NOTICES OF THE PRESS.
PHYSICIAN AND PATIENT; or, A PRACTICAL VIEW OF THE MUTUAL DUTIES, RELATIONS, AND INTERESTS OF THE MEDICAL PROFESSION AND THE COMMUNITY. By. W. Hooker, M.D.
We know of no other book that takes the intermediate space between the
professional corps and the general reader, so as to be adapted to interest and profit equally both classes.-Daily Chronicle, JNew London.
It is a work' of which the profession may not only be proud but thankful; and from which all may find hints for their own conduct.-Literary
World.
We cannot forbear to add the expression of our pleasure at the successful manner in which the author has performed his task. His train of argument and illustrations are sound and logical, his facts apposite, and
the purpose and style in which the whole is dressed, are in harmony
with the subject, and well adapted to secure the continued attention of
his readers. We hail the appearance of "Physician and Patient," as a
valuable addition to our medical literature.-.JIedical Examiner, Phila.
We would strongly urge upon medical men to read the " Physician
and Patient," and to pass it round the town or village, if perchance it
may open tile eyes of the great public tor their own mental blindness.Boston.ledical and Surgical Jolartlal.
No one can read this book without perceiving that its author is a
sensible man and an experienced physician. It is not a professional
work to be read merely by physicians-but a philosophical treatise on
matters that are interesting to every one who has ever been ill, ever
expects to be, or to have a friend suffering from disease iA any of its
forms.-Boslon Daily.ddfvertiser.
No physician can afford to do without it, nor have the public less intercest in it.-AVcXwark JIldvcrtiser
We have seldom met with a better specimen of sound, practical sense
than that exhibited in this volume. —The Presbyterian.
The chief characteristic of the book is that it is replete with common
sense.-N worwich Courier.
Dr. Hooker has, in his work, bestowed a just favor upon his profession
and a great one upon the community. —Springfield Gazette.
We have no hesitation in commending this work as one of great value
-JN  Y. Observer.
All must agree that it is written with undoubted ability, and that it
contains a great deal of profitable instruction.-Savannah Republican.
The observations of an experienced practitioner, and eminently wortlhy of being read and attentively considered. —JVorwich.urora.




NOTICES OF TIlE PRESS.
Dr. Hooker has performed a good service to the public in presenting
them with this book. He has exposed many of the impositions connected
with modern quackery. Such a book was called for by the exigency of
the times.-Christian Intelligencer.
It is full of wise instruction with regard to the reciprocal duties of
physician and patient; of practical hints concerning the conduct and
treatment of the sick, and judicious reflections on the ailments of both
mind and body.-MJetropolis.
We can hardly speak too highly of this work, and sincerely think that
its circulation is adapted to correct many erroneous notions, and to minister to the health and comfort of the community.-A-'. Y. Evangelist.
A very excellent work, and one which should be in the hands of every
member of the community. Dr. Hooker has done his work well. —Hartford Republican.
A capital exposure of empiricism in all its forms, and a faithful exhi.
bition of the relative duties of physicians and patients.-The Princeton
JMagazine.
Such a mass of common sense, unmingled with anything irrelevant or
captious, I have seldom, if ever, met with in so small a compass. There
is not a solitary remark to which can even plausibly be applied the term,
telum i'nbelle sine ictu. I wish the book could be placed in every family
circle, and read, and pondered, and followed well and wisely, anct thus
prove, as I trust it will, a Family Manual in regard to the subjects on
which it treats.-Rev. George Upfold, D.D, Bishop of Indiana.
This is a most readable and instructive volume. —tome Journal.
It bears the evidence of having been written with much care and reflection as well as ability.-Portland.ldvertiser.
It is written with decided ability.-New- York Recorder.
~We like the design, and, as far as we have been able to examine it, the
execution of this book very much.-Central Christian Journal, Cincinnati.
It is calculated to do good, and it will certainly give to its author
a foremost place among the medical writers of the time.-B9ston Post.
Those who desire the perusal of an entertaining book, containing most
valuable instruction on a matter of the highest interest and importance,
cannot do better than keep this volume on the parlor table, since it will
M.ot only bear frequent perusal, but will suggest matter of conversation
after the usual inquiry of the health of the visitee.-Evening Post, NV'. Y.
It is written in a chaste, glowing, and vigorous style, and treats upon
the subjects discussed with the usual common sense of the writer, and
with a manliness, courtesy, and thoroughness, which must win for it not
only the approval of the public, but an enviable reputation for the au
thor. —Vew-England Fountain.




HO M (EOPAT HY.








No. XITT.]                                           [1 851
fiske Staab prie TDissertationl of tile  ll)obe
5/allab fltcbicat ~ocictu.
HOM(EPATHY:
AN EXAMINATION OF ITS DOCTRINES AND
EVIDENCES.
BY
WORTtIING;TON HOOKER, M. D.
AIUTHOR OF "PHIYSICIAN AND PATIENT," AND "MEDI)C,AL DELTUSTONS"
" Folly in wisdom hatch'd,
Ilath wisdom's warrant, and the help of school."
Lova's LABOR. LOST.
NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER, 145 NASSAU STREET.
1S51.




The Trustees of the Fiske Fund, at the Annual Meeting of the Rhode
Island Medical Society, held at Providence, on the 25th of June, 1851,
announced, that they had awarded to the author of the Dissertation
bearing the motto,
" Folly in wisdom hatch'd,
Hath wisdom's warrant, and the help of school."
the premium of Fifty Dollars, by them offered for the best dissertation
on the following subject, viz.:
"HOM(EOPATHY, SO CALLED, ITS HISTORY AND
REFUTATION."
Upon breaking the seal of the accompanying packet, they ascertained
its author to be, WORTHINGTON HOOKER, M.D., of Norwich, Conn.
In awarding premiums, neither the Trustees, nor the Rhode Island
Medical Society, hold themselves responsible for doctrines inculcated
or opinions advanced.
GEORGE CAPRON,
HIRAM  ALLEN,           Trustees.
WILLIAM  A. SHAW.
(Attest,)    S. AUGUSTUS ARNOLD, Secretary.




INTRODUCTION.
ABSURD as Homceopathy appears on the face of it to the
man of science or of plain common sense, the extent of its
absurdity is revealed only by a thorough examination of its
pretended facts and its plausible reasonings. Such an examination, it is obvious, is not given to it by the mass of those who
believe in this vaunted system. A wordy and finespun theory,
built upon the loosest analogies, especially if accompanied, as is
uisual with all forms of delusion and quackery, with reports of
wonderful cures, is sufficient to satisfy them, at least till some
other system presents itself, with similar appliances for fascinating the ear of popular credulity.
And it is not merely the novelty-seeking and the superficial
who manifest this credulity; but we find many of the wellinformed and intelligent, though they may be on their guard
against errors and false theories on all other subjects, occasion



vi                    INTRODUCTION.
ally entrappea by delusions in medicine. For, although there is
in the investigation of medicine a peculiar necessity for rigid
observation and cautious reasoning, there is more disposition to
observe carelessly and reason loosely on this subject, than there
is in relation to any other in- the wide range of science.  This is
to be seen even among those whose occupations favor the formation of good habits of observation and reasoning. The
lawyer, who is in the habit of scrutinizing testimony, is apt to
set aside his strict rules of evidence when he opens his ear to
medical statements, and he forgets to sift them with the ingenious cross-questioning, with which he has so often elicited truth
and unmasked falsehood in the court-room. The clergyman
often gives credence to statements and dogmas in medicine, that
are founded on proofs which he would scout as utterly fallacious
if they were applied to theology, or indeed to any other subject. The scientific man, even though he may be engaged in
some department of science, in which rigid demonstration and
careful experimenting are constantly put in requisition, is often
made a convert to some system of medicine, or even to some
nostrum, by the force of loose analogies, or looser statements.
The man of business too, who examines everything with his
plain, shrewd common sense, and because he does so, succeeds
where others less wary fail, dismisses this sentinel so faithful to
warn of error, the moment that he enters the domain of medicine, and yields himself to the guidance of a blind credulity.
Even the physician does not always go counter to the prevalent




INTRODUCTION.                      vi
disposition of the community, but sometimes yields to the
general tendency; and accordingly we have, in the records of
medical experience a vast amount of careless and ill-digested
observation and reasoning. The causes of this loose habit of
mind in relation to medical subjects, it is not necessary here to
trace out; but of its prevalence and of its wide influence in
fostering delusion and quackery, the evidences are palpable and
abundant.
The investigation, then, which I propose to make of Homceopathy in this essay, will be of service, not merely in putting a
proper estimate upon the claims of this system to our belief;
but also, and chiefly, in developing the true application of the
rules of evidence to medical practice generally, and in exposing
the various misapplications of them, which are the sources of so
much error both in the popular and the professional mind.
Medical delusions, generally, though so diversified in their forms,
have a strong family resemblance, and the fallacies of Homeopathy may be considered as the types of other fallacies. An
exposition of them, therefore, will reveal to the reader the
foundations of other delusions and forms of quackery, and will
perhaps enable him so to apply the principles of evidence in
medicine, that he may in future the more readily detect error,
whether it appear in the garb of learning or of ignorance.
A refutation merely of Homoeopathy, without regard to other
delusions, or to the general sources of error, would be a comparatively trivial, and almost useless effort. If it should be




Viii                 INTRODUCTION.
successful in dislodging this boasted system from its hold upon
the popular belief and favor, some other fallacious system would
take its place.  And if left to itself, it would in a little time pass
away, like all other delusions before it.  In attacking Homceopathy therefore, we must look beyond this delusion. and aim at
an exposure of the common sources of error, if we wish to produce any valuable and permanent effect.
The examination of Homceopathy presented in this essay,
will, I trust, commend itself to my readers as being fair and
candid. I have no desire to search out its weak points, and
leave untouched its strong ones, if there be any; but I am
willing to meet it at every point. I have endeavored to look at
the subject as a whole, and not take any partial view of it.
I have also endeavored to discover the exact positions of the
various writers on lHomceopathy, so that I may not misstate the
views of any one. I have been the more careful on this point,
because Homceopathists are so prone to make abundant use of
any accidental misrepresentation of their doctrines, however
slight it may be; and thus divert attention from the real and
main points at issue. Whatever is at all doubtful I have
omitted, and have taken into view only those points on which
the statements and reasonings of Homceopathic writers are most
explicit and clear. I have found many discrepancies and inconsistencies between different prominent Homceopathists, some of
which I notice.  It will be seen that I do not make Homceopathy responsible for everything -which has been said for it by




INTRODUCTION.                      ix
its advocates; but that I am willing even to strip it of all in
regard to which there is any disagreement among them, and let
its merits stand or fall by an examination of what remains.
Homoeopathy is so absurd, that it seems almost a waste of
time and effort to go through with a formal refutation of it.
And so it would be, were its refutation not made necessary, from
its adoption by so many of the intelligent and influential among
the non-medical portion of the community. Such persons, I
trust, will find, on reading this essay, that their belief in the
system of Hahnemann has been formed without a real understanding of its merits.  And I flatter myself that those of them
who will give me a candid hearing, will be induced to abandon
such a combination of falsities and inconsistencies as this system
presents.
Homceopathists complain that physicians ridicule their doctrines, and very gravely say, that the system  of the "sage of
Coethen," is not to be put down by a laugh.  But when things
are exceedingly laughable, it is a little unreasonable to demand
of us an imperturbable gravity. When lHomoeopathy conjures
up its ridiculous fantasies to play before us like so many harlequins, it is hard to be denied the privilege of laughing at them.
As to the alleged impropriety of ridicule in the discussion of the
merits of this system, it may be remarked, that it cannot be
improper if it only be used fairly; and if a little pleasantry suffice to demolish an error, it surely is an unnecessary waste of
power to attack it with strong and sober argument.  It were




X                    INTRODUCTION.
folly to deal sturdy blows at bubbles which can be dissolved by
the slightest touch.
With these few preliminary remarks, I invite the reader to
accompany me in this examination; and if he will take the
pains to go to the sources from which I have derived my information in regard to the doctrines of Homeopathy, I shall be
glad to have my accuracy put to this test. The authorities
upon which I have relied are solely standard Homceopathic
authors. I have selected the best of them, so far as I could find
by enquiring of Homoeopathists themselves which are the best.
I have not undertaken to go through all the Homceopathic
literature that could be found, for that would be a waste of time,
to say nothing of the toilsomeness and disgust attending such a
pilgrimage. A list of the authorities to which I refer, may be
found at the conclusion of this essay.
W. HOOKER.
NORWICH, CONN., August, 1851.




CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
EXPOSITION OF THE SYSTEM OF HAHNEMANN.
PAGE.
Hahnemann's history-His title to his'discoveries'-His "short
analysis of the Homceopathic method"-Terms, Allopathy, Anlipathy, and Homrneopathy explained-Arithmetic of Homaeopathy-Not generally understood-False impressions —Mode of
preparing the attenuations-Minuteness of higher ones-Calculations-Size of globules-Smelling one in a phial sometimes adequate to cure disease-Potentization by agitation and triturationNumber of shakes-To be made downward.-" Spiritual virtue"
imparted to the medicine.....                1
CHAPTER II.
EXPOSITION OF THE SYSTEM OF HAHNEMANN,
CONTINUED.
Manner in which the little doses cure-Hahnemann's accountParaphrase-Only one medicine to be used at a time-Ease with
which disease is cured-" Provings" —Rules for conducting themDoses used-Restrictions of diet and regimen —Subject of the
experiment under the supreme control of the medicine-All
bodily sensations, and all states of thought and feeling to be re



Xii                        CONTENTS.
PAGE
corded as effects-Example of the record of a proving-A': totality" a summary of many provings; example, sulphur-" A true
Materia Medical acquired only in this way-Psora (itch) the
cause of seven-eighths of chronic diseases-Only the old doctrine
of humors modified-Secrecy of the working of this psoric virus —
Points of agreement and disagreement between Hahnemann and
his followers........ 20
CHAPTER III.
EXAMINATION OF THE DOCTRINES OF HOM(EOPATHY.
Similia similibus curantur not the "sole law of cure"-Various
proofs that it is not-Farther, no proof that it is one of the many
laws of cure-Meaning of the word, law-Similia similibus curantur a mere hypothesis, not a law-Notice some phenomena supposed to prove it true-Restoration of a frost-bitten limbTreatment of burns-Hahnemann's cases of Homceopathic curesLoose reasoning-Defects in the provings-no caution in selecting subjects-no distinction made between the effects of the
remedy and those of other causes-none made between effects of'
large and those of small doses-Impossibility of the insulation
supposed by Homceopathists in regard to medicines-Totalities
mere medleys....... 41
CHAPTER IV.
EXAMINATION OF THE DOCTRINES OF HOM(EOPATHY,
CONTINUED.
Range of Homceopathic doses —Henderson's cases —Hannemann's
theory of the proportionate action of doses-Common doses and
infinitesimals cannot cure on the same principle-Illustration,
rope and filament-Disease viewed by Homaeopathists only as a
group of symptoms-Their disregard of the seat, nature, and
causes of disease-Homceopathic illustrations-Vaccination-Solution of nitrate of silver-Imponderable agents-Dr. Joslin's
supposition-h.I, Illustration of the hammer and needle-Hahne



CONTENTS.                        Xiii
PAss
mann's illustrations-light, sound, odors-Mode  of'curing7
sorrow-Sampson's illustration-Othello's reproof of CassioInconsistencies of Homceopathy-Indiscriminate use of large doses
and infinitesimals-Tnconsistent reasons-Use of camphor in its
coarse' form in Cholera-Great and small totalities-Looseness
of Homceopaths in regard to amounts of doses inconsistent with
their great pretensions to accuracy..              57
CHAPTER V.
PRACTICAL EVIDENCES OF HOM(EOPATHY.
Homceopathy allowed to oe very successful in actual practice —Like
all forms of quackery, appeals to its pretended cures-Examine
these pretensions-Antecedent not always cause-Different elements at work in the removal of disease-Vary much in different diseases-Application of rules of evidence-Locked-jaw —
Hydrophobia —Pneumonia, fever scarlatina, etc.-Results observed
in families-Liability to mistake-Testimony of Homceopathic
physicians, converts from Allopathy-Homeopathy ordinarily not
fully put to the test in practice-Mixture of Allopathy with itDishonesty of Homesopathic physicians-Statistics-How to be
estimated-Cholera statistics of Homceopathy-Defective, not
reliable-Errors in observation-Hahnemann not to be relied
upon as an observer-Nor his followers-Homeopathy practically
tested by regular physicians-Experiments with Cinchona —
Andral's experiments...... 76
CHAPTER VI.
ESTIMATE OF HAHNEMANN
Hahnemann's belief in his doctrines for the most part sincereMode of his delusion-Thoroughness of' it-Peculiarities of his
mind-Theorizers fond of some central doctrine for their systems-So with Hahnemann-In some senses wise-His follyHad none of the attributes of a discoverer-Contrasted with




X1V                       CONTENTS.
Newton, with whom he has often been compared-His character
impressed upon his fobllowers-Rejection of Homceopathy by the
medical profession-Has been fairly before it for fifty yearsValue of this verdict of medical men-Parallel cases supposedOpinions of medical bodies as worthy of respect as those of
other scientific bodies-Aspersion cast upon physicians-Position
of Homeopathy-Its alliance with Thompsonism in the work of
radicalism, -.                     94
CHAPTER VII.
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.
Lessons to be learned from this subject by the profession and by the
community-Evils resulting from a disposition to theorize-Exemplified in Hahnemann-Rules of evidence misapplied very
extensively in medicine-Efforts of nature in curing disease need
to be more carefully observed-Influence of expectant mode and
of Homceopathy upon medical practice-False claims of Homaeopathists —Dr. Forbes' overstatement-Positive medication-How
to be viewed-Rigid observation needed-Evidences on which
Homceopathy rests, like those of all former delusions-Intelligent men should understand their fallacy-Duty of the community in sustaining the medical profession-True position of
Homceopathists-Radicalism  in medicine allied to other radicalisms-Endangers every interest, even religion.... 109




HO M(E OPA THY.
CHAPTER  I.
EXPOSITION OF THE SYSTEM OF HAHNEMANN.
SAMUEL HAHNEMANN, the founder of the system
termed Homceopathy, was born at Messein, in Saxony,
in the year 1755. His father was a painter on porcelain, and had not the means of giving him a professional education.  "Happily, however," says Mr.
Sampson, one of his warmest eulogists, "at twelve
years of age he attracted the attention of Dr. Muller,
the Director of the Provincial School, by whom a free
admission was procured for him to all the advantages of that establishment. His progress was rapid,
and in a short time he became one of the assistant
teachers.". On leaving this school, he resolved to devote himself to the medical profession. For this purpose he went to the university of Leipsic, with only
twenty ducats in his pocket. He supported himself
there by translating French and English works into
German. At the, end of two years he went to Vienna,
to gain in the hospitals of that city the advantages
1*




1 0               HOMEOPATITY.
of extensive practical observation.  He there, Mr.
Sampson informs us, obtained the favor of Dr
Quarin, Physician to the Emperor of Austria; and
the Governor of Hermandstadt having afterward made
him the medical attendant of his household, he, in
that post, acquired a sufficient sum to enable him
to return to Germany, where, in 1779, he took the
degree of M.D. at the university of Erlangen.
Hahnemann now settled as a practitioner of medicine in Dresden, and in 1785 he married Henriette
Kuchler, the daughter of a chemist. He was quite
a large contributor to the medical periodicals at this
time; and he published some works, which his eulogists pronounced to be very remarkable. Though his
prospects of success were very flattering, it is said
that he was so much dissatisfied with the uncertainty
attending the practice of medicine then in vogue,
that he relinquished his profession, and devoted himself to the study of chemistry, and to the translation
of foreign works.
"'At length," says Mr. Sampson, "in the year
1790, whilst translating the Materia Medica of Cullen,
being struck with the contradictory statements which
it contained regarding the action of Peruvian bark
upon the human system, it occurred to him to test
the action of this medicine upon himself. The first
dose produced symptoms similar to those of the peculiar kind of intermittent fever which the same medicine is known to cure; and his attention having been
strongly arrested by this fact, he repeated the experi



SYSTEM OF HARNEMANN.             1
ment, and also induced some friends to resort to a
similar trial, in order to ascertain that it was net
accidental. The results in each case were confirmatory of the first; and the question seems to have been
irresistibly forced upon him, " Can it be possible that
this property which I now observe in Peruvian bark,
of producing symptoms analogous to those of the dis.ease for which it is a remedy, is a property peculiar
to medicines of all kinds?  From that moment he
commenced a series of experiments on other substances-mercury, belladonna, digitalis, cocculus, etc.,
which, in proportion as he extended them, led him to
the conviction that his supposition had really em.
braced a universal therapeutic law."
It was not, however, till 1796, six years after this,
that he published his first dissertation on Homceopathy
in Hufeland's Journal; and it was not till 1805, that
he issued his first formal work on the subject. The
next year he published another work entitled, "M Medicine Founded on Experience," forming the basis of his
famous " Organon of the Healing Art," which was
put forth complete in the year 1810. So confident
had he now become of the truth of his doctrine, that
he boldly declares in his preface, " The true art of
healing remained undiscovered until my time."  In
1811 he began the publication of a very extensive
work, his "3Materia Medica Pura," which was not
completed till ten years had elapsed.
Having removed to Leipsic, he, in 1812, delivered
a course of lectures, and began to gather around him




12               HOMCEOPATHY.
believers in his doctrine. But, it is said by his eulo.
gists, that the physicians and apothecaries of Leipsio
were very soon arrayed against him in active hostility,
and that, at length, with the aid of the profession in
Dresden, they obtained an order from government for
the enforcement of an obsolete law, which prohibits
physicians from preparing or dispensing their own
medicines. So much did the success of Homeopathy
depend in Hahnemann's view upon the careful prepa.
ration of the medicines, that he now " saw himself
compelled to relinquish practice, or to endanger the
real progress of his system, by entering into a compromise with his opponents." He adopted the former
alternative, and publicly announced his intention to
relinquish practice.  The persecution to which he
was subjected, made his doctrines spread rapidly; and
the Duke of Anhalt Coethen, having become one of
his admirers, offered him an asylum from his persecutors. He removed, therefore, to Coethen, and in
1821 was made one of the duke's councillors.
This part of Hahnemann's history may, for aught
that I know, be true; but the story is certainly a
very singular one. It is strange that no one of his
adherents could be found willing and competent to
act as his apothecary. And stranger still is it that,
after having come so deliberately to the firm belief
that he had discovered the true art of healing, he
should at the first show of opposition be frightened
into a relinquishment of the practice of the art. A
higher courage, and a more indomitable perseverance




SYSTEM OF HAHNMAN.              13
than this indicates, are surely to be lpoked for in one
who is conscious of having discovered in medicine'" the great gift of God to man."
While Hahnemann resided at Coethen, he published,
in 1812, a work on chronic diseases, in four volumes.
In 1827 his wife died. After remaining a widower
nearly eight years, he married Mademoiselle Melanie
d'Hervilly, a French lady who visited Coethen in
order to consult him. Though he was now eighty
years old, he bade farewell to Coethen, and removed
with his new bride to busy Paris. Here he practiced
Homceopathy until his death, which occurred in
1843, in the eighty-ninth year of his age.
There is one fact in the history of Hahnemann,
which is never alluded to by his admirers. In the
early part of his career he appeared before the public
as the seller of secret nostrums.  " About the year
1800," says Dr. Leo Wolf, " Hahnemann advertised
a new salt, of which he claimed the discovery, and
which he sold at the modest price of a louis d'or per
ounce. The Society for the Promotion of Natural
Sciences, desirous of becoming acquainted with this
new substance, had it analyzed by some of the most
experienced chemists, who pronounced it to be nothing
but common borax. He shortly afterward advertised
an infallible preventive of scarlet fever; but being
disappointed in its sale, he afterward confessed it to
be nothing but a few grains of extract of belladonna
dissolved in water." These transactions brand " the




