-NRLF
R X
85
P3
BIOS
B M 3ET a3M
FOIJE LECTURES
C BERKELEY LIBRAR
10 MYOPATHY:
Delivered in Ann Arbor, M.ichigan,
ES LIBRARY
642-2631
a
7 DAYS
Ou the 28lh to the aist ol December, 18(i8.
By A. B. PALMER, A. M., M. D.,
|jFE3S0R OK PATHOLOGY, PRACTICK OV MKDICINF, AND UYGIKNE IN THK I'NIVKRS'TY
Of MICHIGAN, I<;X-V1C1-MMU':SII>KNT Ol'' THK AMERICAN MKDICAL ASSOCIATION,
UONORAP.Y MKMBEU OF TlIF SEW YORK STATK MEDICAL SOCIETY, &c.
I' L^ 13 1^ 1 y II I'i D BY K, 11; Q u K a r
ANN AUr>OR, MICH. :
GILMORE & FISKE, BOOKSELLERf."!
1860.
\, BERKELEY
20
FOUR LECTURES
HOM(EOFATHY:
PELIVERED IN y*S.NN ArBOR, M.ICHIGAI
Oil the 2Sl!i to the ol.-st ol December, ISGS.
By A. B. PALMER, A. M., M. D.,
I'llOFESSOR Ol' PATHOLOGY, rUACrlCK Ol' Ml^IDIClXi; AND IIYGIKNE IX THK I'NIVKRSITY
01-' MICHIGAN, EX-VICK rKi:SII>K\T OV THK AMKPaCAN MEDIGAL ASSOCIATION,
UONOUAEY MKXICEU OF THE NEW YORK STATE MEDICAL SOUIETY, &c.
i'Ui3J-.iaiii<:r) by kkcjukst .
ANN AUBOIl, MICH, :
GILMORE & FISKE, BOOKSELLERS.'!
ISGO.
«E«KfctE>
LIBRARY
UNlVEHSiTYOf
CAUFOHMA
v
Reeouroea Ubiary
ya r^/
Dl{. CHASE'S STEAM I'RINTING HOUSK,
Nos. 39, 41 & 43 Norlh Main Street.
i<riVE.
CORRESPONDENCE.
Ann Arbor, Jan. 4, 1869.
Dear Sir. — As a committee representing the Students of Medicine,
who from necessity or pleasure remained in the city during the holidays
vacation, we are instructed to return you the sincere thanks of those
gentlemen, for having so kindly responded to their unanimous and
strongly urged request, that you would deliver a series of lectures, on
the "principles and practices of the Homoeopathic School of Medicine;"
in some Hall, to be procured by them, and at such hours during the va-
cation as might suit your convenience.
Having listened with so much pleasure and profit to your lectures,
and desiring them in some more tangible form for future reference, and
believing them capable of a much more extended usefulness, they have
instructed us, to respectfully request you to furnish us for publication,
the manuscript from which those lectures were delivered, with a copy,
as nearly as may be convenient, of such additional extemporaneous re-
marks as were called forth on the occasion of their delivery.
As this request represents not only the wishes of the entire medical
class, but of many citizens, some of whom had the pleasure of hearing
you,— it is hoped it will meet with the same favorable response as the
former cue,
"We have the honor, Sir, to remain your obedient servants,
G. W. SNYDER, )
F. A. SPALDING, \ Committee.
C. B. CODY )
Ann Arbor, Jan 8th, 18G9.
Messrs. G. M. Snyder, F. A. Spalding, and C. B. Cody,—
Gentlemen.— Your kind note of the 4th inst, thanking me for the
lectures delivered at the request of those you represent, and asking a
copy for publication, is received.
The delivery of lectures on some subjects connected with my de-
partment in the University, but not in the regular course of instruction,
during the interval between Christmas and New Years, had become a
custom well established. It had aSbrdcd to the gentlemen remaining in
4 couREsroxnEN'CT:.
the rity, some occupntion wliich tlicy liiivc secnuHl to cnjoj', and given
nie nn opportunity of i)rosenlin,i!; subjects for ^Yl^K•ll there otherwise
would not hiive been time. Tliis season, tlie subject of " Ilomfeopatliy,"
was mentioned ; suggested, doubtless, by an attack made l)y a Ilomoeo-
patliist in a newspaper, accusing me of ignorance of the system, misrep-
resentaticMi of its character, iiersecution of its adherents, fear of
acknowledging their labors, and even of " falsehood " in stating their
doctrines.
After the request for the presentation of this subject was so urgently
made, and the way opened for its accomplishment without involving
others in responsibility they were unwilling to assume, I did not feel at
liberty to refuse, especially as many students absorbed in other studies,
have liad little opportunity for learning what Homoeopathy really is.
That a novel system of medical doctrines and practice which urges itself
upon public institutions for recognition and association, and upon a
State for support, .should be examined ; — should have the views of its
founders and adherents presented to professional and public judgment,
seems too reasonable to require any apology. Tlic same motives which
caused a compliance with your first request, now induce an acquicsence
in tlie second ; and the manuscript is placed at your disposal.
I ought in justice to myself to say, that these lectures were prepared
within a few days of their delivery, and without the expectation of their
]niblioation ; but the task of preparation was the less difficult from the
fact, that they so largely consist of quotations from Standard Iloma-o-
pathic writings, with most of which I was already fomiliar.
As you have expressed a desire for a copy of the lectures as they
were delivered, I shall give them to you as nearly so as possible, making
very few even verbal alterations in the portions delivered from manu-
script, and reproducing, as nearly as I may be able, those portions not
committed to writing. I have added a few pages in an examination of a
recent author, whose work was not accessible when the lectures were
delivered.
The quotations from Ran, Marcy, Ilenriqucs, Ilempel, Hale, «&c., were
from their works that were before mc. Some of those from Hahnemann's
Organon, were from the Second American Edition, w^liilc others were
from his various works as quoted by Sir James Simpson and others of
the highest authority, and for the correctness of every ciuotation I hold
myself responsible. Not only have I used the very words of the
autliors, or their translators, but so for as was consistent, have given the
context, — have alwaj-s endeavored to present fairly the meaning of the
autlior. The pains I have taken in this respect, enable mc to repel in
advance any possible accusations of garbling and unfairness. That I
have presented in their true light the leading doctrines of Hahnomannic
CORRESrONDElSrCT3. 5
Ilomceopathj'-, no lioncst man, acqiiuintfd with tlie su])jef1, will, I (I'd
confident, deny.
Thanking you and llio gentlemen you represent Tor the close atten-
tion given during the delivery of tlie lectures; for your encouragement
in my ellbrts for the maintenance of truth and reason, and the exposi-
tion of error and folly ; and particularly for the kindness and courtesy
so constantly manifested,
I am very sincerely your friend,
A. B. PALMEll.
HOMCEOPATIIY,
LECTURE I.
Gentlemen. — The history of error — of dehision and decep-
tion, if fully written, would be co-extensive with that of the
human race, and would be too voluminous for any of us to
master. Of the writing of the many books containing such
history, there would literally be no end ; for in no department
of human knowledge and affairs will we probably ever arrive
at absolute truth and perfection.
In Natural Science — in Chemistry, Physics, Geology,
Astronomy, Meteorology and like subjects, regarded as capa-
ble of reduction to fixed and positive facts and principles, the
wildest speculations and boldest assumptions have in former
times prevailed; and respecting them the most erroneous
opinions have been entertained, even by those devoting them-
selves to their study ; and in the more human affairs of politi-
cal and social economy — in governments, laws and ethics,
more errors than truths have been held ; and in the Science of
life, physical and mental, errors and fallacies have abounded.
Most of our systems of metaphysics have been but the products of
imaginations, abnormally excited, and often positively morbid.
But in Theology and Medicine, — the two great subjects
nearest our interests, error, delusion and quackery have rev-
eled more than elsewhere. In all the different phases of The-
ology, — Pagan, Mohammedan, and even Christian — in Roman-
ism and Protestantism, in Shakerism and Mormonism, in Semi-
8 FIRST LECTURE.
C'liiislian Spiritualism :uitl Mfiterialisiii, uliiit divcrsitios whul
contradictions, what sui)crstitions, what heresies, what delu-
sion'^, what impositions ! In Medicine, what wild theories,
what baseless assumptions, what artful as well as transparent
deceptions, what shameless knaveries ! ! The history of Med-
ical Delusions alone, would till many volumes, and would
sound ns strange to ns as the accounts of Astrology, Alchemy,
^Mesmerism, Spiritualism, Demonology or Witchcraft.
The healing of wounds by the application of remedies to
the instruments causing them — the applying of the hair of the
dog inflicting the bite — the touch of the King for the cure of
Scrofula— Tar- Water as a universal remedy--Cold-AVater as the
only means of cure — the indiscriminate use of lobelia, red ]»ep-
per, and steam — the cure by Pcrkin's Trr-Ctors — by the modern
laying on of hands, and by the thousand and one specific and
secret nostrums, arc but cxaraj^les of what the few have pre-
tended and the many believed.
But however interesting these histories might be made, I
do not propose to dwell upon tlieni in general, but to give an
account of a System of Medical Doctrines and Practice which
for the last seventy years has challenged the attention of the civ-
ilized world — has been rejected, it is true, by all the great lights
of our profession, but which still appeals to the popular igno-
rance on the subject of Medicine, and to popular credulity
and prejudice for support.
But I will not prejudge its character, endeavoring rather
lo paint its portrait, leaving you to think of it as you must.
The account I propose to give of it will be drawn from
its own acknowledged authors, and chiefly in their own words,
and nothing will be designedly suppressed which is necessary
lo a fair and full representation of its true character.
This system, called Ilomceopathy, originated with Samuel
Hahnemann, who was born at Messein, in Saxony, in 1755.
His father was a painter on porcelain, and had not the means
of educating his son — l)ut he became a Charity Scholar at a
Provincial School, had a faculty for learning languages, be-
came an assistant teacher in the school, and after he left it
turn?d his attention to Medicine.
FIRST LECTUUE. 9
lie v.eceivcd his Me Ileal education cliiefly at Loli)zic,
where he stayeil only two years and a half, and spent most of
his time in translating books and giving lessons in German and
Latin, in order to make his living ; for he went to Leipzic with
only fifteen dollars. Next he spent a few months in Vienna,
and became intiuenced by Jlesmer, and was led astray by JNIes-
merisni and other transcendental follies. Then lie went as
librarian to Transylvania for one and three-fourth years. In
1779 he went to Erlangen, where he received his degree of M.
D. ; then to the little town of Iletistadt, for nine months;
thence to Dessau, for six months, and as he had but little prac-
tice, devoted himself to Chemistry, Botany, etc. His seventh
place of residence was in a little village (Gommer) near Mag-
deburg, for two and a half years. He says no physician had
been in this benighted place before him, and no one wanted
one now. Next he went to Dresden and the village of Ld'k
owitz, nearby. Dr. Dudgeon, Editor of the British Journal of
noraa3opathy, says : " he does not seem to have done much in
the way of medical practice." He now almost abandoned the
attempt to become a physician, and devoted himself for some
years to Chemistry. His tenth and eleventh places of resi-
dence were Leipzic and the neighboring village of Stottenitz.
Again Dudgeon says, "Hahnemann could have had little or
no opportunity for medical practice. In 1792 he had charge
of an Insane Asylum for nine months. Next he moved to
Walschleben, a little village. In 1794 he went to Pyrmont, a
small watering place in Westphalia, and in the same year to
Brunswick. In 1795 he went to Konigslutten and from there
to his seventeenth place of residence, Wolfenbiittel, where he
remained — the very long time for him, of four years. Then
he went to Hamburg, but soon moved to Altona ; and not get-
ting much practice he went to Mollern, and from there to Eu-
leuburg ; then to Machern, and finally to Wittenberg.
In 1803, when he was forty-eight years old, we find him
again in Dessau, which makes his twenty-fourth place of resi-
dence in twenty-eight years. In 1806, with probably less
practical experience, especially in acute diseases, than almost
lU FIKST LECTL'UE.
any other physician fifty-one years okl, lie published his pani-
jihlet on the "]\Ieilicine of Experience." Next he went to Tor-
gau,and conunenceil to publish all his bitter denunciations of an-
cient and modern medicine, in a poj^ular magazine of general
literature and science. lie now, for the first time, began to
get some medical practice. In '1810, whin he was fifty-five
years old he returned to Leipzic, for the third time, and began
to lecture on Homoeopathy. He had been a charity student in
Leipzic, and received free tickets to all the medical lectures
tliirty-four years before. lie was so bitter in his invectives,
tliat his classes grew less and less, and in the course of two or
three years he was obliged to give up lecturing, for want of
hearers.
From Leipzic he went to Coethen, where he resided four-
teen years, scarcely ever crossing the threshold of his house,
so that he saw very few cases of acute disease — in fact most of
his practice was by mail, in shape of letters to chronic patients.
Afterwards he went to Paris where he died.
It is unnecessary to attack Hahnemann's private charac-
ter, altlionghhe once did sell a secret ointment, made of a salt,
found to be Borax, and refused to tell the name of his prophy-
lactic against scarlet fever, until a [purse of three hundred
Louisdor's was made up for him. Says Di\ Peters :
*' It is evident, that he had not practical experience enough
to become the guide of practical men. He was only a half-
educated physician, with little or no practice, till he was over
fifty years of age. He early became a dreamer of dreams,
a fitting, but false guide for enthusiastic, half-educated, drea-
my and impractical medical men."
His Biographer and enthusiastic admirer, Mr. Sampson,
says: "that in the year 1790, while translating the IMat. Med.
of CuUen, being struck with the contradictory accounts respect-
inor the action of Peruvian Bark, it occurred to him to test the
action of this Medicine upon himself'' " The first dose pro-
duced symptoms similar to those of the peculiar kind of Inter-
mittent Fever which the same medicine is known to cure."
Repeating the experiments confirmed the first, and forced upon
FIRST LECTURE. 11
liim the question : — " Can it be possible that this property
wliich I now observe in Peruvian Bark, of producing symp-
toms analogons to those of the disease for which it is a remedy,
is a property peculiar to medicines of all kinds? From that
moment he corauienced,'" it is claimed " a series of experiments
on other substances — Mercury, Belladonna, Digitalis, Coccu-
lus, &c., which in proportion as he extended them," says Mr.
Samjjson, " led him to the conviction that his supposition liad
really embraced a universal therapeutic law."
From this he went on developing his Si/stem. inotlier parts
— writing numerous works, the most important being his "Or-
ganon," in which he expounds his principles — his '• Materia
Medica Pura," — a voluminous work, and his work on "Chronic
Diseases," in four volumes.
In the preface of his " Organon," he says : " The true ait
of healing remained, undiscovered until my time." He and
his followers have ever claimed that the law that " like cures
like " expressed in Hahnemann's formula, similia similibus
ciD'cmtur was an original discovery of this " Sage of Coethen,"
But the fanciful Stahlhei'oro him, wrote : " I am pursuaded ^'
* that diseases are subdued by agents which produce a similar
affection — burns, by the heat of a fire to which the parts are
exposed ; the frost bite, by snow or icy cold water, and inflam-
mations and contusions by spirituous applications," And long
before Stahl, three general methods of cure had received rec-
ognition — the Anti2)athic, the Allopathic and the Ilbmceo-
pathic. Antipiathic from the Greek ai^-r:', opposite, and iza&oq^
suffering — meaning, treatment by producing an effect opposite
the disease. Allopathic — from the Greek a/16q^ another, and
-a&o;;, suffering — producing an efiect different from, but not
opposite to the disease ; and Homoeopathic — from 6iJ.d^, like,
and -aOu^, suffering— producing an effect like the disease; but no
one before Hahnemann ever quite so clearly declared that it
was the universal, "Sole law of Cure" in all diseases.
If this sijnilia similibus be true as an absolute universal
law, Hahnemann was, perhaps a discoverer. If it be true that
IJ FIIJST I.KCTURK.
it is only one oi" tlio l:i\\s of cure, then was lie i)iicc(k'<l by
others who hail asserted quite as much.
Iiiilocd the Celebrated Quack, ParaeolsuP, mIio was Ixjrii
ill 119.3, and died in 1551, actuated by an intense liaticd and
opposition to Galen, wlio announced tlie law '■'■ contrarla co?i-
(rariis curaiiii/r,''^ declared that tliis law never did hold good in
medicine; but that a Aoi disease had never been cured by a
cold remedy ; nor cold diseases by a hot remedy ; *' but it is
well done," says he, " when we oppose like to like." " Know
all men " he exclaims, "that like attacks its like and never its
contrary."
Theophra'<te says a good deal about Specifics ; but thought
they depended on the influence of the stars, and in some pas-
sages rejects the docti'ine of Galen — contraria contrariis cu-
7'antu)', and says, " diseases are cured l)y remedies affecting
the organism similarly to the disease."
Cardanus likewise doubted the maxim of Galen, liut
IJasilius Valentinus is more explicit, and says, tliat " like cures
like, but that contraria do not cure.''
Other writers have explained the opL'rations of specific
remedies on the same ground of similarity.
Stoerkhas gone further in this than any other writer before
him. lie suggests with a certain timidity that stramonium
might cure derangement of the mind, for the reason that it
deranges the reason of healthy persons, interrupts the ideas,
modifies the perceptive and functionary powers ot the senses.
— Bail's Orgcmoyi, p. 31.
But none of these followed up the idea with a system of
corresponding ideas. Still, they all did enough to destroy the
originality of the principle as a conception on the part of
Hahnemann.
We shall find that nearly, if not quite all of Hahnemann's
notions had been suggested before his time. — There is very
little absolutely new under the sun— but yet the developments
of the distinct system of Hahnemannism must be regarded as
belonging to the man who gave it its name. But the princi-
ple of simiUa similibus was not original with him.
FIRST LECTURE. 13
Even in an old nursury rhyme, dating back, for ought I
know, to tlic time when Mr. Phillip's "lost arts" were known,
the principle is more than hinted at. It runs thus:
" There was a man in our town, he thought he was wondrous wise,
He jumped into a bramble bush and scratched out both his eyes ;
And when he found his eyes were out, with all his might and main,
He jumped into anotlier bush and scratched them in again."
But if it shall prove, as I suspect it may, on investigation,
that in no proper sense can this be regarded as an important,
or any law of cure at all — that scratched out eyes cannot be
scratched in again, by a bramble bush acting similarly, then is
Hahnemann not only not a discoverer, but something much
worse than this negative character. Indeed, he is a promulga-
tor of a False Doctrine, if " similla similihus " is not the
" only law of cure; '' for this is what is distinctly and repeat-
edly declared.
On page 56 of his Organon, he says, that to effect a cure
of diseases, we should in " every case " give " a medicine
which can itself produce an affection similar to that sought to
be cured." On page 73, he says : " The truth is only to be
found in this method." " It is not possible " he states " to
perform a cure but by the aid of a remedy which produces
sym2)toms similar to those of the disease itself." On page 55
he says, that " like is cured by like," is " the only Therapeutic
law conformable to nature." On page 100, he repeats : It is
" the only Thcrapentic law conformable to nature." On page
73, he says it is an " Infallible " — page 78, an " unerring law "
— page 153, " T'/ie great sole Therapeutic law '' — "A mode of
cure founded on an eternal infallible law of nature."
The [strict] followers of Hahnemann insist upon this gen-
eral universal law. This is the central, essential feature of
Homoeopathy — In so fiir as any deviate from this principle,
they cease to be Homoeopaths. This must be regarded as set-
tled — this is what Homoeopathy means.
It will be observed, that in accordance with the Homoeo-
pathic plan, medicines are used which produce si/mjytojjis sim-
ilar to the disease.
14 FIRST LECTURE.
In the case of Bark it was not contended — or would not
1)C — that it produced the malarial poison, the cause of Ague ;
and nndiing was said of the Pathology of that disease; hut
simply that it caused symptoms resembling Ague.
So in other cases in all their pretended " provings," or
taking of medicines by well or sick persons to ascertain their
effects — the symptoms they produce, they were sujiposed to
cure. Thus in all the works of Hahnemann and his followers,
remedies are placed in opposition to symptoms, ignoring ev-
ciything else.
The symptoms arc detailed at immense length, which
certain drugs have been said to cause in somebody ; and these
drug symjjtoms serve as the basis for their administration in
disease. They are to be given when such symptoms appear.
Take for instance Jahr's Manuel — a leading work of the TFo-
mocopaths.
We find looking at different parts at random, the follow-
ing directions : " For absence of mind,irresoluteness " — (mere
external manifestations — ) remedy, " Alum." " Absence of
mind with confusion of thought," " Cupr." " Making mistakes
in Amting," " Nutr, Carb." (Carbonate of Soda.) Frequent
Vanishing of Thought," " 01. An." " Fear of Death," " Dig."
" Pain in Big Toe as if Sprained," " Mosch," etc.
The same, substantially, is found in all their works on Ma-
teria Medica.
On this subject of Symptoms, being the basis of all the-
rapeutical appliances, Hahnemann is very explicit.
He lays it doAvn as one of bis " indubitable truths," as he
says, that " the sum of all the Symptoms in each individual
case of disease is the fiole guide to direct us in the choice of a
curative remedy." — Organon, p. 120 — English Editio7i.
In Ague, for instance, the remedy is not chosen in refer-
ence to its effects in removing the poison which is its cause,
nor, indeed, in reference to its more essential internal condi-
tions, but simply in reference to its conditions which are per-
ceptible to the Senses, either df the patient or the physioian.
FIRST LECTURE. lo
Again on pasje 81, (Organon — American Edition — ) he
says : —
" In short, the ensemble of the symptoms is the principle
and sole object that a physician ought to have in view in every
case of disease — the power of his art is to be directed against
that alone, in order to cure and transform it into health."
Again, on page 84, — '• Only that which is necessary for the
physician to know of disease, and which is fully sufficient for
the purpose of cure is rendered evident to his senses." And,
again, page 113, {English Edition,) he repeats — "The to-
tality of the Symptoms must be the principle — the sole thing
the physician has to take note of in every case of disease, and
to remove by means of his art.
This may account for the neglect of Anatomy, Physiology,
Pathology, and other branches of Medical Science, on the
part of some, at least, who claim to be authorities in Homoeo-
pathy. Thus, one of their leading authors. Dr. C. J. Hempel,
in the PhiladelpJiia Journal of JIomceopathy^iov'M^vch, 185G,
in contending for the similarity of the cause of the sounds in
bronchial respiration of pneumonia, and the bellows murmur
of valvular diseases of the heart, says that " atmospheric air
in a free state is expelled from the heart at each contraction,
and it is the passage of this air through the uncovered orifice
of the heart that causes the blowing sound ! "
It is proper to say that attempts have been made to ex-
plain away this explicit language of Hahnemann resjsecting
symptomatic treatment ; but from the methods of ascertain-
ing the powers of medicines, this is a necessity — is alone con-
sistent with the plan. Deviations from this, are deviations
from what is legitimately regarded as true Homoeopathy as a
System
" Similia similihus'''' is the central dogma of Homoeopathy,
but the System of Hahnemann is more than this — it embraces
other parts.
