Mil
(1~        (01
~4




'V








N'




* (1






/                                                             I




j 4










p j
A


rH




A' /
tji




-                                   A]
-II










ALL
SOME REMARKS
ON,,DR 0. W. HOLMES'S


//


C
6kP


I




L.E CT U R"EiS   ON    1HOM   IElOPATIIY
AND ITS, KINDRED DELUSIONS;
CO1VMMUNICATED TO A FRIEND
By ROBERT WESSELFI-EFT,
HOBUEOP. PHYSICIAN IN CAMBRIDIGE.


Mlany are called but fekv are chosen.


MATh~TH. xxii. 14.


BOSTON:
OTIS CLAPP, SCHOOL STREET:
S. COLMAN AND WM!. RADDJ!, NEW YORK;
T. D0O3SON AND 1. G. WESSELHCEFT, PHILADELPHIA.
1842.








SOME REMARKS
*-:


*71 L37/


ON


DR. O. W. HOLMES'S
LECTURES       ON   HOM(EOPATHY
AND ITS KINDRED DELUSIONS;
COMMUNICATED TO A FRIENDýi
BY ROBERT WESSELH(EFT,
HOM(EOP. PHYSICIAN IN CAMBRIDGE.


Many are called but few are chosen.


MATTH. xxii. 14.


BOSTON:
OTIS     CLAPP, SCHOOL            STREET:
S. COLMAN AND WMI RADDE, NEW YORK;
J. DOBSON AND J. G. WESSELHCEFT, PHILADELPHIA.
1 1842.




BOSTON:
FREEMAN AND BOLLES, PRINTERS
WAsHI*Gror STREET.




TO THE BENEVOLENT READER.


THE following Letters were commenced on the 18th of April,
and finished on the 1st of May. I was doubtful whether I should
publish them; for I know too well that my first attempt at English authorship may not find favor in the eyes of the many. I
also hoped that one of my graduated friends might precede me.
Before I came to a conclusion, my friend, Dr. Okie of Providence,
published his reply " Homceopathy, with particular reference to
a Lecture by O. W. Holmes, M. D., Boston: Otis Clapp, 1842;"
and afterwards I received the "Answer to the Homoeopathic
Delusions of Dr. O. W. Holmes," by Dr. Neidhard, of Philadelphia. Both of my friends were in possession of a better library
than I am, and the benevolent reader must not omit to examine
their able and scientific writings, especially for the purpose of
obtaining accurate evidence from France upon these controverted
questions relating to Homceopathy.








A~


REMARKS, &c.
LETTER I.
APRIL 18, 1842. 
DEAR SIR:
Your highly esteemed favor of the 16th inst, I received
with mingled emotions. I had already perused Dr. Holmes's
lectures on " Homceopathy and its kindred delusions," and I
think his bookseller may thank me for the sale of perhaps
-twenty copies of-the work. I have recommended it heartily
to every one, without either comment or censure. The
effect produced by it on some was to make them doubt,
others felt contempt for it, and two or three enjoyed in it
beforehand an excellent polemic discussion. It was not my
intention to check by a word or a fact the favorable impressions which Dr. Holmes has made by his ingenuity and
his learning.
"As I have been but a year and a half in this country, and
have lived half of this time among Germans, and have been
occupied for the remainder with the studies and labors*
which a highly cherished employment enjoins, and as I am
not favored by nature, with that ease which can without
delay appropriate the grace and idiom of a foreign language,
I ought not to make the attempt to censure a public lecfurer,
a man of genius and skilful in the use of his mother language. There is something in every one who is a lover of
science and truth, that forbids his attempting to put down by
a jest the scientific labors, principles and talent of another.
I know it is the practice of many men of genius to do this
vhen they meet with anything new. This is exceedingly
easy, because it requires no study, no profundity in science,
and perhaps, even no positive knowledge, merely by witticisms to make a thing ridiculous. In Europe these men of
genius are at present confined to a certain set of writers
called the "young Europe," or the "young France," or
1*




6


REMARKS ON DR. HOLMES S LECTURES


the "young Italy," "the young Germany," and so on of
other countries.
This, sir, made me feel as if it would be an ungrateful
task for me, who am neither of the young Europe, or the
young America, who am going bald-headed down the vale
of life, to say a word about Dr. Holmes's lectures. It is my
nature too to relish a good style and a certain witty dexterity in an argument. This attracted me towards Dr. Holmes,
notwithstanding, there was that in his book which I could
neither like nor honor: and this was a great superficialness
in knowledge and an ungentlemanly use of language
against men of science, learning, and honesty, who held
other opinions on medical science. I cannot refrain from
expressing the notion which we have in Europe about such
writers or lecturers. The general French name of Polissons litteraires is the most significant term applied to these
kind of judges of better men.
To say the truth, it struck me a good deal, to hear again
in this country the same lame arguments, and even the same
witticisms against homceopathy that were heard twelve or
fifteen years ago from Dr. Simon and Dr. Athanasius
Mueller, and even the same comparisons of tar water, weapon ointment, and Perkinism, &c. &c. These same things
were trumpeted five years later in France, and every one
tried to dress up the jest with a rag of his own wit. So I
saw civilization and culture wandering to the West after the
old law, that the Devil paves the way before him with the
same stones which he takes from the highway by which he
comes.
You tell me, sir, that Dr. Holmes is respected as a man
of honest character, has a genial nature and uncommon
learning; that he is confided in as a literary judge, and that
his friends are very numerous. All these are new reasons
why I should not venture to appear against him before the
public. Who will take the part of the poor exiled stranger
who has received a hearty welcome here, should he misuse
the right of hospitality, and say to one of the most honored
young citizens, that he has done wrong, and injured himself
in the eyes of better instructed men? Would it not be ingratitude, black ingratitude against one of my hosts? Should
I not injure myself and draw upon my head the hatred of
all his friends? Would not the whole " young America " rise
against me? Should I not be put down, perhaps burned
like the convent whose ruins look down upon my windows?




ON HOMIEOPATHY.


7


I felt sure, sir, that some other physician, a true son of
this fine country, free and fresh as its east wind, would rise
up and cool the fervent brow of the lecturer for the diffusion of useful knowledge, and show him that he, standing in
such a place, honored with the confidence of the most honorable society of Boston, had misused his position; but no
one comes forward; they appear subdued by his arguments.
And so Dr. Holnmes looks down with glowing triumph from
the field of battle, an undoubted hero, a conqueror, a man
of genius, knowledge and honesty.
It has, sir, been my misfortune that I have, through my
whole life, fought for truth like a true German Protestant
against all narrowness, petulance and ignorance; I must
follow my star -you shall hear from me again.
Yours always.
LETTER II.
DEAR SIR:
The antagonists of Homceopathy began very early to ridicule it. It is a quarrel between the material and dynamic
effect of poisons, sir, nothing else. It is known to you, that
every drug given by medical men to patients, perhaps with
a few unimportant exceptions, is a poison. It has already
been observed elsewhere, that it is very difficult to say why
mankind proceeded to the use of poisons against disease.
It is a mystery in nature, sir. Not only the animal has an
instinct for it; the proud human race lives a good deal after
the same unknown rule. For more than two thousand years
we have had a science called medicine founded on this natural instinct, and governed by the principle pronounced
long before by the Roman physician Galenus, " contraria
contrariis curantur," but established by him against the opposite principle: " similia similibus curantur."  He who
freezes seeks the warmth, he who suffers from heat seeks a
cooling remedy, he who is thirsty seeks the water, &c. &c.
This principle created the antipathic or enantiopathic sys.
tem of cure. To proceed in a rational way according to
this principle, physicians give poisons, that is, medicines,




8


REMARKS ON DR. HOLMES'S LECTURES


that are intended to produce directly and by their primary
effects, an exactly contrary condition and opposite symptoms
to those which are supposed to be essential, or rather the
first cause of the disease which is to be cured. Success
from the antipathic treatment can be imagined, but it cannot be proved, as long as the essential reason of disorders
in the organs, the proximate cause of all forms of disease is
unknown. Often also, this method is impracticable, because
the antithesis or contrary of a great many-disturbances or
disorders is entirely a mystery; we know only their negation, or, what they are not, which cannot be produced according to the principle " contraria contrariis curantur," but
only sometimes in an empirical way. A great many of the
pains and uneasinesses of the sensitive organs, and the majority of the numberless dyscrasies, of whose peculiarities
we know almost nothing at all, belong to this class.
But the chief objection to this system is, that it pays no
regard to the powers of nature in removing diseases, that it
does not aid her, but, on the contrary, disturbs her, by trying to lead the disease out of the system through ways by
which it cannot be led out without injuring the health of the
organs used for that purpose.
Probably it was from observing that a great many forms
of disease disappear at the same time that other forms make
their appearance, that gave origin to a secohd method of
healing, called the deriving method. The fact that the different forms of disease thus act'alternately is explained in
an insufficient and mysterious manner by the sympathy,
(consensus) existing between the different organs and various
formations of the system,
This method has, of course, to solve its problem according
to the unknown laws of sympathy and of antagonism - to
remove dangerous diseases of important organs by producing suffering or pains in less important or:dangerous parts
of the organism. The disadvantages of deriving medicines,
especially, such as are given internally, are not to be mistaken; for no physician knows with the least degree of certainty which organ will receive the derived disease, or if
that which does receive it is better able to bear it. Besides
this, the method seems to confess that the art of the physician is not sufficient for healing and removing entirelya
disease out of the system.
Not only the internal, but also, the external " Derivantia"
cause often much injury. Thus, for example, embrocating




ON HOM(EOPATHY.


9


the ointment of ttrtarus emeticus often gives origin to deep
wide-spreading ulcerations which leave behind them bad
scars. Issues weaken the limb on which they are worn,
cause often its atrophy, and generally cause a very bad
smell by its incessant festering. Fly-plasters often produce
difficulty in the urinary organs, and the cautery belongs
already from its painfulness to the list of the most dreaded
operations. Would it not be desirable to get rid of these,
and a great many other tortures, and attain to some milder
method of healing diseases?
Mankind has a right, sir, to be treated mildly by man.
Torturing, like killing our fellow-men, was-always considered a symptom of barbarism, cruelty, and want of civilization. Is the physician alone entitled to do such work
without being impeached for it? Our Creator is so kind,
so benevolent, so gentle; is it not the worthiest task of the
human mind, to find out a healing treatment for sick fellow
men, that shall imitate the gentle hand of God's nature in
forming diseases?
i I will consider it in my next, sir; perhaps it is found
already.
Always yours.
LETTER III.
I have thought it always worthy of science, sir, not to
follow too strictly the system of conservatism. Every doctrine, maxim, and theory has lived a certain time for development, for ripening, and for dying. This is a law we learn of
history, as applicable to all human life. Galen, it is true, is
authority for a certain kind of experience, but he has no
authority to check by it other developments of the human
mind. I know not which is more ridiculous - to praise an
experimental science because it is two thousand years old,
or to despise another because it has first been proved within
fifty years. The human mind acknowledges no authority
in such numbers; it seeks facts; it cares nothing for authorities; it requires science, it is looking always for the improvement of its present condition, and laughs at the mere "laudator temporis acti."




10       REMARKS ON DR. HOLMES'S LECTURES


Such, sir, are in my opinion, the reasons why nothing that
is subjected to scientific principles should be treated with
contempt. Nobody can assert, without proving his own
ignorance, that medical science, because acting for two
thousand years upon the same principles, cannot be improved. Nothing is more ridiculous, nothing proves more
clearly a thorough want of acquaintance with the history of
medicine, and the revolution brought about by Paracelsus
against Galenism more than three hundred years ago. For
health and disease and the treatment of both are subjects of
science; but none of them is to be understood by itself, and
the laws of neither can be derived from the other. All together are single branches of one science, exist side by side,
and must of course be derived from something higher and
more general than either; and this is the idea of life.
This idea has all the qualities of a scientific principle, and
requires, in order to be understood entirely, a thorough
examination on every side.
This, sir, I thought necessary to say in reply to that almost new opinion that the principles of Dr. Hahnemann's
doctrine are not connected with one another. In all medical
science there is no other way of connecting the principles
of any treatment than by one law superior to all principles.
All other attempts are founded on hypotheses. And now
let us see how far the principles of Hahnemann's doctrine
as the third of all existing medical doctrines, are founded
on hypotheses or on experience and facts.
Indeed, sir, Homceopathy cares nothing about other theories; it is satisfied with the principle "Similia similibus
curantur." (Like cures like.) It has no Therapeutics like
Allopathy; for although it recognises physiology it acknowledges no conjectures or speculations that are not founded
upon undoubted knowledge. It considers and individualizes
all pathological facts as so many acts independent from one
another, and it acknowledges as many specific remedies as
there are symptoms of disease, as many hidden peculiarities
in the remedies as there are hidden or mysterious causes of
disease: and it does not apply these remedies before they
have been tested by persons in health.
For this reason Homceopathy seeks neither in the nerves,
nor in the blood, nor in the lymphatic system, nor in irritation or stheny, nor in astheny the proximate causes of disease; it recognises none of them as an exclusive cause; it
recognises them all; but in respect to its own merely prac



ON HOMCEOPATHY.


