"CURRENTS AND COUNTER CURRENTS IN MEDICAL SCIENCE." OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, M. D., REVIEWED IN AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE roston 3tabean' of 5oluropat'it Rlleicinc, BY ALBERT J. BELLOWS, M. D., Of R]oxbury. [SECOND EDITION.] B O S T O N: PRINTED BY THE UNANIMOUS VOTE OF THE ASSOCIATIOX. 1860.:j~1~1~ ~., " CURRENTS AND COUNTER CURRENTS IN MEDICAL SCIENCE.' OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, M. D., REVIEWED IN AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE Woston 3tabemp of 5ontyopat i't 1elitinti BY ALBERT J. BELLOWS, M. D., Of Roxbury. [SECOND EDITION.] BOSTON: PRINTED BY THE UNANIMOUS VOTE OF THE ASSOCIATION. 1860. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by THE BOSTON ACADEMY OF HOMCeOPATHIC MEDICINE, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. BOSTON: John.M. Hewes, Printer. 81 Cornhill. "CURRENTS AND COUNTER CURRENTS IN MEDICAL SCIENCE." IN reviewing the Address of the learned Professor, whose motto I have borrowed, that which strikes the mind as most remarkable, is the fact, that after drifting in the " Currents and Counter Currents in Medical Science" for two thousand years, he finds himself just where he started,-trusting to nature and a good nurse. Hippocrates, the acknowledged father of " Rational Practice," who wrote three hundred years before the Christian era, expressed so very exactly the "Professor's" sentiments, as to form, at least, a wonderful coincidence, the only discoverable difference being this; Hippocrates, "lest nature might be disturbed in her wholesome operation on the matter of disease," never, in any case, gave medicine till after the most active symptoms had subsided, while the Professor does make an exception in favor of three or four diseases, which the specifics are adapted to cure. The improvement in Rational Practice in two thousand years amounts then to simply this. A specific has been discovered for the itch, for syphilis and for intermittent fever, and possibly for some two or three other diseases; but they are not named by the Professor. Except the medicines adapted to cure these interesting diseases, so wonderfully favored by nature, the Professor firmly believes " that if the whole Materia Mledica, as now'used, could hard to get any thing out of the dead hand of medical tradition." Again, should that be called Medical Science, of which its own chosen Professor says, " The truth is, that medicine, professedly founded on observation, is as sensitive to outside influences, political, religious, philosophical, imaginative, as is the barometer to the changes of atmospheric density," and this he proves by eight or ten pages of historic facts, showing the innumerable opinions and theories, which have been set up, to be kicked over by the next man who should come along. Dr. Rush charging Hippocrates with killing millions, by letting nature loose upon sick people, and Sir John Forbes, Doctors Bigelow, Gould, Cotting, Hooker, and all other Hippocratic practitioners, holding Dr. Rush, and other heroic doctors, responsible for the lives of as many millions more. Not a substance under heaven, animal, vegetable, mineral or excrementitious, that has not been tried for medicine, and not one that has not, in its turn, been condemned as injurious or useless, and this while all other branches of science have been steadily progressing, —Astronomy, chemistry, geology, constantly adding new principles and new facts, having no " counter currents," and never subject " to outside influences, political, religious or imaginative." But geology never did much while, its " dead hand" held on to misinterpreted theology. Chemistry made no advances, while it amused itself by chasing the phantoms of alchemy. Astronomy stood still till Galileo's telescope revealed the simple law which governs it. And Medical Science is drifted every where by " currents and counter currents," till it recognises the simple law of 6 nature, which God, in infinite mercy, has given to guide it. " Siizilica sinilibus curanlutr." But wherever this law is recognized, the Science of Medicine has progressed as steadily as any other science. Look at the Materia Medica of the two systems, as they have been developed by the last fifty years of time. Hundreds of articles have been tested by allopathic physicians on the sick, and thousands of patients have been killed in the experiments, as the doctors themselves acknowledge, and not a half dozen of all the medicines have continued in general use for any consecutive ten years of practice; while every article of well proved homeopathic medicine which was used fifty years ago is used now by every homeopathic physician. And of the hundreds of articles which have since been proved, by experiment, (not on the sick, but on ourselves, thus avoiding the sacrifices consequent on allopathic experiments,) not one that has been fairly proved to be useful is ever afterwards condemned or abandoned. Chemical laws are no more certain in their operation, than is the homeopathic law, and this I assert after twenty