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THE STCECHIOLOaiCAL CUEE 
 
 OF 
 
 CONSUMPTION 
 
 AND 
 
 DISEASES OP THE RESPIRATORY 
 ORGANS. 
 
SOME OF THE OPINIONS OF THE PRESS 
 
 ON 
 
 DR. CHURCHILL'S DISCOVERIES. 
 
 " That the introduction of these medicines has been a great gain to the better treatment of consumption 
 IS a point we regard as fully established, and Dr. Churchill deserves well of mankind for what he has 
 done." — The Practitioner. 
 
 "The Society sees that the results announcfd and obtained by Dr. Churchill go beyond anything 
 which has hitherto been done in the treatment of this fatal disease." — Report to the Brussels Royal 
 Society of Medical Sciences by Dr. Bougaed, Vice-President. 
 
 "After laying before tlie same Society reports of forty-two cases treated by himself, Dr. Tirifahy con- 
 cluded as follows : — These facts establish the action of the hyj>ophosphite of lime in jihthisis. One thing 
 is evident ; it has given me a number of cures such as no doubt every other mode of treatment will look 
 upon with envy. I therefore advise the use of this remedy against pulmonary tubei'culosis tre all striges of 
 the complaint."— Keport by Dr. Tirifahy to the Brussels Royal Society of Medical Sciences. 
 
 " Dr. Churchill's woi'k records a body of no less than one hundred and thirty-three fully detailed cases 
 of phthisis, the rexu/t of which, certainly appears amply to bear out hi,s views so fur as regards the efficacy vf 
 tlie treatment." — LANCET. 
 
 " Tlie hj'jiophc.siihites burst suddenly on the world some few years ago as a panacea for the commonest 
 of all diseases. They were hastily and scantily tried, found not in every case to be successful, and as 
 hastily abandoned. We submit that the subject was far too soon put out of court, that some published 
 experiments are painfully inconchisive, and tliat others look as if the observer had already judged the case 
 unfavourably before he began. Facts of a positive cliaracter are coming to light which should correct our 
 prima f licit views. One such may be cited in the communication of Dr. Tirifahy to the >Iedical Society of 
 Brussels. He relates in detail, and with most convincing impartiality, the results of forty-two cases 
 treated by himself, and freely admits that any formula hitherto in use may envy these results. This 
 opinion will, we can state most positively, be contirmed by competent observers in England." — Medical 
 Tlmes and Gazette. 
 
 " On my arri\-al in Paris to attend the Medical Congress, I was glad to accept Dr. Churchill's invitation 
 and verify by personal investigation at his public dispensary the reality of the facts he had published. I 
 examined by means of auscultation and percussion a large number of jiatients who had been ill for variable 
 periods of time. After such proof I think there can be no absurdity in asserting, as I do most conscien- 
 tiously, that at Dr. Churchill s dispensurt/ I saw patients entireli/ cured of tuberculosis, after having shown, 
 in some cases for several years, all the progressive symptoms of the sfcw'l, and in some cases even of the 
 liTst stage of phthixn:." — Dr. Fedeli (who published au iLaliau Translation of Dr. Churchill's French 
 ■\Vork on Consumption). 
 
 " The reception of so important a discovery has not been encouraging, The hypophosphites h&ve been 
 used not according to Dr. Churchill's rules, and he has then been biamed for the resulting failures ! In 
 other quarters his remedies have been used in secret, and the cures liave been attributed to other causes. 
 ' This,' says Dr. ChurcliiU, ' is the last ordeal of the inventor before his apotheosis. Among artisans it is 
 called rattetu'yij ; in science it constitutes the well-known process which the French call the conspiracy of 
 silence.' What inventor or discoverer cannot confirm this from his own experience?" — Chemical News. 
 
 " There are few scientific men, in the true sense of the word, who will be able to read this book without 
 pleasure and profit, and without recognizing the profundity, the acutcness, and the originality of tiio 
 author." — The Quarterly Journal of Science (Edited by William Crookes, F.R.S.). 
 
 "Dr. Churchill declares pulmonary consumption can be successfully treated. Tliis opinion is sup- 
 ported by physicians in all the principal cities of Europe, and copious extracts from their observations on 
 the different cases are given, the cures always following closi ly upon tlie use of liypophospliites by the 
 sufferers. One lias only to note the names of seveial well-known English physicians who attest the value 
 of this remedy, to be convinced that the discovery of Dr. Churchill is an immense benefit to the world. 
 Such a great benefaction is not sufficiently acknowledged." — The Echo. 
 
 "A book which explains to us in all its bearings the discovery of the cure for consumption made 
 twenty yiars ago by Dr. Churchill, and explains it too in a manner so simple that any person of education 
 may master its general bearings, and which furnislies not only every practitioner, but almost every liead of 
 a family, with the means of battling successfully against one of the greatest foes of the human race, ought 
 not to be neglected by the jmblic at large. 'The hypojihosiiliites are still far from being administered 
 .scientifically in this country, and although known and constantly used by the leaders of the ]irofessi(ni — 
 such men, for example, as l-hysicians of tlie London Hosiiital.s— their real merits are still unrecognized by 
 the rank and file of the medical profession, the very men by whom the public at large are guided and 
 attended in sickness." — Thk Hoor. 
 
 "Dr. Churcliill has )iublished a work which must take rank among the most imjiortant books of our 
 time from the originality r)f its views, the vigour of its style, and the mass of information presented in it 
 to thi', inil>lic, concerning a sutiject painfully familiar to almost every family in this country. In this work 
 Dr. Churchill not only expounds the princiiilcs u]pon which he bases his method of curing, and, as he avers, 
 of 'st:imi)iiig out' consumption; but he also states that, ]irocee(ling upon the same principles which 
 carried him to the discovery of a 'scientifically conditioiieil sjiecillc for consumption,' he has arrived at the 
 discovery of a .series of compounds wliich act as specifics for all the inflammatory diseases of tlie breathing 
 apjiaratus, of which bronchitis, pleurisy, and diphtheria are the most fatal and the most common."— Thh 
 Law Journal. 
 
 " I consider the treatment of consumption by liypophospliites as the most rational, the least disagree- 
 able for tlie sufferer, and certainly, as far as concci iis the chance of recovery, the most to be reconinicnded. 
 I could mention many cases in my own practice wliere their use has been followed by the most surprising 
 results." — Dr. J. J. Kkkbisht, Ue I'ijdspiegel, The Hague. 
 
THE STCECHIOLOGICAL CURE 
 
 OF 
 
 CONSUMPTION 
 
 DISEASES OF THE RESPIRATORY ORGANS. 
 
 FROM 
 
 LETTEKS TO A PATIENT. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN FRANCIS CHUKCHILL, M.D. 
 
 THIBD EDITION 
 
 LONDON" : 
 
 DAVID STOTT, 370, OXPOED STEEET, W. 
 