14               HrOMEa:OPATHY.
sage of Coethen" not only as a mercenary quack, but
as a dishonest one.
If the great central doctrine of Hahnemann's sys.
tem, sirmilia similibus curantur, be true, the "sage
of Coethen" is fully entitled to a place in the ranks
of discoverers in medicine. True, this doctrine had
been hinted at before, time and again; and the fanciful
Stahl, who flourished in the last of the seventeenth
century, announced it in the following explicit, language: " The received method in medicine of treating diseases by opposite remedies, that is to say, by
medicines which are opposed to the effects they produce, is completely false and absurd. I am persuaded,
on the contrary, that diseases are subdued by agents
which produce a similar affection-burns by the heat
of a fire to which the parts are exposed; the frostbite by snow or icy cold water; and inflammations
and contusions by spirituous  applications."  This
sounds very much like the language of Hahnemann
himself. But still, up to the time of Hahnemann, no
one, not even Stahl, thought of promulgating the
doctrine, simrilia similibus curantur as the basis of a
system of medicine-as the " sole law of cure" in all
diseases. If what Hahnemann teaches in regard to
it be true, then clearly it is not merely the development of the bare truth, but the revealing of the mode
and the scope of its application, and the collecting of
all the proofs which bear upon it, that entitle him to
the honored appellation of discoverer. Dairymen and
dairywomen, in great numbers, saw that the vaccine




SYSTEM OF HAHNEMANN.             15
disease was a preventive of smallpox long before
Jenner knew it. But this does not at all detract
from his merit as a discoverer; for Jenner was the
first to see the wide scope of the fact, to collect the
proofs of it, and to indicate the exact way in which it
should be used as a preventive.
But whatever may be said of Hahnemann's right
of discovery in regard to the great central doctrine of
his system, there were other doctrines taught by him,
in relation to which this right is beyond a questionthey were wholly original with him. The doctrine
that infinitesimal doses of medicine are adequate to
the cure of disease-a doctrine, which, if true, is one
of the most valuable and wonderful of all discoverieswas never suggested even in the most dim and remote
nlanner to any mind.  The honor of this discovery,
if it be one, belongs exclusively to the " Sage of
Coethen." And then, too, the doctrine that psora
(vulgarly called the itch) is the cause of seven eighths
of all the cases of chronic disease in the world, was,
certainly, not among the things " dreamt of" in any
one's philosophy till Hahnemann arose.
I now invite the attention of the reader to an exposition of the system of Hahnemann, as developed in
his " Organon"-a work which is universally regarded
by Homceopathists as the great text-book of medicine.
I give from this work what he terms " a short analysis of the Homceopathic method."  After going
through with one hundred and sixty pages of fanciful,
though rather ingenious reasoning, founded upon both




16                    HOM(EOPATIY.
loose and false statements and mere analogies, he thus
sums up:
" From all that has been here stated, the following
truths must be admitted:
" 1st. There is nothing for the physician to cure in
disease but the sufferings of the patient, and the
changes in his state of health, which are perceptible
to the senses, that is to say, the totality or mass of
symptoms by which the disease points out the remedy
it stands in need of-every internal cause that could
be attributed to it-every occult character that man
might be tempted to bestow, are nothing more than
so many idle dreams and vain imaginings.
" 2d. That state of the organism  which we call disease, cannot be converted into health but by the aid
of another affection of the organism excited by means
of medicines.* The experiments made upon healthy
individuals are the best and purest means that could
be adopted to discover this virtue.
" 3d. According to every known fact, it is impossible
to cure a natural disease by the aid of medicines
which have the faculty of producing a contrary artificial state or symptom in healthy persons. There* This is very explicit: no cure is effected by anything but medicine.
Nature is out of the question. And yet Hahnemann does allow in other
places, and even upon the very next page, that nature sometimes cures
a disease by substituting another similar one in its place. But this, he
thinks, is seldom done; for it is effected, he says (p. 141), only through
the agency of " miasmatic diseases, such as psora, measles, and smallpox." And he remarks that " nature can cure but a very limited number of diseases with these hazardous remedies."




SYSTEM OF HABNEMANN.             17
fore, the Allopathic method can never effect a real
cure. Even nature never performs a cure, or annihilates one disease by adding to it another that is dissimilar, be the intensity of the latter ever so great.
" 4th. Every fact serves to prove that a medicine
capable of exciting in healthy persons a morbid symptom dissimilar to the disease that is to be cured,
never effects any other than momentary relief in disease of long standing without curing it, and suffers it
to re-appear after a certain interval, more aggravated
than ever.  The Antipathic and  purely palliative
method is, therefore, wholly opposed to the object that
is to be attained where the disease is an important
one and of long standing.
5th. The third method, the only one to which we
can still have recourse (the Homceopathic), which employs against the totality of the symptoms of a natural disease, a medicine that is capable of exciting in
healthy persons symptoms that closely resemble those
of the disease itself, is the only one that is really
salutary, and which always annihilates disease, or
the purely dynamic aberrations of the vital powers in
an easy, prompt, and perfect manner. In this respect
nature herself furnishes the example when, by adding
to an existing disease a new one that resembles it,
she cures it promptly and effectually."
The reader sees that Hahnemann recognizes three
modes of treating disease-the Antipathic, Allopathic,
and Homceopathic. The Antipathic (taking its name
from  Y.,v& opposite, and, Trd'o; suffering or disease)




18                       HOMCEOPATHY.
consists in producing effects opposite in character to
the symptoms of the disease to be overcome. The
use of opium in producing sleep in the restless and
wakeful, and  in  giving  ease  to  the  suffering, is an
example of this method.  Hahnemann  boldly asserts,
in face of the experience of ages, that this method
only palliates for the moment, and never cures. The
Allopathic* method (deriving its name from Taho;,
another, and radOo-) consists in producing effects altogether different from, though not opposite to, the
symptoms of disease. Of this method Hahnemann
says  that  "without  ever  regarding  that which  is
really  diseased  in  the  body, it attacks  those  parts
which are sound, in order to draw off the malady
from another quarter, and direct it toward the latter."
He says, also, that this method " cannot cure in any
* The term Allopathist, which the followers of Hahnemann apply to
every physician of the regular profession, it must be obvious to the
reader, is entirely inappropriate. Physicians employ the Antipathic as
well as the Allopathic mode of treating disease, and it would be as proper to style them Antipathists as Allopathists. Besides, physicians
employ many remedies which relieve disease after a mode which is as
yet not at all understood. However, for the sake of convenience, I shall
use the terms Allopathic and Allopathist in the senses which Homceopathists ordinarily attach to them.
I see that some of the later Homeopathic writers, as Dr. Joslin, for
example. say Allceopathic instead of Allopathic. In this case the derivation is from dXAXoto (not liXX(), to correspond with the otLolog of Homceopathy. As the term is altogether a misnomer, and as I consent to its use
merely for convenience' sake, I shall leave the question of derivations
to our Homeopathic friends who are so fond of formidable words of
classical origin, and shall adopt the term as most commonly used, and
not burden a word already sufficiently long with another syllable.




SYSTEM OF HAHNEMANN.             19
case; having no analogy, or opposing force to the
symptoms of the disease, it can never reach the parts
affected; it may suspend the symptoms for a time by
heterogeneous suffering, but it cannot destroy them."
You have a familiar example of this method in the
application of a blister to relieve internal inflammation or irritation. In this case the disease is removed
by producing another disease upon one of " those parts
which are sound" —the skin.  The Homceopathic
method (so termed from V6oTos, like, and 7r&io6) consists in producing effects analogous to, or very nearly
resembling the symptoms of the disease. This method Hahnemann says " is the only one which experience proves to be always salutary. The pure and
specific effects of the remedies employed being perfectly analogous to the natural symptoms, they rgo
riglht to the parts affectcd; and as two similar diseases cannot exist at the same tirme in the same systern, the natural symptoms give way, provided the
artificial ones slightly surpass them in intensity."
In this summary of Hahnemrnann's conclusions or
" analysis of the Homceopathic method (as he calls
it) the reader will notice that there is nothing said
about infinitesimal (loses. And it is remarkable that
there is not the slightest hint upon this subject in the
Organon till we reach the 204th page, though the
whole book contains but 300 pages, and then it is
alluded to only in a note, and that merely incidentally.
Almost all that he does say about it from beginning to
end is said in notes.  In the text it is not treated of




20                HOM(EOPATTY.
at all in any explicit and circumstantial manner, but
is barely hinted at. Yet Hahnemann and his followers
uniformly speak of his alleged discovery of the efficacy of infinitesimals as a very great achievement in
medical science. And most surely, if it be a real discovery, it is one which should excite our wonder and
admiration as a most singular and stupendous discovery.
The ideas which prevail among even the believers
of Homceopathy in regard to the minuteness of infinitesimal doses are very indefinite; and when physicians
make statements in relation to them, most persons think
that they are indulging in a little playful extravagance
at the expense of a very worthy class of men, and
that Homceopathic physicians do not really give such
extremely small doses as Allopathists say that they do.
I shall therefore endeavor to give the reader as definite an idea as it is possible to do of the extent to
which Homceopathists carry their attenuations. This
will be somewhat difficult. The Arithmetic of Homceopathy goes beyond all chemistry-no test can
reach its higher dilutions. And not only so, but its
calculations have to do with figures which defy even
our conceptions. On this point Dr Forbes well says,
" The hundredth part of a grain is intelligible enough;
the ten thousandth is comprehensible, but begins to
waver before the mental view; while the millionth part
of a grain puts our powers of comprehension on the
rack, and leaves us in a chaos of undefined entities, or
nonentities, we know not which. We fancy that we




SYSTEM OF HAHNEMA1NN.            21
grasp the reality, and then it instantly vanishes as a
phantom, even beyond the sphere of imagination itself.
Having got so far, the additional subdivisions or attenuations scarcely add to our difficulties. The mind in
any such case is occupied by a word more than a
thing, and whether the word be a millionth, billionth,
or decillionth, the power of comprehension seems the
same. And yet the actual difference between these
quantities is immense,-so immense as to be almost as
inconceivable as the actual things themselves."
In the calculations which I shall attempt to make
in this towering arithmetic, I shall try to be accurate. But if I should accidentally commit any error
involving such trifling amounts as millions or billions,
I trust the reader will pardon me, for I shall only be
following the example of Homceopathists, who, as you
will see in another part of this essay, make nothing
of jumping millions, billions, trillions, etc., etc., in
dosing their patients.
If I should tell one who, though a believer in Homceopathy, has never been initiated into the mysteries
of Hahnemannic arithmetic, that a grain of any article
highly attenuated would be sufficient to supply all the
Homceopathic physicians in the world with all which
they would want to use of that article in a whole
year, he would consider it a wild, over statement. If
I should tell him that this falls very far short of the
truth, and that if Homceopathy had been the universal
practice from Adam till now, not a grain of any one
medicine, if administered in any of the higher atten



22               ItOMCEOPATHY.
uations, could have been used up by this time,
he would consider it a most extravagant libel upon
Homceopathy.  And then if I should go farther, and
tell him, that if medicine be given in the thirtieth dilution (in doses from which Homceopathists profess to
witness appreciable results, even in the case of such
substances as charcoal and oystershell); and, if all
the inhabitants of the earth should take from one
single grain thus attenuated, three or four doses daily,
generation after generation, and if the population of
the earth should remain the same that it is now, the
grain would not be all gone till the lapse of about a
sextillion of years, a period extending probably far,
very far, beyond the millenium, or even the end of the
world-such a statement would, if he gave it a
thought, prompt him to say to me-' Ridiculous!
You must be joking. It cannot be that my physician
gives medicine in this way-he is too sensible a maa
for that.  A grain of oystershell as medicine last the
world through all time! Does Hahnemann really
teach this, and do such men as Professor Henderson
and Professor Joslin believe it?'  And if I should
assure him over and over again, that the climax which
I had reached was just the truth in regard to the
general practice of Homceopathists, and that some
even go farther than this, he would still be disposed to
think that I was imposing rather largely upon his
credulity, and would very probably call for the proof
of my assertions.
The truth is, that the employers of Homeopathio




SYSTEM OF HIANEM.ANN.           23
physicians have never really looked into the arithmetic of the science, and do not know how much they
are called upon to believe. Much is said of small
doses, but no definite idea is given of the degree of
their smallness; and, as will be seen in another part
of this essay, the comparisons which are made by
Homceopathic writers are calculated to blind and mislead on this very point.
The reader will obtain some idea of the minuteness
of the Homceopathic attenuations by observing the
processes by which they are made.
Hahnemann's descriptionwof his mode of preparing
vegetable medicines (which I find in his Materia
Medica Pura, vol. i. p. 96,) is as follows: —" To obtain the hundredth degree of potency, mix two drops of
alcohol with equal parts of the juice of the plant,
and then mix this with ninety-nine or one hundred
drops of alcohol, by means of two strokes with the
arm from above downwards; by mixing in the same
way one drop of this dilution with one hundred drops
of alcohol, you obtain the ten thousandth degree of
potency, and by mixing a drop of this last dilution
with another one hundred drops of alcohol you obtain
the millionth degree. This process of spiritualization
or dynamization is continued through a series of
thirty phials up to the thirtieth solution. This thirtieth degree should always be used for Homceopathic
purposes."
It will be seen that at each change from one phial
to another, ninety-nine parts out of the hundred are




24               HOM0CEOPATHY.
thrown away. When the thirtieth phial is reached, each
drop in that phial contains only a decillionth of a drop
of the medicine which was in the first phial; and
this quantity is expressed by 1 for a numerator, and 1
with a string of sixty cyphers for a denominator.
Let us try to get some idea of the minuteness of
this dilution. Let us see what quantities of liquid
would be required for the successive dilutions, if
instead of throwing away ninety-nine parts out
of every hundred, the whole is retained. For the first
dilution one hundred drops of alcohol would be used.
For the second it would take ten thousand drops, or
about a pint. For the third it would take one hundred pints.  For the fourth ten thousand  pints.
And now it mounts up rapidly at each dilution. For
the ninth dilution it would take ten billion of gallons,
which, according to the computation of Dr. Panvani,
equals the, quantity of water in the Lake Agnano,
which is two miles in circumference. For the twelfth
dilution a million of such lakes would be required, or
as it is reckoned by Dr. Post of New York, (from
whom I shall take the liberty to borrow the remaining
calculations rather than attempt them myself) it
would require five hundred lakes as large as Lake
Superior.  The fifteenth dilution would require a
quantity of alcohol greater in bulk than the earth.
The eighteenth would require a quantity greater than
the volume of the sun. And the thirtieth, the one
which Hahnemann insists upon as being the best for




SYSTEM OF HAIINEMANN.                          25
common use, would take a quantity of alcohol exceeding the volume of a quadrillion of suns.*
But I find that adventurous as this arithmetic is,
we have not yet reached the outmost boundary of
these wonders. After the thirtieth dilution is made,
the medicine is not even then ready for use. It must
go through with another dilution still. Hahnemann
tells us in a little note at the bottom of the page, that
he exhibits " one globule of the size of a grain of
flaxseed, three hundred of which weigh a grain.t
- The following jeu dl'esprit, which appeared in a newspaper, so far
from being a caricature. as the reader will see, falls very far short of
the absurdity of Homceopathy. It is a prescription for a Homceopathic
rum cordial.
Take a little rum,
The less you take the better;
Pour it in the lakes
Of Wener and of Wetter.
Dip a spoonful out,
_Mind you don't get groggy,
Pour it in the lake
Winnipissiogee.
Stir the mixture well,
Lest it prove inferior.
Then put half a drop
Into Lake Superior.
Every other day
Take a drop in water,
You'll be better soon,
Or at least you ought to.
Attenuated as the dilution here described is, it falls very far short of
the higher attenuations of Homeaopathy, and especially that which is
in so common use, the thirtieth dilution.
t I believe that the globules as ordinarily given, are of such a sizv'hat
2'




26                      IOMEOPATHY.
One drop being sufficient to moisten upwards of a
thousand such globules, one globule contains less than
the one thousandth part of a drop of the decilionth
solution." And to crown all, he tells us in another
note, which the reader will find on the 298th page of
the Organon, that " if the patient is very sensitive, it
will be sufficient to let him smell once to a phial
which  contains  a  globule."   And  then  he reinarks,
"after the patient has smelled to it, the phial is to be
recorked, which will thus serve for years without its
medicinal virtues being perceptibly impaired."*
But some, if possible, go even  beyond  this.   I find
it stated in Hull's Laurie, that " Hahnemann, in his
latter years, was much in favor of an extension of the
scale of potencies; and Gr(oss and other continental
homceopathists of repute have recently spoken strongly
it takes only twenty-five to weigh a grain, so that a common Homoeopathic globule contains twelve tines as much medicine as the true
Hahnemannic globule, if it contain any, which is a good deal of a question. This, however, is a very trifling discrepancy for these Hoamceopathists; for, as you will see in another part of this essay, when they get
up among the higher attenuations, it seems to be all the same whether
they give the patient a globule moistened with the three hundreth part
of a decillionth of a drop, or a dose containing millions upon millions of
this quantity of the medicine.
* Hahnemann speaks of a preparation of gold so attenuated, that
each grain contains only the quadrillionth part of a grain of the gold, in
which by means of the rubbings, the medicinal virtue of the gold is
"so developed, that it will be sufficient to put one grain of it into a
phial, and to cause a melancholy person whose disgust of life has
brought him to the verge of suicide, to breathe it for a few seconds,
when in one hour (not more nor less I suppose) the wretched being will
be relieved from the wicked demon, and restored to a relish of life."




SYSTEM OF HAIINE]MANN.           27
of the striking results obtained from Arsenicum and
other medicines at the two hundreth and even th i
eighteen hundredth attenuation!"  This last attenua
tion is so very dilute, that it would require in its pre
paration, if none were thrown away, a quantity of
alcohol exceeding the volume of the visible universe.
Laurie remarks upon this that " their opinions and
recommendations, being derived from experience, are
at all events well worthy of considerate attention and
careful investigation, whatever the material-headed
reasoners may say to the contrary."
But enough of these airy flights, at least for the
present. Most of my readers, I suppose, are'" materialheaded reasoners," and have never had their brains
refined, etherealized in the laboratory of Hahnemann,
and they must be getting dizzy by this time mid the
whirl of "spiritualized" and "' dynamized" atoms. I
shall dismiss then for' the present all farther calculations in the arithmetic of Homoeopathy, and shall
recur to the subject again when I come to speak of
the range of doses employed by different Homceopathists.
How is it, the reader will ask, that these excessively
minute doses act-by what virtue do they produce an
effect upon the system? Hahnemann says that a
new power is given to medicine by agitation and trituration.  " Medicines," he asserts, (p. 295) "' 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




28                      HOMCEOPATHY.
unknown till 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 for.
merly  prescribed  ten  to  each  dilution."   He  is extremely careful on this point.  He cautions again and
again against giving too many shakes,* and prescribes
the exact manner in which the shakes should be
made.  It must be done with " a powerful stroke  of
the arm  descending." (p. 300.)   So in the preparation
of powders he says that care must be taken " not to
rub them down too much in the mortar." Thus in
mixing  one grain  of any remedy with  one hundred
grains of sugar of milk, he  says, (p. 300) "it ought
to be rubbed  down with  force during one hour only,
and the same space of time should  not be exceeded in
the subsequent dilutions, in order that the power of
medicine may not be carried to too great an extent."
The power communicated by this potentization, as it
is termed, he speaks of as a " spiritual virtue," and
* "One drop of drosera," says Hahnernann, "diluted thirty times,
each of which dilutions has been shaken twenty times, put in jeopardy
the life of an infant to whom it was given; while the same medicine,
when each dilution has received only two shakes, given in a quantity
just sufficient to moisten a globule of sugar of the -size of a grain of
millet, will cure the disease easily and promptly."  If twenty
shakes at each dilution, that is six hundred in the whole, impart
such dangerous potency to medicine, why is it that;' Jenichen's Higt
Potencies," which are recommended as having received a million and a
half of shakes, so powerful as to produce a " metallic ringing sounid of
the glass bottle," are such mild and innocent remedies? One would
suppose that they would not merely "put in jeopardy" the lives of the
sick, but would kill outright.




SYSTEM OF HIAHNEMANN.            29
similar lanaguage is very common among almost all
Homoeopathists. Even an article, which in its common form has from  its insolubility no medicinal virtue, silex, for example, can  be "potentized," he
claims, by trituration and shaking, and thus be endued
with such power, that a single grain of it would suffice, if thus prepared, to cure of certain forms of
disease not merely a world of human beings, but
millions upon millions of worlds peopled as thickly as
our own.




