourth day of the disease, I
found the pulse 86, full and soft, the skin warm, the evacuations scanty, though about once an hour.
The allopathic physician visited the gentleman three hours



22           PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
afterwards, "but only," he says, "to see the patient in a
state of hopeless collapse, afflicted with incessant, fluid,
bloody, involuntary discharges, a fluttering pulse, a husky
voice, and cold extremities;" were all this correct, this
great change in three hours' time, then it would be also correct that "he expired early in the course of the fifth day,"
or that immediately following the day (the fourth) on which
this physician had made his first visit. But, and this is a remarkable instance of the strange peculiarity that characterizes the whole narrative, the patient did not die till the day
after, or the sixth day  I don't know whether it will still
be held as the " swiftest case of dysentery" the reporter ever
saw. I have heard that the other case referred to in my
anecdote was a swift one, but I do not assert that it was, for
I do not know. At all events, the question comes now to be,
why was this case so very swift? Had a day and a half of
Allopathy nothing to do with the swiftness? I don't mean
to say that the patient would have recovered but for Allopathy, for I am not at all sure that he would, but I incline
to think that he would have lived longer. The author of
the Investigation hints that it was the swiftest case he ever
saw, because he had never before seen a case of dysentery
"left to nature," which he facetiously suggests to be equivalent to being left to Homoeopathy. I am obliged to contradict him again, and to assert that he has seen cases left as
long to nature seriously, as he affirms of this case facetiously.
In his notice of the dysentery of 1826,* he says certain effects followed his treatment "if the patient was seen within
three or four days," and he mentions of a particular case
which died in his hands, that he "entered the hospital on
the eighth day of his illness." Now we have no express affirmation that these cases had had no treatment, prior to
* Eiinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, 1829.



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.         23
their being "seen" by the writer of th'e report, or before admission into his hospital wards; but the whole tenor of his
remarks justifies the conclusion that there had been no treatment previous to his own,-for he is giving an account of the
alleged effects of a certain medicine on the peculiar symptoms
of dysentery, and, in order to be a fair and unequivocal,account, it must refer to dysentery untampered with, and not
sophisticated by drugs previously administered.  Besides,
every hospital physician in Europe must have seen cases of
severe and acute dysentery that had undergone no medical
treatment whatever for four, five, six days, and even more,
previous to their being admitted as hospital patients. The
poor everywhere are well known to put off the services of
the doctor as long as they can. The author of the Investigation, in addition to what he knows on this subject from his
own hospital experience, will find instances in point recorded
in Mr. Brown's account of the dysentery of Glasgow,* where
cases are mentioned that were seven and fourteen days without medical treatment, though the disease was so severe as
to prove ultimately fatal. After all this, it certainly must
appear very strange that the author of the Investigation
should endeavour to appal his readers by the allegation that
as he had never seen a case of acute dysentery "left to nature" for four days, the rapidity of the example he comments upon must have been due to that unprecedented circumstance. Not only has he seen cases left as long to nature,
as I have shown, but he knew, or ought to have known, that
even when not "left to nature,"-that when enjoying or enduring the inflictions of allopathy, cases of acute dysentery
have been fatal in six days, and that, therefore, the case he
animadverts upon was not by any means a unique one. In
Mr. Wilson's notice of the dysentery of Glasgow, in 1827,
* Glasgow Medical Journal, vol. i.



24           PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
it is remarked, "death sometimes took place so early as the
sixth day," which was the date of the death selected for special remark in the Investigation. To be sure it is there
made to occur on the fifth day, but that allegation, as has
been seen, is incorrect, and in consequence of its being so
renders the exultation of the author over the imaginary
swiftness of the case rather awkward.
Before concluding these remarks on dysentery, I may be
allowed to ask, if one of the eleven cases referred to in the
Investigation "fell a victim to the delusions of HIomceopathy," what delusion proved fatal to the other ten? Allopathy does not appear to be always a very successful opponent
of acute dysentery, for the author of the Investigation admits that, in 1826, the allopathic mortality was 1" dreadful,"
-twenty deaths out of- eighty cases, or one in four! No
doubt the disease was epidemic, and epidemic dysentery
often presents a considerable proportion of severe cases;
but I ask any physician of candour and experience to say, if,
among eighty old gentlemen, broken down by chronic disease, so many as three out of four, or even one out of four,
would have escaped under the best allopathic treatment?
And yet the investigation more than insinuates, pretty broadly
intimates, that the case it so partially represents died for
want of Allopathy!
Lastly, HIomoeopathy is said to be "happily on the wane
in this city." The correctness of the Investigation in other
particulars, will not dispose the readers of this account of
it to put much faith in this crowning allegation. No doubt
the wish was father to the thought, in the absence of a m6re
legitimate parent. On this point, so momentous to Allopathists of every grade, I must content myself with referring to
page 205 of this work.



PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
AFTER many announcements, from time to time, of the approaching event, the Professor of Midwifery brought his tedious gestation of twelve months to a happy issue in the middle
of March last. Anticipation was high among the professional
kindred, the allopathic side of the family, during the interesting period; and we of the other party, who are but the
step-sons of " our ancient mother," could gather from the significant looks of our half-brothers that we were expected to
gird up our loins for a speedy retreat on the appearance of
the young stranger. He was to be, for modern times, quite
an unprecedented production; without a parallel, in fact,
since the famous progeny of the cock's egg, whose breath,
and even very look, was fatal. We would take no hint, notwithstanding, however kindly intended, thinking it would be
time enough to pack up our chattels, if we must do so, after
we had looked the awful creature in the face; for, great as
our credulity is said to be, we had no faith in prodigies, and
a strong suspicion that the powers of the new cockatrice, introduced with so much noise, would prove as imaginary as
those of its fabulous predecessor. And now that the thing is
3



26                     PREFACE.
fairly before us, "combed, wattled, and spurred like the
dunghill cock with a serpent's tail," as the heralds have it,
we hope to be pardoned for laughing at the ridiculous astonishment of our friends on the other side, at the absurd object
presented to them by the parturient professor. We don't
mean it offensively, and hope they will take it in good part;
for we can honestly assure them that we never felt so kindly
towards them in our lives, or so disinclined to injure their
feelings. We are quite aware that this was looked upon as
their last hope, and we are not the people to triumph over
chop-fallen opponents with an ill-timed merriment-when it
can possibly be restrained. But really the present is altogether an exceptional case; and if we do look a degree or
two merrier than in the strictness of friendly sympathy we
ought, it is in a great measure because we hope that this last
and sore disappointment will disenchant them, ere we part, of
their delusion, both as to their own position and ours, and be
the means of a better understanding among us for the future,
if not of a speedy and entire coincidence of opinion regarding
the matters at present in dispute.
Dr. Simpson's tactics strongly remind me of the ingenious
conduct of the Dutch in Charles the Second's time, who
kindled bonfires and set their bells a-ringing whenever they
had been thrashed at sea, in order to evade the acknowledgment or appearance of disaster. For, I believe, it was
generally admitted, and even by not a few of his own party,
that in the last engagement he was very handsomely beaten;
his personal authority as to facts and doctrines shown to be
quite infinitesimal; his information to be singularly defective,
not only in homoeopathic matters, but in the truths that are
common to all medical science; his logic to have its point
turned destructively towards himself and his friends; and his
theological zeal to be entirely out of place. Yet, with the
face of an old Dutchman, here he is again with as much of



PREFACE.                     27
the former tattered material as he can get to hang together,
and as much new canvass of the same originally bad quality
as his crippled spars will carry, trying to look as if he was
unconscious of defeat. But the device won't do: the former
discomfiture can be forgotten only in the new calamity of a
still greater. This I may venture to promise, and without
laying myself open to the charge of vain confidence; for such
is the mode of attack Dr. Simpson has selected, that almost
any one might beat him who chose to take the trouble. Nay,
the work is, for the most part, done to his hand; for the
author's mind has been so confused with the undigested mass
of raw material he had swallowed in his twelvemonth of hard
reading, that he frequently contradicts and refutes in one
page what he had affirmed on the preceding, and loads his
paper with commonplace dissertations on human credulity
and knavery, which tell with double effect when turned the
other way.
In his preface, Dr. Simpson, alluding to me, takes occasion
to observe in the Dutch style,-" It is said that in a hopeless
and hollow law-suit, an English barrister had his brief on the
day of trial handed to him with this note:' No case; but take
a chance of decision in our favour by personal abuse of the
opposite counsel.' The homceopathic author of the principal
reply to my previous pamphlet seems to have taken up the
same tactics as the best or only line of defence for his system.
And I have no wish to disturb him in it; more particularly
as, like an unhappy lawyer pleading a bad cause, he has himself; in my opinion, evidently no faith whatever in his own
irrelevant arguments and diversified mis-statements."  On
the first of these charges, which always falls so easily into
the imagination of persons in Dr. Simpson's situation, I would
observe, that I am of course aware that my former reply was
at least as severe (for plain outspoken truth is sometimes very
severe) as there was any occasion for, and that others, besides



28                     PREFACE.
the individual who naturally felt it the most, are of opinion
that the lash was laid on with more than necessary good will.
I would, however, remind the objectors that, as Lord Jeffrey
says, there are occasions " when severity becomes a duty"a duty to the public, to the erring brother, and to one's self;
and I would remind them, moreover, of the circumstances in
which that reply was written. To the persecuted party, the
occasion appeared one of life or death to their principles and
themselves, a time for courage, energy, and plain speaking.
The aggressors seemed powerful, merciless, and bent on mischief to the uttermost, so that we had but one choice-to
crouch and be crushed like cowards, or to face the odds that
were against us, as devoted men who neither gave nor looked
for quarter. There was Dr. Simpson, President of the Royal
College of Physicians, with all the weight of a "European
reputation" in his arm, and all the strength of Colleges and
Societies, and hordes of " free companions," at his back, intent
on destroying us root and branch, and careless of the weapons
he employed, if they seemed but fitted for his purpose. The
emergency appeared critical and dangerous in no ordinary
degree, and to call for prompt and decisive measures. It is
all very well, after the champion-on the credit of whose supposed personal authority and character so much of the issue
was made to depend-was disarmed, prostrated, and "disembowelled," as one of his own party expressed it, for mere
spectators to say, that there was an unnecessary violence in
the treatment he received. Skilful and experienced artillerymen can so estimate the strength of their powder as to
make it do its work economically, but I had no scientific data,
and no practice, to guide me as to the precise force that was
needed gently to upset a President, loaded with the " European" thing and what not, and buttressed behind by so many
backers. As to the more important of the latter, the Colleges,
they had so long ruled the profession, and lorded it over the



PREFACE.                    29
" sea of troubles" which afflict the public, that it is no wonder
their power and importance, as props to the bellicose Professor of Midwifery, appeared greater than we now know
them to be. We mistook them for something like- the bluff
and bearded Venitian Doge of the thirteenth century, who
could say, and effectually too, with his war-ships at his elbow,
to Pope and Pagan who would fish forsooth in the Adriatic,
"Be off-that sea is ours!" It is all very well to laugh at
their peremptory words, now that they are discovered rather
to resemble a certain sapient bird, of which Goldsmith relates the following anecdote:-"Once upon a time, a goose
fed its young by a pond side; and a goose in such circumstances is always extremely proud, and excessively punctilious.
If any other animal, without the least design to offend, happened to pass that way, the goose was immediately at it. The
pond, she said, was hers, and she would maintain her right to
it, and support her honour, while she had a bill to hiss or a
wing to flutter;" and then he goes on to say, how a mastiff,
which I take to have been a type of ourselves, the strongjawed llomceopathists, chanced to pass by, and thought it no
harm if he should lap a little of the water, as he was thirsty;
and how he had a mind twenty times to snap off her head, —
but finally contented himself with the remark, "A pox take
thee for a fool; surely those who have neither strength nor
weapons to fight, at least should be civil." For my part, I
wish them no such miserable punishment; but certainly think
that the "Physicians," in commemoration of Dr. Simpson's
presidentship, should inaugurate an effigy of the unreasonable
fowl beside the philosophers of their porch, Charon, Pandora,
and the other.
After the experience we have now had in controversy,
there would be no excuse for me, or any one of my way of
thinking, employing such deadly weapons as the seeming
dangers of an earlier stage of the struggle demanded. We



30                        PREFACE.
are now  comparatively at ease and in safety, and have no
other desire than to cultivate the arts of peace; in which I,
at least, hope to excel so much, that, as it was wittily said of
Caesar, when some one sneered at his baldness, "He has
covered that defect with laurels," so the courtesy and forbearance of all future productions of my pen shall gracefully
conceal the roughness of their predecessors. At the same
time, I cannot cancel in this work all the just severities of
the former; for Dr. Simpson-while he groans under inflictions
applied to himself, suppresses in his new production several of
the personalities which brought down on him much of the
exposure he formerly underwent, and professes an anxiety to
avoid "unnecessarily mixing up any personal disputations"
with the matter of his new lucubrations,-has done little else
from beginning to end of the strange medley he has produced,
than labour to load his opponents with charges of quackery,
deception, avarice, falsehood, blasphemy, witchcraft, and almost every other conceivable wickedness and folly. He has
violated the sanctity of the grave, and insulted the dead, who
cannot defend themselves, as well as the living who can;
though in the latter respect, in order to plead for exemption
from personal retaliation, he has been more careful than formerly to avoid specifying the individual objects of his aspersions, as if he could escape from the guilt of misrepresenting
any in particular by misrepresenting all without distinction.*
Therefore it is that in defending myself and my friends from
* To the best of my recollection, the dead Hahnemann is the only person
pointedly and by name vilified by the brave Professor of midwifery. He,
alas! is not here to reply. Death is a sad obstacle to fair play, giving all the
safety to one side. Truly, as the proverb says, "Better a living dog than a
dead lion." Another fact of an equally valiant nature, observable in the
"Tenets," is the putting of the insulting and abusive charges with which it
abounds, in the form of quotations from other allopathic works against
Homceopathy.



PREFACE.                    33
proved against him, —and for the simple reason that, by suppressing, in his new work, the statements which had called
for the exposure of which he complains, the reproduction of
them in an extended form has become unnecessary. —I refer
to them, briefly in this place, merely for the purpose of observing, first, that they are not withheld on the ground of
having been unjust or improper; and, second, that the establishing of them was of material consequence in dealing with
some of the accusations Dr. Simpson and others had made
against the adherents of Homceopathy. In the postscript of
my Letter to the President of the Medico-Chirurgical Society,
the following passage occurs, which I quote in order to illustrate the second of these observations. "Those who believe lomoeopathy to be a great and invaluable system of
practical medicine have been, with unsparing acrimony and
in the most offensive terms, stigmatized as unworthy of credit:
all the courtesies that are usual among gentlemen have been
denied us, and now that an occasion apart from all the perplexities that pertain to the operation of medicine, has presented itself, of'testing the candour and uprightness of the
contending parties, those who have been heretofore maligned
have a right to appeal to the public,-in a question which the
public is qualified to comprehend,-to decide between them
and their opponents, as to which shall henceforth be esteemed
the most entitled to confidence. This controversy, therefore,
ceases to be a merely personal one: it is rather to be regarded
as a combat in which those who are engaged do battle for
the honour of their respective hosts." In these sentences reference is made to a question which had arisen between Mr.
Syme and Dr. Simpson on the one hand, and myself on the
other, as to the truth of contradictory affirmations regarding
certain matters of fact, with which we were all in circumstances to be equally and fully acquainted. No matter how
trifling these matters were in themselves-(and probably no



PREFACE.                     35
finds, or supposes he finds any departure from moral rectitude
in one who has the misfortune to differ from him as to the
proper dose of a drug, and the proper rule for prescribing
it, hesitates not to hold all who entertain the same offensive
opinions as liable to the same moral accusations. A great
proportion of his industry during the existence of this controversy has been employed in striving to detect something
reprehensible in the conduct of individuals opposed to him,
and in affixing the stigma of their real or fancied blemishes
on their party in general. He must not, therefore, be surprised if some of the calumniated body put the worst construction on his own conduct in the instances I have referred
to, and argue from what they believe to be proved against
him, that, since the very leader of their opponents, whose
reputation in the profession has acquired so considerable an
eminence, has stooped to such behaviour, his colleagues of a
lower grade must be capable of conduct at least as bad. If
he is conscious, as he may be, that he was not guilty of intentional untruth in the instances in question, he ought to
feel that others may be equally unfortunate in appearing to
be guilty, while really innocent; and he ought to be specially
careful how he advances the loathsome accusation of deceit.
Happily, the very excess of his criminality in this particular
has defeated his discreditable purpose, as is proved by the
following quotation from a judicious and candid review of
his work, in a common organ of public opinion: —" It is, in
truth, most repellent to every honest mind to read the open
charges of fraud so constantly flung against Iahnemann and
his disciples; as if every homceopathic doctor in Europe were
an arrant knave whose only object is an unblushing system
of deception, in order to enrich himself at the expense of
knew all this; yet refers to him as an authority against us. He is, doubtless,
as good an authority as most of the others.



39                         PREFACE.
the lives and pockets of the community.  Human nature instinctively revolts at the thought,-and  human nature is
right."*
As to the accuracy of my statements in the other particulars contained in my reply to Dr. Simpson's former publications, I shall bring the sincerity of his general accusation
to the test, by pledging myself to submit to any penalty even
the College of Physicians may impose, if he will point out
a single misstatement made by me; and all I ask in return,
without, however, making it a stipulation, is, that he will
make an honest confession for but one in every ten that I
can prove to exist in his various attacks on Homoeopathy.
And here I am tempted to notice a little episode in the majestic march of these medical wars, which I think will prove
to the satisfaction of the most incredulous, that the author
of the "Tenets" has refrained from specifying any one misstatement as chargeable against me, for the very good reason
that he could discover none. A work was published some
short time ago, in which the demise of a gentleman was erroneously referred to as having been due to a chronic organic
disease. As the individual in question had been attended
by me, it appeared probable to Dr. Simpson, that I was the
author of the statement as to the cause of death, and that if he
could ascertain that point to his satisfaction, he would have a
great triumph over a troublesome opponent, and indisputable
% Edinburgh Advertiser, April 19, 1853. As an additional warning to Dr.
Simpson to refrain hereafter from reckless imputations of falsehood against
his brethren, I may recall to his notice a complaint of his own of somewhat
similar conduct towards himself of his friend Mr. Syme, in the course of one
of their quarrels:-" -He adds, indeed, that if his object were to convict me
of the most gross and explicable inaccuracy he could easily multiply examples
of it, but that as he merely desires to prevent the patrons from being misled
by my statements, he trusts that enough has been said to attain this object."
-Memorial, &c., &c., by J. Y. Simpson, M. D. —1841.



PREFACE.                    37
evidence of the dishonesty of the whole homoeopathic body.
Well, he, being President of the Royal College of Physicians,
&c., &c., condescended to call privately in person on the
author of the work, to learn if Dr. Henderson was his authority for that statement, "because it was not true." But
no, alas  Dr. Henderson was too knowing a man, to say the
least of him, to affirm an untruth, for he had somehow learnt,
what many are slow to believe, that honesty in all things is
the best policy; and so had no more to do with the erroneous
statement than Dr. Simpson himself. Now, do not suppose,
gentle reader, that I have given this anecdote merely in
order to get you to join me in a laugh at the. expense of the
curious Professor of Midwifery.  Far from it; my chief
object in entering into these pitiful matters at all, is to show
that where Dr. Simpson and I are at variance regarding a matter of fact, the yea or nay as to which depends on our personalauthority, I am entitled to be esteemed by far the more
likely to be in the right. Now we are at direct issue concerning the trumpery story which Dr. Simpson has related
about a box of homceopathic medicines, which had once been
"his own former homceopathic box," and while it was so had
the contents of its many phials mixed together, as he says, by
some juvenile member of his family; but which, notwithstanding, had been the means in my hands of so convincing
me of the truth -of Ilomceopathy, that some time afterwards,
I assured him, as he avers, that I "had seen some wonderful
effects and cures from using the drugs contained in it;!" or,
as he said to himself, (in a conversation we had on several
memorial topics before he published this altered version of
the words put into my mouth,) were my actual expressions,
" your box has converted me." To both versions I give now,
as formerly, an unqualified denial, and for the simple and
sufficient reason, that for me to have uttered either the one
or the other would have been an untruth. In the words of



38                     PREFACE.
my former refutation of the whole fable-" My first experiments on Homceopathy were made by medicines from five
different sources, in addition to Dr. Simpson's box. The
respected Secretary'bf the Medico-Chirurgical Society favoured me with a box, in connexion with which there was,
aS became his character, no trick, but all that was fair and
honest. Dr. Russell supplied me with many other medicines;
Headland of London did so too; the Chemist in this city,
at a later period, did the same; and some I prepared with
my own hands, The results were published, and drew from
Dr. Forbes of London the admission, that had the cases been
treated'according to the rules of the ordinary school,
he would have regarded the results as'very satisfactory.'
Among them were some' wonderful effects and cures,' which
I have always regarded as evidence of the power of homceopathic remedies; but that they were due to Dr. Simpson's'own former homceopathic box,' in which the trick was, I do'not believe that I could ever'have averred, because I was not
in the habit of noting in each case from what source the
medicines I employed were taken, for I suspected no trick.
Since Dr. Simpson made his trick public, I have suspected,
reasonably enough, that some of the failures which I could
not formerly account for but on the ground of my own want
of skill, must have been due to the dishonest box."* In
his new work, Dr. Simpson incautiously enters so much into a
pretended history of the box and its contents, while it belonged to him, as to furnish the means of a satisfactory refutation of another and very material part of the business,
which is no less than this, that the whole account of the medicines being mixed is imaginary. The box containing sixtysix phials, each labeled on the glass and on the cork, with the
-name, in Latin, of the included drug. Every phial was full,
*Letter to the President of the Medico-Chirurgical Society.



PREFACE.                    39'
and every cork in its right place, when the box came, unexpectedly by Dr. Simpson, into my possession. Now, are
we asked to believe that a child, some three years old, in the
habit, as is alleged, of uncorking the bottles of his " occasional plaything," emptying their contents into a heap, and
then refilling them from the general mass, was so precocious
a scion that he could replace each cork of the sixty-six in its
proper place, according to its inscription? And if not, as
is perfectly certain, what learned Theban was at the trouble
to rejust the disordered elements of so despised a machine?
These are disagreeable topics, and such as I would never
have stooped to discuss here or anywhere, if they had been
brought forward by Dr. Simpson merely to injure me. I believe I could afford to let them pass unnoticed. But, through
me, they are designed to bring the only rational system of
practical medicine into contempt; and since I know how to
dispose of them, I feel bound to waive my own feelings for
what I believe to be required by the general good. And
now the reader may rest assured, that I am almost done
with the personnel of Dr. Simpson, whom, indeed, I hope
scarcely to bring on the boards again, but with his company
of sauteurs to tumble a little for our diversion. Not that I
can allow his whole band to make their bow to the public on
these pages, for many of them are such dull and vulgar
rogues as to be unfit to give entertainment to any one, and
they must therefore go their way to the tune of their own
particular march, a sentence which proceeds from no anger
or ill-will towards-them, for lomceopathy can well afford to
imitate the good-nature of my Lord Derby's "tall navvy,"
and, smiling on the whole generation of such small men, give
them full liberty to practise their vocation, with the benevolent and senatorial reflection, " It amuses them, and don't
hurt me. A selection, then, of the best performers being



40                     PREFACE.
necessary, I shall introduce first a foreigner of some note in
his own line.
It seems that a transatlantic gentleman, who rejoices in
the classical denomination of JMfr. Horace Green, related an
instance to Dr. Simpson, in which a nervous lady had been
recovered from a tedious state of fancied inability to walk,
by what she supposed homoeopathic globules, but which were
in reality percussion pellets of fulminating silver that had
been brought to her by mistake. The patronymic of our respectable contemporary is suggestive of much that is incompatible with the curiosafelicitas and knowledge of men that
distinguished the celebrated heathen from whom he derives
his baptismal appellative, and I scarcely know in what capacity to take him. Considering him simply as Mr. Green,
we have one explanation of the anecdote; but regarding him
as Horace, we have another totally different. Verdure is
inseparably associated with ideas of simplicity and play, and
allusions to the connexion abound in our finest pastorals;
while so intimate is the association in the popular mind, that
the moment a Mr. Green appears, he is instinctively appropriated to amusement. Viewing him, therefore, patronymically, I would incline to the opinion that, as green, (and, no
doubt, as young too, for I find it as impossible to conceive of
an old American, as De Quincy does of a young Chinese,)
our innocent friend has been played upon by the knowing
husband, who did not choose to own his conversion to Homoeopathy by the miraculous recovery of his wife, and sought to
justify his incredulity in the amazing circumstances by such
cock-and-bull story as might obstruct the tender vision of his
professional friend. Regarding him, again, in his more Pagan
aspect, and decking him in fancy with the attributes of his
harmonious name-father, who somewhere sings," Sine amore et jocis
Nil eft juoundum,"



PREFACE.                    41
one may be disposed to conclude, that the playful Horace,
discerning something greenish in the eye of his obstetric acquaintance, as they sipped their Falernian together, and
mistaking its import, (for alas! there is a wide difference in
the characters expressed by that optical tint,) conceived on
the moment to relieve the monotony of their professional
talk about moonstone and windpipes, (a weak point with our
exotic brother,) the pleasantry about homoeopathic globules
and fulminating pellets. And it is, no doubt, though manufactured and issued under the poetical license, an apt instance
of the power of imagination on the nervous hypochondriac,
and as such deserves to be recorded among the thousands of
a similar nature which in every age have made fame and fees
the fruits of allopathic delusions.
The fertile Horace can, of course, diversify his narratives
to meet every imaginable aspect of the great question, and,
accordingly, he next assumes the tragic vein, and concentrating his fierceness on some allopathic rival, he enjoys in prophetic vision the delight of pouring a phial of homceopathic
globules over his throat, medicated for the occasion with
enough of imaginary strychnia to despatch him to, his place.
The whole story will remind the reader of Newman Noggs'
pugilistic enjoyments on the image of 3Mr. Ralph Nickleby.
Of course, no mortal was ever slain by such means as Mr.
Horace pretends; but I shall stretch courtesy and imagination so far as to assume, that it actually happened that " a gentleman swallowing in sport a number of homceopathic globules" that did not belong to him, suffered on the spot the
extreme penalty of the law due to such freedoms with property and poisons; and I shall slump this well-authenticated
case with two others equally entitled to credit. One of them
is the melancholy demise of the Duke di Cannizzaro, some
twelve years ago, in Sicily, asserted by Mr. Edwin Lee (apparently a bookseller's traveller) to have been due to an
4



PREFACE.                      43
have hitherto been prescribed." *  Others of the allopathic
body go still farther in their secret use of homceopathic
remedies, for I have been informed by a homoeopathic chemist in London, that his shop is chiefly supported by practitioners who procure from him homceopathic remedies which
they distribute to their patients disguised as allopathic mixtures.
So much for the first aspect in which these tales may be
viewed. According to the second light in which they may be
regarded, it may be maintained, as was no doubt intended by
Dr. Simpson, if he had any distinct idea on the subject, that
the detection of such large doses of strychnia and morphia
in the hands of three homceopathic practitioners proves, or
makes it likely, that the whole body of Hoomceopathists use
doses of the like magnitude, while they profess to employ
only the "infinitesimal" quantities. Now, granting the reasonableness of this generous allegation, it may be replied,
first, that Homeeopathists must be very verdant gentlemen
indeed, if they attempt, to impose on the public, by falsely
professing rules, as to doses, which make Homceopathy absurd
in the ignorant eyes of the very persons intended to be entrapped; for it is undeniable that the only obstacle to the
progress of Homceopathy in the world is the incredulity which
meets it on the ground of the unprecedented minuteness of
its doses. The truth is, so little relish have many Homceopathists for the ridicule bestowed on the doctrine of minute
doses, that there is a far greater risk of some of them being
guilty, like so many of their professedly allopathic brethren,
of pretending to give large doses, while they actually give
the small. Small doses they know from experience to be
the safest and best, and they are, with an exception or two,
determined at all hazards to adhere to them; but it may
* See Lancet, 1836; where the reader will find, in extenso, the Clinical
Lectures by Mr. Liston, containing a distinct recommendation of homceopathy to his pupils.



4E4                    PREFACE.
sometimes be difficult for them to do so, and keep their foolish
patient at the same time, who may have a preference, even in
physic, for things he can taste and smell, like the majority of
silly mankind. Again, if Homceopathists are really believed
by Dr. Simpson and his friends only to pretend that they give
small doses, while they are known, at is alleged, to give doses
as large as do the gentlemen of the other school, what is the
use of calling in the aid of mighty mathematicians to prove
that there can be nothing in the pretended homoeopathic attenuations? The whole of this charge against them assumes
that such attenuations are never actually made, or never employed, and if the accusers really believed this, as they profess to do, the calculations might be left, for any necessity
they are of to the success of the charge, to the wisdom of
Toby the learned quadruped. But the bare fact that such
calculations have been regarded as of immense importance to
the opponents of Homoeopathy, proves that they have themselves no confidence in the statement that Homceopathists do
in reality practise the deceit of which they are so shamefully
accused. If they felt secure in the evidence and credibility
of that statement, where was the necessity of bothering respectable elderly gentlemen, who happen to have a calculating faculty, with sentimental journeys to the sun, moon, and
stars, in search of an argument which Mr. Horace Green had
found without going a yard from his own door? And, lastly,
if Homceopathists are believed by their opponents to use no
other doses than are used by ordinary physicians, to what
end are the elaborate endeavours to prove that the success
of llomoeopathists in treating diseases is inferior to that of
their rivals, while the whole object of the assertion now under
review is to prove that the practice of the two bodies is the
same? This is surely a robbing of Peter to pay Paul, and
a very stupid and foolish consummation of the whole. argument.



PREFACE.                     45
There is yet another aspect in which these asserted in.
stances of homeopathic deception can be viewed, and a far
more rational one it Is than either of the others, namely,
that let Mr. Horace Green, Mr. Lee, Dr. Taylor, and Dr.
Simpson, assert what they may, the deceptions that are alleged were and are impossible. The charge is, not simply
that large doses were used in the cases referred to-that
would'be a minor matter, as a man is at liberty to employ
what dose he prefers-but that the said doses were pretended
to be minute. Now, reader, I hope you will be in a humour
to apply the knout to the inventors of foul charges against
their honester brethren, when I tell you, that such a dose of
strychnia, nux vomica, or morphia, as these persons specify,
could not possibly be taken-by any man, in possession of his
senses, without being detected by the intense bitterness of
their taste! Had the accusers remembered this difficulty in
the way of their instances being credible, they would not
have ventured to prefer the charges they have made, in connexion with such substances at least; for they must have bethought them that, as "homoeopathic doses" are well known
to have no taste, no Homceopathist could dream of deceiving
his patients by drugs so furiously bitter as these. To give
the unmedical reader some idea of the obstacle to the alleged
deception, presented by the bitterness of strychnia, I may
observe that, according to Sir Robert Kane, one part "requires 7000 parts of cold water for solution, and yet, if one
part of this be diluted with 100 parts more of water, this
liquor tastes strongly bitter." * Or, what is the same thing,
one grain of strychnia, dissolved in seven hundred thousand
grains of water, or above eleven gallons, may still be detected
by its strongly bitter taste. If, then, the 700,000th part of a
grain of strychnia is strongly bitter, what must be the bit* Elements of Chemistry. 842.



46                     PREFACE.
terness of the 16th of a grain, the ordinary dose, diffused in
a spoonful of water, which Homceopathists are accused of
giving to their patients as " infinitesimal," and therefore tasteless! The bitterness of morphia is well known, but I may
mention that Pereira says of it that, " notwithstanding that
it is insoluble, or nearly so, in cold water," the water, which
can hardly be said, therefore, to dissolve an appreciable
quantity of it, "has a distinctly bitter taste." Yet Dr. Simp:
son wishes us to believe that a iEomceopathist expected to
elude the senses of his patient by so large a dose as a third,
or half of a grain! Now I hope these gentlemen have tumbled to some purpose, and that the spectators will express
their sense of the performance with their usual judgment.
Dr. Simpson's work abounds in charges as demonstrably
untrue as those I have just disposed of, but, as I have no
ambition to write a work so tiresome and unreadable as
almost every body declares his to be, I shall pick out for
notice in this place only the one remaining example which
has an appearance of resting on respectable'authority, and
which may possibly be believed by very credulous and un.
reflecting people. Dr. Glover of Newcastle asserts that the
agent of a London wholesale firm for the manufacture of
homoeopathic drugs, which prepares "60 lbs. weight of them
every fortnight," (i. e. 1560 lbs. weight per annum,) stated to
a company of allopathic druggists in Newcastle, that his firm,
aware that the homceopathic method of preparing drugs was
a "farce," gave up the troublesome proceeding, and put nothing into the powders and pilules which they sold as medicated. I do not know that Dr. Glover makes the assertion
on his own authority; if he does not, of course he will not be
implicated in the unavoidable inference suggested by the following considerations. The story is incredible, first, because
it would be at variance with the known principles which regulate human intercourse, that the agent of a mercantile firm



PREFACE.                    47
should reveal, (supposing the fraud to be actually practised,)
to the most implacable enemies of his house, what must destroy his trade if generally believed; it is incredible, secondly, because it is infinitely more likely that the allopathic
druggists would invent a story that would be to their own
advantage, than that the.other would disclose a fraud, the
public knowledge of which must be to his own ruin; it is in.
credible, thirdly, because no London homceopathic wholesale
druggist exists who prepares 60 lbs. weight of drugs, or pretended drugs, in a fortnight, for most of the homoeopathic
chemists in London, and throughout the country, prepare all,
or nearly all, their own drugs, and there is no market for such
a wholesale business; it is incredible, fourthly, because Dr.
Glover, having been repeatedly called upon to give the name
of the fraudulent firm, has declined to do so, which it is plain
he never would if he were certain of his ground, and didmnot
fear that compliance with the demand would explode the
whole story. But, even supposing that some swindling company of homoeopathic druggists actually do dispense nnmedicated powders, and pilules, and tinctures, how does that tell
against Homceopathy? Those who are unfortunate enough to
deal with the swindlers will be unsuccessful in their practice,
and be instrumental in making a few skeptics as to the power
of homoeopathic drugs. This is the whole result, and is quite
on a par, and no more, with the following allopathic anecdote, which has the advantage of being credible:
"MAKING AND TAKING PILLS. —We remember (says the
Englishman) an occurrence which took place in the practice
of a country apothecary in England. He had only one apprentice upon whom the entire duty of pill-making fell. A
patient of rather inquisitive and nervous temperament called
one morning with a pill-box in his hand, to show the apothecary that by cutting the pills in halves he had discovered something extraordinary in the manufacture. The apprentice was



48                     PREFACE.
sent for, who confessed, that being naturally of a gay dispo.
sition, he preferred spending his evening with friends to
wasting his time in weighing, and adjusting, and rolling into
pills, the various drugs which his master had prescribed in
the course of the day. After much consideration, he had
found no method so quick as that of wetting a quantity of
juniper berries in gum water, and next shaking them up in,powdered chalk, and then most impartially filling all the
boxes. He stated that he had continued this practice for a
year and a half without a single complaint, except from the
gentleman who had just called; and he insisted that the cases
under treatment had all done exceedingly well."
I shall conclude these prefatory samples of the credibility
of the representations Dr. Simpson has made,,partly from the
fruits of his own inventive genius, partly from the equally reliable stores of his friends, of the practice of homoeopathic
physicians. by two very characteristic specimens of his scrupulous honesty as a controversial writer. To one of them I
drew the notice of the public in my former reply, but, as he
repeats the same offence in his new work, after he had been
told that it had led to false conclusions in the minds of some
of his readers, and had been apprized, if he did not know
the fact right well before, that his authority was notoriously
fictitious, I am induced to advert to it again. A single sentence will dispose of the deception, and I presume of the last
remaining fragment of confidence which the most partial of
his readers may have retained in his candour. He quotes in
a note a passage from the " Confessions of a lHomoeopathist,"
in which the author pretends to confess that homoeopathic
physicians employ "powerful doses" of "morphia, strychnia,
arsenic, corrosive sublimate, and such like," in the form of
" globules," and without allowing the patient to know that he
is getting any thing but some hundred-thousandth part of a
grain, Dr. Simpson quotes this pretended confession as au



PREFACE.                     49
thentic evidence against us, without informing his readers that
the work from which he quotes is a work of fiction, as he well
knew it to be when he selected his extract I
The other specimen is still worse, if worse can be. He
begins by asserting that there are homoeopathic physicians
" who doctored people according as people themselves wished,
either with drachms of drugs, or billions of a grain of the
same;" a charge which he sustains by the authority of the
veriest zany in the profession, and then proceeds to quote
the following passage, as if it was a passage which confirmed
his accusation, from his "colleague, Professor Henderson,"
who observes in one of his publications, "I rejoice to say
that I know many physicians, who, while they adhere to the
homoeopathic law as the great regulator of their practice,
consider themselves entitled, in the free exercise of their
profession as independent men, to prescribe any quantity of
medicine they think necessary for their patients, and where
the homoeopathic principle cannot be of service to them,
whether from its present or necessary limitations, or their
insufficient acquaintance with it, consider themselves not
only entitled, but bound in duty, to employ any other expedients for the benefit of their employers that may be within
their knowledge." And then, still further to persuade his
readers that his colleague is an advocate for treating people
"according as people themselves wished," he subjoins a
quotation from my excellent friend, Dr. Black, as affording
a' view of "the due estimation of such a combinatio'n of
principles and practices " entertained by homceopathists
themselves; the quotation being as follows: "There is a class
of practitioners who merit the indignation of every rightminded man, —a class who, viewing medicine only as a trade,
a mere barter for pounds, shillings, and pence, act obsequiously as the patient wishes; at his desire their practice is
either homoeopathic or allopathic."  Now, Dr. Simpson's



50                      PREFACE.
work has been termed clever by one or two of his admirers,
and I grant the justice of their assertion if it be clever to
misrepresent, to suppress the truth, to give that as a true
version of an opponent's doctrine which is the very reverse
of it; and I add, may I and my friends be patterns of stupidity in all time coming, if this is to be clever! Why, immediately before the sentence he has extracted in order to
show that I approve of physicians "doctoring people according as people themselves wished," I had actually said as follows-" That Dr. Simpson knows of any such persons I do
not believe. I know a great deal more of those whom he
delights to calumniate than he does, and I solemnly aver,
that I neither know, nor ever have known, a single instance
of the conduct he has ventured to lay to their charge." My
information on the subject of such practices might be defective, and even incorrect, but my disapproval of the practice
of allowing patients to choose how they were to be treated,
and my refutation of it personally, are abundantly manifest in the two sentences I have just given, and yet Dr. Simpson makes me appear an advocate for the very practice which
I plainly condemn! A concern for the " laurels" I hinted
at on a previous page, restrains me from uttering a single
word in the way of commentary.*
Having touched on the question of the need there may be
for Homceopathists sometimes employing an allopathic expedient, I shall finish the subject in this place; and the more
willingly that it admits of a very summary treatment. The
amount of allopathic medicine which I would retain for occasional, though unfrequent employment in CURABLE diseases,
is an aperient, chiefly a teaspoonful of castor oil. For incu* The truth is, that instead of Homceopaths being chargeable with treating
their patients either way, it is allopaths to whom the remarks of Dr. Black
apply, who, finding Homoeopathy," go down"' with some of their patients,
give their services on the homoeopathic principle when required.



PREFACE.                     51
rable diseases that have nearly reached their final stage, and
are the occasions of sleepless ihights and weary days, of pain
and misery to decaying nature, I would give whatever promises to smooth the way a little to the not distant grave.
For this end, there may be some two or three drugs, each
suitable to his own class of cases; —too often, alas! there are
none. As to ancient appliances that are not properly medicinal,-do not consist of medicines in the proper sense, I
would reserve my right to employ heat and cold as I think
best, and, speaking for myself personally, I would also regard myself at liberty, and without forfeiting my title to the
honour of being a homoeopathic physician, to facilitate the
action of my homceopathic remedies by local abstraction of
blood in some acute diseases,-a practice which I have fol.
lowed some ten times in about as many years. These are
the true "Confessions of a homceopathist;" and they are
complete. Give me the little I have mentioned, and the rest
of your physic to the dogs. In these views and conclusions
all the homceopathic physicians of my acquaintance, with
the exception, I think, of two, substantially agree. Among
the exceptional dissentients is my respected friend, Dr. Scott
of Glasgow. He is of opinion, that, when an allopathic expedient is required, an allopathic physician should be called
upon to administer the same. I am not sure that our friends
of the opposite party would altogether relish this proposal:
it would make occasional demands on their exertions not
quite up to the mark of professional dignity. But I have
no objection to the proposal; provided always, that the
gentlemen of the other side will bind themselves scrupulously and honestly to use none of our remedies, and to
leave to us all the diseases that we can treat more successfully than they. It seems to me that a much better contract
would be this: that both we and they should employ the very
few allopathic drugs that are of any service as palliatives,



52                          PREFACE.
and that they should honourably acknowledge the many.instances in which they make use of homoeopathic remedies.
We claim no exclusive right to the latter; we merely expect
and ask that they shall not be used without acknowledgment.
Dr. Sinr son, at least, cannot object to the small modicum
of Allopathy I would retain; for he not only, like his brethren universally, employs many drugs whose operation is
homceopathic, as we shall by and by see, when they are accidentally of any benefit to his patients, but, notwithstanding
his pretended unbelief in the homoeopathic law of Therapeutics, has actually, in his place as a Professor in the University, commended a remedy in circumstances where its action is confessedly homceopathic, after having employed it
himself, moreover, by the advice of a homoeopathic friend of
his own.  Behold the evidence: "Ipecacuanha causes vomiting; and the celebrated Dr. Simpson of Edinburgh,' as he
stated in my hearing, failed to cure a case of chronic vomiting from pregnancy, until he took the advice of Dr. Arnt, a
Homceopathist, and gave half a grain of ipecacuanha, and
so cured his patient."  (iomceopathy: by George Wyld, M. D.
Page 25.*)
*Dr. Stewart, in his controversy with Dr. Christison, gives substantially
the same version of this passage in the Lectures of Dr. Simpson. Both he
and Dr. Wyld were pupils of Dr. Simpson at the time it was delivered. The
lecturer, however, denies one part of their statement, and says that the ipecacuan did no good, but the reverse; and he refers to the alleged testimony
of a person whose patient the lady in question is said to have been, in corroboration of his assertion. This, however, must relate to another case, and
seems to show that Dr. Simpson employed ipecacuan for vomiting more than
once-successfully when the proper occasion for it was pointed out by a Homoeopath, unsuccessfully when he used his own discretion. Both of his former pupils aver that he gave credit to the ilecacuan in the instance they
heard him speak of; and two witnesses are better than one, especially when
that one has a personal interest in representing the subject of dispute in his
own way. Internal evidence, too, is strongly against Dr. Simpson in this



PREFACE.                         53
In this instance we have the admission by the Coryphoeus
of Allopathy, that he did employ a homceopathic remedy,
and with success, too, when all*his other remedies (?) had
failed.  Will he have the goodness to reconsider the following sentences he has composed against the Homoeopath
who would dare to use an allopathic palliative, and tell us,
in his next publication on medical ethics, if he continues to
regard the opinions expressed in them as candid and honourable:  "Some men pretended they could honestly and honourably mix up the two practices.  Most physicians naturally doubted whether any man could in honour and honesty
combine such incompatible incongruities. Neither any true
ilomoeopath, nor any true Allopath, would give this spurious
set credit for their integrity of purpose and principle." P. 21.
There are many more of this "hybrid and equivocal class
of practitioners," as he terms them, in the ranks of Allopathy,
besides Dr. Simpson. Belladonna, as a preservative against
scarlet fever, and as a remedy for the disease in some of its
aspects and stages, was first proposed by Hahnemann; and it
has been employed, in the former character especially, very
generally throughout the civilized world by allopathic physicians, from Dr. Locock down to the obscurest Sangrado of
the sect. Dr. Simpson cannot deny this fact, although he attempts to show that belladonna has not the protective power
ascribed to it. The latter question will be discussed in its
matter. For what end did he allude to the ipecacuan in his class, in the
presence of the friend who recommended it, if not for the purpose, partly,
of paying a compliment to the latter, a stranger from a far country, who
honoured the lecture by his presence? Surely not to point at him by name,
in so public a place, as having advised a remedy which did harm instead of
good! This is incredible. Dr. Simpson is surely too hospitable a man to
be rude to a foreigner, and he a friend too. Dr. Simpson tries to get out of
this scrape by another plea. He didn't know, forsooth, that Dr. Arnt was
homoeopathic! Well, what of that?  He knew that ipecacuan was so to
vomiting, and no one accuses him of having prescribed Dr. Arnt.



54                    PREFACE.
proper place, and the medical'knowledge of the objector put
"through its paces." Meanwhile, the adoption of the homceopathic preventive - (whethbr truly so or no)-by allopathic practitioners, stands condemned by Dr. Simpson as at
variance with "honour and honesty;" and thus is included
in the same category of crimes with his own employment of
ipecacuan in the instance mentioned above.
I had almost forgotten the Magnetoscope! This is an instrument invented by Mr. Rutter, Manager of the Gas-Works
at Brighton; and was supposed by the inventor to be so sensitive a machine that its pendulum would make certain motions under the influence of impressions not discoverable by
ordinary means. My able friend, Dr. Henry Madden, was
the first medical man who saw the instrument, and probably,
for that reason, was the first physician who was deceived by
it. Had it come first in the way of the Allopaths, they would
have had the priority in being duped; but as the thing happened, the deception fell to one of us in the first instance,
and, of course, Homoeopathists must bear the undivided reproach of gullibility. I wonder, now, if a tHomoeopathist, with
the best intentions in the world, were to get his neck broken,
whether we should not all be accused of being "shaky"
in the cervical region, or if he should chance to swallow a
plum-stone, whether he would not be charged with doing it
"o' purpose," and because we all had gizzards. Well, Dr.
Madden was the first to be taken in by the magnetoscope,
but he is entitled to the credit of having been the first also
who discovered and exposed its worthlessness; and, to conclude this eventful history, while the two or three homceopathists, who of all the body were imposed upon by the deceitful machine, have long seen their mistake, it remains the appropriate protege of a knot of their allopathic brethren, who
certainly need something more than human to discover the:



PREFACE.                    55
curative value of their drugs, when administered on their
distinctive principle.
Having now gone over a long list of most contemptible
"arguments" against homceopathy, the reader may be inclined to ask how it is to be explained, that Dr. Simpson,
commonly reputed to be among the advocates of progress in
scientific matters, should be found so bitter and unscrupulous
an opponent of the new practice. It cannot be from an intelligent conviction of its unsoundness, for he is practically but
little acquainted with it, and the little he knows is, as we
have seen, rather in favour of its claims than otherwise. But
Dr. Simpson's medical glory, such as it is, is pinned to the
old standard, and his medical existence is all but ignored by
the followers of the new. The discerning student of such
affairs will have no difficulty, then, in finding a parallel to,
and an explanation of, the conduct of the Professor of Midwifery in the instructive history of Haman, the once prosperous son of Hammedatha the Agagite.






