GUt-V ... 
 
 JE9lk 
 
 THIS BOOK IS THE GIFT OF 
 
 Henry Pelouze de Forest 
 
 Class of 1884 
 
 W 
 
Cornell University Library 
 arV18922 
 
 Modern medicine and homoeopathy 
 
 3 1924 031 268 828 
 olin.anx 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031268828 
 
MODERN MEDICINE AND 
 HOMOEOPATHY. 
 
 TWO ADDRESSES 
 BY 
 
 JOHN B. ROBERTS, A. M., M. D. 
 
 Points of Similarity Between Us and Homoeopathic Physicians. 
 
 The Present Attitude of Modern Medicine and Physicians 
 Towards Homoeopathy. 
 
 The Edwards & Docker Company, 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 1895. 
 
Copyright 
 
 7 
 
 BY JOHN B. ROBERTS 
 1895 
 
TO 
 
 EDWARD JACKSON, M. D., 
 
 MY ESTEEMED COLLEAGUE, TRUE FRIEND AND WISE 
 COUNSELLOR. 
 
Preface. 
 
 A desire to look at homoeopathy without prej- 
 udice caused me to devote several years to the study 
 of books and journals written and edited by homoeo- 
 pathic physicians. Two presidential addresses were 
 written as a result of this investigation. These are 
 now reprinted, in the hope that some members of the 
 medical profession may find in them reasons for 
 abandoning a sectarian name, and that others may 
 see the impropriety and folly of proscribing those 
 whose opinions conflict with their own. Non-pro- 
 fessional readers may perhaps find in these pages 
 some facts which will interest them, since the public 
 has a very vague idea of the differences between 
 homoeopathy and modern medicine. 
 
 August i, 1895. 
 
POINTS OF SIMILARITY BETWEEN US AND 
 HOMOEOPATHIC PHYSICIANS. 
 
 THE ANNUAL ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE PHILADEL- 
 PHIA COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY FOR l8Q2. 
 
 In the address which I had the honor of deliver- 
 ing from the Presidential chair a year ago, I gave it 
 as my opinion that this Society should be liberal 
 enough to accept as a member any physician whose 
 education and personal character made him a fit asso- 
 ciate for intelligent men. I stated my belief that the 
 test of qualification for membership should not be the 
 college from which the applicant received his diploma; 
 but an education enabling him to understand and ap- 
 preciate the science of medicine, and an honest pur- 
 pose to treat his patients by all means and methods 
 which experience, investigation and research show to 
 be serviceable. It seemed to me then, as it does now, 
 that such a physician's political, religious or social 
 beliefs and affiliations should not disqualify him ; nor 
 should his opinion that in " similars " he sometimes 
 finds a remedy of value. 
 
 Following out this line of thought, I have under- 
 taken an investigation to determine whether there are 
 
 (?) 
 
8 ROBERTS, 
 
 any points of similarity between us, who decline to 
 receive any sectarian designation, and. those who ac- 
 cept for themselves the name of homoeopathic physi- 
 cian. This study has interested me very much, and 
 it is my purpose to lay some of the results before the 
 Society this evening. 
 
 None will deny the fact that as a class we, as well 
 as they, are law-abiding citizens, whose culture, intel- 
 ligence and wealth add to the intellectual and financial 
 prosperity of the districts in which we live. The 
 doctors of village, town, or city, are ever respected by 
 the community, and their counsel is sought in many 
 emergencies not strictly medical. This deferential 
 courtesy is extended to all honorable and skilful phy- 
 sicians, without thought as to their belief in, or rejec- 
 tion of, the law of similars. In this amenity of 
 civilized society, then, there exists no difference be- 
 tween us and our homoeopathic neighbors. Our mu- 
 tual social relations also teach us that there should be 
 none. We meet each other in drawing-room, mart, 
 or amusement hall, to find no difference in courtesy, 
 refinement or large-hearted charity. How often do we 
 meet a homoeopathic friend with the heartiest of hand- 
 shakes, because we honor him as a man and love him 
 as a friend. The grasp returned shows that the re- 
 spect and affection are fully reciprocated. 
 
 Much to be regretted is it that a marked similarity 
 exists between the ignorant and half-educated gradu- 
 ate of all kinds of medical colleges. We do not hold 
 
SIMILARITY BETWEEN US AND HOMOEOPATHS. 9 
 
 a monopoly in the graduation of men who tell State 
 Boards of Medical Examiners that the boiling-point 
 of Fahrenheit is "about 300 ;" that the "average 
 respirations are 70 per minute," and that the same 
 disease is called pneumonia when it affects one lung, 
 pleurisy when it affects the other. The ignorant and 
 reckless doctor will always be a menace to the public 
 health, whether he decline or accept the designation 
 "homoeopathic." The greater damage is probably 
 done by our half-educated graduates, because the 
 number of homoeopathic medical colleges in Canada 
 and the United States is only 26, whereas we have 
 220. From these colleges there graduated, in 1890, 
 only 391 homoeopathic physicians, while our colleges 
 sent out 4237. The number of medical matriculates 
 in the United States and Canada during the decade 
 from 1880 to 1890 was, in our own colleges, 115,355. 
 The number of graduates was 35,655. The number 
 of matriculates in the homoeopathic colleges during 
 the same decade was 11,366 ; the number of graduates, 
 3883. The percentage of graduates to matriculates 
 in our schools was 30.9 ; in the homoeopathic schools, 
 34.1. These tables, taken from the statistics com- 
 piled by the Illinois State Board of Health, 1 would 
 seem to show that the ratio between the number of 
 students and the persons granted degrees was nearly 
 the same in both classes of medical colleges. 
 
 1 Medical Education, etc., Springfield, 1891, pp. 24 and 31. 
 
IO ROBERTS, 
 
 As many medical colleges are commercial associa- 
 tions to manufacture doctors as rapidly and cheaply 
 as possible, it is apparent- that their output will be 
 ignorant physicians, whose individual beliefs as to the 
 laws or methods of therapeutics will do little to pro- 
 tect the public from malpractice and criminal medical 
 ignorance. The high-grade medical colleges have 
 recognized the fact that the cure for this public wrong 
 is the establishment of State Boards of Medical Ex- 
 aminers, whose examination alone shall determine 
 the qualifications of the applicant for license to prac- 
 tice. It is gratifying to know that we and the most 
 highly educated homoeopathic physicians in the va- 
 rious States agree on the necessity for such State laws. 
 It is true, however, that a number of our medical 
 schools, (University of Pennsylvania, University of 
 Michigan, Harvard University, Woman's Medical Col- 
 lege of Pennsylvania, and perhaps one or two others) 
 now require four annual courses of college lectures 
 before the student can obtain his degree ; and that 
 only one homoeopathic college (Boston University 
 School of Medicine), so far as I know, demands this 
 high standard. It is to be hoped that more colleges 
 will soon follow this movement to elevate the standard 
 of medical education. 
 
 The text-books for students recommended in 
 official announcements afford instructive evidence of 
 the similarity in teaching given the four or five 
 thousand graduates coming annually from the two 
 
SIMILARITY BETWEEN US AND HOMOEOPATHS. II 
 
 kinds of medical colleges. The announcement of the 
 Hahnemann Medical College, of Philadelphia, for 
 1891-92 shows that a great proportion of the works 
 recommended are the same as those we advise our 
 students to purchase. Leidy's Anatomy, Tyson's Uri- 
 nary Analysis, United States Pharmacopoeia, Mann's Pre. 
 scription- Writing, the Stille and Maisch Dispensatory, 
 Wood's Therapeutics, Pepper's System of Medicine, 
 Gross's Surgery, Agnew's Surgery, Playfair's Obstetrics, 
 Duhring on Diseases of the Skin, Reese's Medical Juris- 
 prudence, and Gould's Dictionary, occupy no less con- 
 spicuous positions in the list there found than in the 
 announcements of our own colleges. 
 
 What I have said shows clearly enough that the 
 material out of which medical students are made, 
 and the college training by which they are developed 
 into medical practitioners are very similar, whether 
 the intending doctor expects to become a physician 
 without a sectarian title or hopes to belong to the 
 ranks of homoeopathic medicine. The students are 
 gentle or boorish, earnest or slothful, intelligent or 
 dull, ignorant or wise in about the same proportion. 
 They study many of the same books, live in the same 
 boarding-houses, have the same pleasures and trials, 
 and make much the same kind of doctors. The edu- 
 cated, true and earnest are capable of bringing man- 
 ifold blessings into the sick-room ; the ignorant, false 
 and careless do infinite harm to the public — the public 
 which in Pennsylvania, has no protection from such 
 
12 ROBERTS, 
 
 dangers, since the State has not as yet thought it 
 worth while to weed out the grossly ignorant and in- 
 competent by a State examination and license. 
 
 A very striking similarity between us and our 
 homoeopathic neighbors is the latitude of opinion exer- 
 cised in the choice and administration of drugs. Many 
 thoughtless persons believe that we give only large 
 doses, the homoeopaths only small ones ; that we 
 do not use powders or triturates, that they do not 
 write prescriptions, or administer alcohol or opium. 
 Nothing is easier than to show the fallacy of these 
 statements. 
 
 Every member of this Society knows that any 
 attempt to restrict one of us to the use of certain med- 
 icines or methods of treatment, or to the employment 
 of any stated size of dose, would result in the imme- 
 diate rupture and destruction of the Society. Such 
 interference with individual liberty would not be tol- 
 erated. Everything and anything that I believe will 
 aid my patient I must have full liberty to use. No 
 organization has the right to say what drug or what 
 medicinal dose you or I shall employ in the treatment 
 of disease. The whole field of science, medical and 
 collateral, is utilized in our endeavor to relieve and 
 cure disease. We are bound by no therapeutic law of 
 " similars," or of " dissimilars ; " we never have been 
 and never can be. We follow the authority of no 
 man, and are bound by no dogmas ; but with full 
 liberty of conscience we act as individuals responsible 
 
SIMILARITY BETWEEN US AND HOMCEOPATHS. 1 3 
 
 to no other human agent. This phase of our position 
 is often misunderstood by the public. It was, how- 
 ever, clearly stated ten or a dozen years ago in the 
 deliberately written words of the American Medical 
 Association, which, in speaking of a similar topic 
 said : " Neither is there any other article or clause of 
 the said Code of Ethics that interferes with the exer- 
 cise of the most perfect liberty of individual opinion 
 and practice." 1 
 
 The homoeopathic practitioner of to-day, as a 
 rule, feels the same liberty as we do, but believes in 
 what he calls the " law of similars" being a good in- 
 dication as to the choice of remedies. 
 
 Neither we nor they, unless as isolated individ- 
 uals, base our practice on "an exclusive dogma, to 
 the rejection of the accumulated experience of the 
 profession, and of the aids actually furnished by 
 anatomy, physiology, pathology, and organic chemis- 
 try." 
 
 If the action of homoeopathic medical societies, of 
 homoeopathic medical journals, and the spoken and 
 written statements of homoeopathic physicians are ex- 
 amined, it is evident that very many of those whom 
 the public regards as homceopathists have compara- 
 tively little faith in the infinitesimal doses of Hahne- 
 mann, or in the infallibility or universality of his law. 
 The gentlemen represented in or by these societies, 
 
 1 See Journal of American Medical Association, Nov. 19, 1892, 
 p. 611. 
 
14 ROBERTS, 
 
 journals and statements have, it would seem, a belief 
 in the more or less frequent value of the " law of sim- 
 ilars " in treating disease ; but admit that cases, more 
 or less frequently, require the doctor to use non- 
 homoeopathic methods if he is conscientiously to do 
 the best thing possible for his patient. In the words 
 of a resolution passed by the Homoeopathic Medical 
 Society, of the County of New York, on February 8, 
 1878, the belief in the law of similars " does not debar, 
 us [homoeopathic physicians] from recognizing and 
 making use of the results of any experience, and we 
 shall exercise and defend the inviolable right of every 
 educated physician to make practical use of any estab- 
 lished principle of medical science, or of any thera* 
 peutic facts founded on experiments and verified by 
 experience, so far as in his individual judgment they 
 shall tend to promote the welfare of those under his 
 professional care." 1 This statement corresponds with 
 the attitude and practice of us who, as non-sectarians, 
 believe in the science and art of medicine ; and would 
 render the subscribers to it eligible for membership in 
 the American Medical Association, the Medical Society 
 of the State of Pennsylvania, or the Philadelphia 
 County Medical Sociery. 
 