CHAPTER  II.
EXPOSITION OF THE SYSTEMI OF HAHNEMANN, CONTINUED.
I WILL now give the reader as clear an idea as I
can of the manner in which Hahnemann supposes that
the minute (loses cure disease. He asserts that medicines in the ordinary doses used by physicians " are
not applied to the suffering parts themselves, but
merely to those not attacked by the disease." Homceopathic medicines, on the contrary, he says, go directly
to the parts which are diseased. I will quote his own
language.  "FHowever feeble," he says, (p. 296) "the
dose of a remedy may be, provided it can in the
slightest degree aggravate the state of the patient
homceopathically, provided it has the power of exciting
symptoms similar to those of the primitive disease but
rather more intense, it will in preference, and almost
exclusively, affect those parts of the organism that are
already in a state of suffering, and which are strongly
irritated and predisposed to receive any irritation
analogous to their own.  Thus an artificial disease




SYSTEM OF H]A1iNAEMATIN.          31
rather more intense is substituted in place of the
natural one.  The organism  no longer suffers but
from the former affection, which by reason of its
nature and the minuteness of the dose by which it was
produced, soon yields to the efforts of the vital force to
restore the normal state, and thus leaves the body (if
the disease was an acute one) free from sufferingthat is to say in a healthy condition."
Let me paraphrase a little-and 1 wish the reader
to compare the paraphrase critically with the original.
The process of cure as above described is this.  The
little dose, if chosen aright-that is, if the medicine is
capable of producing in a healthy person symptoms
similar to those of the disease to be attacked-has
from this fact a peculiar affinity for the diseased part,
and goes directly to it, and introduces into it a disease
similar to the one to be dislodged.  The " artificial disease" succeeds in dislodging the disease which it finds
there, because it is a little stronger, or as Hahnemann
has it, a " little more intense." What now becomes
of the new lodger thus introduced by the infinitesimal?
Does it remain there as a permanent resident? No
-it exercises but a brief authority.  Its occupation
is soon gone.  " The vital fiorce," that good guardian
angel that old Cullen called the vis medicatrix naturae
at once turns out the usurper for two very good reasons-because it is so much like the previous occupant,
and because it was introduced by such a little fellow.
Hahnernann scouts the idea of employing several
remedies at once to dislodge a disease. Only one




32                IIOMCEOPAT1IY.
must be used at a time. One strong man armed if
fitted for the purpose, though it be an exceedingly
little one, can drive out the most powerful of diseases,
however formidably it may be fortified in its position.
No matter how violent the malady-the patient may
have a burning fever, tumultuously may the blood run
through its channels, excruciating may be the pain, raving the delirium, unceasing and extreme the restlessness-the magic infinitesimal finds its way to the very
seat of the disease, and in the most quiet manner dispossesses it, putting in its place another disease, which
though " more powerful" than the one it displaces, is
yet so gentle, that the "' vital force" makes an easy
conquest, and establishes again the serene and happy
dominon of health.'What delightful Therapeutics!
Hahnemann and his followers seem to regard diseases as the merest playthings in their hands, doing as
if by a charm, the bidding of their potentized infinitesimals.  "When," says Hahnemann, "a proper
application of the Homceopathic remedy has been
made, the disease which is to be cured, however malignant and painful it may be, subsides in a few hours,
if recent, and in a few days if it is already of long
standing. Every trace of indisposition vanishes, and
health is restored by a speedy and almost insensible
transition." Even the eruptive diseases need not to
run their course, but can be at once arrested and cured
by the magic of Homcopathy.  Hering in his Domestic Physician says of so severe and loathsome a malady
as small pox, that it " is so easily cured by one or a




SYSTEM OF HAIINEEMANN.           33
couple of doses of Sulph. or Rhus, that this disease
should no longer excite any uneasiness."
I will now call your attention to the manner in
which Homceopathists discover to what disease any
remedy has that peculiar affinity which is an essential condition of its curative power.  It is done in this
way.  The remedy is given to persons in health.  The
symptoms which follow in them are carefully and
minutely noted down. After making out this group
of symptoms, you may be sure, as they say, that in
whatever case you find a similar group of symptoms,
there you have the disease which this remedy in infinitesimal doses will cure.
But by what rules, you will ask, are Homaeopathists guided in ascertaining the symptoms? There
is no formal set of rules prescribed, although the science of their Therapeutics is claimed to be an exceedingly refined and accurate science; and we are left to
infer for the most part what the principles are which
govern observers in conducting these "provings," as
they are termed. The mode in which they are conducted, however, I will develope to the reader as clearly
and faithfully as I can from the loose and scattered
hints which I find in Homceopathic books on this
subject.
I find nothing very definite in regard to the size of
the doses used  in these  provings.  Hahnemann's
provings of Cinchona were made, at first, at least,
with the ordinary doses of the common practice, and
in his Organon he continually refers to the effects of




34                 HOMCEOPATIY.
such doses to prove his doctrines. But Dr Forbes says
that the doses which he administered, at least in the
later and principal trials, were infinitesimals.  And
this is probably true. For though he says in the text
(p. 203) that "the dose is the same as that which
practitioners are in the habit of prescribing in their
ordinary recipes," he informs us in a note at the
bottom of the page, "recently I have judged it more
proper to administer only doses that are very weak
and extenuated to a very high degree."  The truth of
the whole matter is, that it makes so little difference
to Hahnemann and his followers whether the doses in
the provings be infinitesimal or are in the " coarse
form" used by "ordinary physicians," that they do
not in their records of these provings indicate in any
way the kind of cl doses with which they were made.
Nothing definite is said in regard to this point in any
of the books which I have consulted.
The person on whom a proving of any medicine is
made must submit to certain restrictions of diet and
regimen.  I quote Hahnernann's language.  "During
the whole time of this experiment the diet mnst be
extremely moderate.  It is necessary to abstain as
much as possible from spices, and to make use of
nothing but simple food that is merely nourishing,
carefully avoiding all green vegetables, roots, sallads,
and, soups with herbs, all of which, notwithstanding
the, preparations they have undergone, are aliments
that still retain some small medicinal energy that
disturbs the effect of the medicine.  The drink is to




SYSTEM  OF HAHNEMANN.                     35
remain the same as that in daily use, taking care that
it is as little stimulating as possible."
" The person  on whom  this experiment is tried,
ought to avoid all fatiguing labor of mind and body,
all excesses, debauches, or mental excitement during
the whole of the time that it continues" (p. 202).
The object of these restrictions is to withdraw every.
thing from the subject of the trial " which will exercise a medicinal influence" upon him. The same
restrictions are to be observed in administering to the
sick; and  as Hahnemann  specifies the  things to be
avoided, more  particularly  under this  head, I  wvill
transcribe the list for my readers.
"Coffee, tea, beer, containing  vegetable substances
that are not fit for the patient; liquors prepared from medicinal aromatics, chocolate, spices, sweet waters, and
perfumery of all kinds; preparations for the teeth, either
in powder or liquid, where medicinal substances are included;  perfumed   bags, strongly seasoned  viands,
pastry, and ice with spices; vegetables consisting of
medicinal herbs and roots, old cheese, stale meat,
pork, goose, duck, and  young  veal.*   Every one of
* It is a little singular that so medicinal an article as tobacco is not
in the excluded list. Perhaps the impossibility of excluding it in practice is the reason. It would be rather dangerous to the popularity of
the new practice to interfere with a habit so prevalent as the use of
tobacco. As I write this note a friend says that he believes that this
is really one of the excluded articles. If so, it is rather strange that the
great exemplar, while he was so particular as to mention such things as
old cheese, pork, goose, sweet waters. perfumed bags, etc., should forget
to mention an article so much more medicinal as tobacco is.




36                        oMCEOPATRY.
these act medicinally, and ought to be carefully removed from the patient. All abuses or excesses at
table are  to  be interdicted, even  the  use of sugar,
salt, and spirituous liquors; the physician will, like<wise, forbid too warm  apartments, sedentary life, passive exercise in riding or driving, sleeping after dinner,
nocturnal amusements, uncleanliness, unnatural voluptuousness, and the reading of obscene books; we
are likewise to avoid the causes of anger, grief, and
malice, a passion for garning, mental and bodily labor,
a residence in a marshy situation, or in a chamber
that is not properly ventilated.  If the cure is to be
perfected as speedily as possible, we must avoid all
these excitants"* (p. 281).  And of course they must
be avoided just as scrupulously in the " proving"-as in
the  " cure,"  that the  " totality  of the  symptoms"
produced by the medicine under trial may be as unmixed as possible with the effects of other agents.
Hahnemann's statement of the mode of proceeding
in the provings, is far from being clear and definite,
* The extreme caution sometimes practised by Homweopathists is very
laughable. A gentleman had a camphorated preparation applied to his
limb which he had injured. On going home, his wife, who was a thorough
Homceopathist, made him go into the basement, and stay there day and
night for three or four days, lest the smell of the camphor should interfere
with the recovery of her children, who were sick in the nursery above,
under the care of a Homceopathic physician. And ventilation, fumigation, and purification were all put in requisition, to prevent even an
infinitesimal quantity of the camphor from ascending to the nursery,
and neutralizing the infinitesimals administered to the dear little ones.
There was ample compensation for the pain of the separation. The
Homceopathic cordon sanitaire was effectual-the children recovered.




SYSTEM OF HAHNEMANN.            37
although in some respects he is quite particular and
circumstantial. He does not tell us when we must
begin to note down the symptoms; neither does he
inform us whether they are to be noted down only
upon the days when the medicine is taken, or whether
the medicine is to be laid aside when the system is
fully under its influence, and then the observation of
the symptoms is to be continued so long as that influence lasts.  We suppose that the latter is the course
which he intends should be pursued, as he has marked
down with great precision the duration of the effects
of each remedy.
If the restrictions above named be faithfully observed, the subject of the experiment is to be considered as wholly under the influence of the me(licine.
Hahnemann (p. 210) holds upon this point the following very explicit language: " Provided all the conditions before stated be complied with, the symptoms,
modifications, and changes of the health that are
visible during the action of the medicine, depend upon
that substance alone, and ought to be noted down as
properly belonging to it." The medicine, though it
be an infinitesimal portion of charcoal or common
salt,.or oyster-shell, is the presiding genius of the,
scene; it has control over the whole man, not only
physically, but morally and intellectually also.  Not
only all bodily sensations, but all states of mind and
heart, are to be noted down as the effects of the infinitesimal.  The length of time that this is to be done
depends upon the "duration of effects" of the medi



38                HOM(EOPATHIY.
cine. In some cases this period is rather long. In
the case of nux vomica, three or four weeks; sepia,
seven weeks; oyster-shell, fifty days; sulphur, fifty
days, etc. In such cases the records must be some.
what voluminous, and must require the patience of a
stout believer to make them out.
Though the subject of the experiment is under the
supreme control of the medicine, its action is sornewhat modified by other agencies. And Hahnemann
gives particular directions in regard to observing the
circumstances which do thus modify it. For example, he says that in order to discover what is peculiar
and characteristic in each symptom, the observer
" should place himself successively in various postures, and observe the changes that ensue.  Thus he
will be enabled to examine whether the motion cornmunicated to the suffering parts by walking up and
down the chamber, or in the open air, seated or lying
down, has the effect of augmenting, diminishing, or
dissipating the symptom, and if it returns or not upon
resuming the original position. He will also perceive
whether it changes when he eats or drinks, when he
speaks, coughs, or sneezes, or in producing any action
of the body whatsoever. He must also observe at
what hour of the day or night the symptom more
particularly manifests itself."
I wish to have my readers understand and appreciate fully the mode of conducting the provings, and
I shall therefore give a faithful representation of it.
Suppose, then, that a person intends to prove upon




SYSTEM OF IIAHNEMANN.            39
himself the effects of some medicine.  He studies
carefully the directions of Hahnemann, that he may
not spoil his experiment by any error of diet and regimen. He determines to abstain from coffee, tea,
spices, seasoned viands, old cheese, pork, goose, duck,
etc., and he gives the cook directions accordingly.
He corks his wife's Cologne bottle tightly, and enjoins
it upon her to remember that it must not be opened,
and her perfume bag he locks up in a bureau in an
unoccupied and distant chamber.  All this being
attended to, he composes his mind to an even state,
and now he is prepared to swallow the potentized infinitesimal, and observe and record its effects.
Let us see how he makes his observations. After
finishing his dinner he finds that he has not eaten as
much as usual, and that his bread has remained by
his plate untouched, and then he has not afterwards
any desire for his customary cigar.  He puts down,
therefore-Loss of appetite, chiefly for bread and
tobacco-smoking.  In driving some nails into a box
he is obliged to stoop, and when he raises himself up,
he finds his head feels heavy and painful. He notes
down-after stooping some time sense of painful
weirght about the headt upon resuming the erect posture.  On going out to see a friend he feels some
stitches in one of his ankles as he steps out of his
door, but does not feel them when he steps into his
friend's door. He puts down-stitches in the ankle
when stepping out.  If on conversing with his friend,
he finds himself more inclined to laugh than usual,




40                 HOMCEOPATHY.
he jots down-inclination to laugh. Or, if in some
discussion with him he finds himself fretted with his
friend's arguments, but anon disposed to be jocose and
light-hearted, his record is-alternation offretfulness
and hilarity.  In the evening he joins his wife in
some fine crewel work, and he perceives that his
hands tremble.  He notes down-tremor of tihe hands
when occurpied with fine small work.  He proposes a
game at backgammon, but immediately remembers
that " a passion for gaming" is one of the things to be
avoided during a proving, and gives it up as a true
devotee of the science should. He chances as he sits
to scratch the solo of his foot, and thereupon there
comes on a tickling there which provokes him  very
much, but at the same time is in some sense pleasurable. This symptom belongs to the"  totalities,"
an(l he puts it down very circumstantially thus-a
voluptuous tickling on the sole of the foot after
scratchingr a little, making a man almost mad. In the
night he has pains here and there, and his kind wife
applies a poultice to sornespot peculiarly painful, which
relieves him. He notes down-pains mitigated by warm,
cataaplasms.  In  the  morning he hawks up some
phlegm.  He makes note of this —phlegmi   is hawked
out in, the mornincg.  But he remembers that he has
hawked a little at other times, an(l, as he wishes to
be minutely accurate in his record of his totalities, he
alters the record by inserting the word chiefly between
out and in.  In brushing his teeth he inadvertently
uses his toothpowder, and this being "' medicinal" in




SYSTEM OF HAHNEMANN.             41
its character, and being therefore among the things
prohibited, he supposes puts an end to the present
"proving." 
This may strike my readers as being a gross caricature of the Homceopathic provings. But it is in
truth a fair representation.  The notes made by my
imaginary observer are actual quotations from Homwopathic records. of provings; and all that I have
imagined is the manner in which the- observations
were made upon which the notes were based. And
the notes which I have thus quoted are by no means
rare specimens of folly, obtained by diligent search
through numerous tomes of Homceopathic wisdom.
Such notes can be found in abundance on every page
of Jahr's Manual, or of Hahnemann's six volumes of
Materia Medica Pura.
Miany such provings as I have depicted are made by
many different persons, and then the records of them
are collected and arranged. But the arrangement is
very loose-there is no comparing or sifting; or if
there be any, I see no- evidences of it. The " totality," when fully made out from all the " provers," is,
especially in the case of those remedies which are most
commonly used, an endless farrago not only of ridiculous. trivialities, but also of details of suffering, both
bodily and mental, of the most horrid character.  The
tragic and the comic are mingled together in them
after the most grotesque fashion.
That the reader may see that I do not at all overstate the matter, I introduce here a part of one of




42                I OTCEOPATHIY.
these compilations of provings.  The article is sulphur.
I give it exactly as it stands in Jahr's Manual.  Why
portions are placed in italics, neither the author nor
the editor (Constantine Hering) is pleased to inform
us.
"Predominant Effects.-Drawing, rending  and
stinging in the limbs, chiefly the joints, with stiffness, and intolerably increased pains under feather
beds; wrenching pains; straining in the limbs as
from  decurtation (shortening or cutting short, Webster) of the tendons; spasm and crooking of the lilnbs;
arthritic swelling of the joints with heat; pale, tense,
hot, hard tumefactions; varices; inflammation, swelling, suffocation and induration of the glands; scrofidlous and rachitic complaints; pains in the bones,
as if the flesh were loosened from them; inflammation
and swelling of the bones; incurvation of bones;
Caries (bones both bent and mortified by sulphur, and
that too in an infinitesimal dose!); disorders from
the misuse of cinchora and mercury; hysteric and
hypochondriac complaints of various kinds; chlorotic
and icteric affections; gastric and bilious complaints;
inflammations, dropsical affections, and suppurations
of internal organs: paralytic affections; tingling in
the limbs; disposition to numbness; easily injured in
lifting; twitching of the muscles; fainting fits and
spasms, also hysteric; single jerks in the limbs when
sitting or lying; epileptic paroxysms, with a sensation proceeding from the back or arms, as if a mouse
were running there.   Tremor of the limbs.  The




SYSTEM OF HAHNEMANN.             43
most complaints originate only when at rest, and disappear by motion of the part affected, or by walking.
Pains appear or are increased at night.  The pains
are exacerbated by the cold and relieved by warmth.
The patient feels worst in a standing posture.
General restlessness in the body, which does not
allow of sitting long, with an urgent disposition to
stretch and draw up the limbs.  Strong agitation of
the blood, also after drinking beer (not I suppose after
drinking anything else, wine, brandy, &c.); inward
tremor; fatigued by speaking; languor in all the
limbs disappearing by walking; infirm gait; walkintg bent forward; great emaciation; also with
children; great tenderness to the open air and wind,
with a disposition to take cold; pains with the change
of the weather; aversion to wash oneself.
Itching- in the skin, worst at night, or in the morning in bed, frequently with a sensation of soreness, or
heat, or biting, or bleeding of the scratched spot;
eruptions after vaccination; chronic eruptions with
a burning itching; miliary eruptions, with soreness
of the skin; scabies, with rash; yellow  or livercolored spots on the skin; moles; suggillations (black
and other marks) after an inconsiderable contusion;
herpes; erysipelatous inflammations with throbbing
and stinging; chilblains, itching in the warmth;
galling of the skin in children.  Rhagades.  The
skin difficult to heal; suppurations; fistulous ulcers;
suppurating, cystic tumors; furuncles; ulcers, with
rending, stinging, and tension, easily bleeding and




44                HIOM(EOPATIIY.
discharginmg  a fetid  pus; panaritia  (whitlow);
warts; hang-nails;  corns, with pressing, stinging
pains.
Invincible sleepiness in the daytime, chiefly in the
afternoon, and in the evening.  Late sleep in the
evening in bed; nocturnal sleeplessness, with restlessness and tingling of the limbs; too slight sleep;
profound lethargic slumber in the morning; inability
to sleep in any other way than in a supine or half sitting posture; delirious, anxious, restless dreams, with
fright in sleep and fear when awaking; moaning,
snoring, talking and shrieking in sleep; nocturnal
wandering talk; nightmare; somnambulism; shocks
and jerks in the limbs in sleep.
Chilliness, chills and sensation of coldness, without thirst; heat with much thirst; flushes of heat;
quotidian fever, with heat and thirst after the chills;
tertian fever, first coldness with thirst and drawing in
the limbs, then chills, then heat without thirst, with
a throbbing headache in the temples, (a very circumnstantial record that —of course made by an experienced prover); chills with thirst, succeeded by heat;
weakness, obstruction of the nose and scabs in the
nose, with fever, (what kind of a relation weakness
and a scabby nose have to each other, which should
make it proper to put them together I cannot imagine); worm fever, (what, three fevers, tertian, and
quotidian, and worm!); fever in the evening; nervous and hectic fevers, (more fevers still!); Perspiration in the morning or evening in bed; Profuse per



SYSTEM OF HAHNEMANN.              45
spiration, in the daytime when working, and at night
in bed.
Sadness and dejection; melancholy, with doubts
about his soul's welfare; great inclination to weep,
frequently alternating with laughing; inconsolableness, and reproaches of conscience about every action;
attacks of anxiety in the evening; nocturnal fear of
spectres; fearfulness, and liability to be frighteuned;
restlessness and hastiness; caprice, moroseness, and
ill humor; irritability and fretfulness; disinclination to labor.
Great weakness of memory; deliria and carphologia (delirious picking of the bed-clothes); mistaking
one thing for another; philosophical and religious
reveries, and fixed ideas; insanity, with imagination
as if he were in possession of beautiful things, and in
abundance of everything."
I have thus quoted about the fifth part of the
totality of symptoms attributed by Jahr to sulphur.
I will not tax the patience of the reader, or my own,
with the rest. It is a very terrible totality. It differs
somewhat, too, I may remark in passing, from the
experience of my childhood, when every morning the
teaspoonful of sulphur and molasses was swallowed
as a preventive of a certain loathsome disease, when.
ever it was reputed to be prevalent. I felt nothing of
all this totality, and my schoolmates did not; but we
were mere boys, and none but men can be " provers,"
and Hornceopathic men too.
But the totality of the effects of sulphur as it is, is




46                      HOM(EOPAT'HY.
quite moderate compared with some of the other total.
ities.   The  symptoms  recorded as produced  by  nux
vomica, amounted  a long  time  ago to  about twelve
hundred. How many the provers have added since, I
know not. The totality of the effects of belladonna,
as  given  in  the  " Materia  Medica  Pura,"  covers
almost fifty octavo pages. And as early as 1838,
Hering stated that the results of the provings had
already filled more than fifteen octavo volumes.*
It is only by these provings, Hahnemann asserts,
that we can acquire " a true Materia Medica."  Each
disease, you will observe, he regards as a mere group
of symptoms, and asserts that there is in nature some
* In the brief notice which Dr. Joslin gives of his own conversion
(as he styles it), he speaks of his recording the provings of medicines
upon himself, and then comparing them with the "totalities.'; He
says: ": I took the third attenuation of a medicine, and, avoiding the
study of its alleged symptoms as recorded in books, I made a record of
all the new symptoms which I experienced. When this record was
completed, I examined a printed list of symptoms, and was surprised to
find a remarkable coincidence between them and those Which I had experienced." He did the same with other medicines, as he says, with
similar results. Each proving upon Dr. Joslin's person corresponded
with the recorded totality of the medicine proved. He does not inform
us, however, whether the " printed lists of symptoms" with which he
compared his provings were the extensive totalities, or some of the
limited ones. It would be interesting to examine Dr. Joslin's records
of the provings which converted him. They would make probably a
rich chapter in a history of conversions to Homceopathy, and I would
suggest that they be given to the public just as they were noted down
at the time. A full record of all the professor's sensations and moods
of thought and feeling, while under the influence of an infinitesimal
dose of charcoal or salt or oyster-shell, would be a curious contribution
to the treasures of therapeutical science.




SYSTEM  OF HAHNEMANN.                    47
specific for every such group, which may be known
by  its producing a similar group of symptoms in  the
healthy.  The "Materia Medica," therefore, according
to his idea, cannot be complete till it embraces specifics for all possible groups or totalities of symptoms.
And such a consummation -as this Hahnemann confidently anticipated  as being  near at hand, and  in
view of it he exclaimed, "what cures shall we not be
able to perform in the vast empire of disease, when
numerous observers, upon whose accuracy and veracity we can rely, shall have contributed the result of
their researches to enrich this " Materia Medica," the
only one founded on fact. The art of curing will
then approach to the same degree of certainty as the
science of mathematics."*
The only remaining portion of Hahnemann's system,
is his doctrine of the origin of chronic diseases, which
is, that seven eighths of all these diseases come from
psora, vulgarly  called  the  itch.   This fact, as  he
declares it unequivocally to be, he alleges that it cost
him  twelve  years of research  to  establish.   It is
* To aid in bringing about this consummation, Constantine Hering,
that extraordinary physician, who, as the reader will recollect, has discovered that the small-pox "is so easily cured by one or a couple of
doses of sulphur or rhus, that this disease should no longer excite any
uneasiness,"7 has proposed to his friend, A. Howard Okie, that a'Provers' Union" be formed in this country. Dr. Okie is delighted
with the proposition, and thinks that the provers can do great things in
making out the pathogenesis (these little dosers like big words) of the
remedies submitted to trial. We shall expect large additions by this
American " Provers' Union" to the totalities of the fifteen octavo
volumes, if its members have any of the spirit of Yankee enterprise.




48                    HOMCEOPATHY.
really only the old doctrine of humors, with a special,
a sort of kingly prominence given to one of them,
and that the most vulgar of the herd, despite of the
pretensions of scrofula. erysipelas, and lordly gout.
In truth, he degrades even these, which have so long
held  such proud sway in the  "vast empire of disease," to a very menial rank, by announcing them
to be descendants of the itch itself.
This psoric virus, which acts so large a part in
disease,- is often very  secret in its workings, and
sometimes remains concealed in the system for a
great length of time.  It may produce "occasional
outbreaks of disease," as Prof. Henderson  expresses
it; but, if the physician  does not with  his " antipsorics" attack the constitutional taint, he will not
rid  his patient of the origin  of all the  evil, and,
though  he  may  cure  him  of his present obvious
malady, there will be at some future time another
outbreak.  This may occur at a very distant period,
even after the lapse of many years, the psoric virus
having been latent all this time.   "Hence," says
Prof. Henderson (who, though he disavows anything
like a full belief in the psoric doctrine, defends it in a
x It seems to.be Hahnemann's idea that the itch has been working
all manner of evil in the blood of man from the time of Adam, and yet
tHahnemann was the first to discover it, for he says, " The modifications
this miasm has undergone in its passage through millions of human constitutions, during several hundred generations, explain how it can assume
so many forms." What a pity that the world had to wait six thousand
years for the advent of the " Sage of Coethen'l-the hero of anti-psoric
medicipe!