HOM(EOPATHY FAIRLY REPRESENTED.
CHAPTER I.
Comparative View of HomoeQpathy and Allopathy, as adapted to acute diseases: in which the latter is proved to be a fatal delusion-HIomoeopathic
Statistics proved to be accurate-Alleged success of Laennec and army surgeons in inflammation of the lungs shown to be incredible-Allopathic cases,
when selected, proved to present a much greater mortality than the Homoeopathic unselected-Allopathic treatment of pneumonia destroys human life
-Acute inflammation.of the lungs better left to nature than to AllopathyDietl's experiments-Allopathic fatality in pleurisy, peritonitis, &c.-Pretended Allopathic cures of consumption more extravagant than those of the
most ignorant Homoeopaths.
A CONSIDERABLE portion of Dr. Simpson's work is occupied
with the usual diatribe on human credulity, and the usual
illustrations of human folly, from Mesmerism, amulets, charms,
Mormonism, &c.  The reader who peruses this chapter to
the end will probably be of opinion that the author ought to
have added Allopathy to the list, which, like its twin sister
Calamity, is "of so long life," merely because of the fears
which lead men rather to "keep those ills they have, than
fly to others that they know not of," though the latter, as in
the case of Homceopathy, may be only imaginary. At all
events, the parallel between these delusions and l:omceopathy foolishly takes for granted the very point at issue, and
5



58         PHYSICIANS NO FRIENDS TO PROGRESS.
assumes that Homceopathy is a delusion. Every previous
great step in scientific discovery has had to undergo a similar
novitiate of obloquy from the prejudiced and the ignorant;
and if llomceopathy did not, it might be fairly regarded as but
little, if at all, better than the system it purposes to supplant,
and therefore not worth quarreling about. It is absurdly
supposed by those who have no acquaintance with " scientific 
men, and know not the mettle of which they are made, that
they are always gratified by the addition of new facts and
principles to their respective sciences. Nothing can be generally more untrue than such a conclusion; nay, I suspect the
instances are comparatively few in which the disposition of
men, already matured in their own field, towards all that is
new, may not be illustrated by an anecdote of a late eminent
professor of chemistry, who, on receiving from a colleague
an answer in the negative to his inquiry, if there was anything new in the fresh Number of a scientific Journal, replied,
"I am very glad to hear it;" or by another, of a professor
of the same science in a northern university, who, compelled
at last to advert to the discoveries of Sir Humphrey Davy,
regarding the composition of certain alkalis, dismissed them
with the shortest possible notice, and dubbed their author,
" a verra troublesome person." Of course there are exceptions
in every pursuit, but fewer, it may be justly said, in medicine
proportionally than in any other. Medical men, in general,
are more concerned to ply their arduous vocation with the instructions they may have received in early life, and such
small and easy additions to their stock as they have leisure
to pick up from the journals of the day, than to sound the
depths of science, and seek the treasures of knowledge that
lie hid in her bosom, by the light of the midnight oil, when
a " good soft pillow"' for their tired heads, whether white or
black, is what the proprieties of the time demand. And of
the exceptional instances-the busy-minded men who roll in



THEIR GENERAL EGOTISM.              59
their carriages by day, and are fresh enough for study by
night-it may be justly said, that their welcome, when they
have any to spare for the researches of others, is offered very
rarely to doctrines opposed to the labours of their own lives,
but is reserved for such as are in harmony with their previous opinions, and with the views to which all their success
and importance in the medical world is inseparably linked.
It is nothing, that second or third rate men, whose field
of vision is naturally and unavoidably of small extent,
should be incapable of perceiving new and great truths
just in proportion as they are new and great, and therefore
far aloof from their own habitual trains of thought, or petty
additions to the common currency. We look for blemishes
of this kind in ordinary mortals, and are in no degree moved
by their occurrence. But when first-class men, standing so
high above their fellows as to command the whole field of
intellectual enterprise, fix their eyes with a fond partiality
on the fruits of their own genius, and what may be closely
akin to them, to the neglect of other objects good in their
way and important in their own place, we remember with regret that man in his best estate is but vanity, and that to expect among terrestrial beings freedom from weakness is but
to look for
"A faultless monster, which the world ne'er saw."
We cease, then, to wonder that even Hahnemann, with all
his genius and learning, and keen-eyed scientific instinct,
overlooked a few things in medical science, which he might
have studied with advantage to his reputation, and to the credit of his system. In the brightness of his own discoveries,
these inferior objects" hid their diminished heads," and the eye
that dwelt so long and so intently on the light that appeared
amidst the general gloom, from its first faint glimmering
in his path, as he meditated mournfully on the surrounding



30            AN APOLOGY FOR IIAHNEMANN.
chaos where "darkness brooded," on through its gradual
kindling into the dawn of a better day to patient humanity,
may well be pardoned its insensibility to the ineffectual
glow-worm lights that could do little else in his day than
make the darkness visible. This plea is specially applicable
to his contempt for morbid anatomy, and to his ignoring of
ordinary palliatives that are capable of producing temporary
ease in incurable organic diseases. With him the office of
the physician was to cure; on that grand consummation his
heart was set, and he had no eyes for any end short of the
best that could be wished for. Miorbid anatomy presupposes
death; and whatever light the scalpel shed on disease, to
Hahnemann it showed only the discomfiture, the imperfection, sometimes even the deadly error of the art that should
have healed. He sought only for the means of curing diseases, and believed that means existed which, known and
rightly used, were equal, by the goodness of the Almighty,
(" compared to which," he says, " the tenderest mother's love
is as thick clouds beside the glory of the noonday sun,") to
the cure of almost all maladies: so that morbid anatomy was
in his opinion merely the proof, if not the result of error.
Hence it was that he threw on Allopathy and its disciples so
much blame for the anatomical disorders which death enabled them to study. And true it is, beyond all question, that
as the proper science of the physician becomes more understood and effective, there will be less for the anatomist to
contemplate, though it may well be doubted whether, even
were remedies fully ascertained for every ill that flesh is heir
to, men would generally submit to them at the right stage of
their disorder, continue them for the proper time, or give
them a fair field for the full and free exercise of their virtues.  That, however, is the business of the sufferer: the
chief duty of the physician is to know how to cure him if he
will but give the opportunity. But even in order to acquire



ACUTE AND CHRONIC DISEASES.           61
this coveted knowledge, Hahnemann should have remembered, that to every honest man on the right road "his failures are the preparation of his victories," and that the morbid anatomy of the dead was capable of teaching much that
might be of service to the still living, even on his own therapeutic principle; for medicines taken to a poisonous excess,
or given to the lower animals in experiment, have, of course,
their morbid anatomy too, the effects of their action on the
living organs, and therefore similar to those producible by
disease.
To leave these examples of human imperfection, even inthe wisest of physicians, I Would devote some space now to a
subject of the gravest interest-to an exhibition of homceopathy in the capacity of the curer of maladies esteemed destructive of a large amount of human life in the hands of the
ordinary practitioner. It is in the treatment of acute inflammatory diseases that llomceopathy appears in its most
striking aspect to common observers. Such maladies are
naturally regarded with the greatest apprehension, on account
of the suddenness of their invasion, the intensity of their
symptoms, the rapidity and brevity of their course, which
is so liable to terminate fatally under the ordinary treatment,
in a very large proportion of cases, within a few days from
the date of its commencement. iHahnemann, however, never
esteemed the curative powers of Homceopathy in acute diseases, remarkable as he knew them to be, to afford the greatest triumphs of his att. He looked upon the cure of chronic
maladies as far more difficult, and therefore far more honourable to the physician and to the method which were capable
of accomplishing it. Chronic ailments, unimposing at their
outset, insidious and seemingly inconsiderable through a
great part of their course, and tardy in their issue, are not
the less fatal or the less productive of suffering, when unsuccessfully opposed by the physician, but either directly or in



62       INJUSTICE TO HOMCEOPATHIC STATISTICS.
directly are much more fertile sources of misery and devastation among mankind, than all the acute inflammations in
the world taken by themselves. Hence it is that HJahnemann refers to the latter with an indifference bordering on
contempt, as the assumed tests of medical prowess. Many
of them he speaks of as ceasing spontaneously, and in spite
of the many ingenious appliances of his contemporaries, that
had a tendency to thwart the curative powers of nature.
But of chronic diseases his estimate was very different. Of
them he entertained the opinion that they were not capable of spontaneous recovery, and arose from or rather were
the signs of constitutional taints that could not be eradicated
without the greatest skill on the part of the physician, and
much perseverance and circumspection on the part of the
patient. To this question I shall claim the attention of the
reader when I come to the consideration of the " psoric" hypothesis, when I hope to prove that there is far less of gratuitous speculation, and much more of accurate observation
and sound pathological doctrine in it, than superficial observers and shallow thinkers appear to suppose.
The statistics which have been published of the results of
the homeeopathic treatment of acute inflammatory diseases
by the hospital physicians of Germany, have, as might be expected, been attacked with peculiar virulence by the writers of the allopathic party. The small proportion of deaths
which they exhibit is so astounding a contrast to thd mortality of the same diseases when treated by even the best allopathic physicians, that it is no wonder it should be regarded
with astonishment by those who have no practical knowledge
of Homceopathy, and be treated with every injustice by those
who are resolved at all risks to disparage that practice.
Without any acquaintance with the character of the homoeopathic physicians who report these results, the allopathic
writers have not scrupled to attack their integrity and their



MEDICAL STATISTICS NEVER UNEXCEPTIONABLE.    63
professional discrimination. They sometimes accuse them of
falsehood, sometimes of inaccurate diagnosis. By one or
both of these defects their alleged success must be explained,
for that their statistics are, correct the opposing party are determined not to allow.
I shall not contend for the invariable accuracy of the homeopathic statistics, because I know that physicians of the
greatest name and largest experience are liable to occasional
mistakes. But I have not the smallest doubt that the number
of mistakes is exceptional on both sides among hospital physicians of'considerable experience, and that an equal allowance should be made for such imperfections in all statistics
of the kind issued by either party. In the more common
acute inflammations, diagnosis is acknowledged to be simple
and easy in all but a small proportion of cases, and if it were
even to be granted that wherever it was difcult it was incorrect, I do not think that a very material element of inaccuracy would exist, after all, to vitiate comparative statistical
results. That mistakes in diagnosis would be all on the homoeopathic side must be incredible to every one who reflects
on the indubitable truths, that profound diagnosticians, who
greatly excel such of their brethren as have fair abilities
and practice, in the art of discriminating one disease from
another, are exceedingly rare, and that public professional
duty is discharged by men of both parties, who are endowed
with but an average amount of talent and insight. Dr. Simpson, following the example of Dr. Routh and others, adduces
from the medical statistics of the army examples of an apparently remarkable success in the treatment of inflammation
of the lungs, and it is with these more particularly that they
attempt to prove the superiority of allopathic practice. Now,
I have no disrespect for the medical service of the army; on
the contrary, I have no doubt that there are many able and
efficient men in that department, but at the same time I take'



64 QUESTIONABLE STATISTICS OF THE ARMY AND OF LAENNEC.
the reasonable liberty of questioning very much whether
every young dandy or ancient beau (for such there are) who
carries a sword and a lancet, is nearly so perfect in the art
of undoing a difficulty in diagnosis, as in- the correlative cunning of tying a knot on his cravat. Some, again, of the allopathic writers, adduce the statements of Laennec in favour
of the allopathic treatment of pneumonia.   He says that he
lost only one case out of twenty-eight, which is about the
same mortality as is mentioned in some of the army statistics.
Louis, however, one of the best diagnostic physicians of the
allopathic school, expresses his belief that Laennec had committed errors of diagnosis among his alleged cases, having
mistaken the " crepitation" due to other diseases in the lungs
for the "crepitation" of pneumonia; for Laennec tells us,
with a confidence pardonable in the discoverer of auscultation, that his only evidence that pneumonia existed at all in
some of his cases, was the presence of some crepitation;
"therefore," says Louis, "he must have confounded acute
pulmonary catarrh, which attacks the last bronchial twigs,
and is accompanied by a subcrepitant rattle, with pneumonia;
and thence doubtless the immense apparent difference between the results of his practice and mine." —(Rech. de la
Saignee, p. 66.)  Are the ordinary allopathic hospital physicians, here or elsewhere, in civil or military service, better
diagnosticians than Laennec?  By the by, Dr. Simpson adverts to the remarkable success of Laennec, but carefully
shuts his eyes to M. Louis' explanation. It is a pity he can't
shut ours.*
There is no need, however, of charging the allopathic authorities with
any peculiar deficiencies; and in adducing a few among the many instances
of errors in diagnosis committed by eminent allopathic physicians that have
come to my knowledge, I have no desire to ask the reader to conclude that
bad diagnosis are peculiar to gentlemen of the other side, but'simply' to apprize him, that if they are chargeable against us, they are likewise chargeable against them, and, considering the parties who were at fault, that it is



INTEGRITY OF HOMCEOPATHIC PHYSICIANS.                65
As to the other question, the integrity of the homceopathic
physicians, I shall say very little, because the details I have
to lay before the reader must settle that point triumphantly,
and on clear allopathic authority too.*   It is no small pleasure to be able to take the accusers by the ears, and pointing their unwilling eyes to the proofs that their injured
likely they are at least as common on the one side as on the other. I have,
then, known an accomplished consulting physician, and an eminent general
practitioner, overlook our mistake in double pneumonia, of great extent, and
discover it only on dissection;' I have known a great advocate for cod-liver
oil consumption mistake chronic pleurisy for the other disease; I have known
an eminent stethoscopist, for mere irritation of the throat, which he treated
with caustic as usual, mistake pulmonary consumption which was fatal within
the week by the bursting of a tubercular abscess into the pleura; I have
known an instance in which a notable hospital physician, not finding on dissection the pulmonary disease he had mapped out and described to his pupils,
adroitly remarked, " Gentlemen, you perceive the appearance on dissection
don't correspond with the stethoscopic signs heard during life," (the lung
was sound;) and, not to be tedious when samples alone are required, I believe Dr. Simpson knows of a case of diabetes mellitus, which a whole bevy of
"foremost" physicians mistook for some chronic inflammation within the
cranium, and treated accordingly. Let us hear no more of errors of diagnosis,
else the list may be greatly enlarged. Humanum esteerrare.
* It may be worth noting, notwithstanding the conclusive evidence about to
be adduced of the accuracy of the homoeopathic statistics, that Dr. Forbes, a
distinguished allopathic physician, bears the following testimony to the character of Dr. Fleischmann, the physician of the principal homoeopathic hospital in Vienna:-" Dr. Fleischmann is a regular, well educated physician,
as capable of forming a true diagnosis as other practitioners, and he is considered by those who know him as a man of honour and respectability, and
incapable of attesting a falsehood."-British and Foreign Medical Review.
Dr. Simpson, however, is made so desperate by the statistics of Dr. Fleischmann, as to catch at the merest straws to help his halting argument. Thus,
he adduces the authority of a youth, fresh from his elementary studies, and
known to no human being as competent to distinguish any one chest disease
from another, as superior to Dr. Fleischmann's in regard to the fact of a certain case having been pneumonia or not; Fleischmann's having stated two
deaths from that disease to have occurred during a particular period, and
the modest youth asserting that there were three.



ALLOPATRIY CONDEMNS ITSELF.           67
the reader will find it proved also, that Homceopathy is some.
thing; for an examination of details enables us to affirm, that
it cures inflammation of the lungs in a much shorter time
than unassisted nature does; so that it cannot be merely unassisted nature too. Besides, it can be shown that there is a
peculiarity in inflamed lungs which enables unassisted nature
to save so many lives, which peculiarity does not exist in
other inflamnmations; and hence we argue, that though we do
hot save many more lives from inflammation of the lungs than
nature alone does, we save a vastly greater number from death
by other inflammations than nature can do.
In the immediately following pages, also, the reader will
find allopathic statistics compared with the homoeopathic, and
brought to the test of Dr. Dietl's experiments. I am not
answerable for the awful contrast; the astounding facts are
mainly from Allopathy itself, and Dr. Dietl has been appealed to (save the mark!) by Dr. Simpson, and others of his
party, as an authority against us, but without entering into dangerous particulars. Allopathy may mourn with the stricken
eagle, as she gazes on her wound, that she herself
" Nursed the pinion that impelled the steel."
As some cases of my own are introduced into the calculations which follow, I am induced to mention a circumstance
here which further illustrates the reckless and dishonourable
manner in which homceopathic statistics, and homceopathic
physicians, are maligned. In my former reply to Dr. Simpson,
I mentioned in a note that I had treated with success a
number of cases of inflammation of the lungs. In the course
of last spring, a lecturer in Edinburgh accused me to his
pupils, (though not by name,) of having ascribed the death
of one case, that was actually inflammation of the lungs, to
organic disease of the heart, and thus he attempted to show
that no confidence was to be placed in homoeopathic statistics.



68        TESSIERIS CONVERSION TO HOMCEOPATHY.
Will the reader believe that this malicious and false accusation
was made in the face of; the fact, that I had published that
identical case three years ago, along with the chses adverted
to in the following pages, and ascribed the death to inflarmation of the lungs, which I regretted I had not seen my
way to treat homoeopathically, for that otherwise the event
might have been different!  The fact is, the case was one of
very unusual difficulty, and puzzled Dr. Alison as well as
myself, so that it properly belongs to no statistics.
Of M. Tessier, and his contribution to the homceopathic statistics, the following particulars are worthy of attention.
This gentleman is physician to one of the ordinary public
hospitals of Paris, and had, previously to his experimental
inquiry into the practice of Hahnemann, been well known
as an allopathic practitioner of most respectable attainments,
to say the least of him. I'ls homoeopathic experiments on
cholera, and inflammatian of the lungs, issued in his becoming
a believer in the homueopathic system. To his cases no objections have been made by the Allopaths, but such as are so
easily and satisfactorily set aside in the following pages; indeed,
the Allopaths have been sorely at a loss how to dispose of
Tessier's experience, and the utmost they have attempted,
though unsuccessfully, to do, has been to lower his success to
about the level of their own. This attempt, had it succeeded,
would have at least proved that ilomoeopathy was as good as
Allopathy in the treatment of pneumonia; such are the perplexities and inconsistencies to which the desperate and confounded advocates of the falling practice are reduced. I
think, then, it will be admitted that the accuracy of the
homceopathic statistics, to be adverted to in this chapter, is
unobjectionably guarantied, —a remark which does not apply
to those of the other party universally, for Bouillaud is
charged by his colleague, Grisolle, with the suppressio'veri.
But I shall take no exceptions to their statistics as they stand;



SOURCES OF FACTS FOR COMPARISON.         9
we can afford to give them a liberal drawback on the actual
mortality of their practice.
What follows regarding pneumonia in this Chapter was
published by me in much the same form in the British
Journal of Homceopathy for October 1852. Dr. Simpson has
taken care not to meddle with it, though he is well acquainted
with the Journal.
In comparing the allopathic and homoeopathic methods in
the treatment of pneumonia, it is not my intention to enter
at great length on the subject, or to bring together all or
nearly all the statistical details that may have been more or
less fully given on both sides. The task I have proposed to
myself is much less laborious and extensive. I intend chiefly
to examine in detail, as far as the recorded facts will enable
me, a moderate number of cases from both sides; and I think
that those I have selected for comparison will be found to
present unobjectionable samples of the disease, its treatment,
and consequences, under each system; there can be no objection at least on the ground that the homeopathic cases do
not present as full a proportion of conditions usually regarded
as unfavourable to recovery as any number of allopathic
cases brought into comparison with them. I have, indeed,
been at pains to discover accounts of allopathic cases that
were unusually favourable for the happy issue of the treatment, and I have been successful in my search, having found
them in treatises by Louis and Bouillaud. These with the
examples from the practice of Drs. Walshe, Taylor, and Peacock, published by Dr. Routh, and those of Dietl of Vienna,*
are all I have taken from allopathic authorities. The homceopathic side gives me no latitude for selection, for I know
of no groups of cases published by Homceopathists, with the
exception of the forty-one by Tessier, in his Recherches
Cliniques, 1850, and the eleven by myself in the British
* Der Aderlass in der Lungenentziindung. 1849.



70         FLEISCHMANN S STATISTICS VINDICATED.
Journal of Homceopathy for 1850, which possess the condition
which I regard as indispensable, on our side at least, of being
a complete series of cases, from which none had been excluded
or withheld from publication, that had occurred to the narrator between the commencement of his observations for the
time, and the preparation of his treatise for the press. A few
indeed of Tessier's earliest cases are not recorded, owing to
the imperfection of the notes regarding them; but as they
terminated favourably, their suppression is at least no objection to his contingent of cases, which may therefore be fairly
regarded as commencing with the first that appears in his work.
If the comparison about to be instituted between these allopathic and homceopathic cases shall be found to harmonize
as to mortality with what we know of the groups of cases
which are marshalled against each other on the grand scale,
each containing many hundreds, we shall be entitled to conclude that the latter, had they been subjected to the same
analysis, would have furnished nearly the same proportion of
favourable and unfavourable conditions, as to age, sex, complications, &c., for these are the particulars which are supposed to influence more or less the rate of mortality under
every treatment, and you cannot have the aggregate result
in a multitude of cases, irrespectively of the conditions which
produce a similar result in a smaller number. The same
proportional results must be due to the same proportion of
conditions, on the greater as on the smaller scale. If the
mortality in Tessier's cases and mine be the same as in
Fleischmann's, we may be certain that Fleischmann's cases
must have closely resembled the others in all the essential particulars that are believed to bear on the mortality of pneumonia; for had he selected his cases, his mortality must have
been less. The details of these other cases, therefore, will
afford us a very safe ground for judging of the quality of
Fleischmann's cases.
The most interesting part of this discussion, however, is



DIETL'S EVIDENCE AGAINST ALLOPATIY.        71 
connected with another element which has been lately thrown
into the controversy; I allude to the very remarkable statements of Dietl regarding the effects of a merely dietetic or
expectant practice. I shall say of these statements at present
only thus much, that they settle finally two questions; the
fate of allopathic practice, in pneumonia at least, and the
thorough, nay, on the principles of our opponents, the neces.
sary correctness of the rate of mortality affirmed by JIomceopathists as the result of their practice, even if, as is asserted,
it be no better than doing nothing.
Before proceeding to the analysis of the cases on the homceopathic side of the question, I have a few words to say
in reply to some of Dr. Simpson's* misrepresentations of Tessier's cases. Dr. Simpson maintains that one case that died
of erysipelas, which began twelve days after the pneumonia
was cured, and two that, he alleges, (though in reality only
one, and he died three months after his pneumonia had been
cured,) died of consumption before leaving the hospital, should
be added to Tessier's mortality, because, according to him,
these cases would be included among the deaths from pneumonia in the statistics of allopathic hospitals. We are not,
however, about to compare the cases of Tessier with the crude
returns of hospitals, but with the discriminating statements
of individual physicians, who knew when an inmate of their
hospital wards died of pneumonia, and when of some other
disease that had no connexion with it; they, in common with
Tessier, all speak expressly and intelligently of pneumonia,
and of what they noted in their patients throughout that dis.
ease on to its termination, and there their business with every
case ended in so far as the only purposes they had in view
were concerned. If the allopathic physicians had told us all
that happened to these patients weeks or months after their
I substitute Dr. Simpson's name for Dr. Routh's in these passages, because the former has adopted the misrepresentations of the latter.



72           TESSIER S CASES UNEXCEPTIONABLE.
pneumonias were cured, no doubt they would have had to record casualties from erysipelas, or dysentery, or fever, or consumption, but then they would have treated of such under
their proper titles, and not as casualties from, or during pneumonia.  Dr. Simpson next objects to the admission into the
number of successful cases treated homoeopathically six that
had been bled * prior-to the commencement of the latter treatment, on the ground that the blood-letting must have benefited these cases, and thus disqualified them for bearing testimony to the efficacy of Homoeopathy. Blood-letting, however,
as we shall find from the researches of Dietl, so far from lessening the mortality of pneumonia, actually increases it; and
when it does not do so, but appears to be of service, merely
shortens the early stages of mild cases that would have terminated favourably of themselves. Besides, if the limited employment of a single allopathic expedient should be regarded
as a ground for excluding these successful cases, the employment of other allopathic means in one of the cases that died,
ought to be enough to exclude that case also from the homoeopathic calculation; and thus the proportion of deaths would
be further reduced, and lomceopathy would appear to be
still more successful than Tessier makes it to be.
To proceed to the analysis, first of the homceopathic cases,
and beginning with the question of,Ige, —I find that among the 50 cases that were beyond the
period of puberty, 25, or just one-half, were above 40 years
old, and of these, 16 above 50 years old; while the average
age of all the cases was 41 years. There was then an un* In one of these cases the bleeding was only by means of a few leeches,
which in pneumonia must be utterly inoperative for either good or evil. It
is venesection that is adverted.to in the text as the deadly method. The six
cases recorded by Tessier were not bled by him, but before they came under
his care. Previous to his confiding in Homoeopathy alone, he used to combine blood-letting with it; and he found that " the less he bled the more were
the patients benefited after the administration of the minute doses."-P. 4.



ANALYSIS OF HOMCEOPATHIC CASES.         73
usually great proportion of cases at the later periods of life,
of which excess an estimate may be formed from the following larger statistics given by Grisolle: among 630 cases collected by him, 239, or three-eighths, that is 76 less than the
half, were above 40, and above 50 there was little more than
a fifth.
Sex.-The number of females amounted to 9,-about 1 in
52, which is a smaller proportion than usual; for in the 542
cases of Briquet, Chomel, and Grisolle, there were 138 females, or about I in 4. This disparity is, however, of no real
consequence, for the following reasons: —both Grisolle and
Briquet conclude that the greater mortality which is acknowledged to occur among females affected with pneumonia, depends chiefly on the more advanced age at which they are
liable to the disease; the excess therefore in point of advanced
age, already noticed among the homceopathic cases, will
counterbalance any advantage that may be presumed to depend on the smaller proportion of females; and it may be remarked, besides, that we have actually no evidence that pneumonia of itself is apt to be more fatal among females, as such,
than among males. It is true a greater proportional mortality does occur among females, in allopathic practice, which
is not entirely accounted for by their ages, but there is too
much reason to believe, as we shall see in the sequel, that
such excess of mortality among females, treated in the ordinary way, is actually due to the practice, and not to the disease apart from the injury done by the treatment; for females
have generally less robust constitutions than males, and
blood-letting would appear to be fatal in proportion to the
number of the more delicate persons who are subjected to its
operation.
Complications and Constitution. —In regard to local complications, and general deterioration of the constitution, I find
that there were (exclusive of jaundice and pleurisy) 14 with
6



74          ANALYSIS OF IOMCEOPATHIC CASES.
complications, or about 1 in 3-. The complications consisted
of organic disease of the heart, chronic bronchitis, delirium
tremens, pericarditis, acute bronchitis, and meningitis: besides
those 14, in which local complications are specified, there
were 8 others in which the complication is noted as enfeebled
and deteriorated health, a state certainly as unfavourable in
pneumonia as most of the chronic local complications are,so that we have 20 cases of complication, or 1 in 21; a larger
proportion than the worst of the allopathic groups present,
and very much larger than some of them do to which I shall
have to refer. The Iomceopathic complications were chiefly
chronic; and it would appear from Dietl's observations, that
in allopathic practice acute complications are apt to abound,
in consequence, as he thinks, of the tendency of the depleting
measures to produce new inflammations. He supports this
opinion by what he noticed after death in the bodies of such
as had died under each of his three methods of treatment,
blood-letting, tartar emetic, and the expectant plan. Among
17 of the first class, 7 presented complications with meningitis
or pericarditis: among 22 of the tartar emetic class, only one
presented acute complication (pericarditis;) and,, of 14 that
died under the expectant practice, not one instance of acute
complication was found.
affection of the upper lobe.-Among the homeopathic cases
10 egamples of pneumonia of the upper lobe occurred. This
is a smaller proportion than has been sometimes noticed in
allopathic practice. Andral had 30 pneumonias of an upper
lobe in 88 cases; and Grisolle's proportion has varied in different.periods,from a fifth to a third. The pneumonias of
the upper lobe are believed by Louis to be more fatal because they are most liable to happen at the more advanced
periods of life; so that the unusually great proportion of
aged persons among the homeopathic cases will probably
nullify the apparently more favourable condition of these



76          ANALYSIS OF HOM(EOPATHIC CASES.
the first stethoscopic examination was made, and when it was
made, the lung last affected was found in the earliest stage
of the disease, as if it had begun but very recently, and after
the bleeding was performed; in one case the pneumonia became double three days after the depleting practice was in
full operation, the patient having been all that time in the
hospital previous to the extension of the disease. Bouillaud
had double pneumonias in the proportion of 24 per cent., and
Grisolle, in the 1430 cases, collected from various allopathic
authors, says the proportion was 18 per cent. In our homceopathic cases there were 5 double pneumonias, at the rate,
therefore, of 10 per cent.,-.or if we exclude one of the cases,
because blood-letting had been employed before it fell under
homceopathic treatment, there were but 4 cases, or 8 per cent.
We shall afterwards notice Dietl's reasons for believing that
blood-letting causes the more extensive diffusion of pneumonia, and I advert to it here as an additional ground (and he,
too, views it in the same light) for the opinion that depletion
favours the occurrence of double pneumonia. If such, then,
be the case, allopathic physicians cannot plead the greater
proportion of their double pneumonias as a reason why their
cases cannot be justly compared with ours, for that disadvantage on their side appears fairly traceable to their injurious
practice itself, which, of course, creates the evils that produce
its greater mortality, and it seems this excess of double pneumonias among the rest.
Epidemic constitution affects the mortality of pneumonia,
and chiefly in this way, that during influenza the pneumonias
that are epidemic are unusually fatal, at least in allopathic
practice. No such plea is set up on behalf of any of the
groups of cases I am to compare with the homceopathic, and
it shall not therefore be taken into account, although several
of Tessier's cases occurred during such an epidemic..JMortality.-Of our 50 cases 3 terminated fatally; the



LOUIS' CASES OF PNEUMONIA.           77
proportion of deaths to recoveries being one to 17, or just
6 per cent. Of the 26 cases that were aged 43 years and
under, only one died, and at the age of 43; none died of the
25 that were under 40. The others were aged respectively
58 and 60. Here, then, are 3 deaths in 25 cases aged between 40 and 70 years, a period of life when, according to
Grisolle's extensive data, the mortality is at the rate of 23
per cent. in allopathic practice.
I compare. with the homceopathic mortality as given above
first the two groups of cases furnished by Louis. The first
group, consisting of 78 cases, was mentioned in the archives
Gn&erales for 1828, and in a reprint of the memoir, published
in 1835, the author says in a note that he had excluded 46
other cases that had occurred to him along with these 78,
because the pneumonia in them occurred in unfavourable circumstances, such as previous bad health, while of the 78 cases
he says-" all were in a state of perfect health at the moment when the first symptoms of the disease began."  Here
then we have 78 selected cases of pneumonia, in persons in
the most favourable circumstances, as to previous health, for
the successful issue of the disease; and I might justly decline
admitting such cases to a comparison with the unselected
cases of the homeopathic group, in which many-about a
third —were in bad health at the commencement of the pneumonia. This disadvantage will tell, however, all the more
to the credit of Homceopathy, when it is known, that of
Louis' 78 cases, 28, or nearly one-third, died! What makes
the difference in the success of the two systems still more
remarkable is, that Louis' cases were, in a large proportion,
of an early age, and even the average age of the 28 fatal
cases was only 49. That of the 50 that recovered was about
35.
The same author, writing in 1834, or 1835, says, that in
the course of the 4 preceding years 150 cases of pneumonia



78                BOUILLAUD S CASES.
had passed under his notice, but that he limits himself again
to a selection of cases, 29 in all, who were, like the former
group, "in excellent health at the moment when the first
symptoms of pneumonia occurred." In this smaller selection he was much more fortunate, 4 only of the 29 having
died, or 1 in 7, about 14 per cent.; but still nearly 2~ times
greater than the mortality of the unselected homoeopathic
cases.
The treatment of the first group of cases consisted entirely of blood-letting; of the second, of blood-letting, tartar emetic, and blisters. Louis ascribes the less fatal results
in the second group in some measure to the bleedings, though
fewer, having been more copious at a time. But the whole
quantity of blood drawn in these cases was less than in the
others, and the facts to be quoted from Dietl appear to show
that it is rather to this smaller loss of blood that the happier
consequences should be ascribed, than to the manner in which
the evacuation was performed.
Bouillaud's cases.-Pelletan, in the eighth volume of the
JM.m. de l'JIcad. R. de Jllfdecine, has published an account of
75 cases of pneumonia treated by Bouillaud, with the view
of setting forth the advantages of his method of employing
venesection, a method which is known as the coup-sur-coup
plan of bleeding, in the course of which blood is abstracted
daily for 4 or 5 successive days, in such cases as seem capable of bearing the loss.
AJge.-In respect to age, these cases had the advantage of
a considerably larger proportion at the earlier periods of
life than occurred among the homceopathic cases. Of the
latter, 25 cases, or one-half only, were below 37 years of age,
while, of Bouillaud's cases, 46, or three-fifths, were below
that time of life. Again, above 57 years old he had only 5
cases, while the homoeopathic cases numbered 14 above that
age. This disparity is important, for the mortality, according



BOUILLAUD S CASES.               79
to Grisolle's large statistics of pneumonia, between the ages
of 50 and 60, is not less than 27 per cent.
Sex.-Among Bouillaud's cases there were only 7 females,
about 1 in 11 only, or 9  per cent.; while the homoeopathic
cases had 9 females, or 18 per cent. A disproportion of
great consequence if it is true, as allopathic physicians assert, that the mortality of females is one-third greater than
among males.
Seat.-Among Bouillaud's cases there were only 7 instances of pneumonia of the summit of the lung. This is at
the rate of 10 per cent., while among the homceopathic cases
the proportion was 20 per cent. In this respect, therefore,
the advantage is again on the side of Bouillaud's cases, for
the mortality of pneumonia of an upper lobe is ascertained
by Grisolle to be nearly double that of pneumonia of other
parts of the lung.
I have already said that Bouillaud had 18 cases of double
pneumonia, or 24 per cent., while the homceopathic cases had
only 5 examples, or 10 per cent.; and I have also already
shown that the excess of double pneumonias among allopathic cases is to be ascribed to blood-letting, and that, not
being an original disadvantage of such cases, but an evil consequence of the treatment, it cannot be pleaded in extenuation of the allopathic mortality.
Complications.-Of chronic complications, Bouillaud's cases
had only one example-chronic bronchitis; the other complications, amounting to 10, were acute diseases of various
kinds, chiefly of the bronchi and pericardium, and probably
due in a great measure to the treatment..Mortality.-Ten deaths occurred among the 75 cases, or 1
in 7~, being at the rate of 142 per cent. Several of the
cases are mentioned as being trivial, and treated with emollients merely, and three are noticed as having had no physical
signs at all of pneumonia, and therefore were only conjec



80.      CASES OF DRS. TAYLOR, WALSHE,
tured to be cases of that disease. Notwithstanding these and
the other favourable circumstances of those cases of Bouil-laud, the mortality was more than double that of the homceopathic cases. Among the deaths, one, not included by the
author in estimating the rate of mortality, occurred within
24 hours after the patient was admitted into hospital. A
similar instance occurred among the homceopathic cases, and
is expressly included by Tessier in his mortality. If either
is deducted, the other should be deducted too.
Of the 75 cases.of Bouillaud, Grisolle remarks, that in
reality only 49 were treated in the heroic manner he recommends. Of these 6 died, or 1 in 8. The average age of
these 49 cases was only 33 years, and when we take into consideration the fact rendered evident by the experience of
IDietl, that the mortality of pneumonia at all ages, indiscriminately, when no remedial treatment is employed, is only
one half so great as in Bouillaud's 49 cases, we shall see reason to regard the recoveries in those allopathic cases as due
to the powers of young and vigorous constitutions, which resisted the fatal tendency of the blood-lettings.
Cases of Drs. Taylor, Walshe, and Peacock. —Dr. Routh, in
his suspiciously inaccurate work, entitled — "Fallacies of
Homceopathy," furnishes the particulars of these cases, and
as he would give at least the most favourable view of them
that they could honestly admit of,-that is, would take the
utmost pains to display their disadvantages, and to find excuses for their mortality, I have the less hesitation in quoting
the account of them from a work so little entitled to confidence, for I desire to contrast our homceopathic details with
any that even such an opponent can venture to publish in
favour of the system which he defends..dge. —The ages are given of' 126 cases, and of them 96,
(Routh says 86!) or above two-thirds, were under 40 years



AND PEACOCK.                  81
old; while, in the homoeopathic cases, only one-half was under
that age.
Sex.-27 of the 140 were females, or less than a fifth, so
that the proportion was nearly as in the homoeopathic cases.
Complications.-The number of complicated cases is said
to have been 62. Of these a large proportion, no doubt, consisted of acute diseases, as probably always occurs when
blood-letting is employed freely. No specific statement is
made regarding the proportion of chronic complications.
We have seen that the homeopathic cases had, including
the examples of chronic bad health and acute disease, 20 complicated cases, or two-fifths, being rather more than the proportion stated to have occurred in these allopathic cases.
Seat.-No details are given respecting pneumonia of the
upper lobe. Among the uncomplicated cases, 14 instances of
double pneumonia are said to have happened, being at the
rate of 18 per cent.; a number must have occurred also among
the complicated cases, but nothing is recorded of them.
Enough, however, is mentioned to strengthen the inference,
formerly adverted to, regarding the influence of the treatment in producing that fatal form of pneumonia..Mortality.-The deaths amounted to 43, being rather less
than I in 3, or above 30 per cent. From this enormous mortality I am quite willing to allow 10 deaths to be deducted,
on the ground that they occurred among 17 cases of secondary pneumonia, that is, pneumonia succeeding fever, &c., of
which we had no corresponding examples in the homceopathic
cases. Notwithstanding the deduction, 33 deaths remain, 1 in
every 4 cases, or above 26 per cent.! Of the complicated
cases 32 died, or above one-half; while, of the 14 homoeopathic cases complicated with known local disease, only 1 died.
Dietl's cases.-He gives three sets of cases, of which two
were treated respectively by blood-letting, and by tartar
emetic. By the former method 85 cases were treated, of



82                   DIETL'S CASES.
which 17 died, or 20.4 per cent. By tartar emetic, in large
doses, 106 cases were treated, and of them 22 died, or 20.7
per cent. There are no details respecting the ages, complications, sex, or parts of the lung affected, with the exception
of what relates to the number of cases of double pneumonia.
Of these, 10 occurred among the cases that were bled, or 12
per cent., and 6 among the cases treated by tartar emetic, or
less than 6 per cent.
We have some very important and instructive details by
Dietl, regarding the effects of venesection. His remarks are
so strongly opposed to the employment of this practice, that
we might be inclined to suspect him of a leaning to Homceopathy, did he not express himself as strongly opposed to it,
and as "clinging more firmly than ever to the old standard,"
-a declaration that must have some strange and peculiar
motive, considering the startling account he publishes of the
evils of the common practice in pneumonia-evils which, on
his own showing, must equally follow the employment of venesection in other inflammatory diseases.
Dietl left 189 cases of pneumonia to follow their natural
course uninterrupted by medical treatment of any kind,
taking care merely to restrict them to cool drinks and meager
fare during the febrile period of the disease, and preventing
them from moving about. The result was 14 deaths, being
one in 13', or only 7.4 per cent.! A result such as this cannot but be regarded as in the highest degree remarkable by
all who have been accustomed to rely on medical expedients
for the cure of serious, and especially acute inflammatory
diseases. That the narrator of so striking a series of experiments has conducted them fairly, and given an honest account of them, cannot be doubted. He is not, as we have
seen, an opponent of the established methods of treatment,
and could have had no conceivable purpose of a sinister kind
to serve by recording alleged facts that reflect so injuriously



84         ALLOPATHIC RECOVERIES EXPLAINED.
affected have such natural powers of resistance- so much of
the vigour of youth, or of the toughness of hale old age, that
commonly the number of recoveries cannot be lessened by
more than an additional 10 or 15 per cent. That this explanation is just, is plainly proved by the circumstance, that
the more vigorous, strong, and previously healthy the persons are who labour under pneumonia, the better is their
prospect of recovery under the common practice, as well as
under the expectant, the latter, however, giving even to such
cases the more favourable prospect; while the more feeble,
whether owing to age, sex, or previous bad health, die also
of course in a much larger proportion under the allopathic
practice than under the other. The common notion among
allopathic physicians is, that in aged and feeble persons, in
whom, as their phrase is, "there is no room for practice,"
the dietetic plan may do very well, but that it is far otherwise with the young and robust, who, it is said, demand energetic measures. That there is a great mistake on this matter
is proved by the following facts:-assuming age to be. a proximate indication of the degree of strength and robustness, we
find from Dietl's work, that among the younger and more robust constitutions, in other words, among the patients under
40 years of age, the treatment by blood-letting lost 5 cases,
which supposing 50 (the usual proportion) of the whole 85
cases to have been under 40 years old, gives 1 in 10, or a
proportion of 10 per cent. of deaths during the 26 years
above puberty, when pneumonia is presumed to stand the
most in need of " active measures," and to be the most easily
cured by them. Among the expectant cases only one death
occurred under 40 years of age, and as the whole of these
cases amounted to 189, the proportion under 40 years old
would be 114, so that the expectant practice had one death
in 114 cases at the most vigorous period of life, when allopathic evacuations, &c., are fancied to be so essential. In



TEN TIMlES MORE FATAL THAN DOING NOTHING.   85
the same number of cases (114) the latter practice would
have lost eleven cases, in other words, would have caused 10
more deaths than occurred when the cases were not subjected
to any medical treatment. Above 40 years old, the depleting
plan of treatment had also a larger mortality, 12 having died
among the 35 cases, which, according to the usual proportion, must have been above 40 years, in the 85 cases; this
gives us a mortality of 1 in 3, or 33 per cent. Among the
75 cases of the expectant class, which are presumed, according to the ordinary calculations, to have been above 40 years
of age, 13 deaths occurred, about 1 in 6, or 17 per cent.,
about one-half the mortality of the other practice among the
feebler class of patients-who certainly appear therefore to
be proper cases for an expectant method, but not nearly such
proper cases for that method, in its comparative superiority
over the allopathic, as the young, strong, and vigorous are,
among whom blood-letting-that active treatment-is ten
times more fatal than the dietetic plan is!
Of the treatment by tartar emetic in large doses, I need
only remark, that the mortality over the whole cases was
much the same as under venesection, (such are the evil consequences of using indiscriminately, and in excessive doses,
even a remedy which is homceopathic to some cases of pneumonia,) and that it was fatal in a smaller measure in the cases
under 40 than venesection was; having lost 1 in 15, or between 6 and 7 per cent. below 40 years old, and 1 in 2k or
36~ per cent. in the cases above 40.
In what we learn from Dietl of the tendency of pneumonia
to recover spontaneously, and even in spite of any and every
sort of injurious treatment, we have a sufficient explanation
of the fortunate issue of so large a proportion of cases at the
earlier periods of life, which allopathic writers, prematurely
and needlessly as it now appears, have been accustomed
triumphantly to appeal to in testimony of the virtues of blood.



86'ARMY STATISTICS ACCOUNTED FOR.
letting and tartar emetic. One death in 20 or 30 cases, between 20 and 30 years of age, has now and then been the
happy result in the experience of some of these physicians,
and more frequently, perhaps, among the athletic young men
in military practice than in civil life. When it is more generally known, however, that without any medical treatment,
the mortality is less than one per cent. among patients under
40 years of age, some other ground for the complacency of
our allopathic brethren will appear to be reasonably required.
It will, notwithstanding, always remain a remarkable circumstance, that even young and vigorous persons should be
able to survive, in so large a proportion of instances, the
simultaneous attacks of an acute inflammation of one of the
most important organs of the body, large and repeated losses
of blood, and the violent purgings and vomitings produced
by excessive doses of tartar emetic.
Lest it should be suspected that the mortality exhibited in
the comparatively small groups of cases, from allopathic and
homceopathic practice, which have been contrasted in the
foregoing pages, does not represent fairly the general rate of
mortality from pneumonia under the two systems, I add the
statistics on this point furnished on a large scale by allopathic and homoeopathic hospitals. Taking Dr. Roiuth's statements on the subject, we find that among 783 cases of pneumonia, treated in homceopathic hospitals, the deaths amounted
to 45, or 5'7 per cent.; while according to the same authority,
among 1522 cases that occurred in the Glasgow Infirmary, the
General (allopathic) Hospital of Vienna, and the practice of
Drs. Walshe, Taylor, and Peacock, the deaths were 373, or
24 per cent. The almost exact correspondence of the mortality among the homceopathic cases on the large scale, with
that among the 50 cases analyzed in the preceding pages,
cannot fail to repel the insinuations which have been so recklessly made as to the admission into the homoeopathic hospi



VINDICATION OF HOMCEOPATHIC SUCCESS.      87
tals of only favourable cases. The 50 cases referred to are
altogether unexceptionable in respect to the proportion of
conditions usually esteemed unfavourable to recovery, and
if they presented no greater a mortality than occurred among
the 783 hospital cases, the fair conclusion is, that the latter
must have been of the same mixed quality, pretty much in
the same proportion, and not cases unfairly selected for the
purpose of leading to a false impression of the superiority of
the hommeopathic practice. This conclusion is still further
supported by a comparison of these 783 cases, with 189 dietetic cases of Dietl, a comparison which the Allopath will
gladly accept, as proving, according to his notions, that homoeopathy is no more than a merely expectant practice. Those
cases of Dietl have been referred to, indeed, by Drs. Simpson,
Routh, and others, as actually proving such to be the fact,
while they have overlooked, in their zeal, another part of the
same testimony which is altogether ruinous to the reputation
of their own system. If the dietetic cases prove hoinoeopathy
to be merely an expectant practice, because the mortality
among them was so nearly the same as in homeopathic hospjitals, they prove at the same time, that allopathy is frightfully
worse than its rival,-that it actually destroys from 13 to 17
per cent. of patients that would have recovered if treated
homoeopathically, or if left to the remedial powers of unassisted natureI On the supposition, then, that the homceopathic treatment was actually no other than a dietetic treatment,
and -granting, what no Allopath will deny, that the deaths,
at least, occurred which are specified by the homceopathic
authorities, and are not likely to have been magnified, the
number of bond fide cases of ordinary pneumonia must,
if calculated from the rate of mortality among the 189 dietetic cases, have been fairly and honourably stated by the
homceopathic physicians, for the difference is only 1'7 per
cent. of deaths in favour of the homeopathic practice;-'the



88            VINDICATION OF HOMCEOPATHY.
deaths under the dietetic treatment having been 7.4 per cent.,
under the homeopathic 5.7 per cent. We have thus, from
an unexpected source, evidence, the most conclusive, of the
substantial accuracy of the homeeopathic records on the subject of pneumonia; evidence which ought to cover with shame
those who have, without a shadow of excuse for their conduct,
advanced charges against the homeeopathic hospital physicians, painful to peruse, and disgraceful even to have conjectured.
I am quite prepared to admit that the results of Dietl's
expectant treatment, completely destructive, as they eventually must be, of all confidence in the ordinary treatment
of acute inflammations, ought to lower materially our estimate of the favourable influence even of Homceopathy on
the mortality of pneumonia. To those who know the efficacy
of Homceopathy in other inflammatory diseases, usually esteemed of the most dangerous kind, and have witnessed the
power it has of controlling and cutting short the course of
pneumonia, it cannot but appear remarkable that there should
be so small a difference, in the rate of their respective mortality, between it and a merely dietetic treatment. The fact,
however, is so; and I think good reasons can be adduced to
show why it is so, while at the same time it can be p'roved
that in acute inflammations, pneumonia not excepted, Homceopathy does possess an active, real, and positive remedial
power of the highest importance. There is a speciality in
pneumonia, which has been almost universally overlooked,
on which depends, beyond all reasonable doubt, the remarkable capacity it displays of running spontaneously to a favourable issue in all but exceptional cases.
It is now twelve years since I incidentally pointed out, in
a paper on the Anatomy of Pneumonia,* a peculiarity in the
* Monthly Journal of Medical Science, 1841.