consecutive years of practice in experimental chemistry. I am no more sure that an appropriate quantity of acid will neutralize a given quantity of alkali, than I am sure that a medicine which in large doses will produce a headache, will in small doses cure a similar headache. Chemistry, therefore, to my mind, is no more entitled to be ranked as a science, than is homeopathy. Again, since the promulgation of the homeopathic law, thousands of educated men have tested it in practice; but not one of them ever found a fact or an argument to disprove it; or, after the trial of a single year, ever disbelieved it. The idea of turning back a true disciple of 9 been referring to the allopathic use of medicines, " transcendently unmentionable," and of "unlovely secretions" which were used undiluted. 2d. We are represented as believing that a louse, drowned in any part of Lake Superior, would impregnate its waters a hundred miles off, against all " currents and counter currents," a belief which Hahnemann, in his last days of dotage, of course, never thought of. 3d. We are represented as highly valuing the virtues of the "pediculus capitis," when it cannot be found in any list of homeopathic remedies, and I venture the assertion, was never used by a homeopathic physician in any dilution. As a homeopathic remedy, it seems to have come from the head of his friend, Dr. Martin, who charges us with hooking it from the allopathic Materia Medica, with fifty other articles, some of which are among our most valuable remedies; this one, however, he acknowledges he cannot find in our list of remedies, or any where else; but he understands "it enjoys a distinguished place in homeopathic pharmacy."t This address, by the way, affords another illustration of the usual method of attack on homeopathy, by misrepresentation and ridicule, rather than by facts or arguments. The main purpose seems to be to show that homeopathy did not originate with Ilahnemann. And this he attempts to do by hunting up all the medicines from the animal, vegetable or mineral kingdoms, used by lHahnemann, and then going back hundreds of years to see how many of the same medicines had been used before Hahnemann was born. But as he finds among allot See Address of Henry A. Martin, M. D., of Roxbury, before the Norfolk County Medical Society. Page 26. 2 12 will produce an emetic effect, but by experiment; and experiment as clearly shows that the one thousandth part of a grain of ipecac will as surely stop vomiting, when produced by some other cause. And how can the Professor know, or any one else, whether the ten thousandth part of a grain might not also produce an effect? Theoretically, who shall decide whether the crude article, third, or thirtieth dilution, is best adapted to the capacity and size of the invisible capillaries, in which it must circulate and on which it must act; or whether one dilution may not be best adapted to diseases of one tissue, and another to diseases of a different tissue. We can easily ridicule the high dilutions, but who shall settle that old question of divisibility, so as to tell us in which dilution, from the third to thirtieth, the original material has ceased to exist, or existing, is too fine to be adapted to the infinitesimal vessels of which the tissues are composed. Take, for example, sulphate of copper, one grain of which can be seen intermingled with every drop of five gallons of water, which may be equal to the fifth dilution. Does it cease to exist in the sixth dilution, because it cannot be seen? And who knows the nature of the specific action of medicines, whether it may not be increased by the increase of surface produced by each dilution, just as the power of electricity may be increased by extending the surface. The action of medicine is a mystery always, and is it profitable to ridicule that of which we know nothing? And how do the specifics act in the cure of disease? All classes of practitioners have seen the hundredth part of a grain of corrosive sublimate, given in repeated doses, gradually change a diseased action to a healthy action. Call this an alterative, or call it a homeopathic action. 15 which is brought out by Dr. Bigelow, distinctly stated by Dr. Gould, commented on and enforced by Dr. Cotting, and ludicrously re-stated by our Professor, less repugnant to nature's common laws. "Drugs, in themselves considered, may always be regarded as evils." Four or five drugs are known to rational practitioners under the name of alteratives, or specifics, " to produce a secret change in the system favorable to recovery from disease," and this in doses so small as to be tasteless, and to produce no perceptible evils; and hundreds are equally well known to us, to produce similar effects under the name of "homeopathic remedies." And is it reasonable to suppose that other drugs are intended by Nature to effect a cure only by producing such serious evils as to make it a question, whether the effects of the medicine, or the effects of the disease, are most to be feared? Is it not more " rational" to suppose that drugs, like every other blessing from God, are