It was not pretended by Hahnemann, neither is it, I sup-
pose, by any of his followers, that medicine can produce the
combination and succession of conditions and phenomena,
in FIRST LECTURE.
constitiitinjij the diflorcnt forms of disease; such as Cholera in
its totality, or Sinall-j)o.v, or Typhoid I'cver, or Pneninonia;
but tUey claim that various medicines are capable of producing
certain syiii])toms, resumbliiiLj those that occur ii\ the course of
such diseases — certain p;iins, and llushings, and tremors, and
the like; and that in the course of the disease these symptoms
are to be looked for and counteracted by the agents homoeo-
pathic to them. The remedy must be used which covers most
of the symptoms present at any one time. If the symptoms
combated disappear, then another observation is to be taken,
and other remedies selected. This is the only way conditions
can be met homccopathically. The disease in its cntii'ety can-
not be met homoeopathically, because no remedy will produce
a condition, even in the estimation of however imaginative
Ilomoiopathists, resembling the entire disease, but only certain
symptoms ; therefore Symptomatic treatment is a necessity to
the system. Remedies cannot on this plan be directed to cau-
ses. It is impossible — they can only be directed to effects — to
the Symjjtoms. This Hahnemann saw and insisted upon.
This is a principle of his System — of the System whose cen-
tral dogma is " slmllla slmlUbus.'''' Now, according to the
principles you have been taught, a fever caused by suppression
of the secretion of the skin, is properly treated by endeavor-
ing to restore that secretion, thus attempting to remove the
cause — to eliminate by the skin morbid materials in the blood
causing the fever.
A pain in the intestines caused by the presence there of
vitiated bile, causing bilious colic, you will be taught, will be
best cured by removing that bile, and its recurrence, by correc-
ting the chai'acter of that secretion.
The Homoeopath in accordance with his System would re-
gard the symptom of pain, directing his remedy to it, and us-
ing a remedy which would tend to cause a similar pain. The
remedy is directed to the sjanptom — the pain.
Some modern Homoeopaths might say the remedy should
be directed to the wrong secretion of the liver ; but this is not
" perceptible to the senses," and is in violation of Ilahne-
FIRST i-ecturp:. 1 7
■niun's rule. Jjul all Homoeopaths, ancioul and nioiloni, must
avy that the remedy, if directed to the liver, must be one which
would cause the secretion of vitiated bile, if i^iven in proper
doses. This could not be avoided. True or false, riglit or
wrong, this certainly is Homoeopathy, But this is not all of
the System. There are other necessary parts.
In giving medicine on the principle that "like cures like"
— in giving Opium for stupor, — continued cathartics for diar-
rhoea, stimulants for fever, iri-itants for an inflamed stomach,
cantharides for strangury, etc., in ordinary doses, it was found
that the symptoms, the sole objects of treatment, were made
worse instead of better, and this difficulty was met by the di-
minution of the dose.
"The suitableness of a medicine," says Hahnemann, in
his Org anon^ page 231, [English JEdltioii), "for any given
case of disease, does not depend on its accurate Homoeopathic
selection alone, but likewise on the proper size, or rather small-
ness of the dose. If we give too strong a dose of a medicine
which may have been even quite honioeopathically chosen for
the morbid state before us, it must, notwithstanding the inher-
ent beneficial character of its nature, prove injurious by its
mere magnitude, and by the unnecessary excessive impression
it makes upon the vital force which it convulses." For " a med-
icine " says he, in his " medicine of experience,^'' " of a positive
and curative kind, will, without fault in itself pi'oduce just the
contrary (effect) of that wiiich it ought to do, if given in ex-
cessive quantity, by producing a greater disease than thai
present."
In the Organon he observes — " a medicine even though it
may be homoeopathically suited to the case of disease, does
harm in every dose that is too large, the more harm the larger
the dose ; and by the magnitude of the dose it does more
harm the greater its homceopathicity."— ^9. 321.
Dr. Black, a standard writer of the School, says : " With
large doses patients may be treated homoeopathically ; but
then we may frequently expect a ptositive increase of the dis-
ease, or even death. The experience of such painful and dan-
18 FIRST LECTURE.
gerous aggravations, in no case necessary to cmx', led Ilalmc-
maim to employ minute closes."
In the nature of the case, no less than from tlie statements
of ho!ncDopathic anthors, it is seen that small doses are a nec-
essary part of the homoeopathic system ; and whenever t'lie
*arger doses of medicine arc given, they are not selected in
accordance with the " Sole Universal Law of Cure."
In his later years, Hahnemann's " experience" led him, as
he states, to the conviction, that the " minutest doses," to use
his own words, " are ahcays able to overcome the disease."
lie denounces with gi-eat contempt tho^c who affect to
disbelieve the perfect and certain powers of drugs in their
tliirtictli dilution.
In his Organon, (page 2S'J, l<^nglisli Edition,) lie says :
('The very smallest, I repeat ; for it holds good, and will con-
tinue to hold good, as a hora(EOi)athic therapeutie maxim, not
to be refuted by any experience in the icorld, that the best dose
of the properly selected remedy is always the xeiiy sjiallest
one, in one of the high dynarainzations. (X or 30th dilution,) as
well for chronic as acute diseases, — a truth that is the inesti-
mable property of pure homoeopathy, and which, as long as
Allopathy, (and the new mongrel system, made up of mixtures
of allopjathic and homoeopathic processes is not much better,)
continues to gnaw like a cancer at the life of sick human be-
ings, and to ruin them by large and even larger doses of drugs,
will keep pure homoeopathy separated from these spurious
arts as by an impassible gulf."
This statement, that no amount of experience can disprove
the efficiency of small doses, reminds one of the speculations
of a philosopher stated to a friend, who told him that the facts
were not in accordance with his theory. " Ah then," said the
philosopher, " so much the worse for the f;icts."
But the small doses are an absolute necessity to the sys-
tem; and, of course, all the experience in the world cannot re-
fute their efficiency I The separation by " an imi)assible gulf"
we arc ready to accept.
As to what is meant by these " smaller doses," we shall
FIRST LECTURE. 19
now see. The popular notion of Homoeopathy is, that it con-
sists essentially in giving sinallei' doses of medicine, than what
is called Allopathy, gives. People speak of '• little pill?;," and
" big pills," as mere questions of dose — or of bulk of medi-
cine, without any adequate conception of the infinity of tlie
difference.
They sometimes say the pills are small, but they are the
more active principles in a more concentrated or active form.
I ask your patience while I endeavor to give an idea ofhomo?-
opathic doses, and show what •' little pills " means.
The mode of preparation of homceopathic medicines as
directed by the standard works on the subject, will alone give
proper conceptions of the minuteness of its doses. In Hahne-
mann's Organon, second American Edition, page 200, is the
following passage :
" If two drops of a mixture of equal parts of Alcohol
and recent juice of any medicinal plant be diluted with ninety-
eight drops of Alcohol in a vial capable of containing 130
drops, (for the convenience of shaking,) and the whole twice
shaken together, the medicine becomes exalted in energy to
the first development of power, or, as it may be denominated
the first j)Otence. The process is to be continued through
twenty-nine additional viala, each of equal capacity with the
first, and each containing ninety-nine drops of Alcohol, so that
every successive vial after the first, being furnished with one
drop from the vial or dilution immediately preceding (which
has just been twice shaken,) is, in its turn, to be shaken twice,
remembering to i^umber the dilution of each vial upon the
cork as the operation proceeds. These manipulations ai'c to be
conducted thus through all the vials, from the first up to the
thirtieth, or decillionth development of power, Avhicli is the
one in most general use."
With regard to solids, he adds on the same page, " these
were, in the first place, exalted in energy by attenuation in the
form of powder by means of trituration in a mortar, (in sugar,)
to the third, or millionth degree. Of this one grain was then
dissolved and brought through twenty-seven vials by a pro-
20 FIRST LECTURE.
CL'ss siinihii- to tliixl cinployctl in the case of vegetable juices
u|) to the tliirtietli developnient of power."
On page 207 of the same work, the same founder of the
system says : " The best mode of administration is to make
use of small globules of sugar the size of mustard seed ; one
of these globules having imbibed the medicine, and being in-
troduced into a vehicle, forms a dose containing about a three-
hundredth part of a drop of the dilution, for three hundred of
such globules will imbibe one drop of Alcohol, by placing one
of tliese on the tongue, and not drinking anything after it,"
* * * * and then he adds : " But if the patient is very
sensitive, and it is necessary to employ the smallest dose pos-
sible, and attain at the same time the most speedy results, it
will be sufficient to let him smell once."
Dr. Ilempel, vol. 1, page 92, says ; " In order to obtain
good homoeopathic preparations, follow Hahnemann's rules as
closely as may be possible and convenient," even in the
mode of trituration, etc.
Dr. Rau in his HoracEopathic Organon, American transla-
tion, page 120, says: " One grain of the solid and one drop of
the liquid substances, is mixed with ninety-nine grains of su-
gar of milk, and triturated for one hour in a porcelain mortar
with a porcelain pestle. * * After an hour's trituration we
obtain the first trituration. The second trituration is prepared
by triturating one grain of the first trituration with an addi-
tional ninety-nine grains of sugar of milk. The third by tritu-
rating one grain of the second in a similar manner. Of this
third we mix one grain with one hundred drops of Alcohol or
water, and by shaking the mixture a number of times, obtain
the fourth dilution. Every successive dilution is obtained by
mixing in a similar manner, one drop of the preceding dilution
Avith ninety-nine drops of Alcohol."
In the first dilution of one grain of the medicine with
ninety-nine of sugar or alcohol, one grain of the mixture con-
tains iJo of a grain of the crude medicine. One grain or drop
of this first, added to the next vial, thus forming the second
dilution, — a grain or drop of this Avill contain jJo part of ilo,
FIRST LECTURE. 21
\vhicli is lo.Joo P-'ii't of a grain. The third clihition contains m
part of the second, and one grain of that contains 1,000,000 V^^'^
of a grain of the niedicine.'^The fourth contains iJo parts of
the third, Avhich woukl be 100,000,000. The fifth, 10,000,000,000, and so on
up to the thirtieth, diminishing in this rapid geometrical pro-
gression—the denominator of the traction representing each
succeeding dihition being multiplied by 100 ; — each one all the
way through being 100 times less than the one just preceeding
— so that at the thirtieth dilution, a unit with sixty ciphers for
a denominator, and a unit for the numerator, expresses the
quantity of medicine, or the part of a grain which at that di,
lution is contained in a drop. This is the fraction :
1.000,UOO,000,UOO,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.000,000,000,000,000,000,000,(X)0.
A drop of alcohol containing this part of a grain is to
moisten three hundred sugar globules. The alcohol evaporates,
leaving that fraction of a grain in the globules, 'and one of
these globules is the dose.
The quantity of liquid required to dilute the whole of a
single grain to the thirtieth degree may be arrived at mathe-
matically by taking another view from the same data presented
in the language of Hahnemann and Rau.
"When using the medicine at the thirtieth dilution all the
intermediate vials are discarded. If all, however, were used
and brought to this dilution — if none were discarded, and the
whole ultimately elaborated — a thing impossible except in the-
ory, it Avould be as follows :
For the first dilution 100 drops of alcohol would be used.
For the second, 100 times as many which would be 10,000
drops, or, as ascertained, about one pint. For the third, 100
pints. The fourth, 10,000,000. And now it mounts up rap-
idly at each dilution. For the ninth dilution it would require
(10,000,000^000) ten billions of gallons, which is found by com-
putation to be equal to the water in a lake tAvelve miles in cir-
curaferance. For three dilutions more, the twelfth, it requires
a million of such lakes — which, according to computation,
would be equal to five^^hundred lakes as large as Lake Supe-
t UN IV
L'L' FIRST LKCTCBE.
rior. The fifteenth dihuion would require a body of fluid six-
(y-ono times greater than the Earth — and the thirtieth would
actually take a quantity of fluid exceeding the volume of a
<|uadrillion of suns.
Various calculations have been made by diflercnt writers
with a view of giving as definite notions as possible of these
infinitesimal doses.
The dilutions are divided by Dr. Hempel into four clas-
ses, viz :
1 St. Lower — up to the Gth attenuation.
2d. Middle— from the 6th to the 30th.
3d. Higher— from the 30th to the 200th.
4th. Highest— above the 200th.
These go up to the 40,000th.
Dr. Simpson, (Sir James) of Edinburgh, has shown by
his calculations, confirmed by the mathematical professors of
the University of Edinburgh, that at the fifteenth dilution, a
mass of sugar would be required out of which 61 bodies
could be made, each as large as our earth. The 16th would
require 100 times as many— i. e.—Gl x 100=6,100. Multiplying
each time by 100 — from the loth to the 30th — fifteen times —
would make thirty ciphers joined to the 61. Making a bulk
61,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times as large as
the earth.
I give you from Sir James Simpson, the following
^'^ Table shoioing the quantity of alcohol or fluid required to dis-
solve one single graiyi or drop of homoeopathic drug (as
sulphtir, aconite, etc.) doxon into tJie folloioing homoeo-
pathic attenuations or dilutions.
Number of Attenuation Relative quantity of tbe Drug, and of the quantity of
DlluttoD, or Potency, Alcohol in which it is diasolred in each Atlennation.
1st Attenuation. — Oue grain, or drop, in one and a-half tea-spoonfuls of
alcohol.
2d Attenuation. — One grain, in twenty-one fluid ounces of alcoliol.
3d Attenuation. — One grain, in two thousand and eighty ounces ; or in
one hundred and four pints of alcohol.
Gtli Attenuation. — One grain, in thirteen million gallons; or in two
hundred and six thousand hogsheads ; or
in fifty-one thousand tons of alcohol.
FIRST LECTURE. 23
9lli Attomuvtiun. — Ouo grain, in a lake of alcohol with a volume of
about fourteen cubic miles ; or in a lake of
fifty fathoms in depth, and presenting two
hundred and fifty miles of square surface.
\2{h Altenuution. — One grain, in a sea containing about fourteen mil-
lion cubic miles of alcohol ; or in a quan-
tity of fluid equal to a sea six times the
size of the Mediterranean Sea.
15th Attenuuliou. — (-)ne grain, in an ocean of fourteen billion cubic
miles of alcohol ; or in an ocean about
forty-six tliousand tiuK's greater than the
whole waters contained in all the oceans
of the earth.
24th Attenuation. — One grain, in an ocean of fourteen quiutillion cubic
miles of alcohol ; or in a quantity suffic-
ient to make one hundred and forty mas-
ses, each filling a sphere extending from
limit to limit of the orbit of the planet
Neptune.
30th Attenuation.— One grain, in an ocean of fourteen scptilHon cubic
miles of alcohol ; or in a quantity suffi-
cient to make one hundred and forty bil-
lion spherical masses extending from limit
to limit of Neptune's orbit ; or in a quan-
tity equal to many hundred spheres each
with a semi-diameter or radius extending
from the earth to the nearest fixed star.
This thirtieth, or last, of these attenuations or dilutions is, according
to Hahnemann, the most appropriate dose of every drug in every dis-
ease. For we have already found him strongly and solemnly declai'ing
(see page 62,) that " it holds good, and will continue to hold good as a
homcEopathic therapeutic maxim, not to be refused by any experience in
the world, that the best dose of the properly selected remedy is al-
ways the very smallest one in one of the high dynamizations, X (or the
30th dilution,) as well for chronic as for acute diseases." Now, this 30th
dilution, which Hahnemann thus asserts as indubitably " th^, best dose " of
all drugs for chronic or acute diseases, consists of a duecillionth of a grain
of the drugs used ; or, in other words, it consists of a minute rjlobide of
sugar, moistened by being simphj dipped in a drop out of an ocean of fluid
one hundred and forty billions (140,000,000,000,000) times as larye as our
whole planetary system, and icMch enormous ocean has been 'medicated for
the purposes of Iwrnceopathy, by having dissolved and mixed through it one
single grain of the appropriate drug."
Dr. Simpson adds :
" Surely common sense and common sanity both dictate to the hu-
man mind that it is utterly impossible that any such dose, from any
such an inconceivable ocean, medicated by a single grain of any drug
dissolved and mixed in it, can have any possible medicinal effect upoii
the human body, either in a state of health or in a state of disease ; and,
— looking at these and the numerous and diversified fticts ; confirma'
TORY IN ALL RESPECTS OP THE SAME VIEW, which have been already
stated in the preceding pages, — we cannot but conclude with a writer
whom the homoeopathists themselves regard as the mildest and fairest
among their opponents, namely, Dr. Forbes, that in rejecting homoeo-
pathy, " we are discarding what is at once false and bad — useless
TO the sufferer — AND DEGRADIKG TO THE PHYSICIAN."
24 FIRST LECTURE.
Possiljly wc cannot deny the credit (?) of originality to
JIaliiicmnnn, for insisting upon the efticacy of infinitcsisnial
doses ; and yet Cervantes in his inimitable sarcasm on Knight-
errantry — in the third chai)ter of Don Quixote, says :
" In the plains and deserts where Knight-crrants fought
and were wounded, no aid was near, unless they had some
sage cnclianter for their friend, who could give them immedi-
ate assistance by conveying in a cloud through the air, some
damped or dwarf, icith a vial of ^catcr, Y)0sscssc(l of such effi-
cacy, that upon tasting a eingle drop of it, they should instantly
become as sound as if tliey had received no injury,"
Many of the statements of Ilahncman and his followers
are very much after this style — are indeed quite as marvelous.
In the case of the " Sage enchanters," unearthly powers were
supposed to exist ; and when we go beyoud our material and
mortal sphere, nothing then, is impossible.
But seriously this seems to deprive Hahnemann's idea of
the efficacy of imponderable doses, of originality; for the drop
was spoken of as water, doubtless treated in some peculiar
way, producing a surprisingly rapid curative effect.
The method of trituration with sugar of milk has been at-
tributed to the originality of Hahnemann. But the celebrated
Baron Stoerk, when Hahnemann was only sixteen years old,
published a Avork on Pulsatilla, (an article of medicine, by
the way, claimed by the Homoeopaths as belonging to them,)
in which he gives an account of rubbing it up in a marble mor-
tar with sugar of milk, as Hahnemann after advised it treated,
and the Baron thoroughly experimented with it also, by admin-
istering it both to the healthy and the side.
These, then, are the " little pills." This is what is meant
by " infinitesimal doses." These are the methods and the ex-
tent of the dilutions.
I have found it a diflicult matter to induce persons who
have given no special attention to this subject, to believe that
really such notions were entertained and taught by Hahne-
mann, and are professed to be believed in by his followers.
Should you present these statements to the average man, with-
FIRST LECTLiKE. 25
out the most authentic confirmation, he will regard you as jest-
ing or even falsifying, and ho can hardly be blamed for doing
80, for it seems impossible that sane men should seriously en-
tertain S'lch notions. It requires the actual studying of the
homoeopathic authors themstilves to convince some persons that
this is the actual leaching. Some, perhaps, will go from this
lecture saying that Homteopathy has been abused and misrep-
resented, though I have given word for word, from standard
homoeopathic authors, book and page, authority for every rep-
resentation made.
In the next lecture, I shall proceed with other doctrines of
this system, quoting, as in this, from their authors, and i-efer-
ring to the places where the words may be found.
HOMCEOPATHY,
LECTURE II.
Gentlemen, — At our meeting yesterday, after giving a
brief sketch cf the founder of the system of Homoeopathy, I
presented to you in the language of that founder, the doctrines
of ^'- similla slmilibus curantur,'''' of prescribing for symptoms
alone, and of infinitesimal doses.
If any of you took the trouble to carry the data given for
the calculations of these doses to your homes and applied your
arithmetic to them, you have substantially verified the results
as stated, and you have advauced towards a conception of
Hahnemann's dilutions.
Now, to avoid the utter, repelling absurdity of regarding
such quantities of common matter as efficient in prodncing
medicinal effects, Hahnemann was driven to another position,
viz : That by the mode of the preparation of the medicine —
by the triturations and shakings, an added, dynamical or spir-
itual power was communicated to these crude material sub-
stances. They Avere declared to be "potentized," — and the
more they were divided and rubbed or shaken, the more of
this power was said to be communicated.
In Hahnemann's own words, " a great liitherto unknown,
undreamt of change occurred in them."
So much of this new power did he regard as being com-
2S SECOND LECTURE.
iiuuiic .le.l by these manipulations, iliat lie was particular in
(liri'Cting tliat but two shakes should be given to each dilution
or potentization, by bringing the arm down in a particular
manner, lest the power developed should be too great; and he
cautioned his disciples from carrying the medicines about their
persons in a liquid form, lest their " potency " should become
unmanageable.
It was mentioned in the account of Hahnemann, that he
met with Mcsmer and became imbued with his notions. This
enthusiast, (Mesjiier,) observing the power through sympathy,
which one person may exert over another, and the peculiar
conditions into which some persons are thrown by certain
mental and physical excitements, induced by frictions and pas-
ses, etc., went to an absurd extent, aud supposed lie was able
to communicate peculiar powers or qualities to inanimate bod-
ies. To show the extent to which his notions led him, Mcsmer
was once asked what baths were most healthy; he answered :
" Formerly it made no ditference whether a bath was taken in
a room or in tlie open air ; but ever since I have magnetized
the sun it is better to bathe in water that the sun is shining
upon ! " — liau's Oi'ga)ion,page 23.
A distinguished i^hysician at Heidelberg, was so strongly
in the belief of this power, that he went through the form of
magnetizhifi the University building, to inspire the students
with a higher enthusiasm for Science. Here may be seen the
origin of splriUializing notions. If Mesmer could potentize
the sun, why could not Hahnemann add a new power to medi-
cines ?
Whether Hahnemann was a real believer in this peculiar
power communicated to medicines by shirking is not easy to be
determined. It is charitable to presume that he was. lu one
of his works, entitled his " Lesser Writings," page 822, he
says: '"this result" (of potentization) so incomjjrehensible to
the man of figures, goes so far that we must set bounds to the
succussion process, in order that the degree of attenuation be
not overbalanced by the increased potency of the medicine,
and in that way the highest attenuations become too active. If
SECOND LECTURE. 29
we wish, for example, to attenuate a drop of the juice of Sun-
deio to the thirtieth degree, but shake each of the bottles
with twenty or more succussions from a powerful arm, in the
hand of whicli the bottle is held, in tliat case this medicine,
which I have discovered to be the specific remedy for the
frightful epidemic, Ilooping-Cougli of children, will have be-
come so powerful in the fifteenth attenuation, (spiritualized,)
that a drop of it given in a tea-spoonful of water, would en-
danger the life of such a child ; whereas, if each dilution-bot-
tle was shaken but twice (with two strokes of the arm,) and
prepared in tins manner up to the thirtieth attenuation, a su-
gar globule, tlie size of a poppy seed, moistened with the last
attenuation, cures this terrible disease with this single dose,
without endangering the health of the child in the slightest
degree/'
But while Hahnemann warned against administering
" Sundew" that had been prepared with twenty shakes, Jeni-
chens' preparation of that drug in the 500th dilution was sha-
ken 6,000 times by machinery, — at each dilution — -30,000,000
times in all — and yet it did not annihilate patients, but cured
hooping-cough like the other preparation. — British Journal
of Homc^opathy^page i^^. — Such is infallible Homoeopathic
" experience ! "
Common salt, which we swallow daily with our food in
such quantities, Avhen carried to the thirtieth dilution, becomes,
sayai Hahnemann, "a powerful and heroical medicament, Avhich
can only be administered to patients with the greatest cau-
tion,"
But the alcohol used in the preparation of medicines has
medicinal properties, and should not they be increased ?