EXPLANATION OF THE DIETETIC RESULTS.       89
effects of inflammation of the pulmonary air-cells-the true
anatomical seat of pneumonia.  On minutely examining the
inflamed parts after death, it was not difficult to perceive that
as the inflammatory exudation increased, the parts affected
became gradually paler and less loaded with blood, until, on
the inflamed cells becoming filled with the viscid substance,
so much pressure was exerted on the blood-vessels, between
the fibrous investment of the lobules on the one hand, and
the exuded matter which distended the cells on the other,
that the diseased portion of the lung became actually bloodless, or very nearly so, the deep red colour of the earlier
stages of the pneumonia giving place to the straw or drab,
or sometimes bluish gray colour that distinguishes completed
hepatization.*  As soon as this stage arrives, if the earlier
stages of the inflammation be not going on in other parts of
the lung, the pneumonia as an active inflammatory process is
literally put out,-extinguished by mechanical force; for it
is undeniable that an excess of blood, in vessels dilated beyond their ordinary size, is necessary to the existence of such
a process. That compression is capable of producing the
effect I have mentioned on the inflammatory process is well
known from what has been observed of the consequences of
bandaging in erysipelas of the extremities, and of "strapping" in acute orchitis. In neither of those diseases, however, are the facilities for an effectual pressure on the vessels
at all to be compared with those which exist in the minute
cells of the lungs, where every little mesh of capillary bloodvessels may be said to be exposed on all sides, and in detail,
to the immediate pressure of the exuded matter in the aircells, on whose surfaces they are spread; while counter-pressure is close at hand on the exterior of each cell, in the form
of other distended cells of the same group, and on the exte.
* i. e., Lung made solid by inflammation.'7



90            DIETL2S EXPLANATION OF THE
rior of every little lobule, or group of cells, in the form of
the fibrous covering which they each possess.
This view of the effect of completed hepatization in suppressing pneumonia, is strikingly corroborated by the observations of Dietl, on the mutual relation of the general or
febrile symptoms of pneumonia, and the completion of hepa.
tization. "The fever and dyspnoea," says he, "increase with
the continuance and progress of the exudative process, but
decline in pneumonias left to themselves, as by enchantment,
as soon as this is completed." (P. 71.) Again: "The febrile
stage of pneumonia lasts in very few cases no longer than
three days, in more from three to six days, especially in children; in most instances, however, seven to nine days; and
extends to even eleven or thirteen days only when the pneumonic infiltration happens to be arrested in some measure."
(P. 72.) And when narrating the subsidence of symptoms
which in some cases of pneumonia (cases, it should be noticed, which, according to the plain tenor of his observations
on the disastrous consequences of venesection, as a general
remedy for pneumonia, must have been mild, of small extent,
and in strong individuals) follow venesection, he says, "This
improvement was in the majority of (such) cases permanent,
so that the pneumonia appeared to be cured by a single venesection; or, in other cases, it was transitory, so that after
24 or 48 hours a getting worse or relapse began, which, however, by a second venesection was finally set aside. These
unquestionable facts appear loudly to proclaim that pneumonia, in many cases by a first or second venesection, is cured in
its first stage, and that its passage on to hepatization can be
prevented. By physical examination of such cases, this, however, has appeared —that these apparently cured pneumonias
almost' never become stationary in this stage of mere congestion, but much more frequently pass very quickly into that of
hepatization; so certainly, that within 24 hours not unfre



SUPPOSED BENEFITS OF BLOOD-LETTING.       91
quently a whole lobe, or even a whole lung, has become infiltrated....  We may conclude from this fact, that the
relief in those cases must be ascribed not immediately to
venesection, but to the quickly succeeding exudation, since
by a constant law of nature, fever and dyspnoea of a regularly progressing pneumonia are almost instantaneously extinguished with the completion of the exudation." (P. 80.)
While he has witnessed in cases of dietetically treated pneumonia the same speedy cessation of the fever and dyspnoea
due to speedy' hepatization, he says he has observed this
happen in a greater number of cases after venesection, although in most cases it had no such effect. (P. 87.) Hence
he concludes that venesection hastens the exudative process
in the inflamed parts in certain cases of pneumonia, although
in most cases it does not do so. (P. 81.) "Most cases of
quickly cured pneumonia are therefore cases of rapid hepatization, the development of which is rather favoured than
hindered by venesection."  His conclusion is somewhat remarkable-" I believe, therefore, that venesection in many
cases of pneumonia operates in an eminently homeopathic
way, i. e., it shortens the pneumonic process, while it forwards
it." (P. 82.) A consequence which he believes to be produced by venesection acting on the constitution of the blood
in the same way as the inflammation itself does, and thereby
increasing the intensity of that state of the fluid on which
the exudation depends.
Unfortunately this somewhat strange homceopathic remedy
exerts the beneficial part of its influence on but a small proportion of pneumonias. IDietl does not tell us his proportion, but a strenuous advocate for venesection, Briquet, in
detailing his experience of the rapidly favourable results
which sometimes follow venesection, observes that this occurred in only one-fourth of his cases, i. e., in 22 out of 87;



92         BENEFITS OF VENESECTION DELUSIVE.
and he gives us a clue also to the reason, if not of its occurrence in them, at least of venesection being borne in such
cases without injury —" three-fourths of these patients were
of a strong constitution, and seven-eighths of them presented
at the same time crepitant rattle with the bronchial respiration," that is, were in an early stage of the disease. In the
great majority of the other cases of pneumonia that recovered, he acknowledges that the phenomena of the disease
during the period that venesections continued to be practised
either persisted unchanged, or commenced to diminish, as
would certainly have been the case, judging from Dietl's experience of the expectant practice, had no venesection been
performed, and fewer of the whole number, also, would have
become progressively worse.
It would appear, therefore, that the prepossession in fayour of venesection in pneumonia rests chiefly upon two
grounds: Ist, On the suppression of the general symptoms
speedily after venesection in a proportion of cases, although
these are cases which, from the robustness of the patients,
belong to the very class which we now know furnishes a
smaller mortality when left to nature; the benefited cases
therefore did not need venesection to prevent their dying,
although from peculiar circumstances the disease in them
was hurried through its febrile stage, and thereby made
shorter, though not safer, by venesection. I may add to these
the few cases in which pneumonia is stopped by venesection
in its first stage, or stage of congestion, of which cases Dietl
observes, "If in a very few cases the pneumonic process is
arrested after potwerful venesection in the stage of inflammatory congestion, yet this occurs still morefrequently under
dietetic treatment, so that we believe we ought to ascribe this
circumstance with much more justice to the originally limited
and more insignificant intensity of the pneumonic process,



VENESECTiON DESTROYS LIFE.           93
than to the influence of venesection." (P. 75.) 2d, On the
foregone and hereditary conclusion that venesection was necessary in the general treatment of pneumonia, and consequently that the recoveries which took place were, in all severe cases at least, due to the venesection in a great measure; a conclusion which was not unnatural in the absence of
actual clinical proof, that even in this formidable-looking disease recoveries would occur in a much larger proportion of
cases had no such evacuation been employed.
The manner in which venesection proves injurious, and so
often fatal, in the treatment of pneumonia, may be satisfactorily shown by the facts we now have in our possession.
Formerly it might be argued with some plausibility, that the
large mortality which occurred when venesection was a principal means by which it was sought to cure the disease, happened in spite of the remedy; for the best remedy in the
hands of the best physician must occasionally fail to do good,
as no human being can be so complete a master of the instruments he employs as always to wield them to the best purpose of which they are capable. This explanation will not
now suffice, for it is placed by actual experiment beyond all
question, that venesection destroys life in an appalling proportion of cases in which death would not have been the
issue but for the employment of the supposed remedy. The
strong and robust resist it for the most part, and happily
recover, yet no contemptible proportion of them, and many
of the weaker, whether owing to sex or age or morbid infirmity, are its unquestionable victims. The manner and circumstances of its operation in leading to this result are thus
detailed by Dietl: "We cannot forbear this expression of
our belief,-that venesection favours the spreading of hepatization, and favours it all the surer the oftener it is repeated,
and the poorer the patient is in blood,-so that many pneu



94               CAUSE OF THE FATALITY
monias, both intense and extensive, were first pushed to their
height by venesection-progressed and throve, so to speak,
under the lancet." (P. 85.) And again, "In other cases we
saw the hepatization proceed in pauses in two or three attacks,
so that after the infiltration of a portion, the fever and dyspnoea ceased, the patient experienced the greatest relief,the whole appeared to be ended. After the lapse of one or
two days, however, the hepatization undergoing recrudescence, began to spread itself wider, until it affected a whole
lobe or a whole lung, or even spread itself to both lungs,
which sometimes first occurred after a second attack. These
intermittent pneumonias happened almost exclusively in old
and enfeebled persons, and as well under the dietetic as the
venesection treatment, with this striking difference, however,
that in the latter the second attack was much more severe,
and the hepatization more rapidly extended, reached an extraordinary extent of surface, and that almost all the patients
died; while, in the former, the second attacks proceeded
much more calmly, the hepatization attained no such extent,
and the most of the patients, even when the disease was very
tedious and left indurations or wastings of the lung behind,
recovered." At p. 88 he concludes," that venesection favours
the transition of red hepatization into suppuration,.....
and that the resorption of purulent hepatization was not favoured by venesection, but that death often follows in the
midst of it."  "We have remarked the most extensive pneumonias, as well in private as in hospital practice, in the practice of others as well as our own, always to occur under the
use of venesection." (P. 84.) "Of the patients treated dietetically, not one died in consequence of the pneumonia alone;
or, what is the same thing, pneumonia left to itself is, of
itself alone, proved not to be a fatal disease, but is so by
being complicated with chronic disease." (P. 108.)  "By



96              IHEOMEOPATHY SHORTENS
elusion of Dietl, a conclusion which is valuable, at least to this
extent, that it admits the accuracy of the homceopathic statements as to the rate of mortality under the system, and the
fairness with which the homceopathic statistics of the successful treatment of pneumonia are given by his fellow-citizen
Fleischmann. For Dietl seeks no solution of the question by
gratuitous and unmannerly insinuations regarding the candour
and ability of the latter, the justice of whose claim to be considered a trustworthy physician he must have had opportunities of knowing, and does not dispute; as indeed he could not
for another reason, that, regarding homceopathy as merely
an expectant practice, he must admit it to be at least as successful as his own expectant treatment. A comparison of details would, however, have satisfied him that he greatly erred
in his denial of active and positive virtues to the homeeopathic
method, and that its success is due to some other cause than that
which favours the expectant plan-a cause calculated to produce still happier results. This truth is illustrated by theduration of the disease under the different plans of treatment.
The duration of the disease ought to be computed from the
first symptoms of the inflammatory fever to the cessation of the
local physical signs, or complete disappearance of the hepatization. And it is thus that Dietl proceeds in the analysis he has given us of the duration of pneumonia under the
expectant and the allopathic treatment. When the resolution of the hepatization is not made the final particular in
the estimate of duration, the physician is left to a somewhat
arbitrary and uncertain criterion in fixing the period of cure,
and is exposed to the temptation of under-estimating the
length of time his remedies have taken to effect recovery.
Louis tells us that he placed the date of convalescence "at
the period when the patients have commenced to take some
slight nourishment, three days at least after the cessation of
the fever; the local symptoms not being yet dissipated in all



THE DURATION OF PNEUMONIA.            97
the cases."  Bouillaud adopts a still more questionable method, fixing the commencement of convalescence at the period
when the characteristic signs of pneumonia and the fever have
almost entirely disappeared, and when he had begun to give
some " bouillons;" "as if," says Grisolle, " one had a right to
regard as cured, patients in whom fever had not yet entirely
ceased."'Objectionable as both these methods are, yet as
the French authors appear generally to adopt the course
followed by Louis, I shall not conclude this part of the subject without comparing our results with theirs, as ascertained
by their own mode of procedure. I have first, however, to
advert to Dietl's averages, and to compare the homoeopathic
data with them.
He found the average duration of the cases treated by venesection to be 35 days; of those treated by tartar emetic,
28.9 days; and of those under the expectant method, 28 days.
The whole duration of the disease, from the commencement
of the fever to the complete resolution of the hepatization,
is ascertainable in 43 of the 50 homceopathic cases. In a
few of Tessier's cases the last report regarding the state of
the lung is, that resolution was almost complete. To the
duration of such cases I have added two days succeeding the
final report, which is at least not too little. The average
duration, then, of the disease in these 43 cases amounts to
only 112] days. This very remarkable result places beyond
all rational doubt the claim of homoeopathy to a high degree of active curative power in pneumonia. The cases under the expectant treatment lasted, on an average, 16 days
longer than the homeeopathic cases. Of the whole expectant cases, 36 (not much less than one third) were prolonged
to between 30 and 60 days, while only 5, or less than oneeighth, of the homecopathic cases lasted beyond 18 days, and
only once did the duration extend to 27 days. Lest it should.
be supposed that an average duration of 28 days is an incredi



COMPARED WITH THE HOMCEOPATHIC.         99
siderable amount of exudation into the air cells, appears
from the rapidity with which it vanishes. Within an average of four days after the cessation of the fever, the whole
local disease was gone, whereas in Grisolle's mild cases, left
to diet, the process of resolution h'ad then only begun, and
took from 11 to 17 days to be completed. M. Grisolle adverts to the hepatization in his cases, as if it amounted only
to vascular congestion, or, what he considers the same, red
hepatization; but complete hepatization is never merely vascular congestion, and he has no means of knowing, but by
dissection, what the actual state of the hepatized part is.
Besides, it is- not in harmony with what we know of the
state of inflamed parts elsewhere, to believe that intensely
congested vessels should continue to afford signs of consolidation for four days after the fever had ceased, and should
take so many days more to disappear. In these, as in Dietl's
cases, (for he more correctly regards hepatization as almost
synonymous with infiltration of the lung with exudation
matter,) the local,disease must have issued in distention of
the air-cells with inflammatory exudation,-a condition which
admits of being remedied only by the slow processes of absorption and expectoration. It is thus only that we can account for the very remarkable difference in the duration of
pneumonias treated homceopathically, and of those treated
by the expectant method.
Louis, and probably most other French physicians, as appears from the terms in which Grisolle refers to the practice
of Louis, reckon the duration of their cases of pneumonia
only down to the complete cessation of fever, and the capacity to receive and digest some more nourishing food than
was previously safe. In 36 of Tessier's cases, the daily reports are such as enable us to ascertain the duration of his
cases, according to this mode of reckoning; no data of the
kind are furnished by my cases, as I allow nothing but fever



100           DURATION OF ALLOPATHIC AND
diet till the lung is nearly in its natural state again. The
average duration of the 36 cases was 9 days.  Bouillaud
makes the duration of his cases nearly the same, or 91 days,
but his colleague Grisolle reminds us that he did not wait
till the fever was entirely gone, as Louis did, otherwise he
ought to have made the average duration of his cases, even
according to this objectionable method, from 12 to 14 days
at least, and Grisolle adds, "I can give but an approximation
to the truth here, because, as M. Bouillaud approaches the
period of convalescence, he becomes excessively sparing of
details."  The average duration of Louis' two sets of cases,
calculated according to his notion of the termination of the
disease, amounting in all to 75, was above 18 days, or exactly twice the duration of the homoeopathic cases.
It is evident that were the disease in those examples regarded as cured, as they ought to have been, only when the
signs of exudation had entirely ceased, the actual duration of
them would have been very much the same as those of Dietl
under the depleting treatment; as it is, the facts furnished
regarding them amply corroborate the statement of Dietl in
this important particular,-that the duration of pneumonia,
when treated in the ordinary way, is very protracted,-and
display the superiority of the homeopathic method in a very
striking aspect. I have said "in the ordinary way," because
the 20 cases in Louis' second set, which were treated with
tartar emetic, and other ordinary means, as well as venesection, lasted 18 days, or almost quite as long as the others
who were treated only by venesection, so that the average
given of the whole cases represents fairly what is to be expected under all the appliances of the ordinal y practice.
Fever.-The duration of the fever, in Dietl's experience,
was for the venesection cases, 11.1 days, for the tartar emetic
cases, 9.2, and for the dietetic, 9.1. The duration of the
fever in the first of these cases would appear closely to cor



HOMCEOPATHIC CASES COMPARED.          101
respond with that of Louis' cases; for while 18 days was the
duration of them down to the period when he thought it safe
to give aliment, he say's that this latter period was at least
three days after the cessation of the fever, and we may presume that it was often several days more, which would leave
us somewhere about twelve days as the average duration of
the fever in his cases. In 43 homceopathic cases, the data
are sufficient to enable us to determine the duration of the
fever, and we find that the pulse in them was reduced to the
natural standard, or below it, on the average in 8 days. This
appears but a small difference as compared with the length
of fever in the dietetic cases, but then it should be remembered that the homceopathic treatment was employed only
during half the febrile stage, for the patients generally came
under treatment about the fourth day of their disease. The
subsequent part of the febrile stage was therefore shortened
by a fifth part of the duration it had under the dietetic plan.
Were the homceopathic treatment begun earlier, the result
would doubtless be much more striking; and as an illustration
of this, from a few cases, I find, that in 16 cases in which the
homceopathic treatment was begun within the first 2 days,
the duration of the fever averaged only 6 days. Besides all
this, it is worthy of special notice, that the- number of unimportant cases which are pushed, by venesection, rapidly on
to complete hepatization, are, though they take a long period
to recover perfectly, soon brought to the end of their febrile
stage, and thus lessen the average duration of the fever in
the whole cases, by means of an occurrence which is actually
due to an increased activity of the local disease. Whereas,
under homceopathic treatment, that accidental mechanical effect, which ensues on rapid and excessive exudation, is prevented, and the fever is less liable to be suddenly checked,
though the whole course of the disease is greatly shortened.
With this analysis of the most important particulars of



102            INFERENTIAL PROOF OF THE
pneumonia, under different methods of treatment, I draw
these remarks to a close. I have compiled the facts with
the utmost care and fairness. For some of the comparative
results I was not prepared when I began the investigation,
but I did not on that account the less faithfully record them
as they successively emerged, and if each in its turn bears
its unequivocal testimony to the efficacy of homeopathy, and
to the serious evils of the common practice, the explanation
is to be found solely in the details as I found them in authentic publications.
A single remark remains to be made, and although it does
not bear on the further elucidation of the subjects treated of
in the preceding pages, it is a plain and most important inference from some of them. The homceopathic hospital statistics, regarding the mortality of pneumonia, being proved
to be correct by the evidence adduced from two sources, as
narrated in the course of this chapter, the same hospital sta,
tistics regarding other acute inflammations, deemed not more
dangerous than pneumonia has generally been supposed
to be, are to be regarded as equally entitled to credit. The
good faith and accuracy of the authorities having been demonstrated, in reference to what have been stigmatized as
their incredible allegations regarding their success in pneumonia, a disease so deadly in allopathic practice, they are
justly entitled to the benefit of that demonstration in respect
to their not more extraordinary allegations as to the success
of their practice in pleurisy, peritonitis, pericarditis, and other
acute diseases.* Of all these inflammations, peritonitis is probably the most serious, and we have something like an admission of the alleged success of homoeopathy in that disease,
by an opponent of the system, who was an eye-witness of its
operation in Fleischmann's hospital. True, says he, they cure
* Inflammation of outer covering of lungs, bowels, and heart.



ACCURACY OF THE OTHER HOMCEOPATHIC STATISTICS.  103
peritonitis readily enough, but then their cases are, for the
most part, only tubercular (scrofulous) peritonitis.'I need
not remind any professional reader, of respectable attainments, that tubercular peritonitis, when of any considerable
extent, as it must be in many instances, is the most incurable
form of the disease, (that which follows perforation excepted,)
if indeed it is ever cured. Yet such an explanation of the
homeeopathic success as this, was actually made by a writer
against homoeopathy, in Dr. Porbes's Review, whose opinions
and statements are even still quoted and referred to as authoritative by Dr. Simpson, Dr. Routh, and other allopathic
controversialistsI Even if we grant that, in a large proportion of such cases of tubercular peritonitis, the inflammation
was sub-acute, and not extensive, the superiority of homoeopathy, in the treatment of peritonitis, would be in no degree
less manifest; for it is not pretended that tubercular peritonitis, even in its slighter forms, was not equally prevalent
in the allopathic hospitals of Vienna, in which the proportion
of deaths among cases of peritonitis is so much larger than
in the homeeopathic; indeed, the writer in question admits
that he saw such slight cases only in an allopathic hospital I
It is altogether unnecessary, after the complete vindication contained in the preceding analysis of the various statistics of pneumonia, of the accuracy of the homceopathic
statements regarding the success of homoeopathic practice in
that disease, to enter into any details in proof of the superiority of the same plan of treatment in other inflammatory
diseases. Pneumonia has been regarded as an important and
dangerous disease, scarcely inferior in gravity to any of the
other common inflammations; it affords the largest statistical tables, on both sides, for the institution of a comparison
between the claims of the rival methods of treatment; and
a searching analysis of these statistics, along with the application to each class of the test of their respective merits, and



104          HOM(EOPATHIC SUCCESS IN PLEURISY,
to one class, whose accuracy has been ignorantly or maliciously impugned, the test of its correctness, afforded by the
expectant practice of M. Dietl, has proved both the,fidelity
of homoeopathic statements, and the vast superiority of the
homoeopathic treatment over the allopathic. The inference,
from the proofs which have been adduced, of the correctness
and fairness of the homceopathic records concerning pneumonia, which I am entitled to draw, as bearing upon the homoeopathic statistics of other inflammations, is this, that they
too must be regarded as correct and fair, for there was nothing known of the peculiarities of pneumonia, in reference
to spontaneous recovery, prior to the researches of Dietl,
that was not equally known regarding the other inflammations;* and as the former could not therefore be misrepresented by homceopathists, in order to meet a corroboration
which they did not know was possible, but has been shown
to be a fair and faithful record, therefore the other homoeopathic records must be held to be equally fair and faithful,
whether they shall meet with a similar corroboration or not.
I content myself, then, with a simple notice of the results of
the same treatment in other inflammmatory diseases, regarding which the homceopathic statistics are not more incredible
than they were supposed to be in regard to pneumonia, prior
to the proofs of their accuracy.
Among 299 cases of pleurisy the homceopathic practice in
the German hospitals lost only 4, or 1 in 74; among 189
cases of peritonitis it l9st only 9, or 1 in 21; while in these
two diseases the allopathic mortality is from eight to sixteen
* With the exception, probably, of pleurisy, which has been generally believed to be frequently cured spontaneously, on the ground, that traces of
pleurisy, long previously recovered from, have been often found in the dead
bodies of persons who had never been treated for that disease. These traces,
however, have usually shown that the attacks thus spontaneously cured had
been of small extent.



PERITONITIS, ERYSIPELAS, ETC.        105
times greater. The' reason of there being this still larger
comparative mortality under the allopathic system than
under the other, in these two diseases than in pneumonia,
probably is, that the allopathic measures have not in other
inflamnmations the assistance of the anatomical peculiarities
which enable cases of pneumonia to recover in spite of the
injurious tendency of the treatment. Among 345 cases of
erysipelas, there were only two deaths in the homceopathic
hospitals; and a similar success attended the practice in membranous inflammations of the heart, and in dysentery. The
records from which these facts are taken extend over a period
of about fourteen years, a circumstance which obviates every
objection that may be made on the ground of variable types
of the several diseases in different years.
Allopathic writers, and Dr. Simpson among them, have
lately begun to talk a great deal of the power of acute diseases to disappear of themselves. They have been forced to
this by the undeniable recoveries under Homceopathy, which
they desire to represent as no medical treatment at all.
We, however, assert the same thing regarding acute diseases,
and go a great deal farther in our assertions on the point
than they do; for we contend that recoveries would be much
more common in their hands than they are known to be, provided they would suspend their peculiar treatment, and leave
such diseases to the less dangerous methods of nature alone.
The justice of this opinion is amply attested by the statistics
of pneumonia already given; and the continued inquiries
that are now being made, by skeptical physicians of their own
party, will, by and by, put us in possession of similar proofs
in respect to other inflammations.
It is not in acute diseases of the inflammatory kind only
that Ilomceopathy is superior to the common practice. But
as I have already exceeded the space I had intended for the
comparison of the two systems in the treatment of particular
8



106        HOHMEOPATHIC SUPERIORITY IN FEVER.
diseases, I must satisfy myself with the testimony of Dr.
Forbes, the distinguished allopathic reviewer, in regard to
this point. Alluding to Fleischmann's reports, he gives him
the character of being a "well-educated physician," "of
honour and respectability," says, "we cannot, therefore, refuse to admit the accuracy of his statements as to matters of
fact," acknowledges the general correctness of his statistics
of mortality among acute and chronic diseases, and of fevers
he affirms —" the amount of deaths in the fevers and eruptive
diseases is certainly below the ordinary proportion; " * although
he explains this on the ground that llomceopathy does merely
no harm, while Allopathy often does. We may take the liberty of denying the validity of the explanation, in so far as
Homceopathy is concerned; but we are satisfied for the present with the admission of the fact, that the superior success
is on our side.
I cannot pass from the consideration of medical statistics
without a few remarks on each of two important points frequently adverted to by allopathic controversialists; and on
both of which I have the fortune to agree with them. The
first is, what I believe to be their just denial that the general statistics (including all the cases admitted) of their hospitals can be fairly compared with those of the homoeopathic
institutions.-  I entirely concur with them in thinking that
the far greater proportion of incurable organic diseases that
find their way into the large, old, allopathic hospitals, as into
medical poor-houses for.the incurable, places them at a disadvantage as to the class of cases subjected to treatment,
when their mortality is brought into comparison with that of
homoeopathic hospitals. This much is due to fairness; but,
at the same time, I strongly suspect that, although our mortality would be greater than it is if our hospitals had the
* British and Foreign Medical Review, 1846.



ALLOPATHIC ROMANCE ABOUT CONSUMPTION.     107
same proportion of incurable organic diseases as the allopa-.
thic have, the difference between the results of the two methods would be quite as great, if not greater, were the allopathic hospitals to have acute inflammations substituted for
their excess of organic diseases; for it is only a proportion
of the latter that die annually, though all of them must die
within a few years.
The second point is, that the returns of one or two homeeopathic dispensaries in this world of diversity are not
faultless. They give what to me, as well as to our allopathic
friends, appears an incredible proportion of cures of consumption. I do not know who presides over the Munich Dispensary, or the London Homeoopathic Institution's out-patients;
but if the reports are sanctioned by them, they must submit
to be regarded as very incompetent persons in matters of diagnosis. I am not the defender of the errors of every medical man who chooses to call himself a homceopathist; and I
have never thought that Allopathy monopolized all the apocryphal authorities and ill-informed physicians in the world.
But while I dispute the accuracy of the reports-which would
make Homceopathy appear to cure consumption so readily, I
am firmly of opinion that the only cures that are met with
in practice are, when due to medicine in any degree, due to
Homceopathy. It is chiefly as a homeopathic remedy that
-cod-liver oil acts, in the proportion of cases in which it acts
beneficially, by dint of its minute quantities of phosphorus
and iodine; and I have reason to think that Homceopathy has
other remedies which are sometimes beneficial when that oil
fails to be of service. I must not leave the reader to suppose that the homeopathic physicians adverted to above
stand alone in their extravagant conceptions of the prowess of their art in consumption. M. Bayle, the allopathic
writer on Digitalis, in the Bibliotheque Therapeutique, has
collected, from a number of the authors of his sect, 151



108         CAUTION ABOUT PRIVATE PRACTICE.
cases of that disease treated by digitalis,-of which they say
83 were cured, and 35 relieved. Does Dr. Simpson believe
their assertions; and, if not, does he think that all allopathic
statistics are monstrous fabrications or ignorant rhapsodies?
Lastly, Dr. Simpson most incautiously sneers at the statistics of the private practice of homoeopathic physicians. (See
p. 90 of the " Tenets.")  Let him beware lest he provoke
some of that body to constitute themselves a commission of
inquiry into matters which had better remain as private as
may be: Allopathy could ill stand such an investigation. As
to the instance he refers to at Huddersfield, in connexion
with cholera, the two gentlemen engaged in the conflict very
plainly, I believe, gave each other the flattest contradiction,
and it will always remain impossible for us to decide who
was in the right; at all events, it has not been found that allopathic controversialists are usually trustworthy, certainly
they are very far from being monopolists of credibility.



( 109 )
CHAPTER II.
Outline of the life and labours of Hahnemann; his parentage; early devotion
to learning; medical education; relinquishment of practice from disgust at
its uncertainty; distinction as a chemist; his first conception of the homoceopathic law, and return to practice-Allopathy and Antipathy afford no hope
to practical medicine-The proving of medicines the road to Homoeopathy
-First publications on a new principle, or the necessity of ascertaining the
actions of medicines on the healthy-Persecution at KSnigslutter-Discovery of the prophylactic power of Belladonna-Proofs of its truth, and refutation of Dr. Simpson's objections.
No earnest or truth-loving man can peruse the facts recorded in the last chapter, without very seriously meditating
on the state of medical affairs, or without the conviction that
there is something fearfully wrong where both the public
and the profession in general have been totally unsuspicious
of error. These revelations are startling, and new to most of
us, for we have been slow to believe the many solemn warn.
ings of Hahnemann regarding the dangers and the many irretrievable evils, of the course usually pursued in the treatment of acute diseases. His language on the subject has
been regarded as extravagant by many even of his own followers, and as the expression rather of his personal antipathies towards the practice of those who had loaded him with
every imaginable abuse, than as the sober utterances of a
man of deep and dispassionate thought, as well as of rare
powers of observation: we may say now, with such evidences
before us, that the half had not been told, that the warning.
voice of Hahnemann, strong as it is, is not half so loud as the



110               BIRTH OF HIAHNEMANN.
occasion demands; and may well lament that while many of
the medical guardians of'life are wasting time on irrelevant
trifles, and darkening counsel with words, thousands, yea,
tens of thousands, are perishing that might be saved.* Medical men, by whatever orthodox name they distinguish themselves, cannot longer, without the deepest guilt, go on in a
course of blind prejudice or indifference. Ignorance may be
innocent when it is unavoidable; it is guilty when the means
are at hand by which it may be exchanged for knowledge;
and guilty just in proportion to the value of the knowledge
which it excludes.
Having given in the preceding pages a sample of the benefits
of Homoeopathy, such as fully to justify the high estimate
formed of it by its founder, and to establish his paramount
claims to the lasting gratitude of mankind, I cannot be mistaken in supposing that a historical sketch of iahnemann,
and of the origin and development of his great discovery,
will be welcome to such as take a genial interest in whatever
relates to human worth, and is subservient to human happiness.  I shall, therefore, devote this and the succeeding
chapter to a narrative of his scientific life and labours.
Samuel Hahnemann was born in 1755, and ought, therefore,
to be regarded as more a man of the last century than the
present; a truth which is either forgotten, or kept out of view,
by those who minutely criticise his knowledge and opinions,
on some parts of medical science, by the standards of a succeeding age, remarkable beyond any other for the growth,
and often for the beginning too, of whatever-is held to be
certain and of value to practical medicine, in physiology,
morbid anatomy, organic chemistry, and physical diagno* From calculations founded on the reports of the Registrar-General, taken
in connexion with the facts contained in the preceding chapter, it appears that
in the United Kingdom there, die, under the common treatment, in every ten
years, about 20,000 cases of inflammation of the lungs alone, that might be cured.



HIS EARLY EDUCATION.              111
sis.*  His native place was the little town of Meissen, on the
Elbe, near Dresden; and his parents, like those of many others
who have risen to distinction in science, were in humble life;
his father having been by trade a painter on porcelain. Hiahnemann appears to have been at first destined for some lowly
occupation, and to have been enjoined by parental authority
to eschew the liberal studies for which he showed an early
preference. But a love of knowledge being stronger in the
boy than filial piety, he contrived means to evade the paternal injunctions, and by a midnight lamp, of his own secret
construction, to gratify his intellectual longings when the
household was asleep. "His aptitude for study," says his
accomplished biographer, Dr. Dudgeon, " excited the admiration of his schoolmaster, with whom he became an immense
favourite, and who undertook to direct his studies, and encouraged him to a higher order of study than what constituted
the usual curriculum of a high-school. This did not please
his father, who several times removed him from school, and
set him to some less intellectual work, but at length restored
him to his favourite studies, at the earnest request of his
teacher, who, to meet the pecuniary difficulty, instructed the
young Samuel until his twentieth year without remuneration."t
He soon after began his medical studies at Leipsic, and it
deserves to be noticed, to the credit of his youthful attainments, that he supported himself there by teaching French
and German, and translating works from the English. From
Leipsic he resorted to Vienna, where he enlarged his professional acquirements under the friendly direction of the once
celebrated Dr. von Quarin, whose esteem he had the good
fortune to gain, and who treated him with the kindness of a
father.
* He was nearly seventy years old before the introduction of auscultation
by Laennec.
t- Hahnemann. An Introductory Lecture, by R. J. Dudgeon, M.D. 1852.



112         REASONS FOR GIVING UP PRACTICE.
Having completed the orthodox curriculum, he-graduated
at the University of Erlangen in 1779, and appears forthwith
to have commenced the practice of his profession. After
some years of-as we may be sure, considering the man and
his' attainments-more thoughtful and intelligent experience
than had often been exemplified in medicine, he wrote his
first medical treatise, which gives the results of his professional labours in Transylvania, "and takes rather a desponding view of medical practice in general, and of his own
in particular, as he candidly admits that most of his cases
would have done better had he let them alone." *  It would
appear from his letter many years afterwards to the celebrated Hufeland, with whom, in 1808, he was on terms of intimate friendship, that after " an eight years' practice, pursued,"
as he says, "with conscientious attention," he had so "learned
the delusive nature of the ordinary methods of treatment,"
as to be induced to relinquish his professional pursuits. His
own words, descriptive of his views and feelings at this time,
are as follow:-" It was painful to me to grope in the dark,
guided only by our books on the treatment of the sick-to
prescribe, according to this or that (fanciful) view of the
nature of the diseases, substances that owe to mere opinion
their place in the AMateria Medica; I had conscientious scruples about treating unknown morbid states in my suffering
fellow-creatures with these unknown medicines, which, being
powerful substances, may, if they were not exactly suitable,
(and how could the physician know whether they were suitable or not, seeing that their peculiarspecial actions were not
yet elucidated?) easily change life into death, or produce
new affections or chronic ailments, which are often much
more difficult to remove than the original disease. To become in this way a murderer, or aggravator of the sufferings
* Dr. Dudgeon.



HIS DISTINCTION AS A CHEMIST.              113
of my brethren of mankind, was to me a fearful thought-so
fearful and distressing was it, that shortly after my marriage
I abandoned practice, and scarcely treated any one for fear of
doing him harm, and-as you know-occupied myself chiefly
with chemistry and literary labours."* In chemistry his
talents seemed to have found a field for their successful exercise, for, during several years prior to 1790, he published
many articles on that science; among which are still remembered that on his valuable tests for ascertaining the purity
of wine, and his treatise upon arsenic.  To the value of the
latter we have the testimony of the best writers on toxicology,
among whom I may mention Professor Christison, who quotes
Hahnemann's account of poisoning by arsenic, as no doubt
the most graphic and accurate he could discover, and who
cannot be accused of partiality. To his proficiency as a chemist, too, we have the tribute of Berzelius, one of the highest
authorities in chemical science, though apparently of very
mean information in medicine, who is reported to have said
of him, "That man would have been a great chemist had
he not turned -a; great quack."'t
In 1789 we find him settled in Leipsic, and publishing his
treatise on the only class of diseases he appears to have found
amenable to treatment, although not yet suspecting that the
cause of the exception was that the practice he recommended,
* Letter upon the Necessity of a Regeneration of Medicine, 1808. It may
be worth mentioning that Louis, the eminent hospital physician of Paris, also
forsook private practice, and went to work again at the public hospitals, in
order to discover some means of practising medicine to better purpose. This
happened, I believe, within the last thirty years.
t It was afterwards, however, remembered against him, when his name
began to be distinguished in medicine, that he had mistaken borax for a new
alkali, and had sold it as such. But it is not added by his enemies, that on
discovering his error he hastened to correct it, and to refund the money he
had received. Many a great chemist has made as great a blunder, and in
more recent times too.



114        HIS ANTICIPATION OF HOMCEOPATIHY.
and which was but a modification of the customary method,
was in accordance with the world-old, but yet unseen and
unacknowledged law, with which his own name was by and
by to be wedded, for better or Worse, in all time coming.
In this work he describes the manner of preparing and using
his "soluble mercury," still known in Germany as "Hahneman's." In 1790 he translated Cullen's Materia Medica, and
we may reasonably suppose the task to have had some influence on the current of his meditations, which, during this
eventful year, set strongly in a direction from which they
never afterwards swerved till the close of his long life.
Working on the Materia Medica, he must have thought much
and anxiously, as indeed he tells us he was now doing, on the
possible ways of turning to the advantage of mankind the
powers which so many substances in every kingdom of nature
seemed beyond question to possess, of altering the actions
and conditions of the living human frame. At this point it
is that the mind of Hahnemann presents those features which
distinguish the genius of discovery, wheresoever it has shown
itself at work in its highest mood. It is a mistake to suppose
that his first conception of the homceopathic law of therapeutics
was suggested by the accidental observation of the similarity
of the effects of Peruvian bark on his own person to the
symptoms of ague, a disease for which that drug is a frequent
remedy. He specifies that observation, in his letter to Hufeland, merely as having at that early period strengthened the
idea he had previously conceived, on totally different grounds,
of the probable existence of such a law. I shall presently
allow him to tell in his own way the reflections which led
him to anticipate the experimental proof that there is a homceopathic law in nature, by which the virtues of medicines
and the processes of disease are adapted to one another, as they
are by no other law, and in such a way and to such an extent
as to make the powers which plants and minerals possess of



VULGAR ERRORS ABOUT THE "INDUCTIVE METHOD." 115
altering the states of the body almost commensurate in their
healing qualities with the vast diversity of corporeal disorders. But before doing so, I would direct attention to the
fact, that in the manner of its first being thought of, the homoeopathic law belongs to the category of probably all the
great additions to science that were ever made. It is erroneously supposed by many who talk of the inductive method,
that experiment, or the accumulation of'details or particular
facts, precedes the detection of great general principles or
laws; but it would appear that neither in ancient nor in
modern times has any such method been the instrument of
great discoveries. "The process of Lord Bacon," says Sir
David Brewster, "was, we believe, never tried by any philosopher but himself. As the subject of its application, he
selected that of heat. With his usual erudition, he collected
all the facts which science could supply, —he arranged them
in tables,-he cross-questioned them with all the subtlety of
a pleader,-he combined them with all the sagacity of a
judge,-and he conjured with them by all the magic of his
exclusive processes. But, after all this display of physical
logic, nature thus interrogated was still silent. The oracle
which he had himself established refused to give its responses,
and the ministering priest was driven with discomfiture from
his own shrine. This example, in short, of the application
of his system, will remain to future ages as a memorable instance of the absurdity of attempting to fetter discovery by
any artificial rules."  In another place he observes,-" It
would be interesting to ascertain the'general character of
the process by which a mind of acknowledged power actually
proceeds in the path of successful inquiry. The history of
science does not furnish us with much information on this
head, and if it is to be found at all, it must be gleaned from
* Life of Newton.



116             HAIINEMANN~S THEOLOGY
the biographies of eminent men. Whatever this process may
be in its details, if it has any, there cannot be the slightest
doubt, that in its generalities, at least, it is the very reverse
of the method of induction."
Hahnemann, as we have seen, had in a great measure, if
not entirely, withdrawn from practice some time towards the
year 1790, in consequence of the dissatisfaction he felt at
the uncertainty, general inefficiency, and frequent dangers
of the ordinary method of practising medicine. But he was
not, therefore, unoccupied with reflections on the healing art,
and the possibility of discovering some better method than
those in common use; and he has left us traces of the steps
by which he was led to discover the surer and more effectual
way of using remedies. And first, it is remarkable enough,
considering the strange attempt that'has been made of late
to attach to Homoeopathy the reproach of theological heterodoxy, that he places in the foreground of the sketch he
has given of his meditations on the possibility of raising
medicine from its low position, such conceptions of the bounty
of God, and such reliance on His wise beneficence, as are
striking no less for their lofty piety, than as the solitary instance in which a deep sense of the divine goodness proved
to be the special incentive to arduous medical researches,
and the starting point of a scientific voyage of discovery.
Perhaps we are entitled to regard it in still another lightas the compass by which he steered, and as therefore the
cause of his success. Having stated his sad experience of
the methods of Sydenham and Hoffmann, of Boerhaave and
Gaubius, Stoll, Cullen, and De Iaen, he continues, "But perhaps it is in the very nature of this art, as great men have asserted, that it is incapable of attainihg any greater certainty.
Shameful, blasphemous thought!  What! shall it be said that
the infinite wisdom of the Eternal Spirit that animates the
universe could not produce remedies to allay the sufferings



FAIRLY REPRESENTED.              117
of the diseases He allows to arise? The all-loving paternal
goodness of Him whom no name worthily designates, who
richly supplies all wants, even the scarcely conceivable ones
of the insect in the dust, imperceptible by reason of its minuteness to the keenest human eye, and who dispenses throughout all creation life and happiness in rich abundance-shall
it be said that He was capable of the tyranny of not permitting that man, made in His own image, should by the efforts of his penetrating mind, that has been breathed into
him from above, find out the way to discover remedies in the
stupendous kingdom of created things, which should be able
to deliver his brethren of mankind from their sufferings
worse than death itself? Shall He, the Father of all, behold
with indifference the martyrdom of HIis best-beloved creatures by disease, and yet have rendered it impossible to the
genius of man, to whom all else is possible, to find any method,
any easy, sure, trustworthy method, whereby they may see
diseases in the proper point of view, and whereby they may
interrogate medicines as to their special uses, as to what they
are really, surely, and positively serviceable for?    "Well,
thought I, as there must be a sure and trustworthy method of
treatment as certainly as God is the wisest and most beneficent of beings, I shall seek it no longer in the thorny thicket
of ontological explanations, in arbitrary opinions, though
these might be capable of being arranged into a splendid system, nor in the authoritative declarations of celebrated men.
No, let me seek it where it lies nearest at hand, and where
it has hitherto been passed over by all, because it did not
seem sufficiently recondite, nor sufficiently learned, and was
not hung with laurels for those who displayed most talent for
constructing systems, for scholastic speculations, and transcendental abstractions.     How, then, canst thou (this
*Letter to Hufeland.



118         REASONS FOR PROVING MEDICINES.
was the mode of reasoning by which I commenced to find my
way) ascertain what morbid states medicines were created
for?... Thou must, thought I, observe how medicines act
on the human body, when it is in the tranquil state of health.
The alterations that medicines produce in the healthy body
do not occur in vain, they must signify something, else why
should they occur? What if those alterations have an important, an extremely important signification. What if this
be the only utterance whereby these substances can impart
information to the observer respecting the end of their being;
what if the changes and sensations which such medicine produces in the healthy human organism, be the'only comprehensible language by which-if they be not smothered by
severe symptoms of some existing disease-it can distinctly
discourse to the unprejudiced observer respecting its specific
tendencies, respecting its peculiar, pure, positive power, by
means of which it is capable of effecting alterations in the
body, that is, of deranging the healthy organism, and-where
it can'cure-of changing into health the organism that has
been deranged by disease! This was what I thought.
"I carried my reflections farther:' How else could medicines effect what they do in diseases than by means of this
power of theirs to alter the healthy body? —(which is most
certainly different in every different mineral substance, and
consequently presents in each a different series of phenomena,
accidents, and sensations.) Certainly in this way alone can
they cure.
" But if medicinal substances effect what they do in diseases
only by means of the power peculiar to each of them of altering the healthy body, it follows that' the medicine among
whose symptoms those characteristics of a given case of disease occur in the most complete manner, must most certainly
have the power of curing that disease; and in like manner,
that morbid state which a certain medicinal agent is capable



SEARCH OF MEDICAL RECORDS FOR HOM(EOPATHIC CURES. 119
of curing must correspond to the symptoms this medicinal
substance is capable of producing in the healthy human body.
In a word, medicines must only have the power of curing
diseases similar to those they produce in the healthy body,
and only manifest such morbid actions as they are capable of
curing in diseases!
"If I am not deceived, I thought further, such is really
the case; otherwise how was it that those violent tertian and
quotidian fevers which I completely cured four and six weeks
ago, without knowing how the cure was effected, by means
of a few drops of cinchona tincture, should present almost
exactly the same array of symptoms which I observed in myself yesterday and to-day, after gradually taking, while in
perfect health, four drachms of good cinchona bark, by way
of experiment?"
Thus, the conception of the homceopathic law, and of the
necessity of ascertaining the powers of medicines to alter
the health by proving them on the healthy body, had manifestly preceded the "yesterday and to-day" of inquisitive
experiment, as the first conception of the law of gravitation
is known to have preceded the existence of the data required
to make it provable. Abundance of experiment was yet to
follow, unparalleled in its demands on patience, perseverance,
and toil of mind and body; but, first, the records of medicine
were to be searched to learn where accident had hit on the
grains of gold that must exist even in that chaos. Accordingly, to chaos he next betook himself, with the pick-axe and
shovel of his rare learning and discrimination, and ardent
with hope as ever went gold-seeker in our days to California
or Mount Alexander.' In the works of his predecessors the
"yield" was not enormous, so manifold were the alloys and
impurities of polypharmacy; but specimens he got of the
precious metal, of whose value they were as unconscious as
the aboriginal Indian or Australian must once have been of



120          HOM(EOPATHIC CURES IN ALL AGES.
the market worth of their yellow dust. Accidental cures of
maladies whose symptoms resembled the effects producible
on healthy persons by the drugs that had been given, sparkled
here and there in ancient volumes, elsewhere dark as midnight.  The discovery of some pure specimens of such accidental homceopathic practice of former days, and of others
of doubtful character,* the result of his studies at this period, was subsequently published in his Organon. For he
was far from holding, as many of his obtuse and ignorant detractors affirm, that medicine had been utterly ineffective for
permanent good before his day. On the contrary, he expressly adverts again and again to cures in the highest degree remarkable, as having been performed by physicians in
every age. What he laments, and with the most admirable
acuteness and force of argument exposes, in several of his
works, is the absence of any previous rule by which remedies, unquestionably serviceable at one time, can be made so
with any degree of certainty at another: a defect which he
shows to have arisen from the universal ignorance of the
reason why, when they happened to be efficacious, they actually were so. It was to supply this fundamental want that
he laboured: in order that men might have a principle for
their guidance in the attempt to cure diseases, and no longer
be successful by rare accident, or useless or injurious by pedantic ignorance.
In order to perceive the depth of meaning that lies in the
passages we have quoted, and to discern the logical continuity
of what seemed to llahnemann the legitimate process of rea* There can scarcely be stronger evidence of the captious spirit, and the
poverty of serious argument, with' which Dr. Simpson attacks Homeeopathy,
than the fuss he makes about these dubious instances. As if it was of the
smallest consequence to Homoeopathy, though a single instance of accidental
homceopathic cure could not-be proved from the records of the dark ages
that preceded Hahnemann.



122           INADEQUACY OF ALLOPATHY.
opium in habitual sleeplessness, when the dose has been large
enough to reduce the resisting brain to a poisoned insensibility;-of purgatives in habitual constipation, —and the remaining small number of instances in which we have any
thing that can be justly called an anti-pathic action. Besides, even were anti-pathy good, its employment to any considerable extent would be impossible, for the plain and sufficient reason, that no opposite can exist to thousands of the
symptoms that disease presents, and it is by symptoms or sensible effects we must be guided, unless we are to lose ourselves again in ever groundless conjectures, and fanciful
speculations, regarding that hidden essence of disease which
makes its presence knowable only by its effects, while these
tell nothing of its nature. The absence of a symptom or effect is not its opposite, and no opposite is conceivable for
hundreds of different sensations, of altered appearances and
secretions, and therefore we can oppose to them no contrary
medicine,-except on hypothetical grounds, again, both of
the disease and the remedy. Hahnemann knew all this, and
therefore he had no hope from anti-pathy, and he was right.
Nothing has been made of it to this hour, beyond what it always has been, and must be-palliative, temporary, not curative.
Nor was there better promise from Allopathy, or the method which would attempt to remove natural disease from
one part by exciting artificial disease in another. This is essentially the system of counter-irritation applied to other
parts than those which are diseased,-and though.temporary
checks may be caused by it in a few of the more important
disorders, and though those which are unimportant, and naturally of short duration, may come to an end during the existence of the counter-irritation, as when blisters, or yet more
violent applications, have produced inflammation of some
part of the surface contiguous to the disease, the number of



INADEQUACY OF ALLOPATHY.             123
maladies is small in which it admits of being exemplified in
this, its apparently most favourable illustration, and it is more
than questionable whether, when recovery succeeds such
counter-irritation, it is materially, if at all, the result of the
artificial disease, in any considerable proportion of cases.
In our own day it has been asked, by so decided an allopath
as Andral, whether, in acute inflammations, blisters ameliorate the disease, by the exudation they cause to take place
from the circulation, or increase it by aggravating the fever,
and augmenting the inflammatory state of the blood; and
Louis, another of the same school, questions their utility in
one of the acute diseases, in which they are, perhaps,.the
most frequently employed, pleurisy,-which he is inclined to
suspect is rather liable to be made worse by vesicatories applied to the chest. -Allopathic; applications of this kind,
therefore, must have appeared to.Hahnemann, also, as pertaining to the catalogue of dubious or hurtful expedients;
and as the same estimate was still more applicable to allopathic medicines, his expectations from an allopathic method,
even were it supposed to be practicable in the case of any
large proportion of drugs,-which it obviously could not be
without the aid of the everlasting theories and fanciful speculations regarding the nature of diseases, and the mode in
which medicines acted, speculations infinitely more liable to
be wrong than right, —must necessarily have been of the
least satisfactory description. If so questionable in the simplest and most obvious form, how much more so, how uncertain and ineffectual must it have appeared to be in the obscurer and less manageable instances?
Several indirect operations of the allopathic remedies, besides those properly included under counter-irritation, were
as well known in Hahnemann's time as in the present, and
apparently as much employed. Diaphoretics, diuretics, purgatives, were all in vogue then as now, and if they are now



124          PALLIATIVE USE OF ALLOPATHY.
employed with a discrimination that often prevents the injurious consequences that must have followed their administration in cases in which an improved pathology shows us
they are calculated to do harm, they were still then as now
justly open to the general charge of being merely temporary
and palliative, capable, it may be, of removing some of the
products of diseased action, by one channel or another, but
not curative or capable of remedying the primary disease.
In certain of these capacities they may be still properly employed, when the primary disease is incurable. Dropsy, for
example, when a consequence of organic disease of the heart,
or kidneys, may frequently, and can only, be lessened or removed, for the time, by the allopathic action of diuretics or
cathartics,-but it will return when their action is exhausted,
because it is a mere effect or symptom of another disease
which is not remediable. When, however, dropsy depends
on a primary disease that is remediable, Hahnemann justly
condemns the allopathic palliatives which are directed against
the removable effect, and leave the removable cause untouched.
Besides all these objections to the allopathic method, as a
method of curing, there remained this other, that the pathogenetic effects of drugs on the healthy body were, in the great
majority of instances, of a description that could have no allopathic use. On this part of the subject I shall quote a passage from my letter to Dr. Forbes,* who, although an allopath, is a strong. advocate for proving medicines on the
healthy body, and recommends the task to the young hopefuls
of the profession, whom he humorously designates "Young
Physic."' —"  Suppose the task executed, and executed well,
what can you gain by it, as allopaths, but some additional
purgatives, emetics, narcotics, antispasmodics, diuretics, diaphoretics, and such like, of which you have a store already
ample enough to melt the mammiferous creation from off the
* See British Journal of Homoeopathy, 1846; and Homoeopathy in 1851.