11


tical tendency, it"cares very little about the part they are
thought to play singly or together, in disease; at least it
does not view the hypothesis as the chief thing, as is generally done. It looks to the symptoms as the only possible
reflection of the internal disease, knows only forms of disease but no classifications, and no medicines but specific
ones, i. e. such as have a direct relation to the disease.
In the treatment of various forms of disease it relies in
respect to therapeutics, not blindly on an anatomical, physiological or pathological law, but takes the organic alteration into consideration only when there is a real necessity.
Therefore it very seldom proceeds to that most disagreeable
and often shameless bodily examinations, which Allopathy,
with its tendency to cure single symptoms, makes the source -
of so much alarm and anxiety to the patient. But should
any'one imagine from this that the history and study of
medicine, anatomy and physiology, pathology and pathological anatomy, are held of nor account by it, and that it is
limited to the mere observation of symptoms, he is entirely
mistaken. Such a want of study is as great a want in an
Homoeopathist as it is in an Allopathist.
Always yours.
LETTER     IV.
I told'you in my last, sir, that Homceopathy cares nothing
about theories, and that when a disease is to be treated it
regards only the effect of a remedy. It treats all diseases
with such remedies, as produce in a healthy person similar
symptoms to those which are found in a diseased person.
This is its highest principle. The second principle is not
the theory of the Psora or the minuteness of the doses, as
Dr. Holmes asserts (p. 36), but it is: that all unmixt medicines
have a positive efect. By this positive effect it is meant that
each of them produces a certain kind of symptoms in healthy
persons, and that it is of course a specific medicine against
the similar symptoms in diseased persons. This, sir, is the




12       REMARKS ON DR. HOLMES'S LECTURES


reason why Peruvian bark cures only such fevers as it might
produce; but it is rather amusing when Mr. Double in Paris
and Dr. Holmes in Boston (p. 43) believe that it must in all
cases produce the fever that it has the power to produce
under certain circumstances and in persons susceptible to
it. So cow pox and small pox, scarlatina, measles, and
hooping cough do not affect every one, because there is
no susceptibility in them to the contagious miasma, exanthema, or fever, or it is not there at that time and under the
existing circumstances.
The third principle is not the minuteness of the doses,
but the development of the medical virtue of the drugs.
Hahnemann is of opinion that only the smallest dose of
medicine is proper, because a greater would.be stronger
than the natural cause of the disease and would produce a
similar effect to the allopathic doses; that is, a disease by
poisoning the organism; for it is a fact that medicines,
whether vegetable, animal or mineral, remain in the system
striving to assimilate themselves to its different parts, in opposition to the healthy powers of the system that would neutralize and reject them. This fact, now almost acknowledged
by science, has received during the last ten years a new aid
in the treatment of chronic diseases by cold water.
The later school, however, of Homoeopathy which has
great-merit as to the scientific foundation of the system, lays
less stress on the absolute minuteness of the doses than upon
the principle of the possibility of its effects, because a
medicine, which is chosen properly to the case confirms
by experience always the healing principle in the law:
" similia, similibus curantur." The more successful followers of this school, however, use the high and the highest
solutions or dilutions so long as they find a satisfactory effect.
Only a small number of these disciples use a drop of the
primary tincture of a poison, but their practice is far from
being followed by the majority, because it is leading back to
the materialism in medicihe, which caused so much mischief
since two thousand years, that even the best physicians of
the last century began to be alarmed by their own profession.*
It appears to me, sir, that the three leading principles in
the practice of Homceopathy are very intimately connected
with each other, for all three have, as a common source, the
nature of disease: this nature is a dynamic one, to form a


"* See the Appendix.




ON HOM(EOPATHY.


13


process producing a disordr in the economy of the system.
We know nothing more of it. Its very name is life. To
remove this disorder Homceopathy believes that only a very
small dose of medicine is required to restSre the equilibrium
between the different parts of the system. This is the true
doctrine of Hippocrates concerning the use of poisons for
medicines in aiding nature in her, endeavor to bring on a healing crisis either with or without fever. Experience, facts and
nothing but facts can prove or reject this theory. Nothing
is gained by reasoning. Every poison has its peculiar effect,
called the dynamic efect; the science which relates to these
effects is called Pharmacodynamics.  Upon the peculiar
properties of the drugs is founded all the experience we
may have in healing diseases from the time of Hippocrates
to Hahnemann; with the latter the principle has changed
only as it relates to its application.
I cannot omit remarking that nothing but a very superficial knowledge of the Organon of Hahnemann could have
induced any one to reproach him with the expression " dynamic power." I do not remember that he has used it, and
believe, if I am not mistaken, that, if he used it, he had a
satisfactory reason in the meaning of language. For, sir,
dynamics (Jvvaugs) is a Greek word and I know not if you
like to be told that it means, in its first signification, not a
power but the internal cause producing power.
Dr. Hahnemann, who is a thorough scholar, commonly
uses the expression " dynamic effect" of a medicine, and
"C' the remedy operates in a dynamic way," &c. I leave
you to decide whether or not it is nonsense or a pleonasm to
speak of a "' dynamic power," as though language had not
two words to express two notions that are really separated
in nature and are distinguished by science, especially in
physics.                Yours always.
LETTER V.
DEAR SIR:
No learned physician of the old school of medicine has
ever hesitated to acknowledge the merit due to Hahne2




14       REMARKS ON DR. HOLMES'S LECTURES
mann in having recalled the attention of physicians to the
specific or positive effect of the drugs in use. It is against
history that we in the present time, as Dr. Holmes says,
should know these things better than the physicians who
have gone before this time, and that it is not necessary to
examine their writings. This knowledge has been neglected
for more than a hundred years, and it seems natural to
" ransack old volumes" not merely "promiscuously," *
but accurately, in order to study a useful knowledge which
is almost lost. We do not know the law on which the
specific effects are founded: we judge only by facts, by
effects, by experience. This is another reason why no
one, who claims the reputation of a scientific education,
has a right from a mere theory to reject a principle drawn
from facts; for he shows by this, that, although he may
have learned something by rote of a science, he has never
attempted to enrich his science and his own knowledge by
experiments. It was in this way that Hahnemann traced
back the use of the homoeopathic principle to the most
remote times. He has clearly proved, that from the school
of the Asclepiades, who had Hippocrates for its disciple, to
the present time, the principle, Similia similibus curantur,
was in practice, but that from accident and from a want of
chemical knowledge, it was neither sufficiently understood
nor well managed. A child may perceive that since the
rejection of the homeopathic principle two thousand years
ago, medicine has taken an altogether one-sided and violent
course, entirely against nature, which manifests herself in her
laws as simple as possible, universal not partial. No physician, who had any knowledge of medicine, has ever ridiculed
the studies and learning of Hahnemann, or his knowledge
of the science from the earliest ages till the present time;
on the contrary, this has always been thought by his antagonists his strongest side. It was not this, hut the vexatious boldness with which this new system of Hahnemann
has lifted its head against the principle of the old school of
medicine, which has called itself the rational school, an
epithet I think a little too assuming, when we take into
view what it has been able to do, rather than what it has
pretended to perform, for these two thousand years past.
It was by rejecting the aid of speculative philosophy that
Hahnemann tried to give his doctrines greater stability.


"* Page 47 of Dr. Holmes's pamphlet.




ON HOMIEOPATHY.


15


For this reason he took his `proofs only from the Nosography
and Pharmacodynamics. This base of his system, which
sets the law of experience in comparison with the philosophical reasonings or hypothetical sped lations of the old
school, has excited the most violent opposition among the
followers of the old rational school, because they see that
there is danger that they may fall down from the high
views they entertain at present, to the conviction that all
their reasonings amount to very little. Yes, sir, Homceopathy requires the faith of facts, not the faith of philosophy
or speculations; it does not, as Dr. Holmes assures us it
does, require the faith of the patient, but it requires the
faith of the physician in the science, and it requires some
intelligence, some learning, and a sound judgment, to enable him to compare the complex of a disease with the
symptoms produced by medicine when taken by a person
in sound health. In an experimental science, sir, as medicine certainly is, every practitioner seems to me contemptible who finds less truth or feels less faith in facts than in
philosophy. Only he who has a sort of idiosyncrasy, a
peculiar aversion to a scientific principle, because it is
against his interest that it should be true, and who will
not believe in facts because they are in favor of his imaginary antagonists, only such as he could ridicule the only
source of real truth, can ridicule facts in an experimental
science.
No one is fit to make experiments but he who has a
true and faithful mind. No one has a right to have faith
in the truths of natural philosophy and medicine who has
no truth in himself, and, I think, he has the least claim upon
truth who can ridicule a scientific man because he proves
by facts he has tried to show for the benefit of mankind an
error which has existed for two thousand years.
But in my next I will take notice of some of the facts
on which Homceopathy rests as an expetimental science.
Yours always.




16       REMARKS ON DR. HOLMES'S LECTURES


LETTER VI.
DEAR SIR:
I will to-day touch upon nothing but facts. One of these
facts, ridiculed by the lecturer in page 39, but stated by
old experience, is the cohesion by which the peculiar, imponderable medical principle of the poisons or drugs is
bound more or less to its material substratum. You know,
sir, that this imponderable principle, when brought into intimate contact with the animal economy, produces changes
and that by this efficacy it is called the dynamic medical virtue or faculty.  When, by a proper process, the
quantitive element of gravity, called the parenchyma of a
drug, is removed, in order to gain its true quality, we effect
a free development of the dynamic virtue. Annihilating
the molecules (molecules organiques of Buffon), and their
power to make the solid substances coherent, in the peculiar manner discovered by Hahnemann, by the extension of
the superficies we increase the development of the dynamic quality. For by this means the enfranchisement of the
bound qualities is thus favored, that they are enabled to
surpass the limits of their own substratum. For example,
you see this, sir, in the magnet acting beyond the limits of
its own body. Thus the qualities of the drugs extend to a
new vehicle, for example, to milk-sugar, spirits of wine,
water, &c., and imparting themselves to it, form a new atmosphere. We know that the basic poisons possess the
peculiarity of cohesion in a higher degree than the easily
divisible vegetable and aromatic substances. Whoever has
a charge of gunpowder knows that it is. prepared out of
two basic and one vegetable substance, and that it owes a
great deal of its dynamic virtue not only to the composition
and mixture, but rather to the extreme diminution of the
coherency belonging originally to the separate ingredients.
With regard to vegetables and aromatics, take a little
cologne water in your hand, sir, and rub it, and you will
not doubt whether the strength of the perfume is increased.
Or, take a geranium-leaf, which you must rub before you
obtain its fine aromatic odor. Thus by rubbing, the latent
power of these fine agents gains intensity by being disfranchised from its gross material.




ON HOMCEOPATHY.


17


The difference of the molecules and their cohesive power
in the aromatic and in the not aromatic vegetable substances, is of less importance, it may appear to Dr. Holmes, as
he explains himself, p. 39, showing his classic acquaintance with aromatic and not aromatic odors, as if there were
no poisonous exhalations without smell! The developed
odor of the metallic poisons, such as arsenic, gold, sulphur,
hydrargyrum, lead, zinc, tin, copper, &c., &c., and of a
great many mineral or basic drugs, has the same divisibility as the perfume of vegetables; and its obnoxious faculties, when set free by a proper medium, are manifested
with nearly the same power as the aromatic virtue of flowers. This, sir, may satisfy you that a man who has his
senses, cannot misunderstand, although he may misrepresent, the dynamic virtue of the drugs by which the world is
now suffering, in consequence of the rational materialism,
which has prevailed for two thousand years in the science
of medicine: for one of the medicines that has the most
power in setting free the dynamic virtue of a poison is the
bile.
Now, sir, I venture to say, that when a poison does not
operate simply to heal, it is no true medicine. This, sir,
is my own conclusion, and I propose it for the first time to
the censure of the world. I " ransacked " not like other
German " pedants," "l old volumes promiscuously," for
evidence of its being a new idea or not; but if you should
find the same idea in the " Organon" of Hahnemann, or
elsewhere, I hope you will, according to the recommendation of Dr. Holmes, not mention my authority. I shall
take an opportunity of acquainting you how Dr. Holmes
ransacked old volumes, such as Forestus, Ccelius Aurelianus,
and the Byzantine writers. As to my before-mentioned
detection, I have some recollection that Paracelsus had the
same notion, but.he again is an old author, and it is " pedantic to ransack old volumes" " of authors wholly unknown to [his?] science." (Page 45 of Dr. Holmes.)
I do not indeed know, sir, for what purpose people visit
the great literary institutions of Europe, with their highly
esteemed libraries, where all knowledge is stored. Is their
own wit worth more than all these stores of the intelligence
of centuries? I know, sir, that we may do without a great
deal of the latter, but then we ought to be very modest
upon the subject of knowledge.