Hahnemann to get over this, with a sort of method in his mad-
ness, throwing a dark suspicion upon his honesty, coolly tells
the world, that Alcohol and Wine, though having medicinaV
properties, are exceptions to all other substances, and are not
p>otentized by these dilutions 1 His words are, " Wine and Al-
cohol are the only excitants the heating and intoxicating
30 KECOND LECTURE.
eftects of winch are diminished by tlieir dilution with water."
— Organon, page 329.
But as to this " potentization,'' there is one thing he over-
looked, or he would doubtless have had other exceptions.
The Sugar of Milk used for trituration is not a simple, but a
compound Sugar. According to Lagrange aud Vogtt, ordi-
nary specimens of it contain forty-seven parts in 1,000 of
Phosphate, Carbonate and Sulpliate of Lime and Potash ;
while Simon found thirteen parts in a 1,000 of a very pure ar-
ticle, to consist of these Salts : Hence in lOO grains of the
first trituration of any homoeopathic medicine, there is only
one grain of the medicine, and at least one and three-tenths,
and probably as much as four and seven-tenth grains of the
Salts of Lime and Potash. In the second dilution there will
be only joioo pai't of a grain of the medicine, and from one and
three-tenths to four and seven-tenths grains of Lime and Pot-
ash, or from 13,000 to ■iVjOOO times as much Lime and Potash
as of the article supposed to be potentized. In the third dilu-
tion there will be from 1,300,000 times to 4,700,000 times as
mnch Lime and Potash. What it will be, in proportion to the
other articles, in the thirtieth dilution, you may calculate from
these data.
Now, it must be remembered, that Potash and Lime are
regarded as medicinal by Homoeopaths. Lime being capable
of producing over 100 symptoms, and capable of potenti-
zation ; and it must also be recollected that at least a part of
these comparatively large quantities of Lime and Potash re-
ceive as much potentization by trituration as the other articles.
For the grain of medicated Sugar of Milk which is taken
from the first dilution to make the second, contains triturated
and potentized Lime and Potash, and so up to the thirtieth di-
lution.
All the so-called homoeopathic cures with triturated
medicines must be accomjianied by potentized, or spiritualized,
or magnetized Lime and Potash — for these are far in excess of
any intended homoeopathic medicine — having been triturated
and potentized like them.
SECOND LKCTURE. 31
Accidental particles of Carbon and of otlicr substances,
are more or less present in the air of all rooms, and in alcohol
and water however carefully distilled, and these also mingling
with the medicine, would be triturated, shaken, and potentizcd as
well as the infinitesimal particle designed to be treated; and the
trituration in a " porcelain mortar, with a porcelain pestle,''
would necessarily disintegrate more or less these implements,
and thus their particles being commingled with the mixture,
would become potentized as Avell. Now, Hahnemann (Or-
ganon, page 311,) says: " All raw animal and vegetable sub-
stances have a greater or less amount of medicinal power, and
are capable of altering man's health, each in its own peculiar
way ;" and all medicinal substances are capable of this potent-
ization, according to this author, except " alcohol and wine."
Silex is the principle compound of most mortars, and this sub-
stance is particularly declared by homoeopaths to be a medicine
whichin its in finitesimal, millionths, and decillionths, is capable
of even many hundred symptoms more or less formidable.
According to Jahr'^s Homoeopathic Materia 3Ie(lica, Silex
or Flint, commonly used at the thirtieth dilution, produces 372
different symptoms, many of them lasting as long as seven or
eight weeks. These symptoms are arranged under twenty-five
heads — twenty of them under the head of '■'■ moral sym2'>toms,^''
and are as follows, viz. :
" Melancholy and disposition to weep ; nostalgia ; anx-
iety and agitation; taciturnity — concentration in self; in-
quietude and ill-humor on the least provocation, arising from
excessive nervous irritability ; scruples of conscience ; great
liability to be frightened, especially by noise ; discourage-
ment; moroseness, ill-humor and despair, with intense weari-
ness of life ; disposition to fly into a rage, obstinacy and great
irritability; repugnance to labor; apathy and indifference;
weakness of memory; incapacity of reflection; great destrac-
tion ; tendency to misapply words in speaking; fixed ideas,
the patient thinks only of pins, fears them, searches for them,
and counts them carefully." — Jahr^s Manuel of Homceopathie
Mtdicine, vol. I, page 532.
32 SECOND J.ECTUKE.
Ilulini'iminii warns agaiiiHt the use ol' Silex in too largo
Uoses — seeming to forget for the moment that the " potentiza-
tion " increases with dilution. lie says: " In fivct dilutions of
Silex to the billionth or trillionth degree, ^jroducc effects much
too violent ; that of the sextilliontli degree may be commenced
with, but this only suits robust persons ; in irritable subjects it
is prudent to use only tlie dccillionth dilution," — Zee's Jlomce-
opathii^pafje 5. Now tliis powerful agent as well as the Salts
of Lime, etc., must be in every me<licine treated by strong
triturations in a mortar witli Sugar of Milk, making the prepa-
ration a compound and not a single substance, thus violating
another homoeopathic precept ,as we shall soon see.
But I do not propose at this point to argue against IIo-
nucopathy, but simply tell you xohat it is.
The account respecting the preparation of these homa.\
opathic medicines would be incomplete did I not give another
mode of preparing]thera, practiced by some — first by Karsa-
koff — and spoken of by Hahnemann. This is a method by a
kind of infection — i^erforraed by f^hakiiig one duly medicated
drug globule with several thousand imraedicated globules, —
these immedicatcd globules becoming duly drugged by thus
being in tJie neighborhood of the ^medicated one. "Expe-
rience,'' shov/ed these globules as efficacious "as any. Hahne-
mann in his "Lesser Writings," page 859, says: "Since a
single dry globule imbued with a high medicinal dynamization,
communicates to 13,500 unmedicated globules, with which it
is shaken for five minutes, medical power fully equal to xohat
it possesses itself^ \s'\'(\\o\\\i suffering any diminution of power
itself, it seems ^hat this marvelous communication takes place
by means of proximity and contact, and is a sort of infection^
bearing a strong resemblance to the infection of healthy per-
sons by a contagion brought near, or in contact Avith them."
The method of contagion is by particles of mor-
bid germinal matter passing from a person afiected with
a particular specific disease, as small-pox, to another
person, through the air or by contact of the persons ;
and this living, morbid, germinal matter, multiplying in the
SECOND LECTUKK. 33
blood and other parts of tlio body into which it is received, at
lengtli comes to exist in sufficient amount to produce the same
disease. Thus a single germ, however small, by multiplica
tion, receiving nourishment and the elements of growth iVom
the body in which it is operating, becomes sufficient in quan-
tity to produce effects. But medicines — particles of dead
matter, incapable of growth and multiplication, can have no
likeness to contagion in communicating their properties from
one mass to another, or to the living body. It will thus be
seen that the operation of very small particles ot vaccine or
other kinds of virus, cannot with any propriety, be used to
illustrate the supposed effects of imponderable quantities of
medicines.
The next point of the homoeopathic plan is the method of
administering these medicines thus prepared.
The most common method, perhaps, is by means of pellets,
or little sugar globules, the size of a mustard seed, more or
less — about 300 of which have had a drop of a "potentization"
placed upon them when massed together, the liquid evaporat-
ing, leaving the medicinal " aura," as Hahnneman calls it, at-
tached to these little globules. One or more of these are placed
upon the tongue, often at intervals of some days, in chronic
cases, the alleged effects frequently continuing for weeks. In
other cases, a drop or more of the liquid dilution is put in a
tumbler of water and a teaspoonful more or less frequently
given. It must be borne in mind that a single grain of the
drug at the thirtieth dilution, the one most recommended, if the
whole was elaborated into pellets or globules, and these were
placed side by side in a eonlhiuous row, they would form a line so
longthat, light traveling at the rate of six trillions of miles a year,
would require millions, and millions, and millions of centuries
to pass from one end of this line to the other, and any one of
these globules, picked out of this extended row of them, is the
proper dose ! Or, if a solution be used, a single grain would
be dissolved in an ocean of water, many millions of millions
of millions of times broader and deeper than all the collected
oceans of the earth, and one drop from this would be the best
34 SECOND LECTURE.
aiul most appropriate doso, curing witli tlie utmost certainty ! !
Surely this is not less marvelous than the effect of Cervantes'
drop of water.
We would suppose that Hahnemann had severely enough
taxed the credulity of his followers in these recommendations,
but as the result of his "Experience," in his later practice, he
recommended that one of these globules should be merely
snielled.
Writinc; in 18;33, Ilalnicinanii ol)scrvcs — "all that liomtropathy is
capable of curing, will be most safely and certainly cured by this
mode of Olfaction. I can scarce!}-," he adds, " name one in a hundred out
of the many patients who have souglit the advice of myself and assist-
ant durinii" the past year, whose chronic or acute disease we have not
treated with the most happy results, tioldy by vwdns of thin Olfactioii.
Durinir the latter half of this year, moreover, I liave become convinced
of what 1 never could previously have believed, that by this mode of
Olfaction, the power of the medicine is exercised upon the patient in at
least the same degree of strength, and that more quietly, and yet just as
long, as -when the dose of medicine is taken by the mouth; and that,
consecpiently, the intervals at which the Olfaction should be repeated,
should not be shorter than in the ingestion of the material dose by the
mouth." — {Organon, p. IJ32.)
In the Organon^-^. 332, Hahnemann observes — "all that
liomecEpathy is at all capable of curing * * will be most
safely and certainly cured by this mode of Olfaction. * *
The power of the medicine is exerted upon the patient in at
least the same degree of strength, and that more quietly, and
yet just as long as when the dose of medicine is taken by the
mouth ; and that consequently, the intervals at which the Olfac-
tion shoiild be repeated, should not be shorter than in the in-
gestion of the material dose by the mouth."
Dr. Gross, of Germany, a high authority, recommends the
same method, with the higher dilutions, allowing but one smell,
often, and waiting for four weeks or so for the completion of
the cure. — {I)r. Yorbes' Review^ vol. xxii, p. 668.
Hahnemann directed his patients to smell the dried glo-
bules, or dissolving one or two in water and spirits, the nose
was to be held over this solution. He dwells upon the super-
iority of this method of administration, and says that a globule
moistened with the thirtieth dilution and then dried, " retains
for this purpose (of Olfaction) all its powers for at least eight-
een or twenty years (My experience extends this length of
SECOND LECTUKK. 35
time), even though the phial be opened a thousand times dur-
ing that period, if it be but protected from lieat and the sun's
light." '• In little children, it may be applied close to their
nostrils whilst they are asleep, with the certainty of producing
an effect. And this is much preferable to any other mode of
administering the medicaments in substance by the mouth." —
{Organon, p. 332.)
One of his disciples, a Dr. Crosiero, says — "My own wife
was cured by him in this manner, of a violent pleurisy, in the
course of five hours."
Not only did Hahnemann use by Olfaction medicines
which in sensible quantities were evaporable, but also those
which were not. In the following quotations from his work
entitled, Zicsser Writings, p. 821, we have not only this notion
of Olfaction enforced, but a repetition of the doctrine of poten-
tizations, and a statementof the method of trituration, and the
surprising efficacy of this method of treatment.
According to Hahnemann, even the olfaction or smelUng of sub-
stances which have no smell may produce immediately direct and decid-
ed therapeutic effects. " If," says he, " a grain of gold leaf be triturated
strongly for an hour in a porcelain mortar with one hundred grains of
sugar of milk, the powder that results (the lirst trituration) possesses a
considerable amount of medicinal power. If a grain of this powder be
triturated as strongly and as long with another hundred grains of sugar
of milk, the preparation attains a much greater medicinal power, and if
this process be continued, and a grain of the previous trituration be
rubbed up as strongly and for as long a time, each time with a fresh hun-
dred grains of sugar of milk, until, after fifteen such triturations, the
quintillionth attenuation of the original grain of gold leaf is obtained,
then the last attenuations do not display a weaker, but, on the contrary,
the most penetrating, the greatest medicinal power of the whole of the
attenuations. A single grain of the last (quintillionth) attenuation put
in a small clean phial, will restore a morbidly desponding individual,
with a constant inclination to commit suicide, in less than an hour to a
peaceful state of mind, to love of life, to happiness, and horror of his
contemplated act, if he perform but a nngle Olfaction in the phial, or
put on his tongue a quantity of this powder no bigger than a grain of
sand." — Simpson, p. 76.
Another of Hahnemann's rules in regard to the exhibition
of medicines is expressed in the Organoti, pp. 319, 320. "In
no case is it requisite to administer more than one single sim-
ple medicinal substance at one time." The true physician
" never thinks of giving of a remedy but a single simple med-
icinal substance," for, he adds, "itis impossible to foresee how
no SECOND LKCTURE.
two and move medicinal substances niigiit, wlion compounded,
obstruct and alter cjjch other's actions on the human body."
I need not tell you that Opium, for example, contains seven
chrystalline active principles, besides some fifteen other less
important distinct substances. Ilomrcopathists often use some
of these separately; as morphia, narcotin, etc., and opium
with all its parts is often used by thorn.
But should a single simple medicated substance be used,
professedly, I have already shown that in the sugar there are
others — and from the mortar which must be worn in the pro-
cess of trituration, silex, alum, and other substances are de-
tached, and *' potentized" as well as the intended article. We
see, therefore, that this dogma is not comjilied with. Tlomce-
opathists constantly use compound substances; and to use
Hahnemann's own expression, " A compound could never
make a shnjyle — in all eternity, never." I suppose not, even
by trituration and dilution. By using the rules of trituration
of solid substances Avith sugar of milk in a mortal', a globule
never was made that was not a compound ; if indeed, there is
any medicine at all in each of these i^articlcs.
Another and essential part of the Homoeopathic system, is
the alleged ascertaining of the symjitoms which drugs are
capable of producing, so as to know, on the principle of shn-
ilia similibup, the symptoms they arc capable of CKving.
In order to obtain this knowledge, homoeopaths profess to
have recourse to several sources of information; as, 1st, ob-
serving and arguing upon the known effects^of some special
medicines in particular diseases. 2d. Noting the symptoms
excited by poisonous doses of drugs on the healthy ; but third-
ly, and principally, they claim for this purpose to have made
numerous direct experiments, or " provings," as they are
termed, of various drugs by exhibiting them cither in large or
in infinitesimal doses, to people either in a state of health, or
of disease, and then watching and collecting the effects, or
"artificial symptoms" that ensue.
This is the last distinctive feature of the system of homoe-
opathy Avhich I shall, with much fullness, present; and I shall
SECOND LECTURE. 37
criticise it in passing, as I intend to criticise tlie other doc-
trines in review.
As to the first method — that of" observing and inferring
from the known effects of some medicines in special diseases
— the artificial symptoms tliat may be produced by them as
a basis of their liomoeopathic use, it must be regarded as un
philosophical, and by no means in harmony with the other two
modes of obtaining such information. For an example, the
use of iodine is known to cure — to modify the morbid nutri-
tion in the disease of the thyroid gland, known as Goitre ; but
iodine when taken by persons in health was j^never known to
cause the goitre. Certainly I never knew a single pei-son of
the thousands whom I have known to take iodine or its com-
pounds, to have goitre produced by it. It has never, so far as
I know or believe, produced anything resembling goitre. If it
cures this disease, it should, according to the homoeopathic law,
be able to cause it. But it does not. Whatever the theory,
such is not the fact. Still, the " immutable law " has caused
Jahr aud others to place goitre among the "symptoms" of
iodine. Whether this is reasoning in a circle, or reasoning at
all, you must judge.
The symptoms produced by poisonous doses of medicine,
as recorded in the works on Toxicology, homoeopathists profess
to make great use of in determining their efliects. They re-
gard these effects as symptoms which infinitesimal doses ought
to cause, though to a slighter extent, and hence, of course,
ought to cure.
Opium, for example, in poisonous doses produces coma,
stupor, asphyxia, etc., and according to this law, is indicated
in infinitesimal doses, or at least in some doses, in diseases
presenting these symptoms; and though given in doses ever so
small, theoretically, it must produce an effect — an artificial
medicinal disease somewhat greater in degree than the stupor
against which it is given. Hahnemann repeatedly says the
remedy must produce a medicinal disease " somewhat greater
in degree than that which existed before, in order to over-
come it."
r?8 SECOND LECTURE.
But. these, minute doses never produce any effects of this
kiiul. Certainly no regular physician ever saw such effects,
:nul many of our most eminent and conscientious men have
looked for them with care. Still the Homoeopaths insist, when
driven to the Inst point — and they must do so or yield u|) all
— that these homa-opathic medicines effect the system at the
the very point where the disease effects it, and in a similar
manner, ))ut yet so as to overcome the morbid action. But
these arc theoretical assumptions, unsustained by proofs ; and,
as we believe, contrary to both facts and reason.
Now the symptom, stupor, for which opium would be given,
because in large doses it jiroducos stuj)or, may arise from a
variety of proximate causes — from the state of the brain ex-
isting in concussion — from compression of that organ — from
blood poisoning— from arrested nutrition of the brain in a great
variety of diseases — from nervous exhaustion, etc. But in
prescribing for symptoms "alone," as Hahnemann taught, these
various circumstances are disregarded — the remedy seems to
be considered as incorporating itself with the symptom, and
through similarity, antagonizing it, and by a greater force,
though in infinitesimal doses, overcoming it. This is the ho-
moeopathic claim. But what, we ask, is there to sustain this
claim ? Is there cither fact or reason ? These questions we
are to consider aa we proceed.
But the direct " provings" are mostly relied upon, and
professedly from these chiefly, the horaceopathic books on Ma-
teria Medica are filled with " symptoms," some specimens of
which have already been given. On these provings, Hahne-
mann says, " depend the exactitude of the whole medical art,
and the weal of all future generations of mankind;" and mod-
ern horaeccpaths claim great credit on this score. The exact-
itude and " reliability" of these "provings," then, require our
special attention.
Now, how have these provings been made? Incon.luct-
inf^ the experiments, Hahnemann and his disciples at first used
the ordinary doses of the drugs; but afterwards they made
their observations with infinitesimal globules and dilutions.
SECOND LECTURE. 39
The Britisli Journal of Ilomoeopatliy, vol. vii, p. 342, says —
" The bulk of symptoms of the so-called anti-psoric remedies,
recorded in Hahnemann's " Chronic Diseases," were derived
1st. From trials with medicines given in globules in the thir-
tieth dilution ; and 2d. From the observations of patients to
whom the medicine was given for their diseases (also of the
thirtieth dilution)."
Hahnemann in a later edition of his Organon, p. 218, ad-
vises the thirtieth dilution as the best doses for proving the
medicinal power of drugs. He also says, while under proving?,
" all symptoms observed are to be attributed to the medicine."
As these symptoms are laid down in .Jahr's Manual, orlTempel's
Materia Medica, in most instances we are not informed whether
the alleged facts are derived fx'ora a knowledge of the curative
effects of the agents in special diseases, and inferences as to
the symptoms that ought to be produced, according to the
"infallible law," which " all the experience in the world" can-
not disprove ; whether from recorded observations of their
poisonous effects, or from experiments or "provings" proper ;
and if fi'om provings, we do not know, as a general rule,
whether with ordinary doses or infinitesimals ; whether upon
well persons or sick; upon impressible imaginative persons, or
those of cooler temperament ; whether upon those Avho are
truthful and reliable, or upon the untruthful and unreliable.
We have, in most of the cases, only the symptoms themselves
to judge from ; and judging from them, Avhat must be our con-
clusions ? In the works, however, where some of the details
of the provings are given, as is the case in Hempel's Materia
Medica, and Dr. E. M. Hale's Homoeopathic Materia Medica
of the New Remedies, recently published in Detroit, by Dr.
E. A. Lodge, they arc with every variety of dose, from poison-
ous ones down to the thirtieth degree, centesimal scale ; and the
alleged effects on healthy persons at the thirtieth dilution are
recorded with the same apparent confidence as the effects of
the large quantities ; and all aggregated together, they go to
make up the medicinal symptoms which are to be the guides
in selecting these medicines for application to similar symptoms
40 SKCONU LECTURE.
of tliseasi'. Tlie prcsuinption then is, thai in these accounts of
the cfleots of medicines in Jdhr's Manual, tlie data are of this
miscellaneous character.
The best, however, that I can do on this subject of the
jirovings is to give some S2)ecimens from standard homa'opathic
authors. As specimens, let us take from Jahr's Materia Med-
ica an account of the effects of Comui07i Salt and Carh. of
L'unc, or White Chalk:
"Coinnion novsE or table Salt {Natrum Muriaticum, as Julir terms
it,) when ])rovc'd upon a lu'althy ])crson, can cause al)ove four luindml
mill liftji syniptoins, antl, consequently, is capable, on the lioma'oputliic
principle, of lurinL,' many of these symptoms when I hey occur similarly
in (lill'erent states of disease. Acconliin; to .Jahr, House-salt is usually
employed in iloses of the 'JOtli or :50th dilution, or, in other words, in
doses of the quadrillionth or decillionlh of a n;raiu ; and the duration of
a dose of its cH'ects lasts, in chronic atfectious, from forty to fifty days.
lie describes the symptoms supposed to be produced in man l)y doses
of House-salt, andof other drui^s, under tiie several lieads of "General
Symptiiuis," and .■symptoms observed in the "Skin," "Sleep," " Fever,"
" Head," " Kyes," " Ears," "Nose," etc., etc. The mere enumeration
of the symptoms produced in these various parts by House-salt, occu-
jiics about six pages in Jahr's work. To cite them all would, conse-
(luently, occupy more space than we can bestow upon them. But the
followinjj is an abridged list of some of the ])rincipal symptoms which
this drug is averred to be capable of producing, and hence also of
curing." — .Simpson, p. 83.
Symptams jyroduced hy Common House Salt.
" Rigidity of all the joints, when they are moved." " Tendency to
experience dislocation, and to strain the back." " Paralysis." " Swelling
of the elands." " IJad ellecis of a disappointment." " Great relaxation
of all tTie physical and moral powers after fatigue." "Great drowsiness
during the day." "Kclarded sleep and sleeplessness at night, witli in-
ctlectual ellbrts to go to sleep." " Agitated sleep, full of vivid and las-
civious dreams." "Frightful dreams of quarrels, murders, fires, thieves,
etc." "At night, pains in the back, quivering, apparently of the nerves,
frequent emission of mine, headache, colic, astlunatic suflerings, and
great anguish of body." " Typhus fever, with debility." "Anguish,
sometimes during a storm, bul esjjccially at ni'dit." '•Hatred to per-
.sons who have formerly given olfense." " Awlcwardness." "Painful
confusion in the head, vertigo, with shocks in the head, and dizziness."