PROVINGS OF NO SERVICE TO ALLOPATHY.     125
face of the earth, or to lull it into an endless sleep? I can
understand how you may stumble on remedies for particular
diseases, by trying drug after drug, as each comes to hand,
on persons that are ill. This is the method that has been
pursued for two thousand years, or thereby, and it has
brought some useful remedies to light, of which some, probably the most, act homeeopathically when they act with advantage. But what you can learn of the virtues which a medicine, tried on the healthy body, shall exert on the diseased,
beyond its probable evacuating, and nauseating, and narcotising, and one or two other energetic influences, long since
abundantly supplied, I am at a loss to conjecture. Will'Young Physic,' then, allow all his pangs to go for nothing?
was it for this that he has panted, and groaned, and writhed,
and coughed, and spit, and sneezed, and bled?  That he has
endured headaches and colics, stitches and twitches, in every
section of his frame, and so many a fac-simile more of the ills
that flesh is heir to? Can he make no use of them allopathically, or antipathically: or must he be contented to let
them, stand as penances?
"Supposing he should try to turn them to some remedial
account, what can he make antipathically or allopathically
of such an effect of a medicine as a racking pain in his stomach, for example, or a fiery redness of the nose? Why,
allopathically, he can get up an artificial pain in his stomach,
to remove a natural pain from his head or his feet; or he
can set his nose in a blaze, to cure an erysipelas of his legs,
on the principle that one fire puts out another. But will the
cure not be as bad as the disease?  Then, antipathically,
how will he manage to make a practical use of his voluntary
afflictions?  I can see how he may succeed, when his nose is
disagreeably white, in striking the more becoming hue by a
skilful administration of the reddening remedy; but I am
at a loss for the useful employment of the pain in his sto



126            PROVINGS RECOMMENDED BY
mach. The opposite of a painful is an agreeable sensation,
and I know not an instance of a pleasurable feeling in the
stomach playing an important part in pathology. Yes, there
is one such. You will find it in the treatise of worthy Dr.
Underwood on the diseases of children. The'inward fits,'
quoth he,' are betrayed by a frequent and sweet smiling during
sleep; the which is provoked by wind pleasantly tickling
the stomach.' Now, for just such a dose of the ache-causing
remedy as shall nicely strike the balance between a pleasure
and a pain! What an opportunity for our infant Hercules,
our young Antipath! to still the apprehensions of a fond
mother, and disappoint the forebodings of the lugubrious
nurse."
We have already seen that the proving of medicines on persons in health formed a prominent and essential part of Hahnemann's scheme for the advancement of practical medicine,
and the considerations which have now been laid before the
reader appear to show beyond dispute that such provings
can be of little or no service to medicine on the allopathic
or antipathic plan. Dr. Forbes is not the only allopathic
physician who concurs with Hahnemann on the desirableness
of medicinal provings. Dr. Forbes recommends the future
cultivators of medicine "to reconsider and study afresh the
physiological and curative effects of all our therapeutic agents,
with the view of obtaining more positive results than we now
possess."*  Professer Forget of Strasburg had previously
given the same advice at the Scientific Congress in 1842, the
following deliverance having been presented to that body by
the Medical Section over which he presided:-" The Medical
Section is unanimously of opinion that experiments with medicines, on healthy individuals are, in thdpresent state of medical science, of urgent necessity for physiology and therapeutics." And, indeed, so general is the feeling, however vague,
* British and Foreign Medical Review, 1846.



ALLOPATIHIC PHYSICIANS. -         1.27
as to the consequences that may ensue to the healing art, of
the propriety of having such provings, and of the discredit of
not having them, that, in every allopathic work on the properties of drugs, their action on the healthy body is never,
if possible, omitted. This is no small testimony to the sagacity of HIahnemann, who had so long previously descried the
importance of such knowledge; and when it is acquired in a'full and satisfactory manner by allopathic physicians, the result must be the general adoption of tIomceopathy, partly
because it will teach them to respect the scientific character
of the first and greatest of provers, and partly because it
will show them, by evidences of their own, that the remedies
we use are homceopathic, or correspond, in their effccts on
healthy persons, to'the phenomena of the diseases in which
they are successfully employed. As yet the archives of the
old methods are singularly deficient in information of the
kind referred to; indeed, what does exist in them would deserve to be called contemptible, were it not ludicrous; for no-'thing is contemptible that can give even a little innocent
amusement. Notwithstanding this defect, however, new medicines have been added to the old lists, and old medicines
have become employed in new ways, and with occasionally
better success, in ordinary practice, within the last twenty or
thirty years. But the explanation of this is to be found in
these very provings of Hahnemann and his followers, which
those who thus profit by them affect to despise. Medicines
get into good repute, through the practitioners of Homoeopathy, for the treatment of various common disorders, and
forthwith their virtues are quietly appropriated or re-discovered by the allopathic party, and their operation-explained
by some absurd or fanciful theory, and thus having cap and
bells clapped upon them to conceal their true character, they
are promoted (heartily ashamed of the honour) to the rank of
orthodox drugs. Aconite, belladonna, nux vomica, arnica,



128          HiOMEOPAT"IY REASONED OUT.
are familiar.instances of this indirect progress of ordinary
medicine. One consoling reflection, however, is, that they
won't be found very obedient to their strange masters, until
they appropriate also the rules which the medicines have
been taught to follow by Him who bestowed them on the
world.
To proceed with our history, however: it is obvious that
Allopathy and Antipathy affording lHahnemann no hope of
advancing therapeutics to a respectable and useful position,
he was shut up to Homceopathy, as the only remaining way
that could be conceived for the employment of drugs, the only
method that promised to give full effect to all the phenomena
of medicinal provings on healthy persons. Conceiving, first,
that medicines effected cures of disease "by means of this
power of theirs to alter the healthy body," and by this only,
— it follows, as a logical sequence, that since they cannot thus
cure antipathically or allopathically, they must do so homceopathically; or in his own words, " it follows that the medicine
among whose symptoms those characteristics of a given case
of disease occur in the most complete manner, must most certainly have the power of curing that disease," if there is any
meaning whatever in the multiplicity of effects which medicines can produce on the healthy frame, by the express appointment of the "wisest and most beneficent of beings."
And thus was the idea of the homoeopathic law reasoned out,
before a single testing experiment was made. The first experiment, as we have seen, was made with cinchona bark,
and the illustration it affords of the homoeopathic action of
medicines will be discussed in the sequel.
In 1792, lIahnemann, at the request of the reigning Duke of
Saxe-Gotha, took charge of an asylum for the insane in Georgenthal, in the Thuringian Forest. "A cure," says Dr. Dudgeon, " that he made in this institution, of the Hanoverian minister Klockenbring, who had been rendered insane by a satire



130      METHODICAL EXPERIMENTS RECOMMENDED.
practical medicine, are lucidly explained, and the limits pointed out with admirable judgment, beyond which they cannot
go; while the importance of experiment with drugs is powerfully enforced. Having shown the narrow compass of the
advantages to be derived from the two preceding methods,
he continues: "Nothing remains for us but experiment on the
human body. But what kind of experiment?  AJccidental or
Jliethodical? The humiliating confession must be made, that
most of the virtues of medicinal bodies were discovered by
accidental, empirical experience, by chance; often first observed by non-medical persons.* Bold, often over-bold, physicians then gradually make trial of them.
"I have no intention of denying the high value of this
mode of discovering medicinal powers —it speaks for itself.
But in it there is nothing for us to do; chance excludes all
method, all voluntary action. Sad is the thought that the
noblest, the most indispensable of arts is built upon accident,
which always pre-supposes the endangering of many human
lives. Will the chance of such discoveries suffice to perfect
the healing art, to supply its numerous desiderata?....
Sadly we look forward into future ages, when a peculiar remedy for this particular form of disease, for this particular
circumstance, may, perhaps, be discovered by chance, as was
bark for pure intermittent fever, or mercury for syphilitic
disorders....
"  When I talk of the methodical discovery of the medicinal
powers still required by us, I do not refer to those empirical
trials usually made in hospitals, where, in a difficult, often
not accurately noted case, in which those already known do
no good, recourse is had to some drug, hitherto either untried
altogether, or untried in this particular affection, which drug
is fixed upon either from caprice and blind fancy, or from
* See examples in the sequel,-Chapter on "Homoeopathic Law."



A NEW PRINCIPLE FOR DISCOVERING REMEDIES.   131
some obscure notion, for which the experimenter can give no
plausible reason either to himself or others. Such empirical
chance trials are, to call them by the mildest appellation, but
foolish risks, if not something worse."  These remarks are
not less applicable to the ordinary practice in our own day
than they were in his.
The greater part of the essay is devoted to an exposition
of the principle according to which, as he conceived, remedies
that are homceopathic to the disease produce their effects,
and to the notice of such instances as were then known of
the pathogenetic action of medicines, and the homceopathic
suitableness of this or that drug to various corresponding
conditions of disease., For examples of the effects produced
by drugs on healthy persons, he was even at this early period indebted in some measure to his own observation, showing how soon after his first perception of the homoeopathic
law he began to accumulate those stores with which he afterwards enriched scientific medicine. Among the medicines
whose actions on healthy persons he had already made some
progress in discovering, were chamomilla, arnica, millefolium,
ethusa, belladonna, hyoscyamus, nux vomica, digitalis, ledum,
palustre, arsenic, and camphor. He occasionally illustrates,
besides, their homceopathic action as remedies, by particular
instances of cure; and of the other medicines which he adverts to, he either tells how they had been useful on account
of their homceopathic virtues in the hands of other physicians, or employed with advantage by himself on the homceopathic principle, from particulars concerning their action on
healthy persons obtained from the incidental notices of authors; or he predicts from the same data that they will be
found useful in certain disorders to which they seemed
homoeopathically suited. Learned researches, and experimental labours such as these, giving from year to year conclusions soberly drawn from premises carefully determined,



132     PROGRESSIVE RESEARCHES OF HAHNEMANN.
and doctrines enlarging and becoming more definite as the
observation of facts extended and became more precise, are
not the characteristics of deceit, but the sure evidences of
sincerity and a love of truth. In the essay on which I am
now commenting, with the exceptions of the modest but firm
announcement of his belief that medicines cure diseases by
virtue of their power to excite similar diseases on healthy
persons, and of the illustrations of that truth contained in
books and furnished by his own experience, there isenothing
advanced by llahnemann that can be regarded as peculiar to
Homceopathy as it now exists. There is no singularity in
the manner of preparing the medicines for use, or in the doses
in which they should be given; no evidence of a predetermination to start far away from his brethren in the profession,
and to strike out a solitary path to fortune for himself; but
much, on the contrary, that proves him to have been less intent on his individual fame, than on the clear discerning and
propagation of important truths, and much that shows his
desire that others should be partakers of all the knowledge
and skill he himself possessed. Homoeopathy, in its details,
was to him, as it is at this day to his followers, a progressive
science, for whose application to practice, while a very great
deal was done by him in the course of the fifty years that he
devoted his rare energy and genius to the study of it, much
has been left for his successors to accomplish; and not, as its
shallow adversaries suppose, a sudden contrivance that shot
up into a mushroom maturity from the heated brain of an enthusiast, or the profligate heart of a charlatan.
One obvious inference from llahnemann's views of the curative action of medicines was, that they should not be jumbled together in mixtures, pills, and boluses, whereof each,
according to the custom of the old school, was made to contain several or many drugs, but that they should be given in
the simplest form. This rule carried into practice, of course



MEDICINES NOT TO BE MIXED.                 133
rendered the art of the apothecary, as it then existed, altogether useless to him, and he was under the necessity of preparing and dispensing his own medicines. The apothecaries
of Kbnigslutter were, therefore, easily incited, by the physicians of the place, who had grown speedily jealous of the
rising fame of their colleague, to bring an action against him
for interfering with their privileges; for in Germany at
that tilhe the druggists were secured by law in the exclusive
right of compounding physic. Hahnemann defended himself by the plea, that while they had indeed the sole right
of compounding medicines according to the prescriptions of
the physicians, every man, according to the spirit of the law,
was at liberty to give, as he did, gratuitously, uncompounded
drugs, which alone he employed. This reasonable argument
was unheeded, he was prohibited dispensing his medicines, and
thus his practice was of course forbidden at the same time.*
In 1799, the last year of his residence at Ki5nigslutter, he
first conceived the idea that belladonna was a preventive of
certain forms of scarlet fever. During the prevalence of an
epidemic of that disease, he employed belladonna as a remedy for the first stage of the malady, in consequence of the
similarity of some of the effects it produces to the early
symptoms of scarlet fever. In a family of four children,
~*On 11ahnemann's rule of giving only a single medicine at a time, Dr.
Simpson makes some choice remarks, indicative, as usual, of the greatest
ignorance of the subject he writes about. Opium, says he, contains twentyone ingredients, and yet homoeopaths prescribe opium, while they pretend to
give medicines singly. Opium, we reply, is a single medicine, because it has
not been artificially compounded, and because it has been proved just as
nature gives it; and proving bestows unity in the sense of showing what this
natural compound can do, as distinguished from other natural compounds.
Proving is the essence of singleness in Homceopathy: so that if opium, arsenic,
and mercury, mixed together, were proved upon the healthy body, this arti-.
ficial compound would thenceforth be a single medicine.



134          BELLADONNA AS A PREVENTIVE.one was taking belladonna for some affection of the finger
joints, when the epidemic disease invaded the household;
and IIahnemann, having observed that she escaped'while the
others were seized with the malady, suspected that her exemption might depend on the influence of the drug she was
taking. He had soon numerous opportunities of testing the
correctness of his suspicion, by giving the medicine to many
who were yet unaffected by the disease, in families which had
others of its members ill with it, and the results satisfied him
that belladonna had a protective power such as he had suspected.  As it is of great importance that medical men
should forma right opinion regarding the justice of this conclusion of Hahnemann, I shall lay before the reader the directions originally laid down by the discoverer of the prophylactic, and a summary of the experience which we possess on the subject at the present day. I say we, as including
both sides of the profession; for it is not a little amusing,
after all the abuse they heap upon homoeopathic physicians
for using a teaspoonful of castor oil, to find the allopathic
practitioners making no scruple whatever to appropriate
IIahnemann's discovery of the protective power of belladonna! So early as 1810, some allopathic practitioners in Leipsic "complacently recommended the employment of belladonna as a prophylactic for scarlet fever, as if they had just
made the discovery,"' and without even adverting to the
claims of the true discoverer, who was then practising in the
same town. In 1826, Ilufeland, the most celebrated of the
allopathic physicians of his day in Germany,wrote an article
in his journal on the Prophylactic power of Belladonna in
Scarlet Fever, in which he honestly assigns the merit of the
discovery to Hahnemann, and is said to have collected an
overwhelming mass of testimony in its favour. Hiahnemann
did not publish on the subject till 1801, as he appears to
have been very solicitous that there should be experience



OF SCARLET FEVER.               135
ample enough to prevent the possibility of mistake, and
to determine the concurrent circumstances which were necessary to ensure the successful employment of the medicine,
or the obstacles that might frustrate the attempt to render
it of service. In the interval he appears to have furnished
supplies of his prophylactic to a number of practitioners, in
order that it might be tested by others as well as himself,
and this he did originally without informing them of the
name of the drug: and yet when he published his pamphlet
on the Cure and Prevention of Scarlet Fever, eleven years
after he first began his experiments on the subject, he remarks in the preface,-" Up to this period it is impossible'
that the corroboration of my assertion could be complete,"a circumstance which he ascribes, in part, to the fact, that
the medicine occasionally "' fell into the hands of some who
had neither the ability nor the good will to administer its
solution in an appropriate manner," "to the hurry and inaccuracy of young doctors of the present day," and to the
"little dependence to be placed on our private patients" in
carrying instructions into effect.' These, and other obstacles,
have to this day left the question undecided in the estimation of many, and have led some to the hasty conclusion that
belladonna has no power of protecting from scarlet fever.
Among the most effectual means by which this last opinion
may be at any time established to the satisfaction of the experimenter, is the unconscious using of another drug instead
of belladonna; and that this has been the case with some
cannot be doubted, for I learn from a gentleman of much
experience in drugs, and who was some years ago assistant
to the Professor of Materia Medica, that a collector of plants
for the apothecaries having brought him a supply of dulcamara instead of belladonna, assured him, on being shown his
nlistake, that he was accustomed to regard the former (which
is known by the name of woody nightshade) as belladonna



136                BAYLE'S EVIDENCES IN
(or deadly nightshade,) and that he had lately supplied one
of the principal shops with a large stock of the one article
instead of the other, and without any objection on the part
of the druggist! How far this may account for the unfavourable results of some unpublished experiments in Edinburgh, I do not know; but it is curious, in connexion with
the anecdote I have related, that this should as yet be the
only city in which experiments made in an hospital for children have furnished results said to be opposed to the claims
put forward on behalf of belladonna.*
Before adverting to the experiments made in Edinburgh,
I shall adduce, from an article by M. Bayle,t a distinguished
allopathic authority, the principal testimonies that have appeared on the subject in Germany.
"At the end of the last century, Hahnemann, having remarked that belladonna, taken in small doses, gave rise to a
reddish eruption analogous to that of scarlatina, predicted
that belladonna would be a prophylactic to this disease, according tcr the homceopathic principle that diseases are cured by
medicines, the effects of which upon the organism are similar
to the symptoms of those diseases.
"Notwithstanding some facts which seemed to confirm this
hypothesis, it was only about 1812 that several physicians
made methodic trials to confirm this point. But since that
period to the time I now write, more than twenty-five practitioners have been occupied in establishing the preservative
properties of belladonna against scarlatina. The epidemics
of this disease having been frequent in the north of Europe,
and often more fatal than the small-pox, the authors who
* I advert here to the unpublished experiments of Dr. Andrew Wood, adverted to by Dr. Simpson. We demand outspoken facts, details, not hole-andcorner whisperings.
t Biblioth'eque' The rapeutique, t. ii. p. 583, et seq.: 1830.



FAVOUR OF BELLADONNA.              137
have been occupied in verifying this point in therapeutids
belong all to this part of the world.
"The following is a r6sum6 of the different trials:"In 1812, a fatal epidemic reigned in the district of Hilschenbach, in the duchy of Berg; 8 persons died of it, 22 were
ill. Schenk administered belladonna to 525 persons; 522
were preserved. The three who were attacked were a mother and her two children, who had only taken the medicine
four times.
"Hufeland and Rhodius gave perfect immunity to all the
individuals to whom they had administered this substance,
in several very violent epidemics.....  Muhrbeck, at Demmin, (Western Pomerania,) obtained the same success during
seven years, in which he had frequent opportunities of having
recourse to this treatment.... Gumpert,'physician at Posen,
preserved his 4 children and 20 families, amounting to about
80 individuals; 2 persons were, however, attacked. In one
the belladonna had only been used some days; in the other,
the disease declared itself in the second week. Gumpert
(senior) prevented the introduction of the epidemic into several villages, by administering the medicine continuously at
the proper time. He remarked that in those where the epidemic had already appeared, the employment of this substance
rendered the scarlatina very mild. In the district where he
practises, the public have as much confidence in it as in vaccination, and the local authorities are ordered to furnish
gratis this medicine.
" In the very fatal epidemics of 1817, 1818, and 1819,
Brendt, physician at Custrin, made use of two preparations of
belladonna. With one he preserved all the subjects: with
the other he obtained the following results:-out of 195, 14
were attacked, and 181 preserved. The eruption was very
slight among the small number of those who contracted the
disease. One of the authors, whose observations are the best
10



138               GERMAN EXPERIMENTS
calculated to prove the prophylactic efficacy of belladonna,
is Dr. Dusterberg of Warbourg. In three consecutive epidemics, this practitioner preserved from contagion all the individuals who made use of the remedy, although they were
allowed to visit and keep company with the sick. He therefore regards this practice as certain a prophylactic as vaccination. To be more certain of his results, Dusterberg made a
still more conclusive experiment; he chose, in each family
submitted to the prophylactic treatment, a child who had not
taken belladonna: all the children thus excepted were attacked'
by the contagion. Dusterberg adds, it is true, that several
other children, who had only used the medicine for four or
five days, were also attacked, but so feebly that the only trace
of the scarlatina was the subsequent desquamation..... In
1820, during the course of a very fatal scarlatina, Behr, physician at Bernbourg, gave the specific to 47 individuals;
among these, 41 escaped the contagion, and 6 were attacked,
but in an almost insensible manner..... Twenty-three
children, out of 84, were attacked with scarlatina in the
Military Foundling Hospital of Halle, in Tyrol.  Zeuch,
physician to the establishment, gave belladonna to the 61 remaining; all were preserved, with the exception of one; and
meanwhile the epidemic continued to rage in the environs
of the hospital.....  Kunstmann found belladonna always
efficacious, with the exception of one case; he, however, remained in doubt upon the subject, until the following trial
confirmed his belief: he administered the remedy to 70 children of the Institution of Frederick, of which he is physician;
3 were attacked, 67 preserved. One other child, who had
not been submitted to the trial was violently attacked....."
The whole number of persons who were submitted to the
* For the whole of Bayle's article on the subject, the English reader is referred to Dr. Black's Principles and Practice of Hlomeopathy.



IN FAVOUR OF BELLADONNA.            139
preservative action of belladonna by the physicians referred
to by Bayle amounted to 2027, and of these 78 were attacked
with scarlet fever, while 1948 escaped in the several epidemics.
He adds, "All authors, however, are not partisans of belladonna. Lehmann asserts that this medicine had no preservative virtue in the epidemic of 1825, at Torgo. According
to Barth, two other physicians, Raminski and Tuffel, have
also pronounced against it. We cannot justly appreciate the
value of the opinion of these authors, because it is supported
by no facts, and the disease has not been described. Could
it not be possible that the affection treated by these practitioners was not the true scarlet fever, but rather the purple
miliary fever, from which belladonna, according to Hahnemann, affords no immunity'j?
I come now, then, to the Edinburgh experiments; and I
ask, first, if the alleged unsuccessful trial of belladona in
George Watson's Hospital, in 1851, was conducted according
to the method prescribed by Hahnemaun as that which was
the best calculated to secure the preservative influence of
the medicine? I am quite sure that the conductor of the
trial, Mr. Benjamin Bell, made his experiments in perfectly
good faith; for I believe, and I am glad to have an opportunity of saying so, that a more honourable and excellent man
does not exist. But in so important a discussion as this he
will; I am persuaded, pardon me for asking if he made himself acquainted, before he began his researches, with Hahnemann's instructions as to the proper dose, and the proper in.
terval that should elapse between the successive repetitions
of it? If he did not, why try the medicine at all: since there
was no other discoverer of the alleged preventive power ol
belladonna than that same Hahnemann who also says that the
dose ought to be very small, and ought not to be repeated
above once in two or three days? I find on referring to Mr,



140             EXPERIMENTS OF MR. BELL.
Bell's paper on the subject,  the following statement regarding the administration of the dose, and its effects:"Upon the appearance of a second case of scarlet fever [in
the hospital. —W. H.] the fifth part of a grain of the extract
was given, morning and evening, to each of the boys. The
dose was found, in a few days, to be too large, from the dilated state of the pupil and impaired vision which it occasioned in several instances. It was accordingly diminished,"
&c.-But how much? Not, certainly, to such an amount as
not to injure the health of the boys; for it is added in another
paragraph, " a large proportion of the boys who took the belladonna seemed to have more or less furring of the tongue,
impairment of appetite, and other evidences of slight indisposition,"-Hahnemann having fifty years previously strongly
represented to those who would make use of the preventive,
that it must, in order to be a preventive,,be given in extremely minute doses, so as not to injure the health. His instructions are, to give of a solution of belladonna nearly corresponding with the third dilution of his scale of potencies,
a drop or two for every year of the person's age who is undergoing the prophylaxis, and not to repeat the dose, as a
general rule, above once in 72 hours. His reason for giving
such small doses may have been that the object to be attained
is to produce as nearly as possible, and in the feeblest degree,
a state of the system similar to that which precedes the very
earliest period of pure scarlet fever, for which alone belladonna is a homeopathic cure after the disease has fairly begun. Of course, prior to the outbreak of symptoms of disease
there must be latent preparatory processes going on; and so
there must be also similar, latent, preparatory processes before the first effects of a drug, that produces corresponding
* Monthly-Journal of Medical Science, 1851.



HIS ERROR IN CONDUCTING THEM.       141
symptoms, become apparent. The belladonna, therefore, is
to be given in such quantity as will meet the poison of scarlet
fever at the very threshold, and keep it at bay. Large doses
of the drug, by producing the ulterior effects of belladonna,
abandon the vantage ground occupied by the smaller, and
leave an entrance open to the contagious poison. The amount
of injurious influence on the health of the hospital boys must
have been considerable when the extract of belladonna was
continued in very sensible doses for three months, at the end
of which period it was that the last case of the fever occurred.
Mr. Bell makes the following very sensible remarks on the
subject; and it is surprising that the view he expresses did
not induce him to reduce the dose below the injurious degree,
or to suspect that he had not used the medicine properly:"' We cannot divest ourselves of the impression, that the continued use of a narcotic, for weeks together, even in small
doses, [how small?] must be prejudicial to health, and that
thus, while failing to, defend the individual against infection,
it may render him less able to cope with the disease when it
really comes."
Having noticed the error into which Mr. Bell has fallen
regarding the proper manner of conducting the experiment,
it must be obvious that the preventive method discovered by
-Hahnemann was not tried in this instance; nay, it would appear, on the contrary, that a large proportion of the boys
were thrown into a state of impaired health, which probably
made them more susceptible of the power of the contagion
than if they had been let alone. We are not informed how
many of the cases of scarlet fever that occurred after the belladonna was given happened among those who had furred
tongue, and impaired appetite, from the abuse of the drug;
and we are of course, therefore, left to conjecture how far
those whose constitutions were less susceptible of the injuri



SCARLET FEVER IN DONALDSON'S HOSPITAL.    143
would have occurred, as the drug began to tell injuriously
on the health. As it happened, there were none after the
first four days of its employment; and one reason of this
may be, that his extract of belladonna was not so powerful
as Mr. Bell's, for he says nothing whatever of injurious consequences having occurred, but concludes his interesting observations in the following manner:-Previously to his experiments, he says, he had no faith in the prophylactic, notwithstanding " the report made at the Orphan Hospital of
Langendorf, in Prussia, in a family of 160 individuals, where
belladonna having been administered, immediately on the
occurrence of the epidemic, only two took the disease." But,
he continues, "I should now consider it my duty to lose no
time in making use of this medicine on the first appearance
of this disease, and I would strongly redommend the same
plan of practice to those of the profession who are connected
with similar educational institutions."
That some of Mr. Bell's boys were protected by the belladonna, notwithstanding its excessive employment, will immediately appear to be in the highest degree probable, if not
certain; and there is no inconsistency between this supposition and the other, —that those who were made ill by the
drug were probably rendered more liable to the disease. The
former conjecture is founded on a comparison of the proportion of cases of scarlet fever that occurred during Mr. Bell's
experiments in George Watson's Hospital, with the proportion that occurred under Dr. J. D. Gillespie in James Donaldson's Hospital, where no belladonna was given. Dr. Simpson
(I need not always repeat "as usual ") shows profound and
really astonishing ignorance on the whole of this subject.
With the facts I have already noticed staring him in the face,
and with the essay of Dr. Gillespie, and the others I have referred to, published in the Journal of which he is himself one



144         GREAT AMOUNT OF SCARLET FEVER
of the conductors, —he utters this singularly erroneous sentence: —"We possess no positive evidence in favour of its
protective influence; and we know it has entirely failed when
tried under the most favourable circumstances; " and then he
goes on to specify Mr. Bell's experiments as those which were
made in these most favourable circumstances; conceiving that
the number of his cases of scarlet fever after the employment
of belladonna, wvas "a large proportion to be attacked in a
single epidemic in such an hospital," putting preventives out
of view. Among the boys under Mr. Bell's charge there were
57 who had not had scarlet fever previously, and, in the following' summary, I exclude from consideration all who had
had the disease before: —Of the 57, 22 took scarlet fever after
the use of belladonna had been begun, or at the rate of 38
per cent. Among Dr. Gillespie's hospital children 100 had
not had scarlet fever previously to the epidemic to which his
observations relate, and of these 52 took the disease, no belladonna having been used, or 52 per cent. But this is not all.
Dr. Gillespie observes that, besides those which were included under one form or another of fully developed scarlet
fever, there occurred "a number of milder cases, probably
caused by the same cdntagion, but where the symptoms were
not sufficiently marked to warrant their being ranked among
any of the ordinarily received classes of the disease." This
is a statement of much importance, especially when it is considered that the epidemic in Donaldson's Hospital was of almost unexampled mildness. Supposing that 7 or 8 cases
of sickness, not included among the 52 of ordinary scarlet
fever, were, notwithstanding, "caused by the same contagion," we shall thus have 60 per cent. of the children affected
by the fever poison, and we are entitled to conclude that,
had the epidemic been of the usual severity, the number of
decided cases would have been considerably greater than it



WHEN NO BELLADONNA WAS USED.          145
appears to have been. But neither is this all; for there
were peculiarities in the circumstances of Donaldson's Hospital at the time this epidemic occurred, and there are in
that institution, besides, certain arrangements which are at all
times singularly favourable to obstructing the progress of
contagious diseases among its inmates. It possesses accommodation, we are told, for 300 residents, but at the time of the
epidemic it contained only 123 children, and 26 adults.
Spacious apartments, such as this hospital possesses, thinly
inhabited, afforded most unusual facilities for dispersing
contagious effluvia, or diluting them to a degree which must
deprive them of the power of acting on persons who are but
little disposed to be affected by them; and some of the children, we are bound to conclude, from what we know of the
advantages of fresh air and good ventilation, must have escaped the disease for that reason. Added to all these important circumstances, there was still another most unfavourable to the diffusion of the disease, thus described by Dr.
Gillespie: —" The accommodation for the sick in Donaldson's
Hospital cannot be too highly commended. It reflects much
credit on'the governors who suggested, and on the architect
who planned the arrangements.  The whole of the upper
story of the back of the building is appropriated to that purpose, being farthest removed from the various dormitories
and class-rooms. All access to it is completely prevented,
save by two stair-cases, one for the boys, the other for the
girls, the doors at the foot of which can be kept locked if
necessary." It was for this reason partly that Dr. Gillespie
did not employ belladonna, for he says, "had belladonna
been administered, the experiment would not have been decisive without allowing the healthy children to mingle freely
with the infected; but as great facilities were afforded for
keeping them entirely separate, such a procedure would not



146      NEGLECT OF HAHNEMANN S INSTRUCTIONS.
have been warrantable." According to this very sensible
view, therefore, some of the children must have been preserved from the disease in Donaldson's Hospital, with its
great facilities for preventing the spread of contagious maladies, who would have been affected with scarlet fever in
other institutions not so wisely constructed. The plain inference from all that has been said is surely this, that, at the
very least, double the proportion of cases of the fever would
have occurred in Donaldson's Hospital, where no belladonna
was used, that occurred in George Watson's, where belladonna was used, were it not for the much inferior virulence of
the fever-poison, for the very much larger space the children
had to occupy, and for the very complete arrangements for
the separation of the sick, —advantages which are declared
to have been enjoyed by the former institution. Nor let it
be forgotten, in estimating the value of the prophylactic,
that George Watson's Hospital had the smaller per centage of
fever cases, notwithstanding that the medicine was administered in doses that are admitted to have impaired the health
of a considerable proportion of the children, —not in the manner recommended by the experience of Hahnemann, but in
a manner which he expressly warns the physician to avoid.
I think, then, it will be admitted by every reader capable
of thinking rationally, and of speaking candidly, that we
have a very good case indeed in favour of our belladonna;
and that not the weakest part of it is founded on what Dr.
Simpson calls very justly, though without seeing to what his
superlative is really applicable, "Mr. Bell's excellent paper
in the Monthly Journal of Medical Science for August 1851."
And the reader will perhaps do us, of the despised party, the
justice to think that we don't, after all, neglect " Medical
Science" so very much as our conceited opponents would
have him to believe, and that we know, at least as well as



HAHNEMANN AND JENNER.              147
some who rate themselves very highly indeed, how to bring
truth somewhat triumphantly out of the clutches of those
who would smother it if they could.  That belladonna
always protects from scarlet fever, or will protect from all
forms of it, neither the discoverer of its powers nor any of
his'followers have ever asserted. And in this respect Hahnemann has the advantage of Jenner, who would allow no
possibility of an exception to the universality and the permanence of the protective power of vaccination against
small-pox; and congratulates his country "and society at
large on their beholding in the mild form of the cow-pox an
antidote that is capable of extirpating from the earth a disease which is every hour devouring its victims." No one
now entertains either of these opinions of Jenner, yet no
one abuses him or contemns his discovery, because he held
extravagant notions on the subject. He is not called quack
and cheat, because small-pox occurs pretty often after vaccination, and is still common where vaccination is even rendered imperative by law.
So far was Hahnemann from asserting that belladonna was
always a preventive of scarlet fever, that he expressly states
that he is not aware if his preservative would have the power
of averting attacks of a particular form of the disease which
distinguished some of the epidemics of 1800. He thought
these were different from the pure scarlet fever, which alone
he regarded as capable of being prevented by belladonna.
Some of his disciples appear to have overlooked this fact;
and among them Dr. Elb, who is specified by Dr. Simpson
as one of the "more rational homeopathic physicians" who
have, according to him, "given up the idea" that belladonna
is a prophylactic against the disease. Dr. Elb, however, says
nothing of the kind. He gives some account of an epidemic
of extraordinary virulence, or of a "malignant character,"'



BY DR. SIMPSON.               149
I employed zinc, I had the happiness to save the apparently
dying child?"  These allegations are from the same "rational"' homceopathic physician who made the other regarding the belladonna, and we have precisely the same amount
of proof in reference to the former as to the latter, and.the
mere authority that is good for the one is equally good for
the other.



(  150  )
CHAPTER III.
Hahnemann settles in Leipsic in 1810-Poverty and abuse the attendants on
his devotion to medical reform-His numerous Essays on Homoeopathy,
and on speculative systems in medicine, &c.-Publication of the Organon
in 1810-Small-pox and vaccination as illustrations of homoeopathicity
among diseases-Dr. Simpson's gross misrepresentations of Hahnemann on
this subject-Dr. Miihry and Dr. Willan-The substantial accuracy of Hahnemann's statements regarding small-pox-Remarkable errors of Dr. Simpson
— Measles and hooping-cough —-Dr. Simpson charges Hahnemann withfalsehood-Proofs that the charge is untrue-Publication of the Pure ilateria
Medica, &c.-Persecutions at Leipsic —Hahnemann obliged to leave it in
1821-Residence at Coethen-Publication of his Chronic diseases-The Psoric
doctrine shown to be an allopathic doctrine —The itch-doctrine not a doctrine
of Hahnemann at all-The Psoric doctrine substantially correct-Proofs
from Willan, Budd, &c., &c. - Removal to Paris in 1835; his death in
1843.
RETURN we now to Hahnemann, who has no doubt been
waiting all this time with such impatience as immortals feel
at the tardy movements of those who are still cumbered with
their load of clay.  Driven from  KSnigslutter, as we have
seen, by the jealousy of his brethren, he journeyed with his
family to several places in succession, and found a restingplace in Leipsic in 1810, where he remained till 1821. In
the course of his eleven years of a somewhat unsettled life,
lie found time for the composition of soAn of his finest essays;
for his mind appears never to have reposed in idleness, or to
have been discouraged in its onward search after truth by
the many hardships he had to encounter. It is but justice to
one of the brightest and bravest beings that ever adorned our
profession, to ask the reader to pause and to reflect on the



HAHNEMANN'S DESERTS AND LOT.          151
circumstances of Hahnemann's lot and occupations at this
period of his life. Many suppose that he was cheered on the
path he took, if not by the plaudits of his professional contemporaries, at least by the abundant offerings of a public grateful for real or fancied benefits. Nothing can be farther from
the truth. In 1803, at the mature age of forty-eight, Hahnemann who was styled by Hufeland,* in 1801, "one of the
most distinguished of German physicians," was without a fixed
residence, and in absolute poverty. For years he had been
spending his strength in seeking to improve his profession
rather than his circumstances. With talents and knowledge
that could not fail to have enriched him, had riches been his
aim, in the trodden path of medical routine, he deliberately
preferred the contempt, oppression, and privations which dogged him year after year in the course which he, believed to be
that of truth and duty. Writing in 1828, he says of himself
and his labours, " I have paid no regard either to ingratitude
or persecutions in the course of my life, which, although toilsome, has not been without satisfaction on account of the
grandeur of the end which I had in view." How many of his
modern detractors would have taken the like course at the
call of conscience, under the like discouragements and sacrifices?
Among the works which he published in the period referred to, I cannot regard that on The Effects of Coffee as a
favourable specimen of his lucubrations. No doubt he appears to have drawn his conclusions on the subject from the
abuse of that substance; an abuse which is probably seldom
practised among us; yet making every allowance on this
point, it is surprising that he should have thought coffee capable of producing so many serious chronic disorders as he
has ascribed to it. One only apology can be found for him,
* See his Journal, vol. v. 1801.



152     ALLOPATHIC CLAIMS TO THE ITCH-DOCTRINE.
and I think it is an apology of some weight. How was he
to account, in the state of medical science of that day, for
the origin and the obstinacy of many constitutional diseases?
Some abuse, some contamination of the living substance;
from one source or another, there must be; and he was apparently shut up to the conclusion, that it was to be found
either in the excessive comsumption of this foreign drug,
for (drug it is,) or in the taint derived from psora, the supposed constitutional evils of which were undoubted in his time;
nay, were acknowledged in what was "an old medical dogma " before Hahnemann was born. Our modern unlearned,
with the Professor of Midwifery in their van, seem never to
have heard of the psoric doctrine of chronic diseases but in
connexion with the speculations of Hahnemann. It is nevertheless an allopathic doctrine, that existed, and was entertained by the most eminent allopathic physicians, long before
he saw the light; and not only so, but he was even slow of
accepting it, and preferred the nicer, if not the wiser, hypothesis regarding the abuse of coffee, to account for much that
his predecessors had ascribed to the itch. I shall in the sequel adduce the allopathic claims to this once favourite hypothesis.
Strikingly in contrast with this hasty production are his
two tracts, JEsculapius in the Balance, and The JMedicine of
Experience, published in 1805 and 1806. They contain a
still further development of his own views, and masterly
criticisms of the pedantic fooleries and inevitable evils of
the common practice. I know no works in medicine of their
antiquity for a moment to be compared with them for acute
observation and just reasoning, and none of any age that deservX better to be thoughtfully perused by the really earnest
physician. The latter of these two essays was the last of his
communications to the ordinary medical press; it appeared
in Hufeland's Journal, the principal organ of the medical



SMALL-POX AND COW-POX.            153
public of that day in Germany. His writings had now
brought on him so much abuse and persecution from the followers of the old methods, that Elahnemann withdrew from
this time forward both from their periodicals and their society. In 1808 and 1809, he wrote.several papers for a
magazine of general literature and science, and among them
were his admirable treatise On the Value of the Speculative
Systems in JMedicine, and his beautiful Letter to Hufeland,
"whom," says Dr. Dudgeon, "he never ceased to love and
esteem, though in every respect he was a much greater man
and finer character than the Nestor of German medicine, as
IHufeland was called."
In 1810 he published the first edition of his Organon of
JMedicine, which contained a fuller exposition of his doctrines
than any of his previous writings, and in its last edition is to
be regarded as expressing his maturest conclusions on the
art and science of Ilomoeopathy. As I propose to discuss the
homceopathic law, the provings, and the doses, in a separate
part of this work, I leave them untouched in this place; and
stop for a moment or two to notice only one point, which
cannot be so easily introduced elsewhere. Hlahnemann, in
his endeavour to illustrate the homceopathicity of means of
cure to the diseases cured, cites from the relations apparently
subsisting in some instances between two successive diseases,
-the one of which was followed by the permanent removal
of that which had pre-existed,-examples which le thought
might be regarded of one disease curing another homceopathically, that is, because of its similarity to that other.
Among these examples he gives the case of small-pox in its
relation to cow-pox, which he thus describes:-" Small-pox
coming on after vaccination, as well on account of its greater
strength as its great similarity, immediately removes entirely
the cow-pox homoeopathically, and does not permit it to come
to maturity; but, on the other hand, the cow-pox when. near
11



154          DR. SIMPSON'S MISREPRESENTATIONS
maturity does, on account of its great similarity, homceopathically diminish very much the supervening small-pox, and
make it much milder, as MJihry (in Robert Willan on Vaccination) and many others testify." I have put the latter half of
the quotation in italics, because it contains a different proposition from that contained in the other half,-a proposition
which is now universally admitted as generally true, and the
only proposition given by Hahnemann on the authority of
"MMuhry (in R. Willan on Vaccination) and many others."
Dr. Simpson, in order to make an occasion for attacking
Hahnemann's veracity and learning, arrests the attention of
his readers on that part of the quotation which asserts what
nobody questions. Thus he says, "And, first, let me observe,
that, in the above paragraph, Hahnemann refers as his authority to Mtihry in' Dr. Willan on Vaccination.' In the celebrated work of Willan, to which Hahnemann refers, I do not
find the name of Dr. Miihry." *  When I had read thus far,
I was instantly reminded of the celebrated fable of the frog
and the ox; in which it is related that the former, (Rana obstetricians?) swelling herself out, in order to rival the envied magnitude of the other, burst herself in the effort. Dr.
Simpson collapses under a similar catastrophe; for Hahnemann referred to MhUhry's'translation of Willan, which exists
under the.following title, "Willan iiber die Kuhpocken Impfang, aus dem Englischen, mit Zusatzen, (with additions,) von
G. F. F. Mihry." So much for the authority of Miihry's Willan,
on a point respecting which all are now agreed. Next, for
the other half of the paragraph from  Htahnemann.  Dr.
* He adds in a note, that possibly Miihry's name may occur in some French
or German translation of Willan. But that his remark in the text is intended
to raise a suspicion of Hahnemann's honesty, I have reason to conclude, for
Dr. Simpson has employed it in private with that view, as I have been informed
by.one to whom he made that use of it. He cannot, then, complain of the
exposure given above.