Always yours.


2*




18        REMARKS ON DR. HOLMES'S LECTURES


LETTER VII.
DEAR SIR:
The preparation of homceopathic medicines is performed
nearly in the way that Dr. Holmes describes. It requires
the greatest care. There are already very good and complete Pharmacies, or instructions for the preparation of homceopathic drugs for practical use. I am astonished that
Dr. Holmes does not mention even the English literature
on this subject. Was it that it would, perhaps, weaken his
assertion that there are only seven homoeopathic physicians
in England? (p. 66.) Since Hahnemann occupied himself
with Chemistry and Pharmacodynamics, a great change
has been visible in these two branches of natural philosophy. I was a very young man when I was told in lessons
on physics, that since Hahnemann's times the method for
the division and solution of drugs, or for the dividing of
substances physically, chemically and mechanically, has
greatly improved. It was known long before, that the mathematical divisibility of matter could be extended indefinitely; the physical and the mechanical divisibility of some
metals, of gold or platina, for example, was explained by
proper experiments. Thus I saw that a gold-beater divided
one grain of gold into 346,000,000 of visible parts, and that
under a microscope, even the 720,000,000,000 part of a
grain was visible, and I was informed that this experiment
could easily be carried on to the billionth part. I saw how
one grain of copper dissolved in sal ammoniac colored
about 400,000,000 cubic inches of pure rain water, undergoing a solution into 400,000,000 of visible parts! One
grain of carmine gave a visible red,color to 60 pints of
water; a drop, or about the 60,000th part of this solution,
spread over a white paper, made it divisible again into millions, and each of these parts was visible under a good microscope, so that one little grain of carmine was really
divided into billions of parts. ~ What may be the reason,
sir, that T.Ty-1.6u-th part of common kitchen salt shows itself immediately when mixed with a solution of silver, for
changing colors directly appear? A large quantity of assafcetida, notwithstanding its violent smell, loses, when




ON HOM(EOPATHY.


19


placed in the open air for a week, scarcely -th of a grain
in weight, and that is certainly more than the millionth solution. The same experiment made with camphor gives
the same result in a still higher degree. In a large
room, 70 feet long, 40 feet broad and 30 feet high, a
cube whose side is the y+-th part of a line, contains the
two billionth part of a strong smelling liquid like oil of
lavender. But there is no doubt that these parts are still
further divisible; you need only recollect the divisibility
of musk. What are these parts? Are they material?
Are they spiritual? I have never seen a spirit, sir, except alcohol and its like when they were concentrated;
when not--I perceived only a little of their dynamic faculties. You smell the vapor of the rosemarine of Provence
100 miles from the shore. Perhaps this is the spirit of
the rosemarine. But then, sir, infusoria, of which 1000
millions form a quantity like a grain of sand, are not spirits
but organic little beasts, how the German pedant, Dr.
Ehrenberg, has shown.
But we spoke of the divisibility of inorganic substances
and the mechanical development of its dynamic virtues by
diminishing progressively the cohesion of the binding substance. The changes which drugs undergo by this process
are a discovery of Hahnemann. (Reine Arzneimittellehre,
Vol. II. p. 18,) for not only their medical power is changed
to an unaccountable degree, but their chemical and physical
characters also. For substances that are not dissolvable in
water in their rough or natural state, become so, after this
mechanical preparation, which Dr. Holmes ridicules, (p.
30, et seq.) For this reason then, if I am not mistaken,
the statements of Dr. Fleury, " a most intelligent young
physician," (p. 58,) in Paris, are without judgment or
worth; he expected the same effects from the natural poison, as Hahnemann got from his solutions and dilutions.
This is a proof that this excellent young man understands
nothing of homceopathic pharmacy and Pharmacodynamics.
It is true, that the accuracy with which Hahnemann describes the preparation of homceopathic medicines, must be
almost ridiculous to one who knows nothing of Pharmacodynamics, and who trusts to his understanding alone, instead
of making experiments. The history of medicine shows
early the separation of the materialists and the dynamists.
One of the former is the Croatian Dr. Panvini, late professor"
in Griatz, now, as I learn by Dr. Holmes, in Naples. He requires for the representation of the decillionth dilution of a




20        REMARKS ON DR. HOLMES'S LECTURES
drop, that all the drops should be numbered which would
be necessary to represent the materiality of the solution.
Only his ignorance could leave out of the account the principles of Pharmacodynamics. The benefit of decimal fractions is as much lost to his mind as the development of the
dynamic virtues of the drugs. He should be an apprentice
in a confectionary in Naples to see the division of fine spices,
vanilla, for example. Would he ask which part of all the
vanilla in the world is mixed with a chocolate paste, and
comes from there in single cakes and smallest lozenges, because there is rubbed the 100,000,000th part of the -rfth
part of a pound of vanilla in one of these little sweet-cakes?
Would it have the same effect if it were not rubbed with
the whole paste? There are in every man's experience, a
good many instances to prove this fact, and when you want
some, sir, go to your kitchen, and see how your cook improves the power of spices by rubbing them in a mortar,
and developing in them, the longer she rubs, the more
smell and power. Sir, the whole French gastronomy would
cease to be an art, in case the materialism of the Croatians
should gain place. I, for my part, am pleased to see Croatian science used for the diffusion of useful knowledge in this
part of the world.                Yours always.
LETTER VIII.
DEAR SIR:
It is very interesting to follow Dr. Holmes to the workshop of nature, and the explanation of physical principles.
I am sure, sir, you have always believed snow to be cold
and fire to be warm; you know, indeed, that nothing is
quite destitute of warmth; but you never heard "that to a
frozen limb the snow might not be c6dd, but very possibly
warm." This theory, which Dr. Holmes explains, (p. 48)
has much resemblance to weapon-ointment, tar-water, king's
evil, and Perkinism. I will never say, to allopathy, because I am by principle, respectful to a science founded on
principles, whether they be true or not. How do you think,
sir, that Dr. Holmes will prove the possibility of which he




ON nOMCEOPATHY.


21


speaks? By the thermometer?    By the ice-calorimeter
of Lavoisier? No person that ever had a frozen part cured
with snow, will tell you that the snow was warm to the part,
for the frost has the peculiarity of producing a want of sensation. For that reason, a person frozen all over loses the
power of expressing this want of sensation.
There is a great law of life throughout all nature; it is
the propagation of warmth. In all cases, warmth has a
tendency to effect by propagation to colder substances an
equalization of temperature. And there is another lawthe law of reaction. It is a power of organic bodies to
operate against influences or impressions coming to them
from without. This activity of the organic system, is
connected with its susceptibility to such impressions. It
is the same law of susceptibility and reaction which forces
the digestive organs to operate when we have been eating,
or to vomit when we have taken poison. Thus the reac"tion is performed against natural and unnatural irritations.
This power of reaction strives always to maintain the
existence of the organism, and operates as the healing power
of nature in very various ways.
This, sir, is a series of physical principles, by which it
may be explained how the snow is not warm to the frozen
part, even not "possibly!"  But the snow has the peculiarity of being, like water and air, a very good conductor
of warmth; that is, it produces, by concentrated excess of
cold, an unnatural irritation of the susceptibility of the frozen
part, and excites it to react against the cold of the snow,
" by what? by heat!" - yes, sir, but merely by the vital
heat of the organism. Thus, the snow forces the organism
to propagate the heat, first to the frozen part, and finally to
the snow itself, which begins to melt as soon as the vital
heat is led into it. This is.a new evidence that the dynamic
virtue of a substance passes over the limits of its own body.
The vital heat is such a dynamic virtue.
The principle of reaction, sir, is now the standard principle of the new system of curing diseases by cold springwater. There is scarcely a learned physician in the world
who used cold water, ice, or snow, against the excess of
heat in nervous fevers, &c., according to the principle " contraria contrariis curantur." No, sir, it was the principle of
reaction, the true principle of nature! Without this reactingpower of organic nature, a patient treated with ice during the
heat of a fever, would be killed by apoplexy. H-low often




22        REMARKS ON DR. HOLMES'S LECTURES


this law of reaction has been misunderstood for a command
of nature to use contraria contrariis, or cold water for antiphlogistics, and how much confusion this misunderstanding
has brought into the principles of the old school, is known
to every one acquainted with the history of "rational medicine!"
To the law of equalization, and the tendency of warmth
towards it, we refer to inorganic or dead substances. When
you lay your frozen turkey in a tub with cold water, you
will find that the water loses its warmth, and your turkey
gains some, but not so much as the water loses, because it
exhalates a part of its warmth in the air. You find, of
course, that there is quite a contrary way of equalization
than in organic bodies; for in the latter is produced by reaction, a higher degree of warmth than is necessary for
healing the frozen limb, for the snow leads a part of the
vital warmth over to itself. In the case of the turkey a certain part of the frost goes out of it, and of the surrounding
water, and another part settles there and in the turkey, which
remains in an inferior degree of cold; neither the turkey
becomes warmer than the water, nor the water warmer than
the turkey.
The consequences also are different. Your frozen turkey,
or apples, or potatoes, &c., will putrefy in a shorter time
than they would have before; a frozen limb, or body revived by the law of reaction, will live-" till doomsday."
Allow me, sir, to return to the first subject. Snow cures
a frozen limb, not by its heat, but by irritating the vital susceptibility, and calling forth the reaction. Now, it was not
by the snow, it was by the cold of the air, that the limb was
frozen, and the snow, as closely related to the air, like
water and ice, but not air itself, may cure the frozen part
according to the principle like cures like, and not, as Dr.
Holmes pretends, according to the law: same cures same.
The principle, therefore, stands firm in this case. A limb
frozen in cold air will remain sick " till doomsday" by application of cold or warm air, and I take the liberty of remaining also quite doubtful as to the experience of Dr. Holmes
in HEALING, by an imperfect reaction produced by the application of melting snow or snow-water, in a warm room,
even gradually, a frozen limb, or a whole frozen person.
He seems himself astonished at his discovery, when he says,
" snow may even be actually warmer than the part to
which it is applied. But, even if it were at the same tem



ON HOMOEOPATHY.


23


perature when applied, it never did and never could do the
least good to a frozen part, except as a method of applications of what? of heat!"
This is a classic passage in the lectures, sir! We must
look to the Esquimaux, indeed, to see if snow really never
does good to a frozen limb except in a warm room.
Always yours.
LETTER IX.
DEAR SIR,
If you examine the Organon of Hahnemann, you will
find that he makes use of the example of the effect of snow
upon a frozen limb or of fire upon a burn, not as " the first,"
and as " the second illustration of the homceopathic law,"
as Dr. Holmes asserts, p. 48, but only as a remark that the
" vulgar empiricisni" had already found remedies according
to the law: Like cures like. You find this, p. 71 of the'
Organon. On p. 73 is first mentioned the cure of`frozen
limbs by snow or by frozen sourkrout. Why did Dr. Holmes
say (p. 48), that according to Hahnemann " friction with
snow or similar means, cures a limb," and attempt to. prove
afterwards that curing with snow was curing same with
same? Why did he not mention the frozeu nsourkrout, instead of saying means similar to snow? Did that also cure
frozen limbs by the principle: same cures same?
Let us look at another example of his mode of referring
to an author. Hahnemann says, p. 73, " A cook who has
sca ded his hand, exposes it to the fire at a certain distance,
y Hout heeding the increase of pain which it at first occasions, because experience has taught him that by acting thus,
she can in a very short time, perfectly cure the burn, and
remove every feeling of pain."
This is what Dr. Holmes brings forward (p. 48), as the
next illustration of the homceopathic law. Why did he not
read the notes of Hahnemann made upon this hint given by
nature for treating burns according to the homceopathic.
principle? for here, sir, you will find the application of
this " vulgar empiricism " to the true homceopathic treatment of burns, in the words of Hahnemann: " I further