"Sensation on moving the head as if the brain Avavcred." "Tendency
of the head to l)ecome ea.sily chilled." "Spasmodic closing of the eye-
lids, especially in the morning, in the evening (during the twilight), and
at night." "Tinkling, ringing, rumbling, and humniing in the ears."
"Numbness and insensibility of one side of the nose." "Boring in the
l)ones of the nose." "Drawing, like extraction in the teeth, exten.ling
into the ear and throat after a meal, and at night, with swelling of the
cheek." "Speech embarrassed in consequence of the heaviness of the
tongue." "Prolonged sensation as of hair on the tongue." "Spasms
in the throat." "Loss of appetite, especially for bread, and repugnance
to tobacco smoke." " Palpitation of the heart, and intermittent or ac-
celerated pulse." "Disagreeable rising-s, after partaking of fat food or
milk." " Shocks and elawings in the pit of the stomach." " Drawing,
SECOND LECTURE. t I
tension, pressure, priekino-, and shoolini^sin thehcpalic rc-^ion." "Puin
and sliootings in tiie splenic region." '• Protrusion of licrnia." " Kx-
coriation of llie Inittocks, especially wlien walking." " Excessive ex-
citement of the amative feeling, or'dulness." "Accumulation of mucus
in the larynx in tiie morning." "Choking spasmodic cough in bed in
the evening." "Wheezing respiration in hed in the evening." "Con-
tnsive pain and feeling of paralysis in the sacrum, especially in the
morning." "Tearing across the loins and hips." " Nocturnal pains in
the baclv," " Digging in the arms, shocks in the elbows." " Ditlicidly
in bending the joints of the fingers." " Ninnerous Haws in the nails."
"Burning in the feet." "Redness of the great toe." "Corns on the
feet, with .shooting and boring pains," etc., etc., etc. — {J<i]irx Mannid of
Ilomoiopathic Medicine, vol. i. p. 380, ct. seq.)
Let us take another example. Carbonate of Lime, or Ciiai.k,
{Calmrea Carbonica,) exists in most vegetables, and is contained in
greater or less quantity — but in doses larger than the Ilalinemannic —
in almost eveiy water which man drink.s. It is found, (says Dr. Pere-
ira,) even in the purest of waters, viz., in rain water. Carbonate of
Lime is, according to Jahr, usually employed in thedoseof adecillionth,
or in the thirtieth dilution ; and the duration of its effects is fifty days
in chronic atfections. According to the provingsof the homo?opathists.
Carbonate of Lime is capable of producing above one thouxuhd symp-
toms. Out of this immense number of effects, we select the following
as specimens of the symptoms it may cause, antl hence may cure.
Symptoms produced by Chalk or Carbonate of Lime.
" Shooting and drawing pains in the limbs, chiefly at night, or in
summer, and in change of weather." " Great tendency to strain the
back in lifting." " Strong desire to be magnetized." " Emaciation, with-
out failure of appetite." " Great plumpness, and excessive obesity."
" On walking in tlie open air, sadness with tears." " Visible quivering
of the skin from head to foot." " Encysted tumors, which are renewed
and suppurate every month." " Swelling and distortion of the bones."
" Flaws in the fingers." " Sleeplessness from activity of mind, or in con-
sequence of voluptuous or frightful images which appear as soon as the
eyes are shut." " Snoring during sleep." " Dreams, frequent, vivid,
anxious, fantastic, confused, frightful and horrible." " Dreams of sick
or dead persons." " At night, agitation, asthmatic suffering, anxiety,
heat, pains in the stomach, and in the pra^cordial region, thirst, beatings
of the head, toothache, vertigo, headache, fear of losing the reason, and
many other sufferings." " Quotidian fever towards two o'clock in the
afternoon, with yawning antl cough, a desire to lie down at least for
three hours, after which the hands become cold." "Tertian fever in the
evening." " Disposition to weep, even about trifles." " Vexation and
lamentation on account of old offences." " Anxiety and anguish excited
by fancies, or frightful stories." " Disposition to take alarm ; apprehen-
sions." " Fear of being ill or unfortunate ; of sad accidents, of losing
the reason ; of being infected by contagious diseases." " Discourage-
ment and fear of death." " Excessive ill-humour, and mischievous in-
clination ; with obstinacy, and a disposition to take everything in bad
part." " Disgust and aversion to all labour whatever." "Delirum, with_
visions of fires, murders, rats and mice, etc." " Head compressed a.s if
by a vice." " Dizziness after scratching behind the ear." "V'ertigo alter
a fit of anger." " Headache from having wrapped the head in a hand-
kerchief." " Pains in the head aggravated by spirituous drinks." "Draw-
pains in the right side of the head." " Piercing iu the forehead, as it
the head was going to burst." " Pains of hammering in the head.
" Icy coldness in, and especially on the right side of the head. "Move-
42 SECOND LECTURE.
mcnt of tlic brain in walkiiic;." " Iinincnso size of the licad." "Stroiiff
(lisposilion to take cdIiI llirouu:!! lin! lu'ail." " Smarting on reading dnr
ing tiu' (lay, or l»y candle light." " Flow of blood from the eyes." "La-
chrymal suppurating fistula." "Pupils greatly dilated." " Cfmfusion
of sight as if there were a mist." "Great da/zling from too strong a
light." "Purulent di.seharge from the cars." "Polypus in the cars."
"Cracking and detonation in the ears when chewing." "FuHid smell
from the nose." " Sense of smell dull, or exceedingly sensitive." "Fcetid
odour before the nose, asif from a dunghill, rotten eggs, or gunpowder."
"Face i>alc and hollow, with eyes sunk and surrounded by a livid cir-
cle." " FaHid odour of the teeth. — Fistulous ulcers in the gums of the
lower jaw." " Kanula under the tongue." " Hawking up of mucus."
" IJepugnancc to tobacco smoke ; desire for salt things, fc^' wine, and for
dainties." "Pressure on the stomach, with squeezing as if from aclaw."
" Inability to wear tight clothes round the hypochondria." " Incarcer-
ation of flatulency." " Pressure of wind towards the inguinal rings, as
if hernia were about to ]irotrude." " Before the evacuation, gr?at iras-
cibility. After the evacuation, dejection, aud relaxation of the limbs."
" Fre(iuent protrusion of luemorrhoidal excrescences during the evacu-
ations." "Ikirning eruption in the form of a cluster in tlie arms."
'■ Wetting the bed." " Pol3^psus of the bladder." " Prolapsus uteri."
" Varices in the labia majora." " Pain, as of excoriation and ulceration,
in the nip))les." " Ulceration of tlic larynx." " Cough excited Ity play-
ing on the piano." "Urgent inclination to inspire deeply." " Pains, as
of tlislocation in the loins, ])ack, and intheneck, as if caused by a strain."
"Swelling and distortion of the spine." "Rigidity of the neck." "Sup-
puration of the axillary gland." '"Swellings of the veins of the hands."
" Warts on tlie arms and on the hands." " Contraction of the fingers."
"The legs go to sleep when one is seated," etc., etc., etc. — JaUr's Man-
ual of JJomoiojxitJdc Medici?ies, vol. i. p. 108, et seq.
Perhaps it is proper to add, in order to show the fantastical allec-
tation of exactitude in these homoeopathic provings and symptom.s, that
some of the homo3opatIiic drugs produce, and therefore remove, partic-
ular symptoms, only when they occur under particular circumstances
or conditions. We have seen above, that carbonate of lime causes, and
consequently removes, " cough," wlien " excited by plajing on the
piano." A dose of Rhododendron causes toothache during a storm, and
hence cures toothache when it supervenes during a storm. — Jalir's Ma-
teria Mcdica, vol. i., p. 488.
The most charitable construction wc can give to all this
is, that Hahnemann, like Mesmer, and Mohammed, and Swc-
denborg, and Joe Smith, and Ann Loe, etc., though in a dif-
ferent si)here from any of these, was an enthusiast — the founder
of a sect ; was followed by disciples ; expected to upturn and do -
stroy the system of medicine of his time, in the practice of which
he had failed of success ; and this added fuel to the flame
within him, and like them, ho " saw visions and dreamed
dreams :" and as was said by Whipple of Swedenborg, "his
perceptions of abstractions were no intense that they seemed
to have reached that point where thoughts, and imaginations,
and ideas, become sensible to sight as well as sensation, and
SECOND LECTURE. 43
lohat he thouyht he sa?o," And all these enthusiasts have
found followers who through imitation have repeated their ex-
travagances, or from interested motives have professed their
faith.
Connected with this condition of mental excitement is
not unfrequently a quality of disingenuousness, as in the case
of Mohammed and Smith — their integrity being not above
suspicion. However, in this respect, it may have been with
Hahnemann, — his " provings" were most fanciful, often absurd,
and generally entirely unreliable ; and, in this, his followers
have certainly been led by his example.
X)r. John C. Peters, of New York, formerly among the lead-
ing men in theHomceopathic School, but who long since seeing
the absurdity of its doctrines, renounced it, and has taken an
honorable position in the ranks of the regular profession, says
it has taken him a great many years to find out that Plahne-
man drew more upon the stores of our old Materia Medica for
his indications for the use of medicines, than he did upon his
own provings upon the healthy, or upon the law of " Slmilia
Simillbus Ciirantury
Thus Arnica, though claimed by Homoeopaths to be their
discovery, and homoeopathic to bruises, etc., yet as early as
the sixteenth century, it had received the name of " Panacea
Ijapsorum^^'' by Dr. Fehr ; and a large number of continental
physicians used it for bruises, ecchymoses. etc., but not on tlie
homoeopathic principle, or in infinitesimal quantities.
The remedy most frequently used by most |Homocopaths
in acute diseases is Aconite. They pretend to have estab-
lished by their "provings" that it is homoeopathic to fevers
and inflammations ; and is used in infinitesimal doses to coun-
teract these conditions. But the fact is. Aconite never caused
a fever nor an inflammation. It acts much like Vcratrum Vir-
ide, Tartar Emetic, and other depressing agents when given
in perceptible doses. In infinitesimal doses, of course, it has
no effect. When given in free doses, as it is by many Homoe-
opaths, it is an antipathic remedy in inflammation.
Dr. Ilempel, though professing to believe in " poteutiza-
J t SECOND LECTURE.
lions" aiitl '* proviiigs," l)y infinitesimal doses, (lie quotes such
proviuLTs, nuil adn\its tlu ir value \y\wn lluy answer liis pur-
]i<)se), in liis Materia Mcdica, vol. i, p. 58-9, says that much
of Hahnemann's "provings," especially of what is termed the
" anti-psories," is entirely imreliable. His Avords are : "If
we had no other testimony to offer in favor of Homoeopathy
than the provings of thc^ anti-psories, our cause would not be
worth the ink it rcq.iired to'print them. "^' * It seems in-
credible that such a mass of vague, childish, ill-defined symp-
toms as arc recorded in the four volumes of the "Chronic Dis-
eases," should have been accepted by earnest and sober-minded
men as the pure effects of drugs. I do not mean to say that
attenuated raediehies generally are unfit to develope symi:»toms;
wc have abundant evidence that the sixth, twelfth, and even
higher potencies have affected the organism in health in their
own characteristic and peculiar manner." He goes onto say :
" Entertaining, as I do, a philosophical belief in the efficacy of
attenuated drugs, and in the doctrine of Dynamisation, as de-
veloped by Hahneman ; yet I cannot refrain from expressing
a regret that the system of proving attenuated drugs should
have been so extensively adopted in our school. * * If the
attenuations arc used first without any previous saturation of
the organism by the concentrated tincture of the original drug,
perceptible symptoms are scarcely ever obtained beyond the
third attenuation. * * Our j\lateria jMedica is unfortunately
flooded with a deluge of trilling, unmeaning, unreliable symp-
toms. A perfect symptomania seemed at one time to have
taken possession of our school. Such men as Ilering, Boen-
uinghaujen, Gross, fanned this incipient aberration into a per-
fect fury of symijtom-hunting. * * Ilering's provings in
particular," he regards as imreliable. " Xot one of the numer-
ous jirovings with which this gentleman has overloaded our
Materia Medica, will stand the test of a rigorous critical anal-
ysis." But what will ? He goes on to denounce them as
" fancy pictures," and speaks of the " Augean Stable of our Ma-
teria Medica."
Speaking of a particular article on page 00, he says: "wc
SECON'D LECTURE. 45
shall find at a later stage of our course, that tlio efFccts of
this poison, as exhibited in tlie ' American Provings,' are
tainted with all the defects Avhich distinguish many of our
modern provings generally.''''
If then much of the more ancient provings of Hahne-
mann are " not worth the ink it required to print them," and
the modern provings of Ilering, Gross and others, who are re-
garded as the brightest lights of their school, are even still
more worthless, " betraying " as he says, " a lack of accuracy
of observation, correctness of delineation, and adaptability to
the treatment of disease," what value can we place upon any
of these observations, all of them having apparently the same
general character ?
But an English Surgeon, A. Henriques, who is a professed
Horaoeoi^athist and has written the most jilausible apology for
what he regards as Homoeopathy of any I have seen, takes an
entirely difterent view of the provings of the founder of the
system, and of his rules of practice. He says : "Had Hahne-
mann simply contented himself with placing before the public
the records of his unparalleled experiments with pharmaceu-
tic agents upon his fomlly and friends — had he been content
with a mere exposition of his discovery of the rules by which
remedial agents should be selected in given cases of disease —
had he done this instead of exposing the absurdity of potter-
ing in thg ' dead-house ' to discover the nature of diseases,
and scoffing at the idea" (as he did) '-'of consulting the labora-
tory and the microscope to reveal the mysterious curative
pow^ei'S of the Materia Medica ; it is my firm conviction that
the reformed method of treatment according to the Hahne-
mannic School of Therapeutics, would long ere this have been
recognized throughout the world, and received universal tri-
umphant assent, as the best form of art devised since the Hi-
pocratic Era."
Thus this disciple makes these provings, Hahnemann's
chief merit — while Hempel declares very much of them sheer
nonsense; but yet he (Hempel) gives in his Materia Medica,
4G SECOND LECTURE.
similar " [>rov'inc;s" as the pure gospel of Ilomd'ojtalhy direct
IVdin Heaven.
Take for illustration the symptoms produced l)y sulpliiir,
tlic chief alleged anti-psoric, an article contained in sensible
quantities in most of our nitrogenous food, inhaled in very sen-
sible quantities every time we light a match, an article which
pervades our atmosphere from the coal we burn, infects us from
the "rubber" wo wear, and the "hair restoratives" many ap-
ply — this article so constantly within us — an element in many
of our tissues, yet as " proved" by administering homoeopathic
attenuations, produces, according to Dr. Ilempel, a catalogue
of "symptoms" which I should fear would exhaust your pa-
tience for me to enumerate in full.
He says, " The Vienna Prover's Union has instituted re-
proving s of Sulphur, which m.'jy be said to constitute one of
the most brilliant and instructive pages in our Materia Medica"
— and it is presumed the symptoms about to be quoted are
from this brilliant page. Tlicy are arranged under the va-
rious groups, Nervous, Cephalic, Orbital, Auricular, Nasal,
etc., and were produced, some by massive doses of one or
two hundred grains, while others were caused by " attenua-
tions," the massives and the infinitesimals apparently produc-
ing the same effects. Here arc specimens of the symptoms :
"Urawing-burning pain at the top of the head; Dull headache,
deep in the left orbit, sometimes increasing to a drawing
tlirobbing ; Absence of mind ; Sensation as if a hair Avas
pulled, in the case of a prover who is bald ; Rush of blood to
the head with a roaring in the ears, burning and creeping in
the f^xce. A similar symptom was obtained by a prover dur-
ing an experiment with the liigh lyotencies ; Heat and confu-
sion in the head, with noise like the boiling of water, rushing
out of both cars ; Drawinrj and tearing pains, especially in
the fingers, long bones, back, muscles of the nock ; Boring
pain in the ankle joint ; Shooting pains.''
One case of proving, in a student of medicine, to Avhich
Dr. Herapel calls particular attention, I will venture to read in
full.
SECOND LECTURE. 47
"For three weeks, I may have taken three times daily,
five globules moistened with the tincture of Sulphur," (how
much will the spirits dissolve ?) wlion I experienced a slioot-
ing pain here and there m the abdominal parietes, especially
in the inguinal region, at one time in the left, at another time
in the right side ; this pain sometimes lasted a short time,
sometimes longer, but regularly went otF in the warmth of the
bed. As I did not believe that these wandering pains were
caused by the Sulphur, I continued to take it. About a week
after the first appeai'auce of the shooting pains, there occurred,
after the slightest exercise, a very troublesome feeling of fa-
tigue. The shooting pains noAV gradually declined, but in their
stead occurred contractive pains, especially in the muscles of
the thighs, which often proved a serious obstacle to my walk-
ing. In four days, these contractive pains were felt deeper, as
if in the bones, especially in the femora and right tibia. The
head of the right tibia became veiy painful, and could not
bear the slightest touch, and after the slightest exercise I had
to go and lie down. Now, almost convinced that these symp-
toms must be the effect of the Sulphur, I intended to leave it
off, but as I had a few more globulos, I took them all. The
consequence of this was that the pains attained such a degree
of intensity as almost to render walking impossible. The very
next day, when I took no more globules, the pains became less
intense, and in tlii'ee days more, were all gone. I have gained
the conviction that medicines, even in very small doses, are ca-
pable of producing the most violent effects."
Who that knows the quantity of Sulphur we all daily take
into our systems can believe, that these sugar globules mois-
tened with the Tincture of Sulphur could produce all these
effects ? Is there not a possibility of. this student of medicine
wishing to make a sensation among these homoeopathic pro-
fessors? Or if the effects occurred, were they not dependant
upon some other cause ?
But to proceed with other symptoms laid down by Dr.
Ilcmpel : " (Quivering and luminous appearances before the
right eye ; Lightning flashes before the eyes at night ; Fire
48 SECOND LliCTUKE.
buniiiig, like sparks, on the skin of the right upper lid; shoot-
pain througli the pupils ; Boring pains in the external meatus ;
Inflamed spot on the nose; Thickening and swelling of the
right nasal bones; Tickling in the right nostril, followed by
discharge of thick blood ; Shining and swelling of the tip of
the nose ; Sensation as if he were smelling soap-suds ; Raw
l)ain in the left commissure of the mouth ; Burning on the
right cheek, as from hot drops of fluid ; Itching of the left
eye and cheek ; A crack in the upper lip ; Digging pains in
sound teeth ; Drawing pains in upper teeth ; Weariness after
eating; Sneezing with discharge of fluid mucus from the left
nostril ; Kaging i)ain in the sternum ; Spitting of blood ; In-
creased pulsation of aorta; Sleeplessness with disturbed
dreams about v.ild beasts and death, hence, useful in tendency
to ni(jht)tiare\ Palpitation of the heart, during the attack, is
characteristic of Sulphur."
But these will sufllce. As to the dose, Dr. Ilempel says
" curative results may be depended ujDon from the lowest as
well as the highest dilutions; but in chronic pulmonary aflec-
tions, you will find the middle and higher potencies preferable
to the lower.'' It will be remembered that higher are the
thirtieth degree and upwards.
Dr. Hempel closes his lecture on Sulphur with these
words : "If you would conquer the great mind of the profes-
sion, then let me urge you to ever think of Homoeopathy with
hearts full of reverence for the consistency and nniversality of
her teachings, as a doctrine of life, a heavenly truth which
will not fail, if properly imderstood and universally ap-
plied, to link earth and heaven in one great cycle of sensual
refinement, intellectual beauty, and social and religious har-
mony ! ''
This jDassage must have been inspired by the reflection
upou Hahnemann's doctrine of the kinship of the Itch Miasm
and original sin, and the hope of Sulphur curing both.
These extracts are from IlempeVs Materia Medicay Vol.
lyPJJ' 810 to 826.
In looking at these Symptoms thus gravely recorded, and
SECOMn LECTUKE. 49
at the marvelous cures reported to have been efi'ected by this
and other similar homoeopathic remedies in infinitesimal doses,
we are forcibly reminded of the language of Dr. llempel,
when criticising a reported cure of a child Avith an eruption
of the skin, by Apis, he said, " it had as much to do with the
cure as the Comet's tail." This article, Apis, was reported by
these provers to produce 1350 symptoms; reported in the
same manner as other provings, and declared to be capable of
curing all these symptoms, and " experience " in actual cases
of disease was adduced as in otl.er cases to confirm these
views : and yet Dr. llempel rejects it all with contempt and
ridicule. He further confesses: '■'^ Many of our drugs have
obtained a reputation and a name, not because their provings
can at all be relied upon as therapeutic indications, but be-
cause an empirical use has secured for them a sort of prescrip-
tion-right. Lachesis is one of them." We, of course, believe
that in infinitesimal doses all their pretended remedies are in
this category; and that these articles have as much to do with
the cures that are reported from them, as " the Comet's tail.''
He addsof Xac/«3s/5 .• "The halo of glory that has surrounded
this secretion, proves upon closer examination, to emanate
from the sraoke of iimcy as much as from the light of truth."
I shall leave you, gentlemen, to make the further applica-
tion of this language, as we look at other statements of these
men. We are not now groping in the regions of the past,
calling up vagaries of remote and darker times.
It will be remembered that Henriques, and Hempel are
men of our day, and it is presumed representatives of certain
present phrases of Homoeopathy, though the latter may be re-
garded by some of his School as belonging rather to the past.
But the very latest work with which I am acquainted on Hom-
oeopathic Materia Medica, that of Dr. E. M. Hale, Professor of
Mat. Med. in the Hahnemann Medical College^ Chicago^ pub-
lished in 1867 (the work already referred to) presents us with
"provings" of the same general character.
As an example we will take the "provings" of Ilgdrasttn
Canadensis or Golden Seal. We are informed that these
50 SECOND LECTCJBE.
provinjjjs were inaile by students of the Pliiludolpliia Ilomcpo-
patliic College, under the direction of one of their Professors,
during the Session of 1866 and '67. The " potentization" was
made before the class after Hahnemann's direction on the
"Centesimal Scale," carried up the 30 degree, but instead of
two, twenty-five hard shakes were given to each potency.
The first case related is that of Aug. Earndoefer, who on
Nov. Tth, 1S60, it being as is stated the "Ncav Moon," "took
one dose, (whether a whole drop, or one of a cluster of sugar
pellets moistened with a drop is not said) of the thirtieth 'po-
tency of the new American tincture, prepared by Dr. Lippe,
before the class." " Nov. 8th, 8f a. m.," related as the effect
of that dose he had—" Slight headache, first on the right side,
mainly in the temporal region, then passing to the left tempo-
ral region, leaving the left, returning to the right, lasting a few
moments and then leaving altogether." After relating some
other sensations of a similar character, it is recorded that at
"11 A. M. sneezing in the sun caused flickering in the eyes."