 Dr. Joseph Kidd and Dr. W. H. Holcombe, well- 
 known homoeopathic writers, believe, with the mem- 
 bers of the New York Homoeopathic Society, that 
 
 1 This quotation is extracted from a criticism of the resolution, 
 contained in a " Declaration of Homceopathic Principles," pub- 
 lished in The Organon, Liverpool, April, 1878. 
 
SIMILARITY BETWEEN US AND HOMOEOPATHS. 1 5 
 
 everything and every method which cures should be 
 utilized, even by those believing in the law of similars 
 as a valuable indication in therapeutics. Dr. Hol- 
 combe says a physician professing belief in the 
 homoeopathic law is not obliged to limit his practice 
 strictly to the application of that law, but claims 
 everything which cures. Dr. Kidd, who held a posi- 
 tion in the London Homoeopathic College, made a 
 similar statement. 
 
 I think I am justified in the statement that to-day 
 there is comparatively little belief in, or practice of, 
 homoeopathy as advocated by Hahnemann. There is 
 no doubt that a few homceopathists, represented by 
 Dr. Berridge, the late Dr. L,ippe and Dr. Neidhard, 
 believe, or at least did believe, in the infinitesimal 
 doses of Hahnemann and the universality of his law 
 of similars, the truth of which two points is, accord- 
 ing to Neidhard, 1 " identical ; " but I am inclined to 
 think that the great majority of physicians considering 
 themselves homoeopaths reject the idea that diminish- 
 ing the dose increases the power of any drug. Of 
 these all, or nearly all, give only a modified assent, to 
 the law of similars ; believing that it is often, perhaps 
 very often, a good rule to follow in selecting a remedy, 
 but that many diseased conditions are best treated by 
 remedies not selected in a homoeopathic way. Very 
 many quotations could be made to support my po- 
 sition. 
 
 1 Universality of the Homoeopathic Law of Cure, pp. 29-34. 
 
1 6 ROBERTS, 
 
 It seems to me that the physicians recognized by 
 the public as homoeopaths consist of two classes : 
 First, a small number who adhere to Hahnemann's 
 teachings, which seem to me to be not founded on 
 good evidence, and therefore unscientific and unworthy 
 of credence. Secondly, an increasingly large number 
 who, while entirely rejecting the doctrine of increased 
 power being given drugs by dilution, still have some 
 belief in the law of similars. These last do not wholly 
 rely upon the homoeopathic law or methods in treating 
 disease as presented to them in daily practice. It is 
 probable that in many cases a drug originally sug- 
 gested for a certain disease by a homoeopathic text- 
 book or authority is used when that condition is to be 
 treated, without much thought being given to the 
 law ; though the drug is administered in powder or 
 pellets, or in a tumbler of water. If this be true, it 
 corresponds with the practice of many of us non- 
 sectarian physicians, who use powders, small pills 
 and solutions advocated by well-known authors and 
 teachers without pausing to inquire the reason for our 
 faith in, and use of, them. 
 
 Many homoeopathic physicians have their libraries 
 well stocked with journals and text-books edited and 
 written by non-sectarian physicians, who, of course, 
 repudiate Hahnemann's teachings. Various remedies 
 are advocated in these works for the diseases which 
 doctors are called upon to treat. It seems to me prob- 
 able that homoeopaths consult these books in their 
 
SIMILARITY BETWEEN US AND HOMOEOPATHS. I J 
 
 libraries and select from the drugs therein recom- 
 mended such as seem to them to be instances con- 
 forming to the law of similars. My opinion is con- 
 firmed by a recent review in a homoeopathic journal, 1 
 of a book written by a non-sectarian physician. It 
 says of the book : " The doses are generally larger 
 than would be called for, but the suggestive character 
 of the prescriptions will often give excellent hints to 
 meet individual cases." This is very far from being 
 the practice of homoeopathy as Hahnemann taught it ; 
 but it is not unlike scientific medicine, which aims to 
 select such remedies as will correct those morbid dis- 
 turbances and changes in the organs and tissues which 
 are the essence of the disease. In a similar manner 
 many of the text-books used in homoeopathic medical 
 colleges are written by those who deny the truth of 
 homoeopathy. 
 
 Dr. James B. Bell, President of the International 
 Hahnemannian Association, in his address last June, 
 said : 2 Our society numbers in active living members 
 about 150, and it would be a generous estimate, I 
 think, to double that number, as representing in the 
 whole world all those who may be called true Hahne- 
 mannians or who are becoming such. If we have 
 patients going to other cities, especially in the West 
 and South, how rarely can we recommend a physician 
 to them, and if the patients are going to Europe or 
 
 1 N. Y. Medical Times, January, 1892, p. 309. 
 5 The Homoeopathic Physician, Philadelphia, August, 1892. 
 2 
 
1 8 ROBERTS, 
 
 England, we know of but five or six men in the great 
 cities to whom we can safely intrust them." 
 
 Such a statement, coming from an evidently reli- 
 able homoeopathic source, convinces me that the great 
 majority of homoeopathic physicians are very like our- 
 selves in their means and methods of treating disease. 
 
 We believe, with Rokitansky, that the basis of 
 medical treatment is a knowledge of the morbid dis- 
 turbances and changes in the tissues and organs. The 
 real homoeopathy, if I read Hahnemann and his fol- 
 lowers aright, pays no attention to the microscopic 
 and chemical changes in tissues and organs, but be- 
 lieves in selecting a remedy which by " provings " 
 causes symptoms similar to, but not identical with, 
 "the totality of the symptoms seen in the patient." 
 
 The great body, then, of homoeopathic practi- 
 tioners, if Dr. Bell is correct, use any drug, admin- 
 istered in any way that seems to them likely to be 
 beneficial. They are, however, called homoeopaths, 
 because they have a belief in the partial value of a 
 law of similars, and because non-sectarian physicians 
 usually decline medical association with them. All 
 of these physicians ought to be accepted by us as 
 eligible for professional association and consultation, 
 since they are willing to use any and all methods, and 
 are bound by no exclusive dogma or law. Their pref- 
 erence for remedies selected according to what they 
 consider a good rule in many cases does not impeach 
 their general intelligence or their value to the com- 
 
SIMILARITY BETWEEN US AND HOMCEOPATHS. 1 9 
 
 munity any more than the differing opinions of many 
 in our own ranks on other medical topics. 
 
 That the tendency of homoeopaths is to drop 
 Hahnemann's views and come nearer and nearer to 
 scientific medicine, is well shown in a recent work of 
 Professor Theodor Bakody, a homoeopathist of Buda- 
 Pesth. 1 He says : " The dilution of medicine should 
 not be carried to a point beyond scientific recognition ;" 
 and " I do not consider the biological medical thera- 
 peutics of Hahnemann a universal one, inasmuch as 
 it covers only that department of practical activity 
 where medicinal therapeutic causal cures can be ef- 
 fected." These views were expressed by him in 1873 
 and were still his views when the volume was written. 
 A further quotation will show how near he is coming 
 to our views in medicine. " In making drug-provings 
 we should not be satisfied with the manifestations of 
 mere subjective or general functional symptoms, but 
 in accordance with the scientific knowledge of our day 
 also include in the field of our observations the finer 
 pathological, physiological, anatomical, and chemical 
 manifestations." 
 
 This method of finding out the action of drugs is 
 indeed scientific, and different from the method of 
 Hahnemann, his immediate followers and present imi- 
 tators. Compare, for example, Hahnemann's Materia 
 Medica Para, translated by R. E. Dudgeon, M. D., with 
 
 1 Scientific Medicine in its Relation to Homoeopathy. Trans- 
 lated by R. F. Bauer, M. D., 1891, pp. 36,37. 
 
20 ROBERTS, 
 
 annotations by Richard Hughes, L,.R,CP.E., Liver- 
 pool, 1880. 
 
 An indirect evidence of this decadence of belief 
 in Hahnemann's homoeopathy is the effort of many 
 homoeopaths to explain away the inconsistency of their 
 practice with homoeopathic doctrines. Dr. Charles S. 
 Mack, of Ann Arbor, affords curious corroboration on 
 this point. 1 He says that the homoeopathic law of 
 similars is " the law and the only possible law of cure," 
 but that there are various principles "upon which 
 useful, though not curative, treatment may be issued." 
 He says that iron, lime, demulcent drinks, stimulants, 
 and germ-destroying agents may be useful though not 
 homceopathically indicated, and may lead to the 
 recovery of the patient. This, however, he regards as 
 not a cure, but a recovery. , It is difficult for me to see 
 the difference as far as the patient is concerned, even 
 though Dr. Mack says (p. 75) that he finds " no im- 
 propriety in limiting the meaning which cure shall 
 have while considering the claim of similia." In other 
 words, he justifies his belief in the homoeopathic law 
 of similia as the only curative treatment of disease, by 
 excluding all cases of patients who recover under non- 
 homoeopathic methods of treatment. The latter recover, 
 but are not cured. When asked if he would use a 
 chemical antidote to a chemical poison, which was 
 found to be the cause of the acute disease from which 
 the patient was suffering, he replies that he would use 
 1 Philosophy in Homoeopathy, Chicago, 1890. 
 
SIMILARITY BETWEEN US AND HOMCEOPATHS. 21 
 
 such an antidote, but that " even successful treatment 
 with that antidote would' not be curative " (p. 123). 
 His faith in the homoeopathic law is thus seen to be 
 founded on a hair-splitting of words ; and he further 
 says (p. 135), " to-day homceopathists are, more than 
 formerly, availing themselves of various practices 
 which are distinctly not homoeopathy." 
 
 Recent publications in the homoeopathic journals 
 indicate the same half-hearted belief in the " law of ~ 
 similars," and the almost total rejection ot the doctrine 
 of infinitesimal doses. 
 
 Dr. D. A. Gorton, a homoeopath, not unknown to 
 homceopathists, deprecates 1 the use of the words " Sys- 
 tem of Medicine " as applied to horriocepathy. He 
 says it is only a system of therapeutics, and states that 
 he is constrained to regard the law of similars as but 
 a fragment in the grand art of curing disease. He 
 thinks that Hahnemann was wrong in regarding 
 homoeopathy as destined to supplant all other methods 
 of treatment. He quotes from Hahnemann's Organon 
 to show that a true homoeopath must never give a lax- 
 ative, prescribe a warm bath, nor subdue pain with 
 opium ; and indicates his belief that few homoeopathic 
 physicians are, theref©re, true homceopathists in Hah- 
 nemann's sense. He expresses doubt whether, out of 
 the eighty or more homoeopathic physicians in Brook- 
 lyn, twenty could be found capable of rendering in a 
 
 1 The Drift of Medical Philosophy, revised edition, 1875, pp. 56 
 and 70. 
 
22 ROBERTS, 
 
 chronic disease or in an obscure acute disease, a sound 
 prescription according to the law of similars (p. 61). 
 He adds (p. 65) that he has known many professedly 
 strict homoeopathic physicians to break up ague par- 
 oxysms with massive doses of quinine, use caustics in 
 ulcers, and prescribe emetics, cathartics, and sudorifics. 
 
 I am quite sure that my hearers will agree with 
 me that we are very like homoeopaths in the treat- 
 ment of disease, if these homoeopathic writers give a 
 truthful account of the methods employed by them- 
 selves and their colleagues. These statements, more- 
 over, are substantiated by other writers, who speak in 
 a similar strain. 
 