 1893. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 

 LONDON : 
 
 HENOKKSON AND bFALDING, LIMITED, l-RINTKKb, 
 
 3 AND 5, MARVLEBONK I.ANE, \V. 
 
THE STCECHIOLOGICAL CURE 
 
 CONSUMPTION & LUNG COMPLAINTS. 
 
 Since tlie publication of the first edition of my 
 book, entitled Letters to a Patient on Consumption, 
 the public has been startled and thrown off its mental 
 balance by the announcement that Dr. Koch, the 
 discoverer of the bacillus of tubercle, had likewise 
 succeeded in finding its antidote. For many months 
 the almost daily account of the experiments upon 
 patients by Dr. Koch or his assistants, kept not only 
 the public but the whole scientific and medical world 
 in a fever of expectation and hope. Patients and 
 physicians rushed from all parts in hundreds to Berlin. 
 This was not only a new thing in a special line, 
 but was to be a new departure in every direction. 
 According to some enthusiasts, almost every disease 
 was to be treated by inoculation, and almost every- 
 body was to be inoculated beforehand, over and 
 over again for almost every kind of disease. The 
 Sanitary Millennium was to begin in full swing, and 
 everybody without distinction, ill or well, was to live 
 under the doctor's thumb. Unfortunately, these hopes 
 have ended in disappointment. Dr. Koch's process of 
 
iv Tlie Stcechiologicnl Cure of 
 
 inoculation has now been abandoned and relegated 
 among the things which have blossomed and borne no 
 fruit. 
 
 The starting-point of all these researches with 
 regard to systems of inoculation was the practice of 
 inoculation for the prevention of small-pox with the virus 
 taken from mild cases of the disease which has been in 
 use in the East, almost, as it would seem, from time 
 immemorial. This was first introduced into England 
 by Lady Mary Wortley Montague at the beginning 
 of last century, and then was perfected by Jenner's 
 magnificent discovery of vaccination. 
 
 In our own time, Pasteur has opened up a new field 
 of the same kind by his discovery of the prevention of 
 rabies by the inoculation of an attenuated virus. But 
 when physicians thought that they were going to wipe 
 out the disease already existing in a consumptive 
 patient by a similar mode of treatment, they overlooked 
 several very imjDortant considerations. 
 
 The virus of rabies is concentrated in its action 
 chiefly on the spinal marrow, which seems to have for 
 it a specially attractive power. In small-pox, the skin is 
 the part mainly affected, and although, of course, in both 
 these instances the blood and fluids of the body must 
 be impregnated with the poison, the disorganization 
 produced by the disease is not apparent in large organs 
 of vital importance to the system. 
 
 In Tuberculosis the case is different. Almost every 
 part of the body may be the seat of the tubercular 
 deposit caused by the microbe. And above all, in 
 
Consumption and Liuig Complaints. v 
 
 Phthisis — that is, Consumption of the lungs— the de- 
 struction almost always goes so far as permanently to 
 incapacitate these organs from fulfilling their functions. 
 After death, a consumptive lung is often found stuffed 
 with tuhercular matter, which was destroying or has 
 destroyed large portions of it, as full as a rich plum- 
 pudding is stuffed with currants and plums. 
 
 Small-pox and rabies are maladies which have a 
 marked and regular course of evolution. When once 
 the disease is established it goes through certain phases, 
 and ends either in death or recovery within a definite 
 period of time. It is not so vdth Tuberculosis, at least 
 in the human subject : its duration in some instances 
 may be any number of times as long again as in some 
 others, and there is no constant and definite regularity 
 in the evolution of its successive stages. 
 
 Again, small-pox is very seldom repeated in the same 
 individual, while patients may not only have Consump- 
 tion twice, but almost any number of times ; nay, the 
 tubercular diathesis which is the necessary condition in 
 which the bacillus can find entry into the system, and 
 live and propagate when it is there, this constitutional 
 condition may exist for years, or revert almost 
 indefinitely, and can only be efficiently counteracted by 
 the persistent and methodical use of the Hypophos- 
 phites. Instances of this kind may be seen every day in 
 growing children and in all patients where there is 
 ■waste of energy without corresponding repair. I too 
 often meet with cases where the disease which had 
 been checked or prevented, perhaps not only once, but 
 
vi The Stcechiological Cure of 
 
 several times, has been at last allowed to have its own 
 way, through either the neglect or the ignorance of 
 the patient or of those about him. 
 
 There is another and essential difference between 
 rabies and small-pox on the one hand, and tuberculosis 
 on the other, which was not taken into account. The 
 inoculation for rabies and small-pox is only efficient as 
 a preventive : it has little or no power when once the 
 disease is developed. Dr. Koch's inoculation for 
 tuberculosis was expected not to prevent, but to cure 
 the disease when established, although some phj^sicians, 
 without even waiting for the results of his experiments, 
 were already advocating the usefulness and necessity of 
 the universal inoculation of Koch's fluid as a preventive 
 in healthy persons. 
 
 Dr. Koch's merits as an original investigator and 
 discoverer occupy too lofty a position to be reached by 
 any backwa ve of ill success. He has been fortunate in the 
 fact that his claim to scientific fame was not originally 
 founded upon some improvement or some discovery in 
 the treatment of disease. Had it been so, there is little 
 doubt that whether his discoveries were real or not, the 
 result to him would have been the same so far as the 
 action of the medical profession is concerned. Like all 
 who have gone before him in the path of therapeutics, 
 the least he could have expected would have been, if 
 not active and acute malevolence, the iron and pitiless 
 conspiracy of silence. 
 
 That it was very unlikely that Dr. Koch's method 
 would have the success which was expected from it 
 
Consumption and Lung Complaints, vii 
 
 must liave occurred to almost every pathologist suf- 
 ficiently acquainted with the processes of Tuberculosis, 
 for several reasons which cannot fail to appeal to any 
 physician after due reflection. I have never been 
 able to understand how physicians who have seen 
 at post-mortem examinations what was the condition 
 of a tubercular lung, could for one moment suppose that 
 the destruction of the bacillus would do away with such 
 a state of disorganization, even admitting, as was 
 thought at the time, that the bacillus could be wiped out 
 of existence as easily as a written word is wiped off a slate 
 with a wet sponge. In a common-sense view, to expect 
 such a result is about the same as to contend that if 
 you only put out a fire, no matter what its intensity 
 and duration, the building involved will stand just as 
 it stood before the fire began. 
 