24        REMARKS ON DR. HOLMES'S LECTURES
add, that warm and even very hot alcohol affords still more
prompt and certain relief, because it is far more homcoopathic than alcohol that is cold. This is confirmed by every
experience."
Allow me to look at the next proof of how accurately
and conscientiously Dr. Holmes has studied Homceopathy
and the Organon. He says, p. 49:
" It is granted by the advocates of Homceopathy that
there is a resemblance between the effects of the vaccine
virus on a person in health and the symptoms of small pox.
Therefore, according to the rule, the vaccine virus will cure
the small pox, which, as every body knows, is entirely untrue.
But it prevents small pox, say the Homceopathists. Yes,
and so does small pox prevent itself from ever happening
again, and we know just as much of the principle involved
in one case as in the other, for this is only one series of
facts which we are wholly unable to explain. Small pox,
measles, scarlet fever, hooping cough, protect those who
have them once from future attacks, but nettle rash and
catarrh, and lung fever, each of which is just as homowopathic
to itself as each of the others, have no preservative power.
We are obliged to accept the fact unexplained, and we can
do no more for vaccination than for the rest."
There is, I suppose, no truer word in the whole of the
lectures than this last sentence; but if I understand aright
the preceding sentence and its comparison of small pox,
measles, scarlet fever, and hooping cough, with nettle
rash, catarrh, and lung fever, each of which is called
"just as homoeopathic to itself as each of the others," I
am led to believe that Dr. Holmes did not read what
Hahnemann relates of the former miasmatic diseases,
(p. 100-104, Org.) or that the difference between this
kind of disease and the other series, is not quite clear to the
lecturer. As to the reason why the vaccine virus prevents
small pox, I believe it to be explained most satisfactorily by
the principle: Like cures like. It is true that this does not
explain the contagious miasm in the smallpox, and the lesscontagious one in the cow pox, but what can you do in this
case with the principle, Contraria contrariis curantur, which
gives even no reason why cow pox prevents small pox?
Hahnemann observes in ~ 46, p. 104, that nature cures diseases by other diseases which excite similar symptoms. But
only miasmatic diseases have this power: nettle rash, catarrh, and lung fever do not have it. Only small pox, scarlatina, measles, and hooping cough, serve as long as they




I*


ON HOMCEOPATHY.               25
last, against another miasmatic disease of the same family,
but not nettle rash, catarrh and lung fever. Only small
pox, as the most terrific of all miasmatic contagions is prevented by cow pox, a similar miasm but less intense, and
these four terrific miasms so much dreaded by allopathy
prevent themselves from appearing again in the same person. Catarrh, lung fever, nettle rash, have no such preservative power. And now, sir, you may judge yourself, if
they are "just as homoeopathic to themselves as each of
the others."
As to the efficacy of the vaccine virus to cure small pox,
it is now seven years, sir, since there has been any doubt
that the true variola or small pox is treated with the greatest
success by vaccine virus, when prepared homceopathically,
and administered in a few doses, especially in the beginning
of the disease. A great number of facts have proved it,
even in Paris, and it is entirely true, as every body knoos
who knows anything of Homoeopathy.
I cannot understand why Dr. Holmes did not mention the
homoeopathic treatment of scarlatina, measles,. and hooping
cough. He must have had a reason, sir. In my own experience, belladonna, administered in a homceopathic dose, has
very often prevented scarlatina, and often completd the
greater part of the cure; pulsatilla has the same effect in
measles, and hooping cough is seldom cured at all except
by homceopathic treatment, and by that often in a fortnight.
This is enough, sir, to show how accurately Dr. Holmes
studied Homoeopathy, or even the Organ9n, to be a judge
in the matter.              Yours alVays.
LETTER     X.
I cannot, sir, for a moment suppose that a word in Dr.
Holmes's lectures, was spoken or written against his better
knowledge. I have so much belief in honesty, that I cannot believe anything to the contrary of a man who enjoys
the good opinion of the community. At least I never believe
the principle, contraria contrariis would have such an influence in science, that an allopathic physician would be in3




26        REMARKS ON DR. HOLMES'S LECTURES
dined to take a dishonest course against the honest and
manly way of Dr. Hahnemann and his disciples. With
regard to Dr. Andral the "eminent and very enlightened
allopathist" (see Lectures, p. 56), we need only look at his
character as it is represented by Dr. Achilles Hoffman, in
Paris, in the following anecdote related by him in a pamphlet
entitled " Homceopathie exposee aux gens du monde, defendue et vengee, Paris, 1842;" a pamphlet doubtless unknown to Dr. Holmes, although it may be found in Washington street.
"In February, 1835," says Dr. A. Hoffman, " I was
called to the house of the banquier, baron Didier, where
his private secretary, a young gentleman by the name of
Ferrand, had been suffering from ' typhoide' fever for six
weeks and was reduced to the lowest stage of this disease.
Dr. Andral had treated the case with Dr. Rocquet, and had
declared, on the morning of the same day that I was called,
that ' Mr. Ferrand would not live through the day.' I
met the Abbe Hanicle, at the door of the house, and he
told me that he was going to administer extreme unction
to the patient, that 1 was too late, and that nothing could
be done. I undertook the treatment of the case; and in a
few days the patient was out of danger. Dr. Rocquet had
requested my permission to attend the treatment, and every
day he carefully reported the facts 'to Dr. Andral. The
patient took nothing but homoeopathic globules.
" At this very time, Dr. Andral was preparing his experiments in homoeopathy, for his lecture in the Academy.
Eight days before the first session of this corporation for
this object, Mr. Ferrand called at Dr. Andral's, to thank
him for the care he had taken of him; for although he
had not cured him, it was not for want of the intention.
It was very disagreeable to the merry experimentalist in
homceopathy, to see this gentleman, who had been cured
by it, and instead of examining him in order to confirm
the accuracy of the -daily reports of Dr. Rocquet, he refused to see the poor fellow, on the plea of his numerous
engagements; he could not even afford him a look of curiosity. "A week after this incident, he lectured before the
Academy, (in a style much like that of Dr. Holmes,) ridiculing with far-fetched and borrowed wit, the new art of
healing. He had given a promise to do so; he must relieve
the perplexities of certain fellow academicians."
Everybody in Paris knows how warm the debates were




ON HOM(EOPATHY.


27


upon this subject. The calmest and most honest of the
members remained silent, reserving to themselves the right
to make use of the new system and treatment, in certain
cases in their practice, when they should come to the end
of their own science. At the same time, they felt the
degrading part they played in condemning a young science,
founded on experience, and of which they knew nothing.
Three members, Messrs. Husson, Itard, and Parriset, protested, publicly and with earnestness, against the peculiar
proceedings of the Academy, in the debate upon this subject. There was no one of the members who knew any
thing about homoeopathy, and on this account, the corporation was unable to decide concerning it, but went on their
old principle, not to acknowledge any thing new, or in
other words, to maintain the conservative principle, by
which they might retain their empire over French learning
and science. Whoever wishes to satisfy his mind with regard to the scandalous mode of conduct pursued by these
"Invalides des sciences," during the three sessions of the
Academy, for the purpose of drawing up a report to the
king's minister, and that it was in language unworthy of
any corporation, may read this report in the "G Qzette
Medicale," (sessions of the Academy of Medicine, t  10th,
17th, and 24th March, 1835). I only mention, th t Dr.
Andral has not attempted by a word to put an end to the
reproaches made against him, of having dishonesty and
unfaithfulness in making his homoeopathic experiments,
among which, are his allowing his patients to drink wine,
that he had only a very superficial knowledge of homceopathic principles and medicines, and that it was the interest of the Academy to present a system of medicine very
little known to the " Invalides des sciences," from coming
into practice. The consequence was, that in this same year,
a very-large number of physicians in Paris formed a homneopathic society, that is now in a flourishing state, and
is aided by many friends of homeopathy in the city and
throughout the whole country.
^       Always yours.




28       REMARKS ON DR. HOLMES'S LECTURES
LETTER XI.
DEAR SIR:
I do not perfectly understand the reason why Dr. Holmes
in his lectures, reproaches Dr. Hahnemann with not relying
upon the healing power that there is in nature. You know
that in the old school of medicine there has always been a
quarrel with regard to this question. Hahnemann plainly
says, in the " Organon," page 43; " Restoration to health
is only to be expected from cherishing the due activity of
the vital principle which yet remains in the patient, by
means of remedies fit for that purpose, and not by debilitating the system, secundum artem, almost to the extinction
of life. This is a method, however, not unfrequent in the
old school of medicine in the beginning of a treatment of
chronic diseases; they operate by means which harass the
patient, expend the animal strength, and shorten life."
From this, I am led to think, that Hahnemann does not
hold the extreme notion of Dr. Holmes, that nature alone
has the power to cure a disease; neither that he has the
op.P6Oite opinion of Dr. Holmes, that a disease may be
cured only by poisonous drugs, without regard at all to nature. But how Dr. Holmes can defend the first and the
last opinion too, I cannot understand; for it seems to me,
that according to Dr. Holmes, Allopathy uses such large
doses of medicine, in order to cure an unknown thing
called disease, which is cured at other times by another
unknown thing called nature.
The truth is, that the art of the physician may aid nature
in her endeavors to produce health, but that it can do
nothing without the help of nature. The number of diseases which nature cures by her own effort is very" limited,
and the means she uses for that purpose are exceedingly
hazardous.  (Organon, ~ 50, p. 104.)  They are especially small pox and measles.
I think it very natural, that a patient, treated with the
heroic medicines of the old school, cannot be cured by his
faith, or at least that his faith should cease after being
purged and blistered for years. The faith of the physician
in his art and skill is all that is required in homceopathy.
With this faith he cures the sleeping, the fainting and




ON HOMCEOPATHY.


29


senseless patient, as well as him who is burning in the
paroxysm of a fever, as him who is raving and without
any reason, the infant child, and the brute animal; he
cures these not by faith, no! by medicines, and cares nothing about the faith of his patient, agreeable as this may be
when it is not excessive; for some people seem to think
that homceopathy can cure old fixed diseases with a stroke,
and has the arcanum for perpetual health and life.
It would be clear d priori, that all medical art is a deception if nature alone can cure diseases, especially those
of a chronic nature. It is equally plain, that all medical
art is false that rests entirely on medicine and disregards
nature. Again; all medical skill is a delusion that has
not the power to aid nature in her efforts to accelerate the
healing process. This, sir, you must consider well before
you make your decision. This last principle is the principle on which homoeopathy is founded. With regard to
the two other principles, the old school of medicine have
always quarrelled, and will go on to do so "till doomsday."
But we have been discussing principles; let us look
again at facts, these same facts for which Dr. Holmes ridicules Dr. Hahnemann. I am satisfied, sir, that it is a
better way to argue from facts than from theories*lThe
facts of allopathy have been observed for two thoiisnd
years; and we know that for two thousand years this art
has been considered as a delusion. We know that to this
very day the greatest physicians have found but little satisfaction in its practice.*  Let us look at present at the testimony of only one of acknowledged reputation in Europe,
not merely in the use of the lancet, like Langenbeck and
the other German acquaintances of Dr. Holmes, but for
great knowledge in every branch of medicine and natural
philosophy. Marcus Herz expresses himself in " Hufeland's Journal," (Vol. II., p. 33,) in the following terms:
" When we wish to remove inflammation, we do not
employ either nitre, sal-ammoniac, or vegetable acids,
singly, but we usually mix up several antiphlogistics, or
use them altogether at the same time. If we have to contend against putridity, we are not satisfied with administering in large quantities, one of the known antiseptics, cinchona, mineral acids, arinca, serpentaria, &c., to obtain the
object we have in view; but we prefer mixing several of


* See Appendix.




30       REMARKS ON DR. HOLMES'S LECTURES
them up together, having a greater reliance upon their
combined action; or, not knowing which of them would act
most suitably in the existing case, we accumulate a variety
of incompatible substances, and abandon to chance the care
of producing by means of one or other of them the relief
we designed to afford. Thus it is rare that by the aid
of a single medicine we excite perspiration, purify the
blood, [?] dissolve obstructions, provoke expectoration, or
even effect purgation. To arrive at these results our prescriptions are always complicated; they are scarcely ever
simple and pure; consequently they cannot be regarded as
experiments relative to the efects of the various substances
that enter into their composition. In fact we learnedly establish among the medicines in our recipes a hierarchy,
and we call that one the basis to which we (properly speaking) confide the effect, giving the others the names of adjuvants, corrigents, &c., &c. But it is evident that a mere
arbitrary will has, for the most part, occasioned this classification. The adjuvants contribute, as well as the basis, to
the entire effect, although, in the absence of a scale of
measurement, we cannot determine to what degree they
may have participated. The salutary change which we produce by the aid of such prescription, ought then always to
be considered as the result of its whole-contents taken collectively, and we can never come to any certain conclusion
with regard to the individual efficacy of any one of the
ingredients of which it is composed. In short, we are but
too slightly acquainted with that which is essential to be
known of all medicines, and our knowledge with regard
to the affinities which they enter into when mixed up together, is too limited to enable us to say, with any degree
of certainty, what will be the mode or degree of action of
a substance, even the most apparently insignificant, when
it is introduced into the human body, combined with other
substances."
This, sir, characterizes the facts on which allopathy
rests: it is in this way that they call in the aid of nature.
Are you astonished when you see Dr. Holmes playing the
part of the advocate of nature?
Always yours.