 A well-known journal, 1 edited by believers in 
 homoeopathy, in a recent editorial made the following 
 statement : " It is apparent to even the casual ob- 
 server, that scientific study is rapidly bringing all 
 schools more in harmony with each other, and while 
 it eliminates more and more the theoretical and con- 
 jectural, is building up a scientific therapeutics based 
 upon the unanswerable logic of facts, the general out- 
 line of which will be acceptable to all." 
 
 The same journal suggests (p. 51) that if the so- 
 cieties composed of non-sectarian physicians revise 
 their by-laws so that physicians now called homoeo- 
 paths may be eligible for membership, the next move 
 should be for the homoeopathic medical societies to 
 drop the sectarian name. Could anything show better 
 1 New York Medical Times, May, 1892, p. 48. 
 
SIMILARITY BETWEEN US AND HOMCEOPATHS. 27, 
 
 than this suggestion the slight hold homoeopathy has 
 upon many of the supposed followers of Samuel Hah- 
 nemann ? 
 
 The Northwestern Journal of Ifomoceopathy says : 
 " The practitioners of homoeopathy forty years ago 
 who are now. living can scarcely recognize the mer- 
 chantable article called homoeopathy at the present 
 day," x and asserts that the doctors who " really prac- 
 tice homoeopathy are very few compared with the pro- 
 portions who did so forty years ago." 
 
 The 1 Homoepathic News for March, 1892, says edi- 
 torially : "We venture to assert that had not our 
 school drifted away from the practice of forty years 
 ago, it would have been dead and buried long since." 
 Continuing, this recognized journal of homoeopathy 
 says : 
 
 "We have drifted away from the practice of 
 giving a pellet of the two-hundredth or higher, and 
 waiting thirty or sixty days for its curative effects ; 
 from the prescribing of a high dilution by smelling 
 the dry pellets, those same pellets ' grafted ' by shaking 
 a thousand pure pellets with one medicated by the 
 ten-thousandth. 
 
 " We have drifted away from a belief in prOvings 
 made by taking a single dose of the one-thousandth, 
 thirtieth, or third even, and then recording all the 
 symptoms felt by the prover — natural symptoms, colds, 
 diarrhoea, etc., for the next sixty days ! 
 
 1 Reprinted in New York Medical Times, May, 1892, p. 55. 
 
24 ROBERTS, 
 
 "We have drifted away from the carrying a 
 pocket repertory to the bedside of the patient, and re- 
 cording the symptoms in columns, and a weary search 
 in said repertory until a mechanical similimum was 
 found. 
 
 " We have drifted away from the days when our 
 pseudo-surgery was a disgraceful farce, when we ex- 
 pected silica to open a felon, or hepar sulphur to lance 
 an abscess. 
 
 "We have drifted away from the narration of 
 miraculous cures with the highest attenuations, which 
 were not cures at all, but a spontaneous finale of a 
 self-limited disease. 
 
 " We have drifted from the days when our practi- 
 tioners would sit by the beside of a woman dying of 
 uterine hemorrhage, hunting in a repertory for the 
 1 indicated remedy ' while the vital fluid was ebbing 
 away, without recourse to the tampon or ergot." 
 
 Dr. Conrad Wesselhoeft, in a paper read before 
 the Southern Homoeopathic Medical Association, 1 ad- 
 mits that homoeopathists, in order to join the ranks 
 of a united medical profession, may " have to recede 
 somewhat from the too premature axiom of the uni- 
 versality and infallability of our law of similars." He 
 apparently signifies his assent to this necessity. 
 
 In an article on " Defects and Limitations of the 
 Materia Medica Homoeopathica," a writer, who is a 
 homoeopathist, discusses 2 the difficulty of selecting the 
 
 1 New York Medical Times, January, 1892, p. 313. 
 ' New York Medical Times, November, 1891, p. 225. 
 
SIMILARITY BETWEEN US AND HOMCEOPATHS. 25 
 
 proper remedy, because of the possibility of the patient 
 not detailing symptoms accurately, and of the in- 
 accuracy of some of the drug effects attributed to rem- 
 edies. He makes this pertinent statement : 
 
 "It is not too much to say that clinical experi- 
 ence does not verify the half of the symptoms to be 
 found in Allen's mammoth collation of materia tnedica, 
 and, like the man who never speaks but half the 
 truth, one is left to wonder which half of the recorded 
 symptoms is true and which is false. Many of the 
 prominent drugs in the materia medica were proved, 
 as our correspondent says, in the thirtieth potency — 
 that is to say, in the decillionth dilution. What man- 
 ner of man must he be who can believe that there is 
 an atom of a drug in a drop of that dilution, or the 
 least degree of drug-force ! " 
 
 The unreliability of homoeopathic " provings " 
 and of the derived " pathogenesy " of drugs is here ad- 
 mitted even by a believer in the law of similars. The 
 Hahnemannian Monthly, whose homoeopathic ortho- 
 doxy will, I presume, not be impeached-, publishes an 
 article 1 by Dr. J. P. Dake, in which the author says : 
 " But the reliability of pathogenesy has not suffered 
 alone from such causes. Some drug-provers have un- 
 dertaken to note symptoms produced by doses in 
 which there was no probability, hardly a possibility, 
 of the least drug influences ; and some have passed by 
 
 1 "Reliability in Materia Medica," read before the Southern 
 Homoeopathic Medical Association, January, 1892, p. 2. 
 
26 ROBERTS, 
 
 a great number of articles, having promise of medici- 
 nal power and usefulness, to prove some that are emi- 
 nently disgusting as well as useless." 
 
 Even Charles Neidhard has written : " For some 
 peculiar diseases the homoeopathic law requires us to 
 give large doses." 1 
 
 This rather lengthy series of quotations from 
 homoeopathic writers has been made to establish my 
 point that we and most of them are for all practical 
 purposes similar and at one. They, as well as we, are 
 free to choose whatsoever is thought to be the proper 
 remedy for a diseased condition, and to give it in 
 whatsoever dose is considered curative. Speculation 
 as to the manner of action of a remedy or the best 
 method of selecting it is only interesting from a phil- 
 osophical point of view. Difference of opinion in such 
 matters make us no less .like them than it makes me 
 different from such members of this Society as believe 
 pulmonary consumption to be of nervous origin, or 
 from those who consider aseptic trephining a danger- 
 ous operation. 
 
 Another point of similarity between the members 
 of the Philadelphia County Medical Society and the 
 homoeopathic practitioners of this city and State is, 
 that much attention is given by both to hygienic and 
 dietetic measures in the management and treatment 
 of the sick. .The value of a faithful study of these 
 
 1 Universality of the Homoeopathic Law of Cure, second edition, 
 P 3°- 
 
SIMILARITY BETWEEN US AND HOMOEOPATHS. 27 
 
 departments of medical science is admitted by all in- 
 telligent practitioners. Again, all of us believe that 
 much priceless information has been gained by inves^ 
 tigations into the effects of drugs upon the healthy 
 human organism. That the results of such study can 
 be utilized in the treatment of disease is averred by 
 writers such as Wood, Bartholow, and Hare in our 
 ranks, and by the homoeopathic authorities, Dake, 
 Farrington, and Hughes. 
 
 When our patients are suffering from symptoms 
 which cannot be removed by any known means, or 
 from diseases which experience has shown to be at 
 present incurable, we and they resort to palliative 
 measures. Remedies which lessen suffering and pro- 
 long life, even if they have not the least curative effect 
 on the symptoms or disease, are often administered by 
 you and me and our homoeopathic neighbor. Opium, 
 one of the most conspicuous of these drugs, is alike 
 used by us all ; and by the way, serves well to illus- 
 trate the fact that even homceopathists do not rigidly 
 adhere to their supposed custom of administering rem- 
 edies singly. It, as we all know, is a combination of 
 many valuable remedies. 
 
 A glance at the catalogues of Boericke & Tafel, 
 known the country over as manufacturers of homoe- 
 opathic remedies, will prove to you that my statements 
 are well founded. In them are seen price-lists of 
 triturates of opium (ix, 2x, 3X, and 6x) ; sepia (2x, 
 3X, and 6x), mercurius vivus, silicea, morphium, 
 
28 ROBERTS, 
 
 graphites, and china, as well as of iodoform, podo- 
 phyllin, rheum, and other names more familiar to our 
 ears. It is more than probable that these chemists 
 supply physicians of all kinds with these triturates, as 
 well as with their one-drop tablets (made from mother 
 tincture) of bryonia alba, aconite, senna, and squill. 
 
 When Charles J. Hemple wrote, in 1874, 1 that 
 constipation was to be treated by rhubard and Seidlitz 
 powder and advocated the use of morphine in colic, 
 he certainly was not dissimilar from us in this re- 
 spect, nor we from him. Yet he was a pronounced 
 homoeopathist. 
 
 I have already indicated by quotations from 
 homoeopathic sources that few homoeopathic practi- 
 tioners now believe in the augumentation of the me- 
 dicinal power of a drug by diminishing the quantity 
 administered. Hahnemann's assertion of the increas- 
 ing potency of these infinitesimal doses seem to have 
 lost its supporters among homoeopathic practitioners. 
 It is needless to say that in this belief we are like 
 them. 
 
 The study which resulted in the production of 
 this address has brought me to the same conclusion as 
 that indicated by Dr. Henry O. Marcy, the recent 
 President of the American Medical Association. He 
 says 2 that " homoeopathy was born, in a measure, as 
 
 1 The Science of Homoeopathy, pp. 32, 33. 
 
 2 President's Address, Journal of American Medical Associa- 
 tion, June 11, 1892, p. 725. 
 
SIMILARITY BETWEEN US AND HOMOEOPATHS. 29 
 
 a protest to indiscriminate heroic dosing with power- 
 ful drugs," and that its popular success was partly due 
 to "an unreasoning prejudice in the minds of a nar- 
 row conservative leadership " which characterized our 
 predecessors. _ He intimates that we and the average 
 homoeopathic physician are so nearly alike, except in 
 name, that the great body politic of our profession 
 should institute measures to make it easy for such men 
 properly educated to enlist in the grand army of 
 workers devoted to unbiased investigation and the 
 practice of scientific medicine. 
 
 Dr. Henry I. Bowditch, our distinguished asso- 
 ciate, put it even more strongly when he wrote, 1 not 
 many years since, that homoeopathy and electicism 
 were the legitimate offspring of the absurdities of the 
 medical profession at the time of their advent. 
 
 A short time ago a paper on revision of the By- 
 laws of the American Medical Association was read 
 before the Chicago Medical Society, by Dr. J. C. Cul- 
 bertson, the well-known editor of the Journal of the 
 Association. The action of the Society in approving 
 the sentiment of the paper indicates that its members 
 share the views of President Marcy and Dr. Culbert- 
 son ; for the first important clause of the proposed re- 
 vised By-laws provides that the members of the Ameri- 
 can Medical Association " shall be physicians in good 
 standing in the medical profession, who are graduates 
 
 1 The Past, Present, and Future Treatment of Homoeopathy, 
 Electicism, and Kindred Delusions. Boston, 1887. 
 
30 ROBERTS, 
 
 of reputable medical colleges, and who in every re- 
 spect conduct themselves as educated physicians and 
 as gentlemen." 
 
 If these opinions of such recognized authorities 
 are correct, and I do not doubt it, it is good evidence 
 that, in the course of five or six decades, mutual ob- 
 servation and gradual deviation from our respective 
 original standards have brought us and the homceo- 
 pathists so near together that the similarities quite 
 outnumber the dissimilarities. 
 
THE PRESENT ATTITUDE OF PHYSICIANS 
 
 AND MODERN MEDICINE TOWARDS 
 
 HOMOEOPATHY. 
 
 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS OF THE MEDICAL SOCIETY OP THE 
 STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA FOR 1 895. 
 
 The important relation of the physician to the 
 community makes it seem proper to discuss before 
 this audience, in which there are many non-medical 
 persons, a question which is very imperfectly under- 
 stood by those outside" of medical circles. 
 