 I know that Dr. Koch himself has not claimed for 
 his treatment any such influence over the advanced 
 stages of the disease, but many, not to say most, of his 
 disciples have not hesitated to do so, and this was 
 certainly the expectation of the public. Dr. Koch him- 
 self only claimed that it would cure Consumption in its 
 initial stages. In that case it would only have done 
 what has been done for thirty-five years past, and is 
 being done every day, all the world over, by my 
 discovery of the medicinal action of the Hypophos- 
 phites made by me in 1855, and published to the 
 world without reserve in 1857.* The action of the 
 
 * See two papers read by me : one in the Memoiis of the Paris 
 Academy of Medicine, July 21st, 1857 ; the other in those of the 
 Paris Academy of Sciences, May 31st, 1858. 
 
viii The JStoechiological Cure of 
 
 Hypophosphites is such that they not only cnre the 
 disease when not advanced beyond a certain point, 
 hut, what is perhaps more important still, they act as a 
 sure preventive against it in the case of all who are 
 predisposed to the complaint. I therefore consider 
 that it is not only a right, but a duty incum- 
 bent upon me to call the attention of the public 
 at large to my discovery of the specific treatment 
 for Consumption : the more so as during the thirty-six 
 years which have elapsed since I published it, I have been 
 constantly engaged in improving the treatment of the 
 advanced stages of the disease, and I think that I have 
 now carried it to a point which will hardly be surpassed 
 until we have found the means of supplying new lungs. 
 
 The proof of this is apparent from the latest results 
 obtained at my Public Free Dispensary, where, out 
 of forty patients who were fully and methodically 
 treated with the complete means now at my disposal, 
 sixteen were cured, fifteen improved, six were re- 
 maining under treatment, three followed the treat- 
 ment for too short a time to allow of any marked result 
 being produced, and and not one died. I do not think 
 that any success approaching this has ever been obtained 
 before at any hospital or in any private practice.* 
 
 The means by which these last results were obtained 
 
 * My London Dispensary was open for six years, and was then 
 closed tor reasons which are of no interest to the reader. It was free to 
 all patients without any charge, and at all times to the inspection of 
 members of tlie medical profession. Reports of the cases were regularly 
 published. The following are the results obtained in the treatment of 
 
Consumption and Lung Complaints. 
 
 IX 
 
 I have, after mature reflection, decided not to make 
 public for the following reasons : — 
 
 First, because, as Dr. Koch stated with regard to 
 his inoculating liquid, every inventor has an inde- 
 feasible right to his own discovery ; and it is not only 
 his right, but his positive duty to guard it against the 
 effects of hasty, prejudiced, and too often malevolent 
 misrepresentation, founded upon ignorant, superficial, or 
 biassed experiments. 
 
 Secondly, because in so doing I am only following 
 the acknowledged and universal practice of the most 
 eminent members of the Profession, whose pubKc 
 utterances are almost always confined to points of 
 pathology, but who are entirely silent as to modes of 
 treatment, except occasionally, when their object is to 
 
 Consumption during the six years from 1885 to 1891 by the use of the 
 
 Hypophosphites and other Stcechiological Remedies : — 
 
 Total 
 Cases 
 Treated. 
 
 100 
 
 1886 
 
 1887 • 96 
 
 1888 101 
 
 1889 88 
 
 1890 87 
 
 1891 (Nine months) 40 
 
 Cured. 
 18 
 14 
 11 
 12 
 18 
 16 
 
 Improved. 
 
 Remained 
 Under 
 
 Treatment- 
 
 Died. 
 
 Nil. 
 
 . 31 .. 
 
 . 21 ... 
 
 5 .. 
 
 . 25 
 
 . 21 .. 
 
 . 22 .. 
 
 3 . 
 
 . oti 
 
 . 36 .. 
 
 . 29 .. 
 
 3 . 
 
 . 22 
 
 .. 25 .. 
 
 . 27 .. 
 
 8 . 
 
 . 16 
 
 . 32 .. 
 
 . 15 .. 
 
 5 . 
 
 . 17 
 
 .. 15 .. 
 
 6 .. 
 
 . 
 
 . 3 
 
 IMPEOVBD means that the disorganization or destruction of lun^ tissue was 
 too considerable to have disappeared in the time the patient was under treat- 
 ment. 
 
 "NIL means that the patients were under treatment too short a time to produce 
 any marked effect (usually less than a fortnight). 
 
 Note. — A smaller number of patients were treated in 1891, because, 
 as many of them in former years had left off the treatment as soon 
 as they felt better — they were made to give a promise that they 
 would continue the treatment as long as the physician thought the 
 case required — with the result, that only three cases out of forty are 
 marked as nil, instead of the larger proportion noted in former years. 
 
X Tlie StoecMological Cure of 
 
 controvert or deny the value of that proposed hy some- 
 body else.* 
 
 Thirdly, because it is certain, from what has already 
 occurred with regard to the Hypophosphites, that by 
 making known my secondary treatment, which com- 
 pletes that of the Hypophosphites, I should be acting, 
 not only against my own interest, but against the 
 interest of the public, and ultimately to the disparage- 
 ment of medical science. 
 
 A short account of what has happened with regard to 
 the Hyj)ophosphites will make this clear. 
 
 When I first published my discovery, and declared 
 that Consumption, which was then the most fre- 
 quent, and had proved until then to be the most 
 incurable, of all diseases, could always be cured 
 under certain ascertained conditions, nothing was too 
 hard or too bad to be said of me or my treatment. 
 It was tried at the special hospitals and declared 
 
 * This is well shown by Dr. Buniey Yeo who says: "Every 
 accomplished and intelligent physician and medical practitioner 
 possesses a series of therapeutic facts and observations, many of which 
 he has acquired for himself, many he owes to a sort of unwritten 
 tradition, and these for the most part he keeps to himself. I 
 intentionally state it as a reproach that the jjhysicians in the largest 
 practices rarely communicate anything to the profession as to their 
 modes of treatment. They will read elaborate papers and lectures on 
 more or less disputed pathological doctrines, but, as to the theraiioutic 
 methods they practise, as to the therapeutic observations they have 
 made in the course of their vast experience, they are for the most part 
 as silent as their own door-plates." — Introductory Lecture delivered at 
 King's College Hosjiital by Dr. Burney Yeo, Physician to the Hospital 
 ami Professor of Clinical Therapeutics in King's College. — The Lancet, 
 Feb. 6t/i, 1886. 
 
Consumption and Lung Complaints. xi 
 
 to be utterly useless. Uuackery, which waits upon 
 medicine as its shadow, was the most venial of the 
 crimes I was accused of. Now, the Hjpophosphites 
 are used all the world over. They are in the Pharma- 
 copoeia of every civilized country. They form the 
 avowed basis or secret ingredient of every remedy for 
 Consumption. In the United Kingdom alone there 
 are a large number of different firms or persons who make 
 a speciality of selling, or more frequently of quacking, 
 the Hypophosphite salts, either under their own name 
 or under some disguise : and the Hypophosphites being, 
 as I pointed out, not only a specific for Consumption, 
 but the best and most certain of all tonics, all kinds 
 of combinations and mixtures, all sorts of foods and 
 beverages, all containing Hypophosphites, are sold to 
 the public for the cure of all kinds of diseases. 
 