ON IHOMEOPATHY.


31


LETTER XII.
DEAR SIR:
I will not deny that Hahnemann displayed a great deal of
literary knowledge, of which a common physician, unlearned
in the history of medicine, must be ignorant. It seems that
Dr. Holmes reproaches Dr. Hahnemann with " examining the
authors of ancient times upon subjects upon which they
were less enlightened than ourselves, (hear!) and which
they were very liable to misrepresent," " that he (Hahnemann) did not exercise common discretion, and did not
discriminate between the writers deserving of confidence,
and those not entitled to it."  "A large majority of the
names he cites," Dr. Holmes says, " are wholly unknown to
science" (Lect. p. 45). Sir, this is an exceedingly hard
judgment. It is impossible that Dr. Holmes can have
studied the history of medicine when he wrote these words.
It is scarcely credible that a man known as Dr. Hahnemann
is known, as perhaps, the most learned physicianr living,
can be censured in this way by a young American physician. But let us look at some fact that we may discover
if Dr. Holmes is entitled, by his own learning, to pass such a
censure.
It may be ridiculous to a stranger to German learning
that Hahnemann should even look at the Byzantine historians for medical knowledge. (Lect. p. 47.) You will
allow me, sir, to give you an explanation. In the 117th, not
in the 110th-paragraph of the Organon, (p. 40,) Dr. Hahnemann says, "What proves that these agents," (those
which appear to operate only in particular healthy constitutions,) "really make an impression upon all individuals is,
that they cure homoeopathically in all patients the same
morbid symptoms as those which they themselves appear to
excite, only in persons subject to idiosyncrasies."  On this
he makes the following remark.   "Thus the Princess
Maria Porphyrogeneta, restored her brother, the Emperor
Alexius, suffering from syncope, by sprinkling him with rose
water, (ro rOV yobwv ua)aaypa,) in the presence of her
Aunt Eudoxia." I know very well that Hahnemann made
two mistakes in this historical illustration, for it was not her




32        REMARKS ON DR. HOLMES'S LECTURES
brother, it was her father whom Maria Porphyrogeneta restored in the presence of her sister, not her Aunt Eudoxia,
and then he did not mention that Anna Comnena, the third
daughter of Alexius, was also a present witness. But I
pray you, sir, to go with me to Germany, where the Alexias,
or the history of the Emperor Alexius Comnenus I., written
by his daughter Anna Comnena is, by the translation of our
great Friedrich Schiller, in the hands of every lover of
history; and in which it is shown by this same Byzantine
writer that the ladies were often acquainted with medicine.
You will, also, find in Germany that every learned man
contributes his portion of knowledge for the purpose of finding explanations of what has been misunderstood in the old
authors. The place alluded to in the Alexias may be found
lib. XV. (p. 397, in the Venetian edition of 1729). Anna
Comnena tells us, that her father was deadly sick for some
time, that he had fainted a second time, and in such a way
that unless help could be given it seemed as if he would
have died from this attack, and continues: " na dXa...
aCuo drTaWM,'Tvog puyvqov dY Tov i(WI QO(WV OUTaayuTrog,
TaQOa '  cTg qpaTXig 7 de-Xpig Maaqtag. The meaning of
this passage is: "and for the rest.... he was sprinkled with
fresh water out of the drops from roses, by my beloved
sister Maria.".
'This fact is related with the observation that rose water
had before restored Alexius in the same disease, on his first
attack of syncope or faintness. The Latin paraphrase of
the Jesuit Petrus Possinus uses for the expression - lpvyQov
U TOV ro  ov QoYScw o-aCayPaTrog: the false interpretation: " frigidum inspersit vultu eliquatumque e rosis succum in os ut
prius instillavit," that is, " she sprinkled cold water in his
face, and let fall some drops of the juice extracted from
roses into his mouth as she had before done." This was a
long and fatal disease, sir, which terminated a short time
after the attack here mentioned, with the death of the Emperor, and I rather think that the remedies indicated by
Dr. Holmes against, "syncope," which means in the Greek
language, and in the terminology of medicine, something
more than a common fit of a romantic girl, were all known
to the physicians of the Emperor, but useless in this case,
the treatment of which, and the quarrels amongst the learned
allopathic physicians about both, is accurately described in
the Alexias. Whoever is capable of reasoning will see
that the fact alluded to is not well related by Dr. Holmes in




ON HOMCEOPATHY.


33


the following words: " It was by these means, (that is,
homceopathically,) that the Princess Eudoxia with rose
water restored a person who had fainted;" just as if they
were the words of Hahnemann that he used! And you
will also see that the fact is exceedingly well chosen by
Hahnemann, as a proof in favor of his opinion of the use of
rose water in syncope, because it produces syncope by
idiosyncrasy in persons in health. But now look at p. 47 of
the Lectures, where Dr. Holmes pours out his holy wrath
as follows:
"Is it possible that a man who is guilty of such pedantic folly as this; a man who can see the confirmation of his
doctrine in such a recovery as this; a recovery which is happening every day - from a breath of air - a drop or two of
water - untying a bonnet string -loosening a slay-laceand which can hardly help happening whatever is done; is
it possible that a man, of whose pages, not here and there
one, but hundreds upon hundreds are loaded with such trivialities, is the Newton, the Columbus, the Harvey of the nineteenth century!"
Sir, is not this laying himself open to censure and ridicule?                   Yours always.
LETTER XIII.
It is true, sir, we cannot all be Greek scholars, and look
into the " Alexias," but we can all be modest without knowing Greek, and may be satisfied with as much Latin as we
need to understand Celius Aurelianus, or any other Roman
physician. Dr. Holmes assures us, (p. 46) that " Hahnemann, uses the following expressions in the Organon, if he
is not misrepresented in the English translation: ' Asclepiades, on one occasion cured an inflammation of the brain,
by administering a small quantity of wine,' and continues -
' After correcting the erroneous reference of the translator
(at Chap. XVI. of the first Book,) I can find no such case
alluded to in the chapter, (XV.)  But Caelius Aurelianus
mentions two modes of treatment employed by Asclepiades,
into both of which the use of wine entered, as being in the
highest degree irrational and dangerous.' "




34       REMARKS ON DR. HOLMES'S LECTURES


Please to follow me, sir, to Calius Aurelianus.  We
open the first book, of the acute diseases, and look first for
the XVI. chapter. In this chapter the author speaks of
Themison's method of treating phrenetic patients, and says,
near the end of the chapter: " Vinum etiam dandum declinationis ordinavit tempore, sed solis illis, qui simplici cegritudine afficiuntur, etc.," which means, in plain English:
" He (Themison) gave also the prescription to administer
wine in the time of the declination," (that is, from the right
state of the brain,) " and that it was to be administered not
to all, but only to those who were affected by a simple
disease," that is, not to such patients as are disordered in
the brain in consequence of a fever.
Let us now look at the XV. chapter having the inscription, "Item ad Asclepiadem phreniticos curantem." "Again,
according to Asclepiades's method of curing phrenetics."
The chapter begins-: "Phreniticos curans primo libro celerum vel acutarum passionum, expugnat eos qui contraria
posuerunt adhibenda." Healing phrenetics he, (Asclepiades)
in his first book, of acute diseases, opposes those who have
affirmed that contrary remedies (contraria) were to be
used. Afterwards, in the same chapter, he describes the
two kinds of phrensy which he cured: "Ejus (curationis)
duplicem dixit differentiam, unam non meticulosam ac
multis phreniticis adaptandam, aliam vehementem atque
periculosam, quam (pionrXaQouoov appellavit," which means:
" there is a double difference of cure; one regards to not
dangerous (mild) phrenetics, and is, of course, applicable to
a great many, the other regards to vehement and dangerous
ones, whom he called lovers of danger." Then he enumerates all the remedies which Asclepiades applied to phrenetics of the first kind, and which he called " congrua
remedia," that is, " accordant remedies," and continues in
the latter part of the chapter: " Tradens etiam periculosam
sive temerariam quam r     o oorae )o.lo appellavit, ita composuit curationem; in alia inquit habere similia prcadicta
passioni solum, quod vinum pro melle circa vesperam, non
nisi omnino coegerit passio, damus; si minus, primo ingressu
statim, atque plurimum et extentum, hoc est, meracum et
salsum dabimus vinum, quod appellavit zseaxaacrcuvov.
Etenim, inquit, qum primo imbecilla atque tarda de sorbilibus et mulsa dederunt mgro commoda, omnia ex vino celerius
atque coacervatim implentur. Etenim fervor plurimus accedit et pulsus erectio, et roscida sudatio mitigatur, tanquam




ON HOMEOPATHY.


35


ex cautere per totum corpus vino concurrente atque inurente sensum."
You see it is very bad Latin, this of Celius Aurelianus,
and as our lecturer seems not to have understood it, I will
try to give the translation of the place, as follows. " He,
(Asclepiades,) is related, also, to have effected a cure of a
danger-seeking phrenetic, whom  he calls cpLonuQacolov
(a lover of danger,) in the following manner. He says, in
the other of the above mentioned cases, that 'alone is
esteemed similar to the passion that we give wine, "instead
of decoction of honey in the evening, if the latter has not
already wholly suppressed the attack: if,  I would give
immediately in the beginning of the attack,'^% strongest and
sharpest, that is, pure and salted wine, which he calls TEia-.
laaaouevov (mixed with sea-water): for, says he, the advantage which the patient gained at first from weak and
slowly operating potions prepared with honey, is completed
quicker and more at once, by the wine; for there comes on
a strong heat, and a high pulse, and the colliquative sweat
will be softened; just as from a cautery, so the wine runs
through the whole body, and burns into the sense."
As I understand it, sir, this passage says, that according to
Asclepiades, the wine produced an effect similar to the passion of a danger-seeking phrenetic, and that he, for this
reason prescribed strong wine, and that he salted it when
necessary with sea-salt, to increase its violence.
The rest of the chapter is filled by Calius Aurelianus with
a learned refutation of the principle of Asclepiades, " that
phrensy was like drunkenness, and consequently to be cured
with wine," and here he mentions the following experience of
Asclepiades: " Quippe nam Asclepiades ex vino frequenter
phreniticos fieri fateatur atque similes ebriis inveniri,"
which means: " because Asclepiades confesses that he has
often seen men becoming phrenetics from the use of wine,
who behaved themselves like drunkards."
So much for this, sir. I hope you believe now that Hahnemann had a right, a full right to prove his own opinion by
this passage from Calius Aurelianus. Read again then
the gentlemanly declamations of Dr. Holmes about "the
pedantic frivolities, the dishonesty and artful unfairness" of
Dr. Samuel Hahnemann and his followers.
But you shall hear more on this subject in my next.
Always, yours.




36       REMARKS ON DR. HOLMES'S LECTURES


LETTER XIV.
My library, sir, is not rich enough to supply me with
such a book as " Foresti Observationes et Curationes." I
do not, however, want it on this occasion.
Dr. Holmes says, (p. 46) "In speaking of the oil of
aniseed, Hahnemann says, that Forestus observed violent
colic caused by its administration. But as that author tells
the story; a young man took, by the counsel of a surgeon,
an acrid and Virulent medicine, the name of which is not
given, which brought on a most violent fit of the gripes
and colic. After this another surgeon was called, who
gave him oil of aniseed and wine, which increased his
sufferings. (Observ. et Curat. Med. Lib. xxi. Obs. xiii.
Frankfort, 1614.) Now if this was the homaopathic remedy, as Hahnemann pretends, it might be a fair question,
why the young man was not cured by it. But it is a much
graver question, why a man, who has shrewdness and learning enough to go so far after his facts, should think it right
to treat them with such astonishing negligence, or such artful unfairness."
Mark these words, sir; they are Dr. Holmes's own
words, spoken before the public; and then read the following.
The place alluded to, in page 47 of Dr. Hahnemann's
"Organon," is the following: "The remark made by
Murray, (Appar. Medic., 2d edit., vol. I., p. 429, 430,)
that oil of aniseed allays pains of the stomach and flatulent colic caused by purgatives, ought not to surprise us,
knowing that T. P. Albrecht has observed pains in the
stomach, produced by this liquid, and P. Forestus, a violent
colic caused likewise by its administration."
Now you must know, sir, that Hahnemann, from page 43
to 75 of the " Organon," has named a great many medicines, which, according to the testimony of celebrated medical writers, (not one of whom but has held a great name
till now,) produce certain morbid symptoms in the diseased
as well as healthy persons, and the alleged passage from
Forestus's " Observationes," has the same character. There
is not a word said by Hahnemann to prove that an allopathic dose of the oil would produce a cure, but merely




ON HOM(EOPATHY.