 The public at large does not understand the po- 
 sition assumed towards homoeopathy and homoeopathic 
 doctors by those physicians who decline to accept all 
 sectarian designations. Surprise is not infrequently 
 expressed at the unwillingness of a non-sectarian phy- 
 sician to meet a homoeopathic neighbor in medical 
 consultation, though the social relations of the two 
 may be most cordial. 
 
 I shall endeavor to show the causes of this ap- 
 parent anomaly. The most important aim of the ef- 
 fort is to hasten the time when all honorable persons 
 engaged in preventing, alleviating and curing disease 
 
 (3i) 
 
32 ROBERTS, 
 
 will refuse to be designated by adjectives implying, or 
 seeming to imply, that they do not adopt every means 
 or method of action that scientific investigation proves 
 to be valuable. 
 
 He who treats disease by electricity only is prop- 
 erly called an electropath ; he who uses water alone, 
 in all affections, a hydropath. The doctor who ad- 
 heres to the homoeopathic law of Hahnemann in all 
 cases, is, in a similar way, properly termed a homos- 
 path ; and he who treated all of his patients by the 
 laws of allopathy, if there ever has been such a law 
 formulated, would be an allopath. No allopathists 
 exist, though some doctors have been so-called, but 
 not originally by themselves. 
 
 It must be clear to the least intelligent, more- 
 over, that he who does not adhere to the special 
 methods of treatment giving him his name, at once 
 loses his logical connection with the designation. In 
 other words, a practitioner who uses water or elec- 
 tricity, and also medicinal remedies according to the 
 homoeopathic law. is no longer a hydropath or elec- 
 tropath. It is his exclusiveness in treatment in the 
 one instance which gives him his title. His rejec- 
 tion of exclusiveness and his adoption of other means 
 of treating disease rob him of his right to the sec- 
 tarian name. It is apparent, therefore, that he who 
 uses, or is willing to use, all remedies, all methods, 
 and who varies the size of his dose, the character of 
 the remedy and its method of application with the ex- 
 
PRESENT ATTITUDE TOWARDS HOMCEOPATHY. 33 
 
 igencies of the case is neither electropath, h'ydropath, 
 or homoeopath, but something broader. It may be 
 said, in passing, that by reason of the broadness, he is, 
 perhaps, better prepared to cope with disease. 
 
 Such practitioners as conscientiously choose their 
 remedies and doses, in accordance with the results of 
 study and of experience with diseased processes, might, 
 with propriety, be styled selective or elective physi- 
 cians. The term would be applicable whether their 
 actions were determined by their personal study and 
 experience alone, or by the study and experience of 
 others added to theirs. No such descriptive adjective 
 is required, however, and the term " physician " suf- 
 fices as does that of " dentist " in the sister profession ; 
 for common sense demands that he, who would under- 
 take any physical or intellectual work, should avail 
 himself of every possible honorable means of accom- 
 plishment. 
 
 As all know, a medical sect called " eclectics " ex- 
 ists. The derivation of the name would seem to in- 
 dicate that they select from all forms of remedies. 
 They had originally certain ideas, I believe, as to the 
 noxious qualities of remedies derived from the mineral 
 kingdom, and advocated the use of vegetable reme- 
 dies only. At any rate, the college established in 
 Ohio in 1832 was the result of a resolution adopted in 
 order that " the people of the west may avail them- 
 selves of the advantages resulting from a scientific 
 
 3 
 
34 ROBERTS, 
 
 knowledge of botanic medication.'" At present, the 
 eclectics have, I believe, no special objection to min- 
 eral remedies. Dr. John M. Scudder, Professor of 
 Practice of Medicine in the Eclectic Medical Institute, 
 Cincinnati, says : 
 
 " The Eclectic gives remedies because their effect is opposite to 
 or opposed to the diseased action. They may be selected according 
 to the law of similia, or by empiricism, or by their known influence 
 upon function and structure — physiologically or pathologically. 
 They hold that remedies contain a force, which, set free in the body, 
 influences its functions (mode of motion), doing that which is 
 necessary to bring it back to that normal condition which we call 
 health." 2 
 
 It is possible that the term eclectic was originally 
 taken as a sectarian designation to create in the pub- 
 lic mind the impression that eclectic physicians did 
 differently, and did better, than those simply called 
 doctors or physicians. Other medical sects have ap- 
 parently done this for the purpose of attracting public 
 notice. In many instances their chosen title has now 
 no logical or etymological connection with their be- 
 lief or practice. 
 
 In this address I do not intend to discuss eclectic, 
 medicine at length, nor the beliefs and doctrines of 
 vitopathists, physio-medicals, Thompsonians, or other 
 sects. So far as I know, homoeopathy is the only 
 " school," or " sect," of medical practice under whose 
 
 1 What is Eclecticism ? A. J. Collins, p. 10. 
 
 2 The Essential Difference Between the Three Schools of Med- 
 icine, p. 8-9, 
 
PRESENT ATTITUDE TOWARDS HOMCEOPATHY. 35 
 
 banner are enrolled any considerable number of phy- 
 sicians of intelligence and education. 
 
 It may be serviceable to ask the questions — What 
 is Medicine ? What is Homoeopathy ? 
 
 Webster's unabridged dictionary defines medicine, 
 homceopathy, and allopathy as follows : 
 
 Medicine, " That branch of Science which relates to the pre- 
 vention, cure or alleviation of the diseases of the human body." 
 
 Homceopathy, "The art of curing, founded on resemblances : 
 the theory and its practice that disease is cured by remedies which 
 produce on a healthy person effects similar to the symptoms of the 
 complaint under which the patient suffers, the remedies being usu- 
 ally administered in minute doses." 
 
 Allopathy, "The employment of medicines in order to pro- 
 duce effects different from those resulting from disease ; a term in- 
 vented by Hahnemann to designate the ordinary practice as op- 
 posed to homceopathy." 
 
 The Century Dictionary gives similar definitions ; 
 
 thus: 
 
 Medicine, " The art of preventing, curing, or alleviating dis- 
 eases'and remedying, as far as possible, the results of violence and 
 accident." 
 
 Homceopathy, " The medical treatment of diseased condi- 
 tions of the body by the administration of drugs which are capable of 
 exciting in healthy persons symptoms closely similar to those of 
 the morbid condition treated." 
 
 A note is then added, which says : 
 
 "In practice, homceopathy is associated with the system of 
 administering drugs in very small, often infinitesmal, doses." 
 
 Allopathy, "In medicine a therapeutic method characterized 
 byjthe use of agents producing effects different from the symptoms 
 of the disease treated." 
 
 A note goes on to say : " The name is incorrectly applied, in 
 distinction from homoeopathy, to the traditional school of medi- 
 cine, which opposes the homoeopathic theory." 
 
36 ROBERTS, 
 
 Eclectic medicine is defined by the Century Dictionary as " A 
 medical theory and practice based upon selection of what is es- 
 teemed best in all systems : specifically, the medical system of a 
 separately organized school of physicians in the United States, who 
 make much of what they regard as specific remedies, largely or 
 chiefly botanical." 
 
 By these lengthy quotations it will be seen that 
 there is a radical difference between homoeopathy and 
 medicine in that the former is more limited in its 
 meaning. Homoeopathy is a method of treating dis- 
 ease and not the name of a branch of human science. 
 It appears in these standard dictionaries in much the 
 same manner as does evaporation or distillation in re- 
 lation to chemistry. They are not sciences, but meth- 
 ods or processes of the science of chemistry, which 
 may or may not be used by the professed chemist. 
 
 It may be claimed that this deduction from dic- 
 tionaries is unjust towards the adherents of homoeop- 
 athy. I can only reply that I have no knowledge of 
 any medical dictionary written by a homoeopathic 
 physician, and that the non-professional authorities 
 quoted are standard works of reference whose attitude 
 towards medical topics is unknown to me. 
 
 Medicine, then, comprises the science and art of 
 preventing and treating disease, and is founded on bi- 
 ology, anatomy, physiology, chemistry and physics. 
 All physical and physiological laws are correlated 
 with it, and to all such laws must it be subordinate. 
 Its facts are only established by careful and pains- 
 taking observation and research. Medical hypotheses 
 
PRESENT ATTITUDE TOWARDS HOMOEOPATHY. 37 
 
 and theories must be subjected to the same rigid 
 scrutiny and heartless criticism as the hypotheses, the- 
 ories and suggestions of the physicist. The rules of 
 evidence must be as stringently applied in determin- 
 ing the truth of alleged medical facts as they are in 
 the courts to ascertain the guilt or innocence of the 
 accused. 
 
 It is evident, then, that medicine is- a science and 
 an art, and is not electropathy, homoeopathy or allo- 
 pathy. It is equally clear that physicians who claim 
 to study and practice the science and art of medicine 
 are not allopaths, homoeopaths, or electropaths. Un- 
 fortunately, the general public does not realize this ; 
 and the majority of medical men are called allopaths, 
 simply because they are not homoeopaths. The error 
 has been perpetuated by homoeopathic literature giv- 
 ing the name allopath to those physicians who are un- 
 willing to be homoeopaths and who refuse to be affil- 
 iated with any sect of medicine. 
 
 Homoeopaths often speak of homoeopathy as the 
 new school of medicine, and describe non-sectarian 
 physicians as of the old school. The difficulty of 
 making the public understand the distinction between 
 physicians and homoeopaths has, unfortunately, led 
 many physicians to carelessly and tacitly accept the 
 designations " allopath " and " old school." Such terms 
 however, are not true. Physicians do not subscribe 
 to a law of contraries or dissimilars (allopathy) as the 
 homoeopaths do to a law of similars. 
 
38 ROBERTS, 
 
 The science of medicine cannot be a sect or 
 school any more than can the science and art of navi- 
 gation or agriculture. Physicians (often incorrectly 
 called " old school doctors ") are willing to use, and 
 are never prevented by any code of ethics or society 
 regulation from using any remedy or dose which seems 
 to them individually to be worthy of confidence. , Ip- 
 ecacuanha is. given in minute doses by many physi- 
 ians, for vomiting ; belladonna is used by them in scar- 
 let fever, and aconite in certain cases of fever ; while 
 phosphorous, bryonia, arnica, nitro-glycerine, etc., are 
 remedies often employed. 
 
 These and all remedies are used by non-sectarian 
 physicians because physiological and chemical study 
 or experience has 'shown them to be indicated. The 
 homoeopathic physician uses them because he believes 
 they produce, in the well, symptoms similar to those 
 of the disease with which his patient is afflicted. For 
 example, the homoeopathic doctor gives a dilution 
 of ipecacuanha, containing an exceedingly minute 
 amount of the drug, to relieve vomiting, because ipe- 
 cacuanha in doses of several grains causes vomiting in 
 the healthy. The method of employing ipecacuanha 
 adopted by the non-sectarian rests on an entirely dif- 
 ferent basis. He gives small doses of the drug — not 
 exceedingly minute -amounts — when his patient has 
 nausea due to a catarrhal condition of the stomach 
 and bowels, because science has taught him that small 
 doses of ipecacuanha stimulate and render less viscid 
 
PRESENT ATTITUDE TOWARDS HOMOEOPATHY. 39 
 
 the secretion of the mucous membrane of the stomach, 
 increase the secretion of bile by- the liver, and pro- 
 mote digestion. His use of ipecacuanha has no rela^ 
 tion or connection with the fact that larger doses cause 
 vomiting. In some instances the drug employed is 
 called by a name different from that adopted by the 
 homoeopaths, because physicians use the name adopted 
 by the United States Pharmacopoeia, the official guide 
 in such matters, published every ten years by a con- 
 vention composed of delegates from the U. S. Army, 
 Navy, and Marine Hospital Service, and the medical 
 colleges and societies of the whole Union. 
 