This prover adds, parenthetically, that he had "been troubled
with this flickering for many years, when exerting myself or
standing long in the sun."
He then goes on giving his sensations and symptoms on
the 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, Uth to 20th, all from this one
dose taken on the 7th, among which are the following : "Sharp
pain behind the right ear for one moment, passing down to
the right shoulder, back of the clavicle, about midway between
arm and neck." At II o'clock, a. m. on the 9th, "sneezing
caused a fullness of the head, between temples and forehead."
He adds in a parenthesis : " I seldom ever sneeze when I have
a cold, and can scarcely attribute this to anything but the
medicine." The next day, " 9 a. m., sneezing, causing sharp
pain in right breast, between the third and fourth ribs, to the
right arm, down the arm and forearm, half way to the wrist."
" Nose feels as if plug were in it, under the nasal bone ;" "wa-
tery coryza from right nostril ;" " a little blood and dry cory-
za from left nostril ; " "bleeding from the left nostril quite
profuse, nose itched a great deal after bleeding ;" " Flickering
SECOND LECTURE. SI
before the eyes in a bright, yellow light ; streaks in squares^
always making three sides of a square." " Constant sensation
in both groins as if I strained myself from taking a very long
step." " Sensation of a hair in the right nostril, under the na-
sal bone at its lowest border." " In writing make wrong let-
ters," ete. etc.
The next prover took five drops of the Tincture on the 3d,
lip. SI. The next day he " sneezed after breakfast, from tick-
ling in the right nostril, left stopped up." On the 6th he had
" dryness and stoppage of the nose, with scabs in the nose,'' —
" great disposition to stretch the body backwai-ds, arms up-
wards, with yawning." " Aching pain in the left elbow, with
snapping in the shoulder joint Avheu rotating the arm," etc.,
etc. On the whole this man did not suflfer quite as much trom
five drops of the tincture as the other did from the drop, or
hundreth of a drop of the 30th dilution ; a quantity so infinitely
small as to be utterly inconceivable, as we have seen — but he
sufiered in a somewhat similar manner. In all probability
both of them had a coryza, or what is popularly called an "in-
fluenza cold," which was doubtless prevailing at the time.
Another prover took a dose of the thirtieth^ on his
tongue just before going to bed, and among a variety of
other things, we are gravely told that on the fifth day after,
he " had a desire for eggs." The day following this, he "took
one drop on going to bed." The next morning, he " felt de-
spondent ; better after "quizzing" in the evening. Quite
cheerful at 11 p. m." These were all Homoeopathic students;
but another man " 25 years old ; a mechanic and clerk,'' had
not so much made of his case. "Oct. 31st. — Took a drop on
tongue, 3 o'clock." " Nov. 1st, on getting up a dull pain in
the head which went away in a few minutes. In the after-
noon, had heart-burn, as he termed it, which he had not had
before for almost a year. I could get no more symptoms from
him, and he declined to take any more medicine, being some-
what afraid of it."
On p. 55, et sequel much prominence is given to the
"proving " in the case of "A, aged 34, sanguine-billious tern-
51 SECOND LKCTUEB.
p jrainent, trouble! with constipation for tho last five years; nn-
retVcshinjj sleep, languor in the morning." "Oct. 31st, 11 r.
M. — On retiring to hcd, took one drop of the 30th potency in
a tablespoonfnl of water. Slept well all night; felt quite re-
freshed in the morning, 5 o'clock. No des're for further
rest — very good humored. Kyes somewhat agglutinated.
Half an hour after breakfast had "usual movement of bowels"
followed by "a profuse discharge of biight-red, arterial blood,
lastiTig for about a minute." " Had sensation all day as if
hemorrhage might be repeated." "10a. jr., gloomy, taciturn,
disagreeable towards his acquaintances. An hour after, head-
ache — sleepiness in the r. 3i., etc. Nov. 2d, another hem-
orrhage froifi the bowels. The account goes on to the 5th of
Nov., giving symptoms of congestion of the liver and of a
cold, or acute catarrh, affecting the bronchia ; the bleeding
from the bowels being caused, i.i all i)rol)ability, by a hem-
orrhoidal difficulty the consequence of his protracted con-
stipation and obstruction of the liver, aggravated into hem-
orrhage at the time by the irritation of the mucous membranes,
the usual effect of such a cold. All this so apparent to an intel-
ligent physician, is recorded as the effect of the " proving " of
this single infinitesimal dose, of this comparatively mild medi-
cine !
On page 1093, we have an account of tlie "proving" by
one who was quite ill at the time such "proving" commenced.
The account says : " On Nov. 10th, a German, Henry Kusel,
aged 23, came to me troubled with a sore throat, roughness
and raw feeling when he talked, and severe cold in the head,
together with some other symptoms." After going on to
Nov. 18th — "I gave him a drop of the remedy, 30th. Next
morning he complained of his cold being worse than it bad
ever been ; but soon commenced to abate and in the evening
he felt very much better."
"Nov. 20th. — He said liis cold was entirely gone, but that
his throat was not so well, and had grown slowly worse since
he had taken this medicine ; he also spoke of being in high
spirits; everything looked bright, and he felt happy and he
wanted to sinij."
SECOND LECTURE. 63
I need not say to you who are inedical students, that the
time for the spontaneous breaknig up of the cold had doubt-
less come, but this case is given as showing the effect of the
medicine, and of " proving " its powers !
A considerable number of other *' provings " are given, oc-
cupying from the 1085 to the 1102 pages of the work inchisive,
all of the same general character. Among them three young
women -were subjects of the experiment. " Miss S. 30 years,
temperament sanguine-nervous. Nov. 2d, 18G6, took at bed-
time one drop of the 30th potency. Sometime after 1 o'clock
A. M., sleep disturbed by an irritation of the skin and puden-
dum, compelling scratching, which relieved."
Various sensations were experienced for a few days, such
as irritation of the throat, bowels, etc., "with a dragging,
bruised feeling in the ovax'ian regions ;" and the account is
closed with the remark — "during the proving ^nore cheerful
than usual. Affections active." p, 109C.
On p. 1099 the " provings" with "Miss M." are related.
She "took one drop of the 30th." "Had pain at night but
too sleepy to notice where." " The next day, morning, a
spasmodic pain commencing under the right clavicle and ex-
tending down to the right side of chest and back; felt the
pain twice, severely, when laughing, could not finish the laugh;
exhilaration of spirits, and a feeling of lightness and happi-
ness ; less languor from fatigue than usual."
On the same page the provings w^ith "Miss V., age twenty
years, temperament lymphatic," are given.
She " took on Thursday evening one drop 30th ; a sharp
pain in the right side in the region of the liver, extending to
shoulder blade ; etc. A yellow appearance of the skin, partic-
ularly around the mouth and neck ; a feeling of sickness and
languor, lasted a whole week, with depressed S2}lrits and sad
manner.^''
It will be particularly noticed that in these three last cases
the same drop of the 30th dilution is described as causing in
two of them, lightness of spii-it and happiness, and in the
other, depressed spirits and a sad manner.
54 SECOND LECTURE.
I have presented witli so much particularity the account of
these " provings " as conducted at the Homa3opathic College
at Philadelphia, and recorded in this new work of Dr. Hale,
upon -svhich conclusions are to be based respecting the virtues
and lioina'opathic applications of Golden Seal, because of the
great importance given by Iloniojopatlis to this whole matter
of provings ; and "we have here presented a phase of Homoeo-
pathy, not as it was held three-quarters of a century ago, be-
fore the light of the present advanced state of science was shed
abroad, but as it is at the present time, in its latest manifesta-
tions. And what a picture is afforded !
Another circumstance connected with these experiments,
all of which it will be noticed commenced about the same
date, should be understood. On page 1085 Dr. Hale says:
"These provings were the result of a mutual understanding
between the teachers of Materia Medica at Chicago and Phil-
adelphia. The provings of the students of Hahnemann Col-
lege, (Chicago) could not be finished and prei)ared for publi-
cation in time to be incorporated herewith." Why this was so,
we are not informed. Could not " potencies " be prepared and
given as speedily in Chicago as in Philadelphia ? Is Chicago
such a slow place that the results could not be as readily record-
ed and prepared for publication there ? Or does not the 30th
dilution of Hydrastis operate as speedily or in the same tcaym
the younger as in the'older city ?
It seems to me that no influenza, or generally prevailing
coryza was in Chicago at [the time, as evidently prevailed
among these students in Philadelphia ; and simiLar " symp-
toms " were therefore not obtained. Facts within my own
knowledge, renders this neither an unreasonable or uncharita-
ble supposition. At the present time as formerly, then, in
these " provings," ordinary and infinitesimal doses are used in-
discriminately — the same efiects supposed to be produced by
each, and the same upon the well and the sick.
Nowif by trituration and shaking a new power is added —
"a new and unheard of power," would not this make a difier-
ence in the character of the efi'ects ? If an ordinary dose of
SECOND LECTURE. 65
deiodroj) may be givea without marked efiects of any kind,
but when just enougli "potentized " it will cure Hooping-
cough ; if too much, as Hahnemann asserts, it may kill a child,
can the effects be the same of the drug in all of its condi-
tions ? So the matter is regarded in the *' provings " — no dis-
tinctions are made.
Again it is claimed by Homoeopaths, that their remedies
produce effects in disease in such small doses, because of the
great sensitiveness of the diseased parts to their action.
They must then act more powerfully, and quite differently in
disease than in health. Indeed, it is claimed also, that they
cure disease by seizing upon, and drawing out, and uniting
with the morbid element. How different then must be the ac-
tion in health and disease ; and yet the provings are upon both
sick and well persons, and the pretended symptoms from eacb
are indiscriminately jumbled together in the works of homoe-
opathic Materia Medica ! When a symptom from a drug is
given, we are not generally told in the_text books whether the
effect was realized, (or imagined) from a large dose or a small
one — a crude or a potentized article — operating upon the sick
or well. We don't know whether from one or many doses —
whether continued a long or a short time. They make broad
distinctions between primary and secondary effects of their medi-
cines, but apparently not in the "provings." It cannot be too con-
stantly borne in mind that Homoeopaths profess to regard these
experiments as the bases of facts upon which their system
mainly rests. They are constantly boasting of these researches
as adding largely to the sum of human knowledge.
Dr. Hale says: "A medicine cannot be said to have
reached maturity until it has been subjected to a thorough
physiological proving. In other words," he continues, " it is
in the hands of the Homoeopathic School alone that a medicine
is capable of reaching complete development.'' The speci-
mens of these " developments" are before you. You can but
see that for the most part, there is one loose, confused jumble
of puerilities, inconsistencies, and contradictions.
Need anything more be said respecting these " unparal-
oO SECOND LKCTURE.
leled experiments," " upon the accuracy and reliability of which
depend the future interests of liumanity ! " "Humanity''
must certainly be in a sad way if depending upon the accur-
acy and reliability of these homoeopathic provings.
Tlie Psora or Itcli Doctrine of Hahnemann, embraced by
many, but not all of his followers, as it is not essential to his
system of Therapeutics, I sliall not fully explain. I will only
say he believed in three Miasms as the causes of Ciiroiiic Dis-
eases — Itch, Syphlis, and Sychosis.
The Itch prevailed much the most extensively, and was
the cause of a very large jjroportion of Chronic Diseases —
Scrofula, Cancer, Consumption, Rickets, etc.
He wrote before, the " Itch Mite " was ge-nerally regarded
as the cause of this disease, and as the principle or inaterici
morbi of its contagion. He thought the suppression of the
eruption from the surface dangerous, leading to all these bad
results. It was to be cured by " potentized " Sulphur.
It had some couDcetion with " Original Sin," etc. ; was
herditary, etc. But I refer to it as showing the visionary
character of Hahnemann's mind, and not for the purpose of
examination and criticism.
The method of I&opatliy whose author was Lux^ of Leip-
zic, is often confounded with IIomoeoi)athy, and requires a
word : " This method is based upon the principle that to cure
disease we must employ remedies that produce effects not sim-
ilar^ but the same diseases in the healthy organism."
The treatment of frozen parts by cold, burns by heat,
are examples; but as Rau justly says, "this can be accounted
for without alluding to Isopatliy." Sudden changes from a
frozen to a thawed condition are dangerous. Snow thaws
gradually in a warm room, and the results of the freezing are
therefore less.
But certain drug-diseases, it is alleged, may be cured by
dilutions or potencies of the same drug.
Vaccination is spoken of as Isopathic. The most that can
be said about this is that the susceptibility to this form of dis-
ease is exhausted by the persons having it once. This will be
more fully explained in another connection*
SECOND LECTURE. 57
•
The Isopathists allege that Itcli may be cured by matter
from the itch vessicles, whicli they call Psoria or Psoricum.
Scald head with Psoria. Gonorrhoea with Gonorrhoein. (the
matter of Gonorrhoea.) Pedicnla by Pedicnlin, (Potentized
Parasites,) etc. But as these views are not insisted upon by
IIonKcopaths generally, they must not detain us.
Another very convenient doctrine is held by many llo-
raceopaths, viz. : that aggravations of symptoms in many cases
are necessary at tirst, in order to effect a cure. Convenient, I
say, as it enables the Doctor to quiet the minds of the patient
and friends when the symptoms are worse after treatment com-
mences. I need not dwell upon it.
I have now presented all the essential principles of Hahne-
mannic Homoeopathy, and in the language of its author and
supporters. Not a single passage has been misquoted, design-
eilly garbled, or in the least degree misrepresented ; and I
challenge contradiction as to a single statement made. But
do all Homoeopaths hold to these views of Hahnemann ?
What is the present Homoeopathic creed ? In regard to "prov-
ings " we have brought tho subject down to the present time.
But this question as to the present standard creed of the Ho-
moeopathists generally, is not easy to answer. There is, per-
haps, no absolute uniformity of opinion or practice as to any
one cl Hahnemann's doctrines.
HOMCEOPATHY.
LECTURE III.
Gentlemen. — In the last tAvo lectures we were occupied
with an account of the doctrines of Horaccopathy as taught
by Hahnemann, its founder. But little attempt was made to
show the fallacy of these doctrines, except in the case of the
" proviugs," the character of which was illustrated by exam-
ples from standard works, and by quotations from homoio-
pathic authorities respecting their unreliability.
Let us now review these chief doctrines in the inverse or-
der in which they were presented, referring to the views of
other homceopathic writers as occasion may require. The sys-
tem of " provings " has already been sufiaciently dwelt upon
for you to aj)preciate its value.
As to the rule of administering but a single medicinal
substance at a time, I have sufficiently shown the impossibility
of a compliance with it in the triturations ; and I may add
that many, if not most, or indeed all homceopathic practioners
now alternate medicines ; and some advise compounds. Thus,
Ran, in his Organon, which Dr. Hempel calls " a philosophical
and argumentative exposition of the principles of Homoeopa-
thy," on page 178, says: " If different systems and organs be
affected, the cure is promoted by giving two remedies, one of
which corresponds to one, and the other to the other affection,
in alternation." " Thus," he continues, "Digitalis and Nux
Vomica may be given alternately in a complication of pneurao-
00 TIIIIU) LE( Tl'ItE.
ni:i and gastric symiitoms ; Sulphur aiul Nux Vomica in
chronic abdoininal coin{)laints," etc.
Again, on page 118, the same autlior says : " Mineral Wa-
ters, which liavc such Avondorful tlierapcutic properties, are
compound substances." And again, " We possess several
pharmaceutic comi)ounds, wliich we cannot reasonably reject
in practise, provided ihcy are always prepared in the same
manner."
lie CDDtinues : " There are compounds which have be-
come standard preparations in our pharmacopiuia, and which
we have a right to retain because we are fully acquainted
with their therapeutic use. Such preparations are, for instance,
as Calomel and Opium, Ammonia and Tartar Emetic, Cinchona
and Sulphuric Acid, etc.
Ilenriques, in his work, i^age 271, however, says: "A
distinguishing characteristic of Ilomrcopathic practice is, the
administering one single remedial agent at a time."
Hempel says, — vol. i, page S7 — "The method of alternating
two medicines at regular intervals, is generally resorted to in
acute cases only," mentioning many articles that may thus be
alternated, and adds : " We hear of physicians (Homoeopathic)
using four and even six medicines, not only in the same case,
but at the same time, alternating them in regular order ; and
Luz " he says, " in a late publication, has proposed to mix
the remedies, instead of alternating them."
Thus we have the " consistency and universality " of ho-
moeopathic teachings, as " a doctrine of life, a heavenly truth,"
illustrated.
It will be remembered that Hahnemann strongly recom-
mended medication by olfaction as the mildest and safest, and
quite as efficient a method as by swallowing. Rau says, —
Organon^p. 178 — "Very sensitive, hysteric females, are in-
deed affected, by merely smelling of the medicine, (I suppose
he means the dilution,) but the re-action occasioned by olfac-
tion is very fleeting at any rate ; " and Hempel says, " this
should only be resorted to in purely nervous affections ; " ad-
ding, " We doubt whether it can be depended u]ion in acute
THIRD LECTUKE. 61
inflammations, or in disorders of any kind which may termiii-
ato in dangerous disorganizations." I'm afraid, Gentlemen, it
cannot. This method, I believe, has generally been aban-
doned ; and it is not so much to be regretted, as Hahnemann
averred that smelling of a globule at the thirtieth dilution,
or putting it upon the tongue, and not drinking after it,
was very much the same. With this opinion I am prepared
to concur.
The mode of preparing homoeopathic medicines, with
many of the School has not changed since the time of its
founder. In the Homojopathic Medical College of Philadel-
phia, the regular process of Hahnemann seems to bo followed
as we have seen ; and Dr. Hempel, in his Materia Medica, rec-
ommends this metjiod as the best But he says, "the pre-
paration of the ingredients in making our preparations has
been considerably modified." "Instead of taking one grain
of the medicine, or one drop to ninety-nine grains of Sugar
of Milk, ten grains of the drug are taken, to ninety grains of the
vehicle." IIahnemann''s scale is called the centesimal^ and this
new scale is designated as iho decimal scvile. " I believe," he
adds, " that the decimal scale is now more generally used by
homoeopathic physicians than the centesimal,
Griiner, a leading pharmaceutist, accepts the decimal.
Used at the first dilution with powerful medicines, as Arsenic,
Strychnia, Corrosive Sublimate, Morphine, etc., this change
would make all the difference in the Avorld. But with the
weaker medicines, or with any medicines in the higher dilu-
tions, as with snuffing or swallowing, it would be all the same.
While Hahnemann was so particular about all his pro-
cesses, quantities, and potencies, you will be struck with the
indifferent manner in which the various methods and quantities
are spoken of by modern homoeopaths. To deny the efficacy
of the inflnitesimals, xcoxild he to reject the testimony xipon
which the system of Homoeopathy is founded. To reject all
the experience with the high dilutions, is to reject nearly all
former reports of the great success of homoeopathic treat-
ment — is, in fact, to acknowledge that all, or at least, most of
62 THIRD LECTURE.
the past is a delusion. This conclusion cannot be avoiOcd.
TIk- niiu'ty, and ninety-five por-ccnt. of Cholera cases so osten-
tatiously and fahch/ reported as cured by Ilonia'opathy, must
all go to tlie wind if the efficacy of infinitesimals is denied ; for
these cases y,crc jyrqfesscdli/, though probaldy not really, treat-
ed by inlinitesimal doses. Ilencc, belief is professed by these
men in the power of such doses, while at one step the quantity
of medicine in what they call the "potencies'' is increased ten
fold ; and the first attenuations and even "Mother Tinctui-e,"
as they are called — and indeed the Cruder forms of medicines
are unscrupulously used ; but whether upon the principle of
similia simiiibus cur(aitin\ we shall in due time sec.
Indeed Kau, and Marcy, and Ilcnriques, and Hempel, and
nearly the whole of them, at times, seem tj regard the matter
of quantity, — whetlier the decimal or centesimal scale ; whether
the Crude article, or the forty-fifth dilution, as a matter of no
essential moment. Thus, Kau, on page 183, Organon, says:
"If the remedy is chosen in accordance Avith the principle of
similia siinilibiis curantur, the treatment is homojopathic
whether the dose be large or small." While, as we have
seen, he doubts the efficacy of Olfaction ; and on i)age 182,
he says : " the weaker medicines must be given in the lower
dilutions ;'' yet, on page 181, he says : "In inflanmiatory aflec •
tions of the meningcnial membranes," (membranes of the
brain, I suppose he means) " with convulsions, in the case
of children, I have seen the most remarkable curative
effects from the forty-fifth potency of Belladonna I" — The
quantity in the thirtieth, divided by one hundred, fifteen times! !
Ilempel says in effect much the same things. Yet in vol. 1,
p. 79 Mat. Med., he says : — " The use of infinitesimal doses
is one of the characteristic peculiarities of our practice." Dr
Marcy in his Practice of Medicine, on page 108, says: "What
cared Hahnemann, — what care his discipjles — whether they use
one or twenty drops of a tincture, or one grain of a twentietli
attenuation V" But, he says, the attenuations originated with
Hahnemann as a necessity, on discovering that the tinctures
often jn-oduced too violent an impression upon the affected
TniRD LECTUKE, 63
structure. Of course, wlieu over excitement exists in an or-
gan or in tlie whole system, an excitant in sensible doses is
very likely to do harm. If great depression exists, the use of
depressing agents in sufficient quantity to produce effects, will
lead to greater depression. Those facts must ever have the
effect of confining those who prescribe on the principle of sim-
ilia slmilibus to \Qry small doses. This is a necessity. But
while Hahnemann declared in the most positive manner the
high attenuations best in all cases, most of his followers of the
present day give the lower ones — or crude articles, accord-
ing to their notions, or their ^'■infallible experiences.'^''
This harmony, consistency and universality of the '' heav-
enly truth '' is indeed quite remarkable.
It seems, then, that a " Homoeopathic dose '' now means
any quantity which may be put into a human stomach, or
approproximated to a human olfactory. Yet Henriques,
agreeing with the remark already quoted from Hempel, says :
"The administration of imponderable doses in the treatment
of disease, is a characteristic of Homoeopathy.''
But on the other hand again. Dr. Lobethal, a high Ger-
man Homoeopathic authority says : "I am decidedly convinced, .
that in order to apply the Homoeopathic treatment with suc-
cess, we should take cognizance of the whole scale at our dis-
posal, from the actual dose of the old School, up to the high-
est dilutions of which any medicine is susceptible ;" and Dr.
Gross of Germany, another higli authority says : " The phy-
sician may vary the dose from the highest dilution down to
one or more drops of the undiluted Tincture."
Amid this confusion and contradiction of authorities, it
becomes difficult to define the present standard Homoeopathic
creed. Indeed, in the process of change and disintegration,
which is evidently going on, no standard creed exists. Be-
fore we get through with the subject we shall see that each
of the distinctive doctrines is denied and rejected by the hom-
oeopathic authorities themselves. Hempel in his 3fateria
Medica, vol. 1, p. 801 says: " Of Hahnemann's original rules
of treatment hardly one is followed by modern practitioners.
64
TIIIKD I-ECTIUK.