37


that it would have produced a favorable symptom, if it had
been a specific remedy against the disease in question. You
will also find, sir, that this example, taken from Forestus, is
placed at the conclusion of Hahnemann's observations upon
the oil of aniseed, because it is not of the same value as
the assertion of Murray, and of less worth even than that
of Albrecht, because it is only an incidental remark of
Forestus, and because, also, the oil was mixed with wine;
yet, coinciding with Murray's and Albrecht's experience,
that oil of aniseed allays and produces pains in the stomach,
the observation of Forestus is important.; Add to this, I
am not quite certain, when I look at the eainples before
given, that Dr. Holmes's statement from t  Latin, is quite
correct.
But you wish to know whether Hahnemann really intended to prove what I have before asserted. Let us look
at the " Organon," page 45, where Hahnemann shows
clearly, by a note at the head of the same chapter, what
he did intend to prove, by these historical allegations, of the
effects of medicines: " In the cases that will be cited here,
the dose of medicine exceeded those which the safe homomopathic doctrine prescribes; they were of course very naturally attended with some degree of danger, which usually
results from all homeopathic agents, when administered in
a large dose. However, it often happens from various
causes, which cannot at all times be discovered, that even
very large doses of homoeopathic medicines effect a cure,
without causing any notable injury; either from the vegetable, substance having lost a part of its strength, or because abundant evacuations ensued, which destroyed the
greater part of the effects of the remedy; or, finally, because the stomach received at the same time other substances, acting as an antidote, lessened the strength of the
dose."
You see clearly, sir, that Hahnemann does not pretend
that allopathic, or what is the same thing, great doses of
medicine, administered according to the great principle of
homceopathy, similia similibus curantur, would cure a disease, but that sometimes, by some unknown cause, they do
produce this effect, because they produced symptoms similar to the disease in other cases.
And now, sir, I think you have some proofs before you
of the accuracy, the fairness, knowledge and study with
4




38       REMARKS ON DR. HOLMES'S LECTURES
which our learned lecturer has treated the "Organon,"
and homceopathy. Admirable, indeed!
Yours always.
LETTER XV.
Let us now, sir, examine another part of Dr. Holmes's
Lectures for the6 diffusion of useful knowledge. There is
perhaps no thinking man in the world who has not daily
observed the fact, that there are a great many chronic
diseases in the world, and that these diseases have often
been the consequences of another disease. I mentioned
in my second letter to you, that the deriving method of
curing disease, appears to have had its origin from the observation of this fact. But now look and see what are the
results of this rational medicine! - instead of curing an
eruption on the skin, they drive it into it. It is very seldom
that a disease, which originated in one organ, and is driven
to another, appears there in the same character. It forms
new morbid symptoms, and shows quite different forms of
disease, which are boldly classified by the old school, as so
many new diseases.   Hahnemann attributes the greater
part of chronic and hereditary diseases, to the itch, or psora,
because it seems that this disease is peculiar to the white
Caucasian race. But he does not say, as Dr. Holmes asserts, that the psora alone, is the cause of seven eighths
of all chronic diseases, but that the allopathic method of
treating it, made it a source of so great a part of the
chronic diseases of our race. (Org. p. 120, ~ 74.) This,
sir, seems to me a great difference. Some of the greatest
German physicians, amongst which are the names of Hildanus (Observ. et Curat. Medico-Chirurg; Francof., 1682.
Contur. IV. Observ., 21): Friedrich Hoffmann (Medic.
Rational. Systemat.; T. IV. 6 v., p. 193, 209, Genev. 1748):
Wagner (Dissert. de Morbis ex Scabiei orientibus, magistratuum attentione non indigna; 1807): Wenzel (the Diseases
originating from driven in Itch; 1832) - von Autenrieth (Essays on Practical Medicine; 1807): Schmidtmann (Observations on Dropsy; Journal of Hufeland and Osann; 1830,




ON HOM(EOPATHY.


39


5.): and Albers (Contributions to Pathology and Diagnostics of the Diseases of the heart; Archiv. of Horn, 1832,
Jan. and Feb.), have held the same opinion before and
since Hahnemann. It is not important whether Dr. Holmes
is acquainted with these names or not. The history of
medicine will keep them in remembrance, while his will,
I think, be forgotten.
Galenus, whose name I perceive is sufficient authority
with allopathists, supposes the itch is produced by saltish
and stagnant humors (acrimonia), and considers it not as a
merely endemic. He describes it of course "as a contagious miasma. Now you know, sir, that ~o.u. such miasmatic diseases, viz., small-poxymeasles, hping- cough,
and scarlatina, attack nearly the whole white race; why
not a fifth? But this is of no consequence to him who
has an opposite opinion. It is perfectly sure, that no one
can prove the contrary, and that a homceopathic treatment
of the itch, never does bring on any of the numberless
internal and external diseases, so common after the allopathic treatment of this disease.
There are a great many homceopathic physicians, who,
though they quite agree with the principle, in the doctrine
of Hahnemann, disagree with him in his theory of the
psora. This shows clearly, that this theory is not a part
of the homceopathic doctrine, as Dr. Holmes asserts, (page
36 of his " Lectures,") but rather a hypothesis, the truth
of which is questionable to one, but satisfactory to another.
Yet I have found, that some homceopathic physicians of
my acquaintance, although not devoted to the psora theory,
yet, in chronic diseases, which were very stubborn, have
met with immediate success when they treated them according to this theory. Thus there are very few honmeopathic physicians, who do not consider the theory of great
importance, perhaps even greater than they confess.
It is an unfortunate thing, that German literature is so
inaccessible to other nations, on account of their ignorance
of the German language. I am quite sure that quackery
would not have so wide a field to play its part in, but for
this ignorance; nor would the French materialism prevail
so much, which originates in a want of rational views of
physiology, and which leads to a preference of anatomy
and surgery in treating chronic and acute diseases, and to
a classification of diseases that is for the benefit of the
materia medica, and favors prescriptions of a great many




40       REMARKS ON DR. HOLMES'S LECTURES
drugs mixed up together. It is an easy thing to use the
lancet to extirpate a scirrhus, or a fungus, or a gland, even
the tonsils, &c., without asking what the consequences
may be: it is far more difficult to treat the whole of the
symptoms together, and by this means remove the causes
of the disease, which can very seldom be cut away with
a lancet. This requires study, it is true, but there is a
great pleasure in seeing proofs, that homceopathic diligence
is so often successful in its efforts to improve and restore
general health.
Always yours.
LETTER XVI.
It has not been my intention, sir, to obtrude on you my
knowledge as " useful" knowledge. I have always been
afraid of ridiculing science before the public. I have never
sympathized with gentlemen, who censure all scientific
tasks and learned men whom they cannot or will not understand. I have only tried to show that Dr. Holmes has not,
and will not "till doomsday," manifest learning enough to
entitle him to censure the Organon of Hahnemann, and I
have only appealed to some of the facts which he mentioned,
showing that he misrepresented them -not from want of
honesty, but from want of learning and study. And so I
have been able to show that there is scarcely one fact
alluded to, that has been rightly represented by Dr. Holmes
in the Lectures by which he has endeavored to annihilate
homoeopathy. Let me open his pages as often as I will I
find new misrepresentations. Look at (p. 54,) for example,
sir, where he speaks of jaundice and its homceopathic treatment. Is it possible that he never saw a jaundice of that
kind which is called in Europe, and even in France icterus
apyretos (vulgaris, chronicus)-and that he mistakes it for
the Icterus acutus, (febrilis, spasticus,) the former lasting
from six to eight weeks to as many months, the latter from
a week to a fortnight? Is he ignorant that the treatment of
the former is always regarded as difficult by allopathy? I




ON HOM(EOPATHY.


41


am sorry that Dr. Holmes thinks himself too learned in
comparison with Dr. Rummel. Read what he says: " I am
sorry to see also that a degree of ignorance as to the natural course of diseases, is often shown in these published
cases, which although it may not be detected by the unprofessional reader, conveys an unpleasant impression to
those who are acquainted with the subject. Thus a young
woman, who was affected with jaundice, is mentioned in the
German Annals of Clinical Homceopathy as having been
cured in twenty-nine days by pulsatilla, and nux vomica.
Rummel, a well-known writer of the same school, speaks of
curing a case of jaundice in thirty four days by homceopathic doses of pulsatilla, aconite, and cinchona. I happened
to have a case in my own household, a few weeks since,
which lasted about ten days, and this was longer than I
have repeatedly seen in hospital practice; so that it was
nothing to boast of."
Again a classic place, sir! And so he goes on further
with other cases.
I do not impeach, by this severe reproach, his character.
Perhaps he himself would now acknowledge that it was not
gentlemanly, in a scientific discussion, to use expressions,
such as " imposition," "artful unfairness," " pedantic
folly," " a mingled mass of perverse ingenuity, of tinsel erudition, of imbecile credulity, and artful misrepresentation,"
"&c. &c. I will not even ask if it be honest and fair to
compare a science like homceopathy with sympathetic
cures, tar-water and Perkinism? I will not ask if misleading the public through want of study and learning may not
be called an imposition. I will not ask whether it can be
called diffusion of useful knowledge, to stand up before an
audience, placing confidence in him, and to respect it so
little as to give a false account of facts. I do not assume
the right to ask why a public lecturer, who, as I am told,
has treated animal magnetism in a similar manner, can excuse himself before the pubfic now, when every day is
giving new evidence that he did not understand the subject
of which he treated. And so I will not ask if any kind of
interest may not have induced him to put in peril even his
own reputation.
I am not provided in my library with ready evidence
enough against the whole of Dr. Holmes's remarks upon the
science, practice, and history of homceopathy, and I do.not
like to rely on my memory in cases like this. Dr. Holmes
4*




42


REMARKS ON DR. HOLMES'S LECTURES


has two honest friends in Paris, whose testimony is evidence
enough against homceopathy. It is of no consequence, indeed, that they are enemies of homceopathy. The testimony
of the bookseller, " the publisher and head-quarters of homceopathy in Paris," to his friend is " that it is going down
in England and Germany as well as in Paris "- " for all the
facts he had stated he pledged himself responsible." (p. 64.)
It is true, that homceopathy, since it has taken an entirely
scientific character, must have been going down in the eyes
of a bookseller. The time of pamphlets is over -the happiest time for a bookseller! Who purchases scientific
works at a high price? They are only for the learned, and
professional men, not for the public. As a science, homceopathy moves slowly, as every experimental science
does. But why do people buy the works of Hahnemann
and his compiler, Jahr, as the bookseller stated that they
do to Dr. Holmes's friend in Paris, if homceopathy is going
down? How is it that a translation of Jahr's Manual of
Homceopathy is published in 1841 in England, when there
are only seven homceopathic physicians? What may be
the reason that Hahnemann's and Jahr's writings are translated into all the civilized languages of Europe, even into
the Spanish, Portuguese and Russian? And all this within
the last seven years? How may it have happened that in
Germany Dr. Hering's Homceopathist, or Domestic Physician, has been printed three times since 1837, and has been
translated into all the living languages of Europe except the
Turkish? How is it that Hahnemann's, Rau's, Kopp's,
Stapf's, Helbig's, Hartmann's, Bceninghausen's, Gross's, and
the works of other good writers in homoeopathy are a good
article in German bookstores? Why are homoeopathic
physicians sought for everywhere in the civilized world?
Why is it, that in the kingdom of Saxony, the great focus
of learning in Germany, the State Assembly now twice
voted a considerable sum of money for the homceopathic
hospital in Leipsig? Why is it that none of the most
learned antagonists of homoeopathy, notwithstanding all
slander, have been able to prove the contrary of this doctrine and its facts? Does it not seem singular that the
friends of Dr. Holmes did not see, that the public in general, when once acquainted with the benefits of homceopathy, its true principles and its efficacy, have never in Germany or France fallen back to allopathy?  How has it
happened that in the greatest cities of Germany, the




ON HOM(EOPATHY.