SYSTEM OF ITAHNEMANN.            49
very labored manner, as not being " essentially unphilosophical"), " though one chronic disease, in the
common acceptation of the term, may be perfectly
and permanently removed, yet, if another, though
totally different in its symptoms, should at any time
subsequently appear, Hahnemann would have called
it merely a different form of the same radical distemper, of the same chronic disease.  So that if a
man who once had some chronic disorder of his
bowels, should, twenty years after it was removed,
become affected with palsy, in Hahnemann's opinion
it would have been the old disease recurring in a new
form, either because the constitutional psora had not
been cured along with the former illness, or because
the taint had been contracted anew."
Dr. Wesselhoeft, in his reply to Dr. Holmes, says
that Hahnemann did not assert that seven eighths of
all chronic diseases come from the itch, " but that the
Allopathic method of treating it made it a source of
so great a part of the chronic diseases of our race."
If this be so, what an untoward alliance this of Allopathy to itch, and what a numerous and motley progeny has it produced! Let, then, the alliance at
once be annulled, and attack the psoric virus henceforth with the infinitesimal doses of Homceopathia,
and thus let mankind be delivered from the multitude
of chronic diseases that affect them. What a de-.verance! Seven eighths of all the consumption,
scrofula, insanity, idiocy, epilepsy, cancer, gout,
dropsy, etc., etc., banished from the worldl! Wh, it
3




E5O                HOM(CEOPATHY.
would introduce a physical millenium. Jenner's discovery is as nothing to it; and Hahnemann is the
great benefactor of the race!
Such is as plain a statement as I am able to make
of the chief doctrines of Hahnemann. Before pro.
ceeding to an examination of them, I will state very
briefly the points on which Homceopathists agree, and
those on which they disagree, so far as I understand
their meaning.
All of them believe in the great central doctrine of
his system, similia similibus curantur.  Most of
them agree with him that it is the sole law of therapeutics, and, though none, so far as I know, plainly
disavow this, yet there are some who practically, at
least, admit the existence of other laws.
All agree in the efficacy of the infinitesimal doses.
None, so far as I know, deny this, though some give
medicines in doses of every variety, from the higher
attenuations of Homceopathy up to the most heroic
doses of Allopathy. Some differ from Hahnemann in
their explanation of the mode in which the infinitesimals acquire their efficacy; but this is a mere theoretical difference, and, therefore, is of no practical
importance. Some, too, disavow his ridiculous idea of
the importance of the number of shakes employed in
the preparation of medicines; but it is very far from
being discarded by Homrncopathists as a body.*
* In the first number of the " North American Homoeopathic Journal," a periodical recently established in New York, and edited by Drs
Hering, Marcy, and Metcalf, one of the editors in commenting upon




SYSTEM  OF HrAI-NEMANN.                   51
All'agree as to the mode of conducting the provings.
Now and then one, like Prof. Henderson, when rallied
on the subject, will grant that Hahnemann was a
little  too minute, and  "did  err in  recording  trivial
occurrences."   Still there is no plain and open avowal
of any disagreement with him on this point on the
part of any author which I have consulted, and the
books of Hahnemann and others, which are filled
ad nauseanm with these " trivial occurrences," are the
standard works among Homceopathists to this day.
Not a hint has been made in regard to an expurgatedl
edition of any of them.  If it should be attempted by
any modernized Homceopathist, he would be puzzled
to know where to begin or where to end.
The psoric theory is far from being discarded by
Hahnemann's  disciples  of the  present day;  and,
though few of them do more than apologize for it, as
Henderson does, yet most of them are inclined, with
" Jenichen's High Potencies," says, " Every one who prefers to make
high potencies in his own way, may do it. but ought not to forget that
Jenichen's preparations cannot easily be equalled, his last potence of
arsenicum having received one and a half million of the most powerful
shakings, counting only such as produced a metallic ringing sound of the
glass bottle. Others may wait until the thing is accomplished by machinery, but they ought never to expect anything cheaper." This outstrips Hahnemann altogether. He never dreamed of one and a half
million of shakes, and the test of the efficacy of a shake in dynamizing
medicines being in its "metallic ringing sound,' is altogether a new
idea. The editor does not inform us whether the shakes were all of
the true Hahnemannic character, with " a powerful shake of the arm
descending,? but I presume Jenichen took care to be orthodox on that
point.




52                 HOM(EOPATHY.
him, to talk of c" anti-psorics" as " the most useful
of the Homeopathic means" in treating chronic diseases, showing that they more than half believe the
doctrine to be true.  Dr. Holmes says of this doctrine
playfully, but very truthfully, "I will not meddle
with this excrescence, which, though often used in
time of peace, would be dropped, like the limb of a
shell-fish, the moment it was assailed."




CHAPTER III.
EXAMINATION OF THE DOCTRINES OF HOMCEOPATHY.
I PROCEED now to an examination of the doctrines
of Homceopathy, and of its mode of practice. In
doing this, I shall keep in mind the differences between Horrceopathists, to which I referred in the conclusion of the last chapter, and shall have occasion to
notice them in the course of discussion.
The principle expressed by the Latin phrase, similia sinzilibus curantur, is declared by Hahnemann to
be the " sole law of therapeutics." He asserts most
explicitly, that all cures which have ever taken place,
have been effected alone by this principle, whether
they have resulted from the influence of medicine or
the efforts of nature. He does not deny that physicians before him did sometimes cure disease; but he
says that they did it ignorantly, and that the principle upon which they did it was undiscovered till his




54                 HOM(EOPATHY.
In order to establish this doctrine as the sole law of
cure, it must be proved beyond a question that cures
are never effected under any other law. There must
be no exceptions.  If there be apparent exceptions,
they must be shown to be only apparent-they must
be proved to be consistent with the law. Till this is
done-till all known cures can be demonstrated to be
consistent with this law, there is no proof that there
may not be other laws or principles by which cures
are effected. And farther. If cures are made beyond
a question by remedies acting on other principles,
then the proof is absolute that this is not the sole
law, though it may be one of the laws of cure.
Let us examine this point with some particularity.
If the doctrine, similia similibus curantur be the
sole law of Therapeutics, the totality of effects produced by any article in the healthy, should be a sure
indication that this article will relieve a similar set
of symptoms whenever they appear in the sick. This
should be found to be the fact invariably by experience. For example: opium produces in the healthy
a state of insensibility and somnolency, and ipecac
produces nausea and vomiting.  Therefore, if the
I-Iomnceopathic law  be the sole law  of cure, opium
should invariably relieve insensibility and somnolency
in the sick, and ipecac  should invariably relieve
nausea and vomiting. It matters not that they somet;mnes (lo this in some peculiar cases: to prove the law
to be the sole law, they should always do it.  It is
upon these occasional peculiar cases that Homcepa



ITS DOCTRINES EXAMINED.           55
thists rely to show that these remedies act in consistency with their sole law of cure. The sophistry of
such an argument, as the reader sees, is not only
shallow, but contemptibly so.
Under this head I may also remark, that if similia
simnilibus curantur be the sole law of cure, then a
remedy should never produce in the sick effects similar to those which it produces in the healthy.  For
example. Opium ought never to produce somnolency
in those who are wakeful from the influence of disease.  So, also, it should never increase a somnolency already existing, but should always lessen it.
This is so obvious that I need not dwell upon it.
Again. I take now the converse of the first proposition. If the Homceopathic law, be the sole law of
cure, then, if any remedy cure a disease, or in other
words remove any group of symptoms in the sick, it
should be found invariably to produce a similar group
of symptoms when applied to the healthy. Thus, if
bleeding or blistering or both together have cured
pleurisy (as experience has proved abundantly, whatever Homceopathists may say to the contrary), then
bleeding and blistering should each, or together, produce symptoms resembling pleurisy in the healthy.
*Whether bleeding is apt to do this, any " prover" may
discover, by inquiring of those who were wont to be
bled regularly every spring, with the idea that it prevented sickness.  He need not be under the necessity
of " proving" it upon himself.
But lest the Homceopathist should not be satisfied




5 6               HOMCEOPATIIY.
with this allopathic illustration, I will take one from
Homceopathy also.  Hahnemann and his followers
assert most stoutly that camphor removes the totality of
symptoms called cholera. If this be so, then, according
to the sole law, we should find that camphor always
produced in the healthy a totality of symptoms resemrnbling this disease. Does it do this?  Not at all.  The
effects of camphor upon the healthy are very far from
being the " image of the disease" termed cholera.  To
make out these two totalities to be alike would tax one's
credulity as much as it would to believe that a cow
and an elephant bear a strong resemblance to each
other. The effects of a hundred other substances
resemble cholera quite as much as do those of camphor.
Again.  If similia similibus curantur be the sole
law under which cures are effected, then we should
be able to prove, either that the vital powers are never
competent to cure disease alone and unassisted by
remedies, or, that they do it in conformity with the
Homceopathic law. Hahnemann accepts the first horn
of the dilemma; and expressly asserts that the cures
alleged to be effected by the vis medicatrix naturce
are not cures. He has but a poor opinion of the
efforts of the "' unintelligent vital powers," and quarrels
with " the vulgar practice" for its imitation of nature's
bungling operations.
Now there is no fact more thoroughly established,
both by common and professional observation, than
that the curative tendency in the system is compe




ITS DOCTRINES EXAMINED.            57
tent to cure a large proportion of the attacks of
disease without the assistance of any remedy. This
is certainly true of the numberless trivial ailments,
slight colds, temporary headaches, etc., which so
often get well without medicine, and alike with or
without its shadow, the Homceopathic globule. Perhaps, however, the HIomceopathist would claim that
these are not really diseases, although each case manifestly presents its group, its "totality of symptoms."
I remark again then, that what I have said of the
curative tendency of nature is certainly true of all
mild cases of what are termed self-limited diseasesthose which have a certain defined set of processes to
go through, such as measles, small-pox, etc. When
these maladies have finished their course, the vital
powers restore the healthy condition of the system,
removing all the consequences of the disease.  The
same is true too of other diseases. In all mild cases,
with proper diet and regimen, the vital powers are
able to cure them. And in the practice of every judi.
cious physician, a large share of the medication
employed aims at assisting the curative tendency of
nature, and removina obstacles out of its way, so that
its action mray be free and undisturbed.
As then the vis mnedicatrix naturce effects cures, it
has its principles upon. which it does this-in other
words, it has its laws of cure. The Homceopathic law
of cure then is not the sole law.
But I go farther than this. Not only is it untrue
that similia similibus curantur is the sole law  of




5 8               HOMEOPATHY.
therapeutics, but there is no proof that it is even one
among the many laws of cure which are employed in
the removal of disease. Future observation may establish it as one of these laws, but Hlomceopathic observation has not done it.
Law is a word of high import in science. It means
something more than a theory or hypothesis. Mere
theory proves nothing.  It may make a show of probability. That is, one theory or hypothetical explanation may be more probable than another. It may
suggest, too, observation which may result in the discovery of a law.  But in itself it has none of the
attributes of a law in the proper meaning of that word.
Nothing is worthy of being called a law but a principlc established upon good and substantial proofs.
I am satisfied upon the showing of Homceopathists
themselves, and I trust that I shall satisfy my readers
also, that the doctrine, similia similibus curantur, is
not one of the established laws of therapeutics;
and not only so, but that as a theory it is
exceedingly improbable. Almost all the facts to
which Homceopathists appeal for the support of this
doctrine, not only fail altogether to be explained
by it,' but they  have a satisfactory  explanation
on other principles. And the remainder of these
facts have as yet had none  but a hypothetical
explanation, and therefore it involves a mere estimate
of probabilities to choose between a Ifomceopathio
explanation, and that which may be based upon some
other hypothesis. In deciding any question in science,




ITS DOCTRINES EXAMINED.           59
such unexplained facts are of course not to he relied
upon, however much they may be prized by the mere
theorizer; and our reliance must be upon facts which
in the present state of our knowledge we are able to
explain.
Let us then examine some of the principal facts
which Hahnemann and others adduce in support of
the central doctrine of his system.
One of the facts greatly relied upon by Homceopathists, and very frequently quoted, is thus rather
awkwardly announced by Hahnernann in his Organon,
(p. 95.)  "Frozen sour crout is frequently applied to a
limb that is recently frozen, or sometimes it is rubbed
with snow."
The idea of Homaeopathists seems to be that a
limb is frozen by cold as a positive agent, and that the
cold united with water making it snow, or with the
sourcrout, is only similar to cold united with air, and
not the same thing. It is only upon such an unphilosophical, may I not say ridiculous, idea, that the fact
referred to can be tortured into an illustration of the
doctrine, sirezilia similibus curantur.
But how is a limb frozen? Simply by the abstraction of heat. And how is it restored to its natural
state? By a restoration of its heat; in other words,
by the communication of heat to it. Whatever may
be the applications, it is the heat in them that restores
the limb. This can be done, either rapidly by warmn
water or warm air, or slowly by cold (that is, less
warm) applications, in the shape of cold water, or




60                 HOMI(EOPATHY.
snow, or " frozen sour-crout," it matters not which.
And it has been found by experience that it is much
better to restore the limb slowly, than it is to do it
rapidly. This is the reason, and the only one, why
we should not make warm but cold (less warm) applications to a frozen limb. The schoolboy recognizes
the same principle when he warms his almost frozen
fingers gradually, and thus avoids the aching which
he knows by bitter experience follows too sudden a
transition from  cold to warmth   He does it in a
cooler air than he would (do it in if he stood directly
before the fire. In this case air, and not water, is the
medium by which the heat is applied-this is the only
point of difference between it and the case of the
frozen limb restored by the snow or cold water.
To make the explanation still more clear, if necessary, observe the circumstances, under which a frozen
limb is restored. When the snow, if that be the
article used, is applied, it does not of itself restore the
limb, but only moderates the process by which it is
done. The warm air of the room restores it, and the
snow prevents the air from doing it too rapidly.
Snow would not restore it if the, surrounding air were
much below the freezing point, neither would cold
water. The friction which is commonly used with
the snow is not essential, but is a valuable auxiliary.
It aids the restoration simply by exciting the nervous
energy and the circulation of the part.
But Dr. Webelhaeft asserts that the Esquimaux
apply snow to frozen limbs in the cold air, and sue



ITS DOCTRINES EXAMINED.               61
ceed in restoring them. This may be the case when
the weather is not very severe, and when the limb is
not badly frozen. The explanation is obvious. The
enveloping snow acts as a non-conductor, preventing
the air from abstracting the heat of the limb any farther, and the internal portion of the limb being still
warm, and retaining its circulation, extends its heat
outwardly, and in so gradual a way as to effect the
restoration in the best manner. But this could not be
done if the air were very cold, and if the limb were
very  thoroughly frozen; in that case, a resort to a
warm apartment would be absolutely necessary.
The treatment of burns is often referred to as illustrating the operation of Hahnemann's law of cure.
It is the popular belief that a slight burn can be
cured by holding the burnt part for a little time very
near the fire. It is to be observed, however, that this
expedient has the reputation of curing only in those
cases which are so slight, that they would get well at
any rate. But granting that heat does exert in such
cases a curative influence, it certainly affords no
proof of the truth  of the doctrine sirmilia similibus
curantur.  If heat will cure the effects of heat, it is
not an example of like curing like, but of same curing
same, which is quite another thing.*
* If this be the proper way to interpret and illustrate this law,
hen opium should be the Homceopathic remedy for the effects of
opium, calomel for the effects of calomel, etc. Indeed I once knew an
experimenter in Homoeopathy to administer a few drops of paregoric
to relieve the effects of an overdose of laudanum. The overdose was




62                 IIOMCEOPATHY.
Besides if heat be the TIommopathic remedy for a
burn —if it really have that peculiar " affinity" for it,
which renders it a specific for that totality, then it
should cure severe as well as mild cases.  But this it
is not pretended that it will do.
But it is said, that some of the applications which
cure severe burns, such as alcohol and oil of turpentine, act upon the Homceopathic principle. If they do
so, they ought to produce upon the skin in health
effects similar to the " totality of symptoms" presented by a burn. Homceopathists may believe that
they do, but it would be impossible for one not committed to Homceopathy to see anything but the very
remotest resemblance between the stimulating effect
of alcohol or turpentine applied to the skin, and that
condition of things presented by a burn, especially if
it be at all severe. The effect of mustard comes
nearer to it, and therefdre according to Hahnemann's
rule, would be more Homceopathic to it; but who ever
thought of treating  a burn with mustard?  Then
too, there are other remedies successful in curing
burns, which produce no perceptible effect upon a
sound skin, such as sweet oil, a mixture of sweet oil
and limewater, molasses, etc.  No one will pretend
that these articles produce effects which are the
" image" of the disease or injury presented to us in
the case of a burn.
not a large one-so the paregoric had the desired effect, just as heat
cures burns that would get well if let alone.




ITS DOCTRINES EXAMINED.           63
It is to be further remarked in regard to the two
cases to which I have referred, that they have no bearing upon the alleged efficacy of infinitesimal doses.
It has never been pretended that an infinitesimal
degree of heat will cure a burn, or an infinitesimal
amount of snow or frozen sour crout will restore a
frozen limb.  Allopathic quantities are used, and
dynamizing with " downward" shakes has never been
suggested. Even the stimulating articles which are
applied to burns, as alcohol and turpentine, are employed by the strictest of the sect in the " coarser"
form, instead of a potentized dilution.
In the introduction to Hahneman's Organon there
are more than fifty pages of what he terms "examples of Iomceopathic cures performed unintentionally
by physicians of the old school of medicine."  The
reasoning which appropriates these cases as proofs of
the truth of the doctrine, sirmilia similibu.s curantur,
is of the loosest character. I know not where I have
seen the rules of evidence so entirely disregarded as
they are throughout these fifty pages. Statements,
allusions and bare hints, that have the faintest semblance of relevancy to the point at issue, are pressed
into the service, and gravely paraded as undoubted
proofs.  If a remedy chance in any case to be the
antecedent of a recovery, though there be not the
slightest proof that it was the cause, it is eagerly
taken by Hahnemann as proof of his doctrine, if the
disease recovered from bear the remotest resemblance
to any effect that the remedy was ever known or




64                 HOMCEOPATHY.
imagined to produce upon the system. And though
Hahnernann, as the reader will recollect, lays great
stress upon observing the group or totality of symptoms presented by a disease, and the similar totality
of effects of the remedy which cures it, yet in this
incongruous detail in the Organon, he constantly
bases his conclusions upon single symptoms, or upon
groups so small, that they cannot with any propriety
be called totalities. Some of his conclusions also are
drawn from mere. idiosyncrasies. Though it is obvious
that no inferences can properly be made in regard to
the ordinary effects of medicines, from any effects resulting from individual peculiarity, yet Hahnemann
does not hesitate to make such inferences when they
will suit his purpose, being careful, however, to avoid
them when they will not.
Such modes of reasoning are constantly leading
Hahnemann into the grossest inconsistencies.  I must
be content, however, with giving a single example
from this large collection of so-called experience. Satisfying hirnself, as he does, with such loose resemblances between diseases, and the effects of their
remedies upon the healthy, he often makes the same
remedy to be applicable to diseases of various and
even opposite character. Thus he speaks of Belladonna as the cure for hydrophobia, different kinds of
madness and melancholy, scarlet fever, and " amaurosis with colored spots before the eyes." And I will
not tax the patience of the reader with the long list
of maladies to which he says that opium has a IHomceo.




IrrS DOCTRINES EXAMINED.           65
pathic affinity, and of which it is therefore the
remedy.  How it can cover so many and such different totalities is not easily comprehended.
But suppose that the doctrine sireilia similibus
curccntur is true, how  then, let us inquire, ought
we to conduct the provings of remedies upon the
healthy?
There should be great care in the selection of the
subjects of the experimnents.  They should be persons
in perfect health, so that the effects of disease may
not be intermixed in our records with the effects of
the remedy.
We should be very careful to distinguish the effects
of medicine from the effects of other causes operating
upon the system-air, food, water, mental influences,
electrical and other states, etc.  And when any doubt
exists, it should be solved by experiments upon
various subjects.  Many and very accurate experiments must be made, and results must be very judiciously and laboriously compared, before the totality
of the effects of any remedy can be fully and correctly
ascertained.
The size of the doses used in these provings is a
matter of no small importance.  The effects of different doses should be carefully noted, so that a cornparison may be instituted between them.  Especially
should this be done if in one case an ordinary dose be
used, and in another an infinitesimal one.
These rules cannot but commend themselves to




66                HOM(EOPATHY.
the common sense of my readers; and yet Homceopathic observation tramples upon them all.
The records of the provings show that Homreopathio
provers are not particularly cautious in the selection of their subjects.  Indeed, in one of their standard works, Jahr's Manual (as the translator informs
us in the introduction), the effects of medicines upon
the sick are indiscriminately mingled with their effects
upon the healthy.
Again. No distinction is made between the effects
of the remedy and the effects of other causes.
The IHomceopathic observer takes his subject, and,
as he thinks, insulates him, by cutting off the
use of a few articles, coffee, spices, perfumery,
etc. Ile does indeed consider that other causes affect
him, but only as modifying somewhat the influence
of the remedy which is under trial. In his view the
subject is about as thoroughly insulated for his experiment, as the subject of the electrician's experiments is
when placed upon the insulating stool. He makes
his record accordingly, putting down all phenomena,
physical, mental, and moral, that he witnesses in
him, as the effects of the medicine.
And it makes no difference whether the dose is
large or small, or even infinitesimal. At least so we
may justly infer from the summings up of the records
of provings, and from  the hints which we find in
Homceopathic books on the subject. Hahnemann himself, the great exemplar, is very lax on this point.
His first provings were made with the ordinary doses




ITS DOCTRINES EXAMINED.           67
used by physicians. And while in his Organon, (p.
203), he states in the text that the doses to be used
are the doses ordinarily used by practitioners, in a
note at the bottom of the same page he says that
recently he had "judged it more proper to administer
only doses that are very weak and extenuated to a
very high degree."  It is rather singular that he
should make this announcement in a note, and only
incidentally. If he had from proper evidence come to
this conclusion, and had at all appreciated the importance of it, he would have inserted it in the text, and
would have given his reasons for it in full. But Hahnemann makes little note of the difference between
ordinary doses and the infinitesimals, great as you
have seen it to be, either in the provings or in the
treatment of disease. And the same is true of all
Homceopathists.
The insulation of the system, so coolly assumed as
a fact by Homceopathists, impossible as it is in relation to ordinary doses, is obviously a still greater impossibility in relation to doses of an infinitesimal
amount.  It is, we may say, a self-evident impossibility on the face of it, that a man can be subjected to
the supreme control of an infinitesimal quantity of
common salt or chalk, and that this should produce all
the bodily and mental phenomena which he exhibits
for days and even weeks.
But even if it were possible that substances should be
so excessively diluted as HIomceopathists pretend, and
that an infinitesimal dose of any substance thus




68                HOMCEOPATHY.
diluted should exert some considerable influence upon
the system, that influence would inevitably be neutralized by the world of influences coming upon it from
other substances, as minutely divided and as thoroughly
agitated in the moving elements around us. Every
breeze would come to us charged with attenuations
of endless variety gathered from far and near, and
the water of which we drink would be impreg.
nated with infinitesimal doses of the thousands of
minerals and medicinal plants, which in the lapse of
years have been laved in it by the side of lake, or sea,
or river. The succussions and triturations of the constantly agitated wind and water would be quite as
effectual in extenuating and potentizing  the substances suspended in them, as the Homceopath'srubbing with the sugar of milk, or his downward shales
with the thirty phials.  The world would be a great
laboratory of Homceopathic remedies, and we should
be subjected to an endless ant confused variety of
secret but all-pervading influences.
The extensive groups of effects contained in the
recorded collections of provings, are nothing but confused medleys. And I can see no characteristics by
which one medley can be distinguished from another.
They are all very much alike, and each seems to be a
collection of all varieties of phenomena and sensations
that could possibly be imagined. How the Homceopathist can make any practical use of them, is beyond
my power to divine.  The comparison of such totalities (extending in some cases over forty closely printed




rIT DOCTRINES EXAMINED.          69
pages) with the symptoms of diseases as witnessed in
the sick room, appears to my Allopathic mind as
rather a formidable work; and I think the reader will
not accuse me of any want of candor when I say, that
I doubt whether any such comparison is ever faithfully made by Homceopathic physicians.
The mode of Hahnemann's provings, which I have
developed in these pages, is universally received by
Homceopathists. Professor Henderson does indeed
allow, in speaking of the " exuberance of Hahnemann's details," that he " did err in recording trivial
occurrences among the symptoms that followed the
taking of the medicines."  But he denies that " his
error in the smallest degree affects the practical use
of his provings." A strange assertion is this. All
error does practical harm, and just in proportion to the
amount of the error. If Hahnemann in his provings
has recorded but few " trivial occurrences," as Dr.
Henderson seems to think, then his error is small, and
the " practical use of the provings" is but little impaired. But, if what is trivial and irrelevant vastly
preponderates over what bears any relation to the
remedy, then the provings are worthless in practice.
And this is just the truth in regard to those provings
which were made with the ordinary doses.  Very
nearly all the records of their effects are irrelevant,
and what is relevant cannot be separated from the
mass of rubbish with which it is mingled. And the
provings by infinitesimal doses have not even an infinitesimal amount of relevancy.