 Again, physicians who are not homoeopaths pre- 
 scribe medicines in the form of powders, and at times 
 put a few drops of a strong tincture or a small pellet 
 or tablet into a tumbler partly filled with water, and 
 direct a teaspoonful to be taken at definite intervals. 
 These methods, which seem to the public to be in- 
 separably connected with homoeopathy, are also used 
 therefore by non-sectarian doctors. 
 
 Medicine requires its votaries to examine into the 
 hypotheses and theories of drug action and of the 
 causation of disease, and to accept as true only those 
 statements which can stand the test of accurate scien- 
 tific investigation. Many are the theories and beliefs 
 that have been overturned by the searching criticism 
 .thus given. 
 
 Medicine is ever ready to receive with open arms 
 that which promises increased power against disease ; 
 
40 ROBERTS, 
 
 but, before it is accepted as truth, it must show that 
 it can stand the rigid test of modern science. The 
 assertion of no man or body of men, however eminent 
 or revered, is accepted as final. Truth cannot be pre- 
 dicated upon the statement of a few. The fact is only 
 provisionally accepted until the accumulated proof of 
 many diverse investigators and observers makes its 
 truthfulness almost a certainty. 
 
 The public doubtless remembers the rejection of 
 the Brown-S6quard elixir of life and the tuberculosis 
 cure of the renowned Koch. The eminence of these 
 men gave unusual importance to their assertions, but 
 did not stay the critical study which showed the error 
 of their beliefs. On the other hand, the germ theory 
 of disease propounded by Koch has constantly been 
 adding to the number of its converts, until now it is 
 accepted by the major part of the medical world. 
 
 This review shows that non-sectarian medicine 
 does not prohibit a physician holding views different 
 from those of his fellows on questions of drugs and 
 treatment. Its only demand is that its followers be 
 catholic — that is, broad and open to conviction in all 
 directions ; that they approach all Subjects in a truly 
 scientific and humanitarian spirit. For this very reason, 
 however, it does, from its essential nature as a science, 
 prohibit that sort of exclusiveness which says that only 
 one law or dogma can be true and correct. 
 
 He who says that " so and so " is the only and 
 universal law, at once reveals an unscientific spirit 
 
PRESENT ATTITUDE TOWARDS HOMOEOPATHY. 41 
 
 and mind, and precludes the personal investigation 
 and observation which is necessary to make him a ra- 
 tional follower of scientific medicine. I may, perhaps, 
 make myself clearer by an illustration. A civil engi- 
 neer, who believes and acts on the belief that the only 
 and universal method of bridging a river is by the 
 erection of wooden truss bridges is not a rational and 
 scientific civil engineer. He is a " wooden-truss bridge 
 builder," if you choose, but he is not, and cannot be, 
 a scientific civil engineer, because the experience and 
 observation of the great mass of competent observers 
 shows that streams may be bridged by truss bridges 
 of iron, suspension bridges of wire, and bridges with 
 stone arches.. 
 
 It was this exclusiveness in the methods of treat- 
 ment proposed by Hahnemann, and adopted by his 
 immediate followers, under the name homoeopathy, that 
 separated the homoeopathists from the ranks of those 
 who believed, and who still believe, in the use of any 
 and all methods proved to be curative. Non-sectarian 
 physicians hold to no exclusive dogma or doctrine in 
 therapeutics, and believe that Hahnemann was in 
 error in his opinions that " like cures like," and that 
 drugs are increased in power by trituration and shak- 
 ing. They believe that the doses advocated by him 
 are so infmitesimally small that they are inert. Dr. 
 H. B. Hemenway says 1 that he has several times ex- 
 amined low dilutions, not high dilutions, of mucurius 
 1 Journal American Medical Association, March 17, 1894, p. 371. 
 
42 ROBERTS, 
 
 vivus prepared by one of the most reliable homoeo- 
 pathic drug firms in the country, without finding the 
 slightest trace of mercury. 
 
 In other words, they believe that experience and 
 scientific investigation have shown, and do show, that 
 the cures attributed to these exceedingly small doses 
 are instances of erroneous observation, that the cures 
 occurred, in fact, without any curative effect being ex- 
 erted by the drugs. They believe that it is contrary 
 ' to the lessons of the science of medicine and of col- 
 lateral sciences that 150 cases of true scarlet fever 
 could be treated without a death by medicines of the 
 200th and higher, homoeopathic potencies exclusively. 1 
 They doubt the accuracy of the observations of Dr. 
 William Ray, of England, who, in a cholera epidemic, 
 "had splendid success" with the 200th potency of 
 camphor. 2 They feel hesitancy in accepting as true 
 the statement that common table-salt can be so changed 
 by the homoeopathic method of trituration and admin- 
 istration that it " will cure more cases of intermittent 
 fever than any other known remedy." Yet, a homoeo- 
 pathic author says : " With the thirtieth dilution, I 
 have cured several hundred cases with this drug 
 alone." 3 
 
 1 A Lipp£, in Cincinnati Medical Advance, 1876, Vol. Ill, p. 
 544, quoted by E. H. Berridge in Homoeopathy Vindicated, p. 18. 
 
 2 Homoeopathy Vindicated, by E. H. Berridge, p. 16. 
 
 3 Burt's Physiological Materia Medica, p. 632, quoted by Hem- 
 enway, Jnl. American Medical Ass'n, March 17, 1894, p. 367. 
 
PRESENT ATTITUDE TOWARDS HOMCEOPATHY. 43 
 
 Without presuming to question the honesty of 
 opinion of these authors, non-sectarian doctors believe 
 that knowledge, possessed even by the general public, 
 is sufficient to cause distrust in the scientific accuracy 
 of these observations and statements. 
 
 Much of the evidence given by Hahnemann and 
 his early followers on the law of similars (" similia 
 similibus curantur," as he puts it), is open to the same 
 criticism as to accuracy. Until rigid scientific inves- 
 tigation proves the truth of Hahnemann's law of sim- 
 ilars and his doctrine of potentization and dynamiza- 
 tion of drugs in almost infinitesimal doses, the physi- 
 cian who believes in the scientific character of medi- 
 cine is compelled, by logical reasoning, to class Hah- 
 nemannism and homoeopathy with Brunonism, Brous- 
 saisism, Humoralism, Solidism, and the other systems, 
 schools or sects of medicine, which have long fallen, 
 under the ruthless knife of scientific research. These 
 were" also speculative and founded on the deductive 
 system of reasoning. 
 
 If the truth of Hahnemann's propositions are ever 
 scientifically demonstrated, they will accept them as 
 heartily as many of them do Dr. Koch's recent dem- 
 onstration of the connection of consumption with the 
 tubercle bacillus, and as most of the world does Jen- 
 ner's assertion that vaccination protects from small- 
 pox. 
 
 An apparent demonstration of the erroneous char- 
 acter of Hahnemann's teaching is the fact that many 
 
44 ROBERTS, 
 
 physicians, who are classed as homoeopaths, do not 
 believe in the small doses advocated so strenuously by 
 Hahnemann, nor in the universality of the homoeo- 
 pathic law of similars. I call these gentlemen homoeo- 
 paths because they teach in homoeopathic colleges 
 and belong to homoeopathic societies, and thereby ac- 
 cept the designation. 
 
 It is not to be wondered at, then, that physicians 
 at large cannot accept homoeopathy, when even Hah- 
 nemann's avowed followers give evidence in their 
 practice and writings of their defection from his teach- 
 ings. 
 
 Two years ago I gave, in an address, 1 evidence of 
 this defection of homoeopathic physicians from the 
 doctrines of Hahnemann. At this time I shall only 
 record the statement of Dr. Jabez P. Dake, a high au- 
 thority in the homoeopathic school, made in 1894, at 
 the meeting of the American Institute of Homoeop- 
 athy. In an article entitled " What the Homoeopath 
 Should Know of Drugs," 2 he says : 
 
 " We cannot imagine a physician who is entirely limited to the 
 homoeopathic use of drugs." 
 
 In speaking of the symptoms produced by drugs, 
 detailed by the votaries of homoeopathy, after " prov- 
 ings," he says : 
 
 "It is a. lamentable fact, shown indisputably by the higher 
 medical criticism, that the sources of impurity, the gateways to the 
 
 1 Points of Similarity between Us and Homoeopathic Physicians. 
 Jnl American Medical Association, May 27, 1893. 
 
 2 The Hahnemannian Monthly, July, 1894, p. 410. 
 
PRESENT ATTITUDE TOWARDS HOMOEOPATHY. 45 
 
 realms of imagination, misapprehension, and even fraud, were not 
 all shut while the drug pictures were being taken. Applying all 
 the rules of evidence to the witnesses whose testimony constitute 
 our materia medica, we must realize that very few of them have 
 come up to the standard requiring ' the truth, the whole truth, and 
 nothing but the truth,' concerning drugs effects." 
 
 It is this aspect of the case which prevents the 
 members of this Society and other non-sectarian phy- 
 sicians believing in the scientific accuracy of many of 
 the observations recorded in homoeopathic works. 
 
 If homoeopaths themselves do not believe in the 
 general accuracy of the statements in Hahnemann's 
 Materia Medica Pura, Jahr's Manual, the Encyclo- 
 paedia of Pure Materia Medica, and the Cyclopaedia of 
 Drug Pathogenesy, it is not surprising that others 
 cannot bring themselves to believe in the universality,, 
 or infallibility of the homoeopathic law. 
 
 Samuel Hahnemann, was born in Germany, in 
 the year 1755, and died in 1843. He founded the 
 Homoeopathic School of Medicine, which is the only 
 " sect," " system," or " school " of medicine of any im- 
 portance at the present time. The vitopathist, vito- 
 chemical, physio-medical, eclectic and Christian sci- 
 ence schools are less important. The adherents and 
 quasi-adherents of homoeopathy probably exceed in 
 numbers the adherents of all other " sects " of medi- 
 cine taken together. This is partly due to the cir- 
 cumstance that many practitioners who are classed 
 with homoeopaths are really practitioners of rational 
 or scientific medicine, with a belief in the truth of 
 
46 ROBERTS, 
 
 some, but not all, of Hahnemann's teachings. They are 
 the subject of bitter denunciation by those who still 
 accept homoeopathy in its entirety. 
 
 Dr. John C. Morgan 1 complains greatly of the 
 prevalent neglect in teaching homoeopathy in homoeo- 
 pathic colleges. He says that some instruction is 
 given to the freshman classes ; but that 
 
 "if the second, third, and post-graduate years had been 
 planned for this obliteration of Hahnemannism the result could 
 scarcely be more complete." 
 
 This inattention to homoeopathy in the colleges 
 of that school seems to be due to the fact that the 
 great mass of their teachers have little faith in the 
 principles insisted upon by Hahnemann. They have 
 apparently seen the defect of the homoeopathic law, 
 but are not yet willing to disavow a belief in its in- 
 fallibility and universality. 
 
 Haller, who died in 1777, when Hahnemann was 
 still a young man, may be said to be the father of the 
 modern science of medicine. He rejected all theoriz- 
 ing on medical topics and all attempts to find laws of 
 treatment or found systems or " schools " of medicine. 
 He argued that rational or scientific medicine could 
 only be reached by exact and critical study of anat- 
 omy, physiology, pathology, and the effects of reme- 
 dial agents on the functions of the body. 
 
 The claim that Hahnemann first formally enun- 
 ciated the doctrine that remedies should be studied by 
 
 1 The Study of Homoeopathy, etc. Trans. World's Homoeo- 
 pathic Congress, Chicago, 1894. 
 
PRESENT ATTITUDE TOWARDS HOMCEOPATHY. 47 
 
 their administration to healthy persons seems to be 
 untrue, as Haller preceded him in this assertion. 
 Hahnemann is said to have divined or discovered the 
 homoeopathic law of similars, as it is called, about 
 1790. It was probably not entirely new. 1 
 
 It has been truly said 2 that rational or scientific 
 medicine began its life when Albrecht von Haller rec- 
 ognized the fact that : 
 
 " The laws of nature are not things -which we can evolve by any 
 speculative method. On the contrary, we have to discover them 
 in the facts : we have to test them by repeated observations and ex- 
 periments. In proportion only as they hold good under a con- 
 stantly increasing number of cases, and in the greater delicacy in 
 the means of observation does our confidence in their trustworth- 
 iness rise." 
 