43


privileged allopathic dispensaries suffer from the new
system. so much as to lose a great deal of their value?
Why have the governments of nearly all the States in Germany, and since 1840 and 1841 even of Prussia and Austria, the most conservative governments, been obliged to
free the homceopathic practice from the privileges of the
drug stores? And why are there now in nearly all universities, private and public teachers of the homceopathic
doctrine?
These questions, sir, and a great many more, Dr. Holmes
may answer by his pledged and responsible friends, but let
them not forget to look again at the most celebrated GermaD|
society for natural philosophy, and find that it, after having
rejected homceopathy "in 1835" (Lect. p. 62,) and 1836,
as not sufficiently established in science, has received it in
1839 as aclass in their yearly sessions. Dr. Holmes has
seen nothing of homeopathy since 1834 and 1835. His
very small knowledge is antiquated too, and he is not able
to judge of the present condition of its science and literature. What Dr. Trinks said (Lect. p. 60,) in 1834 of homoeopathic literature, he will not repeat now, and should he
do so, then, sir, you may turn to the medical literature of
allopathy not only for the last ten years, no, for all centuries. I believe it is the most miserable in the world, if you
take away surgery and anatomy from the internal treatment
of diseases. What is good in it at present is the more and
more perceptible return to simplicity and nature, and this
is one of the beneficial consequences of homecopathy.
But what do we care for Germany, sir? Paris, only
Paris, forms fashionable people.
It is not without some internal joy that I look back to my
native country, perceiving how its tinsel and pedantic knowledge is translated into all languages! Yes, sir, it is the
only freedom of this people -its true protestant spirit in
all branches of science, and in this kind of liberty it stands
higher than any other country in the world.
Yours always.
LETTER XVII.
DEAR SIR:
I will relinquish the ungrateful task of speaking to you




44        REMARKS ON DR. HOLMES'S IECTURES


any more of Dr. Holmes's Lectures; your judgment was
formed before I could acquaint you with my opinion. I
will only try to give you some idea of the treatment with
cold water, mentioned by Dr. Holmes, (p. 70,) and used
elsewhere as a fresh object of ridicule. I will relate how
it is treated by his great authorities, the " Invalides des
Sciences," of the Academy of Medicine in Paris, with the
same intelligence as they treated homoeopathy.
The art of healing with cold spring water, has made,
like homceopathy, great progress in Europe, since the time
of the cholera. It originated in its present form from a
simple peasant in the mountains of that part of Silesia
which belongs to Austria, Mr. Vincen Priezsnitz, in Graefenberg, near Freyenwalde. The history of medicine shows,
that since Hippocrates, not only the principle, Similia similibus curantur, but also the healing power of.cold water
was known; but that, notwithstanding its successful application by the most scientific physicians of all times, none
of them knew the laws for its rational use and application.
A simple peasant, a simple German peasant it was, who
discovered this law, and his name, like that of Hahnemann,
already indicates a new era in the history of medicine;
for no one can deny that it is a new mode of treatment,
founded on rational principles. Homcaopathic physicians
acknowledged it first, as they perceived in it just what they
wanted, a complete overthrow of the allopathic principle;
for this treatment rests fully and radically on the principle
of the reactory power of healthy animal life, against disease; a principle fully acknowledged, and scientifically
established by Hahnemann (Org. ~ 63, p. 112) and his disciples, as I mentioned in my 11th Letter. Cold water excites the reaction of the vital heat in the body, and brings
on an increased activity of the organs when torpid; or
lessens, by proper application, their activity when overexcited, restores the rights of the rest of the system, and
regulates the beneficial influence of the healthy parts to
the sick one. The effect depends entirely on the manner
in which it is applied, on the quantity of cold water which
is used, and on the artificial perspiration brought on, not by
medicine or over-exertion, but by concentrating and retain.
ing the vital heat of the system by blankets wrapped round
the body. You know, sir, that two fifths of our nobler
organs are composed of water. The false neutralizations
and secretions in the system cause a bad state of the fluid




ON HOMCEOPATHY.


45


and especiallyfof the merely watery parts of the organs.
Stopp'a-gs in the resorbing and circulating vessels, called
from their delicacythe capillary system, brings on torpidity of some, and over-activity in other organs. A similar
state 'occurs "in the nervous system, &c. But I will not
explain how it is that the water operates, it is enough to
say, that it takegeffect according to the principle of reaction, and that of dissolving, for it is well known, that of
all fluids, water has the greatest solvent power, and that it
is for this reason that there is such an abundance of it in
the world.
For this and some other scientific reasons, the cold waterX
treatment has been recognised by the homceopathic physi"
cians as a new and betheficial discovery to the sufferers
among mankind.   I heard one of the best of them:say,
"when we treated diseases after the enantiopatic orýPalliative system, we threw a handful'of lots " (prescriptions or
recipes he meant) " into an urn, and took out one after the
other, in order to cure the case, because we knew nothing:
about the specific effect of the medicines in use. Sometimes we drew a fortunate lot, and made a cure, not knowing ourselves how it might happen. Since we treated the
same cases homceopathically, we have had a compass to
guide us in the knowledge of the specific power of the dynamic virtue of the medicines, and the principle, Similia
similibus curantu6v  But the water-system leads us to a
reality, which shows to us that the healing power.of nature
requires aid for a free development, in a degree, that we
are often not able to give by medicines, because the reacting principle could not either be brought to act, or its overactivity could not be checked. By the aid of water -this
difficulty nearly ceases."
Very soon physicians of the old school became converts,
as they were convinced, by the water-treatment, that large
doses of medicine that had been administered to the patient,
had been the origin of many diseases. This confirmed the
theory of Hahnemann, that diseases were caused by medi.
cal poisons. Materialism, represented by T. M. Rausse,
(his true name is Francke, of Wismar, in Mecklenberg,) a
young, witty writer, now tried to show, that the cause and
the nature of diseases, were a matter brought into the system, partly by miasmata, partly by medicines, and that
this matter was thrown out by the use of cold water, after
the manner practised by Priezsnitz. A great many cures,




"46      REMARKS ON DR. HOLMES S LECTURES


however, proved quite the contrary, because no uncommon
neutralization through the skin were required or ensued,
although health was fully restored'in a shorter time than in
the cases of neutralization. But these cases were'comparatively infrequent, because there were so few patients,
that had not been poisoned by allopathic drugs.
This fact, which soon spread over Europe, was examined
and adopted by a great number of physicians and produced
a change favorable to Homeopathy. People who were
possessed of their sound senses did not wish to be treated
with poisons that should remain in their systems " till
doomsday," and it was also clear, that although homoeopathy
could not always eradicate these poisons from the worn out
system, it was the most safe treatment in those cases where
the water treatment appeared impracticable; this is of course
generaly the case, for a water cure at home is seldom to be
recommended, for it requires the whole time of a patient
and a peculiar and devoted attention of the person who has
the dare of him, the purest and coldest living spring water
flowing from primary rocks, the purest mountain air and a
very simple and mild diet, requisites seldom found in a
man's own home. Please, sir, if you would have more instruction upon this subject look at Francis Graeter's Manual
of the cold water cure, New York, 1842. And now for the
academy of medicine in Paris.
Two German physicians, Drs. Engel and Wert~-if-went
during the last year to Paris and made the propositfon to the
ministry to establish there the treatment necessary for the
water cure. The minister, himself a member of the Academy, asked the opinion of the medical part of this body and
it gave it in the following statement on the 18th of August,
1 841; think, sir, 1841! The report of one of the members begins with the quotation, that for sixty years past, the
offerings made to French medicine from Germany, had not
entitled that country to much favor; for these benefits having commenced with Mesmer and terminated with Hahnemann, and contains the following resolutions:
1. That the water treatment was a dangerous therapeutic
method, not founded on facts.
2. That the theory was a fancy.
3. That it contradicted all pathological and physiological
knowledge.
4. That the academy would not acknowledge it in any
way.




.       fN HOMOEOPATHY.                47
-   b.That th  e 6f cold wat  had been introduced into
medic  a46g timetand was subje~ed to knoWi.tules.
Alll   -pe laug-a at4hj stupid and inibecile judgment
Qf th'" Invalides des Scienies," andcthe treatment by water
wva,:ommenea in France ith* the same success as in other
countriis of Europe, enjoying4he applause of nations. Vox
populi vox DeiN 1
SThis is the way the honor and integrity of science are supported by Corporations. It seems as if science required ignorance as light does darkness, to become more conspicu'ous.
Hommeopathy seems to be aided'in the same way. The real
intelligence of any period of time was never in favyr of
conservative principles in regard to a bad state of the health
of the public.            Always yours.








APPEN~DIX.








TESTIMONIES


OF
CELEBRATED ALLOPATHIC PHYSICIANS
AND OTHER LEARNED MEN
UPON THE
ALLOPATHIC SCIENCE                 OF MEDICINE.
ECERHAVE.
If we compare the good which a half dozen true sons of ZEsculapius have accomplished since the origin of their art, with the
evil the innumerable multitude of doctors of this trade have done,
we shall not hesitate to conclude that it would have been far
better, if there never had been physicians in the world.
HELMONT.
Thereupon the physicians mingle one mixture with another,,and give over and over to the sick a slipslop, sticking into it a
thousand kinds of things, that if one does not help another may,
or they can at least excuse themselves with saying they have so
directed the cure of this or that patient as is the customary and
usual way.
"A murderous devil has taken possession of the physician's
chair; Tor only a devil could recommend bleeding to physicians
_as a necessary means.
PETER FRANK.
In the still sick-chamber thousands are slowly sacrificed, and
it amounts to the same thing whether they have been lost to the
state by one or by many diseases.
BERGK.
The history of medicine avouches the truth that millions have
fallen sacrifice by the hands of physicians; and the remedies




52


APPENDIX.


which are given in the present practice, are security that innumerable victims will yet fall.
BERGK.
Every system has required innumerable victims, and the art of
curing has perfected itself through different systems in such a
way down to the present time, as that every patient should be
carefully warned against the doctors who practise this art.
GIRTANNER.
The apparatus medicaminum is nothing elslthan a careful
collection of all the fallacies that physicians have ever fallen into.
SSome just opinions founded on experience are mingled with them,
-but who will waste his time in searching out the little grains
of gold from this vast dung-hill which physicians-have been heaping up for 2000 years?
THE SAME.
As medical science has no firm principles, as nothing in it is
fixed or settled, as there is in it but little certain authentic experience, it follows that every physician has the right to follow his
"own opinion. Where the subject is not knowledge, where all is
opinion, one man's opinion is as good as another's. In the thick
Egyptian darkness of ignorance in which physicians grope, there
is present not the least ray of light to guide them.
THE SAME.
When two physicians meet together at the bed of a patient,
they are situated somewhat similarly to the augurs of ancient
Rome, of whom Cicero says, that two could not look each other
in the face, without laughing at the absurdity of their profession,
and its pretensions.
FORMEY.
What practising physician can deny to be oftentimes in the
case where, without thorough insight into the state of the disease and its peculiarities, he undertakes to provide the patient
with a prescription, and, deceiving himself and the patient, to
allay by it the fever, to diminish heat, to strengthen the nerves,
&c. Would to Heaven that this help we promise, were in our
power! Our art were divine, could we thus at our will set
bounds to fever, rule the functions of life in the right way, or
regulate the play of the nerves; but in truth we deceive ourselves! There will be caused nothing but mischief to the sick
and the physician by this premature and unprincipled application
of medicinal substances.




APPENDIX.


53


REIL.
It is very clear that we do not know the nature of fever, and
that the treatment of it is nothing but bare empiricism.
THE SAME.
The variety of opinions is a proof that the nature of the object is not yet clear; for when the truth is once found,,then certainty takes the place of hypothesis in every clear understanding.
MARCUS HERZ.
We put many remedies together, and reckon on their combined operation, or else perhaps we throw various things together,
through ignorance of what is best suited to the case, and trust as
it were to chance that one of them will produce the required
change.
We can never obtain true evidence of the simple action of a
single substance. In truth, our knowledge of this whereon our
knowledge of all our remedies really rests, as well as the knowledge of their manifold affinities to one another when mixed, is
far too limited that we can pronounce with certainty how great
and various the effects may be of a substance that appears insig- -
nificant in itself, when combined with other substances, and
taken into the human body.
HECKER.
What, according to one theory, is truth, and pretends to be
demonstrated, is denied and contradicted by another; a method
of cure that one pronounces useful, another directly calls pernicious and rejects; nay, instances are not wanting where physicians
have called modes of cure or single remedies murderous, whose
efficacy a few years before they could not praise enough.
JORG.
Must not students believe when they see the real practise, that
the professor tries every thing that may come recommended from
any quarter, and that medicine is yet in the enjoyment of very
few fixed principles?
THE SAME.
Alas, we yet know but little with certainty of the true powers of
medicines, and the alterations they produce in the human body.
That such a weakness must stamp our practice with the greatest impeffection every one can see.
5*




54


APPENDIX.


VON WEDEKIND.
The doctrines on the internal causes of disease, and the effects
of medicines contain very much that is fabulous.
THE SAME.
With our present mixing of doses we reach indeed to gray
h airs, and, God willing, to white ones, but never to experience.
VON WEDEKIND.
The physician is not master of the means which he applies
when he takes them from the apothecary's shop. It has been remarked of slaters, that their work escapes inspection, because
nobody can ascend to examine it. It is the same with the
apothecaries, of whom you must take, upon their faith, what
they choose to give you. And when it is said, that the prescription of the physician remains as an evidence of his method of
cure, we may ask what can you prove against a physician by
his recipe, except in cases of downright poisoning.
THE SAME.
Is not he the best physician, who in the cure of a given case, has
written the fewest prescriptions, and made the fewest visits?
RUSH.
We have not only increased the number of diseases but we
have made them more fatal. Even the principles founded on
just observation are made hurtful by a wrong application of
them. We are obliged to investigate errors, perhaps forty or
fifty years after the time at which they prevailed, to comprehend
their absurdity.
PFEUFER.
We are yet in deep darkness as to the way in which nature
strives in chronic diseases to reach and bring about a cure. We
can easily therefore by too violent attempts with the apparatus
of medicine disturb nature in her salutary efforts, and thus do far
more injury than good.
MOGELLA.
The history of medicine affords us a multitude of sad examples in which want of real experience, base selfishness, criminal
egotism, inconsiderate desire of distinction, have transmitted
errors to posterity which are the more dangerous, the more important the object whom they either robbed of existence or rendered it disagreeable.