70                HOEMCEOPAT~Y.
There are two errors in Homceopathic provings
which are fatal to their practical usefulness; viz.:
disregarding the  difference  between  ordinary and
infinitesimal doses, and assuming that all phenomena
in the system come from the medicine under trial.
And, even if it be true, as Homoeopathists assert, that
our knowledge of the influence of any medicine upon
disease is to be derived from observation of its effects
upon the healthy, this observation, in order to be of
any practical value, must be conducted upon principles entirely different from those of the Homceopathic
provings.




CHAPTER IV.
EXAMINATION OF THE DOCTRINES OF HOM(EOPATHY,
CONTINUED.
THERE is much discrepancy between different leading Homceopathists in relation to the range of their
doses; and not only so, but the practice of each one
presents discrepancies, which show conclusively that
Homceopathic observation of the influence of remedies
upon disease is valueless. That the reader may see
for himself that this is so, I will devote a little space
to the examination of this point.
The doses administered in Homoeopathic practice,
especially at the present time, have an exceedingly wide
range. Hahnemann himself, although he recomnmended the thirtieth dilution for common use, and
asserted that even the smell of a globule containing the
one thousandth part of a drop of this dilution, would,
in some susceptible cases cure disease, did sometimes
resort to even Allopathic doses, as for example in the
treatment of cholera with camphor. Professor Henderson says that modern Homceopathists employ,




72                 II0MEOPATHY.
especially in acute diseases, the lower attenuations
for the most part, and sometimes even the original
" mother tinctures." Laurie, of Edinburgh, says that
he considers " the whole range from the first attenuation to the thirtieth, and even upwards, useful, according to the nature of the case."  And Dr. Marcy of
New York, (a prominent Homceopathist, I suppose, as
he has published a system of theory and practice, and
is one of the editors of a Homceopathic Journal), remarks —' We are constantly presented with wellauthenticated cures by the undiluted tinctures and
low dilutions, and have also as thoroughly understood
and successfully practised the higher attenuations."
His idea is, that there are " almost, innumerable gradations of impressibility," requiring  corresponding
variations of doses; and this seems to be the idea of
Homo-opathists generally.  The Homceopathic physician must, I think, have uncommon discrimination,
if he can decide correctly in the case of each patient,
to what point in this almost infinite scale of susceptibilities he belongs. And if he should chance to err,
and give a dose of a low dilution, or of a "mother tincture" to a patient so susceptible, that he ought only
to smell of a globule moistened with the thousandth
part of a drop of the thirtieth dilution, the effect must
be horribly destructive.
If medicines produce in infinitesimal doses such
effects as are attributed to them, and if there be such
wide differences in the susceptibility of the sick, it
must be very important to fix upon exactly the right




ITS DOCTRINES EXAMINED.           73
dose in each case. And if an infinitesimal dose of a
medicine, carefully prepared with just the right
amount of agitation and trituration, be appropriate to
a case, then it would certainly be very injurious to
the patient to give a million of such doses at once.
Nothing can be more obvious than this; and yet
Homceopathists do not appear to be aware of it, for in
their dosing of the sick they jump about among the
millionths, billionths, quadrillionths, and decillionths,
with a sort of frisky freedom.
The range of doses in Allopathy is somewhat
smaller than the range of doses in Homceopathic practice. For example, while the Allopathic physician
calls the one sixth bf a grain of tartar emetic a very
small dose, and three grains (eighteen times that
amount) a large one, the Homceopathic physician calls
the decillionth of a grain a small dose, and a million,
billion, quadrillion of such doses, what? Why, a
small dose too. The arithmetic of Homceopathy seems
to deprive those who venture its airy flights of all
power of appreciating differences of quantity. Differences as wide as that between an atom and a world,
they seem hardly to note or to know.
That my readers may see that I am not misrepresenting Homceopathic practice, I will refer them to
some cases reported by Prof. Henderson. He is, perhaps, less adventurous than most Homceopathists in
his leaps among the millions and trillions and decillions; and yet these cases show that it is not at all
uncommon for him to change the medicine which he
4




'74              IIOM(EOPATHY.
is giving in any case to the amount of six, twelve,
even eighteen dilutions.
As one reads these reports of cases, the changes do
not strike him as being so very great, because they
are announced with such small figures. But if he
undertake to estimate them, he finds that they are
imimense.  Thus, when belladonna 12, is changed for
belladonna 6, the alteration seems small, because the
figures are so. But, in reality, a drop of belladonna
6 (the 6th dilution) contains, as I reckon it, just one
hundred millions of millions more of the belladonna
than a drop of the 12th dilution does. But he makes
much greater leaps than this in his dosings. I could
cite many examples from  these cases, but one must
suffice. In the case to which I refer (which the
reader will find on page 42 of HIenderson's Inquiry),
the patient had taken, during the (day, " bellad. 18,"
every hour, for three doses, and then every two hours,
and at night it was changed for " bellad. 6"-a
change, you observe, of twelve dilutions; and how
many millions of millions that is, I will not stop to
calculate.  What a change of susceptibility must
have occurred in only a few hours in that patient, to
require such an enormous change in the amount of
the dose! Or, perhaps, there was no such change of
susceptibility; but the Professor found that the
patient was not as susceptible as he first supposed,
and that, on that account, he increased the dose. If
so, I do not understand how he knew just what point
to strike in this tremendous leap on the scale of doses.




ITS DOOUTRUES EXAMINED.                15
That he did strike the right point, I suppose that he
deemed to be certain; for he continued( the medicine
in the same dose the next day, and the day after the
patient was well enough to go to his work.*
Absurd as this wide range of doses from  the wealker
to the stronger attenuations is, it is still more absurd
when Homccopathists extend it still farther, and take
in, as they now  very generally do, the common forims
of medicines.  If, however, a  mathematical law of
the comparative effects of doses, which Hahnemana
announces in his Organon as discovered by him, be
really an established law, it at least lessens very
materially the absurdity of this awide range of dosing.
On the 297th page, he says: "The effects of a dose
are by no means diminished in the same proportion as
the quantity of the medicinal substance is attenuated."
And in a note he states the law very definitely, thus:
" Suppose that one drop of a mixture containing the
tenth of a grain of any medicinal substance produces an
effect= a; a drop of another mixtu recontaining merely an  hundredth part of a grain of this same substance, will only produce an effect= -; if it contains a ten thousandth part of a grain, the effect will
be-; and if a millionth, it will be= =; and so on
progressively.  The effects of the remedy on the body
* Such cases show, either that it makes no difference what dilution
is given, or that Homeeopathic doctors have a wonderful tact at estimating degrees and chances of susceptibility. an(d that oni a scale almaost
infinite. The latter horn of the dilemma will probalbly be accepted
by most o~ them, as their modesty is rather Homncet)patvhtic iol amrount,
and is apt to admit of assumptions of wisdom.




76                HIOMEOPATIY.
will merely be diminished about one half each time
that the quantity is reduced nine tenths of what it
was before."  All this has a very scientific air, and
lools like realizing the anticipation of Hahnernann,
that the art of curing would at length " approach to
the same degree of certainty as the science of mathematics." And if this doctrine be true, it is certainly
a very important and wonderful discovery. But, for.
mally and explicitly as it was announced, it never
seemed to gain any currency among the followers of
Hahnemann; and I believe that he himself has never
even alluded to it in any other place in all his extensive works.
There is glaring inconsistency in the wide range of
doses now so universally adopted by Homoeopathists.
If both ordinary doses and infinitesimal ones cure disease, they must obviously do it in different ways.
The action of the potentized infinitesimal upon the
svstem must be regulated by different principles from
those which govern the action of the same article in
its crude form.  This truth is sometimes distinctly
recognized by Hahnemann and other Homceopathic
writers, in contrasting the effects of " coarse medicines" and attenuated ones. And yet they continually
disregard it, both in their reasonings and in their
practice.
Let me then illustrate this truth in a familiar manner You see a heavy weight raised by a rope. Suppose now that some one take from that rope a filament so small that it is invisible, and with this raises




ITS DOCTRINES EXAMINED.            77
the same weight. We should say at once that the
rope and the filament do not raise the wreight upon
the same principles-that some new power is given to
the filament which is not possessed by the rope.
True,' says the Homccopathist,' that is clear enough;
and we claim that a new power is given to medicine
by trituration and attenuation!' Why then, I ask, (1do
vou not adhere to this view of the subject?  You are:asistent with yourself.  While you say that a.r power is given to the infinitesimal which does not
Belong to the medicine in its crude state. and that by
this power it cures disease; you at the same time
claim, that the law, sirmilia si'milibus curantur, is the
principle  on which both infinitesimals and crude
medicines effect cures, which is as absurd as to say
that the invisible filament raises the weight upon the
same principle that the rope does.
But perhaps you will say that it is by some portion
of the crude medicine, which by accident becornes
attenuated, that the cure is efflctedl, and that the
same result would have been obtained if only an infinitesimal quantity of the same article had been used.
If so, why use the mother tinctures and the crude
medicines at all?  And especially do I ask, why use
the crude camphor in one of the most formidable of all
diseases-the cholera; a practice which, so far as I
know, is universal among Hornceopathists?
The reader has observed that Hahnemann re(gards
disease as a mere  group of symptoms.  He has
nothing to do with their causes, and he uni



78                 HOMIEOPATHY.
formly speaks with contempt of all efforts on. the part
of physicians " to search the interior of the human
economy."  Upon this point he holds this language" In what manner the vital principle produces morbid
indications in the system, is to the physician a useless
question, and will therefore, for ever remain unanswered.  Only that which is necessary for him  to
know of the disease, and which is fully sufficient for
the purposes of cure, has the Lord of Life rendered
evident to the senses."  It is the external symptoms,
therefore, that  alone constitute  in his view  the
disease, which he is to attack with his remedies.
And such are the views of Homccopathists generally.  An abundance of evidence might be cited to
prove this; but I will only quote as a specimen the
language of Dr. Hering, one of the most prominent
H-Iomopathists in. this country.  " The sole inquiry
of the physician," says he, "is after the symptoms,
because the symptoms alone determine his choice of a
remedy; and upon the fullness or accuracy with which
these are noticed, rests the entire management of the
cure.  All therefore depends upon the correct examination of the patient, andt not upon any possible opinions concerning the naature and essence of the disease,
nor upon learned views concerning its concealed seat;
Lothing indeed but the symptoms are to be accepted
as the guide of the treatment, because in them  no
error is possible."
Very diflerent from this are the views of Allopathi(
physicians.  They find out, so far as they can, the




ITS DOCTRINES EX AMIINIED.        79
causes of the symptoms, the seat and the nature of
the disease, and for this purpose look at all the evidence which the present condition and the past history
of the case furnish.  We will take a very familiar
example. If a patient have pain in the head, the
rational physician considers it important to discover
whether this symptom is produced by a disordered
stomach, a determination of blood to the head, or
some other cause; and applies his remedies accordingly.  But the Homceopathist regards all such
inquiries as " useless questions," and aims his remedies only at a group of symptoms, of which the pain
in the head is one.
As Homceopathists look only at the symptoms which
are " evident to the senses" as their guide in the,
treatment of disease, a knowledge of " the interior of
the human economy," however interesting it may be
to the curious mind, is of no manner of advantage to
them.  They ther)efore, as a body, wholly neglect the
study of anatomy, physiology and pathology.  These
have no place in the science of their therapeutics.
Some affect to deny this charge; but it is useless.
The evidence of its truth is to be found on almost
every page of standard writers on Homceopathy.  The
neglect of these departments of medical science,
being the legitimate result of their doctrine, is everywhere palpably manifest.
Homceopathists attempt to support their doctrines
by a great variety of illustrations, all of which are




80                HOMCEOPATHY.
grossly fallacious. The fallacy of a few of them, I
propose now to point out to the reader.
Many illustrations are drawn by Homceopathists
from the effects of medicines in ordinary doses, wellpulverised or diluted.  They would have us admit
that, because some grains of a remedy will produce
more effect when thus prepared than when it is given
in a crude unprepared state in a large amount, therefore a single grain of it diffused through a liquid more
in bulk than the whole world, or even many worlds,
will give to each drop a peculiar medicinal power-a
conclusion which is altogether too great a leap for
common minds, and is within the capabilities only of
such minds as have been " spiritualized" and "dynamized" by the etherealizing processes of Homceopathic
belief.
The fallacy of the illustration from vaccination so
often used by Homceopathists is of a similar character.
Here an effect which pervades the whole system, it is
true, is produced by a very small quantity of matter.
But how small? Is it infinitesimal? Certainly not.
Let the Homxeopathist, instead of vaccinating some
fifty or an hundred persons with a grain of the virus,
make a solution of it so weak, that if a whole grain
were used it would be diffused through whole oceans
of water, and then let him vaccinate with this solution, and if he succeed in producing the vaccine vesicle, I will grant that his illustration would have some
show of reason. But even then it would be in fact
materially defective. For while the vaccine virus has




rTS DOC'TRINES EXAMINED.           81
the power of reproducing itself, and thus spreads from
the mere point where, it is introduced and affects the
whole system, the infinitesimal globule has no such
power, and if it produce any effect, must (do it in
altogether a different manner.
The same fallacy is seen in the illustrations which
are drawn from the extreme divisibility of matter.  A
single specimen will be sufficient to exhibit the fallacy
of all these illustrations.
Dr. Stratten, in his Preface to Hahnemann's Organon, in alluding to the scepticism of many in regard
to the efficiency of infinitesimal doses, relates an experiment which he says "may serve to explain the
degree of dilution substances are capable of. One
grain of nitrate of silver was dissolved in fifteen hundred and sixty grains of distilled water, to which were
added two grains of muriatic acid-a gray precipitate
of chloride of silver was evident in every part of the
liquor."
Dr. Stratten would have, us believe, that because
the grain of nitrate of silver diflfused in fifteen hundred and sixty grains of water, could  be visibly
detected by a chemical test, therefore a grain of it,
diffused through more water than is contained in all
the rivers, and lakes, and seas, and oceans on the
earth, would impart to every drop of it a medicinal
power, that would produce manifest effects upon the
system, and be effectual in removing disease.  Like
other Hornceopathists, Dr. Stratten is somewhat careless as to relative quantities.  If he should infer that




82                IIOM(EOPATIIY.
because a rock or an elephant can crush a man, therefore a pebble or a flea can do the same, this inference,
absurd as it is, would be nothing like as absurd as the
one which he makes in regard to his experiment; for
there is vastly less difference between a rock and a
pebble, and between an elephant and a flea, than
there is between his solution of nitrate of silver and
the higher attenuations of Hahnemann.
But the error of Dr. Stratten's inference is not one
of quantity merely.  The fact that a substance diffused very minutely in a liquid can be detected by a
chemical test, does not bear in the least upon the
question, whether an extremely small quantity of an
article minutely divided can affect the human system
and cure disease.  The two result>  have no relation,
and no inference can be drawn from the one in regard
to the other.  No relation exists between them, even
if the attenuation to which the test is applied is as
minute as that which is used as a medicine-much
less when it is vastly less minute. As well might
Dr. Stratten infer that, because he can distinctly see
his cow at a mile's distance, therefore her bellowing can
he heard at the distance of a thousand or even a million of lmiles, as that, because a grain of nitrate of
silver'diffused in fifteen hundred and sixty grains of
water can be detected by a little muriatic acid, therelore a single drop of a solution of it millions of millions
of times weaker than this can produce perceptible medicinal effects upon the human system. The want of




ITS DOCTRINES EXA&MINED.          83
relation between the results is as palpable in the one
case as in the other.
Homceopathists often speak of the imponderable
agents as illustrating the action of their attenuated
medicines, just as if powers can be given to common
matter by trituration and dilution similar to those
which are possessed by light, electricity and heat.
Joslin says-" The higher attenuations are, in one
sense, imponderable agents. Their medicinal part
has no appreciable weight. Like light, caloric and
electricity, they possess great activity."  And he asks,
"' Who can say that if ponderable matter were made
sufficiently fine, it would not exhibit as astonishing
powers as light, caloric, or electricity? Who can say
that these imponderable agents do not derive their
activity from that very circumstance?"
What a brilliant idea, that light and heat and electricity are only common matter attenuated to a high
degree, deriving all their powers from mere comminution, as Joslin believes, or from  the " downward
shakes" of Hahnemann, given to it in the great refining laboratories of nature. It is with such views of
the astonishing revelations to which Homceopathy is
introducing us, that Joslin says-" It is the destiny
of Homceopathia, not only to effect a glorious revolution in the art of healing, but to lead to new views
of the constitution of matter. She is to become the
handmaid of physical science, as well as the mistress
of practical medicine."  We are to hail " the sage of
Coethen" not only as the "' Newton of medicine," but




84              IHOMCEOPATHY.
as a second Newton in the wide kingdom of general
science!
Dr. Joslin gives the following illustration of what
he deems to be the difference between Allopathy and
Homceopathy in practice-" Had it been customary
with the older surgeons to extract splinters from the
fingers by pounding them with a hammer, and some
one had ultimately hit upon the expedient of doing it
with a needle, should we not have heard a great out.
cry against the innovation?  Says the old orthodox
surgeon,' This small-dose system has no efficiency.
I have been pounding here for two hours, and the
splinter has barely started.  My instrument is efficient,
as you have evidence in the bruises. Do you think to
dislodge the splinter with your insignificant Homceopathic needle point?  It is contrary'to the experience
of three thousand years; it is contrary to all analogy.
I would as soon think of harnessing a musquito before
my gig. I have deliberately adopted this maximn: to
believe nothing which is incredible except on evidence
which is overwhelming.'  The surgeon of the new
school replies-' Your instrument is ponderous and
powerful, but not efficacious. Its force is worse than
wasted on the living and distant parts. You might
pound the patient to a jelly, before the splinter would
come out. If you happen now and then to hit it, you
are just as likely to drive it in. My instrument is
small but effective. The whole secret consists in
applying the force at the right point and in the right
direction."




ITS DOCTRINES EXAMINED.                85
This is both amusing and plausible. But is it true?
Look a little at the terms of the comparison, and see
whether Dr. Joslin had a due regard to relative quantities in making them.  If you call to mind the Hornmeopathic arithmetic developed in a former part of this
essay, you will see that the difference between a hammer and such  a needle  as would  be serviceable in
getting out a splinter, is almost as nothing compared
with that between an ordinary dose of medicine and
an infinitesimal one. If the hammer is to be considered as representing an Allopathic dose, then a
needle, not only invisible, but so small as to defy all
calculation or conception, must represent the Homceopathic dose.* That such a needle can get out a
splinter, is just about as " incredible" as that infinitesimal doses can cast out disease; and we should hardly
be deemed unreasonable, if we refuse to believe it,
"' except on evidence which is overwhelming."   Besides, if the hammer represent medicine in its
ordinary dose, almost all Homecopathists sometimes,
not to say often, use the hammer, and  Hahnemann
himself used it in preference to the needle in the case
of the cholera-splinter.
Hahnemann, in his illustrations of his theory
presses everything  into service that has the merest
* The same criticism could be made upon nearly all Dr. Joslin's
liustrations, as to his disregard of relative quantities. For example,
ie speaks of the:'succussed" preparations of Hahnemann having such
curative power, that we can cure with them' the most violent disease
in a man by a dose which would not harm a mouse"7-he should have
said a flea-nay more, an invisible mite.




86                 HOMCEOPATHY.
shadow of analogy to his ruling idea. I will give a
few examples from a note on the 117th page of the
Organon.
" Physical and moral diseases," he says, " are cured
in the same manner;" and of this truth he gives the
following illustrations.
"Why does the brilliant planet Jupiter disappear in
the twilight from  the eyes of him who gazes at it?
Because a similar but more potent power, the light of
breaking day, then acts upon these organs."  So then,
the sight of the planet Jupiter is, in the view of this
second Newton of physical science, a physical disease
in toa I" eyes of him who gazes at it," and it is removed
in acordance with sirnzilia similibus curantur, by " a
similar but more potent power, the light of breaking
day."  The dose, however, in this case, is not an infinitesimal; but the greater the dose of light the more
perfect the cure.
"With what are we in the habit of flattering the
-nfactory nerves when offended by disagreeable odors?
With snuff, which affects the nose in a similar manner, but more powerfully."  WVill a sniff from a phial
containing a globule impregnated with the thirtieth
dilution do this, or is it the experience of the old
ladies that a good round Allopathic (lose is necessary?
"By what means does the soldier cunningly remove
from the ears of the compassionate spectator the cries
of him who runs the gauntlet? By the piercing
tones of the fife coupled with the noise of the drum.
By what means do they'drown the distant roar of the




ITS DOCTRINES EXAMINED.                 87
enemy's cannon, which carries terror to the heart of
the soldier? By the deep-mouthed clamor of the big
drum." Here come the large doses again. But if
Homceopathy apply to this case, the " big drum" is
not needed, but the finest squeak of a mouse trod
upon by a soldier, should suffice to cure the whole
army of its fear of the enemy's cannon.
" In the same manner mourning and sadness are
extinguished in the soul when the news reach us
(even though they were false) of a still greater misfortune occurring to another." So then, in accordance
with the sole law, all other sources of consolation,
even those of religion, are useless; and when any one
is afflicted, the only way to cure him of this " moral
disease," is to tell him of some one who has it much
worse than he has. In this case, too, it seems that
an infinitesimal dose will not answer. If a man break
his leg, it will not cure him  of his " mourning and
sadness" to tell him  of some one that has hurt his
little finger-a dose as large as two broken legs, or
even a broken neck, will be required, especially if the
patient is not very susceptible.*
* Though there may be in these cases of "moral disease," Dr.
Marcy's " almost innumerable gradations of impressibility," they do not
seem to admit of his infinitely wide range of doses. To be consistent
with his Homceopathy, (and this is that of most of his sect,) while the
stout imperturbable man, bowed down with " mourning and sadness"
should require a truly Allopathic dose of others' woes to cure him;
if the case, on the other hand, be that of a delicate hysterical lady, ever
ready to feel and to weep, the story of some accident to a mosquito,
a flea, or even a mite, poured into her ear in almost inaudible whispers,




88                  IOM(EOPATHY
Mr. Marmaduke  Sampson, an  English  amateur
Homceopathist, outstrips even the great exemplar in
some of his moral illustrations. For example, he
says-" The symptoms of mental excitement produced by ardent spirits, are in like manner most
quickly and effectually overcome by means capable
of  producing  symptoms of an  analogous kind.  A
fright will do this, or any other sudden cause; and
hence Cassio's immediate recovery from intoxication
under Othello's reproof, is strictly in accordance with
nature."   Cassio's account of the matter, in reply to
Iago's  inquiry, " How  came  you  thus  recovered?"
was, as the reader will recollect,'" It hath pleased the
devil, drunkenness, to give place to the devil, wrath."
Though by a stretch of fancy we might make out
some little resemblance between these two devils,
there certainly is not enough in the "' totality" of their
characteristics to make one devil homceopathic to
the other. A bucket of cold water woul(l have been
quite as effectual a cure for Cassio's intoxication as
Othello's reproof was; and this remedy for such an
excited inflammatory moral disease, is decidedly Antipathic, not Homceopathic in its character.
should suffice to relieve her. This infinitesimal dose of woe, should, by
virtue of its " affinity" for the disease, go directly to it, as surely as the
dynamized globule does, and any very large dose would "put in jeopardy the life of the patient," by introducing an "artificial dise:ise"
which the "vital force" would not be competent to remove. But
whatever may be the experience of Homceopathists on this point, I
have never heard of such a patient's being overwhelmed, or having her
heart broken. by the bungling administration of too large a dose, too
heavy a tale of others' sorrows.