 The non-sectarian physician of this part of the 
 19th century believes disease to be a disturbance of 
 the functions with, or without, a change in the struc- 
 tures of the body ; he recognizes also the curative 
 power of nature ; knows that the natural history of 
 many diseases is towards cure, and that the physi- 
 cian's duty is not to drive out a concrete enemy called 
 disease, but to sustain physiological or vital processes 
 and prevent or lessen complications, until the self- 
 limited disease is ended. Pneumonia, typhoid fever, 
 scarlet fever, measles and erysipelas are good examples 
 of the affections which have an intrinsic tendency to 
 
 1 Homceopathy, by Thos. W. Blatchford, p. 7. 
 5 W. H. Washburn, Medical and Surgical Reporter, July u, 
 1891, p. 52. 
 
48 ROBERTS, 
 
 recover. A rational physician does not believe that 
 disease can be cured" only by medicine ; he does not 
 combat disease on the principle of contraries or allo- 
 pathy ; he watches the patient's vital processes and at- 
 tempts to conserve strength and prevent complications. 
 In the self-limited diseases he abides his time, and in 
 those tending to death averts as long as possible the. 
 sorrowful end. 
 
 Hahnemann's first doctrine was the so-called law 
 of Nature " similia similibus curantur " — like things 
 are cured by like things — which he describes as a " law 
 unknown until the present time, although it has on 
 all occasions formed the basis of every visible cure. " x 
 This law of similars is the basis of his system which 
 he called Homoeopathy from two Greek words, signify- 
 ing " similar " and " suffering " or " disease." It is 
 strange that while he in some places speaks of the 
 law being first taught by himself, he, in other parts 
 of the Organon, admits it was not without previons 
 advocates. 
 
 The second doctrine of Hahnemann's system is 
 that dilution of drugs increases their curative power. 
 The potentization or dynamization of drugs, as this 
 increase in power in diminishing quantities is called, 
 is accomplished by taking one part of sulphur, for ex- 
 ample, and rubbing or triturating it with 99 parts by 
 weight of sugar of milk. This is the first trituration, 
 designated the first potency. One part of this sulphur 
 1 Hahnemann's Organon, p. 88. 
 
PRESENT ATTITUDE TOWARDS HOMOEOPATHY. 49 
 
 mixture is then triturated in a similar manner with 
 99 parts of sugar of milk, constituting the second trit- 
 uration or potency. This process may be continued 
 indefinitely, though Hahnemann considered that the 
 best results were obtained, and the most "dynamic 
 power " developed in the 30th potency or attenuation. 
 
 In the case of liquids, such as tincture of aconite, 
 two drops of the " mother tincture," made of equal 
 parts of expressed juice and alcohol, were mixed and 
 shaken up with 98 drops of alcohol to make the first 
 potency, and successive additions of 99 drops of alco- 
 hol were made to one drop of this first potency in a 
 manner similar to that used with solid drugs. 
 
 It was necessary, according to Hahnemann, " not 
 to rub or shake the drugs too much, or they might be- 
 come too strong." He says : 
 
 " Homoeopathic medicines acquire, at each division or dilution, 
 a new degree of power by the rubbing or shaking they undergo ; a. 
 means of developing the inherent virtues of medicines that was un- 
 known until my time ; and which is so energetic that latterly I have 
 been forced by experience to reduce the number of shakes to two, 
 of which I formally prescribed ten to each dilution," 1 
 
 In the American Homoeopathic Pharmacopoeia, of 
 1883, those interested will find detailed accounts of 
 the various methods of preparing homoeopathic reme- 
 dies. The decimal scale of potentation introduced by 
 Dr. Constantine Hering and now a good deal used, 
 will also be found there described. Hering's decimal 
 scale is distinguished from Hahnemann's centesimal 
 1 Organon, p. 205. 
 
 4 
 
50 ROBERTS, 
 
 scale by placing an ' x ' after the number of the po- 
 tency; thus " 2x potency." 
 
 In order that liquids might not be accidentally 
 shaken too much and made too strong, Hahnemann 
 directed that, after the dilution was made to the po- 
 tency desired, small globules of sugar of milk should 
 be saturated with the solution. These would have 
 the desired curative power, which would not acci- 
 dentally be increased by shaking. The shaking is 
 best performed by moving the arm from above down- 
 wards ; and if properly performed, imparts active med- 
 ical virtue to substances usually regarded as entirely, 
 or almost inert. Pure carbon, flint, table salt and 
 similar substances are by proper dilution made power- 
 ful curative remedies. 
 
 The belief of the author of homoeopathy in his 
 system is shown by these words : 
 
 " The most violent pleuritic fever, with all its attending alarm- 
 ing symptoms, is cured in the space of twenty-four hours at the 
 farthest, * * * * by giving one globule of sugar impregnated 
 with the juice of aconite of the decillionth (30th) degree of dilu- 
 tion." 
 
 In cases of over-loaded stomach " the patient should 'smell once* 
 a globule of sugar the size of a mustard seed, impregnated with the 
 30th dilution of Pulsatilla," and be " infallibly cured in the space 
 of two hours." 
 
 Hahnemann's next " great truth, which remained 
 concealed from all my predecessors and contempo- 
 raries," is that all diseases, except two, owe their origin 
 to a " chronic miasm," which had descended through 
 
PRESENT ATTITUDE TOWARDS HOMCEOPATHY. 5 1 
 
 many generations of men from the itch (psora.) His 
 
 statement is i 1 
 
 " The Psora is the sole, true and fundamental cause that pro- 
 duces all the other countless forms of disease, under which, the 
 name of nervous debility, hysteria, hemicrania, hypochondriasis, 
 insanity, melancholy, idiocy, madness, epilepsy, and spasms of all 
 kinds, softening of the bones, or rickets, scoliosis and cyphosis, 
 caries, cancer, fungus hematodes, pseudo-morphae of all kinds, 
 gravel, gout, hemorrhoids, jaundice and cyanosis, dropsy, amen- 
 orrhoea, gastrorrhagia, epitaxis, hemoptysis, hematuria, metror- 
 rhagia, asthma and phthisis ulcerosa, impotency and sterility, deaf- 
 ness, cataract and amaurosis, paralysis, loss of sense, pains of all 
 kinds etc., appear in our pathology as so many peculiar, distinct 
 and independent diseases." 
 
 Another of the principles of homoeopathy was 
 that no two medicines should be administered at the 
 same time. A single drug in an infinitely small dose 
 is the only medication allowable. 
 
 Some homoeopaths believe that in chronic dis- 
 eases a single dose of a homoeopathic remedy may 
 cure. Dr. J. C. Morgan, for example, asserts 2 that 
 
 " Sometimes, as in tumors, a single dose, once in thirty days, 
 as of Sepia or Hepar sulph., has done good ' alterative work.' " 
 
 The desire to obtain " similars " has led some ho- 
 moeopathic physicians to employ unusual remedies 
 from the animal kingdom. Dr. Morgan in the paper 
 above quoted makes this assertion : 
 
 " Dr. Samuel Freedley informed me of his curing himself of 
 an " old man's ulcer " of the leg by Tarantula cubensis. I reasoned 
 
 1 Organon, p. 122. / 
 
 8 The Study of Homoeopathy, etc.; Trans. World's Homceo-' 
 pathic Congress, 1893. Reprint, p. 45. 
 
52 ROBERTS, 
 
 that an animal so low represents degraded human tissue, and is ho- 
 mologous with low disease-changes. Hence I have used cimex 
 with benefit, in ulcer of the rectum, * * * * " 
 
 The tarantula cubensis is a large spider of the 
 West Indies, the cimex is the too well-known bedbug. 
 
 The American Homoeopathic Pharmacopoeia, pub- 
 lished in 1883 by Boericke & Tafel, shows 1 that ci- 
 mex or bed bug is made for homoeopathic practitioners 
 as follows : 
 
 " The live insect, crushed, is covered with five parts by weight 
 of alcohol. Having poured the mixture into a well stoppered bot- 
 tle, it is allowed to remain eight days in a dark, cool place, being 
 shaken twice a day. The tincture is then poured off, strained and 
 filtered. Amount of drug power, 1-10. Dilutions must be prepared 
 as directed under Class IV." 
 
 The medicine called by homdeopathists " blatta 
 
 Americana," is prepared from the great American 
 
 cockroach. In this case 
 
 "the live animal is crushed and triturated, as directed under 
 Class IX." 2 
 
 In preparing " mephitis," one part by weight of 
 the characteristic fluid expelled by the polecat or 
 skunk is dissolved in ninety-nine parts by weight of • 
 alcohol. 3 Variolinum is prepared by Boericke & 
 Tafel for homoeopathic uses 4 by triturating the con- 
 tents of a ripe smallpox pustule as directed under 
 
 'p. i75- 
 
 2 American Homoeopathic Pharmacopoeia, 1883, p. 123. 
 
 3 Idem, p. 307. 
 * Idem, p. 449. 
 
PRESENT ATTITUDE TOWARDS HOMCEOPATHY. 53 
 
 Class VIII. Psorinum was introduced as a medicine 
 
 by Dr. Constantine Hering, 1 who says : 
 
 " I collected the pus from the itch postule of a young and other- 
 wise healthy negro. * * * * I opened all the mature, un- 
 scratched pustules for several days in succession, and collected the 
 pus in a vial of alcohol. After shaking it -well and allowing it to 
 stand, I commenced my provings with the tincture on the healthy. 
 * * * * I administered it to the sick with good results, and 
 sometimes witnessed aggravations." 
 
 Dr. Samuel Swan, who deals in homoeopathic 
 
 remedies in high potencies in New York, says in his 
 
 catalogue : 2 
 
 " In order that all should have the benefit of high potencies, 
 the plan of sending grafts has been adopted ; if a graft is put in a 
 vial of any size and the vial filled with unmedicated pellets and 
 corked, the whole mass will be medicated in half an hour. ' ' 
 
 He indicates on the same page of this catalogue 
 that when a vial of medicine is nearly emptied the 
 physician can fill it up with unmedicated pellets which 
 will become medicated by being in company with the 
 pellets previously contained in it, thus presumably 
 acting in a manner similar to the grafts spoken of in 
 the paragraph quoted above. He says : " You will 
 not have to purchase the remedy a second time." 
 
 Among the remedies advertised are : 
 
 " Pus from Rectal abscess." 
 " Pus from caries of os calcis." 
 " Pus from Septic abscess." (p. 21.) 
 
 " Vomito. Blood from yellow fever patient while moribund." 
 (P- 27-) 
 
 1 Idem, p. 380. 
 
 2 Catalogue of Morbific products, nosodes, and other remedies, 
 in high potencies. 2nd Edition, 1886. P. 31. 
 
54 ROBERTS, 
 
 " Sal cerebri. Salt secreted profusely from a gentleman's scalp, 
 ■with thejperspiration, and on drying it was 
 crystalized so heavily his head looked frost- 
 ed." (p. 30.) 
 
 " Pediculus Capitis.'' 
 
 " Pediculus Corporis. From Boston." {p. 20.) 
 
 " Tinien Syphilitica. Syphilitic patient with Tinea capitis." 
 
 (P. 2 5.) 
 
 "Luna. (Moonlight.)" (p. 16.) 
 "Helios. The Sun." (p. 13.) 
 "Omnia." (p. 29.) 
 
 I do not know the standing of Dr. Swan as a 
 homoeopathic pharmacist, but the fact that his cata- 
 logue has reached its second edition would seem to 
 indicate that he is patronized by Homoeopathic phy- 
 sicians. He does not state in what diseases " Moon- 
 light " or the " Pediculus Corporis " (body louse), "from 
 Boston," are employed by homoeopathists. 
 