APPENDIX.


55


WURZNER.
A true pirate's trade is carried on with medicine, and all the
doing, writing and speculation has nothing for its object but to
get hold of the purse of the patient.
CHOULANT.
The greater in modern times has been the cultivation of the
theoretic branches and of the auxiliary sciences of medicine, so
much the more has its essential part, the knowledge and treatment of internal diseases, to complain of neglect and impoverishment.
Thus it happened, that the treatment of internal diseases has
become a mere appendix to the education of a physician. It
seems to have been thought, that a knowledge of it would come
itself, as a consequence of preceding studies, like a conclusion
after the premises, which required no particular study, nor art in
its application, nor science in its rules.
Therefore the complaint, heard even to weariness, that there is
no certainty in the practice of medicine, that it has no firm foundation in theory, and therefore cannot be built up into a firm edifice. Yes, one might well consider the theory of practical medicine as the true image of the Babylonish confusion of tongues.
THE SAME.
But in diseases, only their remote causes and the sum of their
symptoms is recognizable. We have placed, however, as a foundation the most uncertain point of the whole science, our presumed knowledge of the proximate cause.
THE SAME.
We would spread light abroad in the darkness, but it will not
become clear. We have built on the sand of opinion, and the
building shakes like a reed in the wind. We are wanting in a
useful knowledge of diseases. We know them only as they may
be, and as they shouldbe, not as they really are.
SCHULTZ.
The disorder that the servum pecus of common physicians
(their name is legion) with their incredible impudence produce,
by remedies whose operation they never understand, against diseases, whose form they seldom, whose nature they never know
- this disorder is truly more fearful than anything else. In
truth, far more men are destroyed than saved by the attempts of
the physpians.




56


APPENDIX.


PUCHELT.
Often the treatment even of the best physician sinks into a
mere empirical imitation; more frequently still the art is limited
in its operation; not all the sick can be saved, many die or remain uncured of diseases whose absolute incurableness cannot
be admitted; and in almost every case the attainment of the object is uncertain.
KIESER.
In many cases the old saying is made true, that the medicine
is worse than the disease, and the physician worse than the
sickness.
THE SAME.
A great many diseases are healed only by nature, and in the
greatest part of acute diseases, all that the physician has to do is
to remove and prevent pernicious influences, and set aside the
abnormous over-action of some of the organs. When he does
more, either to satisfy the patient's longing for medicine, his own
dogmatic theories, or his eagerness of gain, mischief ensues. By
this means, frequently, artificial diseases are produced, and in many cases of medical treatment we can truly assert, that chronic diseases that have followed them have been caused by the physician.
In the present state of the practice of medicine, then, both in Germany and the neighboring lands, the sick man should be warned
against the physician as against the most dangerous poison. The
history of medicine, especially, teaches this, for it shows that
every separate and thence one-sided theory of medicine has required a number of victims greater than the most destructive
plagues or the longest war.
MISES (FECHNER.)
That therefore till now nothing has been done in our art must
not make us believe that nothing will ever be done in it. There
are indications, at least, that some time something may come from it.
It can, indeed, be asked, if now the work has been going on
for centuries in the laboratory, and nothing has been done which
can give a notion of the possibility of our art, can it be expected
that ways will ever be found to perfect it? But such an objection
is unfounded. Compare the discoveries which centuries have
made in medicine, with those which have come to light within
only the last fifty years. What an immeasurable difference!
THE SAME.
Every one has observed, after years of experience, that this
Allopathy, licked by a hundred tongues, curried by &hundred




APPENDIX.,57


tongues, and adorned with a hundred various rags and orders,
and embellishments, at bottom is a Fitzliputzly, which, indeed,
because it belongs to the faith of the country, must be honored
by every body who would not be banished or burnt; and what is
more natural than that the sick man should think - if Allopathy
is wisdom outwardly, and foolishness within, may not Homceopathy be perhaps the contrary?
SCHERF.
The apothecaries' shops, to the careless and deceived public,
instead of being magazines of life and health, are magazines of
death and disease.
NOLDE.
Deception and forgery have ever prevailed in the preparation
of medicines. Look into the books of von der Sonde, Schaub,
and into similar works if you would be convinced of the danger
in which a practising physician is daily placed, (how much more
the patient!)
LEONHARD.
How can a patient have confidence in physician, apothecary or
medicine, when all three are at variance with one another and
are good for nothing?
KRANICHFELDT.
Haye there ever been more contradictory, more opposite assertions in:any science than in medicine? and have its many wants
and defects more plainly been brought to view than now? It
will not be long before, to the great injury of the good cause (?
yes, to the shame of all men, when the children in the streets and
the jester at his club will make sport of the physician, and the
venerable science will be degraded to a laughing-stock.
KRUEGER-HANSEN.
It is strange that tne sciene of medicine has existed so many
centuries, and yet has made so little progress, that the great question is whether it has been and is an advantage or a misfortune
to possess it.
THE VOICE OF A PHYSICIAN GROWN GRAY IN HIS ART. (HEIM.)
I know very well that perhaps seven-tenths of sick men have
not died disease, but of unseasonable or of too much medicine.




58


APPENDIX.


GOETHE.
Old Peasant. Doctor, this is really good of you, not to scorn
us to-day, and, great scholar as you are, to mingle in this crowd.
Take then the fairest jug, which we have filled with fresh liquor:
I pledge you in it, and pray aloud that it may do more than
quench your thirst - may the number of drops which it holds be
added to your days!
Faust. I accept the refreshing draught, and wish you all health
and happiness in return. (The people collect round him.)
Old Peasant. Of a surety it is well done of you, to appear on
this glad day. You have been our friend in evil days, too, before
now. Many a one stands here alive whom your father tore from
the hot fever's rage, when he stayed the pestilence. You too, at
that time a young man, went into every sick-house: many a
dead body was borne forth, but you came out safe. You endured
many a sore trial. The Helper above helped the helper.
All. Health to the tried friend--may he long have the power
to help!
Faust. Bend before Him on high, who teaches how to help,
and sends help. (He proceeds with Wagner.)
Wagner. What a feeling, great man, must you experience at
the honors paid you by this multitude. Oh, happy he who can
turn his gifts to so good an account. The father points you out
to his boy; all ask, and press, and hurry, round. The fiddle
stops, the dancer pauses. As you go by, they range themselves
in rows, caps fly into the air, and they all but bend the knee as if
the Host were passing.
Faust. Only a few steps farther, up to that stone yonder!
Here we will rest from our walk. Here many a time have I sat,
thoughtful and solitary, and mortified myself with prayer and
fasting.-Rich in hope, firm in faith, I thought to extort the
stoppage of that pestilence from the Lord of Heaven, with tears,
and sighs, and wringing of hands. The applause of the multitude now sounds like derision in my ears. Oh! couldst thou
read in my inmost soul, how little father and son merited such
an honor! My father was a worthy, sombre man, who, honestly
but in his own way, meditated, with whimsical application, on
nature and her hallowed circles; who, in the company of adepts,
shut himself up in the dark laboratory, and fused contraries together "after numberless recipes. There was a red lion, a bold
lover, married to the lily in the tepid bath, and then both, with
open flame, tortured from one bridal chamber to another. If the
young queen, with varied hues, then appeared in the glass-this
was the physic; the patients died, and no one inquired who
recovered. Thus did we, with our hellish electuaries, rage in
these vales and mountains far worse than the pestilence. I myself have given the poison to thousands; they pined away, and I
must survive to hear the reckless murderers praised!




APPENDIX.


59


Wagner. How can you make yourself uneasy on that account?
Is it not enough for a good man to practice conscientiously and
scrupulously the art that has been entrusted to him?  If, in
youth, you honor your father, you will willingly learn from him:
if, in manhood, you extend the bounds of knowledge, your son
may mount still higher than you.
Faust. Oh, happy he, who can still hope to emerge from this
sea of error! We would use the very thing we know not, and
cannot use what we know.
"THE SAME.
Mephistopheles. The spirit of medicine is easy to be caught;
you study through the great and little world, and let things go on
i   ethe end--as it pleases God. It is vain that you wander
scientifically about; no man will learn more than he can; he
who avails himself of the passing moment - that is the proper
man. You are tolerably well built, nor will you be wanting in
boldness, and if you do but confide in yourself, other souls will
confide in you. In particular, learn how to treat the women:
their eternal ohs! and ahs! so thousandfold, are to be cured
from a single point, and if you only assume a moderately demure air, you will have them all under your thumb. - You must
have a title, to convince them that your art is superior to most
otihrs, and thien you are admitted from the first to all those little
privileges which another spends years in coaxing for. - Learn
how to,feel the pulse adroitly, and boldly clasp them, with hot
wanton looks' around the tapering hip, to see how tightly it is
lacef.
S.ident. There is some sense in that; one sees, at any rate,
the wlierf ani the how.
Mephistopheles. Grey, my.dear friend, is all theory, and green
the golden tree of life.












HOMOEOPATHIC BOOKS AND MEDICINES.
OTIS      L.APP,
No. 12, School Street, (up stairs,) Boston,
Keeps constantly on hand, and for sale, an assortment of Homceo.
pathic Books, and Medicine Chests, Cases, and single Remedies. Among'.
the Books areJAHR's NEW MANUAL OF HOMmEOPATHIC PRACTICE. Edited, with Annotations, by A. G. Hull, M. D., New York. Vol. I. contains the MATERIA
MEDICA, and Vol. II. a Repertory of SYMPTOMATOLOGY, with Clinical
Remarks. Bound, each $3 50, in paper, $3 00.
JAHR'S New Homomopathic Pharmacopcsia and Posology. $2 00.
HAHNEMANN'S ORGANON OF HOMCEOPATHIC MEDICINES. $2 00.
rrOFF's Repertory of Homceopathic Medicines, nosologically arranged.
Translated from the German by Dr. A. H. Okie. With additions and
improvements, by Dr. Humphrey. $2 00.
Jeane's Practice of Medicine. $3 00.
Curie's Practice of Homceopathy.
"    Principles of Homceopathy.
"    Domestic Homcmopathy. $1 00.
Herring's Domestic Physician: $1 00.
Dunsford's Homoeopathic Remedies. $3 00.
"     Practical Advantages, &c. $1 12J.
Hartmann's Practical Observations on some Homceopathic Remedies.
Translated by Dr. Okie. First Series. $1 00. Second series in press.
Broacke's Diseases of the Alimentary Canal and Constipation, treated
Homceopathically. 50 cts.
Croserio on Homoeopathic Medicine, translated from the French. 25 cts.
Eustaphieve's Homeopathy Revealed. 37. cts.
Greene's Practical Advantages of Homoeopathy. 12A cts.
Okie's Homceopathy Explained and Objections Answered. 124 cts.
Herring's Concise View of the Rise and Progress of Homceopathic Medicine. 15 cts.
Count Des Guidi's Letter to the Physicians of France on Homceopathy.
20 cts.
McVickar's Homceopathy, a Principle in Medicine and not an Exclusive
System. 19 cts.
Family Guide to the Administration of Homceopathic Remedies. 25 cts.
Homoeopathy; with particular reference to a Lecture by Dr. O. W.
Holmes-by A. H. Okie, M. D. 12.1 cts.           "
An Answer to the Homoeopathic Delusions.of Dr.*O. W. Holmes-by
Charles Neidhard, M. D. 124 cts.
Also for sale-Tinctures, Triturations, Dilutions, Labels, Diet Papers,
Sugar of Milk, Globules, Vials, Corks, &c.
Cases of Medicine for Physicians' and Domestic use, varying in size
and price from $3 50 to $50 00, among which are Pocket dases in neat
Morocco. Cases of any pattern made to order.
O. C. is agent for Mr. Slane's Vial Blowing Establishment, and can
furnish Vials, Syringes; &c., blown to any pattern, at the manufacturer's
prices, at short notice.








'I-'




'ft


3'-'






V




I,
4"' -' -












3 -k
f11tPP W




1,7


UNIVERSITYOF MiCHIGN
39015    02011     9882






lot


tit


1,




F

loo


V A




-7 -



-I' ',


-             --A




1