 At the time I published my discovery a pound weight 
 of a Hypophosphite salt, ready made, could probably 
 not have been got in London for a pound weight of 
 gold. These salts only existed as laboratory samples. 
 I have it upon the highest pharmaceutical authority that 
 the quantity of Hypophosphites now made in Grreat 
 Britain for pharmaceutical purposes, without counting 
 those used for foods and beverages, amounts to three 
 tons a year. The result of this has been that while the 
 mortality from Consumption in England and Wales 
 was in 1855 one in 354 persons living, and the propor- 
 tion of the mortality from Consumption was one in 
 eight to the total number of deaths from all diseases ; in 
 1889 it had fallen to one death from Consumption to 
 
^ii The StoecJiiological Cure of 
 
 648 of the population, and one death from Consumption 
 to 11 '5 deaths from all other diseases.* 
 
 The proof of the efficiency of my discovery rests, 
 however, not only on the fact of the steady decline of the 
 mortality fi'oni Consumption in England, coincident with 
 the increased use of the Hypophosphites either as a 
 medicine against Phthisis, or as a vital stimulant, but 
 also upon a complete and persistent consensus of medical 
 opinion. Since the publication of the first hasty adverse 
 trials made at the outset of my discovery in 1858 and 
 1859, all the medical testimony published has been 
 favourable. Not one of the points I had established 
 has been shaken, and many of the sources of error and 
 misapplication of my treatment which I had indicated 
 have been confirmed by other observers. (See Letter Y. 
 in Letters to a Patient.) 
 
 This was shown again quite recently by several 
 communications made at the meeting of the British 
 Medical Association in 1891. The complete efficiency 
 of the Hypophosphite treatment against Phthisis, within 
 the scientific limits which I had pointed out at the origin, 
 was proved by the results of the cases treated at the 
 
 * Table showing 
 
 THE 
 
 Decbease in the Moktality 
 
 
 FIIOM 
 
 Consumption. 
 
 1855. 
 
 Death 
 
 to 1 ] 
 
 n every 
 
 ,354 persons living. 
 
 18fiO. 
 
 >> 
 
 
 jj 
 
 390 „ 
 
 1865, 
 
 ) 
 
 
 f} 
 
 393 „ 
 
 1870. 
 
 
 
 
 414 „ 
 
 1875. 
 
 
 
 
 452 „ 
 
 1880. 
 
 f 
 
 
 ) t 
 
 5:« „ 
 
 1885. 
 
 tt 
 
 
 >> 
 
 570 „ 
 
 1SS9. 
 
 >i 
 
 
 •> 
 
 648 
 
Cotisumption and Lunrj Com]jlaints. xiii 
 
 Oity of London Hospital for Diseases of the Chest. One 
 point is particularly worthy of notice. I had shown by 
 my researches that the various Hypophosphite salts 
 could not be all used indifferently in the treatment of 
 Phthisis, and that more especially some of these salts 
 are so injurious that they may be called fatal in 
 Consumption. This was one of the points that was 
 specially urged upon the attention of the meeting.* 
 
 Now wiU it be believed that there are preparations 
 of Hypophosphites which are extensively used, and 
 even largely prescribed in cases of Consumption by the 
 medical profession which contain these very Hypo- 
 phosphite salts, that ought never to be used in Con- 
 sumption ? I am constantly meeting with patients who 
 have been treated in this way, and who after showing 
 improvement for a time have fallen away through the 
 production of haemorrhage and destruction of lung 
 tissue, owing to the use of the very salts which I 
 have expressly stated over and over again, for more 
 than thirty years past, should never on any account be 
 given to consumptive patients. 
 
 One of the reasons of this is that the Hypo- 
 phosphites are not employed solely for the treat- 
 ment of Consumption. The different salts have 
 distinct properties, and are specially efficacious in 
 other diseases depending upon the general condition 
 which underlies what is called a deficiency in vital 
 power. Their specific action in these cases was pointed 
 
 * British Medical Journal, Oct. 17, 1891, p. 837. 
 
xiv Tlie Stoechiological Cure of 
 
 out bj me at the very outset of my discovery, as were 
 also the other diseases, besides Consumption, against 
 which I found them efficacious ; but I stated at the 
 same time that my object was not to introduce a quack 
 medicine useful in almost all ailments, but to show that 
 Consumption, hitherto looked upon as the most incur- 
 able of all diseases, was always amenable to treatment 
 under the scientific conditions which I had described.* 
 
 The decrease of the mortality from Consumption in 
 England by the use of the Hypophosphites is therefore 
 due to two causes— partly to their being prescribed by 
 the medical profession as a cure for the disease, and 
 partly because owing to their general use under their 
 own name, or under some disguise, as general stimulants 
 of vitality, they act as a preventive of the disease. As 
 I said when I published my discovery, the use of the 
 Hypophosphites produces in the system a peculiar state 
 of things which does away with the diathesis or general 
 condition characterized by languor and weakness which 
 precedes and allows of Consumption. Now, in the light 
 
 * See my different works. De la Cause immediate de la Phthisie 
 Pulmonaire. Paris, 1858, pp. 225, 226. The second edition of the 
 same work. Paris, 1864, p. 676. Consumption and the Hypophosphites. 
 London, 1875, p. 65. Also Lancet, Nov. 20, 1861, p. 518. 
 
 Quite recently (May 10, 1893) I have received valuable testimony in 
 a letter from the celebrated Professor, Dr. Zdekauer of St. Petersburg, 
 Physician to the Emperor of Russia, in which he says: "In my 
 practice I have verified your statement of the powerful efficacy of the 
 Hypophosi)hites in all cases where the disease had not passed the 
 second stage and was limited to one lung : also at the age of puberty, 
 and as a preservative in cases of heredity." Dr. Zdekauer was the first 
 to intaodiice the Hypophosphites into Piussia on the publication of my 
 discovery. See p. xxviij. 
 
Consumption and Lung Complaints. xv 
 
 of Dr. Kocli's discovery of the tubercle bacillus, it 
 may be said that the Hjpophosphites produce in the 
 system a condition which either prevents the intro- 
 duction of the bacillus or kills it off when it has been 
 introduced. After the bacillus has had free play 
 for a certain time, and has produced sufficient local 
 destruction and transformation of tissue to constitute 
 for it a sort of nidus or refuge of diseased surroundings, 
 it becomes isolated from the living parts, and is, to a 
 great extent, independent of the general condition of the 
 system. The Hypophosphites, then, no longer possess 
 the same efScacy as in the earlier stages of the disease, 
 and this new state of things requu-es other modes of 
 treatment, either with or without the Hypophosphites, 
 according to circumstances. 
 
 As already said, I have now, by means of organic 
 substances which I have discovered, and which I make 
 synthetically, acquired the power of more than doubling 
 the favourable results obtained with the Hypophos- 
 phites alone. This discovery, which is based upon the 
 principles of Stoechiology, embraces a considerable 
 number of new substances, which have a sjpecific action 
 in other diseases besides Consumption.* 
 
 * See Stcecliiological Medicine (the only scientific basis of medical 
 treatment which I have been teaching for thirty years), London, 1884, 
 and Letter to the Registrar-General on the Increase of Cancer in England, 
 London, 1888, Appendix, p. 56. 
 