 To determine for what diseases the several drugs 
 are curative, it was, of course, necessary for Hahne- 
 mann to find out what symptoms the drug produced 
 in a healthy human being. Therefore, a dose of the 
 substance to be proved was taken by a healthy per- 
 son, preferably a physician, who then noted, once, 
 twice or thrice a day, the sensations and occurrences 
 he found in himself for a period of several days. 
 These symptoms, called the pathogenesis of the drug, 
 were recorded in catalogue form. Each drug so proved 
 has many pages of symptoms recorded. 
 
 The real homoeopathic physician, who has a sick 
 man to treat, looks over this list of drug symptoms, 
 
PRESENT ATTITUDE TOWARDS HOMOEOPATHY. 55 
 
 and administers an infinitesmal dose of a single drug 
 which is found in the table to produce symptoms 
 " similar " to those presented by the patient. For 
 example, a drug which has produced symptoms per- 
 taining to the head is to be given to a patient pre- 
 senting " similar," but not " identical " head symp- 
 toms. 
 
 Dr. Berridge, an ardent homoeopath, relates 1 a 
 case of congestion of the brain, and condemns the 
 homoeopathic doctor, who stopped giving arnica be- 
 cause, as he said, " he did not believe it acted on the 
 head more than on the big toe." The argument of 
 Dr. Berridge is that the doctor was too ignorant to 
 know that " Allen's Encyclopaedia gives seven symp- 
 toms of arnica belonging to the big toe, and nearly 
 one hundred belonging to the head." 
 
 I mention this to show you how homoeopathy 
 undertakes to cure disease. The changes in the fluids 
 and the alterations in the tissues of the body are not 
 to be investigated for the purpose of discovering the 
 cause of the patient's disease. His symptoms are to 
 be noted and then a search made among the lists of 
 " proved " drugs for one that induces similar symp- 
 toms. A recent paper published in the Hahnemann 
 Monthly, February, 1894, by Dr. Joseph C. Guernsey, 
 is entitled " Symptoms, the Basis of Homoeopathic 
 Prescribing," and illustrates the method I have de- 
 scribed. 
 
 1 Homoeopathy Vindicated, p. 47. 
 
56 ROBERTS, 
 
 The skill which makes one homoeopath better 
 than the other lies in " selecting the remedy " of 
 " similimum," which most nearly simulates the symp- 
 toms. The remedy whose drug effects corresponds 
 most nearly with the greatest number of disease-ef- 
 fects in the patient is believed to be the most certain 
 cure. Herein lies the difference between the success- 
 ful and the unsuccessful homoeopathic physician, ac- 
 cording to the doctrine of homoeopathy. 
 
 Many devices have been employed by homoeo- 
 paths to aid in " selecting the remedy " from the mul- 
 titudinous lists of symptoms found in their text books. 
 Boenninghausen's Therapeutic Pocket-Book, Jahr's 
 Symptomen-Codex, and Repertories are the refuge of ■ 
 the true Hahnemannian. 
 
 Dr. Morgan, for example, tell us 1 that he once 
 
 sought a remedy for a case of intermittent fever, with 
 
 chill beginning on the right side. Taking Jahr's 
 
 Symptomem-Codex, he examined the " Fever " rubric 
 
 of every drug, and found under Rhus tox., " the left 
 
 side of the body felt hot, and the right side cold," etc. 
 
 Examining for the other symptoms — pain, etc., this 
 
 drug was found to have all of them ; and Rhus tox. 
 
 was then known to be the remedy. The same author 
 
 describes the " numerical method " of finding the 
 
 remedy thus : 
 
 "Its most salient expression is found in Dr. W.J. Guernsey's 
 Boenninghausen. In this the rubrics of the Therapeutic Pocket- 
 
 1 Loc. cit. 
 
PRESENT ATTITUDE TOWARDS HOMOEOPATHY. 57 
 
 Sook are printed upon separate long strips of stiff paper, with the 
 rank of each drug thereunder, 1, 2, 3, 4, in numerals. Selecting 
 the slips containing the various symptoms, they are placed side by 
 side, upon a table : then each drug, beginning with those of highest 
 rank, is counted by adding all its printed numerals together. The 
 one having the highest number is held to be the similimum, irre- 
 spective of the claims of the key-notes, etc. ' ' 
 
 Homoeopathy, therefore, lays no stress upon the 
 importance of the study of physiology and pathology. 
 Hahnemann says : 
 
 "I cannot comprehend how it is possible for physicians to 
 imagine that they ought to search the interior of the human 
 economy. ' ' 
 
 Spme doctors, still calling themselves homoeopa- 
 thjsts, reject many of the doctrines of Hahnemann ; 
 but in so doing seem to be no longer homoeopaths. 
 
 They are still in the ranks of homoeopathy, how- 
 ever, those who believe in the universality of the law 
 of similars and in the pote'ntization of drugs by tritura- 
 tion and shaking. E. W. Berridge, for instance, shows 
 by the following words his belief that the homoeop- 
 athic law of similars is unfailing : 
 
 " We, however, never give medicines for the cure of diseases 
 on any other law than that of similars, and have never any occa- 
 sion to do so." 1 
 
 The statements in this quotation are Dr. Berridge's, 
 not mine, and show the earnestness with which he 
 makes the assertion that the law of similars is in his 
 mind a universal therapeutic law. 
 
 Dr. Neidhard, of Philadelphia, uses the words : 2 
 
 1 Homoeopathy Vindicated, Liverpool, 1879, P- 3^. 
 
 2 Universality of the Homoeopathic Law of Cure, by Charles 
 Neidhard, M. D., Philadelphia, 1874, p. 4. 
 
58 ROBERTS, 
 
 " If this fundamental law can be overthrown, then homoeopa- 
 thy, as a science, is as good as lost. If it is not a universal law of 
 cure, that will shorten the natural course of diseases, that will miti- 
 gate more permanently the pains of the disease than any other 
 method of cure, it will not deserve our respect nor our study." 
 
 He says also that from the time of Hippocrates, 
 and, as far as any records are left, from the beginning 
 of all times, all true cures of diseases were always 
 performed according to the homoeopathic law. 1 
 
 He on page 7 illustrates the working of this law 
 of similars by citing the case of two ladies who were 
 entirely exempt from seasickness at sea, because they 
 were previously subject to chronic sick headache with 
 nausea and vomiting. The same author (p. 10) shows 
 his belief in infinitesimal doses by reporting the ac- 
 count of a number of men who escaped cholera, during 
 an epidemic, because they were engaged in making 
 and selling copper articles. Copper, it must be recol- 
 lected, is believed by the homoeopathic school to be a 
 medicine of superior efficiency in cholera. 
 
 Dr. Neidhard likewise administers (p. 10) small doses of rattle- 
 snake venom to destroy the appetite for liquor, because "Whiskey, 
 in large quantities, is a well-known frontier-man's remedy for the 
 bites of the rattlesnake, and is often successful." Further illustra- 
 tions or proofs of the universality of the law of similars are given 
 by the same author as follows ip. 12) : "A friend, throwing some 
 flowers, withered by a hot July sun, into a basin of warm water, 
 found them, some hours after, to his astonishment, as fresh as ever, 
 completely revived. The best thief catchers and detectives are 
 those who formerly have been engaged in the same business, that 
 is, have been thieves. Disappointed love can cause consumption 
 
 1 Idem, p. 5. 
 
PRESENT ATTITUDE TOWARDS HOMOEOPATHY. 59 
 
 and rheumatism, but when you have it, it may also cure it — a true 
 homoeopathic cure." (p 13.) 
 
 The homoeopathic law is, according to Dr. Neidhard (p. 21) 
 operative in education. He says, " A vicious boy who pokes his 
 umbrella into everybody's side is cured by letting him stand in a 
 corner with an immense umbrella over his head until he is 
 tired." 
 
 Dr. J. C. Guernsey, says : l " If a remedy fails to act, after 
 giving it in a potency sufficiently high to warrant a fair trial, we 
 may make up our minds that we have not found the similimum, 
 i. e., we must blame ourselves and not the law, Similia similibus 
 curantur.'' 
 
 Dr. J. H. McClelland says : 2 "In the homoeopathic law inter- 
 nal medicine has reached finality. " 
 
 : The Organon, a homoeopathic journal of Liver- 
 pool, England, published some years ago (April, 1878) 
 a " Declaration of Homoeopathic Principles," signed 
 by nearly 150 homoeopathic physicians, nearly all of 
 whom were practicing in America. The first essen- 
 tial point of the homoeopathic doctrine is given 
 thus : 
 
 " The cure of the sick is most easily, mildly and permanently 
 effected by medicines that are themselves capable of producing in 
 a healthy person morbid symptoms similar to those of the sick. 
 Another essential point is "Local triatment of all kinds in non- 
 surgical cases is not only unnecessary, but is apt to change the loca- 
 tion of the disease, and induce dangerous complications, and never 
 permanently cures." 
 
 The non-sectarian doctor does not understand the 
 position of these homoeopathic physicians on the sub- 
 ject of the numerous skin diseases that are so quickly 
 
 1 Hahnemannian Monthly, February, 1894, p. 82. 
 
 2 Jubilee Address before American Institute of Homoeopathy, 
 1894, p. 47- 
 
60 ROBERTS, 
 
 cured by mild local measures. They are certainly 
 cured permanently, and just as certainly are not sur- 
 gical cases. 
 
 The above declaration appears to have been pre- 
 pared by Dr. Adolph L,ippe, of Philadelphia, who 
 states that among homoeopathic physicians " the de- 
 parture from Hahnemann's teachings have rapidly 
 multiplied." (Reprint, p. 5 and p. 7). Hence the 
 necessity for the preparation and publication of the 
 " Declaration of Homoeopathic Principles ;" for in his 
 opinion, "We must be governed by infallible principles 
 and not by the opinions of fallible men." Dr. I4ppe 
 goes on to show that homoeopathy allows no liberty 
 of deviation from the homoeopathic law ; and indicates 
 that the homoeopathic physicians and homoeopathic 
 societies that approve of such liberties are not truly 
 homoeopathic. 
 
 Dr. James B. Bell, President of the International 
 Hahnemannian Association, in his address delivered 
 in June, 1892, said : l 
 
 "Our Society numbers in active living members about 150, 
 and it would be a generous estimate, I think, to double that number 
 as representing in the whole world all those who may be called 
 true Hahnemannians, or who are becoming such. If we have pa- 
 tients going to other cities, especially in the west and south, how 
 rarely can we recommend a physician to them, and if the patients 
 are going to Europe or England we know of but five or six men in 
 the great cities to whom we can safely intrust them." 
 
 Until the recent establishment in the United 
 States of Medical Examining and Incensing Boards, 
 
 1 The Homoeopathic Physician, Philadelphia, August, 1892. 
 
PRESENT ATTITUDE TOWARDS HOMOEOPATHY. 6l 
 
 it was practically impossible to determine the relative 
 numerical strength of the homoeopathic profession. 
 In many states all physicians now have to pass a 
 medical examination before being given a license to 
 practice. Homoeopathic physicians have insisted upon 
 having a separate examination, and it thus has become 
 possible to compare accurately the numbers of non- 
 sectarian and homoeopathic practitioners. In New 
 York during. 1892, 1893 and 1894, 713 applicants for 
 license appeared for examination before the non- 
 sectarian board of examiners, 80 applicants before the 
 homoeopathic board and 15 applicants before the eclec- 
 tic board. 1 In Pennsylvania during the year ending 
 March 1, 1895, there were 331 non-sectarian appli- 
 cants, 56 homceophatic applicants and 12 eclectic 
 applicants. 2 The Illinois State Board of Health shows 
 in its Report on Medical Education of 1894, that in 
 1893 there were graduated from the medical colleges 
 of the United States and Canada 425 homoeopathic 
 physicians and 4975 non-sectarian physicians. The 
 number willing to graduate from homoeopathic schools 
 would seem by these figures, to be about one-eleventh 
 of those graduating from non-sectarian schools. If 
 the President of the International Hahnemannian 
 Association quoted above is accurate in his statement 
 the relative proportion of real followers of Hahnemann 
 is much less. 
 