OF XAHNEMANN AND WILLAN.            1.55
Simpson accuses iahnemann of perverting the "facts and
deductions" of Willan, while he professes to be giving them
as they occur in Willan's work. At p. 158, Dr. Simpson's
words are —" The very authority, Dr. Willan, to whose work
ilahnemann unscrupulously refers his credulous readers in
support of his views, gives facts and conclusions most flatly
and avowedly contradictory of these very views."  Now, in
reply to this disgraceful accusation, the reader will observe,
first, that ltahnemann never refers to Willan at all, but only
to " Miihry and many others," and even their authority he adduces in support of quite another proposition than that contained in the former half of the paragraph. In the second
place, the English edition of Willan's work does actually
contain statements, which, so far from being "flatly and
avowedly contradictory " of Hahnemann's views, are decidedly
infavour of them, though IHahnemann does not advert to
Willan's statements on the subject, but speaks apparently of
experience of his own, which Willan's observations tend to
confirm. Thus, on the very same page of Willan's work from
which Dr. Simpson quotes what he supposes will serve his
purpose, but which has no bearing whatever on the point at
issue, Dr. Willan says, "The variolous and vaccine fluids, inoculated about the same time, do restrain the action of each
other on the human body, so that, in some cases, the vaccine
vesicle is smaller than usual, and has a very slow progress; in
other cases, the areola is scarcely perceptible; while, in
others, it is large but premature! " showing, beyond all question, that the cow-pox was to a great extent superseded.; or,
as ilahnemann averred, is not permitted "to come to maturity," as cow-pox does when unchecked. The "immediately"
of Hahnemann, supposing it to be a correct translation, of
course cannot have been meant to be taken literally. Some
time must elapse before the small-pox can produce its modifying influence on the cow-pox,- though it may immediately



156             CASES BY WILLAN WHICH
begin to do so. So far, then, as Willan's remark goes, it is
thoroughly favourable to the tenor of HIahnemann's argument; and, no doubt, had Hahnemann been referring to
Willan's authority, and not to what he had seen himself or
learnt from another, (possibly Dr. Miihry,) he would not have
made more use of Willan's experience than was justified by
Willan's expressions, even had he been capable of such dishonesty, for the translation by Miihry had placed it in the
hands of all his contemporaries. The well-known cases reported by Willan, in which small-pox pustules rose within
the border of vaccine vesicles, the vaccine having preceded
the variolous disease, are still more in favour of Hahnemann's views. The best example of this occurrence is mentioned in Willan's Reports on the Diseases of London. He
says, "In an adult female, at the Inoculation Hospital, the
casual small-pox appeared six days after the vaccine disease
had been inoculated, the two variolous pustules arose within
the circumference of the vaccine pock: when these were
maturated, fluid taken from them on the point of a lancet,
and inoculated into another person, produced the regular
small-pox: at the same time, fluid taken from the vaccine
pock, at a little distance from the supervening (small-pox)
pustules, gave the vaccine disease in its genuine form, without any eruption." (P. 315.) Alluding to the drawing of a
similar case, as given in Willan's work on Vaccination, Dr.
Simpson says, "It represents not only the small-pox unable,to overcome and annihilate (as it homoeopathically ought to
do) the cow-pox upon the same individual, but it shows it to
be unable to do so even when the small-pox pustule is developed in the very same portion of skin as the cow-pox pustule." P. 156.) Now, what actually happened in these cases?
Why, just this express confirmation of Hahnemann's doctrine,
that the stronger poison, invading a portion of skin previously
occupied by the vaccine disease, did destroy the vaccine dis



CONFIRM IAHNEMANN S DOCTRINE.         157
ease over so much of the surface as the small-pox pustules
required for their development; for within the border of the
vaccine disease a spot or spots occurred where vaccine matter was no longer produced, but only the small-pox matter;
which is the plainest confirmation that can be of Hiahnemann's
dogma, in reference to homceopathic diseases, that "the
stronger morbific potency, when it appears, does, on account
of its similarity of action, involve exactly the same parts of
the organism that were hitherto affected by the weaker morbid irritation, which consequently can no longer influence
the system, but is extinguished." This passage is actually
given by Dr. Simpson, in connexion with the preceding cases,
to show how absurd were ifahnemann's doctrines, and yet it
is positively the only rational inference that can be drawn
from these very cases. And he adds, "In the instance to
which I refer, the small-pox, or stronger morbific power, as
Hahnemann declares it to be, did not extinguish the weaker
morbific power of the cow-pox, even though situated on the
same structure, and though developed in identically and precisely the same limited spot of skin as the (vaccine) disease,"
&c. Now, what can any one say to this precious sentence,
but that it displays the most extraordinary obtuseness or the
grossest perversity? The two diseases did not occupy identically and precisely the same spot of the skin, for the smallpox took a portion of itfrom the pre-existing cow-pox, and
obviously because it was the stronger morbific power, for if it
was the weaker it could not!
While it is quite true that small-pox does not always materially interfere with the progress of the vaccine disease, for
reasons which are as yet inexplicable in some cases, yet it is
certain that it does so often enough to justify Hahnemann in
adducing the relation between these two affections as illustrations of the homceopathic law among diseases. Even were
he as entirely wrong, as he is manifestly right, in this and most
of the other instances he mentions of homceopathicity be



158         DR. SIMPSON'S MISREPRESENTATION
tween diseases, the error would be of no earthly consequence.,
in the estimation of those entitled to give an opinion, to his
doctrine of homceopathicity between remedies and the diseases they cure; for the latter can be tested at pleasure by
experiment, and has been tested by millions of experiments,
which have left not a shadow of doubt as to its truth in the
minds of those who have honestly set about the inquiry.
The next instance on which Dr. Simpson condescends, as
an evidence of IHahnemann's absurdity and falsehood, (for he
does not mince matters in accusing the venerable dead,) is
that of measles and hooping-cough.  Now, granting that
Hahnemann was wrong in supposing that measles, in the experience of Bosquillon, proved a protection against hoopingcough, the error is not worth a straw as an objection to
Homceopathy. "The measles," says he, "bears a. strong resemblance in the character of its fever and cough to the
hooping-cough, and hence it was that Bosquillon noticed, in
an epidemic where both these affections prevailed, that many
children who then took measles remained free from hoopingcough during that epidemic. They would all have been protected from, and rendered incapable of, being infected by the
hooping-cough, in that and all subsequent epidemics, by the
measles, if the hooping-cough were not a disease that has
only a partial similarity to the measles," &c.-(Organon, p.
1500. Upon this passage Dr. Simpson makes the following
commentary:-" Hahnemann adduces as his authority for the
truth of his assertion, the evidence of a distinguished French
physician, Bosquillon, the translator of the works of Cullen.
Unfortunately, however, for Hahnemann's -veracity, the author he thus refers to as his authority in the matter, (exactly
as in the preceding case of Willan,) does not state what.Hahnemann alleges he states."-(P. 160.) He next quotes
the passage from Bosquillon to which itahnemann refers, and
which is to the following effect: —Having said that epi



REGARDING MEASLES AND HOOPING-COUGH.     159
demics of measles often precede hooping-cough, he c6ntinues,
-" From this one might suppose that it has, like the matter
of measles, a particular attraction for the mucous glands, and
that the two maladies have some affinity. They are, however,
independent of each other, and the contagion is different;
for many persons have been seen who have been attacked
with measles, to escape the hooping-cough, and others to acquire this last, although they have formerly had the measles;
which proves that the generation of the morbific matter is
different in the two diseases."  Now, I should like to know
what there is in Hahnemann's reference to this passage that
deserves the monstrous imputation of falsehood. Bosquillon
says that he saw many persons who took measles escape hoopingcough, and Hahnemann says nothing more on Bosquillon's
authority than " that Bosquillon noticed, in an epidemic where
both these affections prevailed, that many children who then
took measles remained free from hooping-cough during that
epidemic," which is precisely what Bosquillon says of epidemics he is supposed to be referring to as having been observed by himself. Bosquillon gives no explanation of the
exemptions from hooping-cough, after measles, to which he
alludes, and HIahnemann never says that he does. The explanation is Hahnemann's, the alleged facts are Bosquillon's;
and the former, right or wrong, regarded these facts as explicable by the partial similarity between measles and hooping-cough; while he asserts, moreover, just as Bosquillon does,
that though many escape hooping-cough who have had measles, others do not, a circumstance which he accounts for on
his own principles, without any reference to Bosquillon's
opinions at all! And yet, without a shadow of excuse, he is
deliberately accused of falsehood.  If there be falsehood,
and I leave the reader to settle that point to his own satisfaction, it certainly does not lie with Hahnemann.
The minor point however remains, namely, whether mea



160         ADDITIONAL MISREPRESENTATIONS.
sles does or does not protect any persons, for any time, from
hooping-cough. Of course Dr. Simpson, "and many a nurse,"
know, what everybody knows., that hooping-cough occurs after
measles, and sometimes along with it. That is not the question; lTahnemann says nothing at variance with that universal experience, but everything that is in harmony with it.
The real question is,-Does measles prevent hooping-cough
from occurring in any considerable number of cases during
the same epidemic season? That is what HIahnemann answers
in the affirmative; and I venture to say, that neither Dr.
Simpson, nor any nurse in Christendom, is prepared to prove
that he is in error! I do not maintain that Hahnemann is
right, for I do not know that he is; but, on the other hand,
Dr. Simpson, and the nurses, cannot informedly maintain the
reverse, for they don't know that he is wrong!
After this lengthened exposure of a very extraordinary
degree of artful misrepresentation on the part of the "Tenets,"
the reader Will not be surprised to learn that, in the addenda
to so peculiar a strain, the same spirit of cunning detraction
and distortion keeps up a running accompaniment of "false
notes."  I can give but a single example.  iahnemann,
among the illustrations of the homoeopathic law to be found
among diseases in their action on one another, mentions ophthalmia (inflamed eyes) as very liable to occur in the course
of small-pox; and therefore it is, says he that Dezoteux and
Leroy cured cases of chronic ophthalmia by the inoculation
of small-pox. A very fair conclusion, as I think. Dr. Simpson,
in reference to this and many similar instances, without telling his readers the real and special grounds of Iahnemann's
view of the reason that such cures followed the small-pox,
adduces the local diseases that were thus cured, with a sneer
at their similarity to small-pox. It was not to the eruption
of small-pox that they were ever compared, but to the frequent accompaniments to the eruption, which the same poison



IAHNEMANN'S RETURN TO LEIPSIC.        161
was capable of producing. But I must stop here, though I
could fill a volume with exposures of the calumnies and misrepresentations which occur on every page of the medical
apocrypha.
"With a wide-spread reputation," says the biographer of
Hahnemann, "he now re-entered Leipsic, where a crowd of
patients and admirers flocked around him, and the flood-tide
of fortune seemed at length to set in towards him. Professor
Hecker of Berlin wrote, in 1810, a violent diatribe against
the Organon, which displays more wrath and untempered
hostility than wit or good-breeding, and was replied to in a
masterly style by young Frederick Hahnemann, who undertook the defence of his father; for the latter treated all attacks, whether on his character or his works, with silent contempt; though it could not be said he viewed them with indifference, for there is every reason to believe that the poisoned shafts of envy and calumny rankled in his soul, and
communicated acerbity to a disposition that was naturally
overflowing with love to his fellow-men. Hecker's attack
was the signal for numerous others of the same nature, written
with greater or less ability, and with more or less fairness;
but it would be wearisome to recapitulate even the titles of
the articles and pamphlets that issued from the press, intended
by their authors to crush the presumptuous innovator." They
had not that effect, however, either on him or his system, for
He who rules the raging of the sea, and prescribes its bounds,
equally governs the wrath of man, and curbs it with His fiat,
"thus far, no farther shalt thou go." tIahnemann, then,
steadily held on his course; and in 1811 published the first
volume of his Pure Jllateria Jlledica, which contained the results of the provings or experiments he had made on himself
and his friends, with a number of medicines, together with
the symptoms he had gathered from the records of poisoning
by the same substances. At'this time he meditated founding



162,     TESTIMONY TO IIAHNEMANN S LEARNING.
a college and an hospital, with the view of training young
physicians to the practice of Homceopathy; but failing of the
means, he satisfied himself of the more attainable object of
giving a course of lectures on the new science. In order to
cqualify himself legally for this purpose, he had to comply
with a regulation of the Faculty of Medicine, which required
a thesis to be written and defended by those who aspired to
lecture on medical subjects. He chose for the theme of his
essay, The Helleborism of the sJncients. The thesis was
written in Latin, and contains an elaborate medico-historical
dissertation on the employment of white hellebore, by the
ancient Greeks and Romans; in the course of which, by many
learned references, he proves the identity of their plant with
our veratrum album, and details its various effects and uses
as recorded by the Greek and Roman writers of antiquity.
I have the authority of one of the ripest scholars of this
country for stating, that this thesis is remarkable for the display of "extensive reading in the ancient authors, and not
only those more immediately connected with his own professional pursuits, but also in the classical writers of antiquity;"
and, intimate as the gentleman to whom I refer is with some
of.the most learned physicians of Europe, he adds, "I know
very few medical men possessed of the same amount of learning." His was no mere lexicon learning, which enables the
really ignorant or half-educated to acquire among the vulgar
the fame of erudition in Greek or in Hebrew, when they
barely know the alphabet of either; but the learning of the
hard student and the man of genius, for Hahnemnann, as Dr.
Forbes justly admits, "was a man of genius and, a scholar."
I should like to be present when the medical faculty of St.
Andrew's or Aberdeen gets such a thesis to criticise from
some despised follower of Hahnemann; as I should like to
have been, were it not for the present penalty of old age -that
the enjoyment would have demanded, when Hahnemann de



HIE AWES A MEDICAL FACULTY.         163
fended his thesis before the faculty of Leipsic. " This thesis,"
says Dr. Dudgeon, "he defended on June the 26th, 1812, and
it drew from his adversaries an unwilling acknowledgment
of his learning and genius, and from the impartial and worthy
Dean of the Faculty a strong expression of admiration.
When a candidate defends his thesis, he has what are called
opponents among the examiners, who dispute the various
opinions broached in the thesis; but the most of Hahnemann's
opponents were so polite as to confess they were entirely of
his way of thinking, while a few who wished to say something for form's sake, merely expressed their dissent from
some of Hahnemann's philological views. This trial, which
his enemies had fain hoped would end in the exposure of his
ignorance of the shallow charlatan, proved incontestably the
superiority of IEahnemann over his opponents, even on their
own territory, and was a brilliant inauguration of the lectures
which he forthwith commefced to deliver to a circle of admiring students and gray-headed old doctors, whom the fame
of his doctrines and his learning attracted round him." From
among the numerous disciples who now resorted to him for
instruction, he chose some to assist him in his labour of acquiring a knowledge of the powers which medicine possesses
of altering the health of the human body, for the use of his
prospective publications on the Jlateria Jledica. While residing at Leipsic, from 1810 to 1821, he gave various valuable essays to the world, besides a second edition of the Organon, and five more volumes of medicinal provings.
The jealousy of the allopathic physicians of Leipsic did
not remain very long in abeyance, and they gave expression
to their feelings in the same magnanimous way as their colleagues had done at Kb5nigslutter and other places. The
apothecaries, as usual, were made the instruments of their
persecution, but the arrival among them of the celebrated
Austrian Field-Marshal, Prince Schwarzenberg, who went to



164             PERSECUTION AT LEIPSIC.
Leipsic in order to plaqe himself under the medical care of
HIahnemann, his life having been despaired of by the practitioners of the old school, interrupted for a time the progress of their designs. Their chagrin at the improvement
which the prince's health experienced for a time may be as
easily conceived as their subsequent satisfaction when he
died, of the organic disease which even Hahnemann could
not remedy.
So inevitable an event was, of course, as in similar circumstances it still is, the signal for a general outcry of pretended indignation against the new practice; and the apothecaries, taking advantage of the impression industriously propagated among their ignorant fellow-citizens, that lIahnemann's method had hastened if it did not actually cause the
death of the illustrious patient, had now little difficulty in
procuring an injunction against his dispensing his own medicines. "lHahnemann could not write prescriptions for his
medicines seeing that the privileged apothecaries did not keep
them, and could not be trusted with their preparation, as they
were his bitterest foes. His practice was therefore gone,
and though he was urgently advised to dispense his medicines secretly, yet he had too great a respect for the authority of the law to act contrary to the verdict of those whose
business it was to enforce it, even though he believed that
they had misinterpreted its spirit; nothing was left for him,
therefore, but to quit Leipsic, a town which was now endeared to him by many pleasing associations connected with
the spread and development of his great reform; and his
fatherland, Saxony, now offered no place where the most illustrious of its sons could live in peace. Under these discouraging circumstances, the reigning Prince of Anhalt
Coethen, who was an ardent admirer of the system, offered
Hahnemann an asylum in the tiny capital of his tiny dominions, and accordingly to Ccethen Hahnemann proceeded in



RETREAT TO C(ETHEN.              165
1821. It must have been with a heavy heart that he left
Leipsic, the goal of his youth's ambition and the scene of his
manhood's triumphs. It must have cost him a pang to leave
that dear fatherland which he loved with that longing ardour that the Swiss bears to his Alps. To exchange the
busy commercial and literary capital of northern Germany
for the lifeless and dismal little town of a petty principality
was but a sorry exchange indeed.... Though Leipsic has
now the honour of containing his bronze effigies, and though
Leipsic's magistrates and municipal authorities joined in
the inauguration of TIahnemann's monument in 1851, this
will hardly suffice to efface the stain of bigotry and intolerance that attaches to the town and its authorities by their
expulsion of the greatest of Leipsic's citizens in 1821.*
At Coethen he remained till 1835, leading a life of still
greater retirement and devotion to study, than that by which
he had'been always distinguished. He seldom left his house
except to visit his patron when he required his services: the
many patients who repaired to Ccethen, in order to receive
his advice, visited him at his own residence; and his only
walks were in his garden, which, he used to observe, " though
very narrow was infinitely high." During his sojourn in this
place of refuge he published three successive editions of the
Organon, as well as a second and a third of his Jlateria.Medica, and numerous articles in the literary journal formerly
adverted to. In 1828 one of his most celebrated works,
Chronic Diseases, their Peculiar JVature and Homceopathic
Treatment, made its appearance. In this publication he gave
forth his opinions on the ancient doctrine of psora, as a constitutional taint to which a vast variety of the most important,
chiefly chronic, diseases owed their existence. So far was he
from claiming the credit of being the originator of this pa* Dr. Dudgeon's Biographical Sketch.



166              THE PSORIC HYPOTHESIS
thological doctrine, that he adduces, in support of his own decision in its favour, nearly a hundred allopathic authorities, his
predecessors, as having more or less explicitly declared their
conviction of its truth, or given examples in illustration of it.
It is ignorantly sneered at by Dr. Simpson, and she many
who take up the cuckoo-cry of derision against everything
that IHahnemann taught, as the itch-doctrine of the homceopathists, whereas it is-neither an itch-doctrine in a candid and
intelligent sense, nor is it a peculiarly homoeopathic doctrine.
" I call it psora," says Hahnemann, " with the view of giving
it a general designation;". and that he did not regard it as
synonymous with, or limited in its meaning to, the itch, every
one knows who has perused his treatise on the subject. One
sentence of his is sufficient of itself to settle this point, and
to leave those who have so industriously misrepresented his
opinions utterly without excuse. "I am persuaded that not
only are the majority of the innumerable skin diseases which
have been described and distinguished by Willan, but also
almost all the pseudo-organizations, &c., &c., with few exceptions, merely the products of the multiform psora." (P. 13.)
Like Milton invoking Urania, IIahnemann might say, in
reference to the psoric hypothesis: "The meaning, not the
name, I call;" and the meaning he plainly and expressly announced was this, that the majority of chronic diseases that
appear as palsies, asthmas, dyspepsias, consumptions, headaches, epilepsies, vertigoes, &c., &c., are due to a morbid matter (or miasm, as he termed it) existing in the body; the same
as that which, when it comes to the skin, produces the almost
numberless varieties of eruptions known as scaly diseases,
leprosies, milk-crusts, scald-heads, ringworms, itch, pustules,
and the like. Psora was an ancient term used almost indiscriminately for every diversity of chronic, and almost every
* Maladies Chroniques, t. i. p. 11.



AN ANCIENT ALLOPATHIC ONE.           167
kind of acute, cutaneous disease; and no term appeared more
convenient as a " general designation " for the radical malady
of which all these local diseases, both internal and external,
were occasional expressions or developments, than that which
already, for ages, had associated with it the idea of constitutional taint (dyscrasia,) that might show itself in operation
on the surface, or indicate its activity within by the throes of
some hidden organ. Dr. Simpson is heartily welcome to rescue his prot6ge, the itch-insect, from the society of so many
fulsome maladies, since he has taken a fancy to that comely
production; and, when he does, the psoric hypothesis of chronic
diseases will remain substantially one of the most incontrovertible doctrines even in modern pathology. This is not the
occasion,-any reasonable space will not admit of it, —on
which to discuss this doctrine completely and satisfactorily;
but I throw down the gauntlet before the Professor of Midwifery, and, challenge him to argue the point, were it only
for the honour of his sect, if he believes them to be committed to the rejection of the psoric hypothesis. But they are
not committed to anything of the kind. The psoric hypothesis, essentially as held by Hahnemann, was held by his allopathic predecessors; -is held by his allopathic successors,
and among them only, as an ITcH-doctrine, and must be held
in some degree by every medical man of common sense and
common information.
It was held by his allopathic predecessors: take an example
from a work that was published before Hahnemann was born,
by Frederick Hoffmann, who laid, as we shall see in another
chapter, "the basis of the pathology at present taught in
the schools of medicine." * After adverting to the occurrence
of pains in the joints on the cessation of ulcers in the legs,
he adds, "We have known, likewise, atrocious pains of the
* Thompson's Cullen, t. i. p. 197. 1832.



168               HOFFMANN ON PSORA.
joints suddenly removed on the occurrence of psora or itch
(psora vel scabie) having the character of white lepra. For,
whilst shifting of the morbid matter from internal to external
parts is very beneficial; on the contrary, what turns from the
externaltto the internal parts is most pernicious."   Having
said, again, that "the true, proximate, and immediate cause
of these evils," which he describes as pustules, itch, papula,
&c., "is nothing else than an impure, viscid, and acrid serum;"
(HIahnemann never was so minute,) which is proved to be
virulent and violent, "because almost all the most serious
and deadly diseases, both chronic and acute, and these the
most firmly rooted in the system of nervous parts, may be
relieved on the matter being expelled, according to the habit
of body; and on the contrary, the matter being repelled to
the interior parts, the same diseases may be excited:" he
adds, " Experience itself teaches this truth; for innumerable
observations of the most credible authors exist, which record
that spasmodic asthma, inflammation of the joints, gout, and
many other dieases, have been removed on the appearance
of itch (scabies,) and, on the other hand, have arisen on the
ich being suppressed."t Among the many "other diseases"
which Hoffman ascribes to the itch, throughout his Opera Omnia, are epilepsy, amaurosis, hematuria, consumption, rickets,
hooping-cough, apoplexy, rheumatism. Though he often
employs the term scabies (itch) in designating the disease,
which was thus the frequent source of those serious maladies,
lie did not, any more than Hahnemann by the equivalent term
psora, mean to specify a particular kind of skin disease, but
one or other of the many eruptions to which the surface was
liable. Thus, he speaks of a psora or scabies like white lepra
(Lepra alba;) so that in fact almost any chronic skin disease
* Opera Omnia, t. ii. sect. 2, cap. viii.
t Opera Omnia, De Pustulis, &c.



ITCH-DOCTRINE OF AUTENREITH AND SCHOjNLEIN.   169
was psora or scabies with him, as with the older writers in
general. Let the above suffice as a specimen of liahnemann's
hundred allopathic authorities for the psoric hypothesis. I
have given. Hoffmann merely because I have his works at
hand.
Next, the psoric doctrine is held by the allopathic successors of Hahnemann. Schbnlein, the allopathic professor of
pathology and therapeutics in the University of Berlin, in a
clinical lecture on a case of organic disease of the heart with
dropsy, delivered himself thus:-" What is the cause of this
affection? On looking backwards, we find no other complaint than the itch. Latterly, the admission of consequences
of the itch, that old medical dogma, is not only become dubious, but has been abandoned and turned into ridicule.
Among the older physicians, we particularly notice Autenreith, who wrote a masterly treatise on this subject, so that it
was remarkably impudent in Hahnemann to pretend that he
was the first to point out the consequences of the itch..
I must confess that, according to my own observations, and
to those of many other physicians who deserve the fullest
confidence; I have no doubt whatever about the existence of
consequences of the itch."t  The work of Autenreith, to
which reference is made in the preceding passage, as containing an anticipation of lahnemann's doctrine regarding
psora, has the following very explicit declaration on the subject, showing how completely the psoric hypothesis owes its
parentage to Allopathy: —" The most formidable, and, in our
country, the mostfrequent source of the chronic diseases of
the adult, are the itch eruptionst badly treated by sulphur
ointment, or by other active greasy applications. I have so
often seen the misery which the itch occasions to the lower
* Lancet, 1844, p. 211.
t "Kratzauschlige." See his treatise. Tiibingen, 1807.
12



ITCH NOT DISTINGUISHED FROM ITCHING DISEASES. 171
adverts to an eruption of vesicles or pustules distinguished
by itching, (when there is an eruption at the outset, which,
however, he holds not to be always the case,) but as that is
a symptom common to the itch, and to many pustular eruptions, as well as in a very excessive degree to the vesicular
eczema, it affords no evidence whatever that the skin disease
he speaks of as the primary form of cutaneous psora was the
same as that which we now distinguish as the itch. The presence of the J.carus or Sarcoptes scabiei, termed the itch-insect, is now generally held to be the distinctive characteristic
of the itch; and Hahnemann, knowing nothing of the essential part it plays in that disease, cannot be regarded as having
necessarily referred to what is n6w called itch, especially
when we remember how closely eczema often resembles itch
-the insect being put out of view. What makes this remark
entitled to more weight is the fact, that eczema may be contagious, as well as the scabies or itch which it so closely resembles. Mr. Erasmus Wilson, in his work on Skin Diseases,
admits this fact, although he limits the action of the eczematous matter which excites the disease in another to mere nonspecific irritation. (P. 171.) And still farther to show that
lHahnemann's observations did not refer specially to the itch,
as distinguished from itching vesicular and pustular diseases
in general, it is worthy of being noticed, that the minute
doses of sulphur he recommends as having been successful
in the cure of the primary eruption, are incapable of curing
itch with its insect, though they do cure eczema.
One important point in which Hahnemann's views of psora
differed from those of his predecessors was this, that while
they regarded internal diseases as producible only when the
psoric matter was driven in from the surface'of the body, he
thought that the constitution might be elsewhere seriously
disordered by the " miasm," while the skin was also affected,
and that it was not necessary that the skin should ever be af



174.HAHNEMANN'S PSORIC DOCTRINE ESSENTIALLY
on a morbid matter in the body, they seem to regard as due
to several. The difference is, however, more in appearance
than reality, for the term psora, by which Hahnemann's hypothesis is designated, is extremely indefinite, and seems never
to have been employed expressly to distinguish any one special
morbid condition; while all that he says of his psoric miasm
may, without any violence to his pathological or practical
doctrines, be understood as said of several, or even many
miasms. The only essential particular in the psoric pathology
is the recognition of morbid matter, materies morbi, of some
kind or kinds, as the constitutional taint, or dyscrasia, on
which chronic diseases depend for their manifestation, their
obstinacy, and their liability to recur after being apparently
removed; and it is of no consequence whatever to the general doctrine whether the matter be single or manifold.*
Without believing that the modern doctrinal pathology of
the allopathic physicians to whom I have referred is correct
in every particular, or in reference to every disease to which
they have extended it, I am prepared to contend that it is
just in the main, and must be held by every well-informed
and observant physician. In saying so much in favour of
this modern pathology, as held by allopathic physicians, I say,
in effect, that I believe, and am prepared to show, that lahnemann's psoric doctrine is, in the main, just, and that it must
be held by every intelligent physician.t  For Hahnemann's
*- Iahnemann, appears to have believed, indeed, that the psoric miasm, or
morbid poison, is not single; for he speaks of it as contagious in its primary
form, and not contagious in the multiplicity of its secondary forms. —Chronic
Diseases, p. 67.
tI do not, of course, include in the above affirmation respecting Hahnemann's psoric doctrine, his opinion that the materies morbi of so many chronic
diseases as may be reasonably held to depend on a materies morbi, or morbid
matter, in the body, always originates from contagion. It may in some instances; but it is not necessary to the general principle of a dyscrasic patho



THE SAME AS MODERN DOCTRINES OF DYSCRASIA.    175
doctrine differs in no one essential particular from theirs, and
has no more to do with the itch than theirs,-nay, much less;
for Schonlein specifies the individual disease, now distinguished as itch by its insect, as capable of causing internal
diseases, which Hahnemann never did.
I need not enlarge upon the proofs of the general soundness of this pathology, both Hahnemannic and Allopathic,
because I believe that no one worthy of being argued with
will dispute it; at least I shall wait until it is disputed by
any respectable opponent. The kind of facts, however, on
which the, doctrine rests, I may briefly notice. First, then,
they are analogical; as, for instance, when eruptions on the
skin or internal diseases are produced by the reception of
poisons or medicines into the body, as Wrercury, arsenic, lead,
iodide of potassium, and a multitude of others. These are
examples in which morbific substances are known to be introduced into the body, and the disorders which arise as a
consequence are too familiar to admit of any doubt as to
their being caused by those substances; while, in some instances, the' presence of the morbific agent is detected, by
chemical means, in that part especially which is the chief
seat of the medicinal disease. Secondly, the facts are such
as to admit of no question that a morbid matter, of the nature of an animal poison, and not merely drugs or inorganic
poisons, is the cause of disease, as when. blood is transfused
from a diseased animal into a healthy one, and,.in consequence of its containing a morbid matter, produces diseases
in the latter. And, thirdly, the facts which remain, if less
pointedly and indubitably proofs of a morbid matter being the
cause of the diseases to which they relate, than those direct evilogy, or to any practical bearing of the doctrine, that contagion should play
a part in it. All that Hahnemann says about contagion, and the primary
form of the psoric maladies, is mere hypothesis, derived apparently from a
supposed analogy to syphilis, and is the only really weak part of his doctrine.



176            WILLAN'S ILLUSTRATIONS OF
dences are which have just have been noticed, are far more
satisfactorily explained in accordance with the doctrine
which the latter serve to establish than with any other.
Examples of this last class are the cases in which the sudden
disappearance of eruptions from the surface has been followed
by serious and even fatal internal disease. Willan records
an instance in which repelled nettle-rash was fatal, and
mentions, among others of a similar kind, the case of a girl
affected with lepra, who had the eruption repelled by drinking cold water while she was overheated, and in consequence
became affected with "a perpetual disposition to vomiting,"
which resisted all remedies, and ceased in about eight
months only to be replaced by convulsions of the limbs and
body, which remained unmitigated after several months of
treatment. There are probably few practitioners who have
not had occasion to remark equally or even more severe consequences to follow the repulsion of chronic eczema of the
scalp, and one or other of the forms of strophulus which affect infants. Of the latter, Willan observes: —" If it be by
any'means suddenly repelled from the surface, diarrhoea,
vomiting, spasmodic affections of the bowels, and often general disturbance of the constitution succeed; but on its reappearance those internal complaints immediately cease."....
" On these remarks," he adds, " a necessary caution is founded,
not to expose infants with the eruption upon them to a stream
of cold air, nor to plunge them into a cold bath, the most
violent symptoms and even fatal consequences having occasionally resulted from such imprudent conduct." X  A single
additional instance from the same author is worthy of being
quoted, as it illustrates, the doctrine of Hahnemann on the
agency of a psoric poison in producing internal disease independently of the primary occurrence of an eruption. Treat*On Cutaneous Diseases, pp. 20, 178, 402.



THE PSORIC DOCTRINE.             177
ing of Lichen agrius, he says of a female who was ultimately
the subject of it: —"During the year 1793, she had often
complained of pains in the head and stomach, with a sense
of depression and faintness. These symptoms were occasionally troublesome to her till the spring of 1794, when
they were suddenly relieved by an appearance of numerous
red, tingling papulae on the arms and wrists.... At the beginning of the year 1795, in a severe frost, the eruption assumed a pustular form.... The ulcerations succeeding them
were partially covered with blackish scabs, but continued to
discharge a watery fluid for several months, and did not wholly heal till the end of the year. Since that time she has been
affected with pains of the limbs, headache, languor and indigestion. These complaints are, from time to time, removed,
in consequence of the appearance of papule on the arms and
other parts of the body," &c.*
By the time that the work on Chronic Diseases was published, Homceopathy had a goodly number of professional
disciples, among whom a diversity of opinion prevailed regarding the soundness of the psoric hypothesis. Twenty or
thirty years ago, solidism, or the doctrine which regards disease as primarily and peculiarly an affection of the properties
of the living tissues, was generally, if not universally the pathology of physicians in every country of Europe. It had
succeeded, and gradually supplanted, the humoral pathology
of former times, and some of the followers of Hlahnemann had
difficulty in entertaining the conception involved in the revived psoric pathology, that chronic diseases, which they had
been accustomed to consider as affections peculiar to the solids
of the body, depended in any degree upon so moveable a substance, as iahnemann's doctrine supposed to be so essential
an element of disease. The facts to which he appealed in
* On Cutaneous Diseases, p. 45.



178           FIRST ERUPTION OF CHOLERA.
support of his views, they of.course knew to be unquestionable, but they had been accustomed to interpret them on a
different principle, and to ascribe to the agency of the nervous
system, in particular, what the resuscitated doctrine referred
to a fluctuating miasm or poison. To this day, homeeopathic
physicians remain divided on the subject of the psoric hypothesis; but I have no doubt that, in proportion as they reflect
upon it more, in connexion with a close observation of the
phenomena of disease, they will come to be more and more
at one in regarding the doctrine, whether they shall continue
to distinguish it as the psoric, or shall learn to know it by a
different name, as essentially sound and indispensable to just
conceptions of the requisities for successful practice. Many of
the allopathic party, as has been shown, have embraced pathological opinions that are almost identical with the psoric
doctrine, and the general tendency of pathology in the present day is so strongly towards humorism, that the risk is of
physicians running to such extremes on the subject as to forget that man possesses "an animated nervous frame," as well
as a " chemical mixt,"' in his constitution.
In 1831 the cholera invaded Germanv from the East: "And
on its approach," says Dr. Dudgeon, " Hahnemann, guided
by the unerring therapeutic rule he had discovered, at once
fixed upon the remedies that should prove specifics for it, and
caused directions to be printed and distributed over the country by thousands, so that, on its actual invasion, the homeopathists and those who had received Hahnemann's directions
were fully prepared for its treatment and prophylaxis; and
thus there is no doubt many lives were saved, and many victims rescued from the pestilence. On all sides, statements
were published testifying to the immense comparative success that had attended the employment of the means recommended by Hahnemann before he had seen or treated a single
case. This one fact speaks more for Homceopathy and the



DEATH OF HAHNEMANN.               179
truth of the law of nature on which the system is founded,
than almost any other I could offer, viz.: that Hahnemann,
from merely reading a description of one of the most appallingly rapid and fatal diseases, could confidently and dogmatically say, such and such a medicine will do good in this
stage of the disease, such and such other medicine in that;
and that the united experience of hundreds of practitioners
in all parts of Europe should bear practical testimony to the
accuracy of Hahnemann's conclusions."
In 1835, Hahnemann had reached the patriarchal age of
eighty, and his long and noble life was therefore wearing towards its close. He had now been a widower for five years,
having lost the faithful partner of his indigence and his
plenty, —the sharer of his persecutions and his honours, in
1830. There was one act more of his life-drama to be accomplished which his friends had not anticipated: he became
the spouse of Mlle. Melanie d'Hervilly, who bore him off, in
his old age, as her captive, to a new sphere of occupation,
and a new style of existence. She had procured for him,
from MI. Guizot, the permission to practise in Paris; and in
that gay capital the recluse of Ccethen tasted, ere the curtain fell, some of the pleasures of society, though in the moderation that was consistent with his previous character.
And there he died, on the 2d of July, 1843, at the age of
eighty-nine; full of years, it is plain, and if not full of honour in the estimation of the world at large and of his own
times, not the only instance of humanity committed to the
tomb observed of few, though destined in after ages to dignify the spot where its dust reposed.
A word or two more on a single point in his intellectual
constitution, and I leave this greatest of physicians to the
candid consideration of the reader. I refer to that characteristic of the German mind which makes intellects, adapted
perhaps more than any other to the successful exploration of



180          HIS INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER.
whatever is profound in philosophy, or difficult in science,
impatient of ignorance even where knowledge is impossible,
most eager and enterprising often where the darkness is
thickest and the ground least secure, where it has, in short,
to trust to the wings of venturous conjecture more than to
the solid footing of observation, for reaching the goal at
which it aims. That Hahnemann possessed this intellectual
peculiarity is certain; that he exercised it seldom is equally
true. That it led him into some mistakes is possible enough;
that it was of essential service to him in his discoveries need
not, and cannot, be denied. Without it, the homceopathic
law would have flitted through the world a "viewless spirit,"
doing good rarely and by stealth, its mission unfulfilled.
Without it, the extreme attenuation of medicinal bodies,
needful for their general utility as homoeopathic remedies,
would have remained undiscovered; for it must have been
speculation, sprouting from some "seed-corn" of fact, that
shot so far away above all former experience to the conception of the "infinitesimal," the proof of which was to be leisurely inquired into by experiment. In what particulars it
misled him, is not so easily determined or agreed upon. I
would say, though many homoeopathic physicians will dispute
the opinion, that it misled him in the " dynamization" hypothesis, or that which holds that medicines, by being triturated
and shaken, acquire an increase of potency on each successive dilution. This doctrine, as I think, is inconsistent with
the results of observation, and lands its disciples in contradictions,-it did so even to Hahnemann. Being a mere explanatory hypothesis, however, it imposes no necessary restrictions on practice, because physicians will, of course, use
the potency which is adapted to the requirements of each
case of disease, irrespectively of hypothetical explanations
of the reason why one potency acts better than another. The
difference of opinion which still exists among us regarding



INJUNCTIONS TO HIS DISCIPLES.        181
the soundness of this doctrine of dynamization is some evidence of the difficulty there must be in arriving at a correct
decision on the subject; the reason of which I shall notice
in another chapter.
If the mental tendency to which I have been adverting,
has misled Hahnemann in any of his doctrines, we have but
to apply the principles he himself so strongly inculcates, in
order to arrive ultimately at a correction of the error, Nothing is more remarkable in his writings than his earnest appeals to observation as the only test of accuracy in medicine;
his denunciations of every method of practice that is not
founded on the truths of experience; and the contemptuous
manner in which- he regards theories, speculations, and systems, which cannot be shown to be facts, as the assumed
guides to the employment of remedies. Let his followers
obey his injunctions, and take nothing on trust, even from
Hahnemann himself, but try every doctrine by the test of
observation and experiment.



184         HAHNEMANNiCHANGES AN OPINION.
universally, add to the misfortunes of the already too unfortunate and pitiable sick, by selling their advice for filthy lucre.
I cannot defend Hahnemann, his system, and his followers,
from all of these serious imputations. I am afraid that on
some of them they must accept an unfavourable verdict, and
be thankful if they can " get by hanging," that utmost ambition of a certain notable character when in equally suspicious
circumstances. Almost all I can do for them, in this part of
their trial, is to take "a chance of decision in their favour,"
on some of the counts in the indictment, by an appeal to the
jury on the score either of bad examples in their youth or
evil company in their maturer years, for I acknowledge that
I have, generally speaking, "no case" of a better kind.
On the first charge I have nothing to say in mitigation of
sentence. Hahnemann pleads guilty, and offers no excuse;
the plea of early ignorance and later wisdom being rather an
aggravation of the offence. It is quite true, indeed, that
changes of opinion are common among gentlemen on the other
side; but such examples are so extremely bad that I doubt
whether any man in his senses would venture to pretend that
they had any influence upon him. He must be naturally excessively wicked who would not rather be disgusted and deterred from evil ways by such examples. I shall shock the
reader, I know, but I must give him an opportunity of judging of this matter. "The same truth," says Dr. Forbes, "as
to the uncertainty of practical medicine generally, and the
utter insufficiency of the ordinary evidence to establish the
efficacy of many of our remedies, as we stated above, has
been almost always attained to by philosophical physicians
of experience, in the course of long practice, and has resulted, in general, in a mild, tentative, or expectant, [that
is, no medicine-W. H.] mode of practice in their old age,
whatever may have been the vigorous or heroic doings of
their youth." (Brit. and For. Med. Rev.) As an instance



"PHILOSOPHICAL PHYSICIANS"  ALWAYS DO.     185
in point, of a very notable kind, I may state, that Sir Benjamin Brodie recants, in the last edition of his work on the joints,
some of the chief practical directions he had laid down thirty
years before. Sir Benjamin's delinquencies are exemplified
in the following quotation, from his remarks on diseases of the
spine:-" In the early part of my professional life, I was led
to follow the practice which was then very generally adopted,
of treating caries of the spine, by means of setons and caustic
issues, one on each side of the diseased vertebrae. A more
prolonged experience has satisfied me that, in the very great
majority of cases, this painful and loathsome mode of treatment is not only not useful, but actually injurious. The observations which I made on this subject formerly, with reference to scrofulous diseases of other joints, are equally applicable to cases of scrofulous diseases of the spine. For many
years past I have ceased to torment my patients who were
thus afflicted in this manner, and I am convinced that the
change of treatment has been attended with the happiest results." (P. 346, anno 1850.)
Dr. Simpson, in his eagerness to place Hahnemann in the
same list with Dr. Forbes, Sir Benjamin Brodie, and " philosophical physicians " in general, is very strong on the change
that took place in his opinions as to the permanency of the
benefits which resulted from the homceopathic plan of treatment he recommended in his earlier publications. In ten or
twelve years' time, it appears that Hahnemann had ample
opportunity of ascertaining that, in many chronic cases, the
ordinary homceopathic remedies produced only a temporary
restoration to apparent health, and that, after a time, the patient who once laboured under symptoms of chronic disease
was seized, either with a return of the same ailments, or
with others assuming the same chronic character, in a word,
was subject to relapses of chronic sufferings of some kind or
13



186        lREASON OF HAHNEMANN'S CHANGE.
other. It took him some years to ascertain this unhappy
tendency, and to discover that he had been premature in announcing that a cure, in the radical and permanent sense,
was the speedy and common result of any sort of homceopathic treatment in all kinds of disease. Had he been less
earnest than he was, he would have kept quiet upon this subject; but being unusually candid and single-minded, he made
no scruple of announcing his mistake when he had become
fully aware of it. In his Chronic Diseases, published in
1828, he tells us that he had ascertained the fact just referred
to, and had been occupied for twelve years in discovering
the reason of so perplexing an occurrence, and the means of
obviating it. The explanation he gives is what has been referred to in considering the psoric hypothesis in the last
chapter. The sufferings of chronic diseases, in a large proportion of cases, are, according to that doctrine, held to depend on the existence of a morbid poison in the bodies of
those affected, and they were, moreover, held by IHahnemann
as capable of being removed for a time by certain medicines,
which were homceopathic to the symptoms that they manifested in the occasional outbreaks of disorder caused by the
morbid poison; but as these medicines did not cure the condition on which the morbid poison itself depended, the local
ailments which it was capable of producing were liable to
return, either in the same form as they had previously presented, or in some different form, and even in a different
place, after the temporary relief afforded by medicines,
which, though homoeopathic, were not also antipsoric, that is,
capable of curing the psoric state of the body, as well as the
occasional manifestations of it. In his treatise on Chronic
Diseases and psora, he affirms that the medicines which many
chronic internal diseases require for their permanent cure,
must be\ such as are both homceopathic to the sum of the
symptoms which are present, and selected from among those



188      HOFFMANN AND BALFOUR ALSO MOONITES.
one of his works on the subject in 1795, the then Professor
of the Institutes of Medicine in the University, instead of
sneering at him a'ia fool, styles him "both learned and ingenious;" and acknowledges that he had proved, by his " numerous facts," that something of the nature of lunar influence on fevers did occur in Bengal, though he does not think
it " by any means ascertained" "that this arises from a general law of sol-lunar influence extending over the whole
globe." X  It would be to no purpose to go farther back for
proofs of a general belief among physicians that the moon
has an influence on diseases. The great Hoffmann believed
it, and yet his other opinions are not thought absurd on that
account. I need not add, that if a man might believe that
the moon could affect the symptoms of ordinary diseases,
without his authority on other subjects being necessarily
scouted, he might believe the same regarding the symptoms
of medicinal diseases, and still have a claim on our courtesy
and respect. And still farther to show that, even if Hahnemann was wrong about the moon's influence on medicinal
dieases, the error does not in the least invalidate his practical precepts as a physician; let it be remembered that no opinion is more firmly rooted among farmers than that the moon
influences the weather, while Arago and other men of science
maintain that she does no such thing; yet we do not doubt
the practical wisdom in their calling of those who adhere to
the ancient notion.
In regard to the fifth charge, that Homoeopathy is not destitute of indiscreet disciples, the unfortunate accused has
scarcely a word to say. She admits that she is most culpable
in this respect, and blushes when she contrasts Dr. Mure, Mr.
Everest, and some others, both reverend and lay, with the
many truly wise and immaculate persons who follow her aged
rival. But still she desires mitigation of punishment on the
* Med. Com., vol. xx. p. 180.



FILTHY MEDICINES PERTAINING TO, ALLOPATHY.   189
score of bad example. Dr. Mure certainly puts her to shame
with his Pediculus Capitis, and she acknowledges that she
was hasty in admitting him into her company with such an
attendant. Yet what could she do? Before receiving him,
she considered whether there were any precedents for such
abominable things as he wanted her to countenance, and she
found that Allopathy, both ancient and modern, made no
scruple on the ground of decorum, as to what or whom she
consorted with. Privately she tried to ascertain what musk
and castor were, and in what doses Dr. Simpson and his friends
gave them to their dainty feminine patients. She remembered Virgil's allusion to the one-" Virosaque Pontus Castorea"-and did riot think it by any means a proper substance for physic; and she bethought herself also of the
celebrated Hoffmann's edition of the other, as a second-hand
something (bad enough when fresh and original) that was
not to be thought of in civilized society, and never to be expressed but in a dead language, —" Attentione dignum curiosumque est," says he, " quod moschus odore suo privatus, in
latrina si suspendatur, suavem suum odorem, iterum acquirat;"* and being thus refreshed is a particularly fine medicine. Beside a scruple or a drachm of either, the billionth
of a grain of the Patagonian pediculus rises into a bonneboache for the most fastidious taste.
Castor and musk perfume and adorn the armamentarium
of modern Allopathy, and, therefore, might amply excuse her
homceopathic rival for adopting the pediculus, even though
it had no personal recommendations. But Allopathy is so
incessantly pluming herself upon her antiquity and her noble
antecedents, that her opponent was very willing to inquire
if the family history, so full of all imaginable glories, would
not be a still better authority for her closing with Dr. Mure
* In Hoffmann's notes to Pharm. Spagyricse, p. 166, by P. Poterus, whose
Materia Medica he adopts by his notes and commendations.



190              HOFFMANN'S EMINENCE,
and his offspring. Hoffmann seemed a communicative personage, and though all but a contemporary of Hahnemann,
and therefore not likely to be so exquisite in physical matters
as some of the more immediate descendants of Apollo, his
modern renown gave a certain weight to his authority that
made him appear at once a suitable person to apply to. The
late Professor, John Thomson, in his Life of Cullen, gives
Hoffmann a distinguished place among medical philosophers;
and as I am about to cite a few samples of the opinions and
practices of that celebrated physician, I naturally desire to
enlist the good opinion of my readers in his favour, lest, not
entirely concurring with him on some minor points, they
should rashly condemn, as a fool or charlatan or pick-pocket,
the great founder of modern pathology, and one of the most
voluminous and learned writers of the last century on the
medicinal peculiarities of the common or old school; for these
reasons, I say, I shall bespeak for him the most worshipful
consideration of the reader, by two or three extracts from the
eminent biographer I have mentioned, in proof of the great
sagacity and singular services of the illustrious Allopath,"The great and prominent merits of Hoffmann," says Dr.
Thomson, "as a medical philosopher, undoubtedly consisted in
his having perceived and pointed out more clearly than any of
his predecessors, the extensive and powerful influence of the
nervous system, in modifying and regulating at least, if not
in producing all the phenomena of the organic as well as of
the animal functions in the human economy, and more particularly in his application of this doctrine to the explanation of
diseases." (P. 195.) "... He employed all the powers
of his capacious mind, and his extensive learning, in borrowing
from anatomy, anid from natural philosophy and chemistry,
whatever could tend to elucidate the study or improve the
practice of medicine. His writings, in six folio volumes, form
an immense storehouse of theoretical and practical knowledge,



192           HIOFFMANN'S MATERIA MEDICA.
the sense of youth in the individual ") is the remarkable cure
of an itchy Dominican friar. A contumacious psora had tormented the reverend father for six years, in spite of many
physicians, till at last Poterus set him to eat vipers with a
little salt; and the doctor tells us that, during the summer,
above 150 of them having descended into the friar, "his
skin being renovated, he became quite another man, and he
who before looked a particularly old person, was made
young again, stronger than before, and litter for every
thing."s At p. 151 of the same ingenious volume, he gives
directions for preparing the aqua or water of crabs, earthworms, frogs, and frog-spawn; which, I may mention-in
order to let people into the secret of that invaluable experience of so many centuries which our allopathic friends always thrust into our upstart faces-were respectively found
by the "capacious mind" which meddled with "things, the
real meaning of which is understood" to be admirable t in
inflammations, (like the lancet and tartar emetic,) bites of
mad-dogs, stone in the kidneys, consumption, worms of children, (the earth-worms did their business-a kind of Isopathy, therefore, like bugs for bug-bites,) hemorrhages, erysipelas, gout, and burns, not to mention others that are not
mentionable.
A.t p. 152, we are introduced to something still more philosophical, and more conclusive of the soundness of the ancient foundations. But here I am at a great disadvantage,
and feel almost as if I must shut the book, and leave Dr.
Simpson to crow by himself. For while he, with little violence to decency, can give in plain English the worst therapeutic ravings of the most harebrained homceopathist (so* Supplementum, p. 126.
t "Radically cure," and "wonderfully benefit," are the judicious phrases
expressive of their action.