Who treats a case oi" Syphilis now by giving a single t^lobulc
of tlie 30th potency of Morcurius Soliibilis, and no more, as
Hahnemann advises? Or who treats a case of Scabies with a
single globule of the 30th potency of Sulphur, as lie advises U8
to do? We have learned by abundant cjcperknce that we can
do better in many cases, and that unless we sometimes acted
differently, we should nut be able to cure our i)atients." But
Hahnemann's " experience," proved to him the efticiency of
his single doses. What confidence can we place in any of
these " experiences ? " — especially when their pretended con-
clusions violate every principle of reason and common sense.
The doctrine of Potentization, Dynamization, or Spiritu-
alization, so urgently insisted upon by Hahnemann — and the
only doctrine which can possibly rave the infinitesimal doses
from absurdity, and froai the contempt of all sensible men, is, I
think I may say, very generally abandoned by Homoeopaths,
at the present time. It is true there is not a single established
fact, tending to prove such " new and unheard of powers " be-
ing given to drugs by triturations and shakings ; yet there is
no inherent impossibility in the assumption ; and there might
be some analogy in the fact of electrical power being given to
certain substances by friction. But Homoeopaths of the pre
sant day reject the doctrine as a mistake or delusion of their
"great Founder." I have already shown that it was a neces-
sity to Hahnemann's System, and "svith its rejection infinitesimal
doses must be abandoned. The rejection of this doctrine of
potencies is the secret of the substitution of the Decimal for
Centesimal method of preparation ; and the substitution of the
"mother tinctures," and crude articles for the]dilutions. The
eflFect of resorting to these larger doses, upon the princi-
ple oisimilia similibus as a general law, we can but see. A
system of whatever kind consisting of parts dependent upon
each other, cannot lose any of those parts without falling into
dissolution.
" In Nature's chain whatever liuk we strike,
Tenth, or ten-thousandth, breaks the chain alike."
So in this artificial toy system of alleged princii^les, like
the circle of bricks set up by children, when one is toppled
Tltmi) LICCTURE. 65
over, all must fall. Some of the parts may beheld up for :i
time, but the superincumbent pressure must at length prevail,
and ditterent from the bricks, if once completely prostrated
and abandoned by the large body who are now playing with
them, they will never bo set up again — certainly not, until af-
ter the lapse of years. Some future antiquarian may exhume
them, and some future generation of urchins may recnact the
play.
But are the "potentizations" really denied by Homoeo-
paths ? By many, certainly.
Rau in his Oi'ganon,\). 158, says: "Nor is it sufficient
to assert that the quantity and quality of a horaoeopahtic agent
are in an inverse proportion, and that the power of the drug
increases as it is more highly attenuated. This is contrary to
experience. We attenuate medicines to diminish their excess-
ive action."
Now, to be sure, llahnemanu's experience was just the re-
verse of this ; and besides, the Sage declared that " all the ex-
perience in the world could not disprove the /ac^ (?) that the
smallest doses were the best." — the most powerful for good of
course. This Homoaopathic " exj^erience" is a very curious af-
faii". Itseemstobeable to^^raye anything that is desired. Rau,
in the same paragraph, adds : "We know from '■ experience "
that the dynamically disturbed organism is most powerfully
affected by influences which have a tendency to realize a sim-
ilar disturbance in the healthy organism." So, according to
this evidence, that matter is settled. But experience has given
the hundreds of symptoms recorded in the homoeopathic books
as the eflfects of Charcoal, and Sulphur, and Silex, and Chalk,
and other thingfr, even Avlien given in infinitesimal doses —
those symptoms which llempel in one of his more lucid mo-
ments designates as " the tens of thousands of puerile and ut-
terly useless trioiallties which have excited the derision of both
friend and foe." 3fat Jled. p. 04. He adds as an explana-
tion disapprovingly — that some i^rovers "note down as drug-
effects every sensation which he may experience after taking
the first dose." This is indeed the common fact.
GG THIRD LECTURE.
In relatliiGj a roported lioma^opalliic "cure" by a medi-
cine wliifli hu did not happen to believe in, the words of
a man he evidently disliked, lie said, you will remember,
" the remedy had as much to do with the recovery as the ' com-
et's tail.'" Strange that it should not hare occured to him
that the many cases, he and others relate of recoveries, after
a globule had been swallowed or snuffed, might not have tlie
same relation to the supposed remedy, the relation of this re-
covery and the " comet's tail." As Polonius would have said,
" Comet's tail," is good.
In reference to this question of Potentization, the position
of Dr. Ilempel is attempted to be expressed in his Mat. Med.,
vol. 1, p. 78-9. Here it is, and you shall see what you can
make of it :
"A Homoeopathic medicine acts by carrying the war into
Africa; it acts like the lightning-rod inviting the thunders
of Heaven. Here is the stranionium-cUsease, the creative stra-
riioniian-force having invaded the organism where it meets a
kindred recipient faculty, a pre-disposition whicli it excites
into a violent, palpable disorder. We act upon it by means of
material molecules for whicli the the stramonium-force or es-
sence has a stronger attractive affinity than for the organic
tissues. These material molecules are the stramonium-drug in
a suitable state of preparation. If the drug-molecules are not
endowed with sufficient force to draw the disease to them-
selves, in other words to materialize it, to convert it from the
dynamic or immaterial form in which it pervades the organ-
ism, into molicular drug-atoms of limited dimensions, and
harmless as disease — producing agents, the cure fails. Either
the disease was not a stramonium-disease, or else the inimical
force had so thoroughly assimilated the organic tissues that
their dissolution had become inevitable. It is in this exact
adaptation of our remedial agents to diseases, that consists
their potency — their power to act. Potency has not refer-
ence to quantity or number, but to t J le curative adajytation of
drugs to diseases. In this sense a globule of the 12th attenua-
tion of arsenic, may be a far more efficient potency than ten
drops of Fowler's solution ; whereas, on the other hand, a few
grains of quinine in fever and ague, may exercise a more posi-
tive curative influence, and therefore constitute a more efficient
potency, than a few globules of the 30th attenuation.
Hahnemann taught the doctrine, and this doctrine is
founded in Nature and Reason — that it is the drug-force which
effects cures. By drug-force, we mean the morbific essence
TniKD LECTURE. 67
wliicli materializes itself in the plant, and develops pathologi-
cal lesions in the organism. This drug-1'orce can never be
wholly separated from the material molecules of the drug ; but
by resorting to various peculiar processes of shaking and trit-
uration, this drug-force may bo set free, disengaged, and may
by united with a temporary vehicle, such as alcohol or sugar
of milk." The triturating and shaking are to be described.
" For the present," he adds, " let it sufiice to know that it is
the in-dwelling dynamic force of drugs which effects our cures
by absorbing, attracting, as it were, the morbific essence to it-
self, and amalgamating or incorporating it with the molecular
atoms of the drug." He fiirllier says, "the process of rubbing
and shaking is designated as an attsnuation by those who look
upon this proceeding as simply a mechanical division or sepa-
ration of the drug-molcculcs ; the term potency or dynara-
ization, is applied by physicians, who regard the process of
shaking and trituration as a development of the in-dwelling
drug-force."
He seems to hold t'lat the drug-force is in great quantity,
in a medicine, and is separated and let loose by shaking. This
is a modification of Hahnemann's notion of an added force — a
new and unheard-of power 2^^'oduced hy the shaking. Hem-
pel developes or separates it by rubbing. One view is about
as rational as the other ; and practically they amount to about
the same thing, viz. : that the power of the drugs in trituration
and shaking is developed or increased. The medicine is po-
tentized. But this is not the common view of Homoeopaths.
Potentization, by the masses, is relinquished. Hempel is not
a representative man of his school. But who is a representa-
tive of modern HomcEopathy ? Ran finally explicitly says :
" It is my opinion that the virtues of medicines are coui-
jjletely developed in the first, clear, transparent dilution.
Some agents pDsscss the power of deranging ^the organism
in an extraordinary degree, compelling even Allopathic physi-
cians to prescribe very small doses, lest the organism should
be injured. This circumstance, of itself, is sufficient to show
that the power of a drug is divided in proportion as the drug
is attenuated. If that poAver were increased by the attenuat-
68 THIRD LECTUnK.
iiig process, every rciueilial ngoiit wouM lie coiiverted into a
deatlly poison."
Marcy, p. 119, says : " We iiifor, tli:it no now properties
arc dovc'lojH'd by the Ii()in(eo[)atliic nictlio'l of preparing drugs,
except sucli as arise iVoni the mere subdivision of their parti-
cles ; and that all ideas respecting spiritaalizatlon, dynnialza-
tion, and magnetism, in the prepa ation of medicines, arc
erroneous and untenable.""
If medicines -were increased in power as Hahnemann
taught, could the matter remain long in doubt? Could it not
bo tested? AVould any Ilonioeopat'is deny it? Here, as else-
wiiere, the discrepancies are seen.
It seems almost a waste of time to attempt an argument
against the effects of infinitesimal quantities of common mat-
ter of ordinary drugs, such as Sulphur, Lime, Potash, Golden
Seal, or the more powerful articles, even, as Nux Vomica,
Aconite, Mercury, Arsenic, etc.. at the thirtieth dilution, or
any other above the very loArest, if potcntization be rejected.
It seems only necessary to remind you of the extreme minute-
ness of the quantities in these dilutions, as already shown. Yet
to give a show of plausibility to the alleged power of such
dilutions, the effect of imponderable quantities of specific and
c )ntagious poisons, and particularly of the poisons of Small-Pox
and the Vaccine disease arc constantly adduced as illustrations.
I need hardly remind those of you who are medical students
and acquainted with the doctrine of contagion, of the want of
analogy — the total difference between the mode of operation
of Sraall-Pox and Vaccine poisons, and that of medicinal sub-
stances referred to.
The infectious or contagious poison i^f/in')jiinal,ixs has al-
ready been stated — is a living cell or molecule, capable of multi-
plication in the system. It must and does multiply before it pro-
duces its effects. The smallest particle of this germinal matter
introduced into the system by inhalation in the air, or by ir-
noculation into the skin, thus reaching the blood, after a week
or two, the period of incubation, as it is called, so increases in
the body, taking nutritient materials to itself, as to manifest the
XniRD LECTURE. 69
most decided effecls — the phenomena of the disease ; and
producing the most sensible amount, even ounces, and perhaps
pounds of the same kind of matter, in Small-Pox, passing off
in effluvia, or accumulating in the pustules which are so abun-
dant. But no one pretends that medicines are living germinal
matters, thus multij^lying in the system. Thus the analogy
and the ilUistration entirely fail ; and common sense and com-
mon sanity so strongly protest against the i^ossibility of such
effects, that I need say no more. '
The next homoeopathic doctrine in the system to be no-
ticed, following the inverse order in which they were mentioned
in a former lecture, is that respecting the totality of symptoms.
According to Hahnemann, (I sho^ved that it was a necessary
part of his system), Ave cannot know anything of disease except
the symptoms. The symptoms in their totality reflect the in-
ternal disease — the affection of the vital force.
But says Ran, " the philosophical and argumentative ex-
pounder of Homoeopathy," {Organon, p. 99) ^^ Sym2')toms are
only one portion of the clue which leads to the perception of
the true nature of the internal morbid process. * * In
some cases the symptoms are not so clear, and the real nature
of the disease has to be determined by a jmori reasoning."
He goes on to urge at length the importance of enquiring into
the history of tlie case, the tcjulencies of the constitution, the
causes of the disease, the surrounding influences which are
injurious or advantageous to the patient, as well as an appre-
ciation of existing symptoms ; and in speaking of the objects
of treatment, he says (p. 313) — "For a long time past it has
been felt that the removal of single symptoms does not consti-
tute a cure, any more than we can extinguish the flame of a
burning house by directing the stream against one side only.
The fruitless attempt to combat the totality of the symptoms
by a combination of remedies producing opposite effects, finally
led to the conviction that every disease, in order to be cured,
must be seized by the root. In this way the idea of rational
medicine has first been started, and will ultimately triumph."
On p. 156, he adds: "In treating patients symptomatically, we
often come in collision with the curative efforts of nature.''''
10 THIRD LKCTURE.
You have been taught, gentlemen, that it is more import-
ant to change pathological conditions, and to remove morbid
causes, than to aim ycur treatment at the mere palliation or
removal of symptoms. But the homoeopathic method, based
upon the alleged similarity of drug effects to the symptoms of
disease, cannot act on this principle.
Ilenriques, the forcible and plausible writer in favor of
IIoma?opathy, (as he understands it), already referred to, in
summing up a discussion on this question, says: "I trust I
have shown that the symptomatic school of Hahnemann is cor-
rect in assuming the primary and radical scat of disease to be
the vital force, and that the only elements of disease that can
be of real importance in a therapeutic point of view, and which
can constitute the great basis of medical science, are the vital
signs and symptoms." (p. 228.)
But here, as everywhere, there are differences of views
among Homoeopaths, Hahnem.ann's doctrine on this question
seems to predominate. It is a part of the system, though de-
nied and. abandoned by many. We regard pathological con-
ditions — arriving at a knowledge of them by all means possible.
— Causes and effects — all the morbid phenomena — as affording
therapeutical indications — as objects of treatment. It is un-
necessary for me to urge upon you considerations in favor of
this view. But in thus presenting you with the views of dif-
ferent Homteopathic writers on this subject, you may behold
" with hearts full of reverence, the consistency and zmiversality
of the teachings of this heavenly truth !" (Hempel.)
Wc come back now to the first — the great central doctrine
of Homeceopathy — Similia Similibus Curantur\ the alleged
universal therapeutic principle — " the sole law of cure."
We have found all the other essential doctrines of Hahn-
emann, rejected and opposed by his professed followers, as not
having sufficient plausibility, or evidence in their favor to com-
mand the assent of all his disciples.
I fancy also that none of these views which have been
commented upon have received the assent of the judgment of
any one of you who has given his attention to their statement.
THIRD LECTURE. 71
If we should now lind tliat this dogma is also rejected by many
of these same disciples and professed followers, and what is
much more important, that it is clearly opposed to both facts
and reason — what in our estimation, will have become of this
wliole system, and of its several jjarts ?
Homoeopathists in a general way, however, insist upon
this as a great law and a great discovery : as the great central
principle to which all others are subsidiary — and many say we
ought to drop out of sight Hahnemann's other views, such as
infinitesimal doses, potentizations, spiritual medicinal influ-
ences, the itch-miasm as the cause of seven-eights of all chronic
diseases, etc., etc., as mere subsidiary articles in the homa3op-
athic creed, to which all his followers do not implicitly sub-
scribe, while we look to ^^ Similia Similihui Curantur'''' as
the sole vital part of this medical system.
Dr. Scott, a leading English Homceopathist, and one of
the most learned of their writers, says in the British Journal
of Homoeopathy — " The essential characteristic of the homoe-
opathic schools is singly and simply the adoption of a law of
treatment applicable to all forms of disease, expressed by the
words, Similia Similibus Curantur / this," he adds, " we
conceive to be the whole distinctive creed."
Most of the Homoeopaths of the present day in conversa-
tion, will declare this the only principle upon which they in-
sist, and by which they are governed in practice. But do they
all adhere to it, as a universal principle — and are they all gov-
erned by it in practice ? And what is still more important, is
it true ? Is it a universal principle? Is it even a general law?
Is it, in fact, any law at all ?
Now as to whether Homoeopaths, even in their writings,
where coming'down to facts and details, regard their law as
universal; I will first refer to Rau, wliose work is so strongly
endorsed by Hempel, his translator.
Rau's first general therapeutic rule is stated to be " to re-
move all morbid influences ;" and he remarks that many dis-
eases disappear simply by removing the morbific influence.
(O/y. p. 138.) This, to be sure, is a simple dictate of common
72 TIIIKU LECTURE.
sense and common observation, but it disproves the dogma of
similia siinilU)iis, as tlic onl;/ law of cure. On p. 140, he rec-
ommends an emetic when the stomach is overloaded, or contains
foul matter from other causes. Ji\ such cases he says, "The
shortest and simplest way it to take an emetic." If warm
water and butter Avill not do, he advises ipecac, in proper
emetic dosea, followed by warm water ; and after the vomiting
is over, a cup of black coftee to restore the tone of the stomach.
Coffee, he thinks, has a good effect in slowness of digestion ;
but frankly confesses, " The action is not homoeopathic, but
it is Enanthiopathic, in accordance with the principle " co)i-
trarla contrariis.'''' I mention this," he says, " by way of ad-
vice to those who condemn every land of antipatlxic treatment
xoithout rhyme or reason.'''' On p. 141, he recommends cathar-
tics in constipation of the bowels, lie relates cases where
homoeopathic remedies had failed, but where a cathartic, as of
castor oil, had cured the patient! On p. 143, he says, "The
object of treatment with the partisans of every school and
system, is to neutralize a morbid action by establishing a con-
trary influence." Speaking of the principle " contraria con-
trariis samanda,^'' and the methods of treatment in accordance
with it, he says: "These rules have been followed for three
thousand years, sometimes with great success. This must be
admitted." He then, to be sure, goes on to mention objections
to the plan of large doses ; giving examples of enormous ones
which any of us would condemn ; and relates remedies which
he regards as having acted homaopathically, a specimen of
which is, " O^jium has frequently been employed with great
success for incarcerated Hernia and Illius.'' Is that homoe-
opathic ? The opium in such a case is given to allay the severe
pain, overcome spasmodic action and diminish inflammation.
Does any one imagine that it will produce, however given,
any of these effects? Such a position would be simply
preposterous. On p. 151, he says: "The living organism
possesses the power to oppose and neutralize noxious influences,
and when the morbid influence is weakened the organism cures
itself.'''' On p. 15C-7, in Debility, adynamic conditions, he
THIRD LECTURE. 1'i
says: '"So-ctiliocl corroborants and stimulants have frequently
been of great use." Page 177, "The derivative method has
enjoyed great repute for severalthousand years past, and, with
much evil has done some little good." "It is not my intention
to defend cathartics, moxae, setons, etc. I confess, however, that
I never hesitate to avail myself of all the means at my com-
mand to relieve the patient ;" and then goes on to say, he uses
external irritation to the chest when measles are slow to come
out, "changing the whole scene" — hotfoot baths in congestion
of head, etc. Cold to head with ice or snow in reaction after
concussion of the head, " with incalculable benefit." In swoons
and apparent death he recommends stimulants — when the vital
action is prostrate, p. 17 G. On p. 189, he advises palliatou
without regard to the homoeopathic law. In all these ways he
denies in the most positive manner that similla similihus is the
only method of cure, or that in many cases it is the best, or in-
deed any method of cure at all. I need not insist that all
these methods thus sanctioned by liau are opposed to the law
of Homoeopathy, and subversive of all its essential principles.
Henriques sjDeaking of the principles governing the old
;uid new schools— the old rule, he says, being contraria contra-
riis acj'antur, and the new being similla slmllibus curantw\
on p. 240 remarks: "Nor can either claim the exclusive dig-
nity of an universal law of therapeutic action. * * No doubt
both are extremely useful, each in its respective and appropri-
ate sphere, as empirical rules of practical guidance in the
selection of a remedy; but neither can be considered as an
absolute and universal law explanatory of the modus operandi
of curative agents. He further says there can be "but one
absolute principle of therapeutic art, which may be termed
" cowiter-actlon,'''' operating by a two-fold law — " contraria
contrarils^'' and^' similla simllibiis.'''' Where then, according
to this authority, is the Universal Laio ?
"These formulas," he continues, " are simply expressions
of the only two fundamental modes of relation, as yet discov-
ered, between the remedy and the disease." There are others,
but no matter now ; according to this authority, Homoeopathy
10
T1 Illlia) l.liCTURK.
is nut tlio only owv. Indeed, Ilcnriquos repudiates Ilahut-
tnnnn's " Sy>tem of Medicine," and says there are three things
whicli constitute the reformation of Hahnemann, viz. :
1. "TIk' tiefuiite knowledge of the action and eftects of
piiarmaoeutical agents, acquired by direct provings upon man
in the normal state." We have seen how much value can he
attached to these as conducted by IToma'opaths.
•_'. " The rule for a selection of a remedy, derived from
the harmonic relation existing between the known specific
ellecls of the remedy in health, and tlie ascertained vital signs
of the given morbid disposition."
But he has already stated that such relation is Antipathic
:is well as Ilomceopathic.
:?. "The practice aodpted hi the exhibiting of single
remedial agencies ; and the administration of imponderable
doses for the treatment of disease.''
You will remember that I have shown that the exhibiting
of single remedial agents, triturated and reduced to imponder-
able doses, is an impossibility ; and that most Homoeopaths
alternate their medicines, and some mix them.
From his stand-point, the " system" of Hahnemann is re-
jected; and of the three things which ho retains, the first — that
of the provings, is almost worthless — entirely unreliable, as
seen by the recorded results of these provings by their stand-
ard authors, and as acknowledged by the Homoeopathic au-
thorities themselves. The second — the relation between the
efiects of remedies and the symptoms of disease being one
of counteraction — action against or in opposition to the dis-
ease — manifesting itself in two modes — by Antipathy, or an-
tagonism ; and Homoeopathy, or similarity — similarity being
simply a less degree of difference, as we shall see. And the
third thing — simple agents in imponderable doses — the first
part of this being generally repudiated by Homoeopaths, and
proved impossible ; and the last part, considered by Homoeo-
paths of the present day as at least non-essential, and which
is in the way of repudiation. I have thus given you the views
of two distinguished European Homoeopathic authors in oppo-
rniiu) LECTUEK. 75
sitiou to the universality of tlie law of Siniilia Similibics Cur-
antur, as I have also already given various other homoeopathic
authorities in opposition to the other views of Hahnemann.
It is stated by those in the best possible position to know,
that the condition of Homoeopathy is far better in America than
in any other country — that is, there are far more homoeopathic
physicians, colleges, societies, dispensaries, books, etc., in
this country than in any other; and they attribute this greater
success of the American, so-called homa>opathic physicians,
to their departing more from Homoeoprithy, and adopting
more from the Regular School here than any where else. It is
not mere Homoeopathy that is successful, but the adoption of
much of the science and treatment of the Regular School, of
the so-called Eclectics and of the Hydropathists.
" Very few," says Dr, Peters, (and the fact is perfecily
well known to all who have observed their practice) " of the
American homoeopathic physicians confine themselves exclu-
sively to the liomEopathic remedies or homeopathic doses.
The principle of Similia Similibus is not followed.
In the Neio York Med. Gazette, vol. 1, p. 328, it is stated:
'• Hahnemann taught that one grain of sulphur well rubbed up
with 100 grains of Sugar of Milk, could be developed into a
medicine of tremendous power and energy. But Dr. Barlow
of Xew York, who ranks as a homoeopathic physician of ex-
cellent standing, advises that 2 grs. of very pure sulphur bo
mixed with 126 grs. of conium, quinine and morphino. A fa-
vorite prescription is : Take
Sulphur Pura, 2 grs.
Ext. Conium Mac, 90 grs.
Sulph. Quinia, 30 grs.
Sulph. Morphine, 3 grs.
Podophyllin, 3 grs.