 The resnlts I have now attained are, unless I am much mistaken, as 
 important as the discovery of the action of the Hypophosphites as a 
 specific remedy for Consumption, and may already be divided into three 
 classes. Certainties: Under this head come specifics for Diphtheria, 
 
 b 
 
xvi Tlie StcecMoTogical Cure of 
 
 This special problem of the cure of Consumption, as 
 likewise that of diphtheria and whooping cough, which 
 I have fully worked out upon the lines of Stoechiology,* 
 is owing to the great prevalence of these diseases, a 
 matter which at any moment may come home with 
 pressing urgency to every one, high or low, either for 
 himself or for some one near or dear to him. Every 
 now and again we have instances of some person in 
 exalted station or prominent position who, through 
 his own fault or that of others, thus meets with a 
 premature fate which might have been avoided. 
 
 We are on the borders, although we have not yet crossed 
 its threshold, of an era of discovery to which the past. 
 
 AVhooping Cough, Gout, Rheumatism, Neuralgia, Heai't Disease, 
 Gravel, Bright's Disease, and immunity from trojiical fever. Proha- 
 hilities : Here are included Typhoid Fever, Cholera, and Diabetes. 
 These in their turn open \ip a view of Fossibilitics too numerous to 
 mention. 
 
 The doctrine of Stoechiology is as yet ignored ; but Dr. Brown- 
 Sequard's ' ' Sequardine " as a rej uvenator is on the lines of Stcechiology . 
 So is the thyroid treatment of Myxcedema recently invented by 
 Mr. George Murray. See Appendix above quoted, p. 57 ; my j^amphlet 
 on Stcechiology, p. 8 ; and Doctrine Stcechiologiqice du Cholera, par 
 Dr Rullier-Beaufond (Paris, 1866). 
 
 There is this difference between what I have done respecting the 
 Hypoi)hosphites and my work concerning these new remedies : 
 the Hypophosphites were not discovered or first made by me, but 
 bj' Dulong, as far back as 1816. AVhat I did with regard to them 
 was to introduce their use as medicinal agents : to show that they 
 were not poisons, as had been thought until then, and to prove that 
 by their action upon the system they supjilied the want of an element 
 the deficiency of which I considered was tiie cause or necessary con- 
 dition of Consumption. 
 
 My now remedies are new organic compounds, which I have made 
 by synthesis, which did not exist before, and which exist only M'hen 
 1 make them. (See Eejjorts of my Dispensary.) 
 
 * See First Report of my Disiicnsary, pp. 18-19. 
 
Consumption and Lunq Complaints. xvii 
 
 however great this century maj have been, will have 
 nothing to compare. This advance must take place upon 
 two lines : one, the line of man's power over the 
 forces of nature, the other, the line of his knowledge 
 and control of the conditions of his own existence. Of 
 these two the latter is certainly of equal importance vdth 
 the first, and sometimes, as far as the individual is 
 concerned, j)9'i"9'™ouiit to it. The effect of any 
 increase or imj^rovement in the means of comfort and 
 happiness will he limited or marred by suffering from 
 disease. The prevention and cure of diseases should 
 therefore he a matter of vital importance, not only to 
 every individual, hut to the community. 
 
 " Ah ! what avail the largest gifts of Heaven, 
 When drooping health and spirits go amiss ? 
 How tasteless then whatever can be given ! 
 Health is the vital principle of bliss." 
 
 Thompson. 
 
 That medicine is one of the most backward of all the 
 applied sciences is a matter of public notoriety, and of 
 almost daily public reproach. That it is so depends 
 upon the fact that all innovations have to go through 
 a period of probation, the length of which varies with 
 the difficulty of the problem to be solved and the moral 
 and intellectual development of the class whose duty 
 it is to solve it.* 
 
 *]\Ir. Lecky says : " Hardly any other of the great branches of human 
 knowledge is at present so backward, tentative, and empirical as 
 medicine, and there is not nauch doubt that the law of supply and 
 demand is a main cause of the defect. Almost all the finer intellects 
 
 62 
 
xviii Tlie StoecJiiolor/ical Cure of 
 
 It is a well-established fact that all innovations 
 require a certain time, often a very long time, before 
 they are accepted. Even such a discovery as Newton's 
 Law of Gravitation was not accepted on the Continent 
 for nearly a century, and almost any number of 
 instances of a similar kind might be given from all 
 branches of knowledge. There is, therefore, nothing 
 special in this to the medical profession. Still, it may, 
 
 which are devoted to this subject are turned away from independent 
 investigations to the lucrative paths of professional practice. Their 
 time is engrossed with cases, most of which could be treated quite as 
 well by men of inferior capacity, and they do little or nothing to 
 enlarge the bounds of our knowledge." 
 
 The Lancet, October 22nd, 1892, in answer to this, says that this 
 difficulty will be overcome by endowments. I am afraid that the 
 establishment of endowments would only supply means of observation : 
 it would not of itself produce either the capacity for rinderstanding what 
 was observed, or for carrying the science beyond the facts themselves. 
 The talent or ])ower of invention cannot be manufactured on demand. 
 Perha]»s the time may come when man will be able to invent inventors, 
 but until now they can only be discovered. They are like novelties in 
 horticulture — sports, freaks of nature. Before he can be endowed, tlie 
 inventor must be sought for and found. Like the hare whose fate his 
 own too often resembles, he must be caught before he can be sjiitted 
 and roasted. The establishing of endowments would only enable those 
 who hold them to keep down tlie discoveries of all outside of their own 
 circle. The only way to avoid this is to create a public office with a 
 scientific head, whose duty it should be to examine all claims to 
 discoveiies or inventions brought before him, particularly by qualitied 
 persons, and to investigate and follow with the assistance of a jury of 
 experts the proofs afforded by the inventor himself, or persons by him 
 appointed. This, of course, means expense, trouble, worry, disajjpoint- 
 ment. But that is only requiring that the community or a delegated 
 portion of it should be subjected to an ordeal similar to what some 
 inventors spend their lives in going through, :ind with a similar result: 
 most frequently a failure, but every now and again a success which 
 wipes out all the past and compensates for it a hundredfold. This 
 will some day be done, and whichever civilized country first adopts 
 
Consumption and Lung Oomj>lainfs. 
 
 XIX 
 
 and to many people it must appear extremely singular 
 that the medical profession should not form an excep- 
 tion to this general rule. Certainly no class of men are 
 individual!}^ more ready and more in the daily habit of 
 postponing their own personal interest to that of others. 
 But this remark applies only to individuals ; as soon as 
 we look at them as a collective body, we find that they 
 
 tliis plan will leave all the rest far beliind unless they make haste to 
 follow close upon its heels. As I wrote years ago, ''inventors have 
 made the world what it is, and if they only shut their hands the 
 world would stand still" {Consumption and the Hypophosphites, chaps, 
 ix. and x.). 
 
 As far as I myself am concerned, I stated several years ago that I, 
 as an inventor, had gone upon strike. I have prosecuted my researches 
 and discoveries, and shall continue them, but will not make them 
 public, happen what may, until justice has been done me for the Hypo- 
 lihosphites, and I advise, as I did in 1875, all inventors— particularly 
 inventors in medicine— to do the same. Let them place their dis- 
 coveries upon record, and go out of the world with them. Mankind 
 will thus in time be taught what is the value of invention and inven- 
 tors by the only way in which such a lesson can be taught. 
 