194      HUMAN BLOOD AND SKULLS AS MEDICINES.
dictu quam rara et perfecta remedia reperiantur; et ut ab
homine omnium principe exordiar, in humano stercore mira vis
latet, in viscerum obstructionibus aperiendis. This is what
may be termed the solid foundation of Allopathy. It has a
fluid foundation, too, by virtue of which it claims rule by sea
as well as land; but I cannot trust the account of it, in somewhat too transparent Latin, to my page. However, the meaning "is understood."
After all this there is a positive insipidity in the Extract
of mummies, Precipitate of human blood, and of the human
skull, of frogs, vipers, worms, gems, and pearls, and the oil
of human fat-all of which are duly celebrated in the same
fundamental volume, between pages 159 and 173. Itis needless to say that the cures they work were wonderful, and the
allopathic experience they imparted as sound as any from that
day to this-Dr. Dietl, Dr. Forbes, Sir Benjamin Brodie, and
"philosophical physicians" in general, being witnesses to the
fact.
As to the sixth count in the series, the non-divinity of
lIomoeopathy and its founder-notwithstanding the assertions
to the contrary of the enthusiastic and ridiculous Dr. Mure
-the charge is frankly confessed to be but too true. The
gentleman I have just mentioned, with unpardonable impropriety, terms Hahnemann "a messenger from heaven," and
the Rev. Mr. Everest pretends that the Scripture injunction
to the Apostles to "heal the sick and cleanse the lepers,"
admits of a modern application to the practitioners of the
healing art. Dr. Simpson thinks both of them in the wrong,
-the clergyman especially, on the ground that he is guilty
of a false interpretation of a passage in the sacred writings,
-which, of course, no allopathic clergyman was ever known
to be. All the divine honours and heaven-descended blessings of medicine unquestionably belong to Allopathy; and
if any one doubts the fact, let him hear what Allopathy says



DR. SIMPSON MISREPRESENTS HAHNEMANN.        1 97
which I have referred to, are these,-that professional works
which all medical men may require to peruse, are thus apt to
be the vehicles of unsound religious opinions, rendered
doubly dangerous by being diffused among important scientific truths; and that names which ought never to be uttered
without reverence, and doctrines which should never be
specified without solemnity, are liable to become bandied
about amidst the acrimonies of disputation, and made the
weapons of personal or party hatreds.
The former of these objections has its illustration on either
side of this medical controversy, but not, I think, of so dangerous a description on the side of Homceopathy as of its
rival.  Dr. lMure's parallel between human and divine things
is too great an outrage upon good taste and common sense to
be perilous to any one-even to a fool; while his work is necessary to no one, and has, probably no medical wisdom to
gild its allegorical absurdities. Dr. Simpson errs in saying
he is blasphemous; he is simply disgusting.*  The Reverend
Mr. Everest's medico-religious philosophy, fanciful and erroneous as it is, is merely his philosophy; has no other existence than in his published sermon; and no sanction but that
of a board of hospital managers, who probably never heard
it, of a zealous private gentleman in an after-dinner speech,
and of a weekly homoeopathic journalist, who praised it before
it was printed. Dr. Simpson is wrong when he says it contains Hahnemannic theology, and he knows that he is wrong,
for he inadvertently quotes from Hahnemann a sentence which
contains the expression of an opinion and an experience the
very opposite of the principal peculiarity of the sermon; and
* As the impression which Dr. Simpson seeks to produce upon his readers
is, that Dr. Mure is the founder of a new sort of religion made up of Christianity and Homoeopathy, I may state that he is in reality a very devoted
Roman Catholic, whose orthodoxy in the faith of his Church is unquestioned,
however heretical he may be as to taste and judgment.



198              DANGERS OF ADMITTING
not only so, but the notions of Mr. Everest are as little allied
to homieopathic doctrines and practices as they are to the
allopathic. I presume that allopathic physicians admit the
imperfection of human bodies, their proneness to constitutional distemper, their influence when disordered upon the
thoughts and feelings of the mind, and the capacity of that
influence to be lessened or removed by appropriate physical
treatment. Mr. Everest goes, indeed, a degree or two farther,
but it is in the same direction, and no farther than he may
be followed as easily and consistently by an allopathic as by
a homieopathic physician, who is inclined to speculations regarding mind and matter that are more ingenious and bold
than consistent with Scripture and experience. There is nothing peculiar to Homoeopathy in the philosophy of Mr. Everest, and, but for Dr. Simpson's resuscitation of it, it would
have been forgotten long ago.
On the allopathic side the case is very different. I approach it with hesitation, because it appears to me too serious to be quietly allowed to drop, once the attention of the
many excellent and Christian men, who are allopathic physicians, is pointedly directed to it. The few instances which
I think it necessary to adduce of error, bearing upon theological matters, from the allopathic writings, are extracted from
the same influential review to which I have already adverted.
I do not desire to charge the conductors of that publication
with a deliberate intention to sap the foundations of Christian
belief, or to inculcate doctrines which they know to be at
variance with Christian precepts, but simply to show that
valuable records of medical science, when religious subjects
are permitted to mingle with them, are liable to become objectionable and unsafe, as vehicles of error on the most important of all concerns, whether from the thoughtlessness or
the theological peculiarities of their authors. Having reviewed ce of the works of the infidel Fichte, the writer,



200       HOMCEOPATHY AND MEN OF RANK, ETC.
from that which ought to be devoted to his studies." (P. 13.)
Let these examples, from the many that might be quoted,
suffice to indicate the sort of influences that may accompany
medical teachings, if all who conceive themselves wiser than
their brethren in matters of religion are to be encouraged
to infuse their religious opinions into their medical works.
I lay no special charge of an aptitude for objectionable views
on theological questions against allopathic writers. If the
practice shall become general among medical authors, of
mixing their notions of Christianity with medicine, I do not
doubt that the evils of it will be abundantly and equally apparent on both sides. The second of the objections which
I mentioned as applicable to medico-religious discussions
needs no elucidation from me; it will be found painfully illustrated in the work of Dr. Simpson.
The seventh charge accuses Homceopathy of being supported by men of rank, literary eminence, and clergymen.
Such personages are said by our opponents not to be always
the best judges of what is worthy of belief and patronage;
and as this is a very unanswerable argument against any system which they may support, Homceopathy here makes a resolute stand, and declares that the objection is a great deal
more applicable to her rival thali to her. The Pope and the
Archbishop of Canterbury, Mr. Macaulay and Mr. Dickens,
my Lord Aberdeen and my Lord Chancellor, (not to mention
the highest head in the realm,) are all allopaths, and the fact
proves two things: Firstly, in accordance with Dr. Simpson's
line of argument, it shows very plainly that Allopathy is the
merest quackery, for persons of the several classes referred
to have chiefly patronised the most absurd delusions, such as
St.-John-Longism, Perkinism, and Stephenismn. Was it not
the Parliament of England that gave ~5000 for Mrs. Stephens' specific; and does not the Parliament of Englandwith its Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and its Commons-at



202             ALLOPATHIC UNANIMITY.
sidering that their opponents are unanimous on every thing
in theirs. To give some fair samples of the allopathic harmony,-Mialhe maintains that alkalies cure diabetes, Bouchardat is "unanimously" of opinion that they do not, but
make it worse; Iiaygarth, Percival, and others, recommend
mercury in water in the head; Abercrombie concurs, in the
following terms:-" Its reputation seems to stand on very
doubtful grounds;" Dr. M'Adam recommends mercury in
peritonitis, thus, "as soon as a salivation is established, we
have generally found the symptoms become much mitigated;
and our experience accords with that of Dr. Gooch, who remarks, that whenever the gums were affected in this disease,
the patients invariably recovered," (Cyc. of Pract. Med.,)
with which Dr. Alison's extensive experience coincides in
these terms:-" When its action on the mouth has been excited in the course of acute internal inflammations, we have
not only been very generally disappointed of seeing improvement of the symptoms immediately follow that change,
but are constrained to add, that we have more frequently
seen an aggravation of them," (same work, p. xcvi.;) of Digitalis, Pereira says, "Dr. Withering stated, that this medicine
more frequently succeeds as a diuretic than any other, and
that if it fail, there is but little chance of any other remedy
succeeding. My experience, however, is not in accordance
with Dr. Withering's," (p. 1211;) of iodine in goitre, observes the same author.- " Dr. Copland observes, that of
several cases of the disease which have come before him
since the introduction of this remedy into practice,' there has
not been one which has not either been cured or remarkably
relieved by it.' I much regret, however, that my experience
does not accord with this statement," (p. 241;) Dr. Dundas
states, that if quinine be used at the commencement of continued fever, in doses of ten or twelve grains, every two
hours, the disease will be arrested " in the great majority of



ALLOPATHIC UNANIMITY.             203
cases." Dr. Bennett has tried this method in the manner recommended by Dr. Dundas, in two cases of typhoid, and in
four or five of typhus. "In none of the cases," says he,
"notwithstanding the physiological action of the drug was
well marked, did it in any way cut short the disease, or produce on its progress, as far as I could ascertain, any amelioration whatever," (Brit. and For. Rev., 1852;) Dr. G. O. Rees
writes a pamphlet in commendation of lemon-juice in acute
rheumatism,, and Dr. Fuller and his reviewer in the Edinburgh Monthly Journal come to this favourable conclusion
about it, "the latest of all (remedies) in the field, like many
others that have gone before it, lemon-juice, appears, when
weighed in the balance of experience, unworthy of the panegyrics which have been bestowed upon it."  (January,
1853.) Yet why be tedious with instances of a unanimity
which is not, and never has been, denied? let the great allopathic reviewer, Dr. Forbes, sum up the argument in his own
graphic way. "This comparative powerlessness and positive
uncertainty of medicine is also exhibited in a striking light,
when we come to trace the history and fortunes of particular remedies and modes of treatment, and observe the notions of practitioners, at different times, respecting their positive or relative value. What difference of opinion, —what
an array of alleged facts directly at variance with each
other,-what contradictions,-what opposite results of a like
experience,-what ups and downs,-what glorification and
degradation of the same remedy, —what confidence now,what despair anon in encountering the same disease with the
very same weapons,-what horror and intolerance at one
time of the very opinions and practices which, previously
and subsequently, are cherished and admired." (Brit. and
For. Rev., 1846, p. 258.) Whosoever is desirous of enlarging
his memoranda of particulars on this curious subject, is recommended to take notes from the first chapter of this work



WHAT IS THE HEIGHT OF ALLOPATHY?             207
multitude afford any presumption in favour of the opinions
which it espouses?  On the contrary,'argumentum pessimi
turba est.' The height of a crowd is no higher than the
highest man in it. This is true, both physically and intellectually. But in a crowd intellectually there is even a tendency to bring down the higher minds to a lower level; for
all experience shows, that men under the sympathy —the
mutual Mesmerism-of numbers do enthusiastically in a body
what, had they been left to their individual judgment and responsibilities, many of them  would have ridiculed  or condemned."*  Allusion is here made to the intellectual stature
of the highest man, in that sense, in the crowd, as forming the
utmost height of the crowd itself. The observation is so just,
that we may well pause a moment to ask what the intellectual eminence of the medical multitude is that decry Homceopathy?  Is there a man so high among them that his simple
decision ought to weigh anything in the estimation of those
who like an opinion in science to have experience on its
side?  We must, in so far as the British empire is concerned,
let the unbiassed foreigner —the Parisian Academy of Medicine-answer the question.  A  few months ago, there was
not a British physician thought worthy of a place in that respectable body. Since then Professor Simpson has had the
fortune to be elected a foreign associate.t  Still the question
* The mention of Sir William Hamilton suggests to me his prediction regarding the practice now supported by the minority: —" Homoeopathy and
the Water-Cure are now and here (in Edinburgh) blindly anathematized as
heretical; in the next generation, it is not improbable, that these same doctrines may be no less blindly preached as exclusively orthodox. Such is poor
human nature! Such is corporate-such ismedical authority."-Discussions,
Wc. p. 638. We prefer our present more honourable position, and hope he
may prove wrong.
t I am so far from thinking this distinction a disproportionate tribute to
the value of chloroform as a means of preventing pain in natural or surgical
operations, that I would have applauded the bestowal of the same honour on



208          NUMERICAL TEST OF QUACKERY.
remains unanswered-Is there in the crowd a physician entitled to decide, ex cathedra, from his pride of place, as a man
of scientific and intellectual stature, on a question which he,
has not specially and practically examined?
But enough of this argument-now for the other. Homoeopathy has a great many followers, says Dr. Simpson on
the other tack, and therefore it must be quackery, for quackery has always a numerous retinue; St. John Long had it,
&c., &c., &c. Softly, good doctor. Are you willing to be
tried by the same test?  Are you much run after or not?  I
know nothing on the point beyond what everybody appears
to believe; and if everybody is right, and if lEomoeopathy
be quackery because it is so popular, pray, what are you?
Surely not a    -! I will not suppose it possible.. You
will see, though, that this argument won't stand inspection a
whit better than the other. Let us all conclude then, in
common civility and common sense, that the vulgar argument
from numbers leaves the matter where it found it.
Although, as we have just seen, no argument can be legitimately drawn against Homceopathy or Allopathy from the
numbers, whether great or small, which may have embraced
either, it may be allowed me to ask, Has Homoeopathy had
fair play in the world? To judge from Dr. Simpson's objection to Homceopathy, on the ground that its medical votaries
are not yet so very numerous as a system with such pretensions ought to have, if it is sound, those who know nothing
on the subject may suppose that it has had opportunities for
its growth fairly and impartially conceded to it. But the
objection reminds one, who does know something on the subject, of the tyranny of Pharaoh towards the Israelites when
they sojourned in Egypt, whose "tale of bricks" must be
Drs. Keith and Matthew Duncan, -for their share, as joint experimenters with
Dr. Simpson, in the important discovery of so considerable an improvement
upon ether.



HOM(EOPATHY OPPRESSED.               209
forthcoming though the supply of straw was withheld. Our
"bricks" have multiplied under so many cruel disadvantages,
that the real wonder is that they are so many and so true,
and not that they are not more numerous, or that one or two
of them  should have proved to be false.  Protestantism
flourishes not in Tuscany, political liberty in France, freetrade anywhere. but in England;-yet does any protestant of
the "liberal party" doubt therefore the excellence of his religion, his personal freedom or his cheap bread? I trow not;
and for the same reason which checks the growth of other
good things, viz., discouragement by persecution and bad laws
the limited number of professional Homceopathists in some
countries, is not to be employed as an argument against the
fitness of their system to take the first place in medicine
wherever it is free to follow its native tendency to rise.
Only thirty-three years ago, as we have seen, its illustrious
founder was virtually banished from Leipsic by laws which
bestowed exclusive privileges upon the allopathic apothecaries. Since that time, slow concessions have been made in
favour of the new method, by state regulations, in some parts
of Germany. I do not know that it is even yet emancipated in
all parts of that country; certainly, ten or twelve years ago
it was not so.* But supposing that it is now free, the stigma
of illegality has been too recently removed for all traces of
the reproach to have vanished; and medical men in general
are too much the slaves of opinion, stand too much in cowardly awe of one another, and of their patients, to take the
manly position they ought to take, and as some among our* I observe that persecution still continues in Germany. The "Magdeburg Zeitung" of 5th April last, contains the following:-" The homoeopathic
physician, Dr. Kallenbach, was this day officially expelled from this town in
consequence of the Sanitary Board laying a complaint against him on account of his large practice. He has removed to Bockenheim in Electoral
Iesse: Kallenbach was body-physician to the late Elector of Hesse." -



210         HOMiEOPATHY IN FREE COUNTRIES.
selves to my certain knowledge had begun to take when the
coming blast of obloquy sounded ominously in their ears,
and warned them to retreat. Though legal impediments
may not exist, it does not follow that Homceopathy has fair
play. The avenues to preferment even in this free country
are still closed against the disciples of this medical reform,
or rather regeneration. The old Sarums of a passing system are still too numerous among universities, and colleges,
and hospitals, and military boards, yea, even among poor-law
guardians and other parish patrons-who dispense a scanty
dole to the too generally needy and anxious practitioner of
medicine-to be readily defied. The incubus of old and
stiff institutions, with all their monopolies and prejudices,
presses heavily on the young science, and not only in some
decrepit continental countries, but even in Great Britain,
the land of progress and professed liberality. Is there a
country in the world, unsaddled with the dead-weight of
ancient prejudice in power, where free opinion in science has
encouragement to become free action, untampered with by
bribes and unchecked by bigoted corporations,-where the
standard of value is not antiquity, but intrinsic worth and
usefulness? Look at America, and you have an example of
such a country;, and how stands Homoeopathy there? In
many parts of the United States there are societies and
minor institutions for the encouragement of the system; and
in Pennsylvania a college was founded in 1848, for the complete education of homoeopathic physicians, and the granting
of degrees. It opened with fifteen students; in the following
year they amounted to fifty-five; and in 1851 their number
was seventy. What the progress has been since, or what
other States have followed the example of Pennsylvania, and
founded colleges for the encouragement of Homceopathy,
I have not learnt; but I have the high authority of Mrs.
Beecher Stowe for the fact, that HIomoeopathy is very widely



IN AMERICA AND BRITAIN.                  211
extended over the Union; and the graduation list of the
Pennsylvanian College for 1851, shows that her information
is correct, and not the mere conjecture of a zealous disciple.
The list referred to contains the names of twenty-nine graduates,* being exactly the number that graduated in Glasgow, one of our most ancient and popular universities, in
1850; and more than half the average number that have
annually graduated in Edinburgh during the last six years!
In Britain, which comes next to America in the general
liberality of her institutions, and in the spirit of freedom
among her people,t no one, not even Dr. Simpson, denies that
Homceopathy is on the increase.  The fact is too palpable to
be concealed. It is professedly accounted for by the gullibility of the English, and no one can deny their gullibility,
-very far from  it.  Without an extraordinary amount of
that weakness, how could they allow themselves to be so long
the martyrs to a drug-system, acknowledged even by the
wisest allopathic physicians to be monstrous and mischievous.
Their eyes are opening, however, and they will, by and by,
open very wide with amazement at the quantity of doctors'
stuffs they have swallowed to no good purpose.
*I have just noticed that for 1852-53 the number was fifty-five.
t This statement must be qualified by exempting the medical profession and
its dependents from the charge of possessing such a spirit. Their exhibition
of a very different spirit has exposed them to the contempt of their continental brethren, so much less favourably situated for the growth of liberal
principles. An allopathic Berlin journal contains the following humiliating
paragraph:-Under the head of "London," it says, "The agitation against
Homoeopathy has given rise to excesses which are more than laughable, they
are contemptible. At the instigation of some fanatic medical men, a large
publishing house there, (Highly and Son,) have announced, that henceforward they will neither publish nor sell any homceopathic works, and it is expected that other publishers will follow their example. This mode of attempting to stop the child's mouth is absolutely revolting, and all the more
barbarous as occurring in a land where the right to give expression to opinion
is considered sacred."-Brit. Journal of Homceopathy. 1853.



212             ALLOPATHIC ARTIFICES.
At Leipsic, as we learn from  a correspondent in the
"Tenets," there are only "six or seven" homceopathic physicians. When so many are admitted to exist there, by a
person who writes in the most ludicrous ignorance and manifestly bad spirit against HIomceopathy, we may rest assured
that there are " six or seven" at least; and shall probably be
nearer the mark if we double the number, on the principle
that half the truth is a large allowance with which to credit
a bitter and not very scrupulous opponent. It is remarkable,
however, that there should be seven to a population of only
50,000; and particularly remarkable when it is remembered,
that Leipsic about thirty years ago banished, at the instance
of the allopathic practitioners, the illustrious Hlahnemann
himself on account of his homoeopathic principles. A great
change must have come over the spirit of Leipsic and its laws
since that curious passage in their history, and the circumstance calls loudly for congratulation on their relief from the
thraldom.of the druggists. Leipsic is remarkable, too, as
having been the source of Dr. Fickel's publication on the
"Nothingness of:omeoopathy;" a work which must have
told very sadly against the new practice as long as its author
remained out of the lock-up; in which, as I have mentioned
in the Preface, he was requested to reside under peculiar circumstances. Dr. Oscar Prieger, who endeavours to make an
honest living out of the "many English invalids who have of
late years visited the Continent,"* has, it seems, "in the
strongest manner," and from the most disinterested motives,
authorized Dr. Simpson to impress upon the English invalids
who visited the Continent, that Homeopathy is in a state of
"rapid decline, or indeed total extinction," "in all that part
of Germany with which he is acquainted," and where he endeavours to subsist, so that they may ask at once for him, and
save themselves the trouble of searching for a homoeopathic
* Tenets, p. 35.



FAVOIFUL ODOURS OF DECAY.             213
doctor: he (Dr. O. P.) will do their business on terms decidedly low,*  Did Dr. Simpson really believe when he demeaned himself by admitting the paltry and sinister nonsense
of Drs. Prieger and Gerson into his book, that any human
being, who knew anything of mankind in general, and of
doctors in particular, would believe one word of such interested evidence? I can hardly suppose it. But there are
many who don't know mankind in general, or doctors in particular, and they may swallow these allopathic absurdities as
they do other allopathic stuff, which has an equal title to their
confidence. I wonder what Homoeopathy is, after all; for
ever since I heard of it, it has been ",rapidly declining," or
has been sunk in "total extinction."  I wish I could believe
this assertion: if true, it would save me a world of trouble,
and leave me alternately to the peaceful occupations of retirement, and the pleasures of academical duty, instead of worrying myself with combating the follies and improprieties of
allopathic controversialists.
But the Leipsic hospital is defunct. Dr. Gerson is right
for once, and it is "curious, and well worthy of attention,"
as HIoffmann says of what happened to the musk, in latrina,
that when an odour of decay is being pretended as traceable
to Homoeopathy, the minutest particulars, real or imaginary,
are all well known to our allopathic contemporaries; while
every thing that argues vigour, growth, and prosperity, is
carefully debarred all entrance into their supercilious nostrils. Well, if such odours would only make them as sweet
as.Hoffmann's renovated musk-bags, they would be heartily
welcome to the olfactory entertainment; but the misery is,
that the more rapidly Homceopathy " decays," the more they
* Dr. O. P. overdoes his part in the most amusing manner. "In fact, he
had heard the word (Homoeopathy) only in England or from English patients,
during the last five or six years." An excellent example of the credibility of
his whole story.



216          HOMOEOPATHY NOT HEREDITARY.
or not I do not say, to the tender mercies of young doctors
in all the great cities of Europe and America. And I am
sure of one thing, that imperfect as homceopathic practice
must be in the hands of a novice, it will be, comparatively,
a blessing to those of the class in question, who have the
fortune to become the subjects of that experiment, instead of
an allopathic one. And this, in fact, is the way in which
physicians, young and old, who embrace Homceopathy, actually acquire a practical knowledge of the system. They have
no hospitals in which they can be taught to know it when
they are students, and they do not want hospitals in which
to learn when they have become physicians.
Perhaps the odour of Homceopathic decay, which is felt
to be the most grateful and consoling, is that which is said to
be exhaled from Hamburg. The friendly Dr. Gerson tells
the author of the "Tenets," that the son of a homceopathic physician of that city "has entered the medical profession, but has not adopted the homceopathic principles
of his father." Why so? Did he abjure the principles of
his respected parent from a deliberate conviction, founded
on personal experience, that his father was wrong? If he
did, why, valeat quantum; let his abjuration be estimated at
its true worth; and, in order that it may, let us know what
sort of youth he is who thinks himself so much wiser than
his sire. If he did not, but acted from a distaste for martyrdom,-the posthumous honours whereof did not, in his estimation, possess half the value of even the slenderest reputation in esse;-he may be Homoeopathic at heart from filial
piety and actual knowledge, and Allopathic from timidity,
and in profession only. As I would be tender to the softness of youth, I shall grant that there may be some excuse
in this plea for even so grave an offence as appearing under
false colours. I can understand, if I cannot, at my time



FILIAL HOMEOPATHY IN DISGUISE.        217
of life, sympathize with that shamefacedness which makes
singularity so hateful to raw and inexperienced boyhood. To
disdain reproach, to bear contempt with a calm front and unshaken mind, in the service of truth and of a good conscience,
are the endowments of veteran soldiers in the warfare of life.
Courage, elevation, and endurance, need the discipline of
foughten fields, the tempering heat of rough encounters, and
the tried trustiness of Him who gives them, before they wax
strong enough to'brave the temptations and chidings of the
world. We must not look for such attributes of manhood in
beardless youths, who naturally judge of things by outward
glitter, gape in admiration of the vulgar idol, and sigh for popular applause. I have a few of these young idolaters in my
eye, who are no strangers to certain truths, which they have
not yet the virtue to confess.
As the text which M. Gerson has furnished in this Hamburg incident has a general as well as a special application,
I shall dwell upon it for a little longer; and observe, in the
third place, that perhaps the homoeopathic parent himself
placed the youth under the allopathic colours, since a doctor
he must be, because he wanted the mettle necessary for a homceopathic physician in these days of rebuke. The senior
might hope, at the same time, that with the advantage of
some paternal instructions, the junior might prove so little
injurious, nay, of such service, to humanity, that he might be
pardoned for sending him to enlist under the old, standard.
He need not always load his blunderbuss, or fire the "great
guns," (as I think Dr. Symonds calls venesection and calomel,) when the old word of command is given, and so he will
do less execution than another would in his place; while now
and then he may put in a pellet from his father's shot-bag, and
thus do good by stealth without the risk of blushing when he
finds it fame. I myself, who have no small opinion of Homceopathy, and a thorough confidence in its destiny, have dissuaded
15.



THE TRUE VERSION OF "SPIRITUALIZATION.     219
hide altogether feelings of shame and indignation-shame
for the sake of my country, and indignation for the sake of
our common humanity-that it can be a question.
To the tenth charge Dr. Simpson devotes a whole chapter
of his veracious chronicle. It consists of no less an accusaAtion than that of witchcraft; for Hahnemann says, that by
his method of preparing medicines, by hours of trituration in
a mortar, &c., "the spiritual medicinal powers of the crude
substances" are developed to a remarkable degr ce.If I
could suppose the author of the " Tenets" capable of a jest,
I would smile with him at his construction of this passage;
but I fear that his dissertation on the subject must be put down
to sober ignorance, or inebriated ill-will. In either case it
is so easily answered that it need not detain us long. Of
course every man of ordinary information knows, that medicinal, as well as other substances, possess essential or peculiar
properties, different from the physical properties which are
common to all kinds of matter..The essence of some substances was recognised as of a material and tangible description, capable of being extricated from its intermixture with
other substances in crude compounds. When so extricated
it was, and still is, termed spirit, —as the spirit of wine, the
spirit of turpentine, the spirit of salts, and so on. In other
instances the quintessence (quinta essential of material bodies
is, or rather was, regarded as an imponderable, immaterial
something, on which the specific peculiarities of each body depended,. and by which it was distinguishable from all other
bodies, when its peculiar endowment was called into play.
Scientific men know this quintessence now by the term force,
which is defined as an unknown cause of change, because the
force of one body is capable of producing effects, phenomena,
or changes, in the states of other bodies, and because its inmate nature is unknown. The Greek word (.vvai5) for power
or force gives us two nouns, one expressive of the science to



220          EXAMPLE OF " TABLE-TURNING.
which such causes of phenomena belong, viz., dynamics, and
another expressive of the communication of such force or
power, either of new, or in a higher degree than was previously possessed, viz., dynamization. The term spirit has been
frequently employed to denominate what, while it was believed
to be an entity, or existent something, was yet not regarded
as of the nature of matter, as that is perceivable by the
senses. It was, then, the name for that essential something in
matter on which its power to produce phenomena depended,
and was thus used with exactly the same meaning as now is
attached to the term force. The spiritual powers of medicines are, therefore, their dynamic endowments or forces, and
"spiritualization" of a medicine is synonymous with its dynamization, or the development of its force, or spirit, or essential property. Some "spirits," or forces, are common to
material bodies, such as heat and electricity; and are capable
of being excited or augmented in many of them by friction.
Hahnemann supposed that the spiritual or dynamic powers of
medicines were susceptible of a similar increase of energy,
by similar means. This, then, is the plain and simple truth
on which Dr. Simpson has built his contemptible charge of
superstition against lHahnemann and his followers; and I am
surely entitled to say that, if he did not know all that I have
now explained, he is ignorant to a most discreditable extent;
and that, if he did know it, and yet deliberately misled his
readers in the matter, he has shown a state of mind compared
to which "ignorance is bliss."
But I am not yet done with the subject of spirits. In these
days of "table-turning," I shall try my hand at the curious
experiment. I find a " table " in the twentieth number of the
British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, which I am
sure will answer the purpose; and I request the reader to sit
down with me beside that part of it which is entitled "The
Relations between Mind and Matter."  In order to make the



ALLOPATHIC SPIRITUALIZATIONS.         221
experiment plain and intelligible, I must commence with a
short introduction. Professor Grove of London published,
in 1846, the substance of some lectures on what he terms
the correlation, or reciprocal convertibility of the ordinary
physical forces; in the course of which he sought to show
" that the various imponderable' agencies, or the affections of
matter, which constitute the main objects of experimental
physics, viz., heat, light, electricity, magnetism, chemical
affinity, and motion, are all correlative, or have a reciprocal
dependence," each being " convertible into the other."  According to his view no force is annihilated, but when it seems
to be so is merely converted into another form of force; and
the doctrine is illustrated throughout his work with great ingenuity and felicity. Having done with the physical forces,
Mr. Grove throws out the hint that the same correlation, of
convertibility, may be' found to exist among the forces of
organic nature; that muscular force, animal and vegetable heat,
&c., are reciprocally convertible forces. Profiting by this
hint, the well-known Dr. Carpenter wrote an essay on the
correlation of vital and physical forces, in which he attempts
to show that the forces of these two kingdoms of nature are
reciprocally convertible, like the physical forces themselves.
All this too, is ingenious, and possibly true. But a step farther
remained to be taken by some not over-squeamish speculator;
and that step soon followed in the article of the great allopathic review to which I have referred, and, I believe, from
the pen of Dr. Carpenter. It is there plainly laid down that
MIND, which is called'" the manifestation of the dynamic activity of the cerebrum," is, in all "those active states known
as Passions, Emotions, Moral Feelings, Sentiments," &c.,
correlative with, or convertible into, the vital forces of the
body, (nerve force, muscular force, &c.,) which in the previous essay were shown to be convertible into the ordinary
physical forces of inanimate nature!  "Mind," says the



222             SPIRITUAL SAFETY-VALVES.
writer, "is one of the dynamicala agencies which is capable
of acting on Imatter; and: in what we know of the physiological
conditions under which Mind produces Motion, we have evidence that certain forms of vital force constitute'the connecting link between the two; so that it is difficult to see
that the dynamical agency we term Will is more removed from
nerve-force on the one hand, than nerve-force is itself from
muscular force. Each, on giving origin to the next, is itself
expended, or ceases to exist as such." (P. 513.) The Will,
in producing motion of the body, is held to be converted into
the organic force of the nerves, that into muscular force; and
so on with all the "dynamical" activities of the brain, including the Moral Feelings; each is convertible into nerve
force, that into muscular force, that again into motion, that
possibly into heat, magnetism, electricity, and chemical affinity. In illustration of this original doctrine, it is remarked,
" Thus, it may be commonly noticed that those who are termed
demonstrative persons are less firm and deep in their attachments than those who manifest their feelings less."... "So
again, persons who are'quick-tempered,' manifesting great
irascibility upon small provocations, are usually soon appeased
There is an instinctive restlessness, or tendency
to general bodily movement, in some individuals, when they
are suffering under emotional excitement, the indulgence of
which appears to be a sort of safety-valve for the excess of
nerve-force," into which, as we have seen, moral feelings and
passions are liable to be converted, and thus to escape by the
safety-valve when the pressure is high. " Thus many irascible
persons find great relief in a hearty explosion of oaths, others
by a violent slamming of the door, and others in a prolonged
fit of grumbling. It is well known, again, that the depressing emotions are often worked off by a good fit of crying and
sobbing.".... (P. 515.) In further illustration, we
have the following:- "A half-idiotic youth in the Lunatic
Asylum of Boston was the subject (like many of his condition)



ALLOPATHIC PHILOSOPHY OF MIND.        223
of frequent and violent paroxysms of anger; and, with the
view of moderating these, it was suggested that he should be
kept for some time every day in rather fatiguing exercise.
Accordingly, he was employed' for two or three hours daily
in sawing wood, to which task he made no objection, and the
paroxysms of rage never displayed themselves except on
Sundays, when his employment was intermitted." The passion worked itself off through the safety-valve by being converted into nervous force, muscular force,'motion, down into
spiritual saw-dust. And, as the whole doctrine of correlation
holds that it is reciprocal, that the downward process may be
reversed, so the spiritual saw-dust, if swallowed and digested
by some dreamy youth, may get up by the nerve force, and
into the brain, to expend itself, as Tennyson phrases it, in
"fiery " frenzies for the poetic page. This is a sort of spiritualism which recognises no essential difference between the
boiling of a tea-kettle and the boiling of human passion,between the working of the moral feelings and the working
of a beer-barrel,-between "thoughts that breathe," and the
asthmatic gaspings of an old bellows,-between the immortal
spirit of a man, and a spark in candle-snuff. The "practical
bearings" of the doctrine are- meekly said to be "most important," and no doubt they are. The man who wishes to
" come out strong" in any branch of sentiment or morals, has
only to bottle up for a week or two in the dark, and feed on
correlative impregnations pounded down,-through somebody's "safety-valve," who happens to have his cerebral
spirits in excess, —into a mortar-full of sugar-of-milk, in order
to excel all Roman and all Grecian fame. By and by congenial spirits for great occasions may be raised (like queenbees from royal hive-bread) from patent "force "-meats, and
spiritual dynamization cakes. While, on the other hand, exuberances of fancy, of sad emotions, of moral or immoral
feelings, may be worked off by -lachrymal snuffs, the saw-pit



224             IIAHNEMANN NO MISER.
the mortar, or the tread-mill. " Vir sapit," says the old proverb, "qui pauca loquitur;" "not so," says the modern allopathic philosophy, "grumble, slam the door, explode in oaths,
and you'll'find great relief,' on every painful occasion."
No man need want any sort of cerebral dynamics long, all
may soon be had in some great correlative spiritual Exchange,
from a scruple of suavity in dynamized milk-sugar, to pounds
of "wise saw"-dust, and bushels of conceit in triturated
starch.
The eleventh and last charge against us is, that Ilahnemann
was fond of money, took his fees as if he was entitled to them,
and advised his followers to do the same. I think his advice a
very good one in the general, for I have observed that medical services which are not paid are commonly not worth
paying for. It may be scarcely worth while to say, that the
charge of fondness for money, made against Hahnemann, has
not a shadow of foundation to rest upon. At the age of
eighty the physician who, for some thirty years, had a professional fame which attracted patients to him from all parts
of Europe, and from some parts of America; who lived the
unexpensive life of a student in a small town; when he divided
his accumulated gains among his children, previously to his
second marriage, had no more to present to them, as the fruit
of all his labour and celebrity, than the value of ten thousand
pounds sterling. He must, then, have saved money at the
unprecedented rate of ~333, 6s. 8d. per annum!
But even though he had been avaricious, is the value of a
man's doctrines in science inversely as his value for money?
If so, what is to become of the Baconian system, considering
that his lordship had an itching palm? Or what is to become
of the nervous system, and the foundations of modern pathology, seeing that immortal Hoffmann, with the "capacious
mind" had capacious pockets too?  Haller asserts of him,
that he acquired great wealth by the sale of various nostrums,



HOFFMANN'S CHAPTER ON FEES.          225
-certainly not a very creditable practice to be followed by
a physician to the King of Prussia, and a professor in the
University of Halle. Poor Hahnemann has been mercilessly
abused for trying to get a scanty subsistence for his family,
when he was oppressed with poverty, by once or twice offering a chemical or a medicine for sale; but not a word do we
hear against Hoffmann for becoming rich by the systematic
vending of his nostrums. Possibly success or failure makes
the whole difference between an honourable and a sordid action in the estimation of our discriminating opponents.
The truth of IHaller's story about Hoffmann's avarice appears to be attested by some very curious advices regarding
fees, which we have direct from the illustrious, founder of
modern pathology himself. His first rule on the subject, for
the benefit of the "prudent physician," runs thus:-" Take
your fee while the patient is in pain, for, when the disease is
over the doctor becomes offensive."* Upon which precious
text he delivers the following observations for the edification
of his allopathic brethren. "This is a general rule, to be
properly observed, that the physician may know how to make
a use of suffering, and then he will not refuse the offered
money, for such promptitude in paying does not always occur,
but, for the most part, vanishes with the pain. Sometimes
the most trifling anxiety brings much gain to the prudent
doctor. Patients seized with the severer sufferings, persuaded that they are the forerunners of death, offer large fees;
when the pain ceases, however, the fear of death ceases too,
and the doctor may look out for smaller donations, especially
from the Jews, who often select the best physician in the town,
and too often forget the fee."  The fourth rule of the same
chapter has a very knowing bit of advice, which is too good
to be kept from the simple-minded public. "We dispense
* Medicus Politicus, cap. x.



2'26           HOFFMANN ON GRATUITIES.
medicines without affixing the price, and thus receive.for them
very often double their value and more; for the sick are not
in the habit of asking attendance for nothing, and spontaneous payments are, larger than there was any necessity for
giving!"  Is the nervous system "declining rapidly, or in.deed totally extinct?"



( 227 )
CHAPTER V.
The Homoeopathic law, provings, and doses-Dr. Simpson's four "instances"
against Homoeopathy proved to be in its favour-The use of cinchona,
vaccination) lemon-juice, and iodine, not due to allopathic science, but to
chance or popular opinion-Allopathic specifics shown to be properly Homoeopathic-Dr. Simpson's errors and mis-statements regarding the provings-Homneopathic doses justified by experience-Andral's experiments
conducted in ignorance and bad faith.
DR. SIMPSON'S attack on the homneopathic law is not so
much upon it as a law of therapeutics, as against its supposed
claim  to be regarded as the universal and only law; for,
while he disputes that claim,.he thinks it only "doubtful if it
is one of the general laws of therapeutics." He has, however,
advanced no argument, or fact, that affords- the smallest evidence of the reasonableness of his doubt regarding the existence of such a law; and the four "instances" which form
the groundwork of his contest with it bear only upon the
question of its being the universal and only law of therapeutics.   In attacking such a proposition as this he has
thrown away his time, for I maintain that no one, not even
Hahnemann, ever asserted, in the unqualified sense represented by Dr. Simpson, that no benefit can accrue from the
employment of drugs, unless they be administered according
to the homoeopathic law. In the following passages Hahnemann admits that other than homceopathic remedies are
sometimes of service: "In far the greatest number of cases
of disease, however, I mean those of a chronic nature, these
stormy, debilitating, indirect modes of treatment of the



228      STIMULANTS, ANTIDOTES, AND EVACUANTS.
old school are scarcely ever of the slightest use."-Intr. to
Organon, p. 32. In another work, referring to emetics and
purgatives, he observes, " When substances of a completely
indigestible, or foreign and very poisonous nature, oppress
the stomach and bowels," "it is permitted in some few cases
to effect their expulsion by such evacuant medicines."-Lesser Writings, p. 530. And in another, still, of his works,
he observes, "In the most urgent cases, where danger to life
and imminent death allow no time for the action of a homoeopathic remedy-not hours, sometimes even not quarter-hours,
and scarcely minutes-in sudden accidents occurring to previously healthy individuals, for example, in asphyxia and
suspended animation from lightning, from suffocation, freezing, drowning, &c.-it is admissible and judicious as a preliminary measure, to stimulate the irritability and sensibility
(the physical life) with a palliative, as, for instance, with
mild electric shocks, with enemata of strong coffee, with a
stimulating odour, gradual application of heat, &c......
To this category belong various antidotes to sudden poisonings: alkalies for mineral acids, hepar sulphuris for metallic
poisons, coffee and camphor, and ipecacuanha, for poisoning
by opium," &c. Again, "In the ordinary school of medicine,
the efforts made by nature for the relief of the organism in
diseases where no medicine was given, were regarded as
models of treatment worthy of imitation.  But this was a
great error..... These self-aiding operations of the vital
force for the removal of an acute disease, performed only in
obedience to the laws of organic lifej and not guided by the
reflection of an intellect, are at the most but a species of A1lopathy;" the "vomitings, purgings, diuresis, diaphoresis,
abscesses, &c.," constituting "a sort of derivation front the
primarily diseased parts," which he admits to lead sometimes to " spontaneous cures," but which at the same time he
affirmsj to display to the observer "nothing that he could or



230     SENSE IN WHICH HOM(EOPATHY IS UNIVERSAL.
justify me in saying that he employed the the terms " universal,"
"infallible," "unerring," and "great sole " therapeutic law,
to Homceopathy, not with the purpose of asserting that there
was no other therapeutic principle whatever, or that was in
any case capable of benefiting the sick, but that there was
no other law in medicine that pointed to the means of curing
diseases directly, by operating immediately, and in a purely
remedial manner, on.the individual tissues or organs that
were diseased, and on them only. His law is infallible in
the sense that it cannotfail, if all the conditions necessary
for its action be scrupulously sought out and complied with;
it is universal in the sense in which any other law in a science
of observation and induction is universal, that it is found to
have no exceptions in so far as experience of it has gone, in
compliance with the conditions which are held to be necessary
for its success; it is the "sole" therapeutic law, in the sense
of being the only known direct, immediate, and purely re-.medial law for the extinguishing of diseased action. In order
that it may deserve all these designations it is not necessary
that it should enable us to cure all diseases, nor does Hahnemann maintain that it does so. He admits that some diseases
are incurable, as in this passage: "There is in the interior
of man nothing morbid that is curable,... which does not
make itself known," &c.-Organ., p. 117; and he professes,
by an implication which all candid medical men will readily
understand, to furnish by his homceopathic law a rule of curative treatment for diseases which are not organic and incurable, as when he says, " all medicines cure those diseases
whose symptoms most nearly resemble their own," which excludes, at least as yet, organic diseases in general, or all of
them, excepting the simpler and more elementary forms, which
latter may be produced in the provings of medicine on previously healthy persons, and may thus become in some sense
symptoms (because effects) of particular drugs. At the same



DISCOVERERS APT TO BE EXTREME.       231
time, it must be freely admitted, that Hahnemann adverts
with too much reserve to incurable organic diseases, whether
in consequence of the little progress of morbid anatomy at
the time his works were composed, or from a lurking hope:that even serious organic diseases might be eventually combated with some measure of success, when the system he
launched into the world should, in the course of ages, have
reached the highest development of which it was capable.
The preceding observations are, I conceive, quite an adequate and satisfactory reply to all that Dr. Simpson has said
in condemnation of iHahnemann's high estimate of his therapeutic law. But if it were not possible to explain Hahnemann's opinions on that point, in a way calculated to justify
the language he employs, that impossibility could be of no
real consequence to the homceopathic system. It would be
enough, in vindication of its claims, if we, who are the followers of Hahnemann, could only prove his law to be a general
one. We might meet the opponent who should taunt us with
the indefensible assertions of our master, with the remark of
Thomas Reid, that "it is natural and almost unavoidable, to
one who hath made an important discovery in philosophy, to
carry it a little beyond its sphere, and to apply it to the resolution of phenomena which do not fall within its province."
And in reference to all the opinions and doctrines of Hahnemann, it can scarcely be necessary for me to say more than
this, that we embrace or reject them only after inquiry, when
our own judgment and experience appear to qualify and
entitle us to form an opinion concerning them; neither slavishly acquiescing in his maxims when they appear to us erroneous, nor afraid to avow our conviction of their truth
when they harmonize with the conclusions of our understanding and the evidence of our senses. We do not recognise in Hahnemann an infallible teacher, though we revere
him for his matchless sagacity, and wonder at his patience



232            AGUE AND CINCHONA BARK.
under trials, his perseverance amidst difficulties, and his
courage among dangers, at the vast amount of his labours,
at his diligence, and his erudition. To the four instances on
which Dr. Simpson has lighted, and which he has adopted as
the media of his attack on the homceopathic law, I have no
disposition to object; and if I shall succeed in showing that
his reasonings, allegations, and conclusions in connexion with
them, are all absolutely and alike fallacious, I shall be entitled to claim the palm for lHomceopathy; for although he
professes to have fixed on them almost by accident, it will
not be doubted that he would have selected others if he only
knew any that were more to the purpose.
First Instance.-Cure of -Ague by Quinine, or Cinchona
Bark. In reference to the relation between cinchona (Peruvian bark) and the discovery of the homceopathic law, Dr.
Simpson commits the same mistake as others had done before
him, of asserting that its alleged production of symptoms of
ague, (for the cure of which disease it is the ordinary remedy,)
constitutes the foundation of the homceopathic doctrine.
This error he appears plainly to patronise by quoting with
approbation these expressions of a Dr. Balfour in reference
to the subject, "'What are we to think of a system whose very
foundation is so unstable? " The error is inexcusable, because
it has been fully exposed on many occasions. What would
be thought of the opponent of Newton's discovery of the law
of gravitation, or mutual attraction among the heavenly
bodies, who should object to it that it was based on the accidental witnessing, by the great philospher, of an apple falling
to the ground? yet the relation between the observed effects
of cinchona by Hahnemann, and its curative virtues, bears a
less important part, in the discovery or the proof of the homceopathic law than did the fall of the apple in the discovery
or the proof of the universal law of gravitation. To lHahne



CINCHONA HOM(EOPATHIC TO AGUE.        233
mann the symptoms he observed in sensitive persons from
large doses of cinchona, appeared merely to strengthen his
idea of homceopathicity between drugs hnd the diseases they
specifically cured, being the reason of their curative effects.
Even if the instances which were the first proofs of that notion
were fallacious, that circumstance would be of no consequence
whatever to the homceopathic doctrine; the remedial virtues of
cinchona would then stand merely as an exception to the law,
or as an instance of the operation of some other law. In regard to Homceopathy we should, in either event, be entitled
to say that cinchona, when tested by Hahnemann, appeared to
illustrate the homeopathic law; while the provings, and employment in disease of hundreds of other remedies would still
remain as incontestable evidences of the reality of a homceopathic law of cure.
But are these "so-called provings " and the curative use of
cinchona actually exceptions to Homceopathy?  Most assuredly they are not. Dr. Simpson falls again into gross error
on both of these points. He assumes that cinchona, and, by
implication, that every other alleged homeeopathic remedy,
when taken in considerable quantities, ought invariably to
produce all the symptoms or diseases similar to those which
they cure, if HIomceopathy be true. Hahnemann expressly
denies this. He knew, from a vast amount of experiment,
that the susceptibility of human beings to suffer the pathogenetic, or, in ordinary language, the poisonous effects of
medicines, differed so as to present "a vast variety on this
point," while still the production of such effects in some he
thought should be regarded as enough to show, that the human constitution was liable to be so affected by such medicines, and that consequently, (in accordance with the homoeopathic law,) those medicines would cure such diseases, (when
they arose from any other causes,) because in disease susceptibility to the action of medicines was very greatly increased,
16,



236        ALLOPATHIC PROVINGS OF CINCHONAo
far as they go, all directly corroborative of the accuracy of
his provings; and they, altogether, form a sufficient answer
to Dr. Simpson's extraordinary statement, that "observation
roundly and entirely contradicts the allegation of Hahnemann,
that its use can also produce ague.'  An ague, when its complement of leading symptoms is complete, consists, of shiverings, of febrile heat, of sweatings, all of which symptoms, and
many more that resemble those of particular cases of ague,
can be produced by cinchona.
As to the occasional failure of Homceopathy to cure agues
by cinchona in minute doses, the fact proves nothing against
its homceopathic relation to ague. Its homceopathicity being
proved in the manner cited above, it ought to be given in
such quantities as suffice to produce its curative results, if it
be regarded as a proper and safe remedy in large doses. In
this last particular IHahnemann is at variance with most other
physicians. He held, as Ramazzini had done long before
him, that while large doses of cinchona would indeed, often
remove or repress the fever, it was dangerous to employ it
in large quantities for such a purpose, because, as he thought,
it was apt then to produce serious, and even ultimately fatal
diseases of internal organs. His fears upon that subject were
probably carried too far; but that they were not entirely unfounded appears from the statements of 3MM. Itard and Piorry, (Allopaths,) that they have known permanent and complete deafness follow the use of quinine for the cure of agues.
Hahnemann's excessive caution was at least an error on the
safe side, provided he could point out other remedies capable
of removing the fever without any bad consequences. Such
other remedies he does point out; and on the whole subject
of agues he recommends that the remedy should be varied
according to the particular symptoms of each case, in which
event, that is, when the remedy selected is honcmmopathically
suited to the peculiarities of each separate case of ague, small



ARSENIC IN AGUE.                237
doses of cinchona will cure some, small doses of other medicines will cure others, and without any risk of evil consequences. In point of fact it is found, by even allopathic physicians, that agues often do not yield in any degree to any
preparation of cinchona, while other medicines prove effectual; for cinchona is far from being the panacea for agues
that Dr. Simpson seems to suppose. Not to multiply examples of an experience of which every intelligent physician
knows something, I content myself with the testimony of a
single unquestionable authority-that of M. Boudin, an allopathic physician high in the medical service of the French
army. Treating of agues as they occurred among the French
troops in Algeria, and of the comparative merits of cinchona
and arsenic as remedies, he observes,-" I have just said that
cinchona sometimes succeeded, in cases in which arsenic had
failed, it must, however, be confessed, that such results, to the
credit of the former, constitute the exception, whilst nothing is
more frequent than the success of the arsenic in curing agues
rebellious to quinine. I have succeeded in a great number
of cases, and that by very feeble doses of arsenic, in putting
an end, in a short time, to quotidian, tertian, and quartan
agues, contracted in latitudes the most various, often complicated with chronic engorgements of the abdominal viscera,
and which for a long time had resisted the sulphate of quinine."'* Boudin is an allopathic physician, yet he tells us that
the dose he latterly employed did not exceed the hundredth of
a grain of arsenic. I shall let him tell his own tale: —" I have
often obtained by a single dose of the hundredth of a grain
of this medicine the radical cure of fevers contracted either in
Algeria or in Senegal, and which had resisted means of various
kinds, including sulphate of quinine and change of climate."
-P. 277. Now arsenic, according to IHahnemann, (and Dr.
Christison, in his work on poisons, quotes his account of the
* Traite des Figvres Intermit, p. 280.