intended for good, and for good only? and that the wrong application of them produces the evils which are known to result from them? For illustration, in testing my old allopathic drugs in homeopathic practice,-and this is the best use to which I can apply my allopathic knowledge,-I find constant corroborations of this belief. In using rhubarb or calomel, for example, as I often did in operative doses, for the cure of diarrheea; the patient was reduced and his digestive functions were deranged, but the disease was cured, and until I learned the truth, I was reconciled to the evils on account of the benefits of the medicine; but I now find rhubarb or calomel much more useful in the same disease in doses too small to reduce the patient or derange his digestive functions; and the inference to my mind is fair, that in allo 22 effigy, which he makes up of rags and shreds from the mind of Hahnemann in his dotage, which he labels homeopathy; but which is as unlike homeopathy as Don Quixote's windmills were unlike the giants, for which he mistook them. In a western village, where Republicanism is carrying all before it, the papers say some sapient politicians adopted a new and safe way of combating it. They obtained some old clothes, stuffed them with straw, and labelling their effigy' Old Abe,' danced around it like the Professor's typhoid Indians, " making such a hellish noise as they probably thought would scare away the devil of" * Republicanism. They finally pelted it with stones, and, demolishing it, seemed to think they had put an end to Republicanism. So our hero, having in less than an hour demolished his own effigy of Hahnemann, thought he had kept his engagement, and demolished homeopathy past resuscitation; for he gravely proceeded to post-mortem arrangements. This part of the service is sufficiently amusing to warrant a copy of the programme verbatim, with a few running commentaries. The Professor says, " It only remains to throw out a few conjectures as to tie particular nzanner in which it is to break up and disappear." " 1st. The confidence of the few believers in this delusion will never survive the loss of friends, who may die of any acute disease, under a treatment such as that prescribed by homeopathy. It is doubtful how far cases of this kind will be trusted to its mercies; but wherever it acquires any considerable foothold, such cases must * Address of O. W. Holmes, M. D., May 30, 1860. Page 23. year, for a dinner which we never eat, that is all.) But what is a quack? An ignorant pretender? That won't do, for some of them graduated at our college, and none of them pretend to knowledge, which they are not willing to communicate to the whole world. Well we must get up a definition that will hit them. " The essence of quackery is, ignoring the wisdom and guidance of the past, and assuming and advertising to be possessed of a skill beyond our contemporaries." But don't the doctor see who stands in the range of this shot. Our Professor so far " ignores the wisdom and guidance of the past," as to propose to throw into the sea almost the entire Materia Medica, which has been accumulating for over two thousand years. And he assumes and advertises a skill in the cure of typhoid fever, that not one of his contemporaries ever dreamed of. And Louis, a name which the doctor can't mention but with profound respect, is also a consummate quack, for he ignores all wisdom, past and present, and sets up a system of his own; and Hunter, Harvey, Newton, Galileo, and old Hippocrates himself, are all quacks, and, according to this definition, worse quacks than Hahnemirann or any of his disciples. " His gun, well aimed at duck or plover, Bears wide and knocks its owner over." Well, the Society meets and passes a vote of thanks to Dr. Timothy Child, " for his able, interesting and instructive address;" but not a word is said about carrying out his suggestions. They do, however, vote to appoint Dr. Oliver W. Holmes, as orator for the next year, thus bringing out their most experienced engineer, to bring to bear his biggest ordnance, and sweep us off 27 forever. And when the year came round, didn't we laugh, that instead of an " infernal machine," to scatter us to the four winds, all we got was a few squibs, and tl/ey only aimed at the Professor's own little " pedicular" effigy, while a big bombshell was thrown into his own camp, to blow them all sky high.* For the next act in this interesting drama, we call afford to wait, and, attending to our own business, imitate the example of the good natured husband, who cheerfully submitted to the tirade of his little wife, because it did him no harm, and seemed to do her so much good. 4 It seems that at an adjourned meeting of the Massachusetts Medical Society, held on the day after the Address was delivered, an exciting discussion occurred on the expediency of publishing sentiments so adapted to undermine the confidence of the public in their mode of practice; and it is understood its publication was advocated only because the effect of suppressing the truth was more to be feared than the truth itself.