ITS DOCTRINES EXAMINED.           89
But enough of these illustrations. I will not weary
the reader with going through all even of the most
common and prominent illustrations which we find
in Homeopathic books, as substitutes for arguments
and proofs.  The totality of these fallacies is a largo
and incongruous totality.
The inconsistencies of Homceopathy are glaring and
numerous.  We find them  alike in its statements, its
reasonings, and its practice.  I have exposed many
of them incidentally in the course of my examination
of this system; but it may be well to notice some of
the principal ones together, that the reader may see
what a medley of inconsistencies this so called science
presents.
The reason that attenuated medicines produce such
a decided effect in the removal of disease is, according
to Hahnemann and all Hommopathists, that the diseased parts are in a very susceptible stat;e-implying,
that if there were no such increased sensibility, the
infinitesimal would not produce  any effect, or at
least an exceedingly slight one. Yet in the provings
upon the healthy, in whom  this reason for a decided
influence from the infinitesimal does not exist, they
record a large number of very decided effects from
infinitesimals.  To this they add another inconsistency still more gross and palpable. They record in
their collections of provings indiscriminately, symptoms occurring under the use, of both cru(le drugs and
dynamized infinitesimals; though they assert that
the latter act upon the system  by virtue of a new




90        -        IOMCEOPATHY.
power given to them in their preparation, and of
course cannot produce effects analogous to those of the
former. And, to complete this jumble of inconsistencies, while they thus mingle together in these records
the effects of crude and attenuated medicines, they
explicitly assert, as an argument against the use of
large doses, that the apparent effects of such (loses are
for the most part, sometimes entirely, the efforts of
the system to resist and throw off the medicine, and
that its legitimate effects can be ascertained only by
administering it in small doses.
Again, in relation to doses. It is said that the
amount of the dose must be proportioned to the degree
of susceptibility in the sick; and some, perhaps we
may say most Homccopathists, find such differences
of susceptibility in their patients, that their range of
doses takes in not only all the attenuations, but even
the "mother tinctures" and crude drugs.  Now the
susceptibility is generally greater in acute than in
chronic cases, and therefore, according to the rule, the
higher attenuations should be particularly applicable
to acute diseases. But no. They are used most in
chronic cases, and in the acute the lower attenuations,
and even medicines in. their " coarse" form are employed.
Though Hahnemann was so exceedingly particular
in " dynamizing" his infinitesimals, and so absolute
and positive in rejecting the coarser forms of medicines, yet he prescribed camphor in the coarser form
for so grave a disease as cholera. And his followers




ITS DOCTRINES EXAMINED.           91
have universally adopted this practice, and reckon
their greatest triumphs in the treatment of this disease
with Allopathic doses. There is certainly an apparent inconsistency in this abandonment of infinitesirmals in the treatment of cholera. Perhaps it can be
shown to be only apparent and not real; but, so far as
I know, no one has attempted to do this, and the most
profound silence has been observed on this point by all
Homceopathists, though the inconsistency has been
pointed out to them again and again.
Great pains have been taken by Homczopathists to
collect the totality of the effects of every medicine,
and much stress is laid upon the importance of tracing, in each case, the relation between this totality
and its counterpart, that is, the totality of symptoms
belonging to the disease of which the medicine is the
cure. Accordingly it is claimed, and if the premises
be correct, the claim is a true one, that much study
and skill are requisite in order to trace this relation
faithfully, and that therefore, while Allopathy requires
but little research, no one can be successful in Homccopathic practice unless he be a hard student and a
skilful observer. But is this relation between the
totalities really made the subject of much study by
Homccopathic physicians? Do they make any use of
the monstrous groups of symptoms recorded in Hahnemann's materia medica, in the investigation of cases
as they occur in daily practice? There is no evidence that they do; and, on the other hand, there is
much evidence that they do not. The records of




92                 HOM(EOPATHY.
cases which we find in their books and journals, instead of showing  minute  research, are ordinarily
exceedingly jejune, compared with the totalities of
the provings.  In their reasonings too, the large totalities are forgotten, and inferences are made from very
smnall groups of symptoms, or even from a single one.
Totalities, it seems, like the doses, enlarge and contract to their convenience, ranging from a solitary
symptom up to groups of a thousand or more, spread
over forty or fifty pages.  The boasted success of the
lady Iomceopathists, who practice with box and pamphlet, it may also be remarked, is hardly consistent
with the alleged necessity of severe study and minute
research in Homcmopathic practice. To them this
"difficult but beneficent art," as Hahnemann calls it,
seems in some way to be made wonderfully easy.
Great pretensions to accuracy are made by Homceopathists; and yet you have seen not only how much
they differ from each other in the range of their doses,
but how extremely loose they all are in regard to the
amounts of medicine they administer in different
cases; and sometimes even in the same case. So
loose are they in this respect, that the conclusion is
forced upon us, that it makes no difference to them,
or to the patient, whether the thirtieth dilution be
given, or one which is millions upon millions of times
stronger than this.  Their palpable inconsistency on
this practical point can be accounted for on no other
supposition.
To trace out the totality of the inconsistencies of




ITS DOCTRINES EXAMINED.          93
the Homceopathic doctrine and practice would be an
almost interminable task; and the group which I have
presented of some of the most prominent of them, will
suffice to convince the reader, that it is mockery to
bestow the name of science upon such a mass of in.
congruities as are found in Homceopathy.
Such is the character of the system of medicine
founded by Hahnemann. If I have represented it
truthfully, its great central doctrine, if true at all,
applies only to a very small range of phenomena;
its mode of observation is capable of establishncg no
facts, and it is therefore of no practical use; and
the treatment of disease, based upon this mode of
observation, must therefore be utterly absurd.




CHAPTER V.
PRACTICAL EVIDENCES OF HOM(EOPATHY.
BUT it is said by the advocates of Homceopathy,
that whatever may be thought of its doctrines, in
practice it is successful; and therefore it must be
true.
I-lere we come to the very citadel of Homceopathists. Whenever their doctrine is most clearly shown
to be absurd, they retreat at once to the argument, of
which every quack from time immemorial has been so
fond.'There are our cures-our facts,' say they.' On them, after all, we rely for the proof of the truth
of our doctrine.' The claims of Homceopathists on
this point are exceedingly impudent. Joslin but echoes
the general voice of his sect, when he says-" Hahnemann was the first who made well-ascertained facts
the essential basis of the whole therapeutic fabric;"
as if all physicians before him were a set of theorists
and dreamers, and were no discoverers of facts. And
he asserts it to be the grand peculiarity of Hahnemann



PRACTICAL EVIDENCES.            95
ism, that it relies upon facts, and facts alone.  He
ranks it in this respect with the Baconian philosophy,
and even with Christianity itself. On this point he
says-" Christianity was presented to the world in
the shape of facts. It was a grand exhibition of the
inductive method of philosophy. Now we may also
claim  for Homceopathy an inductive character, and
for its believers a rational regard for the evidence of
their senses."  And again he says —" Such has been
the course pursued by the disciples of Bacon, and also
by the disciples of a still greater Master.  These appealed to facts as the basis of their belief, and warned
their brethren against the prevalent " philosophy,"
-which was far from  being inductive.  The Greeks
sought "' alter wisdom," after plausible hypotheses,
and therefore rejected the facts and the true wisdom.'L'he sophists, the self styled philosophers, held the
same position as those medical sceptics of our day,
who array  a priori argument, barely  plausible,
against facts well attested."
Such being the claims of Homceopathists in regard
to the practical proofs of the truth of their system, I
wish the reader to examine with me candidly and
faithfully the character of their boasted facts.
It is alleged in proof of the truth of Homcopathy
by those who believe in it, that they have themselves
witnessed cures performed by Homceopathic remedies.
That they have seen persons restored to health while
taking these remedies, I will allow; but this by no
means proves that the remedies cured them. Some



960               HOMcEOPATIHY.
thing more than the relation of antecedent and conse.
quent is required to prove a real connection between
the remedy and the recovery.  The fallacious reasoning which is very prevalent on this point, both in the
profession and in the community at large, is the great
source of the delusion and quackery that abound in
the world, and it has its full share of influence in
maintaining the hold of Homceopathy upon the popular belief. I will therefore illustrate this point with
some particularity.
In every case of disease there are many elements at
work; and we accordingly see various actions mingled
together in a manner more or less confused, viz,;
actions strictly morbid in their character-actions dependent upon the natural course of the disease-restorative actions-those resulting from sympathy between
the organ particularly diseased and other organs-and
those which are produced by external agencies, some
of which are known and others are unknown.  All of
these are to be taken into the account in estimating,
in any case, the influence of remedies. With the
observance of the utmost caution there is liability to
mistake in our inferences on this point; and the liability is very great if the observer is incautious, and
especially if he is wedded to any theory or system.
And in the case of Homceopathy this liability is unu.
sually great; because Homceopathic observation makes
almost no allowance for the operation of the different
elements to which I have referred, but shuts its eyes
to the existence of nearly all of them, and with a




PRACTICAL EVIDENCES.             97
wholesale credulity attributes nearly everything to the
agency of its potentized infinitesimals.
Different degrees and kinds of proof are needed in
different cases to establish a connection between the
remedy and the recovery. As a general rule, it is
true, that the more apt a disease is to end in recovery,
the greater is the liability to mistake as to the influence of remedies. For example, in tetanus (lock-jaw),
so apt is the disease to end in death, that if any particular remedy or course is followed by a recovery,
there is strong presumptive proof that the remedy or
course cured the disease; and but a few such cases
would be required to establish its value in the treatment of this malady. In this case all the elements
commonly work wrong, or at least fail to do good.
If therefore any element which is added is followed
by a recovery, even though it be tested upon only a
few cases, we may safely conclude that the additional
element is not only the antecedent, but the cause of
the cure. But in a case where the elements work
variously, well or ill, it is not so easy to discover the
exact influence of the added element. For example,
in such diseases as pneumonia and fever, in which the
restorative agencies are prominent in the movements
of the case, and are ordinarily competent to effect a
recovery without the aid of art, it requires accurate
and varied observation to determine the real influence
of any remedy.  Especially is this true in regard to
those diseases which vary much in the different cases
in their tendency to a recovery.  Scarlet fever and.5




98                HOMZCEOPA TIY.
cholera may be cited as examples. Accordingly a
loose observation of these diseases in different localities and at different times has given to us a vast
variety of remedies and modes of treatment, each
demonstrated, as it is claimed, by experience to be preeminently successful.
The application of these principles is well illustrated in the cure and prevention of that dreadful
disease, hydrophobia.  So strong is the tendency of
this malady to end in death, that but a small number
of cases would be required to establish the value of
any true remedy. But, on the other hand, a very large
number of well-observed facts would be needed to
prove any article to be a real preventive, because so
few of those who are bitten by dogs supposed to be
mad have the disease, whatever be the treatment.  It
is from a disregard of the principles which I have
indicated that so many preventives of this malady
have been successively adopted and discarded by the
public. If there really be any preventive, there has
as yet been no observation of such a character as
could establish its claims.
Let the believer in Homceopathy apply these plain
principles in his observation of disease, and he will
find that much doubt will at once be thrown over the
results which are claimed to be effected by the infinitesimal globules; and he will be convinced that an
accurate sifting of evidence is necessary to determine
whether any, and if any how many, of the apparent
cures of Homceopathy are anything more than apparent.




PRACTICAL EVIDENCES.            99
But the advocate of Homceopathy will say that he
does not judge from single cases; but that he has
seen much of Homceopathic practice in his own and
in other families, and compared it in relation to its
results with Allopathic practice. But is he sure that
his experience has been of such a range and of such
a character, as to warrant his conclusions? I would
suggest the propriety of a little caution on this point;
for I have often known such conclusions, though very
firmly adopted, to be given up from after experience,
and similar conclusions to be as firmly adopted in
their stead, in regard to some other mode of practice.
Besides, the advocates of all the various systems of
practice, and of all the numberless quack remedies,
found their conclusions as to the success of their
favorite remedy or system upon the same kind of experience. Each thinks all the rest to be mistaken,
and perhaps pities their credulity, and dreams not
that he commits an error precisely like theirs in his
reliance upon the post hoc propter hoc mode of reason.
ing. The same is true to some extent also, of those
physicians who have been the warm advocates of any
one mode or system  of practice to the exclusion of
others. Each founds his preference upon experienceupon what he has seen of the results of different
modes of practice. But all of these exclusive systems
have, one after another, passed away; because a
wider, more varied, and more prolonged experience,
has shown the conclusions of their advocates to be
false. All this ought surely to teach the Homoeopa



100                HOMCEOPATHY.
thist some caution in making inferences from an experience of so narrow a range, as that which only a
few families can furnish.
But it is said further, that many Homceopathic physicians once practised Allopathy; and that their
testimony is very decided as to the comparative success
of the two modes. Even allowing the conversion in
every case to have been a rational one, produced by
an honest and intelligent examination of evidence, and
not one which resulted at all from pecuniary considerations, I think their testimony is not to be received
implicitly, and without some questioning on our part.
From what, I ask, have they been converted? From.Allopathy, you say.  But what is Allopathy?  Is it
one thing-one mode-one system?  By no means.
This term  is applied to all kinds of practice pursued
ty all regular physicians. It is a very extended, and;t xery diversified combination.  It includes much
thliat is good, and much that is bad.  And the practitioners of this Allopathy are, some of them, bad
1-r-actitioners.   Suppose now  that the converts  to
-iomnCopathy are from this class, and not from among
tli; j-udicious practitioners.  If this be the case, then
4t1ir testimony to the greater success of Homceopa-'ic practice is good for nothing in regard to the quesor t, whether aj'dicious Allopathy is less successful
t;han Homiceopathy.  It only shows that Homeopathy
i,; better than bad Allopathy.  And this is undoubtc<l1y true; for doing noitohingzo in the treatnient of
JV,          Z V,,   c




PRACTICAL EVIDENCES.                      101
disease, is better  than  doing  badly  can  be  zn any
form.
I wish not to speak harshly of Homceopathic physicians; but truth  obliges me to say, that so  far as  I
know, those regular physicians. who have become Homocopathists, did  not bear the  character of judicious
practitioners  previous to their conversion.   And they
are doing less harm   now  with their sins of omission,
than they would have done if they had continued their
sins of commission  in  their undiscriminatinc   overdosing.   Their testimony on that particular point can
be taken; but when they testify in  regard to that of
which they have had  no experience, ajudiciouts Allo.
pathy, Their testimony is clearly not admissible.*
Besides, Homrnopathy, that is, true, consistent Homceopathy, is not really put to a full test in the ordinary practice of its advocates.   To  make  a fair trial
of it, there should be a strict adherence to the principles of the system.   There  should  be  no  mixing  of' Much boasting has been made by IIomeopathists recently over the
conversion of a French physician, M. Tessier, to the infinitesimal practice. Taking his own account of the matter, it is quite clear that his
conversion is a very fortunate event for his patients.  His was certainly
bad Allopathy.  He was a perfect Sangrado.  How many times it was
common for him to bleed in pneumonia, (the disease in regard to which
he testifies.) he does not inform us; but he speaks; in his account of the
experiments which led to his conversion, of his " diminishing the bleedings by one, by two, by three, by four:" successively, introducing in
place thereof the Homceopathic remedies. It is no Mwonder that he found
Homeopathy more successful than scich Allopathy as he practised.  1[1.
Tessier in his conversion ceased to exhaust and kill his patients by profuse bleeding  he thinks that he saved them by infinitesimal globules.




102                     -IOMCEOPATHY.
practice-no resorting, either  openiy or by stealth, to
common doses, nor to other Allopathic measures, when
the infinitesimals fail, or when the physician fears to
trust them, on account of the violence of the  disease.
Now  Homceopathy is ordinarily put to no such test as
this. There is evidence in abundance that Homceopathists often resort to the Allopathic practice which
they so much condemn.* They have always used
* Of the many facts in proof of this, which have come to my knowledge, I will mention but two.
A  box, which was evidently the property of some Homeopathic
doctor, was picked up in New York, and was put into the hands of Dr.
James Stewart. It contains sixty-four phials. Most of these are filled
with little sugar pellets, and are labelled in the usual Homceopathic
style. There are some eight or ten, however, that are not thus labelled.
These contain calomel, morphine, Tartar Emetic, &c., in the usual form
and strength of Allopathists, the names being marked on the under side
of the corks, so that they might be concealed from the eye of any overcurious patient who might look into the box. The design of all this is
so obvious, that it needs no remark. The owner of the box has never
claimed his property, although it has been very effectually advertised
by being maide the subject o.f an article in a New York Journal.
A gentleman who was suffering severely from neuralia. was induced
by his fiiend( to dismiss his regular physician, and to place himself in
the hands of a prominent Homeopathic doctor in one of our cities.  As
the opiates upon which he had relied to obtain relief to his pain were
discontinued, his sufferings became intense.  EIe insisted upon having
something to relieve him; but the doctor refuised, because he did not
believe in palliatives, and wished, as he said, to strike at the root o.f the
difflculty.  On being told, however, by the patient, that he should go
back to Allopathy, if he did not give him relief; he left three powders,
which were "excessively bitter, more so," he says, "than anything I
ever tasted.'  No relief came. The next day the doctor said —"the
po wders 1 left yesterday were not strong enough-I will fix you to-day,"
and he left three more powders. After taking the last one, the patienf
soon became convuls d, then deranged, and he barely escaped death.




PRACTICAL EVIDENCES.                  103
ordinary doses in some cases; and now it has become
so common to do so, that they  are  openly shifting
their ground, and many, perhaps we may say most of
them, allow of the use of all kinds of doses. Some,
like Professor Henderson, admit in some cases even
such Allopathic measures as bleeding. The result of
all this is, that the artful Homceopathic physician is
enabled to secure all the benefit which accrues from
the popularity of the prevalent delusion, andl at
the same time escapes the sad results which would
occasionally follow a strict adherence to the principles
which he so stoutly, but so dishonestly advocates.
The ordinary testing of I-Iomccopathy is deficient in
still another respect.  The Homceopathic physician, if
he adhere with any degree of strictness to his infinitesimals, never has, at least for any length of time, a
practice of such a character as the Allopathic physician has-viz.; a steady family practice, remaining
very much the same from year to year. His practice
is more changeable than that of the Allopath. Though
some families, in whose circle no untoward event has
chanced to occur, may adhere to him  steadily, he has
The medicine was undoubtedly strychnine. And this enormous overdosing was done by a man who has been known to send corks from his
phials to a patient to smell of to cure her disease.
It is often said by those who conclude to try Homcopathy,-that it can
at least do no harm. But to say nothing of the valuable time often lost
in this miserable trifling, the patient lnows not but that he may be
cheated into dangerous medication, as was done in the case just cited,
and in that of the Duke de Canizarxo, who died a mnartyr to his confidence in Homoeopathic honesty.




104                 IIOZiE0OPATHY.
for the most part a very variable set of employers. Iie
has, too, a much larger proportion of chronic cases than
the Allopathic physician. People are not so ready to
trust him in acute, as they are in chronic diseases.
Now, to many of the chronic patients under his care,
it would be injurious to take much medicine, and globules "potentized"  by  their imaginations, coupled
with the confident promise of a certain, though gradual cure, are ordinarily the best medicines for them.
Many of this class of patients are always getting
better, but never get well; and such, though certainly
not very bright trophies of I-omceopathy in the eyes
of bystanders, are among the staunchest advocates of
the system.* The facts above referred to, I may
remark in passing, show why it is that Homceopathy
is most rife in large communities, especially in cities.
It cannot ordinarily live long in small places, because
it cannot find there successive sets of believers, as it
can in large communities.
The remarks which I have made in regard to the
general character of the practice of Homceopathic physicians, are well illustrated by a detail of cases given
by Professor Henderson. These cases are one hundred and twenty-two in number, taken from both
private and dispensary practice. They occurred, as I
see by the dates, during a period of eighteen months.
* A clerical friend who has seen much of Hommeopathic practice
says, that he never knew one of all the multitude of enthusiastic lady
Homcaopathists that was not always ailing and always taking pellets.
This I suspect iL true everywhere.




PRACTICAL EVIDENCES.           105
" The whole narrative of cases," he says, " is but the
transcript of notes of general practice," and " will
afford a tolerable specimen of what my own practice
has presented me on the subject." He gives us to
understand that he has made no selection from his
cases suggested by the effects of treatment; but has
presented all those of which he took notes at the time
of their occurrence, with the exception of " cases so
unimportant, that a detail of the speedily successful
issue of them  could not bear upon the question at
issue, unless hundreds of them  had been collected."
He leaves out also, I find, cases of consumption and
of fixed organic disease.' The cases recorded," Professor Henderson says, " constitute, I believe, scarcely
a fifth of those which I have treated Homceopathi.
cally.' The whole number thus treated by him was
therefore about six hundred.
About three-fourths of the one hundred and twentytwo cases described in his narrative, are cases of
cAironic diseases.  All cases of consumption and organic disease being excluded, this is a very large proportion of chronic cases of other kinds-vastly largler
than would be found in any fair representation of the
"general practice" of Allopathic physicians.  Most of
the thirty or thirty-five acute cases narrated by Dr.
Henderson are really not at all severe, and, as Dr.
Forbes says, "every physician of experience would
have expected them to get well under any treatment."' They are certainly so'" unimportant" that
his own rule should have excluded them.  Of the




106               HIOMCEOPATHY.
remainder of the acute cases, two are cases of lung
fever-a small number of patients with this disease,
surely, in a practice including six hundred cases.
And there are no cases of fever, pleurisy, acute inflarnmation of the bowels, colic, and many other diseases,
which are met with so frequently by Allopathic physicians, and which would be recorded by them in a
"transcript of notes of general practice."  It is
remarkable also that there are only five cases recorded
of disease in very young children; and of these one
is a case of chronic eruption, and another is one in
which Allopathic treatment had been pursued, and
death was at hand when Dr. Henderson was called,
so that he only gave a little medicine in compliance
with the importunities of the mother, and without
any effect. So then, Dr. Henderson in his " Notes of
a general practice," extending over a period of a year
and a half, and embracing about six hundred cases,
finds among the one hundred and twenty-two cases
worthy of record only three cases of acute disease in
young children which were important enough to be
noted down. And yet, in the practice of every Allopathic physician, a very large proportion of his patients
are young children; an(l if he were to note down, as
Professor Henderson did, one of every five of his cases,
in order to test the efficacy of any mode of practice in
its general application, very many of his cases would
be drawn from this class of patients.
If then Dr. Henderson has given in his narrative of
cases a fair and candid representation of his practice




PRACTICAL EVIDENCES.             107
as a Homceopathic physician, as I believe he has, at
least, so far as it can be done by one who is committed
to a " foregone conclusion," it is obvious that his practice embraces a much larger proportion both of mild
cases, and of chronic ones, than that of most Allopathic physicians.  Nnd this is true of Homaeopathists
generally. It is evident, therefore, that Tornmaeopathy
is subjected to no such thorough testing in daily practice as Allopathy is. It does not ordinarily have to
grapple with cases of every variety, and of every degree of severity. Indeed, it is very common for families, while they trust to Homceopathy in all mild
cases, to reserve to themselves the right to fall back
upon Allopathy, and even Allopathic physicians,
whenever disease assumes at all a grave aspect.  And
I cannot forbear remarking here, that such families
sometimes find to their sorrow that they have relied
upon the tiny dosing too long. They forget that disease
sometimes appears mild to the non-professional and
unskilled observer, while it may be in reality of the
gravest character. Some sad cases might be cited in
illustration, but it is not necessary.
But again, it is said that statistics show very
clearly that Homceopathic practice is much rmore successful than any form of Allopathic practice. But
are these statistics, I ask, to be received as being of
course correct and true?  The value of statistics, and
especially when they relate to therapeutics, depends
upon the principles on which they are collected, and
the mental and moral character of him who collects