VACCINIA HOMCEOPATHIC TO SMALL-POX.      239
Second Instance.-TVaccination and its Effects upon Smallpox.-I cannot avoid expressing my surprise at the want of
information, as well as of reasoning power, displayed by the
Professor of Midwifery in connexion with this subject, especially considering that it lies within his own province-the
diseases of children. I was not so unprepared for the unfairness of shifting the argument from vaccination to artificial inoculation with small-pox, an evasion which I think it
unnecessary to follow and to expose in detail, but merely remark on the subject, that IIahnemann and his followers hold
exactly the same opinions on the relation between inoculated
and ordinary small-pox as other physicians do. Confining
attention to vaccination and its relation to small-pox, I can
prove that Hahnemann's view of the subject is the only
view that is consistent with sound logic and actual experience. His opinions are contained in the following passage
from his Organon:-" The cow-pox would even destroy the
small-pox on its first appearance; that is to say, it would cure
this malady when already present, if the small-pox were not
stronger than it. To produce this effect, then, it only wants
that excess of power, which, according to the law of nature,
ought to accompany the homeopathic resemblance in order
to effect a cure. Vaccination, considered as a homenopathic
remedy, cannot therefore prove efficacious, except when em.
ployed previous to the appearance of the small-pox, which
is the stronger of the two. When so employed it excites a
disease very analogous (and consequently homceopathic) to
the small-pox, after whose course the human body, which, as
usual, can only be attacked once with a disease of this nature, is henceforward protected against a similar contagion."
P. 83. Now, the whole question turns upon this, are the
vaccine disease and small-pox identical? If they are, then
vaccination does not prevent small-pox by homecopathic anticessum, as Hahnemann calls it, but by being the same as



STEVENS ON SCURVY FROM LEMON-JUICE.          241
cing a disease similar to small-pox, and which can occur only
once, in general, prevents the occurrence of small-pox; that,
in a word, vaccination acts homeopathically, or according to
one rule of the law of similars. I might adduce other reasons
for the opinion that the vaccine virus and that of small-pox
are not identical; in particular, the pretty certain, and very
interesting circumstance, that vaccination is a surer preventive of future small-pox, than even an attack of small-pox
itself is; but I believe I have said enough to establish our
claims to vaccination.
Third Instance.-Prevention and Cure of Sea-scurvy by
Lemon-juice.-I must reiterate here my astonishment at Dr.
Simpson's want of information, and express also my surprise
that he should have adduced scurvy as a case for drugs at all.
Hie says, "I am aware, that on theoretical grounds, Dr.
Stevens supposes that the use of lemon-juice should produce
scurvy; but I believe that neither he nor any one else ever
observed that disease to result from the use of lemon-juice.
Dr. Stevens, I venture to say makes no theoretical assertions
on the subject, at least I have never been able to find them,
but he does give an instance in which the citric acid (the acid
of lemon juice) produced scurvy! His words are,-the scurvy
"was decidedly brought on by the excessive use of citric acid,
which an American gentleman had been recommended to
use as a preventive against the yellow fever. His own conviction, as well as mine, was, that the scorbutic symptoms
had been brought on by the acid." * —(On the Blood, p. 451.)
* Dr. Simpson's ignorance on this subject having been exposed in my former reply, he adds a note, in his republication of this " Third Instance," with
the hope of regaining his credit. He there argues that when men take scurvy
who are living upon insufficient diet, and are also taking bad or too little
lemon-juice, the scurvy is to be ascribed to the diet and not to the lemon-juice!
This is a great discovery: as also is the admission that Stevens "fancied" he



242           SCURVY CURED BY DIET MERELY.
Here I might close the case for Homceopathy, for, in order
to be homceopathic to a disease, the remedy need not be
as Dr. Simpson erroneously supposes, "often and constantly"
the cause of similar symptoms.
But I prefer disposing of this " Third Instance" on entirely
different grounds. Scurvy is a disease acknowledged on all
hands, to be essentially due to unsuitable diet,-especially,
if not indeed solely, to the loss or deficiency of some customary article of food. It is cured, therefore, by restoring to
the diet the deficient ingredient, or something that will answer
instead. The former is by far the more reasonable and effectual procedure; and, accordingly, a mess of potatoes, or a
ration of milk, will answer as well as, or better than, the
substitutes given by physicians, either to prevent or to cure
scurvy. If one man gives a salt of potash, it is still not as a
drug but as food to supply the unhealthful deficiency of such
salt in the blood and in the food; if another recommends sulphur, phosphorus, &c., it is for the same reason, to supply the
deficiency he supposes of these elements in the altered dietary
of the scorbutic; and if a third recommends cheese, milk, or
beef, it is because he presumes the patient to be suffering
from want of the due supply of nitrogenous elements in his
food. Lemon-juice itself is said by some to act merely dietetically, supplying to the food, and consequently to the body,
the potash salts which are believed to be defective. Even
pure citric acid has been regarded in the same light, as furnishing elements suitable for the respiratory process, in the
absence of the necessary quantity of combustible matter in
the food. It is absolutely grotesque, therefore, to adduce
scurvy as an instance opposed to Homzeopathy. The ingenious
Professor of Midwifery might as well have brought against us
had seen lemon-juice cause scurvy,-an admission made since I exposed his
ignorance of Stevens' experience on the subject.



GOiTRE PRODUCED BY IODINIE.             243
a case of starvation, with all its sufferings, and argued, that
because we could not cure it by an additional dose of abstinence, or something similar, while he could by wholesome nutriment, therefore Homneopathy was unsound!
Fourth Instance.-Cure of Goitre by the exhibition of
Iodine.-Under this head I shall first correct a mis-statement.
Dr. Simpson says, at p. 55, "The homceopathists, in order to
keep up this alleged universality of their immutable law of'sirilia similibus,' are obliged, in contradiction to every rule
in logic and philosophy, to enter in their Materia Mledica,
this (curative) action of iodine as one of the symptoms produced
by iodine, though goitre was never, I believe, observed as a
symptom of the use of iodine," &c. Now, the reply is, that
homceopathists do nothing of the kind.  They prefix to the
notice of such curative action of iodine a mark (o) indicating
the very opposite of all this, or, that iodine has been hitherto
known not to produce goitre, but to cure it! But why do they
put this curative action into their books at all? Just because
they believe, and have no doubt that experience will ultimately prove, that this curative action depends on the capacity of iodine to produce the disease,* though the circumstances necessary for such a pathogenetic effect have not yet
been discovered. If iodine be not homceopathic in its action,
what is it? no one can tell, or at least prove, anything on the
subject.
I need not repeat at length what I have said regarding
the rarity, sometimes, of certain effects in the proving of
drugs. To be characteristic, they need not be constantly pro* This expectation, expressed in my former publication of the above, in reply to Dr. Simpson's second edition, has been fulfilled. A man taking five
grains of hydriodate of potass twice a-day, after eight days became affected
with a " rapidly growing swelling of the thyroid gland." See Brit. Journ. of
Hom., No. xliv.



244        SOURCES OF THE "FOUR INSTANCES."
duced, or even at all in many persons. Some approach to the
pathogenetic effect in question,-in addition to the instance
mentioned in the note I have just given, of thyroid enlargement, produced by the action of hydriodate of potass,-has
been made in the provings of iodine; witness the glandular
swellings in the neck and elsewhere that have followed its
use. We have also an instance suggestive of its homceopathicity to goitre, in the increase or aggravation of the disease noticed at the commencement of the treatment.-See
Jahr's IManual, Iodine. American Edition.
Dr. Simpson, in the four instances he has selected for the
double purpose of magnifying allopathic science and opposing
the claims of Homceopathy, has been peculiarly unfortunate
in his choice. He takes them from  Sir John Herschel's
"Preliminary Discourse," &c., as furnishing examples of disease "for which the advancement of science of late years has
devised more or less certain means of removal and cure."
(P. 241.) Science! Does Dr. Simpson actually not know
how the virtues of cinchona, vaccination, lemon-juice, and
iodine were discovered? Fine instances they certainly present of the appropriating capacity of allopathic science. The
discoveries being made somehow, Allopathy lays hold of them
as hers, though she had in reality no more title to them than
the man in the moon. Sir John Herschel's ignorance may
be excused, if he was so ill informed as to suppose the four
"instances" to be four instances of the triumph of medical
science; his walk is too much in the "milky way" of real
science to allow of his knowing much of the dark and
crooked ways of physic; but those who know a little more of
these may be permitted to supply his deficiencies. The literal fact then is, that every one of these discoveries, so much
vaunted as the trophies of modern science, was (with one apparent exception which shall be explained) made without the



USE OF BARK AND VACCINATION DISCOVERED BY CHANCE. 245
very smallest assistance from any science under the sun. Cinchona bark was introduced into notice as a cure for agues
more than two hundred years ago, and a knowledge of its
virtues is supposed to have been originally derived from the
wild Indian aborigines of South America. "This heroic remedy," says Dr. Paris, (an Allopath,) "was first brought to
Spain in the year 1632; and we learn from Villerobel, that
it remained for seven years in that country before any trial
was made of its powers: a certain ecclesiastic of Alcala being
the first person in Spain to whom it was administered in the
year 1639. But even at this period its use was limited, and
it would have sunk into oblivion but for the supreme power
of the Roman Church, by whose auspices it was enabled to
gain a temporary triumph over the passions and prejudices
which opposed its introduction." (Pharm., t. i. p. 56.) So
much for modern allopathic science, and its claims to the discovery of cinchona as a cure for ague. This, in fact, was one
of the instances expressly referred to by Hahnemann, in
which some accident led to the detection of a remedy, as has
been the usual way in which remedies actually homeopathic
have got into common use.
Vaccination belongs, in the strictest manner, to the same
category. I am sorry, in discussing this point, to have even
the appearance of detracting from the merits of Dr. Jenner,
but the truth must be told, whosoever may seem to suffer a
little from the tale. In Gloucestershire, where Jenner was
born, it was notorious, time out of mind, among the cowmilkers, that those who happened to contract sores upon the
hands from disease on the udders of the cows were protected
from the small-pox!  Jenner heard of this popular doctrine
thirty years before he made any experiment on the subject,
ay, even before he began his medical studies. The discovery
of the protective power of vaccinia against small-pox was,
therefore, not due to medical science, but, as usual, to ac



246   LEMON-JUICE IN SCURVY DISCOVERED BY CHANCE.
cident. Jenner had, notwithstanding, the very high distinction of sifting the popular experience on the subject, determining what stage of the disease in the cow it was which
produced the protecting sores in man, and of proposing that
so important an effect should no longer be left to accident,
but should be artificially and purposely produced. Allopathic science, however, had nothing to do with the discovery.
Lemon-juice, again, as a dietetic remedy for scurvy, was
also, and of course discovered by accident, as the following
allopathic authority admits:-" The earliest notice we can
find in reference to this point is in the 3d epistle of Rousseus,
dated 1564, wherein it appears that some Dutch sailors who
were suffering from scurvy, and the cargo of whose ship on
their return from Spain, consisted of lemons and oranges, accidentally discovered that their use was the means by which
they recovered their health."  (Cycl. of Pract. Mled., vol. iii.
p. 695.) Lastly, iodine as a remedy for bronchocele is just
thus much indebted to science, (but only to chemical science,)
that chemistry discovered it in sponges, which as burnt sponge
had long previously been popularly employed in that disease.
"For centuries," says Dr.'Manson, writing in 1825, " burntsponge was the chief remedial agent in the cure of bronchocele."  (Med. Researches, &c., p. 8.)  Iodine being discovered in sponges, it was easy to conclude that it was probably the source of their medicinal virtue, and it needed no
scientific wisdom to try if the conclusion was just.
I might go over every specific employed by ordinary physicians, and show that in not a single instance can the discovery
of their medicinal properties be traced to science, as the guide
by whose instrumentality it was made. Tradition, descending
from periods when no medical science can be said to have existed,- accident,-fanciful hypotheses and theories,-mere
hap-hazard experiments,-resemblances between a new sub



ALLOPATHIC USE OF HOMGIOPATHIC SPECIFICS.    247
stance and one long in use; these have been the modes by
which Allopathy has stumbled on homceopathic remedies,
when she has not silently helped herself from the homceopathic materia medica.  I say homeaopathic remedies, because
specifies, that is, substances which produce their curative effects without derivations and evacuations, by acting quietly
and secretly on the immediate seat of the disease, and on no
other part, are most certainly homeopathic, and nothing else.*
Cinchona and iodine are so, as has just been shown, in the
cure of ague, and bronchocele; mercury plainly is so in the
cure of dysentery, hepatitis, and many other diseases in which
it is commonly employed by allopathic as well as homoeopathic practitioners; arsenic, too, as has been shown already, is
homoeopathic to certain agues, and to other intermittent diseases, as well as to some scaly affections of the skin, for the
cure of which it is given by allopathic practitioners, while
they admit that it produces a scaly state of the skin; and so
on with a great many other medicines, which are classed by
allopathic writers under the name of tonics, astringents, alteratives, and so forth, from hypothetical notions of the manner in which they operate as remedies.  All this being as I
have now represented, and the homeopathic relation between
some medicines and the diseases they cure being admitted
by the best informed physicians, the non-medical reader may
ask what it is we are quarrelling about with so much elaborate vehemence on (I admit) both sides. In answer to the inquiry, I have to say, that the quarrel is partly about the use
of the law, partly about the provings, and partly about the
* As a counterpoise to Dr. Simpson's denial of a general homoeopathic law,
I may mention that the present Professor of Materia Medica objected, some
twelve years ago, to Dr. Black's admission into the College of Physicians,
partly on the ground that hommeopathists arrogated that title to themselves,
while they had no right to do so, as the homceopathic relation between diseases and medicines was recognised in the ordinary school.



248   THE POINTS IN DISPUTE ARE MERELY OF DEGREE..
dose. The nonsense and misrepresentation which Dr. Simpson has so foolishly allowed himself to indulge in against the
adherents of Homceopathy,-the witchcraft and other silly
charges invented against them, as well as the occasional
traces of human imperfection so absurdly proclaimed to their
disparagement, as if they alone were subject to errors and
weaknesses, are all beside the question, and are of no conceivable consequence to the vital points. involved in the present controversy. Even the question of our provings of medicines is not an essential one. It is at the utmost a question of
degree; for men on both sides concur in the opinion that medicines do produce effects, or medicinal symptoms, when taken
by healthy persons, and the only difference between us regarding them is as to what are to be admitted as really due to the
medicines so taken,-whether some of them may not be
traceable to the imagination of the prover, or are not too insignificant and ordinary to be properly enrolled among the
effects of the medicines at all.  Of course the objections
made against some of the provings may be just enough,-no
homoeopathist contends for their accuracy in every particular;
on the coVtrary, we are fully aware, indeed a great deal more
than our opponents are, of the many difficulties and sources
of fallacy that beset the attempt to acquire a full knowledge
of the effects which even one medicine is capable of causing,
and are, therefore, not so sanguine as to believe that we
know all the possible symptoms that any one medicine can
produce, or that every phenomenon which follows the taking
of medicines by a prover is necessarily due to the substances
which were taken. Of this, and other points connected with
the provings, more immediately.
The principal, if not the only, dispute between us and the
more intelligent of our opponents, in so far as the law is concerned, is simply this,-that we, with the help of our provings, make the homceopathic law the rule by which we select



ADVANTAGES OF THE 1HOMUEOPATHIC RULE.     249
the medicines we prescribe, giving such medicines only as we
know from the provings to be capable of producing symptoms and morbid conditions similar to those existing in the
diseases which we are called upon to treat; while they (our
opponents) do not act upon the homceopathic law as a rule in
the prescribing of drugs, though they admit the fact of a homceopathic relation subsisting between certain diseases and
the operations of the medicines which cure them. Our procedure gives us an immense advantage over our opponents,
even in the employment of the very medicines which both
of us use in diseases which to appearance are the same. For
instance, they use ipecacuan, and also mercury in dysentery;
we do so likewise, but with this great superiority over them,
that our rule directs us to the employment of ipecacuan,
where ipecacuan is likely to be the most suitable and successful remedy, and of mercury where it is more likely to succeed; for all cases of dysentery are neither exactly similar
in every'respect, nor curable by the same remedy. Our opponents cannot adapt either of these medicines with any degree of precision or certainty to the different cases for which
they are respectively suitable; and when they do give the
right remedy in the right case it is simply and solely by
chance,-for, what they call the indications which seem to
make it advisable that one of the medicines should be given
in preference to the other, are mere matters of opinion, or
hypotheses, on which there is no general agreement, and for
which no valid reason can be adduced. The illustration I
have just adverted to is, perhaps, the most favourable to the
allopathic party that can be given, when there is any room
for doubt as to what medicine is proper for a particular case
of disease. In most of the instances in which, speaking in
a general way, we employ the same remedies, their difficulties in fixing upon the right medicine for the right case are
vastly increased by the choice lying among several or many.
17



250     ABSENCE OF A SPECIFIC RULE IN ALLOPATHY.
They have no rule to guide them, with the exception of that
mis-named experience which proceeds on the resemblance, in
some of its chief characters, of the case under treatment, to
one which had formerly been treated with success by a certain remedy. This rule is loose and uncertain as a guide to
practice, because it never can descend sufficiently to particulars,-because two cases of the same disease, which agree in
a few prominent features, may, and very often -do, differ materially in their special characters, and in what they want in
order to be successfully treated. On this subject Dr. Abercrombie makes the following judicious reflections, and I suppose his authority will hardly be rejected: —" When, in the
practice of medicine, we apply to new cases the knowledge
acquired from others which we believe to have been of the
same nature, the difficulties are so great, that it is doubtful
whether in any case we can properly be said to act upon experience, as we do in other departments of science. For we
have not the means of determining with certainty that the
condition of the disease, the habit of the patient, and all the
circumstances which enter into the character of the affection,
are in any two cases precisely the same; and if they differ
in any one particular, we cannot be said to act from experience, but only from analogy. The difficulties and sources of
uncertainty which meet us at every stage of such investigations are, in fact, so great and so numerous, that those who
have had the most extensive opportunities of observation
will be the first to acknowledge that our pretended experience must, in general, sink into analogy, and even our analogy too often into conjecture."*  llomoeopathy saves its
disciples from most of the doubts and difficulties which perplex the allopathic physician, (I use the term merely for the
sake of distinction, for when employing specifics he is not an
*Intellectual Powers, p. 395.



ALLOPATHY " DOESN'T GO," OR " GOES WRONG."I  253
tell the exact time twice in a day, for every hour of the day
glides twice past the face of the motionless machine. The
medical system which accidentally succeeds in its unregulated career, is just as worthy of confidence as the stirless
timepiece; and its instance or two of occasional cures of the
kind under consideration are no more entitled to be regarded
as proofs of its scientific efficiency, than the perfect exactness with which the stock-still hands of the clock, set at
the figure 12, will daily coincide with the solar noon, is entitled to be regarded as a proof of the mechanical excellence
of the timepiece.
A timepiece which sadly needs cleaning and regulating is
not a bad illustration of the common practice of medicine.
The proper machinery is present in both, for we do not deny
that Allopathy has many materials for efficiently combating
diseases; we condemn her for suffering herself to be clogged
with the dust and cobwebs of a pragmatical ancestry, and for
trying to work by a regulator (if it deserves the name) which
has not been touched since the days of Hippocrates, and which
was manufactured and adjusted at a time when craftsmen had
neither the skill nor the materials wherewith to construct a
satisfactory instrument. She either won't go at all, or she
goes wrong; yet she won't suffer her regulator to be changed,
or her dirt to be removed. And what is the consequence?
We have seen the going wrong astoundingly exemplified in
the treatment of pneumonia and of other acute inflammations;
we see the not going at all (and it is the better of the two)
in the presenting of specifics at the array of headaches, &c.,
as they pass,-like the hours around the dial-plate of the illustrative clock, —and the happy coincidence which now and
then chances to occur between a drug and a malady in search
of a cure: for as matters are managed among our allopathic
friends, it is the malady that is on the move from the drug
of one standing doctor to that of another, and it must some



254           ALLOPATHY AT A STAND-STILL.
times stumble on the thing it wants. Dr. Simpson has told
us of an instance in which one rambling headache fell in with
the sulphate of nickel and got well, but he has not told us
of the scores which took the same path, and went away as
they came. I can tell of one, and as it exemplifies the superiority of the new instrument with the modern regulator, I
shall briefly relate its history. In the course of last year a
lady had recourse to Homceopathy under the following circumstances:-She had been subject to a particular form of
daily headache for fifteen months, when she applied to Dr.
Simpson, and got the following prescription,Sulph. nickel, gr. xxiv.
Aquam distil,.,xii.
A tablespoonful twice a day.
She continued the medicine as recommended for three months,
without the slightest benefit. By carefully comparing the
particulars of her sufferings with the provings of several medicines, which seemed more or less to correspond with them,
Calcarea carbonica was selected as the most suitable to all
the symptoms, and prescribed in the twelfth dilution, a dose
every second night. Within a week the headaches were reported as decidedly better, for one whole day entirely absent,
on the other days three hours later than was their invariable
period of invasion before, and less severe: while some of the
attendant symptoms had ceased altogether. Within a month,
the peculiar periodic headaches had entirely ceased, and only
a heaviness in the forehead occasionally occurred. Four doses
of sepia, No. 12, had removed the little that the calcarea had
left; and from that day to this she has had none of her former
sufferings from headache, and for many months past not even
the feeling of occasional weight in the forehead. The difference presented by the new system, in its working, as compared
with the old, is simply this, that it enables us to tell what



256     MEDICINES EITHER EXPELLED, OR INSOLUBLE.
very much on the amount of the dose. The amount which
remains behind to act as a remedy is therefore but a proportion, it is likely a very small proportion, of the quantity received. This is one proof of the unnecessary magnitude of
allopathic doses, and of how much mankind is indebted for
protection from incalculable injuries even from well-meaning
persons, by the wise and beneficent provisions of Nature.
It was remarked above that the allopathic doses of some
substances are also reduced by chemical changes, which make
them sometimes in a great measure insoluble, and incapable
of being received into the blood, at least in their original
and intended quantity. It is thus, for instance, with corrosive sublimate, which, given in doses of one-twelfth of a
grain, forms partly an insoluble compound with the albumen
of the gastric mucus, and cannot therefore be absorbed, so as
to produce its therapeutic effects, but in exceedingly minute,
often no doubt "infinitesimal" quantities. Many other metallic salts and also metallic oxides are unquestionably detained, by substances which render them insoluble, in the digestive canal, and very little of them is left free to be absorbed. Altogether, then, the difference between the two
systems, in respect to doses, (meaning by the term the quantities of medicines which are received into the circulation,
and are at liberty to act as remedies,) is not nearly so great
as at first sight it appears to be, of those substances at least
which act as specifics. Often it may be —and we know nothing with certainty to the contrary-the allopathic doses of
specifics may amount in reality to working doses no larger
than the ordinary homoeopathic ones.  The latter, while
much smaller as first taken into the body, do not necessarily
become lessened by chemical changes and by excretion in the
same proportion as the others do, for there is both less matter in them to come into contact with chemical interruptions,
and less also to be laid hold of and extracted by the excreting organs from the mass of the blood.



EVILS OF LARGE DOSES ILLUSTRATED.       257
But, in the second place, allopathic doses of specifics,
which are truly homoeopathic in their action, while they
may succeed in curing the disease for which they are given,
are liable to do so (and but for the reasons noticed would always do so) at the expense of more or less serious injury to
the general health, or to parts of the body. How many are
there who; though relieved of their original malady by mercury, in allopathic doses, continue throughout their lives to
suffer from the constitutional effects of the poisonous quantities they have received? And when the evils of excessive
drugging do not endure so long, or sink so deeply into the
system, how often do they add temporary, it may be severe
sufferings, to those of the original disease, which by smaller
quantities of the same medicine, might have been removed
without any medicinal disorders occurring. As an instance
of this disadvantage of allopathic doses, compared with the
homoeopathic, the following case,-quite an ordinary example,
-may possess some interest:-A gentleman, in May 1852,
became affected with inflammation of one eye, and hastened
to place himself under the care of an eminent oculist in
Glasgow. The disease was declared to be rheumatic iritis;
and for the cure of it venesection was practised, and calomel
and opium prescribed. The eye got gradually well, but
the improvement became associated with mercurial inflammation of the mouth and tongue, which confined him to the
house for a month, and part of that time to his bed. He
had, within a few months after, several relapses, though not
severe. During the winter he continued well, but in March
1853 he was seized with an attack of iritis as severe as that
of the previous May. The sclerotic, around the cornea, was
closely and intensely injected with straight vessels, and so
deeply coloured as to present almost the appearance of ecchymosis. An aching pain affected the eyeball, the iris was
duller coloured than the other, and the pupil regular though



258     SUPERIORITY OF SMALL DOSES ILLUSTRATED.
somewhat dilated. The disease lasted four days, when the
second homoeopathic dilution of corrosive sublimate was prescribed, in doses of a drop every four hours. Each dose
consisted, therefore, of only the ten-thousandth of a grain of
the medicine. In four days the eye was nearly well, and on
the eighth day of the treatment, the patient was at his usual
business occupations in perfect health. He had taken only
five doses a day of the medicine, as one of the nocturnal
periods for a dose was passed over. A slight relapse took
place in a few weeks, and was quickly removed by the same
remedy, without confining him to the house. No mercurial
disease accompanied this mercurial treatment. Homeoopathic experience abounds with similar cases.
Those who object to the homeopathic doses constantly forget that Homceopathists have no other reason for their preference for minute quantities of medicines than simply and solely
their sufficiency for curing diseases, without the danger of
aggravating them, or of causing other diseases. If drachm
or scruple doses were the safest and most effectual, there is
nothing in the world to prevent us from employing them.
ilahnemann employed them till he found that they were often too large, and liable to produce bad effects, as has been
shown to be the case by the instance I have adduced above.
And though it is not likely that IHahnemann was led, throughout his discovery of the necessity for extreme attenuations
of the medicines which are to be used homeeopathically with
the most success, by mere experiment, and step by step from
dilution to dilution on to the highest of his potencies, it is
so manifest that medicines which are homoopathic to a diseased condition ought to be given in much reduced doses,
that it would be a waste of time to reason on the subject.
Let the following admission by a high allopathic authority
suffice: "Medicines operate most powerfully upon the sick
when the symptoms correspond with those of the disease.



ALLOPATHIC TESTIMONY REGARDING SMALL DOSES.  259
A very small quantity of medicinal arnica will produce a
violent effect upon persons who have an irritable state of
the esophagus and stomach, [that state being producible by
arnica,-W. II.] Mercurial preparations have, in very small
doses, given rise to pains and loose stools when administered
in an inflammatory state of the intestines, [mercurials produce in healthy persons inflammation of the intestines,-W.
H.]... Yet why should I occupy time in adducing more
examples of a similar operation of medicines, since it is in
the very nature of the thing that a medicine must produce a
greater effect when it is applied to a body already suffering
under an affection similar' to that which the medicine itself
is capable of producing."*  Hahnemann, no doubt, went far
beyond what is granted in this general admission regarding
the relation between diseases and the doses of medicines
which are homoeopathic to them, and he did so partly, it is
probable enough, by anticipation or inference from the reason of the thing, the earlier facts of his first steps in attenuating medicines having suggested a leap at once to the more
extreme parts of his scale of potencies. Having found, by
experiment, that even these extraordinary exiguities were
often efficient as remedies, it may safely be supposed that the
incomprehensible minuteness of the still active doses gave
rise in his mind to the notion that possibly the means employed for subdividing the medicines produced at the same
time a developement of medicinal force or energy. This
idea of dynamization by friction and shaking is a mere hypothesis, is of no consequence whatever to the theory or
practice of Homoeopathy, and has no kind or measure of
likelihood in its favour, as most Homoeopathists believe.
Minute doses must be contented to pass for no more than
they are-just minute doses, with their own proper contin* Professor Jorg in Materialien zu einer kunftigen Heilmittellehre, p. 9. 1825.



260   WHY SMALL DOSES SOMETIMES THE MOST POTENT.
gent of medicinal force, and nothing beyond that. It is not
a necessary or even a general tenet of Homoeopathy, that
small quantities of matter are more potent than larger are;
and Homoeopathy does not, as is ignorantly supposed, demand that for her efficiency the "ordinary laws of matter
should be reversed." And yet there are circumstances in
which the paradox, that "the smaller the amount of matter
the greater the effect," is literally true. This depends partly
upon the effect that is to be produced. An ounce of gunpowder will certainly do more by its explosion than a grain
can do, and a crowbar an inch thick is a far more effective
tool in raising heavy weights than the blade of a penknife.
But supposing that one is not intent on blowing up any body,
or on raising anything, it may happen that the smaller quantity of matter will prove by far the most effectual. If the
object in view is a smooth shave, I believe even allopathic
experience is in favour of the edge of a razor as preferable to the back, though the latter comprises a much greater
amount of steel. So likewise in physic, if the object be
to produce the remedial operation of ipecacuan in bronchitis,
a sixth of a grain may effect that end, while a scruple dose
will not, because it proves an emetic; and if it be the purpose
to get turpentine to act on the kidneys, doses of five or six
drops will succeed, while doses of two ounces will totally fail.
The relation between medicinal substances and living bodies
is very curious, very perplexing, and very little understood;
and those gentlemen, whether of the press or of the profession,
who fancy their undoubted " common sense " quite competent
to resolve all its mysteries, without any special study of the
subject, will find themselves eventually very much in the
wrong -their laughter at homceopathic therapeutics the
laughter of ignorance, their sneer the grimace of folly. Many
Homceopathists, I grant, hold that the minuter the dose the
greater is the power of the medicine in causing effects similar



DIFFICULTY IN ESTIMATING STRENGTH OP DOSES.   261
in kind to those which the larger doses sometimes or in some
degree produce. The causes of this belief are twofold,-first,
it rests upon Hahnemann's doctrine of dynamization, or increase of medicinal power, being produced by the many
poundings and shakings which the medicines undergo i i the
manufacture of the successive attenuations; a doctrine which
it is difficult practically to disprove, because when different
attenuations of the same medicine are successively employed
in the same case, if the good effects follow the use of the
higher attenuation, (say No. 30,) while the lower, (say No. 3,)
previously given, had produced no apparent effect, the physician may conclude that the former was the more powerful,
while actually the improvement may have been due to the
slow operation of the previous and stronger doses. If, reversing the order, the good effects become first visible under
the use of the lower and, as is more generally believed, the
stronger attenuations, the physician who is prepossessed with
the dogma of Hahnemann may believe that the happy results
are really traceable to the higher potency, which had been
previously administered. The second reason of the difficulty
which many feel in deciding that the lower dilutions are the
strongest is this: in some diseases, especially the acute, frequently repeated and strong doses, as of Nos. 1, 2, or 3, without very pointedly aggravating the diseases for which they
are given, keep them up to the full pitch of their previous intensity, or augment them so gradually that the increased severity of the symptoms may appear to be due to the natural and
regular progress of the disease; while, if these stronger dilutions be omitted, and No. 12 or 20 be substituted, and not
urgently repeated, after no very long time amendment may
commence, and go on rapidly to cure. The physician is liable
to be induced by such experience as this to conclude that the
lower dilutions were powerless in the case, and the higher
dilutions successful because more potent, while in reality they



262         WHY LARGE DOSES SOMETIMES INERT.
were so because less potent, and therefore less capable of
keeping up the morbid action.
Another reason still for the belief that the smaller doses
are more powerful than the larger is, that a number of medicinal substances remain insoluble, and therefore inactive,
until they have been subdivided, or attenuated, by trituration with some inert powder. A few grains of this attenuation contain, of course, much less medicine than a similar
amount of the crude mass itself does, and yet the former will
prove an active therapeutic agent, while the latter will be
wholly inert. A familiar illustration is furnished by mercury.
In its fluid reguline state it may be swallowed in ounces or
pounds at a time, without any other consequences than such
as are due to its weight; but if a little of it be well triturated and subdivided, as stated above, a few grains are enough
to produce violent effects.
From all that has been said on the subject of doses, it appears that minute division of medicines is sometimes necessary in order to bestow activity on otherwise inert substances;
sometimes in order to get doses so small as to be sufficient
without being too strong. There is nothing more remarkable in nature, or rather in science, which is the knowledge
of nature, while there is nothing more unequivocally certain
as the result of experience, than the fact that diseases render
the body so sensitive to the action of medicines, that quantities of them, minute beyond conception, are liable to produce
aggravations of the diseased states to which the medicines employed have a homceopathic relation. It is this liability which
renders attenuation of the medicines to so great a degree,
absolutely necessary for the safety of homceopathic practice.
Cases may not occur very frequently of extreme sensitiveness
to medicines, but they do occur from time to time, and sufficiently often to render it imperative that we should have at
command, and in reserve, even the highest of HIahnemann's



264       MINUTE DOSES SOMETIMES TOO STRONG,
only the millionth of a drop of the mother tincture of nux
oromica.
Third Example.-An old lady was committed to my care
by a homceopathic physician, who remarked to me that she was
so extremely sensitive to the action of mercury as to have
been salivated by the sixth attenuation. Having had to attend her for a swelling over the nose, I prescribed the soluble
mercury in its sixth dilution, every four hours. The consequence was, that in two days the mouth began to be affected,
and as well marked an instance of mercurial stomatitis,with loosening of the teeth, purple margins of the gums, salivation and fcetor,-set in, as I have ever witnessed.
Fourth Example.-A gentleman, seventy-five years old,
had for many years (fifteen or sixteen) been affected with a
scaly eruption on the legs, on a dark'dusky redness of the
skin,-it occasionally improved, but never disappeared, and
had been for five months in a very bad state, when he was
ordered sepia, of the thirtieth attenuation. Having taken
one dose, he became affected in the course of the day with so
great a sense of exhaustion as to be unfit for any exertion,
and so to alarm his family that he had stimulants administered,
and the medicine forthwith stopped, never to be resumed.
In a week a sensible amendment was observable in the limbs,
in a month the redness was gone, and nothing remained of
the eruption but a white and furfuraceous desquamation,
which gradually disappeared also. When seen and examined
four years afterwards, the skin was ascertained to have remained perfectly well. This sense of prostration is often
noticed when the medicines are suited to the diseases for which
they are prescribed, and nothing surprised me more in my
first experiments than the degree to which it sometimes went.
It is unnecessary to multiply examples of what few will
appreciate who have not personally experimented on the subject, and what is familiar to every one who has had even a



ALLOPATHIC DOSES OF UNKNOWNL MIINUTENESS.    265
moderate experience of the practice of Homeeopathy. Let
those who know no better be as incredulous as their ignorance can make them, the facts which are so well known to
thousands who are better informed remain the same, and so
will the convictions and the practice to which they have
given rise. I may remark, however, that the bitter hostility
excited among allopathic practitioners by the promulgation
of such facts as I have been adverting to, regarding the necessity of minute doses, comes with a very bad grace from
them, and that they cannot but see that it does if they will
only reflect a little on the subject. What do they know of
the quantity of a specific medicine which is actually operative,
or needed, in any given case? It is obviously not the whole
of the dose which they administer, for some of it is arrested
before it reaches the circulation, and some of it is cast out
speedily after it has been absorbed into the blood. How
much remains? No mortal knows anything whatever on the
subject. When these facts are considered in connexion with
the circumstance, that even allopathic physicians have witnessed most remarkable effects from exceedingly minute doses,
the difference between them and their homceopathic brethren
must, to all men of candour and moderation, appear to be inconsiderable indeed. If allopathists were in the habit of
prescribing " porridges," as has been well said, of arsenic, and
corrosive sublimate, and strychnia, there might be some
show of reason in their vehement denunciations of the homceopathic doses; but since they give not grains, or half
grains, or even quarter grains, of these substances, and others,
even to the largest man, their violence and passion on the
subject of doses become in. the highest degree absurd and
irrational. M. Boudin, as we have seen, cured agues, which
had resisted quinine, with a single dose of the hundredth of



266        INFINITESIMAL DOSES IN ALLOPATIIY.
a grain of arsenic;  now the hundredth of a grain is to the
weight of a man of fifteen stone, as one is to one hundred
and fifty millions. What an infinitesimal quantity of medicine to affect so powerfully so vast and disproportionate a
quantity of matter! But Allopathy affords a still more remarkable fact,-a fact, indeed, which deprives her of all right
to quarrel with any system on the score of its minute doses.
Mr. Hunt, an allopathic physician, apparently of long standing
and much experience, published in 1847 an interesting little
volume on the treatment of certain intractable chronic skin
diseases. At p. 14 of that work he says, —" s fourth part
of a mninim of Fowler's solution, taken thrice a-day, has, in
a few weeks, effected the permanent cure of psoriasis guttata, in a female of delicate habit, intolerant alike in a high
degree of all mineral substances." Fowler's solution is a
solution of arsenite of potass, in which the arsenious acid and
the potass are present in about equal quantities. The great
allopathic Review,-the British and Foreign, —in 1847, accepts Mr. Hunt's case as genuine and true, and remarks that
each of his doses contained only the four hundred and eightieth part of a grain of the white arsenic, or arsenious acid.
Now, as susceptibility to arsenic, or to any other medicine,
does not depend on, and has no connexion with the weight
of the individual, there is no reason whatever why our already selected fifteen-stone patient should not be sensitive to
the same dose. The 480th part of a grain is to fifteen stone
as one is to seven hundred and five millions six hundred
thousand; or as a mile to a line that might pass above seven
times between the earth and sun; or that might pass twentyeight thousand two hundred times round the earth! In short,
nearly as one pound is to the whole national debt, —or as one
man to all the inhabitants of the world. Since doses of
* If he used the arsenite of potass, his dose of white arsenic must have been
the two hundredth of a grain.



INFINITESIMAL DOSES IN ALLOPATIY.       267
medicine do not require to be increased in proportion to the
weight of the person who takes them, and if in the proportion
of one to about seven hundred millions they are unquestionably effectual as remedies, why may they not when in proportion of one to seven thousand millions, or seven hundred
thousand millions? Mr. Hunt does not tell us that he found
smaller doses of arsenic than the four hundred and eightieth
of a grain ineffectual. He appears to have tried none more
minute. But physicians, in every respect as much entitled to
credit, have maintained that doses a very great deal smaller
have proved effectual in their experience, and the experience
of homceopathic physicians is now so great in all quarters of
the globe, that it can no longer be ignored, or explained
away. Allopathic controversialists, and others who have a
deep personal interest in resisting and endeavouring to quash
Homceopathy, may remain as blind as they please by wilfully
closing their eyes, but their blindness will not prevent other
men from seeing. And no man of calm and ordinary judgment can fail to see, when the question between us and our
opponents is not one of ounces or pounds of drugs against fractions of grains, but really and truly one of fractions of grains
against fractions of grains, that the dispute lies within a very
narrow compass, and that the opposing parties do not differ so
very much as some either ignorant or designing persons have
endeavoured to make the public believe. Allopathy has
committed herself to the infinitesimal doses in the instances
I have mentioned. Doses of the hundredth and of the four
hundred and eightieth of a grain are as inconceivable as remedies as doses of the millionth or decillionth of a grain.
Nothing but experience could render the former doses credible as efficient doses; there is no process of reasoning, no a
priori probability apart from experience to suggest the expectation that doses so minute could be effectual in curing
diseases; and the same experience which is adequate to prove



268       EXPERIENCE ALONE THE GUIDE TO DOSES.
their efficiency is adequate to prove the efficiency of the still
more minute doses; in point of fact, there is an experience
and a testimony immensely greater on the side of Homceopathy in favour of its usual doses, than there is on the side
of Allopathy in favour of the doses I have adduced from its
authenticated records. How absurd is the notion that there
can be no testimony or experience on the subject of the usual
homoeopathic doses, but such as are presented by allopathic
authorities. A pretty mode of settling the dispute indeed!
If this original method be introduced into universal practice,
and the adherents of any prevalent doctrine are to utter the
final judgment that must settle the character of every question that arises in opposition to the common beliefs,-Protestantism is easily proved to be false in Roman Catholic
countries; Christianity itself is at once proved to be a delusion among the Chinese, as well as the religion of that ancient people to be a miserable idolatry among the enlightened
citizens of Great Britain. And if Homceopathy is thus shown
to be visionary by the allopathic Andral, Allopathy is proved
to be equally so, or worse, by iahnemann, backed by thousands of followers, and corroborated by Allopathy itself, as
we have seen from the testimony of Dietl, Forbes, and others.
AiralI's experiments are in the highest degree disgraceful
o:: him as a man of science, or rather they prove him to be
utterly undeserving of the name. As great stress has been
laid upon them by our allopathic opponents, I have given in
an appendix a complete account of them from the pen of a
homceopathic physician, remarkable alike for his intelligence
and his moderation. Few among us would, I think, have
dealt so forbearingly with such a tissue of unfairness and presumptuous ignorance. Dr. Irvine's narrative will also serve
to guard the readers of allopathic works against Homceopathy, from attaching undue credit and importance to alleged
experimental refatations of it, whether in Russia or in Britain.



270           OBJECTIONS TO THE PROVINGS.
for those who acknowledge the sufficiency of the test to give
a decided opinion when the results of experiment are made
known. Those who do not acknowledge experiment to be
the proper test on the subject, repose their confidence on
their own preconceptions, or fanciful hypotheses, and are the
representatives of a remote and bygone age, so that with them
it were needless to argue.
But a very few words are required in answer to the objections which have been made against the homoeopathic provings
of medicines. As I have already said, the provings of a medicine are the effects which it produces on healthy persons,
or the new symptoms it causes to appear in persons who are
labouring under disease. Three objections have been started
against the homemopathic provings, namely, the great number
of the symptoms recorded as due to single medicines, the
nature of some of the symptoms, and the means or substances
by which the symptoms are alleged to have been produced.
I shall notice each objection in its order.
First, as to the number of the symptoms said to be due to
a single medicine. The author of the "Tenets" adverts to
a subject pretty much as Dr. Forbes had done before him,
and he is quite aware that it is made an objection to the
homoeopathic provings on very untenable grounds; for the
fallacies which pervade his and Dr. Forbes' statements regarding it were fully exposed, years ago, in reply to the latter.
Calcarea appears to produce 1090 symptoms, according to the
"proving " of iahnemann; but in reality the number of symptoms, even in Hahnemann's record, is very much less, probably not a fourth or a sixth of that number. Thus, one
symptom, —vertigo, —appears to be no less than nine symptoms in IHahnemann's work, because every little accompanying
peculiarity in the state of different persons in whom the vertigo was produced by the medicine, and every sort of va



ERROR REGARDING THE NUMBER OF SYMPTOMS.    271
riation, whether great or small, in the circumstances under
which the symptom was excited or increased, were separately
numbered by llahnemann. Again, another symptom headache, is split up into what seem to be above sixty symptoms;
and just because some circumstances of their condition, and
some modes of expression used by them in describing their
sensations, and some causes of increased suffering, must have
been different among some of the many persons experimented
upon by the prover, from what they were among others.
Other symptoms have undergone a similar process of apparent
multiplication, and from similar causes. The same explanation
applies to all the other provings, and is so perfectly exculpatory
of them from the charge of numerical extravagance revived
by Dr. Simpsom, and is at the same time so well known and
so easily discerned, that I cannot but wish that those who have
aspired to write against HIomceopathy had taken some pains,
however little, to learn something of the subject of their condemnation. By neglecting to do so they have made so many
misrepresentations as greatly to damage their own characters;
for ordinary charity cannot, in so many instances of error,
always put them down either to want of information, or to want
of the proper "dynamic activity" of the organ of common
sense. If it should still be objected by any one that even
one hundred or two hundred symptoms are too many to have
been the product of one medicine; it may be enough to remind
him that they are not said to have been produced by any single
medicine on only one or two persons. On the contrary, many,
it is probable a great many persons, were experimented on
by lHahnemann with every one of the medicines which were
proved by him; and the experiments were continued through
a series of years. Sometimes persons in ordinary health were.
the subjects of experiment, sometimes persons that were ill, for
Hahnemann, I think justly, regarded the new symptoms which
a medicine, taken by a patient, caused to appear, as an effect



OBJECTION TO THE NATURE OF THE SYMPTOMS.   273
Secondly, the nature of some of the symptoms is made an
objection to the provings. Sometimes the symptoms enumerated among those which are supposed due to a medicine are
very insignificant. Hahnemann, more especially, committed
atrocities of this kind; but it was an error, if error it was,
on the safe side. If the unimportant phenomena were not
due to the medicine, their being among the provings can do
no harm, for the cases of disease to which the medicine is
homoeopathically suited will not have these symptoms any
more than the medicine, properly speaking, and so they will
go for nothing. On the other hand, if these: seemingly unimportant symptoms in the provings are due to the medicine,
they may be of considerable consequence in directing the
choice of the physician, when a case occurs to him in which
their presence is remarked.
Among the unimportant or absurd effects ascribed to a medicine Dr. Simpson selects "cough excited by playing on the
piano," and the instance may be taken as the type of this
class of objections. If he is serious in adducing this as an
objection to the homceopathic provings, I am afraid I must
continue to charge him at the end of my book with the distinguishing characteristic which I have so often had occasion
to notice in the beginning and the middle of it,-ignorance.
Is it so very extraordinary that playing on the piano should
excite a cough?  I don't know,-but I have certainly heard
of as curious consequences following the sound of music.
Does Dr. Simpson know what happened to Rousseau whenever he heard the bagpipes? Or does he know what befell
the musical phenomenon, young Aspul, whenever he heard a
performance that was not to his taste? If he does not, I am
sorry I dare not tell him. All I can venture to say is, that a
cough was a joke to either of their misfortunes. Why, therefore, may not a medicine produce a condition of the nervous



274     THE NATURE OF THE PROVINGS VINDICATED.
system by which a liability to cough should be occasioned on
hearing the sound of music? The objection is obviously ignorant and groundless.
It appears that the lIomoeopathists are so far lost to every
right and decorous feeling, as to allege that some of their
medicines will produce "moral and religious symptoms and
states." (Tenets, p. 30.) And why not? On allopathic principles of mental philosophy especially, why not? Are not the
moral feelings, passions, sentiments, &c., &c., all manifestations of the "dynamic activity of the brain?"  In other
words, are not religious and moral feelingsfunctions of the
brain, according to the principal allopathic authority? And
if so, why may not medicines disturb the mind, or the result
of cerebral function, as well as the bile, or the result of the
function of the liver? No reason in the world can be given
for the exemption of the cerebral function from being affected
by a class of influences which disturb all other functions of
the body; and if, as Allopathists of note and authority maintain, the mind is the mere manifestation of cerebral function,
the mind must be liable to be disordered by medicines, just
as the bile is. But without holding this allopathic doctrine
of mind, so very equivocal in its moral and religious bearings, it may be safely averred, that such is the relation subsisting between mind and body that there is not a faculty or
feeling of the former which is not capable of being excited,
exalted, depressed, or misguided by influences which act
primarily upon the latter, and through it upon the mind.
Taking the most important of the sentiments, the religious,
— does not almost every medical man and clergyman know
and acknowledge that religious feelings of every kind may
depend upon merely bodily states? I am almost ashamed to
produce the authority of a divine on a point so generally
agreed upon; but as Dr. Simpson's unaccountable opinions on



"MORAL AND RELIGIOUS "' SYMPTOMS.      275
the subject may be entertained by a few others also, who have
not reflected on it, or are but ill informed regarding it, I may
quote one author whose eminence and orthodoxy will satisfy
the most timid and scrupulous that any kind of religious
feelings may depend for the time on conditions of the body.
Jonathan Edwards, in his treatise on Religious Affections,
referring to the "terrors" which are sometimes experienced
of hell, &c., combats the idea that they are to be regarded as
necessarily of a "gracious " description, or the fruits of a
genuinely awakened conscience, and adds, "the terrors of
some persons are very much owing to their particular constitution and temper." (P. 65.) In another passage, adverting
generally to religious impressions of a seemingly good or
of an opposite kind, he says, "And where neither a good nor
evil spirit have any immediate hand, persons, especially such
as are of a weak and vapoury habit of body, and the brain
easily susceptive of impressions, may have strange apprehensions and imaginations, and strong affections attending them,
unaccountably arising, which are not voluntarily produced
by themselves." (P. 51.) But enough of this; I appeal to
the experience of medical men in general, whether they have
not known examples of every kind of religious feeling, from
the lively hopes and joys of one who believes himself safe
for time and eternity, to the deep despair and agonizing terrors of him who regards himself lost for both, as due to bodily
disease, and often the precursors of insanity. Dr. Simpson's
error on the whole subject appears to spring from his misconception of what constitutes the genuinely religious state,
from his not apprehending that true religion never consists
of mere feelings, joys, or terrors,-that such feelings may
arise from ordinary causes, bodily as well as mental, in reference to religion and eternity as well as in reference to time
and to secular affairs. How much do our despondencies and



276       ALLOPATHIC DRUGS AFFECT THE MIND.
our hopes, our joys and our sorrows, our good and our bad
tempers, depend on the state of our digestion, —possibly on
the proportion of acid in our gastric juice. And how, then,
can it be a matter of surprise to any man, that medicines capable of disordering the body, the stomach as well as other
organs, should also, and for that very reason, be capable of
exciting or disordering the feelings of the mind! Does not
alcohol do so? Do not opium, belladonna, hyoscyamus,
"hachisch," and many more? And what medical man can
deny that they do?
One remark more upon the moral aspect of the provings,
and I quit the ridiculous subject. Dr. Simpson, referring to
the "moral symptoms" of the provings, in connexion with
carbonate of lime and common salt, says of man in general,
who takes these substances with his food and his drink,
"would not his mind have been rendered sinful by the very
substances which his Creator obliges him to use constantly in
the course of the common and requisite nourishment of his
frame? If lomceopathy were true, would not this arrangement form a strong and incontrovertible argument for skeptics to use, who wished to call in question the bountiful and
beneficent arrangements of Providence?" (P. 74.) What a
prodigious quantity of salt Dr. Simpson must have taken before he wrote this passage! that is to say, if it is sinful to
assert what is not the fact, and if salt be a cause of sin. But
there is not a single sin recorded in the provings as producible by either carbonate of lime or salt! The nearest approach to sinfulness that carbonate of lime produces is peevishness, and that is no sin unless it be indulged. Salt, however, goes a step nearer, as Dr. Simpson knows experimentally, for it produces "want of discretion," and "vehemence
without any special cause." He must really take less salt
with his food, lest he should give a handle to the " skeptics."