 Lecky's opinion refers evidently to medicine less as a branch of 
 biology than as a practical means of curing disease. So far, almost 
 all inventors in this line have been looked upon by the profession as 
 enemies against whom everything was justifiable. 
 
 All the endowments founded for the purpose of favouring discovery 
 have been used to prevent or discourage it. The Small Pox Hospital 
 did all it could to prevent the introduction of vaccination and to ensure 
 its failure. After Jenner's discovery was fully admitted, and rewarded 
 by a parliamentary grant of £40,000, a society was formed to propagate 
 vaccination, but Jenner was not accepted as a member of it when he 
 api.lied to be so, and the College of Physicians thought it would be a 
 disgrace for them to admit him among them (see Consumjition aiid the 
 Hypophospldtcs, p. 320). The special hospitals founded for the express 
 purpose of improving the treatment of Consumption have for many 
 years, with the exception of the City of London Hospital, been doing 
 the same thing. See Reports of the Brompton Hospital in my book, 
 Consiimptio7i and the Hypo2)hosphites, pp. 14, 363. 
 
XX 
 
 The Stoechiological Cure of 
 
 are, like all corporations, impervious to argument, and 
 to every appeal to their better selves. 
 
 The whole history of medical improvement, as a 
 practical art, tells the same story. From Harvey, who 
 found that his discovery of the circulation of the blood 
 injured his practice, and left him almost without a 
 friend, down through "Wells, Morton, and Jackson, the 
 inventors of etherization, two of whom out of despair 
 committed suicide,* to Semmelweis, who died as recently 
 as 1865, all discoveries in the practice of medicine 
 present the same uniform feature — neglect or perse- 
 cution of inventors during their life time, tardy or no 
 recognition until after their death. 
 
 This story of Semmelweis, which is the most recent, 
 is a conspicuous instance. 
 
 Child-bed fever which medical men of my genera- 
 tion can recollect as ravaging whole wards of hospitals, 
 was discovered by him to be caused by infection con- 
 veyed by the physicians themselves to the patients, t 
 and Semmelweis showed that by proper precautions and 
 antiseptic means this could be prevented. What was 
 his reward ? He was hounded out of Vienna, and 
 idtimately was so much affected by the neglect shown 
 for himself and his teaching that he went mad, and 
 died in a lunatic asylum. 
 
 * See Consumption and the ITypophosphites, p. 406 and following. 
 
 t So bad was tlie mortality from puerperal fever in Dr. K 's ward 
 
 in the maternity department of the Great Gcnei-al Hospital at Vienna, 
 that patients on finding themselves inmate.s of the dreaded clinique, 
 fell on their knees, and with clasped hands begged to be allowed to 
 return to their homes. — Lancet, Oct. 29th, 1892, p. 1003. 
 
Co7isumj^tion and Lung Complaints. sxi 
 
 On the 24tli of last October a meeting was held at 
 the Eoyal College of Physicians, for the purpose of 
 promoting subscriptions for a monument which is to he 
 erected to his honour at Buda Pesth.* 
 
 Among the learned, well read, and practical men 
 there present, how is it there was no one found to say 
 with Gray — 
 
 " Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust ; 
 Or Flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of Death"? 
 
 They were truly met to do what the Scripture says : 
 " If your son ask for bread, shall ye give him a stone ?" 
 Semmelweis only asked for a little encouragement, a 
 little appreciation, a little sympathy, which are the 
 bread of life to the discoverer, and he gets nothing 
 but a stone, and even that only after he is dead.f 
 
 If such a monument means anything at all, it is. 
 simply a monument to the disgrace of the medical 
 profession. The proper inscription to place upon it 
 would be, " To the Memory of Semmelweis, the 
 "Discoverer of the Cause and Eemedy of Puerperal 
 
 * See Lancet, Oct. 29, 1892. 
 
 t At this meeting the President of the College of Physicians, Sir 
 Andrew Clark, said : "In regard to his tremendous moral heroism, in 
 spite of every conceivable difSculty, in spite of persecution, he continued 
 his labours, imtil crowned with a full clearing up of the difficulties. 
 As to his martyrdom there is not such a history " (Lancet, Oct. 29th, 
 1892). To the mind of a man of such intellectual eminence as Sir 
 Andrew Clark, it must surely have occurred that there is no necessary 
 connection between martyrdom and innovation in science, particularly 
 at a time when there is none between martyrdom and change in 
 religion as it was only two centuries ago. 
 
xxii The StoecJiioIogical Cure of 
 
 "Fever. He died a victim to the hatred and jealousy 
 " of his professional contemporaries. Among the most 
 "prominent of his persecutors were Doctors So- 
 " and-so." Their names might easily be found, and 
 ought to be handed down to posterity. 
 
 To me it would appear, and no doubt it will to many 
 other people, that a monument of this kind really says : 
 " If you do, or attempt to do, as I have done, you must 
 expect to receive the same treatment as I have received." 
 If I might be allowed to make a suggestion tending to 
 the practical cure of such a state of things, I should 
 wish that some member of a similar meeting to that 
 held in honour of Semmelweis would propose the 
 following resolution : " Seeing how often it has 
 occurred in medical science that discoverers of impor- 
 tant truths have been ignored, boycotted, and persecuted, 
 and that the appUcation of valuable improvements 
 has thus been delayed for a considerable time, to the 
 loss of humanity and the disparagement of the medical 
 profession, the individual members of which are, with a 
 few exceptions, personally innocent in the matter : We, 
 the members of this meeting, in order to testify in a 
 practical manner of our regret for the misdeeds of the 
 past, and to prevent as far as possible the recurrence 
 of similar calamitous consequences, have decided that 
 steps shall be taken for calling upon the Government 
 to appoint a Commission, whose duty it shall be to 
 inquire whether there may not be at the present time 
 one or more cases of a similar kind to that which we 
 have just considered, and the past effects of which we 
 
Consurnjption and Lunrj Complaints. xsiii 
 
 deplore the more deeply as now they are beyond 
 remedy." * 
 
 It is but fair and right to say that the difficulties in 
 the way of a settlement of this question of the cure of 
 Consumption are very great, and, like all complicated 
 issues, leave room for honest difference of opinion, and 
 unfortunately still more for dissent, which is not always so. 
 