108                OMC:EOPATf~Y.
them. It is often said that " figures cannot lie;" but
the annals both of quackery and of medicine show,
that false statements can be made as easily in figures
as they can be in words. Thorough, impartial observation is not a very common thing in medicine. That
the observer may be impartial, he must not only have
a strict veracity, but he must be bound to no theory
nor systern —he must be committed to no " foregone
conclusion."  This is especially true of therapeutical
facts, because they are so multiform, and because as
you have seen, they result from so many combined
agencies. And for the same reasons bare statistics in
therapeutics, even though they are collected in good
faith, are of little value, although it is quite fashionable just now to rely upon them even among medical
men. But if statistics are based upon a minute record
of individual cases, and are gathered by competent
and faithful observers, they are among the most valuable sources of knowledge in the treatment of disease.
If the statistics of Homeopathy be tested by the
principles which I have indicated, they will be found
wanting in those qualities which command our confidence. We will take for example its statistics of
cholera.  It was stated, after the first visitation of this
disease in Europe, as the grand result of these statistics,
that while the average mortality under the" regular"
treatment was about forty-nine in one hundred, under
Homceopathic treatment it was only about six in one
hundred. This, you will observe, is an enormous difference. If the statement was really true, it is wonder



PRACTICAL EVIDENCES.              109
ful that the Homceopathic treatment of this disease
has not been adopted by this time all over the world.
It would have been, if the statement had been believed.  But it has not been believed.
Let us see now whether physicians and the community generally have withheld their belief for good
reasons; or, as has been asserted by Homccopathists,
from a wilful and wicked obstinacy.  These statistics,
it is to be observed, are, for the most part at least,
bare statistics, unaccompanied with any details of
cases. They are made by men who are committed to
a theory and to a system of practice, and who show,
by their " provings" and their records of cases, that
they cannot be relied upon as accurate observers.
They proclaim, too, their statistics too mueh in the
advertising style of quackery.  This at least brings
suspicion upon them; and then, sometimes, even the
published statements of H-Iolrle,,opathic physicians in
regard( to their success, hav e becn j,-oveCd to b e faisse.
And besides, Hornwcopathists give us no definite statenient of the principles on which their statistics in the
cholera are collecteld.
This last point is one of great importance. Wflhen
the cholera prevails, there are great numbers of cases
of diarrhcea having such a proclivity to cholera, that
we term  the complaint cholerinc.  Some of these
cases end in real cholera.  Others result in rather:loubtful half-formed cases of the disease.  But the
great majo(rity of them never are anything but cases of
diarrhcea.  Now the physician, who sets down in his




110               HOMCEOPATHY.
statistics only undoubted cases, will make out different statistics altogether from those of the physician
who includes the half-formed cases, and very widely
different from those of the physician who reckons all
cases of mere cholerine as true cases of cholera, and
who thus makes out a large story of his success to
appeal to the public credulity.
Homceopathists are not the only physicians who
have made out large statistics of the cholera. The
Eclectic physicians, as they style themselves, made
some reports at a meeting of their National Association in Cincinnati, which even go beyond the statistics
of Homceopathy. One physician, for example, reports
five deaths in one hundred and fifty cases of cholera;
another only three deaths in one hundred and fifty
cases-another, but four deaths in seven hundred
cases of all diseases —another, but two deaths in five
hundred cases of all diseases, etc. I leave it to the
Eclectics and the Homceopaths to settle their differences between themselves. Neither party, probably,
believe the statistics of the other, while the community at large very generally disbelieve the statistics
of both.
The same remarks substantially could be made in
regard to all the other statistics of Homoeopathy.
They could be shown to be quite as unworthy of confidence as those which relate to the cholera. But it is
not necessary.  The cholera statistics, of which so
much boast has been made, illustrate sufficiently the
glaring defects, which mark all the statistics that are




PRACTICAL EVIDENCES.           111
relied upon to prove the success of Homceopathic practice.
In this connection, I remark, that some of the
popular ideas in regard to observation are very erroneous.  Observation is considered a very easy work.
It is only to see and hear, and that, it is supposed,
can be done correctly by any one. But reasoning, on
the other hand, is deemed to be difficult, and to
require talent and skill to do it well. To say nothing
here of the impropriety of this distinction so commonly made between observation and reasoning, it
may be remarked, that in scientific investigation, the
power of reasoning well is absolutely essential to
good observation. If reason does not guide the observer, not only will his observations be confused and
irrelevant, but the merest fancies will be mingled with
them. The saying of Solomon, that'I The wise man's
eyes are in his head," is as true in science as it is in
morals.
There has been quite as much poor observation in the
world as poor reasoning. Good observers are of great
value in science. They make all the discoveries.
They relieve science of the rubbish with which theorizing observers, so often and so falsely called great
reasoners, have  encumbered  it.  In  therapeutics,
where there is so much liability to error, the difference
between poor and good observation is more manifest
than in relation to any other subject in the wide range
of science. It is particularly true in medicine, both
of professional and non-professional observation, that




112                HOMCEOPATIIY.
there is a great difference in the value of testimony
coming from different witnesses, even when they testify simply in regard to what they have seen.. It is
said by some satiristOptics sharp, it needs I ween,
To see what is not to be seen.
Yet this has often been done in medicine by many
Allopathists; but more, abundantly more, by Homceopathists.
Let me illustrate in a very familiar manner the
errors of observation to which I refer.
The descriptions given by non-professional ohservers
of their personal experience, of what they have themselves felt, and seen, and heard, are often not only
absurd, but laughable. A woman who had suffered
from an iuflanmmation in the foot, in describing her
case, told me that she saw the inflammation move
slowly down to the great toe, and then when it left
the toe, it popped like a pistol.  The reader of course
does not believe the woman's statement. But why
not?  She testified  to what, as she believed, she
actually saw  and heard, and she was honest, and
had eyes and ears capable in themselves of seeing and
hearing correctly. You say that what she stated is
impossible, and that she must have imagined it all.
True; and so do other observers, both common and
professional, imagine that they see and hear, and their
imaginings are often recorded as accurate observations. As the experience of the good woman corres



PIACTICAL EVIDENCES.              113
ponded with her notions, that is her theories, of disease, so is it with the false observations of more
scientific theorizers.  And though her experience was
not only an impossibility, but a laughable one, it is
on the face of it no more so than the experience of
Htahnemann, when he describes a grotesque multitude
of symptoins as produced by a decillionth of a grain
of oystershell or common salt, or even by a single sniff
from a phial contaihing, a solitary infinitesimal globule.
When he seriously notes down as the effects of some
mne(licine such things as these-an itching tick liung sensation at the outer edge of the palhm of the left hand,
creeping in the upper lip and in the poinzt of the no;sc,
twitching in the cartilage of the ear, he winks, etc.he forfeits his claim to our confidence in him as an
observer, as really as the woman did, when she said
that she saw the inflammation move down, and that
when it went off she heard it pop like a pistol.  The
whole fifteen octavo volumes of Homueopathic provings are no more reliable than her statement, absurd
as it is; and we are fully warranted in saying, that
those who made these provings, and those who believe
in them, and use them  as guides in their practice,
transgressing, as they do, the plainest rules of evidence, are not to be implicitly relied upon, even when
they make statements in regard to what they have
seen and heard.
JIomceopathists complain that physicians are unwilling to apply to the claims of H-Iomncwatthy the test
of their own experience.  Professor Henderson says)




114              IOMOCEOPATTHY
that if they could be brought to do this, it would ensure
its " universal adoption," because " for a rational man
to try Homceopathy is tantamount to his conversion,"
But is this personal experience necessary? Must vwe go
through with the provings upon ourselves, and observe
the symptoms of the sick under the use of the globules, before we can decide whether Homceopathy be
true? How is it with other doctrines? Do we feel
obliged to test them all by our own experience? Can
we not sometimes-do we not, and very properly,
judge of.the truth or falsity of a doctrine by other
circumstances —the general character of those who
believe it, the relations which it bears to known and
long-established truths, and the character of the observations and reasonings by which it is attempted to be
sustained'? In this way we often see enough at the
very threshold of an investigation to satisfy us without going any farther.  Especially is this true when
many minds have been engaged in developing and
defending the doctrine, anti in collecting and arranging the alleged facts upon which it is based. If in
such a case, we find at the outset nothing but a mixture of inconsistent statements and loose analogies,
we justly view it as a waste of time to put the new
doctrine to the test of our own experience. Whether
this conclusion be a correct one in regard to the doctrine called Homceopathy, the reader can judge from
the exposition and examination of it which I have
made in this essay.
But although the bare exposition of Homceopathy,




PRACTICAL EVIDENCES.           115
as it is presented to us by its advocates, is amply sufficient to show that it is false, and therefore the test of
personal experience is wholly unnecessary, yet this
test has been applied by Allopathists again and again.
This has been done, both in regard to its provings and
its treatment of the sick, by physicians of no doubtful
character, as to their veracity and their competency as
observers.
It is not my intention to introduce here all the evidence which I have been able to collect. A few
examples only will be sufficient.
Many physicians have " proved" Cinchona or Peruvian bark; and though this, as the reader will remember, is the article whose effects are said to have given
to Hahnemann the first idea of the great central doctrine of his system, they have not found that it has
produced the symptoms ascribed to it by him. It
seems to have no " affinity" for those who are not
diseased with the Hahnemannic mania. M. Double,
a physician of the highest character in Paris, as long
ago as 1801, before he had heard of Homceopathy,
experimented with some friends to ascertain the effects
of Cinchona. They took it in all kinds of doses for
four months, but none of them had any "totality"
of symptoms similar to that which is presented in intermittent fever. And M. Bonnet, President of the
Royal Society of Medicine, of Bourdeaux, observed
that soldiers who took Cinchona as a preventive of
disease, never experienced those effects, which Holmceopathists, committed to a " foregone conclusion,"'




116               HOCEorPATIIY.
so uniformly experience on taking it in their " provings."  M. Andral, one of the best practical observers
in medicine that France has produced, experimented
in connection with several persons in health with Cinchona, Aconite, etc., during the space of a whole year,
and the provings of Homccopathists were not verified
by these trials in the slightest degree. In 1835, the
following proposition was made to the most prominent
IIomceopathist in Paris, viz.-that he should select
ten remedies and prepare them himself, and that one
of these, chosen by lot, should be administered to him,
and then that he should afterward, at such time as
pleased him, come forward and state which of the ten
substances he had taken. He was not willing to try
the experiment. And yet no one can say that this
woul(l not be a perfectly fair mode of testing the provinas.
Of the trials of Hommoppathic remedies upon the
sick, I shall only notice that very thorough and longcontinued one which was made by Andral. This
"eminent and very enlightened Allopathist," as the
Homeopathic Examiner once called him, made this
statement in 1835, to the Academy of Medicine.  " I
have submitted this doctrine to experiment; I can
reckon at this time from one hundred and thirty to
one hundred and forty cases recorded with perfect
fairness in a great hospital, under the eye of numerous
witnesses; to avoid every objection, I obtained my
remedies of 2I. Guibourt, who keeps a Homoeopathie
pharmacy, and whose strict exactness is well known;




PRACTICAL EVIDENCES.            117
the regimen has been scrupulously observed, and I
obtained from the sisters attached to the hospital, a
special regimen, such as Hahnemann orders. I was
told, however, some months since, that I had not been
faithful to all the rules of the doctrine. I therefore
took the trouble to begin again; I have studied the
practice of the Parisian IIomceopathists, as I had
studied their books, and I became convinced that they
treated their patients as I had treated mine; and I
affirm that I have been as rigorously exact as any
other person." Though these trials were made with
such boasted articles as Cinchona, Aconite, Belladonna, etc., yet Andral says that he could not see that
they produced any effect. He administered Aconite
in more than forty cases marked by those feverish
symptoms which, according to Homceopathists, it so
uniformly removes; but he could not perceive the
slightest effect upon the pulse or upon the temperature of the skin in any of these cases.
" These statements look pretty honest," as Dr.
Holmes says; and, coming from  a man so eminently
"rational" as Andral is, they show  that Professor
Ifenderson, was somewhat in error in saying, that
" for a rational man to try Homceopathy is tantamount to his conversion."




CHAPTER VI.
ESTIMATE OF HAHNEMANN.
HAVING examined the system of doctrine and practice put forth by Hahnemann, it will be interesting to
look at the character of its author.
Hahnemann cannot be said to be an impostor in the
strictest sense of that word.  He was for the most
part undoubtedly sincere in his belief.* He may have
had occasionally some faltering of his faith; but generally it was firm and enthusiastic. He became an
errorist just as multitudes before him had done. He
narrowed his views down to a certain set of facts, of
which he fancied that he had discovered the explanation. And the more he thought, the more did the subject grow in his mind. The result was, that this
explanation, this theory, became to him the sun of his
* In saying that Hahnemann was for the most part sincere in the
belief of his doctrines, I must not be understood to mean that he was
an honest man. His selling common borax as a newly discovered salt
for a louis d'or per ounce, of which sin there is no evidence that ever he
repented, shows that morally he was a -cheat. But this is not at all inconsistent with his cheating himself into a sincere belief of the delusions
which his busy fancy had conjured up in his mind.




ESTIMATE OF HAliNEMANN.          119
system. It was the only true light, and it made
everything clear to his vision. The spirit of delusion
was now fully upon him, and it blinded him to all
facts which were plainly inconsistent with his allabsorbing idea. The thought too, that he had made
a great discovery, intoxicated him. He was a medical
fanatic. He was the victim of what might be termed
a scientific insanity; and he went on from one delusion to another, till at length no absurdity was too
monstrous for his belief. His psoric theory, the climax
of all medical absurdities, shows a height of delusion
which has seldom been reached by the human mind.
It is interesting and instructive to watch the movements of a mind of which the spirit of delusion has
taken possession. It is not a mind, you will observe,
that is simply in error from partial views and hasty
inferences. This latter is a state from which the
mind can recover. But not so with the condition of
mind to which I refer. In this case there is a radical
defect-a mental disease, from which there can be no
recovery except by a thorough change of the mental
habits. Not even the casting out of cherished errors
will do it. This would be only cutting off the
branches, while the root and body of the evil remained to put forth other, and perhaps stronger,
branches in their place. The admission of one fallacy, if the mind become enamored with it, prepares
for the admission of other fallacies. And as the
power of estimating the value of evidence becomes
more and more impaired, each fallacy is commonly




120                HOEICEOPATlY.
more gross than the one which preceded it. Thus it
was with the mind of Hahnemann.  Once in the
power of the spirit of delusion, it became after a little
time ready for the reception of all kinds of error.  To
his own medical errors Hahnemann added a belief to
the full in mesmerism* and clairvoyance, with all
their mummeries and juggleries; and if he were living
at this day, such impostures as Davis' revelations
would have received his implicit confidence, and even
that grossest of all delusions, the pretended commurication with the spiritual world by " rapping's,"
would have been believed as readily as the efficacy of
infinitesimal globules.
One of the peculiarities in the workings of Hahnemann's mind is very remarkable. I refer to his coming  to  the  most stupendous conclusions without
seeming to note or even to know when and how he
did it.  Most discoverers of great truths tell us, and
very minutely, by what processes of observation and
reasoning they made their discoveries. But Hahnernann announces what he claims to be discoveries,
and those too of the most astounding character; and
y-et he informs us of the manner in which his mind
was led on to its conclusions, only in relation to a single one of them, viz.-the doctrine, simrilia similibus
curanlur. The doctrine of the efficacy of infinitesiimal doses, which, if it be tiue, is one of the most
wonderful truths which was ever discovered, was first
announced, as I have already stated, in a note, and
See Organon, p. 294 and 203, and MAateria Mledica Pura, vol i. p. 2i.




ESTIMATE OF HAHNEMANN.         121
that only incidentally; and we are no where informed
at what time and under what circumstances the' discovery' was made. One would suppose that a discovery which makes a grain of any medicine sufficient
to supply all the inhabitants of the earth centuries,
nay, ages upon ages, with all the doses which they
would need of that article, would have a date in the
mind of its discoverer, and would be reckoned as an
era in medicine; and that the circumstances which
led to its discovery would be minutely detailed in
every notice of it. But no. So stilly did the mountain-mind of Hahnemann bring forth this "' ridiculus
mus," as it has shown itself to be, that no record
seems to have been made of the period of its birth.
All theorizers have been disposed to fix upon some
one doctrine or principle as the centre of a system.
To the speculative mind there is a fascination in the
idea of discovering a single key to the explanation of
a wide range, of phenomena. Hence we have the
archeus of Van Helmont, the anima of Stahl, the
excitability of Brown, the gastro-enterite of Broussais,
the unity of disease of Rush, and a multitude of
favorite doctrines that have had their day in the medical world. So too, Samuel Thompson was governed
by the same disposition, when he adopted as the
centre of his system the doctrine, that heat is life,
and Samuel Hahnemann, when he fancied that in
sirnilia sinmilibus curantur he had found the magic
key which would unlock all the secrets of therapeutics.
6




122               HOMCEOPATHY.
The folly of Homceopathy is pre6minently a " folly
in wisdom hatch'd." Hahnemann was in some senses
a wise man, though not in the best sense irn which
that word is used. He had some talent, though by
no means of a high order. His ingenuity was fruitful; but it was so blind, that he could never avoid
exposing the weak points of his argument, and he was
constantly stumbling, without knowing it, over the
grossest inconsistencies. He had no true scientific
acumen. He analyzed'nothing with any discrimination. He was incapable of detecting a fallacy, and
the loosest analogies were to him sound arguments.
Professor Henderson in apologizing for his errors,
which he seems to think are quite trivial, speaks of
him as belonging to a class of men who have an
" ardent genius," and who " do not always wait for
the tardy steps of induction; but as the history of
almost all the great discoveries, as well as of the
great errors of genius, declares, grasp by anticipation
at conclusions which future experience is left to confirm or annul." But Henderson in his blind admiration entirely mistakes the character of Hahnemann's
mind. It had none of the attributes of the discoverer.
Free to suppose. it could never prove. It could dream,
and it believed its dreams to be realities. If it anticipated in its dreams what experience would afterward
" confirm," it would be only by stumbling upon it by
mere chance.
No discoverer ever had such a mind as Hahnemann's. Newton, with whom  Hahnemann is often




ESTIMATE OF  HARNEMANN.          123
compared by his admirers, had a mind of an entirely
different cast. Hahnemann dreamed, but Newvton
thought.  Both supposed; but Hahnemann called his
suppositions facts, while Newton' waited for the
tardy steps of induction" to test his suppositions.
"I shall not mingle conjectures with certainties,"
said Newton; but Hahnemann did nothing but conjecture, and deemed all his conjectures to be certainties. "' The tardy steps of induction," Hahnemann
never trod. Yet they are steps which are absolutely
necessary to the establishment of any important truth.
If Hahnemann has really discovered any such truths,
he has done it by a process different from that of all
other discoverers.
Place Hahnemann then, if you will, among the
theorizers of " ardent genius" that have from time to
time made the world to wonder; but insult not science
by ranking him  among the noble discoverers of her
hidden treasures. He only had visions of imaginary
treasures, and lived in his visions as if they were
realities. He was but a wild dreamer in science.
And when he began to dream there was no limit to
the illusions with which he was enchanted. Farther
and farther did he depart from the truth.  Mfore and
more erratic and absurd were his vagaries. -A long
life did he, live, and he filled up the measure of his
folly by that most absurd of all human conceptions,
the psoric theory.
Talent and learning may serve either wisdom or
folly. When they serve wisdom, it is a "' reasonable




124               HOMCEOPATHY.
service;" but when folly, they perform a slavish
service, and that abundantly and unremittingly. And
though folly never appears so ridiculous as when thus
attended, never is it so insensible to its real positionnever is it so blind to the truth, and so obstinate in
pursuing its purpose.  The folly of an ignorant man
may be removed by enlightening  his ignorance;
but a "wit turned fool" is seldom converted from his
folly. Once set out in his career of delusion, though
he be the laughing-stock of all sensible people, as he
so proudly displays the ingeniously-wrought, but
flimsy gewgaws with which he is be-decked, he is.
never awakened to a conviction of his folly, but keeps
on in his career to the end. Thus was it with Hahnemann, who may justly be termed the prince of scientific fools, as Paracelsus was the prince of quacks.
The character of Hahnemann is impressed to a
great extent upon his followers. Minds of a particular cast have been attracted by the Homceopathio
delusion, and they have imbibed most fully the spirit
of their great exemplar.  They are not minds which
have " the calm and cautious spirit of philosophy" so
falsely claimed for Hahnemann by Mr. Marmaduke
Sampson. The advocates of Homceopathy, like its
author, are dreamers, and not thinkers. Among them
all there is not to be found one that can be called an
accurate, reliable observer, and a sound reasoner.
The literature of Hommeopathy, therefore, is made up
of flimsy reasonings and loose analogies. Most of it
has not even the merit of ingenuity. Even those




ESTIIMATE OF HAHNEMANN.                 125
works which are at all ingenious, present us with an
abundance of glaring inconsistencies and ridiculous
trivialities.  Sampson  exhibits more talent than any
other author on Homceopathy that I have consulted;
and yet his book so far from  being marked with " the
calm and cautious spirit of philosophy," is a tissue of
misrepresentations and fallacies.   Joslin's book certainly shows some smartness; but every page contains evidences of his utter want of a discriminating
judgment, and of plain common sense. And as to
the common herd of Homceopathic writers, the talent
which they exhibit, like their doses, is very dilute and
infinitesimal in amount.  The whole field of Homeopathic literature is a barren waste, covered with a
dry and stinted vegetation, with here and there a
flaunting but fruitless flower.*
The  manner  in  which  Homceopathy  has  been
treated by the medical profession, has been the subject
of severe comment on the part of Hahnemann's
followers.  That its reception has not been at all flattering, is universally  acknowledged.   It has been
adopted by an exceedingly small fraction of the pro* Most of the controversial literature of Homneopathy is really contemptible. I refer the reader to Dr. Wosselhoelt's letters in replyto Dr.
Holmes' capital lectures on Hotnc*opathy and its kindred delusions, as
an example. This pamphlet of fifty pages is vapid and irrelevant
throughout, and not a page of it merits the name of a reply. It certainly must tax the patience of "the benevolent reader," to whom he
dedicates it, to read it through. If I understand the application of the
motto on his title page-Mamny are called butfew are chosen; it is ridiculously impudent as well as shockingly profane.