DR. SIMPSON'S SALINE SINS.          277
But the "arrangements of Providence," whatever opinions
reckless and skeptical men may form of His bounty and beneficence, are often such, that what we receive " in the course
of the common and requisite nourishment" of our frame,
even the air we breathe, contains deadly poisons which daily
rob some among us of health, of reason, or of life. The waters of some countries, which the inhabitants are compelled to
drink, make many among them loathsome from physical disease, others still more so by the addition of moral insensibility, yea, even to the apparent extinction of the moral
sense.
Dr. Simpson objects, further, to opposite symptoms being
recorded among the provings of the same medicine. And
why should they not? The same medicines may, in different
persons, occasionally produce different effects, according to
the temporary or habitual peculiarities of individuals. This
has happened in allopathic experience, as well as in the homceopathic. Professor Balfourj in his Inaugural Dissertation
on Strychnia, in 1831, has the following observations:-" Alvus
secundum Fouquier saepe adstricta purgantibus movenda est;
hune strychniae effectum ego amicusque meus Dr. Henderson
apud nosocomium regiumn Edinense saepe vidimus, et fere
semper evenire putavimus. Nuper vero, a Professore Christison meque ipso aliqui aegrivisi sunt, qui diarrhoea propter
strychniae usum solum afficiebantur; ideirco haud dubito, quin
hoc remedium minime alvum semper adstringat."  (P. 88.)
In homceopathic practice we are not guided by one symptom
in the selection of our remedy, but take them collectively, or
in their totality, and select for the total symptoms of a disease the medicine which furnishes symptoms similar to them
all, as nearly as possible. And as the constipation of strychnia is attended with different symptoms from those which accompany the same effect of other drugs, some cases of consti



278      PROVINGS MAY HAVE OPPOSITE SYMPTOMS.
pation will point to that drug as their proper remedy, and
some cases of diarrhoea, for a like reason, will point to it too,
as preferable to other drugs; for it is capable of causing sometimes constipation, and sometimes diarrhoea, according to circumstances.
Lastly, objections are made to some of the substances which
have been asserted by HIahnemann and others to have produced the symptoms of certain provings. The pediculas capitis, calcarea or carbonate of lime, and common salt, are the
materials specially objected to. I shall not defend the first
of these, for two reasons: because Dr. Mure has not established
his authority as a prover by other and less questionable instances of his title to be regarded as a safe and sufficient
observer; and because he has given in his writings some
ground to believe that he is a fanciful and indiscreet personage. I do not accuse him of intentional error; for I have
no right to do so, in so far either as he himself is concerned,
or as regards the alleged subject of his investigations. Without holding that the animal with which he experimented is
incapable of acting as a poison to human beings, when administered internally, I think that the sources of fallacy in such
experiments are so considerable, that the professed provings
of one whose abilities and caution are not guarantied by his
known character and previous performances, should not be
accepted as authentic. The Pediculus is doubtless a loathsome and vulgar animal, and I cannot admire the taste or
hardihood of the man who condescended to meddle with it;
but its vulgarity and filthiness are no sufficient reasons for
concluding that it is innocuous: and the analogy of other
instances from beings as low in the scale of existence, which
are known to produce poisonous effects, should prevent any
one from asserting dogmatically, that the pediculus is incapable of doing so in any degree. The itch insect and the blister



CARBONATE OF LIME INSOLUBLE.          281
produce always any medicinal or pathogenetic effect which it
may, notwithstanding, be capable of producing when absorbed.
The formation of calcareous rocks at the bottom and sides of
bodies of water is carried on everywhere by this process of
precipitation or deposition of the insoluble carbonate of lime,
which had been previously held in solution in the water by
carbonic acid. The gaseous acid being extracted by the atmosphere, the carbonate falls in proportionate quantities.
The explanation given above is one of several that may be
conceived as competent to make it probable, if not certain,
that the calcarea of water consumed as drink does not become absorbed. But as most of the drink taken by man is
taken with his meals, or while some digestive process is going on in the stomach, and rarely when the stomach is entirely
free from chyme or food undergoing digestion, another reason
may be given for the opinion that the carbonate of lime contained in the water we drink is not absorbed into the blood.
There is much difference of view among physiologists as to
the cause of the acidity of the gastric juice, but most of them,
indeed all but one, agree in stating that tthere is some free acid
or other in that secretion, muriatic as several believe, acetic
according to others. Well, be the acid what it may, muriatic
or acetic, the carbonate of lime taken into the stomach, while
one of them is there, forthwith must become muriate or acetate
of lime, for the carbonic acid quits its place at the bidding of
either. Apart, then, from the former explanation, but a very
minute quantity of the carbonate of lime can ever get into the
blood, for the mere reason that but little water is drunk when
the stomach is empty, and because that little contains a very
small quantity of the substance. The calcarea, therefore,
which is given in the course of a proving, is something over
and above the minute quantity taken in the drink, and as it
is thus given on an empty stomach dose after dose, and day
19



EXPERIMENT THE ONLY TEST OF FACTS.      283
The last two observations apply equally to the facts re-,corded regarding the proving of common salt. We have one
pledge of their general accuracy in the character and abilities of Hahnemann, a pledge which will be sufficient to satisfy
his followers, who have had so much occasion to confide in
his observations on other substances. No merely speculative
objections made by his enemies can unsettle that confidence.
That they are merely speculative appears from this, that not
one of the objectors has proved, or attempted to prove, in
the way HIahnemann suggests, whether or not salt can do
what he says it can. They simply say, that salt is taken in
tolerable quantities every day with food, and without producing any bad effects. Do they know, are they quite sure,
that it produces, even when taken with food, no bad effects
of any kind, and in any persons?  Are they quite able to
trace all the unaccountable ailments that sensitive and delicate
people are so often complaining of, to their true, real, and
indubitable source? And if not, are they absolutely and rationally certain that they can never in any case be possibly
due to a modicum of chloride of sodium-common salt? It
is a common substance certainly, and one that is very commonly used; but tea is a very common substance, and very
commonly used, yet every now and then a case presents itself in which tea, though formerly an agreeable beverage,
can no longer be taken without very unpleasant effects; and
a temperature of 400 is a very common temperature in this
cold island, and air of that temperature is very commonly
breathed, yet how often do we meet with sensitive and delicate people who cannot expose themselves to it without aches
and pains, or breathe it without coughing and wheezing!
Halhnemann expressly says, over and over again, that all
persons are not equally sensitive to a medicine, or at all times,
and that all the symptoms of a medicine are not producible



OLFACTION PROPERLY INHALING.         285
Chloroform inhaled through the nostrils will produce its
characteristic effects as well as when drawn into the lungs
through the mouth; and it is well known that there is no
way of giving such medicines as are capable of impregnating
the air so effectual as that of inhaling them. That Hahnemann
often succeeded in curing diseases by medicines administered
thus, there can be no reasonable doubt; that he sometimes
was mistaken in supposing the inhaling to have been beneficial, may be just as certain as that Louis, Bouillaud, Grisolle,
and many thousands of allopathic physicians, were and are
mistaken in supposing that they can cure pneumonia by bloodletting and tartar emetic, while in reality they destroy some
thirteen or fourteen per cent. of those who labour under
that disease, that might be saved if only left to nature!



APPENDIX.
M. ANDRAL'S HOMIEOPATHIC EXPERIMENTS AT LA PITIE.*
BY DR. F. w. IRVINE.
THE, adherents of Homceopathy have much reason to complain of the
want of interest in the subject displayed by the heads of the profession;
it is indeed matter of surprise and regret, that they should persist in a
resolution not to examine into the merits of a system whose value is attested on the ground of personal experience, by hundreds of their medical brethren, a system whose claims are set forth in able and accessible
works, and whose success-both as exhibited in the tables of public
hospitals, and the less imposing but more penetrating results of private
practice-is making appeal from the bigoted love of the old, and dislike
of the new in medicine, to that candour and love of truth which are
looked for in the practitioner of the healing art, and are nowhere more
requisite.
But great as is the evil resulting from non-inquiry, it is small compared
with that arising from the nugatory results attendant on trials of Homceopathy, ignorantly or disingenuously made by Allopaths of renown; for it
cannot be doubted that many, and these perhaps the most candid among
the adherents of the dominant school, whom the mere novelty and strangeness of our doctrine might not have prevented from examining into its
practical working, have been deterred from so doing by the consideration
that it were at once superfluous and presumptuous in them to attempt
success in a path which men whom they are wont to look up to have
already trodden, and declared to lead to nothing but disappointment.
WVhen Homceopathy has thus been put upon its trial, it has been the practice to conduct the proceedings with closed doors, advocates for the accused
have been excluded, and the witnesses (i. e. the cases treated) have been
examined, and the evidence summed up in secret; the damnatory verdict
alone has been promulgated, unaccompanied by any recommendation to
mercy; and the public have had the general character of the judge for
ability and uprightness as sole guarantee for the legality of the proceedings and the justness of the sentence; that sentence being usually no less
than perpetual banishment from the domain of science.
* British Journal of Homoeopathy. 1844.



290                         APPENDIX.
Such trials are quite beyond our reach, and therefore we shall say
nothing further of them; but we propose dwelling at some length on one
to which the preceding remarks are but partially applicable, and which
has been made amenable to criticism by the publication of the details. We
refer to the series of experiments, instituted several years ago, by Professor
Andral at the Hopital de la Piti6 at Paris. And it seems of peculiar importance to take up these experiments, first, because none are so frequently
and so triumphantly referred to by the opponents of Homceopathy in proof
of the inefficiency of the system; and, secondly, because the high standing
of M. Andral, both at home and abroad, entitles us to consider this trial as
a favourable specimen of the class, the more so as the Academy of Medicine evinced the high value they placed upon it, by making it the main
ground of their decision against Homceopathy in the year 1835. We have,
therefore, made a careful study of the published account of these experiments, contained in the sixth volume of the Bulletin G6neral de Th6rapeutique, (Sept. 1834;) and would invite such of our candid opponents,
as may chance to peruse these pages, to look with us for a little into the
details of these vaunted experiments; when we trust we shall be able to
show that no argument unfavourable to Hommopathy is deducible from
them.
When we are told (p. 319) that a faithful application was made of the
" principles and ideas " of Hahnemann; that the diet was such as he prescribes; that the experiments were made on an extensive scale, and
continued uninterruptedly for several months; finally, that the cases were
noted down with "scrupulous attention," and digested in "'immense and
well drawn up tables," by M. Andral's " interne," M. Maxime Vernois;* 
the reader is inclined to suppose that all the conditions requisite to make
such a trial conclusive were observed, and when he then learns that out of
54 cases treated, only 8 made permanent recoveries, he is ready to conclude that the trial was most damaging to Homceopathy. Such an inference would, however, be premature, and we think erroneous, and we
proceed to adduce our reasons.
* "Attention minutieuse;"-"tableaux immenses et fort bien faits." Our
readers will be able to judge presently how far these commendations are deserved; meanwhile, it may not be amiss to state that they are self-bestowed,
for M. Maxime Vernois has informed us, in a pamphlet subsequently published, (Homoeopathie: Analyse de la Matiere Medicale, &c.,) that the article from which we quote is his own. We might, however, have left this much
unnoticed, for we were not without examples of self-commendatory reviews
before M. Vernois; this gentleman, however, has quite overstepped the pale
of professional courtesy-at least as it is understood and practised in this
country-in introducing anecdotes relating to the private practice of his opponents. One does not know at which to wonder most, the spirit of the essayist, who could pen matter of the sort for the grave pages of a scientific
journal, or the taste of the editor who could admit it.



APPENDIX.                         291
We may first notice the manner in which the " principles and ideas" of
Hahnemann with respect to diet were observed. We are told (p. 319) that
wine was administered to all the patients who could eat. This is manifestly an infraction of Ihe principle on which the peculiarities of the homceopathic diet all depend, viz. that no substance possessed of any but
purely nutritive properties should be given to a person under treatment:
for what is not nutritive is medicinal, and thus we should have two mredicinal forces in play, whose resultant we have no means of calculating.
But we may object also on principles acknowledged by every school,
that wine should not have been given to patients suffering from chronic
inflammation of the stomach, of whom, as well as of other inflammations to which the same remark applies, several cases were subjected
to the homceopathic treatment. To the rest of the diet-table (soup,
bouilli, roast-meat, fish, bread, and sugared water) there can be no objection, except that to deprive the patients of salt with their food, as was
done, is not sanctioned by any of Hahnemann's writings. Let it not be
supposed, however, that we imagine that departures from the rules for
diet could have had any material effect in paralyzing the influence of
the medicines, had the more important items in the treatment been observed; for we are not disposed to assign so important a part to diet as
our opponents are in the habit of claiming for it, when homceopathic
cures are to be accounted for; we merely notice it as an illustration of
the little care that was taken to observe IHahnemann's principles, of
which we shall obtain more proofs as we proceed.
The moral circumstances in which the patients submitted to homonopathic treatment were placed, were not favourable to the curative action
of the medicines. While they saw around them, in full operation, the
multiform and imposing appliances of Allopathy, the lancet, leech, and
cupping-glass, the blister, the cautery, the nauseous powder, and the
bitter draught, the unfortunate patients who, by ones and twos, were selected for experiment, were made to swallow each a tasteless, inodorous globule of starch, amidst the smiles of physician and pupils, without the smallest expectation by any party of the least benefit accruing.
It is impossible to assign the exact amount of influence exerted by
moral causes on the curative effects of medicines; perhaps it is not
very great, but whatever it may be, it ought, in justice, to have been
made to act equally on the two sets of patients, which we have just seen
was not the case.
But we proceed to much more weighty objections. They relate to
the actual treatment, but we think it right first to lay the cases themselves before our readers, as committed to writing, with "minute attention," by M. Maxime Vernois himself, and made public in the journal
referred to. We shall thus at once escape any risk of unconsciously
mis-stating the facts, and avoid the charge of intentional perversion of
them. We only regret that, for some reason unassigned, 19 of the 54
cases, or more than one-third, those, namely, occurring in the first two



292                        APPENDIX.
months, have been kept back. That there were good and sufficient
reasons for so doing, we are willing to believe, but should have been
better pleased had such been assigned, for not only is it not consonant
with the usual procedure in matters of science to give but a partial view
of the facts, but, considering the great importance and the public bearing of the subject in hand, nothing but the most cogent considerations
could justify the withholding of any of the data on which the conclusions were based. If the results of these 19 cases were less favourable
to Homceopathy than those of the 35 which are given, M. Andral must
have felt that, by detailing them, he would have added to the force of
his conclusions, and would thereby have been able to deal a more effectual blow at the inefficacious and, therefore, dangerous system; if, on
the other hand, they showed Homceopathy in a more favourable light,
one would have supposed that candour and impartiality would have secure(l their publication.*
We proceed to the cases, of which there are 35, which we have numbered for facility of reference.
Aconite, 24th dilution. 1st patient, aged 25. Disease, gastritis. Predominating symptom, intense fever. Effect, the pulse fell 2 beats in 24
hours; next day the eruption of small-pox appeared.
2d patient, Intermittent fever of a quotidian type; predominant symptom, action of the heart. No effect.
3d, Acute angina; predominant symptom, intense fever. Effect, diminution of the sore throat, and falling of the pulse.
4th, Phthisis; predominant symptom, frequency of the pulse. Effect,
falling of the pulse.
5th, Acute arthritis; predominant symptom, frequency of the pulse.
Effect, a violent headache.
Arnica, 6th dilution. 6th, Pulmonary symptoms; predominant symptom, great giddiness. No effect.
7th, Cerebral congestion; predominant symptom, violent vertigo. Effect, the patient said he experienced immediate relief.
8th, Hydro-pericarditis; predominant symptoms, giddiness and vertigo. No effect.
9th, Dysmenorrhcea, with chronic gastritis; predominant symptom,
very violent headache. No immediate effect; improvement on the third
day.
Belladonna, 24 dilution.  10th, Hemiplegia; predominant symptom,
confusion of sight. No effect.
* M. Andral made many more experiments after the publication of this article, but did not publish any account of them; indeed, he probably had not
the means of doing so, for so loosely had every thing been managed, that,
when giving his evidence on the subject before the Academy, he was unable
to state the number of patients he had treated. See Leon Simon, Lettre a
M. le Ministre de l'Instruction Publique. Paris, 1835.



294                         APPENDIX.
29th, A woman aged 22. Dysmenorrhca, with chronic gastritis; predominant symptom, dyspnea. No effect.
30th, Female aged 18. Amenorrhea; predominant symptom, inclination to vomit. No effect.
Pulsatilla, 24th dilution.  31st, Chronic gastro-enteritis; predominant
symptom, diarrhmea.  Effect, sensible improvement.
32d, A woman aged 22. Chronic gastritis; predominant symptoms,
diarrhea, with colic. No effect.
Chamonmilla, 12th dilution.  33d, Diarrhca without colic. No effect.
Opium, 6th dilution. 34th, Affection of the uterus and the heart; predominant symptom, obstinate constipation. No effect.
Plumbum metallicum (dilution not stated.*)  35th, Obstinate constipation, which had lasted eight days. No effect. It only yielded to purgatives.
Let us now inquire if there is virtue in these 35, or say 54, experiments to shake our confidence in Homceopathy.
The first condition which must be fulfilled to make experiments on
this or any other system of any value is, that the experimenter be thoroughly conversant with the principles of that system. This is so obvious as to need no proof. Now, we maintain, that M. Andral had either
never read, or, having read, had forgotten the Organon of Hahnemann
when he made the experiments in question. Let any one peruse that
part of the Organon which relates to the taking of the case, (par. 84-105,)
and then say if every one of the cases we have transcribed does not
manifest, on the part of Andral, an utter ignorance or neglect of the fundamental principles of the doctrine. Hahnemann repeatedly and earnestly enforces the maxim, that it is only by attending to the totality of
the symptoms that we can obtain such an image of the disease as shall
then be serviceable in determining the choice of the remedy. M. Andral, however, instead of drawing a finished picture of the disease, contents himself with indicating a single feature, that, namely, which he
conceives to be the most prominent, thus acting with about the same degree of reason as a painter who should confine himself to the delineation
of the nose, the mouth, or whatever feature happened to be most marked
in each particular instance.  Portraits of this sort must be quite irrecog* Though quite a novice in Homoeopathy, M. Andral has contrived to be
original-in the matter of the dose. Amidst all the differences of opinion existing among homoeopathists on this subject, there is unanimity on one point,
viz., that the circumstances to be looked to as determining the dilution to be
given, are the acuteness or chronicity of the disease, and the age, sex, constitution, and temperament of the patient; in short, that it depends on the
nature of the case, more than on that of the remedy. M. Anilral, however,
while he gives some medicines at high, and others at low dilutions, gives a
particular medicine always of one invariable strength, whatever the disease,
and whatever the peculiarities of the patient.



APPENDIX.                        297
the Materia Medica, partly by his wilful neglect of such remedies as
had been published, to guessing at the medicine which would be prescribed by Homeopathy; and as he did not avail himself of the assistance of any one better acquainted with the subject than himself, he obtained such results as might have been anticipated. These considerations make a detailed examination of the practice adopted quite superfluous; we will, however, notice one or two of the cases, in order to
show into what an inextricable maze of difficulties a man is thrown,
when deprived of the clue, the knowledge of the pure effects of the medicines.
Let us take as examples the four cases treated with arnica. As the
symptoms, with a single exception in each case, are not recorded, it is
quite impossible to determine on the proper remedy to be given; but we
may remark on the first case, that arnica is very seldom used in phthisis.
If the reader wishes proof of this, let him turn to that article in Jahr's
Repertory, and he will find that arnica is not to be found among the
eighteen medicines most useful in alleviating the sufferings of the consumptive. The next case is one of cerebral congestion, with great giddiness; this was probably a case to which arnica was adapted, for we
find its administration was followed by good effects; but this good fortune was plainly owing to chance, for there is nothing in the case to
point out to us, without trial, whether arnica, belladonna, or nux vomica,
not to mention others, would prove specific; so that there was at least
twice as much probability of the wrong medicine being chosen as the
right, and, in the former case, the ill success which must have followed
would have been laid to the blame of the system. We are at a loss to
know why arnica was given in a case of hydropericarditis; we do not
remember of a single case in which it was indicated; the presumption
is, that arsenic, lachesis, or spigelia, were more appropriate to the case.
As to the last case, we may observe, that it would perhaps be impossible
to'select any medicine out of the whole pharmacopoeia less likely to
prove beneficial in dysmenorrhoea than arnica. That this is not a simple
assertion on our part, may be seen by once more turning to the Repertory of Jahr, when it will be found that, though no less than thirty substances are enumerated as occasionally remedial in this complaint,
arnica is not there. We might proceed in this way through the remaining cases, but we think sufficient has been said to convince every one
that these experiments had nothing of Hommopathy but the name. We
may just refer, however, to two cases of diarrhma, (cases 32 and 33,)
which Andral, by departing from his usual practice of mentioning but a
single symptom, has unwittingly given us the means of showing to have
been wrongly treated. The diarrhma of pulsatilla, though not unfrequently accompanied with colic, is, tor the most part, more free from
pain than that produced by other medicines; so that, when we meel
with such a case as No. 32, unless the temperament be strongly indicative of pulsatilla, we naturally search among other remedies for the spe20



298                        APPENDIX.
cific, and none is more frequently required than chamomilla. On the
other hand, pulsatilla is likely to be useful in such cases as No. 33, for
which chamomilla is certainly not suited; so that, in these two cases, the
only ones in which there are any land-marks by which to guide our
course, Andral chose the medicine least likely, on homceopathic principles, to effect a cure. It surprises us to find cases of intermittent fever
among those experimented on, for these affections are, without exception, the most difficult of any to treat on homeopathic principles; requiring, in the first place, that the symptoms be detailed with extraordinary minuteness; and, in the next, that the physician have a most
thorough acquaintance with the intimate character of the numerous medicines, (B1ninghausen enumerates nearly sixty, which are required in
their treatment.) Much judgment is also required to know at what
period to administer the remedy.
We have now to state a circumstance for which our readers are
scarcely prepared. It is seldom, whatever system we follow, that one
medicine suffices for the cure of a chronic complaint, even when the
experience of years has guided the choice, and it is rare indeed that one
dose of the medicine brings about the desired result. To this obvious
principle, however, M. Andral shut his eyes when experimenting homceopathically; for we gather from an attentive perusal of the article already
referred to, what the author was doubtless ashamed to state in so many
words: That though three-fourths of the cases treated were such as required
a long course of treatment to cure, none of them received more than one dose
of the homceapathic remedy, the administration of which was followed by
some days (" quelques jours ") of inaction, at the expiry of which, if
not cured, the patient was handed over to Allopathy. It was expected,
it would seem, that scarcely had the globule been swallowed, but the
cure should be effected, if it lay in the power of Homceopathy to cure
at all! Diseases of every kind, bronchitis, pleurisy, and consumption,
chronic inflammation of the stomach, and hypertrophy of the heart,diseases which had existed weeks, months, and perhaps years,-Homrnopathy must cure them all by one dose each, or it is held to be a delusion! Were ever conditions like these imposed upon a system before't
Notwithstanding all this, however, we learn that, of fifty-four cases thus
treated, eight made permanent recoveries, and seven others were better
the day after getting the medicine. We are told that time of itself brings
about such results, ('"le temps seul ame'ne ce r6sultat;") but we would
just suggest, that, in chronic diseases, and in many acute ones, time is
just as likely to bring about progress as retrocession of the disease; and,
to say the least, it is remarkable that the improvement coincided so
closely with the taking of the medicine; at all events, it would have
been but fair to follow up, by a repetition of the medicine, the good already begun: instead of this, these seven patients were allowed to relapse, and thus to swell the list of failures. These facts require no comment.



APPENDIX.                        299
The professed object of such trials as these, is to obtain such a body of
evidence as shall, on the acknowledged principles of medical statistics,
suffice to establish the comparative efficacy of the old system and the
new. Were it demonstrated by adequate statistics, that Homceopathy
came short in its results of the dominant system, and that this inferiority
depended not on any weakness incident to its recent birth and fettered
growth, and which it might reasonably be expected to outgrow, but on
some inherent and irremediable defect; we say, were this satisfactorily
proved, we should feel bound at once to abandon it; but we are not sure
that we should think the utter inefficacy of its infinitesimal doses to be
thereby demonstrated. On the contrary, our respect for Allopathy, all defective as it is, would preserve us from such a conclusion. We would
ask those who adduce the supposed inferiority of homeopathic practice
as proving its absolute powerlessness, "Do you not perceive that, in so
speaking, you are casting a slur on the system you practise? Do you
not see that you are saying in other words,' Every system that has any
efficacy in it, must be equal or superior to ours; our system has so little
power over disease, that to have less is to have none? " Happily for Allopathy, and for the mass of mankind who must long continue to be treated
on its principles, the reasoning of such wholesale declaimers against Homeopathy is false, and therefore the degradation of the old system, which
it implies, cannot be maintained. It would be just as reasonable to conclude that, because one body A, was proved to be hotter than another
body B, therefore B contained no heat. The absolute powerlessness of a
system of therapeutics, can only be proved by comparing it with the
true zero of medicine, that is to say, the expectant method, and showing
that the results are similar. This has not been done; till it be, the enemies of any new system dare not in conscience say it has no power.
But we are very far from anticipatiug any injury to Hommeopathy from
a statistical comparison of its results-with those of the old system. On
the contrary, we look forward with confidence to statistics, as one of the
means destined to be most powerful in establishing the value of the
system. Before, however, either favourable or adverse conclusions can
be drawn from a body of cases, we must be assured that the system was
fairly and intelligently applied, which we have shown was by no means
the case in those before us; and it is therefore useless to proceed to consider the inferences deducible from them, for from false facts no ingenuity can obtain true deductions. But we think it may not be amiss to
consider for a little, whether, even supposing the facts to have been
good, they were of such a nature as to be of service in a statistical inquiry.
The object of such trials being, as we have already observed, to institute a comparison between the merits of the two rival systems, it is
obviously requisite that such diseases be chosen to operate upon, as admit of the display of the powers of medicine; for, where both systems
are powerless to cure, no deduction favourable to either the one or the



302                                   INDEX.
Ipecacuan and Dr. Simpson, 52.               toms in, 271; nature of symptoms, 273;
Itch-doctrine, its meaning, 166; an allopathic    moral and religious symptoms, 275.
doctrine, 167; Schonlein on, 169; Auten- Psoric doctrine-See Itch-doctrine.
reith on, 169; peculiar to allopathy, 170.
RELIGIoN and medicine, 196; Dr. Simpson's
JENNER, his error, 147; not the discoverer of   calumny, 197; dangers of mingling, 198,
vaccination, 245.                          allopathic views of, 199.
Religious symptoms, Dr. Simpson's ignorance
KANE on strychnia, 46.                       regarding, 275.
LAENNEC, his mistakes, 64.                 SALT common as a remedy, &c., 283.
Lemon-juice in scuivy, 241; due to chance, Science obstructed by its disciples, 5S.
246.                                     Scurvy and lemon-juice, 241.
Liston, Mr., his honourable conduct, 42.   Simpson, Dr., paints himself, 31; a homecopaLouis' cases of pneumonia, 77.               thic remedy, 3:2; his bad conduct to his opponients, 35; his curisoity, 36; his homceoMACNETOSCOPE, 54.                            pathic box, 37; his false authorities, 48;
Mead, Dr., and the allopathic qiiack, 206.   his invention against a colleague, 49; his
Measles and hooping-cough, 158; Dr. Sinp-   homceopathic practice, 52; his rnis-stateson's misstatements regarding, 159.        ments regarding small-pox, 154; his misMedicine, Dr. Forbes on uncertainty of, 184.   statements regarding hooping-cough; 158;
Medicines, filthy allopathic, 18:).          his misrepresentation of"' spiritual " powers
Mind, allopathic doctrine ot, 211; drugs af-   of drugs, 220; his errors on provings, 233:
fect the, o76.                             errors on scurvy, 241; on iodine in goitre,
Moral symptoms, 275.                         243; his case of headache, 251.
Mortality of blood-letting and tartar emetic Sins, saline, of Dr. Simpson, 277.
82.                                       Small-pox arid vaccination, 153.
Moon, Hahnemann and the, 187; Hoffmann  Specifics, all hommeopathic, 247.
and Balfour on the, 188.                  Spiritu al powers of inedicines misrepresented
Musk, Hoffinann's renovated, 189.             by Dr. Simpson, 219.
Spiritual doctrines of allopathy, 220; spiriNICKEL. Dr. Simpson on, 252, 254.             tual saw-dust, 223.
Nux vomica, fables about, 42.              Statistics in general, 63; of the army, 64.
Stercoraceous drugs, 193.
OLFACTION, properly inhaling, 225.         Strychnia, fables about, 41; its insolubility,
45; and taste, 46.
PALLIATIVES, when justifiable, 124.        Symptoms of provings, moral, religious, and
Peritonitis, homceopathic success in, 104.   opposite, 275, 277.
Persecutions of Hahnemann, 133.
Physicians, allopathic, messengers from hea. UNANIMITY, allopathic, 202.
ven, 195; incense offered to, 196; philoso- Uncertainty of allopathic medicine, Doctor
phical, always give up physic, 184.        Forbes on, 184.
Pills, making and taking, 47.
Pleurisy. homneopathic success in, 104.    VACCINATION and small-pox, 153, 239; ho.
Pneumonia, statistics of, 72; blood-letting in,   mceopathicity proved, 240; its powers ac82, 97; tartar emetic in, 85; expectant   cidentally discovered, 215.
treatment, 82, 97; homlceopathic success in,
86. 100.                                  WALSHE, &c., on pneumonia, 80.
Provings recommended, 118, 124; of no ser- Willan, Dr. Simpson's mis-statements, 155;
vice to Allopathy, 125; errors of Dr. Simp.   his cases in favour of horceopathy, 156.
son regarding, 234, 271; number of symp-   illustrations of psoric d&ctrine, 176;.



THE PHYSICIAN'S POCKET VISITING LIST,
DIARY AND -DIEXIORANDA.
PUBLISHED ANNUALLY.
Containing a Visiting List for every day in the year; Memoranda Pages for each Month;
Pages for Obstetric Engagements, for Vaccination Engagements, and for accounts
asked for and delivered.
It is an invaluable pocket companion for every physician, compact, easily carried in
the pocket, methodical in its arrangement, and so useful that the physician once using
it, will never-afterwards be without it.
Price prepared for twenty-five Patients Weekly,..   Plain  50 Cents.
" c    cc            c      " c...   Tucks 75  "
cc"    "       Fifty        "        "...   Plain  75  "
"      ""                   - ".~C... Tucks 1.00.
"Messrs. Lindsay & Blakiston have laid the profession under great obligations for
one of the greatest conveniences ever furnished them. Here is a little pocket book,
half an inch thick, six by three in dimensions, which will hold all memoranda of visits
paid and to be paid for each day of each month during the year; of obstetrical engagements, things wanted and lent, the addresses of patients and nurses, bills and accounts
asked for, &c. &c.  With it in one's pocket, everybody's bill can be made out in a few
minutes. It is the most complete thing we ever saw, and every practitioner would
secure one if he could see it."-Stethoscopist.
THE PHYSIGIAN'S POCKET PRESCRIPTION BOOK:
C O N T A I N I N G
Lists of Terms, Phrases, Contractions, and Abbreviations used in Prescriptions.
WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES.
Also, the Grammatical Constructions of Prescriptions, &c.; to which is added a Key,
containing the Prescriptions in an abbreviated form, with a literal translation, intend
ed for the use of Medical and Pharmaceutical Students. First American, from the
10th London edition.
A small pocket volume. Price 63 Cents.
" We know of few works likely to be more acceptible to the Student of Medicine
and Surgery, or to the practitioner, than this little volume."-Boston Medical and
Surgical Journal.
"There are points of interest and usefulness in the book, which claim for it a place
In the library of every Pharmaceutical Student." —Journal of Pharmacy.
cc This is an exceedingly convenient little work, filled with valuable information; we
regard it as calculated to be highly useful to the Student, the Physician and Apothecary."'-No-rth Western Medical and Surgical Journal.
THE POCKET DOSE AND SYMPTOM BOOK,
1. The Doses of all the principal articles of the Materia Medica and chief officinal
preparations alphabetically arranged, with their uses and lists of incompatible substances.
2. Table of Weights and Measures.
3. Table of Proportionate Doses.
4. A Table of Symptomatology, or the -principal symptoms of disease, arranged
according to the part or function affected.
5. An outline of General Pathology and Therapeutics.
6. A Table of Poisons and their Antidotes.
BY JOSEPH H. WYTHES, M. D.,
Author of the Microscopist's Manual, &c. &c.
Price in Cloth 50 cts.  In Tucks'75 cts.



THE AMERICAN MEDICAL FORMULARY,
BASED UPON THE
UNITED STATES AND BRITISH PHARMACOP(EIAS,
Including also numerous Standard Formul, derived from  American and
European.futhorities, together with the JMedical Properties and
Uses of JMedicines; Poisons, their.fntidotes, Tests, 4c.
Designed for the JMedical and Pharmaceutical
Student.
BY JOHN J. REESE, M. D.,
Lecturer on Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the Philadelphia Medical
Institute; Fellow of the College of Physicians, &c., &c.
"In the preparation of the Formulary of Dr. Reese, which is one of the series of
the' Medical Practitioners' and Students' Library,' the alphabetical order has been
pursued; and in it, with a very few unimportant exceptions, every article that has a
place in the Pharmacopoeias of the United States or Great Britain, is described, and
its medical properties and uses, as received by standard authorities, are noticed, while
in the appendix is a list of some of the more common and useful dietetic preparations;
a brief description of poisons, with reference to their treatment, antidotes, and tests;
a table of the analysis of the most celebrated natural mineral water of the United
States and Europe; a table of the doses of the most important medicines, &c.; all of
which, we hesitate not to say, add much to;the interest and value of the work, and
will prove very acceptable to the reader." - New York Journal of Medicine.
"' It contains much that is really valuable, and must serve as a standard work of
reference upon the subjects of which it treats. We can confidently recommend the
work, and hope it will meet with that favour which it so richly merits." - Boston
Medical and Surgical Journal.
"The author has manifested much care and research in the preparation of the
volume before us, and has presented us with a work, in general, of great accuracy,
which cannot fail to be useful fbr reference, both to the practitioner and student." —
Medical Examiner.
"This work contains all the officinal preparations recognised by the best standard
works of the day, and we recommend Reese's Formulary, as a highly useful work of
its class, to the profession." - New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal.
"This is a very convenient manual for the student of medicine and pharmacy,
presenting, in a space as brief as possible, a complex list of the medicinal preparations now in use in England and the United States. The appendix contains a good
selection of recipes of dietetic preparations; a chapter on poisons and their antidotes;
a table of doses, weights and measures, &c.; comprising a large body of most valuable
information. We recommend it to our readers." — Journal and Library of Dental
Science.



MEIGS VELPEAUDS MIDWIFERY —-ILLUSTRATED EDITION
MUCH ENLARGED AND IMPROVED,
A COMPLETE TREATISE'ON MIDWIFERY,
OR
THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF TOKOLOGY.
INCLUDING THE DISEASES OF
BY
ALF. A. L. M. VELPEAU.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY
CHARLES D. MEIGS, M. D,
Member of the American Philosophical Society; Professor of Midwifery in the Jefferson Medical College, &c., &c.
Fourth American with additions from the last French Edition,
BY
W. BYRD PAGE, M. D.,
Lecturer on Obstetrics, in-the Philadelphia Medical Institurte, &c., &c.
In one Volume, Royal Octavo.
"The deserved popularity of Meigs' Velpeau is such, that it is only necessary for us to
refer to'the additions made to this edition. They are so numerous, that the work
may almost be said to be rewritten; it embraces a full and complete exposition of the
present condition of the science of midwifery."-New York Journal of Medicine.
" This work must be looked upon by the obstetrical practitioners of our country, as
one of the most reliable Text Books, and safest guides in Obstetrical Practice."-Ohio
Medical and Surgical Jourztal.;" A new and enlarged edition of Meigs' Velpeau's Midwifery, a work which has been
so long looked up to in the United States, as the best work we have on the art, and
more comple than any other book used in our schools."-Stethoscopist.
"The work before us is one of three productions of Velpeau's pen, either of which
would alone have made him distinguished among the medical authors of the age. His
Surgical Anatomy, his Midwifery, and his System of Surgery, are all monuments of his
erudition and sound practical sense. The profession in our country should feel grateful
for the zeal manifested by the learned translators, in issuing this new and fine edition."
— Southern Medical and Surgical Journal.
" This is the 4th American Edition of Meigs' Velpeau, embracing additions by the
author, and a history of the obstetric art, which adds much to the interest and value of
this popular treatise; the fact that another edition is now demanded, is the. best proof
of the substantial excellence of the work; the illustrations are numerous and truthful.
In a word, it is what it professes to be, a complete treatise on Midwifery."-W-es*ern
Journal of Medicine and Surgery.



CAZEAUX'S VALUABLE TREATISE ON MIDWIFERY,
INCLUDING
THE DISEASES OF PREGNANCY AND CHILDBED.
TRANSLATED
FROM THE SECOND FRENCH EDITION, WITH OCCASIONAL NOTES, AND
A COPIOUS INDEX.
BY ROBERT P. THOMAS, M. D.,
Member of the Philadelphia County Medical Society, &c., &c.
With a Coloured frontispieces and 116 Wood-Cut Illustrations.
The great value of this work has been sufficiently attested by its adoption as a Text Book by the Royal Council of
Public Instruction in France, and the very favourable opinion expressed of it by many members of the medical profession in this country, during its progress through the press, the publishers therefore confidently offer it as a valuable
accession to the medical literature of the United States.
"In the multitudinous collection of works devoted to the propagation of human beings, and to the details of parturition, none, in our estimation, bears any comparison to the work of Cazeaux, in its entire perfectness; and if we were
called upon to rely alone on one work upon accouchments, our choice would fall upon the book before us, without
any kind of hesitation.
"In all that constitutes a medical book of authority, in all that may aid inexperienced persons in perilous circumstances, in all that arms and equips an accoucher for the performance of his duties, we know of nothing superior to
this work.  *   *   *
"The translator, Dr. R. P. Thomas, deserves credit for the labour he has bestowed on this American edition. He
has performed his duties in a very creditable style, and is entitled to the thanks of those who do not read French, for
having enabled Cazeaux to address himself almost as well to American readers. as though the work had been written
in the English language. We have met with but few translations that conveyed the spirit of the original, with more
~complOte success. - Western Journal of Medicine and Surgery.
" Its adoption by the Royal Council of Public Instruction - the position and character of its author, as a teacher of
obstetrics — his opportunities for clinical experience, and the fact of the early demand in France for a second edition,
present strong extrinsic recommendations of the work, which are fully sustained by its intrinsic merits.
" Written expressly for' the use of students of medicine, and those of midwifery especially,' its teachings are plain
and explicit, presenting'a condensed summary of the leading principles established by the masters of the obstetric
art,' and such clear, practical directions for the management of the pregnant, parturient, and puerperal states, as have
been sanctioned by the most authoritative practitioners, and confirmed by the author's own experience. Collecting
his materials from the writings of the entire body of antecedent writers, carefully testing their correctness and value
by his own daily experience, and rejecting all such as were falsified by the numerous cases brought under his own immediate observation, he has formed out of them a body of doctrine, and a system of practical rules, which he illustrates and enforces in the clearest and most simple manner possible.
"In the correctness of all the more important of his teachings, we fully acquiesce, and can very conscientiously
recommend the work to the medical student, as one that will prove to him a safe and valuable guide to a knowledge
of obstetrics." -Medical Examiner.
" This work, more particularly intended for the use of students of medicine, is an exposition of the course of lectures delivered by M. Cazeaux, in Paris, for several years past. It is also the work adopted by the Royal Council of
Public Instruction. In many respects, in its general arrangement, it resembles most of those heretofore published on
the same subject, in France; yet in the main it appears to differ essentially. The author has'adopted almost wholly
the views of Professors Naegele, Stalty, and P. Dubois, which are not found clearly expressed in any of our classical
works.' While, however, he has put the views of these teachers under heavy contributions, it also appears that he
has drawn freely and judiciously upon all the more modern writers who have published upon the same subject. The
opinion of M. Coste, on all that relates to ovology, has been consulted. In the chapters which are devoted to the history of the changes that take place in the ovary and ovulum, before and after conception, numerous engravings have
been presented, in order to more clearly illustrate and simplify the text, and,'by their aid, the great doctrine of reproduction, which is now exciting so much attention both in this country and in Europe, will be rendered intelligible to
every reader.' The American translator has executed his task in a very satisfactory manner; and he, together with
nls publishers, are deserving of the especial thanks of the American reader, for this worthy addition to an already
large stock of treatises on midwifery. - New York Journal of Medicine, for March, 1850.
"In 1841, such was the reputation of the first edition in France, that it was adopted by the Royal Council of Public
Instruction. No change of times, or increase of similar efforts by others, has changed the general sentiment in regard
to its high merits.
"Brought down to the latest period, whatever is new, useful or suggestive. has been faithfully incorporated with the
text. - Boston Medical aend Surgical Journal.
"When an author who may be a stranger presents himself befoire the protession in the attitude of -a teacher, a
proper respect for our readers requires us to inform them something of the character and standing of the writer. P.
Cazeaux, the author of the above treatise, was, for a number of years, physician-accoucheur to one of the largest
lying-in hospitals of Paris, where he einjoyed the amplest opportunities for ascertaining the value of the doctrines put
forth by obstetrical writers; and where all mere speculation was made to give way to the severe test of truth andl
experiment. Monsieur C. was, besides, a long time chef de clinique to Professor Dubois, and a pupil of the distinguished Moreau. Besides, he has beens a lecturer, for the last eight ou ten years, on midwifery, in the schools of Paris,
sn the capacity of adjunct professor. We think we have said enough to satisfy the reader that our author is not a
quack, but a student and a practical physician.
" Without following up our author verbatim, we may be permitted to state that his work is fully up to the know-:edge of the day, on the subiect of obstetrics; and taking the book as a whole, it will not suffer by comparison with
any of a similar cast, on the same subject. The plates are well executed, and will assist the reader materially mi understanding the text.
" M. Cazeaux has brought obstetrical science up to the present day, and the reader will find the multifarious subjects
of the art fully discussed and carefully examined.
"We cannot do less than commend his book to the careful perusal ot the student and practitioner; assuring both
that they will be amply rewarded for a careful study of the work." -- New Orleans Med. and Surg. Journal, lay 185&



MINOR SURGERY, BANDAGING,
THE APPLICATION OF DRESSINGS, ETC.
With 145 Illustrations.
BY JOHN HASTINGS, M.D.,
LATE LECTURER ON SURGICAL ANATOMY AND OPERATIVE SURGERY, FELLOW OF THE
COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, ETC. ETC.
From Valentine JMot;.M. D.
"I have received a copy of Hastings' Manual of Surgery, for which you will please
accept my thanks. To the author cffer my congratulations, for having furnished the American student a valuable and convenient book."
From Prof. S. D. Gross, Louisville, Ky.
" I have carefully examined Hastings' Manual of Surgery, and find it to contain an excellent outline of the existing state of the science of which it treats. It seems to me to be
well adapted as a text-book, and I shall take great pleasure in recommending it, from time
to time, to my pupils."
From Dr. Charles Bell Gibson, Richmond, Va.
" I look upon Dr. Hastings' work as an excellent one, and shall recommend it everywhere within my reach, and especially to our class."
From Prof. E. R. Peaslee, Hanover,.V'. H.
"I am happy to be able to say that I am much pleased with Dr. Hastings' work, as
being adapted to the object it has in view; and shall take pleasure in recommending it to
the pupils of the medical schools with which I am connected."
From Prof. John Frederick.May, Washington, D. C.
"So far as I have examined the work, I find it to be an excellent compendium and
manual for students; and I shall accordingly take much pleasure in speaking of it tavourably to my class."
From the,New Orleans JMedicalJournal.
"This very neat volume on the practical part of Surgery, is an excellent guide-book for
the medical student and the young practitioner. It is confessedly a handsome compilation,
and is carefully and industriously prepared, and neatly printed. The illustrations are numerous and well executed; and we are pleased with the book, considered in all its parts."
" In it the student will find the principles of Surgery detailed in a simple and concise
manner; and while there are, of course, many things omitted that will be found in larger
treatises, he will find sufficient of really practical and valuable information on the subject
of surgical diseases, minor and operative surgery, to render him competent to manage
cases that ordinarily come into the hands of the general practitioner. The portion devoted
to operative surgery is written with great clearness and simplicity; everything being made
as plain as possible to the comprehension of the student. The wood-cuts with which it is
illustrated are correct and accurate delineations, and add no little to its value. The typographical execution of the volume is of a very superior character, and is a credit to the
publishing house from which it emanates."
"As a guide-book to the student and practitioner, in this department of medical science,
it does not savour of prolixity, and yet it is sufficiently minute to present a practical and
general view of the subjects embraced within its scope. That there are works which con.
tain nearly, if not quite all that is presented in the one before us, we have no doubt; but
that it is thoroughly adapted to the end for which it was designed, we feel confident all will
admit who give it a careful perusal. It presents a careful and sufficiently digested selec.
tion, and a clear and exact account of the most important facts and principles already furnishcd by the ablest observers, both at home and abroad. By reference to the volume, we
find that the following author, have been fully consulted and used: Sir Astley Cooper, Sir
B. Brodie; Messrs. Miller, lrDnitt, Ferguson, Lawrence; Drs. Gibson, Pancoast, Carpenter, Dunglison, Prout, M. M. Velpeau, Malgaigne, Ricord, Sichel, Weller, Rayer, Guthrie,
Hennen, and others-authorities sufficient, with the careful and attractive manner in which
it is executed, to ensure for it that success which its intrinsic merit demands.