M. ft. pil. No. xxx. Dose onj or two, several times a day.
Each pill contains one-fifteenth of a grain of the Sulphur,
three grains of the Conium, one grain Quinia, one-teuth grain
each of the Morphine and Podophyllin.
In the Chicago Medical Examiner, an article on Modern
Homoeopathy shows similar proscriptions and practices in the
7»» TniltT) LECTURE.
TjOiuIoii lIuiiKpopatliic l)OS})it:il, ami in llic (l:iily doings of var-
ious protondod Iloniocrpaths inXt-w York and clscwlicrc.
In tilt' X. V, ^Icnlical Gazette, vol. 2, p. 0'), is a descrip-
tion oi'a medicine prescribed by Dr. FreliL!;li to a rheumatic
patient, consisting of a large quantity of Xit. of Potash, and
not quite so mnch of Iodide of Potassium, dissolved in the
Tincture of Actca Raccmosa, and given in one-half or whole
teaspoonful doses. Dr. Frelif^h is in high standing among
iroiiKPojiaths.
The JVbrth American Journul of llomceopatloj — the
largest and oldest horacropathic quarterly journal, in its Pro-
spectus states, that " it will maintain a recognition of 'Sirailia
Similibus Curantur,' as the only Therapeutic Law, and the
superiority of the practice founded upon this law over all other
systems and modes of medical practice.'' It will also oppose
all attempts to amalgamate Homoeopathy Avith anything else,
etc. But we find in it, Santoninc and Podophyllin prescribed
in free doses by Dr. C. Judson Hill of Utica, X. Y. Also an
ounce or more of bruised pumpkin seeds, followed by two
drams of Sulph. Ether, and this by an ounce of Castor oil.
Dr. Hedges of Chicago, recommends in it, excision of the
part in Hydrophobia, and to cauterize with Xitrate of Silver ;
then give Belladonna and Bromide of Potassium in free doses
for six months. Dr. Henry A. Daniels of X. Y., recommends
in all cases of Catarrh a solution of Sulphate of Copper, grad-
uated in strength according to the necessity of the case. Dr.
Stackers recommends an infusion of two drams of Senega in
Pleuro-Pneumonia; and Prof. S.B. Barlow reports three cases
of Goitre cured by 3d and l2th dilutions of Spongia — but
adds an ointment of the crude remedy rubbed into the tumor
each night. Journal for August, 1SG8.
"The Chicago Homoeopathic Quarterly" is filled with
similar things.
A few years ago I was called to see a gentleman at some
distance who had been my patient previously, and who was
then in an alarming condition from an acute inflammation in
the chest. Arriving by the cars late in the night, the attend-
TIIIKD LECTUKE. 11
ing physician Avas not present, but he had loft a note lor lue,
stating that the patient was taking niorpliinc, and, I think,
some other medicine, in tlie ordinary doses as prescribed by
regular physicians. In the morning, this physician came in,
and a consultation -was held in the case, during wliich not an
allusion was made, or an expression dropped, which excited
the least suspicion of any irregularity in the views or practice;
of the person with whom I was consulting. lie spoke freely of
other cases which had occurred in his practice, and of his treat-
ment— amon^ which I distinctly remember rheumatism, which he
said he had treated successfully with large doses of alkalies; and
pneumonia, in which the excitement of the pulse and other symp •
toms had been controlled by the usual doses of veratrum viride.
A course of treatment for the patient was agreed upon, Avith-
out there being the slightest reference to homoeopathic princi-
ples; and not until he had left the house to procure the medi-
cine, when I was informed of the fact, had I the least suspicion
that this man I had thus met, was a professed Homceopath.
When he returned, in the presence of the family of the patient,
I charged him with deception in professing a system he prac-
tically repudiated — for giving to Homoeopthy the credit he
had met with in the use of remedies given in accordance with
the practice of the Regular School; and I enjoined upon the
gentleman who had sent for me, to convey my apology and ex-
planation to the regular physicians of the town for having been
unconsciously in consultation with a Homoeopath ; who, had
he adhered to his professed principles, could not have agreed
with me in any prescription I could conscientiously have made.
This man was no obscure and unknown pretender; but at the
time, an associate editor, as I was informed, of a New York
Homoeopathic Journal ; was soon after, and I believe now is,
a professor in a Homoeopathic College, and is the author of a
work on homoeopathic Materia Medica !
A year or two since, a womau in Detroit, in the care of a
homoeopathic physician, died suddenly with symptoms of nar-
cotism. Before a coroner's jury it was proved that a very large
quantity of morphine was left by this Homceopath and ordered
78 THIRD LECTURE.
to l)e administered — suflicient in tlie opinions of sonic of tlic
pliysicians who investigated the subjcet, to cause her death.
Dr. Taylor, of London, in liis Medical Jurisprudence^ re-
lates eases of poisoning from morpliine prescribed by HomoR-
opaths.
Some months since, in conversation Avitli a distinguished
clergyman and advocate of temperance, on the subject of phy-
sicians so freely and indiscriminately prescribing alcoholic
drinks; he said that he had had occasion to know much of the
practice of both the regular and homoeopathic physicians in
his own city — Brooklyn, N. Y. — and that the latter, as much
as the former, prescribed the diftercnt ibims of alcohol, but
neither upon the principle of similia similibiis or in infinitesi-
mal doses. Whiskey by the glass-full for symptoms of debility,
is certainly not honest Homoeopathy, and in many cases where
prescribed, by men of any school, is not good practice. But,
like the other cases, the use of this article by Homoeopaths
shows the practical abandonment of the professed principles
of the system.
Dr. Cormack, of England, says, patients that have been
attended by Homeopaths often come to him, and he finds the
commonest and coarsest of the " ordinary " means of cure
M'ithout the slightest reference to the homoeopathic principle,
are used by them hahitualbj.
Dr. Russell, of England, in an address published in the
British Journal of Homoeopathy, adduced, it as a most gratify-
ing reflection that, naturally. Homoeopathy welcomed and could
include within it, the cognate sciences and curative methods,
such as hydropathy, mesmeric cures, etc.
Only yesterday, a man came to me who had been under
the care of a homoeopathic practitioner of this city, who, after
giving him imponderable doses for a long time with no effect,
resorted to free ordinary doses, as he said, with some relief of
his symptoms, but without effecting a cure.*
*This case was one of cystic irritation. The man was a free drinker of
strong cotfoe, and was advised lo discontinue his favorite beverage, but no
medicine was prescribed. Wome days after he returned witli the account of
freedom from hjs lung continued and distressing symptoms. Had he lalceu
sugar pellets with the injunction to avoid coffee, leslitshould counteract their
eUecis, he would have attributed his relief to the medicine. "Experience-'
would have in'ovedits eflicacy^j
THIRD LECTDKE. VO
Many of these means, outside of their own medicines,
they call " therapeutic auxiliaries" — helps of their homoeopathic,
remedies. Ti*eating patients with infinitesimals until they sec
something else must be done, they resort to these other meas-
ures, but attribute the cure to their "infallible specifics."
One is reminded of the story of the drummer-boy, who is
said to have vaunted that he had defeated the French at Wa-
terloo — though he allowed at the same time, that for this pur-
pose he had incidentally used the English cannon, cavalry, and
troops as his " auxiliaries'' in the work.
How diametrically opposite is all this'to the teachings of
Hahnemann and to real Homoeopathy ! " For," says Hahne-
mann, in the prefixce to his Organon^ p. xi : " homoeopathy
sheds not a drop of blood ; administers no emetics, purgatives,
la.xatives, or diaphoretics ; drives off no external afl:*ections by
external means ; prescribes no warm baths or medicated clys-
ters, applies no Spanish flies or mustard plasters," etc.
We thus see. Gentlemen, that homoeopathic professions
and practices by no means correspond. It may be clauned
that this system, like others, is progressive ; but when it is
claimed that any dogma in a system is essential, infallible and
universal, any progressing — any change from it is abandon-
ment. The essential doctrine of Homoeopathy — that without
Avhich it does not exist, is the universality of the principle
that " like cures like.'''' To be sure, attached to this, and as a
necessity going with it, are several other principles or practi-
ces, such as imponderable doses, eci., and if one is abandoned
the System is destroyed ; and certainly if the fundamental,esseu-
tial principle is given up, all is gone. The principle o^ shnilia
similibus is so definite in its character, and so broadly and posi-
tively asserted as a universal law, that its abandonment in
part is impossible — at least, is fatal to the claims of Homoeop-
athy. Its distinct claim is to the discovery of an infallible,
universal law of cure. We have brought sufficient evidence
from the statements and practices of its own acknowledged
authorities to show that this claim of universality is un-
founded.
In the next lecture we shall proceed to inquire into its
claims to be considered as a law of cure in any sense.
HOMCEOPATHY.
LECTURE IV.
Gentlemen. — As intimated in the lecture of ycstei'day,
we shall now proceed to the examiuation of the claims of this
central dogma of the system we have been considering, not so
much as to its being a universal law, as to its being any- law
at all.
That the principle of " shnilia similibus cv.rantw^'' is not
the only infallible laAV of cure, the testimony and practice of
Homceopaths themselves, as already shown, has proved. Cer-
tainly it may be so regarded in the absence of any direct
proof of the assumption.
But is similia similibus a law ? Does like cure like
with sufficient a2y2)arent frequency to enable us to regard
it as a principle of at least any considerable applicability ?
In the first place let us enquire, what, indeed, is meant by
like curing like? How much like, must the eftect of the rem-
edy be to the disease.
No where in Hahnemann's writings, or elsewhere, so far as
I know, has the amount or degree of similarity been accu-
rately defined that will make the agent curative, or the degree
of dissimilarity that will cause the remedy to fail. All is left
vague and indefinite. To be sure Hahnemann has said the
eftect of the remedy must not be identical, but similar only.
In similarity there is difference. Hahnemann further says,
11
82 FOUHTII LECTURE.
the similarity must be the greatest possible, yet, nowhere
docs he specify the degree of similarity necessary for the oper-
ation of the "law." Measles is so similar to Small-Pox that
for a long time they were confounded ; yet one does not cure
or prevent the other; and the case of Small-Pox and the Vac-
cine disease so often referred to as illustrating the *' law," en-
tirely fails to do so, when closely examined. These affections
do not cure, but they jt;?'eyen< each other — and each attack of
either Small-Pox or the Vaccine disease, will prevent other at-
tacks of the same disease in the same person, fully as effec-
tually as they will prevent eacli other. Identity \\cyq, prevents,
as well as what is regarded as similarity ; and the Vaccine dis-
ease exhausts the susceptibility of the system to Small-Pox
because of its essential identity with it. It is Small-Pox,
modified by having passed through the body of the cow. But
the actions of medicines have no analogy to the actions of
these diseases. Medicines do not, by impressing the system,
exhaust its susceptibility to another imjjression, either of the
same or a similar medicine ; and they do not exhaust the sus-
ceptibility to a disease whose symptoms are similar to their
'effects. No one pretends this.
In the alleged examples of diseases horaoeopathically cur-
ing each other, adduced by Hahnemann, he has mentioned
some exceedingly dissimilar — such as Small-Pox curing Dys-
entery, Small-Pox curing Amaiyosis, and Dyspnoea, and Deaf-
ness. He seems as acute in seeing a likeness where he wishes
to, as Polonius.
" Do you see," says Hamlet, " yonder cloud that's almost
in shape of a camel? '' " By the mass," says Polonius, " and
it is like a camel, indeed." Ham. •' Methinks its like a wea-
sle." Pol. " It is backed like a weasle.'' Ham. " Or like a
whale?'' Pol. " Very like a whale."
It must be acknowledged that Small-Pox is not as like
Amaurosis, etc., as is "possible."
How unsatisfactory in this respect, as in every other, is
this whole system !
The principles of Alteration and Supersession are of fre-
FOUBTH LECTURE. 83
quent application in Scientific medicine. By Alteration is un-
derstood the action of a medicine upon some particular dis-
eased process, changing its character or course, rendering it
milder or shorter; and by Supersession is meant the substitu-
ting for a morbid jorocess, a medicinal impression or action of
a less severe character, or shorter continuance.
These therapeutic princi[)les are similar in their natures and
objects, and are not always distinguishable from each other.
Considered in a general sense as the same therapeutic law, it is
illustrated in the application of an astringent or mild caustic
to an inflamed or granular eye-lid, or to an ill-conditioned
ulcer ; and also in the application of Tincture of Iodine, or a
Solution of Bromine to Erysipelas, or other forms of external
inflammation ; and of the apjjlication of Nitrate of Silver, or
Oil ol Turpentine, to a chronic, or low form of inflammation of
the stomach or bowels. This is claimed by the Homoeopaths as
treatment in accordance with the principle of like curing like,
as these articles applied to the healthy jaart would produce
more or less disturbance, resembling in some] degree the con-
dition sought to be cured.
Now, if such changes — such alterative or substitutive
effects, are Homoeopathic — then is the Homoeopathic principle
one of the laws of cure ; but a law of cure which has ever been
recognized from the dawn of medical science, and which ever
will be recognized as long as the art is practised by sensible
men. It is a law of cure of quite extensive application ; but
by no means applying to all, or even a very large proportion
of cases.
But is this kind of action properly Homoeopathic ? Is the
cure effected in consequence of the similarity of the medi-
cinal action to that of the disease, or in consequence of the
medicinal action differing from it?
Dr. J. C. Peter?, of New York, already spoken of, raised
this question some years ago, and his argument which strikes
at the very root and foundation of the Homoeopathic " law," has
never been successfully answered.
Certainly the substituted action is a different one, and it
84 FOrUTII LKCTURE.
overcoiiK'S tlii- morbid action, because il is dillereiit. Its pro-
ducing iu sonic cases somewliat similar etrects is a mere incider.t
— is by no means necessory to tlic curative action, and is as
lai- as i)ossible from being the reason of tlie remedial eifcct.
Dr. Peters justly says, that a thing Avhich resembles an-
other is not identical with it, but it differs more or less, l^e-
semblanc3 always includes some dittereuce. Hence, a remedy
whicli acts similarly to a given disease, also acts somewhat
diff'ureiithi from that disease.
If there be an identity in the actio;i of the r.'medy and
that of the disease, then can there be no cure, but an aggra-
vation. If the similarity or homceopathicity between the ac-
tion of the remedy and the disease be too great, then will there
be aggravation instead of cure. But in i)roportion as the simi-
larity grows less, and the difference increases, so will the rem-
edy alter, change, remove, take the place of, or cure the dis-
ease. Our remedies then produce an effect different from the
disease. This difference may be so great as to amount to an-
tagonism — antagonism being the greatest degree of difference
— or the difference may be so slight, as to morge into similar-
ity; for similarity is merely a lesser or least degree of differ-
ence.
No remedy can cure any disease, unless there is some dlf-
/erence between its action and that of the disease it is given to
cure : otherwise it would not alter, modify, change, or substi-
tute its action for that of the disease. If there is no difference
between the action of the remedy and that of the disease, then
each dose or application of the drug would only add so mucli
more to the disease — would aggravate it. In other words, the
greater the homceopathicity, at least, after going beyond a cre-
tain point, the more it will aggravate ; Avhcn, of ecurfi^e, a suf-
ficient dose is given to produce a sensible eflect.
Now, in a vast majority of internal diseases, where a med-
icine whose effect strongly resembles the disease, is given in
doses sufficient to produce any sensible effect, an aggravation
is produced — the patients are made worse but [not better by
the drug. In proportion as the similarity grows less between
FOUUTll LECTURE. H5
the action of the roinedy and that of the disease to be cured,
so, as a general rule, will tlie chance of altering, modifying, or
changing the disease into something milder or better, increase ;
that is, the less the similarity or homoeopathicity, and the
greater the difference or allojjathicity (if you please), so will
the chances of improvement or cure increase ; but of course
the dose must be large enough to produce an alteration, or
change, or modification, or lessening of the disease. Infinit-
esimals — certainly, unless potentized, will produce no percep-
tible effect. I repeat the point to which I wish to call partic-
ular attention, that the fact of an agent producing a somewhat
similar condition to the disease it modifies, where given to a
person in health, is a mere incident or accident of its action,
and not of an essentially curative nature. It is one of the
strangest phenomena of the human mind, that this mere acci-
dent of some remedial agents, should have been seized upon
and exalted into a law of cure ; especially into one universal,
sole law of cure.
But in the greater number of cases, says Dr. Peters, the
remedies given by the Homoeopaths have no kind of homceo-
pathic relation to the disease intended to be cured; or at least
a very slight one. Morbid conditions are so exceedingly di-
verse, and the Materia Medica of the Homoeopaths so limited;
the effects of medicines are so imperfectly known, and their
relations to symptoms so slight and illydefined, that if the prin-
ciple of "like cures like" were a true one, its application would
be too imperfect and difficult to render it of value.
In examining the works of Homoeopathic writers, one
cannot but be impressed, by the extreme looseness and inaccu-
racy of their statements, admitting the correctness of their
pretended, law. They all seem to see likenesses where they
do not exist, or where they are of the most obscure and doubt-
ful character ; and most absurdly attribute changes to the
effects of their medicines which occur in the natural course of
disease. The pretended similarity of the effects of their rem-
edies to the phenomena of the diseases they are given to cure,
have, in most of the cases, no reality. The Homoeopaths, for
86 FOURTH LECTUEE.
example, declare that Pleurisy will be cured in twenty-four
hours by Aconite. Will that agent cause a pleurisy, or any-
thing like it ? Who could have the hardihood even to pretend
that such is the fact? Such similarity certainly does not exist
between tlie effects of remedies and the phenomena of those
diseases most certainly known to bj cured by them.
If anything is certain in Therapeutics — if there are any
specifics in medicine, they are to bo found in quinine for ague
— in sulphur for scabies or the itch — in lemon-juice and succu-
lent vegetables for scurvy — in iodine for goitre — and in col-
chicum, at least as a palliative, for gout. Now does the effect
of either of these remedies resemble the symptoms of the dis-
eases they are respectively known to cure ? Will quinine pro-
duce intermittent fever, or anything like it ? Of medical men
I need not ask this question. Many of you, Gentlemen, have
been in the army. Most of you have seen quinine adminis-
tered there or elsewhere, in a great variety of doses, large and
small ; and for longer and shorter periods of time. Have you
ever known a case where the occurrence of ague was attributed
to the action of this agent ? General experience, in thousands
upon thousands of cases, denies any such results ; and partic-
ular experiments by Simpson, and others, have failed to produce
any such effects. IIow quinine does operate in curing the
ague, we may not positively know. Probably, either by neu-
tralizing the malarial poison, or by restoring some needed
element to the system, or by impressing it insuch a manner
as to prevent the effects of the poison ; but in neither of these
supposed modes of its action is there the slightest evidence
that the -principle of similia simillbus has any part. On the
contrary, it is certain that no such principle operates in the
case.
Sulphur is well known to cure the itch. But will it pro-
duce it, or anything essentially resembling it? Genuine itch
which sulphur so certainly cures, is produced by a parasitic
insect burrowing into the skin, Avhich the sulphur kills, but does
not produce. The idea that it produces its effects on the prin-
ciple of similia similibus curantur is too ' absurd to admit of
discussion.^" _^ ,
FOURTH LECTURE. 87
Will lemon-juice and fresh vegetables cauBe the scurvy ?
or colchicum the gouL ? It has already been shown that iodine
do8s not cause the goitre. The virtues of all these articles
became known, not from experiments upon the well, and de-
ductions from such experiments, but from observations upon
the sick. The facts stand out by themselves, unconnected with
any vague, absurd, or fanciful universal principle.
These illustrations might be extendod indefinitely — at
least, as far as cures are eftected by remedial agencies ; and
on investigation we should find the same results. The pre-
vention of small-pox by vaccination, so frequently adduced to
illustrate the homoeopathic " law," we liave already seen has
no analogy to the operation of medicines in curing disease ;
and if it had, the statement of Hahnemann that the "remedy
must be somewhat stronger than the disease, in order to over-
come it," would lead to the position that the vaccine disease
is somewhat stronger than the small-pox ; a position that one
who has observed both could not admit.
The application of snow to frozen parts has already been
shown to operate on a principle entirely dilFerent from the ho-
moeopathic law it is so constantly brought forward to illustrate.
Rubbing snow upon the frozen part, like pouring cold water
upon a frosted plant, simply makes the thawing more gradual,
and thereby preserves the vitality ; as the slow change from
the frozen to the thawed condition of the potato deep in the
earth, keeps it alive and fresh.
The effects of moderate, but not infinitesimal doses of ipe-
cacuanha in arresting some forms of nausea and vomiting,
more nearly resembles the operation of the alleged homoeop-
athic law, than any other internal remedy which I can now
call to mind ; but this produces its effects by impressing the
stomach in a manner differently from the previous state. But
should we admit that there is a grain of truth in this principle
— that it has a certain limited application, we are fully entitled
to use it, as we profess no exclusive system, are limited by no
dogmas, bound by no arbitrary rules, fixed in no grooves that
keep us from any truth, new or old, coming from whatever
88 I'ouraii i-ectuke.
Kourcc it may. Wc coulil act upon the jninciple, even without
being indebteil to tlie honia'opathic fraternity; as we have
shown that it was taught long before the time of their founder.
But the whole field of truth is before us — belongs to us.
" No pent-up Utica contracts our powers,
The whole unbounded continent is ours."
Dr. Marcy, in his Iloraocopathic Practice, after referring
to the principles of Antipathy, and Allopathy, and the Chemi-
cal methods of treatment, says : " AUopathists do not, how-
ever, uniformly adhere to any of the above doctrines, but often
encroach upon homoeopathic ground, and by practicing accord-
ing to the law oi similia similibiis curantur, cifect their speed-
iest and safest cures," He afterwards goes on with an imper-
tinence and disregard of truth which might be provoking were
it not too puerile and ridiculous, and exclaims — "Gentlemen
of the Old School, your practice too often belies your profession ;
you pretend to be AUopathists and Antipathists (precisely the
thing we don't do — just the thing we repudiate), while con-
stantly administering medicines after the manner of the Ilomoe-
opathists." (Not quite thus, either.) " Where is your pride,
where your consistency ? You have the boast of antiquity,
you have received your 'bundle of ideas' from 'Hippocrates
and Galen, to whom you pay reverence and allegiance — you
disdain innovations and despise discoveries and improvements;
you have withstood the changes of more than two thousand
years, and by your powerful dicta have continually discouraged
all original induction, and endeavored to crush in the bud every
advancement in medical knowledge !"
Gentlemen, you know how utterly and intensely untrue
all this is. The man that could write such a paragraph as this
is capable of anything in the way of reckless statement and
outrageous misrepresentation. No confidence can be placed
in anything he should afiirm.