 1 New York Medical Record, May 4, 1895. 
 
 2 Compiled from statement received from Medical Council of 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
62 ROBERTS, 
 
 The attitude of modern medicine and its votaries 
 to homoeopathy and homoeopathic physicians will be 
 readily understood after this survey of the principles 
 of homoeopathy based on the writings of Hahnemann 
 and his disciples. Non-sectarian physicians believe 
 it is a duty to the patient that the doctor shall use 
 every means of cure which seem to hold out a pros- 
 pect of benefit. To limit himself to "similars," or to 
 decline to use " local treatment of all kinds in non- 
 surgical cases," because it " never permanently cures," 
 seems to such physicians unjust to the patient in the 
 one case, and not in accord with practical experience 
 in the other. To subscribe to a law of " similars," a 
 law of " dissimilars," or to any other dogma of treat- 
 ment, and say that it is " infallible" and " universal," 
 appears to him unscientific and a step sure to lead to 
 harm to the sick man. He feels that he must have 
 the whole world of science, medical and collateral, 
 from which to draw ; that he must have a right to 
 use any remedy in any dose or form that seems to him 
 good ; and that he similarly must have a right to 
 decline to prescribe according to any law if he have 
 no faith in the law. 
 
 The refusal of most non-sectarian physicians to 
 meet homoeopathic physicians in consultation, over 
 cases of disease, is based on the exclusiveness of homoe- 
 opathy. So long as the homceopathist believes in the 
 exclusive dogma that li like cures like," and is there- 
 fore debarred from using remedies and methods and 
 
PRESENT ATTITUDE TOWARDS HOMCEOPATHY. 63 
 
 doses which do not conform to that «law, the non- 
 sectarian physician feels unwilling to consult with 
 him ; because the homoeopathic doctor would be pre- , 
 vented from using any and every drug and method. 
 Hence, the hands of the non-sectarian doctor would 
 be tied and the consultation would not give the 
 patient all the advantages that ought to be at his 
 service. 
 
 This is the position that has long been taken by 
 the American Medical Association, the representative 
 of the non-sectarian medical profession of the United 
 States, and its affiliated State Medical Societies and 
 County Medical Societies. The Code of Medical 
 Ethics of the American Medical Association in Art. IV, 
 Sec. I, says : 
 
 " But no one can be considered as a regular practitioner or a 
 fit associate in consultation, whose practice is based on an exclusive 
 dogma, to the rejection of the accumulated experience of the pro- 
 fession, and of the aids actually furnished by anatomy, physiology 
 pathology and organic chemistry." 
 
 The following explanatory statement was adop- 
 ted by the Association about twelve years ago : l 
 
 " Whereas, Persistent misrepresentations have been made, and 
 still are being made, concerning certain provisions of the Code of 
 Ethics of this Association, by which many in the community, and 
 some even in the ranks of the profession, are led to believe those 
 provisions exclude persons from professional recognition, simply 
 because of differences of opinions and doctrines ; therefore 
 
 1 ^Resolved, That clause first of Article IV, in the National 
 Code of Medical Ethics, is not to be interpreted as excluding from 
 professional fellowship, on the ground of differences in doctrine or 
 1 Journal American Medical Association, Nov. 19, 1892, p. 611. 
 
64 ROBERTS, 
 
 belief, those who^n other respects are entitled to be members 
 of the regular medical profession. Neither is there any other 
 article or clause of the said Code of Ethics that interferes with 
 the exercise of the most perfect liberty of individual opinion and 
 practice. 
 
 2 "Resolved, That it constitutes a voluntary disconnection or 
 withdrawal from the medical profession proper, to assume a name 
 indicating to the public a sectarian, or exclusive system of practice, 
 or to belong to an association or party antagonistic to the general 
 medical profession. 
 
 3 '• Resolved, That there is no provision in the National Code of 
 Medical Ethics in any wise inconsistent with the broadest dictates 
 of humanity, and that the article of the Code which relates to con- 
 sultations cannot be correctly interpreted as interdicting, under 
 any circumstancas, the rendering of professional services whenever 
 there is a pressing or immediate need of them. On the contrary, 
 to meet the emergencies occasioned by disease or accident, and to 
 give a helping hand to the distressed without unnecessary delay, 
 is a duty fully enjoined on every member of the profession, both 
 by the letter and spirit of the entire Code." 
 
 As soon as a homoeopathic physician asserts that 
 he is willing to give any drug in any dose and to use 
 any method of treating disease that holds out a rea- 
 sonable prospect of benefit, and states that he is not 
 bound to practice exclusively according to the homoeopa- 
 thic law of similars, he becomes eligible for membership 
 in the Americal Medical Association and the State 
 and County Societies connected with it. There are 
 thus at the present time, quite a number of physicians 
 connected with the American Medical Association and 
 its constituent societies, who previously were consid- 
 ered, and considered themselves to be, homoeopaths. 
 As will be readily understood from the Section from 
 
PRESENT ATTITUDE TOWARDS HOMCEOPATHY. 65 
 
 the Code of Ethics above quoted, such gentlemen 
 are no longer considered undesirable physicians to 
 meet in consultation. 
 
 As has been stated in the earlier part of this paper, 
 a very large proportion of the graduates of homoeopa- 
 thic colleges no longer believe in the infallibility of 
 the law of similars and do not restrict their practice 
 to treating disease according to its principles. All 
 such physicians become eligible for membership in 
 the American Medical Association and in the Society 
 which I now address by the simple statement that 
 they do not believe in the infallibility of Hahne- 
 mann's law, nor practice eaxlusively according to its 
 teachings. Those homoeopathic physicians who do be- 
 lieve in the infallibility of Hahnemann's law, and 
 who constitute, according to Dr. Bell, a very small 
 proportion of the physicians considered by the public 
 to be homceopathists, would not be eligible to mem- 
 bership in the American Medical Association, or sim- 
 ilar organizations of physicians, because they believe 
 and practice according to an exclusive dogma. 
 
 The graduates of homoeopathic colleges and 
 members of homoeopathic societies, who admit that 
 the law of similars is sometimes fallible, seem to be 
 unwilling to publicly assert their modified belief in 
 Hahnemann's teachings. By permitting themselves 
 to be called homoeopathic physicians by the public, 
 though really not practicing according to Hahne- 
 mann's law (except in a proportion of their cases) 
 5 
 
66 ROBERTS, 
 
 they seem to be using the name " homoeopathist " for 
 the purpose of making the public believe that they 
 are in some indefinite way different from all other 
 physicians ; and that they possess powers different 
 from those possessed by physicians who do not accept 
 the designation, "homceopathists." Non-sectarian 
 physicians look upon this assumption of a special 
 title as derogatory to the votaries of any science. 
 
 This is the reason that homceopathists are some- 
 times referred to as doctors who assume a sort of trade- 
 mark for the revenue that may be derived from such 
 designation. Hence, many non-sectarian physicians 
 contend that a man graduated from a homoeopathic 
 college or publicly professing to practice homoeop- 
 athy should not be considered worthy of being met 
 in professional consultation unless he publicly dis- 
 claims the title '.' homoeopathist," and asserts that he 
 is willing ,to practice by other methods as well as by 
 those prescribed by Hahnemann. 
 
 Dr. Solomon Solis Cohen states 1 his position thus : 
 
 ' ' If, however, one whose personal character fits him for mem- 
 bership in this Society, but who had formerly professed homoeop- 
 athy, becomes convinced of his mistake, and desires to join the 
 ranks of scientific medicine, he should be freely received ; provided 
 only that he repudiates any sectarian designation and gives to the 
 censors satisfactory evidence of his professional attainments. More 
 than this we ought not to ask. Less than this we cannot honorably 
 accept." 
 
 A considerable proportion of the non-sectarian 
 1 Jnl. Amer. Med. Ass., Oct. 21, 1893, P- 619. 
 
PRESENT ATTITUDE TOWARDS HOMCEOPATHY. 67 
 
 profession, however, is of the opinion that it is unrea- 
 sonable to expect men who have for years been associ- 
 ated with homoeopathic colleges and societies to make 
 such a public disclaimer. They think it should be suf- 
 ficent for such gentlemen to show by their actions 
 that they do not believe in the infallibility of Hahne- 
 mann's law, that the very fact that they use methods 
 of treatment founded on anatomy, chemistry, physi- 
 ology and pathology, should be sufficient to entitle 
 them to join the American Medical Association and 
 similar professional organizations. 
 
 This is the view of a recent correspondent of the 
 Medical News, whose name I do not know, who says : 
 
 ' ' If they were allowed to come into the regular societies with- 
 out going down on their knees and confessing that they have been 
 sinners, and being forced to renounce their previous faith, they 
 would soon after admission stop preaching homoeopathy, as they 
 became accustomed to their new positions, with that gradual change 
 of mind that good fellowship produces. The majority of them now 
 do not practice homoeopathy, but they are forced to preach it in 
 self-defence." 1 
 
 The attitude of physicians and modern medicine 
 
 to homoeopathy then, is that assumed by these two 
 
 classes of non-sectarian physicians, namely : Those 
 
 who insist that the homoeopathist must make a formal 
 
 public disclaimer of exclusiveness, and those who 
 
 think it sufficient that he should simply indicate, in 
 
 any way, that he is willing to treat patients by any 
 
 drug, dose or method, that seems to him to be worthy 
 
 of confidence in the treatment of disease. 
 
 1 Medical News, March 30, 1895. 
 
68 
 
 The New York State Medical Society has publicly 
 proclaimed itself of the opinion that a physician should 
 be free to consult with any other doctor, who seems 
 to him personally to be worthy and likely to be of 
 service in the treatment of the patient under consider- 
 ation. This action caused the formation of a new 
 State medical organization by those non-sectarian doc- 
 tors of New York, who believed that homceopathists 
 should make a formal disclaimer before becoming elir 
 gible for professional consultation. This society is 
 called the New York State Medical Association. No 
 action similar to that of the New York State Medical 
 Society has been taken by any other State Medical 
 Society or by the American Medical Association ; but 
 a considerable proportion of the membership of these 
 organizations seems to believe that the action of the 
 New York State Medical Society should be followed. 
 I do not know of any member of the American Medi-, 
 cal Association refusing professional recognition to 
 members of the New York State Medical Society since 
 it took the step mentioned. It is probable that in a 
 few years the world will see most physicians consult- 
 ing with those homoeopathic graduates, who are will- 
 ing to treat patients by any and all drugs, doses and 
 methods, without demanding of them formal recanta- 
 tion of their former belief in the exclusiveness and in- 
 fallibility of Hahnemann's law of "similars." 
 
 Much of the instruction received by students in 
 homoeopathic colleges at the present time is identical 
 
PRESENT ATTITUDE TOWARDS HOMOEOPATHY. 69 
 
 with that given in non-sectarian medical schools. 
 That this is well known is evident from the fact that 
 the Association of American Medical Colleges has 
 passed by-laws admitting those who have received in- 
 struction in homoeopathic schools to advanced standing 
 in the colleges belonging to the Association. 1 
 
 The Woman's Medical School of the Northwest- 
 ern University, of Chicago, admits to the Senior Class 
 graduates of homoeopathic and eclectic medical col- 
 leges who " have taken considerable post-graduate 
 work," 2 on the same terms as graduates of non-sec- 
 tarian medical colleges. This action is especially sig- 
 nificant, because Dr. N. S. Davis, an ex-president of 
 the American Medical Association, is one of the Trus- 
 tees of the University ; and two members of the Fac- 
 ulty (Drs. D. W. Graham and E. Fletcher Ingals) are 
 Trustees of the Journal of the American Medical As- 
 sociation. 
 
 1 Bulletin American Academy of Medicine, August 1894, p. 
 
 532- 
 
 1 Circular of Information for 1894-95, p. 11. 
 
_