 The art of therapeutics — that is, the treatment 
 of disease — is in such an inchoate and uncertain 
 state that there is no rule or standard for measuring 
 and regulating the effects of medicines. This is 
 in a great measure due to the fact that in its present 
 state of historical development this crowning branch of 
 
 * Some may think that the reception accorded to Pasteur's aud 
 Dr. Koch's inoculations proves that the medical profession is always 
 ready to accept and impartially examine new discoveries. I am atraid, 
 however, thata little rejection will show that therewere peculiar circum- 
 stances attending Pasteur's and Koch's systems of inoculation, which 
 will account for the action of the pi-ofession in this instance, without 
 attributing to it any of the qualities of freedom from prejudice which 
 has liitherto been belied by its conduct in all similar instances of new 
 discoveries in therapeutics. The following are some of them : — 
 
 Pasteur is not a medical man, and so excites no professional animus. 
 Before his discovery of the inoculation for rabies he was already a 
 member of the French Institute, and had made himself famous all the 
 world over by unveiling the conditions of fermentation. Rabies is 
 a rare disease which few medical men ever meet with ; it is nearly 
 always fatal, and brings tlie physician neither fame nor profit. 
 Pasteur's preventive treatment is efficacious and short, and no one has 
 an interest in its failure. 
 
 Koch's system was on the lines of Pasteur's discovery of inoculation 
 for rabies, the success of wliich has produced a perfect mania for 
 inoculations of every kind. Koch as a bacteriologist was already 
 eminent in a new lino of study of which the profession knew little or 
 nothing, and of course they took as other people — Omiie -ignohwi pro 
 
xxiv The StcecJnological Cure of 
 
 medicine, that for wtiich all its other branches are 
 instituted, cannot be said to have as yet any scientific 
 status.* I have shown how a general principle of 
 treatment can be established and applied, and how 
 as a consequence of this general method the use 
 of the Hypophosphites in Consumption could be 
 managed scientifically. Their successful application 
 would thus be within the reach of every j)ractitioner 
 who was careful to follow my rules, instead of being, 
 as is too often the case with most remedies, the privi- 
 
 onagnifico. The inoculation itself is a delicate operation which 
 always demands the hand of the ph3'sician, whose constant and 
 active superintendence is also required to regulate the action of the 
 remedy. This action was almost always immediately followed by a 
 very pei-ceptible and sometimes a very painful, or even an unfavour- 
 able, effect, which, had the advantage of convincing the patient of 
 the great power of the means that were being employed. And 
 lastly, as the preparation of Dr. Koch's virus was a very difficult 
 and delicate process, demanding considerable time, the special skill 
 possessed only by himself and his assistants, and as it could be 
 supplied only in vei-y limited quantities, it is hardly going too far 
 to assume that here and there among the number who had hastened 
 to hail the new discovery, more than one of them, parti:iularly 
 among the tyros of the profession, who constituted the large majority, 
 might reasonably Hatter himself that when he returned home with 
 the wonder-working virus in his possession, each would be, for a time 
 at least, the Koch of the walk ! A natural, legitimate, and honour- 
 able ambition. 
 
 See a very curious and interesting account of the sights then to be 
 seen in Berlin in Dr. KocWs Treatment, ami the History of the C\ire of 
 my oum Case of Consumption by Dr. Churchill's Methods, by General 
 S., in the Russian Journal Niedjela for December, 1891. 
 
 * This is an old and notorious complaint. As far back as 1866 in a 
 paper read before the Medical Society of New York, Dr. Squibb said : 
 "The accomplished diagnostician of the piesent day can in a large 
 majority of cases decide witli great accuracy the essential character 
 and stages of disease, but can claim no such skill or accuracy either in 
 
Consumption and Lung Complaints. sxv 
 
 lege of the few endowed with a kind of medical instinct, 
 which is not seldom the true secret of the successful 
 physician. But this to the medical mind was, and still 
 is, as startling a novelty as was at the time my claim 
 to have found a remedy for Consumption. I know 
 of no work on therapeutics where the rules I have 
 thus laid down have been given. They have been 
 passed over as of no account.* In surgery the 
 minutest condition is carefully noted, as it is also in 
 medicine in the diagnosis or recognition of diseases ; 
 but in the treatment of them nothing can be more 
 jejune, negligent, and sometimes actually disgraceful. 
 
 tlieir i^revention or their cure, and, Avorse than this, appears determined 
 to leave tliis field of labor, thus daily and so forcibly urged upon him, 
 uncultivated." (Transactions of the Medical Society for the State of 
 New York, 1866, p. 26). 
 
 Twenty years later we find there is still the same thing, as 
 is well shown by that very distinguished and acute observer, the 
 Professor of Clinical Therapeutics in King's College, Dr. Burney Yeo : 
 ' ' ^Nothing perhaps would surprise an intelligent lay inquirer into our 
 systems of medical education more than to hear of the gi-eat number 
 of subjects to which the student of medicine is compelled to give a 
 large amount of attention, and to learn at the same time that the 
 subject of therapeutics, the subject Avhich is specially concerned with 
 the practical application of all these other subjects, for which alone 
 they are taught, has been for most practical purposes omitted 
 altogether." — Lancet, Feb. 6th, 1886. 
 
 * Even such an evident thing as the purity of the medicines 
 employed has been systematically ignored in the case of the Hypophos- 
 phites. I had shown experimentally (see ConsumjJtmi and the Hypo- 
 phospliitcs, p. 68) that they were only efficacious when chemically pure, 
 and that they should never be mixed with other substances. In almost 
 all those which are used this puritj' is wanting, and they are con- 
 stantly given mixed up with other substances of all kinds from cod- 
 liver oil to arsenic and strychnia. This essential condition of purity 
 may alwaj's be secured by using the Hypophosphitcs prepared by 
 Swann, of Paris. 
 
xxvi The Stcecliiological Cure of 
 
 Almost every Consumptive patient now gets the Hypo- 
 phosphites, but often too late, not the right thing, or 
 not in the right way. The same has happened with 
 other important remedies. (See my Letter on Cancer, 
 and the striking instance below.*) 
 
 Consumption may be called the disease of delusions. 
 It is very plain that the issue of a malady which ends 
 by destroying the lungs must depend, whatever the 
 power of the remedy, upon the amount of destruction 
 already produced when the treatment is begun. But of 
 this the patient and his friends know nothing, they simply 
 form their opinion of the case from the intensity of the 
 symptoms : they may suppose that a common cold 
 of some violence is a bad case of Consumption, or 
 they may believe that a slow case of Consumption ia 
 nothing but a common cold, and delay calling in the 
 physician until irreparable damage is done. Now this 
 is a point which it is not always easy to decide, even 
 
 * The following instance fully bears out what is stated above. 
 Many similar ones occur daily. but it is seldom they can be authenticated. 
 There are few men who show the honest frankness of Dr. Burney Yeo. 
 