126                      HOM(EOPATI1Y.
fession-so small, that as a  body they may be  fairly
said to reject it. And of this fraction only a very
few  are above mediocrity in point of talent, and  these
have that peculiar cast of mind  which  renders them
prone to delusion. In our own country it is very well
known  that no  physician  of any commanding influence has been converted to Homccopathy, although
Sampson says that, " the theatre of its widest reception is found to be amongst the shrewdest, the most
practical, and, on other than national points, the least
prejudiced people upon earth-the inhabitants of the
United  States."*   And in Great Britain, I believe the
* It is a little amusing to see how American Jtomeopathists boast
of the success of their system  in Europe; and then again, how European Hornceopathists proclaim, on their side of the water, its triumphs
in this country. These references to places at a distance are quite convenient sometimes. False statements about matters at home are too
easily corrected to be made available. Homeeopathists seem to be
aware of this. Their large stories about the rapid advances of Hahneinannism, generally refer to distant places or other countries. It takes
some time and costs some trouble therefore, to prove their falsity. But
it has been done in many cases, and I will give a single example. The
following announcement was made in a French journal-" By a decree
of October, 1841, the Emperor of Austria has created a chair of Homceopathy in the faculty of Vienna; named M.?l. Worm and Nerbar,
professors, and appropriated one hundred beds in the St. Elizabeth
Hospital for the Hornneopathic treatment of diseases, under the superintendecnce of Dr. [evy." One would hardly think that so circumstantial a statement would be made if it were not true. But it turns out to
be untrue in every particular.  Dr. Sigmund,  a distinguished physician
of Vienna, who was sent by his government to France to study the
or-anization of the medical profession in that country, on seeing the
above statement, published a contradiction of it, in which he says" It has never been proposed to create a chair of Homoeopathy in the




ESTIMATE OF HAHNEMANN.                 127
only Allopathic physician of any pretensions to eminence, that has become a Homceopathist, is Dr. Henderson, and he has so great a mental obliquity, that
he apologizes laboriously for Hahnemann's psoric
theory, and shows that he well nigh believes it.
And in Germany also, the land of'its birth, Homceopathy has made but few converts from the ranks of
the profession. In 1835, when it was much more flourishing in that country than it now is, at a meeting of
physicians numbering over six hundred, Homceopathy,
on being introduced to their notice by some member,
was at once scouted as unworthy of a moment's attention.
Homceopathy has been fairly before medical men
for fifty years; and the profession has passed its verdict upon it in the most deliberate and positive manner.  Some are disposed to think  that this verdict is
good for nothing, and openly charge medical men, as
a body, with a wilful blindness to the truth of
Homccopathy. If this charge be well founded, the
medical profession are governed in relation to this dootrine by a spirit altogether different from that which
they have manifested towards all other new doctrines
and opinions. Look over the whole history of medifaculty of Vienna; neither have the government enacted an order to
create a clinique of this kind. The hospital mentioned is one closed to
students and strangers; a distinct foundation, served by the sisters of
St. Elizabeth. and the physician of which is one of our brethren, Dr.
Weninger, who has never practiced Hom'wopathy. M.M. Worm, Nerbar, and Levy, are entirely unknown in Vienna."




128                IOICEOPATIIY.
cine, and observe the course which the profession have
pursued in regard to the numberless doctrines and
theories which have arisen from time to time. As
they have passed away one after another, they have
been examined and sifted by medical men, and while
much has been rejected, much has been retained and
added to the permanent treasures of our science. And
you cannot adduce a single instance, in which anything that time has shown to be valuable, has not in
a very short period gained a strong hold upon the professional mind, however great might be the opposition
to it at its first promulgation. If Homceopathy be
truly valuable, it is the first thing of this character
which has failed to be thus established among medical
men. It is a single solitary exception, showing an
irrational obstinacy which the profession have certainly not been wont to manifest.*
The first reception of a doctrine does not at all
indicate its value. Some groundless doctrines have
had a wide popularity at the outset in the profession;
while others which are founded in truth have been
comparatively slow in becoming established. The
true and rational judgment of the profession in regard
to any doctrine cannot be obtained at once. Minds in
every quarter and of every cast must scrutinize the
evidences on which it is based. We must wait a lit* The assertion so often and so boldly made by Homceopathists, that
the profession rejected the discoveries of Harvey and Jenner, just as
they now reject Hommeopathy, is utterly false. See " Medical Delusic(r's,7 P. 77,




ESTIMATE OF HAHNEMANN.            129
tie, and at length a reliable verdict is rendered. If there
be any truth in the doctrine, whatever there is, is
found, and is preserved, while what is untrue is rejected. If the doctrine, on the other hand, be entirely
untrue, though it may prevail for a time, it soon
passes away. And if any doctrine meet from the first
with a steady rejection on the part of the great body
of the profession, notwithstanding its claims have been
perseveringly urged by its advocates, this is very good
evidence against its truth.
This verdict, then,, of a multiform and accumulated experience is an indication of value, which is by no
means to be disregarded. And the farther science is
advanced, the greater is the reliance which can be
placed upon this verdict or settled opinion of scientific
bodies of men. It should of course be much more
readily relied upon now than when science was encumbered with errors, and was retarded in its progress
by an undue reverence for antiquity. Even then this
sifting process of an extended and varied experience
was applied to every new doctrine, but not with so
much faithfulness and discrimination as it is at the
present day.
Let me be fairly understood. I am no advocate for
a blind and implicit obedience to authorities in
science. But the opinions of men who are competent
to judge, when they have had sufficient time and opportunity for judging, are surely of some value as
evidence. Especially is this true when great numbers
of such men, constituting scientific bodies, have given




130                IIO(EOPATrIIY.
their opinions, both individually and collectively, and
have adhered to them for a great length of time. This
has been done in relation to Homceopathy for the last
fifty years.  All the evidence which has been presented in regard to this doctrine during all this time has
fastened the conviction upon the profession, that it is
false and absurd. And let it be remembered, that the
profession which thus so perseveringly and almost universally reject Homeopathy is composed of men who
have every variety of opinions, and are not bound
together by any particular set of doctrines.  There is
another circumstance also that gives significance to
this rejection of Homceopathy. I refer to the fact that,
while so few physicians have become Homceopathists,
the great majority of those who practise according to
this system are poorly educated and irresponsible men.
Unable to get any hold upon the profession, Homceopathy has received most of its votaries from the people; and being rejected by the schools of medicine, it
Ihas made a show of getting up schools of its own.
Let us suppose, now, a parallel case. Suppose that
fifty years ago some theologian had broached a new
mnode of biblical interpretation, which, if true, would
set aside all old rules and modes, as Hahnemann's systenm, if true, would do in medicine-that, though the
author of this system was a talented man, few among
all the regularly educated divines had adopted itthat of this number but a very few were men of any
standing —that the great majority of those who proclaimed the new doctrine were poorly.educated men,




ESTIMATE OF HAHNEMANN.           131
and that this new sect opposed themselves to all " regular " theologians of every name, and set up schools
to supply the community with divines, who are educated in nothing but the absurdities of their system.
Would it not, I ask, be claimed of us laymen, that
we should believe, almost as a matter of course from
the very reception thus given to the new doctrine by
theologians, that it was false?  Would it not be said,
that it is not to be supposed that theologians, with all
their various differences, would unite as a body in
rejecting what is truly valuable; and that if the doctrine had any truth in it, it could certainly get a
lodgment in some of all the various theological schools,
and that schools need not therefore be instituted purposely for its propagation?
The parallel is complete in this case. It is not
defective in a single particular; and yet if we should
assert that the rejection of this new mode of interpretation for fifty years by theologians as a body is no
evidence against its truth, it would be taking the
same ground that many clergymen take in relation to
the rejection on the part of physicians of Hahnemann's mode of interpreting disease and( its cure.
Let us take a parallel case of a different character.
Suppose that some political fanatic comes forward with
an entirely new interpretation of the constitution,
which, as it conflicts with all established principles of
interpretation, is rejected by jurists and statesmen as
a body throughout the country, and that only here and
there one can be found that adopts it. And suppose




132               HOMCEOPATHY.
that this rejection of the new doctrine continues, and
that in the lapse of fifty years it does not gain a foothold, among educated lawyers and statesmen, though it
may have a multitude of uneducated advocates. Such
a state of things, all will allow, furnishes good evidence against the truth of the doctrine, for the plain
reason, that the opinion of those who are most competent to judge on the subject is worthy of respect and
confidence.
The same parallel can be drawn in regard to any
science or any subject. Public opinion in scientific
bodies of men, when ample time has been given for its
due establishment, has always commanded respect;
and why, I ask, should an exception be made in regard to medicine?  Is the medical profession less
entitled to confidence than other scientific bodies?
Are its deliberate verdicts to be contemned as worthless? This is claimed not only by ignorant radicals,
but even by some men who are esteemed by the community as being prenminent in wisdom and goodness.
They maintain that physicians will not see the evidences of the success of Homceopathy, and that they
reject it from motives of interest, mingled with an
overweaning attachment to old and established opinions.
We think that they can hardly be aware of the foulness of the aspersion which they thus cast upon our
profession. If what they say is true, physicians are
an exceedingly inhumane class of men-they are continually sacrificing the health and even the lives of
their patients to a wicked prejudice.*
* The fact that many clergymen of eminence have taken this ground,




ESTIMATE OF IIAHNEMANN.                   133
Homceopathy appears before us in a somewhat singular position. It pushes its claims in a manner different from that of any other system or theory, which,
like this, has originated in the profession.  The advocates of all other systems have endeavored to propagate their doctrines among medical men alone. They
did not even establish schools for the special purpose
of disseminating their opinions, but sought to introduce them into the schools already in existence. Neither Brown nor Broussais, for examplG, founded
schools to teach their doctrines, although they were
so different from the opinions which prevailed in the
profession. All founders of systems previous to Hahnemann endeavored to leaven the whole profession, caring little comparatively for the opinions of the unprofessional public. But the advocates of Honmceopathy,
instead of seeking to change the opinions of medical
men alone, appeal to the public against the profession,
and aim at establishing another medical profession in
opposition to that already in existence. And for this
purpose they have instituted schools in order to indoctrinate the disciples of the new system in its principles.
has materially lessened the confidence which medical men generally
have in their learning and judgment. When, in addition to giving crederce to such an absurdity as Homceopathy, against the plainest rules of
evidence, they cast such a false imputation upon our profession, it is not
strange that physicians are ready to infer, that they are as irrational and
as regardless of the true rules of evidence on theological as they are on
medical subjects. Scepticism has often thus been encouraged, not to say
engendered, and a respect for our holy religion has been destroyed by
this conduct on the part of its ministers.




134                     HOMCEOPATItY.
Homoeopathy, therefore, is mongrel in its character.
While it has a scientific air, and puts forth the most
ostentatious scientific pretensions, it comes before us
very much in the guise of quackery, and it uses all
the appliances of quackery to gain the popular favor.*
And more than this, while it imprudently claims to
be the only true system of medicine, it leaves all
researches in physiology, and in anatomy, both natural
and morbid, to those whom it denounces, as obstinately
clinging to antiquated errors.
Homceopathy and its sister delusion, Thompsonianism,
strongly resemble each other in the manner in which they
prosecute their claims. Though they move in different
spheres, their tactics are very much the same. Though
* Dr. Blatchford, in his witty and excellent address on Homceopathy,
thus remarks: Another peculiar feature in Homoeopathy,' not much calculated to give it success with the thinking community, is that
their periodicals and other organs, animate and inanimate, speak of no
unsuccessful application of their principles: none but palpable cases of
cure are mentioned, and these are served up in a dress to suit the multitude. This is a feature which is certainly calculated to ally Homceopathy with empiricism, to say the least; and reminds one of the artful
contrivance of the proprietor of a certain mineral spring in England, who
kept one room in which were deposited the crutches of all those patients
who had received so much benefit from the waters as not to require
their assistance any longer. One day a company of ladies and gentlemen, as usual, were shown into this apartment, with its hundreds of
crutches, and the virtues of the waters highly extolled, when an old
decrepid servant of the establishment, who was seated in one corner of the
room, said in a low tone to a gentleman who stood near, " Ah me! they
take good care to say nothing about the heaps of crutches we burn up
every year of the poor creatures who come here only to die. Dead
bones tell no tales, you know."




ESTIMATE OF HAHNEMANN.         135
Homceopathy may look with contempt upon the coarse
radicalism of her vulgar and ignorant sister, she has
the same radicalism in a more refined and specious
form. Both cry out against the " regular" profession;
and the tendency of the efforts of both, however stoutly
the genteel and learned patrons of Ilomceopathy may
deny it, is to destroy the safeguards which secure to
the community a well-educated body of medical men.
Other systems, as Chrono-Thermalism, Eclecticism,
etc., have also arisen, and have taken the fashion of
their measures from Hahnemannism and Thompsonism, and have joined with them in the great work of
medical radicalism.




CHAPTER VII.
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.
I WILL conclude this essay with a few remarks upon
some of the lessons which both the medical profession
and the community may draw from this exposure of
Homceopathy.
The profession may learn from the fantasies of IIahnemannn the evils which result to science from a disposition to theorize. There is no one thing that has
so much retarded the progress of medicine as this disposition, which has been so prevalent among medical
men in all ages and countries. Ingenious hypotheses
have, to a very great extent, taken the place of accurate and extended observations in the past records of
our science. And as we look back upon the history
of medicine, and scan the influence of all the prominent men in our profession in all past times, we can
see in the case of each that his usefulness was in an
inverse ratio to his disposition to theorize. It is the
men of observation, who have been content to tread




CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.        137
" the tardy steps of induction," instead of taking the
airy flights of theory, that have gathered the real
treasures of medical science.  Theorists have never
done this, except when they have ceased to theorize,
and begun to observe. Now, Hahnemann never did
any thing but theorize. Ie was under the entire
dominion of the theorizing spirit. His was no partial
possession. And it must be remembered that the difference between him and other theorists is one chiefly
of degree. They have not, I allow, wandered as far
away from the truth as he did; but so far as they
have gone, it was upon the same track of delusion.
This being the case, the example of Hahnemann can
well be cited, as showing, the legitimate tendencies of
the theorizing spirit, when unrestrained and carried
out to their full extent.
The investigation of Homneopathy which we have
gone through in this essay, is of advantage, not
merely in exposing the falsity of this vaunted system,
but in developing and illustrating the rules or principles of evidence, which should be applied in testing
the value of any remedy or any system of practice.
The errors which have been committed by the believers in Homropathy, in the application of these
principles, are not new and singular; but they arise
from the same sources with the multitude of errors
that have prevailed in relation to all other systems
and remedies. The exposition, therefore, which I
have made of the absurdities and inconsistencies of
Homceopathy, may, by revealing the common sources




138               HOM(EOPATHY.
of medical errors generally, be of some service in correcting that loose habit of mind which is so prevalent
both in the profession and in the community, in regard to evidence on the subject of medicine.
On this point there is great need of a reform, even
among medical men. The same principles of evidence
which reject Homceopathic observation as inconclusive and false, must, if rigidly applied, reject a large
portion of the observations contained in the annals of
medicine. Too much has been taken upon trust,'without regard to the degree of fidelity or capacity in
the observer. A sifting process needs to be applied to
the recorded experience of the profession. The principles upon which causes are indisputably connected
with their results need to be thoroughly examined,
and the difficulties in their application to be faithfully
developed, that they may be justly appreciated.
And the gross errors of Homceopathists in this respect, may serve to direct the attention of medical
men to their own lesser errors, and to the cautions
which are requisite in estimating the effects of remedies.
Medicine has nothing to fear from  pushing the
rules of evidence to their strictest application, though
very much of the recorded experience of physicians
may be demolished, or be brought under suspicion.
Even if we discard all that is in the least doubtful,
there is enough left to establish medicine as a science,
and that, too, a science not barren and meagre, but
abounding in facts and principles.




CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.         139
Another lesson, which may be learned from Ho.
mceopathy by the profession, is the importance of
observing the operations of nature in her efforts to
remove disease. The cures which are effected under
true Homceopathic treatment, are not effected by
medicine, but by nature, sometimes with the aid of
mental influence. The experience, therefore, which
is presented by Homceopathy, of which physicians
occasionally obtain some glimpses, is of much value,
as showing the power of nature to cure disease, and
developing the principles upon which she acts in
doing it. It is in this way that the most absurd of
all medical delusions may be made to do essential
service to the cause of science and humanity.
It has sometimes been claimed by the advocates of
Homeopathy, that Hahnemann has been the great
teacher to our profession of the lesson to which I have
referred. It is not only a false but an irnpudent
claim. Not only did he never teach it directly, but
he proclaimed a doctrine, as the reader has seen in a
former part of this essay, in direct opposition to it,
and in every way cast contempt upon the curative
powers of nature in comparison with the effects of his
infinitesimal globules.  And more than this; the
lesson had begun to be learned by medical men from
other sources, before Homceopathy was known. It
was learned from the expectant mode of treatment,
which has been so long popular with the French. It
was learned in the individual experience of multitudes of physicians, who found Sydenham's experience




140              HOMCEOPATIHY.
in the treatment of the small-pox to be verified to a
great extent in other diseases. And for more than
half a century, there has been a decided movement
in the profession in opposition to an indiscriminate
heroic medication. This movement has been becoming every year more and more general. And the
utmost that can be said of Homceopathy on this
point is, that it has had a decided influence, though
an indirect one, in favoring this tendency in the profession.
Dr. Forbes, in remarking upon the present prevalence of indiscriminate and profuse medication in the
profession, not only overstates the truth, but is inconsistent with himself in other parts of his essay, in
which he speaks of the advance which has been made
in practical medicine. His language is: "Things have
arrived at such a pitch, that they cannot be worse.
They must mend or end."  Even upon his own
showing, things have been worse. They have been
most obviously mending, and that for a long time.
If we compare the therapeutics of the present day
with that which prevailed fifty or an hundred years
ago, medlication is vastly more cautious and discriminating than it was then, and the movements of
nature, in the cure of disease, are much more narrowly observed. And, at this time, there are multitudes of minds in the profession on the right track in
their inquiries; and we have reason to anticipate
that great advances will now be rapidly made in the
practical part of our science.




CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.        141
While the change which I have indicated is going
on in the profession, it is an interesting and important inquiry for each individual practitioner, what
course he ought to pursue in his own private practice?
Must he wait and do almost nothing till he can find
out all the truth? Because " heroic" medicines have
done so much harm, must he for the present utterly
forbear using them? This would be going to the
opposite extreme, and, in his endeavor to be certain
of doing no harm, he would surely sometimes lose
rich opportunities of doing good. The experience of
every judicious physician, even if all cases in the
least degree doubtful be left out of view, testifies
most clearly to the fact, that there are times when
powerful remedies can do much good.  And the
more discriminating he is, the more skillful of course
will he be in discovering the times and the circumstances which call for their application. The duty of
the practitioner plainly is to use in each case all the
means which his judgment dictates; at the same time
he should learn all that he can, by watching narrowly
the effects of his remedies, and by comparing his own
experience with that of other reliable observers. If physicians as a body would engage in this rigid observation of the influence of remedies upon disease, while a
large portion of the positive, medication still remaining would be discarded, great triumphs would be
achieved in the discriminate use of heroic remedies,
which now we fail to achieve, because with our present
dim and confused experience, we so often fail to per



142               HOMCEOPATY.
ceive the modes, and mark the times, in which they
should be applied.
That there is still prevalent in the profession a
lamentable carelessness in the observation of the effects
of remedies is evident, from the readiness with which
every new remedy or mode of practice obtains a currency among medical men, before there is really time
to test its merits. This mushroom popularity could
not attend every new thing which is introduced to the
notice of medical men, if rigid and patient observation
were a general habit in the profession, instead of being
confined, as it now is, to a comparatively small portion
of its members.
The enemies of our profession have been exceedingly
busy in pointing out its defects and errors.  And
none have been more active in this work than Homceopathists. They seem to prize such exposures as the
very best arguments which can be adduccd in favor
of their own system; as if, forsooth, because Allopathy has defects and inconsistencies, therefore Homnoopathy must be true. However provoking this may be,
it is the part of wisdom to take good-naturedly all
such attacks, and profit, so far as we can by any discoveries which our enemies may make of our deficiencies.
In noticing a few of the lessons which the community may learn from this exposure of Homceopathy I
must be brief.
Homeopathy adds another to the multitude of illustrations of the facility with which the community




CONCLTTDING; OBSERVATIONS.       143
may be deceived in relation to the comparative results
of different remedies and modes of practice.  There
is no remedy, and no mode of practice, that has not
obtained for a time a high reputation for success.
And this has been, true  of those which after-experience has shown to be valueless, as well as those that
have had some ground for their reputation. This
being the case, it might reasonably be expected, that
the community would learn wisdom from this experience, which has been so often repeated, and that the
history of past delusions would serve to guard them
against yielding a ready credence to those of the
present day. But thi's is a lesson which they are
slow to learn. And hence the necessity of that
thorough and patient examination, which we have
made in this essay, of one of the most absurd delusions
that ever entered the human mind.
The evidences, upon which the pretensions of Homceopathy, as a system of practice, are based, are precisely of the same loose character with those upon
which the alleged success of Perkins' Tractors, the
royal touch, the tar-water of Bishop Berkeley, or any
other of the multitude of past quackeries has been
predicated.*  It is time that intelligent men should
understand the fallacy of these evidences. It is time
that they should be aware of the special necessity
there is for a rigid application of the rules of evidence
in medical experience; and they should demand that
every new doctrine or remedy should be subjected to
* For a full presentation of this subject, see " Medical Delusions.




144               HOMCEOPATHY.
the thorough test of a careful and extended observation, instead of receiving it, as they now often do, on
proofs of the slightest and narrowest character.
The most important lesson which needs to be
learned by the community is in relation to their duty
of sustaining the medical profession. It is obviously
as true of medicine, as it is of any other science, that
its advancement can be best promoted by securing for
the work of its investigation a well educated body of
men. And any encouragement which is accorded to
quackery in any form, or to any sect which comes out
in opposition to the regular profession, tends to defeat
this desirable object. It is a strange policy which
would make an exception of medical science in this
respect. Medical men do not differ so much from
other bodies of scientific men, as to need the appliances of quackery in order to establish any thing that
is valuable. They are not, as a body, bound down by
a stupid and obstinate attachment to antiquated
customs and notions.  They are quite as ready as the
votaries of other sciences to welcome every new discovery or invention. And further than this, though
quackery has flourished in all ages, and has boasted
itself mightily of its achievements, I know of not one
of all the discoveries and improvements that have been
made in medicine to which quackery has the shadow
of a claim.
The true position of the advocates of Homceopathy
should be understood. They attack both the science
and the profession of medicine. Lofty and scientific




CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.         145
as are their pretensions, their spirit is the very spirit
of radicalism.  They aim, as do the advocates of other
exclusive and absurd systems, less refined and elaborate than this, to destroy the medical profession, and
to substitute in its- place a mere sect, bound together
by an ephemeral folly, and founded by one who
began his career as an open and unblushing quack.
In view of the above considerations, we ask the
intelligent and influential in the community to decide
whether they will consent to encourage this radicalism
in medicine, or whether they will unite in throwing
around our profession all those safe-guards which are
needed to secure its advancement, and to enable it to
deliver society from the evils of quackery. The issue
is distinct and clear. Every man's influence is thrown
into the one scale or the other. It is not a light
thing that a man does, who gives his countenance to
delusion and quackery, even though it be but a
momentary act, and an exception to his ordinary treatm ent of the medical profession. He lends by this act
his sanction to the whole system of imposture, which
the opposers of a well-educated profession, from
Hahnemann down to the most ignorant of village
quacks, or the basest seller of patent nostrums, are
endeavoring to foist upon the community.
It is no small consideration that the influence of
this issue extends beyond our science and our profession.  The radicalism, which is so thoughtlessly
encouraged by so many of even the good and intelligent of the community to make its attacks upon us,
7




146                 IIoI'OPATI'Y.1'.
is thus emboldened  in its  warfare  against other
interests, even against that most precious of all
interests, the best gift of God to man, the religion of
the Bible. Such tendencies as this, surely every good
citizen, every lover of science, of good order, of
morality, of religion, should resist in every form in
which they may appear.




LIST OF HOM(OOPATHIC AUTHORITIES REFERRED
TO IN THIS ESSAY.
Hahnemann's Organon,.                       DDublin, 1833.
HMahnemanna s MIateria.Medica Pura,..      New York, 1846.
Stap)fs Materia MIedica,.                New York, 1846.
Jahr's Manual.'Translated from  the German,
by authority of the North American Acadeiny of the Ilomceopathic Healing Art,".. 1838.
Hendeirson's Inquiry,                                Ne. ew York, 1846
Hlomceopathy, its Principle, Theory, and Practice, by Marmaduke B. Sampson,.. London, 1848.
Ifull's Laurie,.               u  York, 1848.
Hlartmann's Homceopathic Remedies,                 Philadelphia. 1841,
Marcy's Honiceopathic Theory and Practice of Medicine,...      New York, 1850.
Heling's Domestic Physician,...    Philadelphia, 1845.
Joslin's Principles of Homceopathy.                  New  York, 1850.
Besides these, there are various pamphlets issued from tit:e to time,
and some numbers of different Hommeopathic periodicals.