Instead of professing to be AUopathists and Antipathists,
we repudiate these appellations give i to us by these men ; and
ignoring all terms indicating the belief in exclusive systems,
we call ourselves simply Physicians, and strive to administer
KOUBTII LECTURK. 89
medicines only after the methods which science, reason, com-
mon sense and experience may dictate. Although we have the
boast of antiquity, and pay due respect to Hippocrates and
Galen, but few of the principles upon whicli we now proceed
are obtained from them ; and as to disdaining innovations, we
seek for, and embrace ihom, often with iinj^rudent hasto ; and
discoveries and improvements are our special claim a«d our
highest glory. Instead of withstanding the changes of two
thousand years, those we have effected are innumerable ; and
we are continually encouraging original induction, and are
promoting every advancement in medical knowledge. Most
of the history of the triumphs of modern science would be
included in that of the regular profession, and every material
advancement in the science of life, of lieallh and of disease,
are due to its members. Nothing, indeed, can be more absurd
than the charge that the regular profession opposes discoveries
and improvements ; and this must be evident Avhen we con-
sider that in its ranks stand Harvey, Jenner, and Hunter ;
Pai'e, Sydenham, and Cullen ; Booerhave, Haller, and Henle ;
Andral, Lacnneck, and Louis ; Larrey, Dupuytren, and Vel-
peau; Warren, Mott, andMussey ; Liebig, Owen, and Carpen-
ter; Esquirol, Prichard, and Brigham ; Bartlett, Drake, and
Wood; Atlee, Sims, and Simpson ; Garrod, Beales, and John-
son, and a host of others, equally worthy of mention, who with
cacli issue of our periodicals, and in the more permanent pro-
ductions of the press, are constantly presenting to the world
of science, accounts of new experiments carefully conducted,
and of new facts clearly demonstrated ; and from these, new
principles are deduced, new suggestions constantly arc made,
and new modes of practice instituted. Indeed, so many 7ieio
facts and principles are urged upon our attention, that we are
in danger of neglecting the old ones which have withstood the
test of time. Thus changes are constant, and every real im-
provement is at once embraced. In no dej^artment of science
or art are chan ;es more readily effected, and improvements
more rapidly made than in regular medicine.
For the three-quarters of a century that Homoeopathy has
12
00 riKinii i.Ei ruiMc.
iiuml)iM-L'cl its :ulli(.'rc'iits, to \vli;it sii);^lo iiiiprovcmcnt in science
can they poinl U'^ the I'nii', of tlit'ir l;il)ors? What single man
cnn they sliow iis among thoin, who lias a'lvanced Pathqlogy,
Surgery, Physiology, Diagnosis, Chcmisiry, or even their spe-
ciality, Therapeutics V Why, their oNvn Journals complain in
the bitterest majiner of their paucity (»f talent, and deficiency
of progress.
In the ironneopathic l'. S. M,: I. <ui'l Snrij. Journal for
Jan., 18G7, p. 212, we lind the lollowing lamentation: "A
leaden apathy has lor a long time past l)een upon our honiffi-
l)athic physicians East. We want solid acquirements every-
where ; "vvc want in our schools more pathologists and learned
physicians— as Bennett, Watson and a score of othois. Writers,
for instance, upon female diseases, and ihvir surgical and me-
chanical treatmemt; and writers on obstetrics, such as Bennett
of London, Sims, Simjjson, and Barnes. When will issue from
our ranks, writers of such worth as Ilayer, Casenave, or Wilson
on diseases of the skin? Louis, Andral and Skoda, on diseases
of the chest — West on diseases of children — Ricord on syphilis ;
or such pathologists as Rokitansky, Vircliow, or Hock? Hom-
iEopathy is here a humiliated beggar to Allopathy. Produce
— produce ! Were it but the pitifuilest iniinitesitii il fraction
of a product, produce it, in God's name I"
But this cry, like the calling upon Baal, though like his
p:iests they cut themselves with stones, will be in vain. Men
Avho believe, or even pretend to believe, in such doctrines as
we have been discussing, will never produce such works as are
called for. Never.
If we analyze the systems of medicine which arc arrayed
in opposition to the regular school, we shall find them based
upon exaggerated notions of the importance of some one frag-
ment of legitimate medicine. Thus the Thompsonian, and its
successor, the so-called Kch-.-tic School, is based upon the
use of vegetable rcmedic:, especially of the indigenous kind,
and upon oi)position to the use of mineral remedies, especi-
ally raereiry. This school flourished for a time upon this strict
basis. But noAV the Eclectics are coming back to the regular
I'OrKTH LECTURK. 91
methods — usincrall oui-inhu'r.il remedies, even morcurv, as ibov
may judge occasion requires. Their doses and mixtures arc
not very different, and their [.rinci[)h.'S of practice are ahnost
identical wilh those of the regular scliool. They quote all our
leading authorities, atid ni my of our standard works and our
periodicals for their knowledge of Anatomy, I'liysiology, Sur-
gery, Pathology, Obstetrics, and nine-tenths of their Materia
Medica and Therapeutics — and what new reuiedios they have
discovered are being added to our conmion stock. The time
is not distant when they will abandon their si:)Ocial notions, and
will be merged in the regular profession they are approaching.
The Hydropathists, simply use cold water to the exclusion
of everything else — a remedy which has always been a stan-
dard article in the regular profession. The same with regard
to the "Movement Cure" — Electropathy — Inhalation Cure, etc.
And thus have we seen the case with IIouKeopathy. Em-
bracing an idea always fanciful, but held from time inimemor-
ial, exaggerating it into a universal law — connecting with it a
"bundle of ideas," grov.ing out of the exaggeration— these
ideas are being rejected one by one, — the exaggeration is
■psing its unnatural proportions, and all will in time return to
the " Static quo ante bellum.''''
While, however, the war upon legitimate medicine is profit-
able, it will continue. While there is a demand for this kind
of practice there Avill be a supply ; and our only hope of victory
over the enemy — for enemies to true science we are obliged to
consider the members of this homoeopathic fraternity — is to
destroy the demand by a proper enlightenment of the people_
One object, I have had, in discussing this subject, has been to
aid you in obtaining the means of so doing.
We have now, Gentlemen, presented and reviewed all the;
chief and essential original doctrines of Homoeopathy. You
will readily call to mind that we have found them to consist of:
1st, The principle of Slmilla Siniillbus Curantur, as a univer-
sal law. 2d. The prescribing of medicines for symj^toms
alone. 3d, Infinitesimal doses. 4tb, Potentization — the de-
P2 F(1UUTII LECTURE.
vclopment of luw iiower by trituration and sliaking. otli,
The special mode of preparation by trituration with Sugar of
Milk, and by shaking with alcohol or alcohol and water, the
dilutions on the centesimal scale. 6th, The prescribing of sin-
gle, simple medicines at a time. Tth, The method of prov-
ings. 8th, The mode of administration by placing the med-
icines upon the tongue, and by olfaction or smelling. 9th,
The Psora or Itch doctrine ; and some others of minor import-
ance.
In tlic review we have seen that none of these doctrines
will stand the test of critical examination ; and each of them
is repudiated by leading Homoeopathic authors themselves
while all of them are generally ignored in the daily practice of
their professed adherents.
What then, you naturally inquire, is left of this system?
As a system of medical doctrines, if not already extinct, it
seems rapidly tending to dissolution. There is, however, a
sect and an organization existing, constantly in the field, pre-
tending to an improved method of practice, opposing with
vigor the Regular School of physicians, yet seeking on occa-
sions to obtrude themselves into association with them ; and
without stating to the public their distinctive doctrines — gen-
erally concealing, if not denying, their infinitesimal absurdities
— they are constantly pushing their claims to recognition, and
appealing to that public for patronage and support, availing
themselves of the ignorance prevailing on these subjects, and
of the existing prejudices which they use every means to in-
crease.
All deal in sugar pellets and tasteless solutions, — sufficient
at least to keep up appearances, — but most of them use larger
doses on what they would call Allopathic principles, accord-
ing to their knowledge or presumption; and as a rule attribute
every recovery which occurs in their ijracticc, Avhether
from the powers of Nature, or the effects of so-called Allopathic
treatment, to the Ilomojopathic remedies.
Speaking, as it seems to me without prtyudice, and cer-
tainly without passion ; and with an earnest desire to present
FOURTH LECTURE. 93
the exact truth — to say nothing which you will find to be oth-
erwise — this is what I fully believe to be the present Homoeo-
pathy which surrounds us; and I ai)pcal to your judgment
whether this conclusion is not justified ; — is not indeed forced
upon us by the examination in which we have been engaged.
There remains but one thing farther to be considered, and
it is the one which carries more influence with the public than
everything else, and that is, the claim of experience and suc-
cess. It should however be remembered that all medical doc-
trines however absurd, and all systems of practice however
useless or destructive, have claimed to be sustained by exper-
ience. •
The testimony of the experience of the most reliable wit-
nesses, induced the British Parliament to pay a sum of money
to Perkins for the communication of the secret of his useless
Tractors ; and all the nostrums of the present and the past
are accompanied with testimony of their wonderful effects.
The evidence that is required to prove or disprove any
proposition in medicine is of a peculiar kind. Says Dr. Moore,
" It differs entirely from that species of proof which satisfies a
court of law." The declarations or oaths of the most consci-
entious and able men are insufficient to establish or even ren-
der probable, in very many cases, the fact of a cure having
been effected by a supposed remedy. " The reason of this is,
that few men, even those of considerable capacity, distinguish
between opinion and fact,";^especially in reference to medical
subjects.
When a man or woman asserts that he or she has been
cured of a particular disease by a drug, the imj^ression is a
confident one that asingle/ac^is stated ; whereas tioo opi7iions
are declared, both of which may be entirely erroneous. The
first opinion is that the patient had the disease, and the second
is that the medicine removed it. These opinions are made uji,
partly from the person's own sensations and previous informa-
tion, and partly from the declarations of those around him. It
is well known that sensations are deceptive and their tes-
timony imperfect ; previous information may be meager and
94 rOURTH I-ECTURB.
iuaocurratc, ami the statfinciits of attendants may he errone-
ous or false.
A patient recovered from an illness during which he has
received attention and kindness, is induced by gratitude and
all his better feelings to attribute his recovery to the means
used, whether they arc really efficient or not. He is thus
easily prevailed upon to state strongly, or even swear posi-
tively, to the existence of a particular disease, and the curative
efficiency of the remedy employed, whereas, the truth may be,
that the disease he thought himself affected with, never
existed, and the medicine had nothing to do Avith his
recovery. Thus we have sworn statements, doubtless sincerely
made, of cures of cancers and other diseases incurable, as Avell
as of disorders which have disappeared of themselves — by
their own self-limitation.
Dr. Moore says, that in Europe, " clergymen, judges, and
peers are daily swearing that they have been cured of incura-
ble diseases ; but the meanest apothecary smiles with contempt
when he reads their splendid testimonials." Whether the
remedy be Bishop Burkley's Tar-water, Dr. Morrison's pills,
Mr. Perkins' Metallic Tractors, Priessnitz's cold water, Swain's
Panacea, or old Dr. Jacob Townsend's Sarsaparilla, sworn
certificates to any extent have always been obtainable from
the most respectable sources. Illustrations of the fallacies of
tills kind of experience, even in scientific hands, might be ad-
duced to any extent.
The late Prof. Chomel, of Paris, makes a statement as
evidence of the care necessary in drawing conclusions, which
you will allow mc to quote : — " The common holly having been
much praised as a remedy for ague, he determined to test it in
the Hospital La Charite. * * Twenty-two cases of the
disease were directed to him. After their admission, be pur-
jjosely abstained from all treatment for several days, in order
to see that they Avere well marked cases. He found that of the
twenty-two, sey«i never had another paroxysm, ,/bwr had par-
oxysms of decreasing intensity, eif/ht had nothing but symp-
tomatic paroxysms, connected with slight inflammation of the
FOUR'in I,ECTURE. 95
mucoiis moiubranes, which yielded to simple aiitii)hlogistio
treatment; three only were fit subjects for experiments, i. e.,
had essential intermittent fever, preserving all its intensity for
three or four paroxysms. The remedy (holly) was 'given to
these, but entirely failed in all of them. Quinine was then
given in the ordinary way and the i)aroxysms were immedi-
ately stopped. If, from the day of admission the remedy had
been jxiveu to the whole, the conclusion would have been that
it had cured nineteen out of twenty-two — and the thi-ee cases —
the only ones proper to test the remedy, would have been re-
garded as exceptional." London Lancet, 1841-2. ^j. 107.
The fallacious character of homoeopathic experience, so
often contradictory and absurd, wo have observed as we pass-
ed over onr subject.
In estimating the value of all experience iu medicine,
under whatever system, it must be remembered that a large
proportion of sick persons as commonly met with in practice,
would recover without medicine, under ordinary nnrsing and
the direction of some one in whom they had confidence. It
should also be remembered when comparing the success of any
plan or nostrum with orthodox medicine, that the efticacy of
much of the latter, even when used sectcndem artem, is at least
doubtful ; and if nnskillfully used, becomes positively hurtful.
We must also take into the account the mistakes that are made
in diagnosis ; the uncertainties in the most skillful hands aris-
ing from difl:erencos of constitutions, and other peculiarities
which cannot be anticipated, and the imperfections in the
judgment of even well trained medical men. In accounting
for popular judgment, we must remember that the people gen-
erally attribute all recoveries to the medicines used with that
object; and in accounting for that judgment when applied to
homoeopathic treatment, we must consider the greatly exagger-
ated reports of favorable results ; and the persistent reiterations
of unscrupulous men and their enthusiastic adherents. When
all these things are considered, we need not be surprised at
the deceptions of experience, even when the homoeopathic
practice is adhered tajaixd where, as is so often the case, it is
9G rounrii lecture.
abandoucd, and elliciout means are used in cases requiring
active interference, tlie general evidence ot liomoeopathic ex-
perience becomes positively and entirely worthless.
But I must not deal in these general statements without
illustrations and evidence. Two homoeopathic pliysicians in
Cincinnati reported that in 1840, they treated lllG cases of
genuine cliolera, witli a loi?s of only 35 — oh per cent. — and this
statement has been the standing formula of the success of Ho-
mosopathy in articles, reports, addresses, etc., of the adherents
of this school in this country ever since.
In the Jivitlsh Journal of llomcepatJuj, (vol. lo, p. 120)
an account is given of the statement of a Dr, Stens, that the
mortality of IIoma'0})atluc treatment of cholera is only 8^ per
cent, but the Editor says: "Wc should rejoice very much
were this tlie case ; but, alas ! we know from sad experience
that it is at least three times as high as here stated."
Dr. Gerstel reported (see vol. 13 p., 329) to an AiTStrian
Medical Society that he had treated 300 severe cases of cholera
with a loss of about 10 per cent ; but Avhen an offer was made to
him to i^ractice under the control of the District Supei'intend-
ent. Dr. Nushard, in order to establish the proofs of the suc-
cess of such treatment, it was declined.
In the British Journal of Homojopathy, (vol. V, p. 179)
Dr. Russell, one of its editors, says: "We cannot heljJ (Im-
precating the boastful tone we so often hear assumed by Hom-
oeopathists on this subject — the treatment of Cholera.''' "It
would argue a singular callousnes.s of feeling not to be pene-
trated with a profound sense of the comparative impotence
of our art in arresting or even greatly modifying this terrible
})lague."
Dr. Tessier of Paris, in charge of an excellent Hospital,
St. Marguerite, admits a loss of forty-eight or forty-nine per
cent. (Brit. Jour. Horn. vol. 9, p. G93.) lie was after trans-
terred to another hospital, Beaujou, where the mortality was
still greater. (Vol. 12, p. 098).
Dr. Fleischman of Vienna, has had the largest hospital
experience of the Homa3pathic treatment of Cholera. lie says :
FOURTH I.KCTUKE. 97
*' Every remedy wliicli luis been rccomraencled has been tried
and tried again by us, but I liave little to say in praise of any
of them." (Brit. Jour. Honucopathy, vol. 14, p. 27).
])r. Churze, of Marseilles, Ilomoeopathist, reported so fa-
vorably of his success in the treatment of Cholera, in general
practice, in 1S49, that he received the order of the Legion of
Honor, and an honor from the Pope. "In 1854 he was ap-
plied to by the Mayor of Marseilles, to tako charge of two
Cholera wards in the Hotel Dieu. Patients were to be sent
on alternate days to tlie Homoeopathic and "Allopathic" wards.
Dr. Churze resigned his trust after three reception days. Dur-
ing those three days 26 patients ware received and 21 died."
(Brit. Jour, Hom. vol. 15, p. 1*73). It is true Dr. C. complained
of having sent to him the worst cases. This was denied, but
the facts as to the mortality are not disputed.
Thus do these extraordinary claims of success when pro-
perly'tested come to naught.
Belladonna in liomoeopathic doses has been greatly
vaunted as u specilic in Scarletina, the most wonderful suc-
cess being among the standing references; but the highest
Homoeopathic authorities now admit its total inefficiency in the
severer forms of the disease.
The celebrate 1 Andral of Paris, years sim;e, when Ilom-
(i3pathy was urging its claims, admitted some of the most cel-
ebrated of tlie School into his wards to try the efficiency of
their treatment, and after a lair trial he reported to the Acade-
my of Medicine that in no one case had he witnessed the slight-
est beneficial effi^ct from the infinitesimals used.
The Russian Government is reported to have had this
system of treatment under trial for some time past, and as the
result of the investigation, the practice has been prohibited.
I have not been able to obtain a full and authentic account
of the particulars, but newsjaaper reports are t 3 this effect.
But the inquiry may still be made, how a system so des-
titute of m3rit should have had so much success in its spread
among tlie people ? But is a success, in this sense, a proof of
merit or tratli';' ^Mohammedanism is a success, spreading
13
08 rOUllTll LECTURE.
ovor the primitive scat of Christianity. Monnoiiisiii is a suc-
cess, and unless the strong arm of our Government is put forth
in time, it threatens the establishment oi^ iinado/im our midst.
Modern Si)iritualism is a success ; it numbers its adherents by
millions, Thompsonianisra and its modification Eclecticism
in medicine, is a success, numbering more adherents to-day in
the country at large, than Homoeopathy. Hydropathy is a
success, sustaining more "cures" in the country than there
are Ilonucopathic hospitals.
But after all, if numerical success be the test of truth it
does not lie with Homoeopathy. The system has urged its
claims for the last 70 years or more ; Hahnemann having an-
nounced his doctrine in the latter part of the lastcentury ; and
since that time up to 1S55, to which the last authentic statistics
on the subject within my reach are brought, at least two genera-
tions of medical men had come on to the stage ; but in Great Brit-
ain and Ireland in a population of 30,000,000 with about 30,000
physians, (one medical man to 1000 population being the aver-
age in all civilized countries) there were only 20G HomcEopaths.
This would make one out of 150 ; while the other 140 vehem-
ently protest against its truthfulness.
In counting the Homoeopathic Physicians in the " British
and Foreign Homoeopathic Directory and Record," for 1853
and 1855. there are put down for France, 78 ; for Spain, 8G;
for Italy, 30 ; for Austria, 65 ; for Russia, 93 ; for Saxony, 48.
From the data before referred to, of one physician to each
thousand people, it is concluded that upon tlie continent of
Europe there was at that time but one Homoeopathist out of
about 500 medical practitioners. No great cltange has oc-
curred there, in the proportion, since that time.
It is computed that in Europe and America about 3,000
medical men are engaged as public teachers of the Science of
Medicine, in regular established Medical Schools. Of this
number not more than thirteen had expressed opinions in any
degree favorable to Homoeopathy — only one out of about 250 ;
— while the other 249 denounce it as the greatest absurdity.
In this country there are about forty ^Medical Colleges of the
FOURTH LECTUKK. 99
Regular School, employing, at least, about t'nree huiidrecl pro-
fessors, and]of all this number not one has ever expressed opin-
ions in the least degree favorable to the Hahnemannic System.
These certainly are enlightened men and must be regarded
as sincere in their convictions. They are as well qualified as
any other class of men to judge of the truth in such matters,
and their judgment is that the whole thing is a complete ab-
surdity. Of the comparative number of people who patronize
Regular Medicine and Ilomceopathy, I have no statistics which
will give me a proximate estimate, but we all know the pre-
ponderance is vastly in favor of the Regular School. That it
makes a great deal of noise and prevails to a large extent in
certain places and circles, is true; but when the whole popu-
lation is taken into the account its numbers are comparatively
insignificant. The simile is familiar, of the cricket in the
meadow, making more noise than a whole herd of oxen
quietly feeding, or reposing upon its verdure. But should
that herd be aroused its power Avould be felt. That cricket
might be silenced. At present it seems chirping on quite
briskly. Is it not time for the regular profession to examine
this subject — to enlighten the people respecting it, — showing
them its utter absurdities and inconsistences, and appealing to
them to resist its aggressions
We are often accused of not examining this subject, and
of prejudice and intolerance in regard to it. That we do exam-
ine it, these lectures may afford evidence. Our prejudices, if they
may be so called, are certainly founded on rational convictions;
but how is it possible to be tolerant of a system so utterly ab-
surd, and of men who denounce with such bitterness the prin-
ciples to which we adhere, and the fraternity of which we are
members ; and yet in practice, repudiating their own pretended
infallible dogmas, so often follow our methods, and use our
measures?
Whatever views may be entertained of their doctrines or
practice, as a system for the sick, all must see the necessary
incompatibility existing. Every impulse of a legitimate pro-
fessional pride, every sentiment of fraternal allegiance, every
JUN 1 1997
100 FOUHTII l.KCTURE.
iecliiig of soli" rcsjiert, ami every ))riiic-ij)le ol" lienor impel us to
refuse professional associations with such a system, and Avith
such men ; ami sui^h associations, whether in the sick-room, in
societies, or in schools of medicine, could only result in strife,
discord and confusion.
In tlie language of Dr. Kau, one of their own highest au-
thorities, " The principle of ' shnilia simiUhus'' is tlic barrier
whicli separates the New from the Old School. It is impossi-
ble to combine these two Schools ; any such combination would
constitute a most n iserable abortion."
There are differences of opinion as to the policy of attack-
ing Homoeopathy, and, as to that, much will depend upon the
manner in which it is done. I>utthe policy which has generally
been pursued of passing it by as unworthy of serious attention
has resulted in its advancing pretentions, in its assuming a bold-
ness of front, which it could not have done had its real merits
been more fully discussed before the people. Common sense is
not extinct, and would be applied to medicine as to other subjects,
was there a proper basis of knowledge for it to rest upon.
Should you not be prepared to supply that basis ? 15ut
whether you should say much or little, or nothing, directly upon
these subjects to the people, there is one means of opposing
false systems, and inspiring respect for Legitimate Medicine,
respecting which there can be no question. This consists in
the acquiring of a thorough acquaintance with the domain ol'
Science — a mastery of the i>rofe3sion — in miintaiiiing a high-
toned sense of honor — a contempt for all trickery and decep-
tion — and a:i enthusiastic devotion to the s icre 1 iliit'es of
tlie profession of your choice.
Those of you present who are medical students will judge
whether your teachers have been inspired by feelings of parly
rivalry, or a love of the Truth in presenting you with their
views — with the views taught by science, by reason and by
common sense.
Thanking you all, Gentlemen, for the perfect order whieii
has prevailed during the delivery of these lectures, and the
close attention which has been given to all that has been said;
— I wish you a very Hanpy New Year.
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