 "One of the most remarkable gains," aa-ys Dr. Yeo, "in the treat- 
 ment of disease in recent years has been the employment of large doses 
 of iodide of potassium in the treatment of internal aneurism. In 
 common with many physicians, I have seen more satisfactory results 
 follow this mode of treatment than any other. Yet when I first 
 began the use of iodide of potassium in the treatment of internal 
 aneurism the results were disappointing, and my belief in the remedy 
 slight. I found the same to be the case with some eminent physicians 
 and surgeons whom I met in consultation. But in the year 1877, on 
 the occasion of the meeting of the British Medical Association at 
 Manchester, I was fortunate enough to see in the infirmary of that 
 city a number of cases of thoracic aneurism which had been collected 
 together by Dr. Simpson for the purpose of showing the members of 
 
Consumi>tion and Lung Complaints. xxvii 
 
 for the physician himself. It is sometimes a difficult 
 matter for a very skilled ausciilator, and one who has 
 a thorough practical knowledge of lung diseases, to 
 decide the extent of disorganization which has ah'eady 
 been produced. It may thus happen that, owing 
 to his mistake as to the damage already done, because 
 he has neglected or been unable to determine the 
 real condition of the patient, he may think that the 
 effect of the Hypophosphites falls short of what 
 he had a right to expect. In his application of the 
 remedies he may not take sufficient account of acci- 
 dental complications, or may consider disturbances pro- 
 duced by them as indications of failure in the efficacy 
 of the specific treatment. 
 
 Again, in this, as in all chronic diseases, the success of 
 the treatment depends as much upon the will of the 
 patient himself as upon the physician. It too often 
 happens that an accidental and temporary aggravation of 
 
 the Association the vahie of the iodide of potassium treatment in snch 
 cases. It was certainly a remarkable series of cases, and the results 
 were excellent, and it was found that whereas in London I and others 
 who had tried this treatment had been content with giving five grain 
 doses three times a day. Dr. Simpson had given twenty, thirty, and 
 forty grain doses instead. Now, as soon as I began using these large 
 doses of iodide of potassium in the treatment of internal aneurism, I 
 realized its great remedial value, and I have had the happiness of seeing 
 most admirable results follow the prolonged administration of theae 
 large doses." — Lancet, Feh. 6th, 1886. 
 
 The discovery of this mode of treatment is due to Dr. Chuckerbutty, 
 of the Medical College Hospital, Calcutta, who published his first 
 results in the British Medical Journal, 1862. I have obtained still 
 better results in the treatment of heart disease and internal aneurism 
 by some of my new remedies, following on the lines first opened up 
 by Chuckerbutty. 
 
xxviii Tlie StcecJiioJogical Cure of 
 
 the complaint, caused b;^ a cold ; a relapse, or a return of 
 the disease, whicli is always possible in Phthisis, nay, 
 even the very improvement which has been obtained, 
 will make the patient remiss or negligent in following 
 his physician's advice. Much more might be said 
 upon this point which I omit. (See Letter YI. in 
 Letters to a Patient.) 
 
 In spite, however, of all these difficulties, and many 
 others which I have not room to refer to, there are two 
 or three peculiarities in the action of the Hypophosphites 
 in Consumption which would enable any unprejudiced 
 observer to arrive at a definite and unimpeachable 
 •conclusion. 
 
 The first of these is that, when the disease has not 
 passed the second stage, and is limited to one lung, the 
 proper use of the Hypophosphites almost always pro- 
 duces a cure. (See my work Consumjytion and the Uypo- 
 phoHphitcfi, p. 99.) 
 
 The second is the effect of the Hypophosphites upon 
 patients below the age of puberty. I say, deliberately and 
 advisedly, that no child ought to die of Consumption at 
 the present day. I have hardly lost a case for years. 
 Even the most extreme cases in children can almost 
 always be cured, while it is a well-known fact that, before 
 my discovery of the specific action of the Hypophosj^hites 
 in Consumption, it was always looked upon as being 
 much more incurable in children even than in adults. 
 
 Again, in cases of heredity, the methodical and 
 habitual use of the Hypophosphites as a vital stimulant 
 will preserve all the younger members of a family 
 
Consumption and Lung Complaints. xxix 
 
 where all the others have been swept away hj the 
 disease. 
 
 These three points are of such prominent importance 
 that they alone are sufficient to characterize and 
 establish beyond controversy the specific efficacy of 
 the Hypophosphites. (See note, p. xiv.) 
 
 But besides the scientific difficulties, there is at 
 the present time another general and permanent source 
 of confusion in this matter. The Hypophosphites are in 
 such common, I might almost say such universal, employ- 
 ment, under all kinds of disguises, as tonics, foods, drinks, 
 pick-me-ups, &c., that it very frequently happens that 
 a patient takes them without knowing it, or without his 
 doing so being known to his physician, and the result 
 thus produced by the Hypophosphites is attributed either 
 to some treatment employed, to the curative influence 
 of some climate, or to some other cause which has had 
 little or nothing to do with it.* 
 
 * A very remarkable instance of this is the fonnding of Mentone as a 
 winter resort. It had Irardly been lieard of until the year 1859, when 
 all the world rushed there as they did a short time ago to Berlin, but, 
 unlike what happened in Berlin, many of those who went to Mentone 
 were cured. For several years the world was made to believe that this 
 astonishing change in a hitherto incurable disease was cfl'ected by the 
 wonderful all-healing climate of the place, but at last the truth came 
 out, and the author of this splendid and to himself profitable piece o 
 engineering confessed that the cures were due to the use of the Hypo- 
 phosphites not onlj' in the case of the patients, but in his own also. 
 See this curious story, which would be too laughable were it not a 
 question of life or death to thousands, in my Consumption and the 
 Hypojjlwsjjhitcs, p. 367. Every now and again we have the same thing 
 done over again for some new place, in some new or old climate, where 
 land is useless and therefore cheap, and can thus be made valuable by 
 
XXX The Stcechiological Cure of 
 
 A subject like this is of such magnitude that it ought 
 not to be looked upon as a personal matter, nor as a 
 question of justice or injustice to an individual inventor, 
 but as one which involves the life or death of thousands. 
 The broad fact that the mortality from Phthisis has 
 undergone a steady yearly decline since the j)ublication 
 of my discovery of the curative action of the Hypo- 
 phosphites in 1858 is undeniable, as is also the enormous 
 decrease in the mortality from Consumption in the special 
 hospitals. Coincident with this is the ever-increasing 
 use of the Hypophosphites, not only as remedies by the 
 profession, but as mere stimulants and tonics as well as 
 in the shape of foods and drinks. 
 
 If there is no connection between these two series of 
 facts, then these effects must be due to some other cause, 
 the discovery of which is of the most immediate interest 
 to the 4%000 people who will die of this complaint 
 within a year ; and a cause of such wide and general 
 action must certainly not be very difficult of detection. 
 So far only two explanations have been given, one is 
 improvement in diagnosis, the other improved living ; 
 but neither of these explanations would apply to the 
 results obtained at the special hospitals. There is no 
 reason to suppose that the diet in them is practically 
 better than it was thirty years ago, or that the 
 
 and for tlie projectors. AVhat is the real value of climate is well 
 shown by the results obtained before the Hypophosphites were known 
 (see p. xxxi.). See on change of climate a letter by Mr. Humphrey 
 Marten, M.B., M.R.C.S. (of Ailelaide, South Aiistralia), in Lancet, 
 March 2rith, 1893, p. 661, where he protests against patients beiug 
 sent to die abroad, and Letters to a Patient, No. VII. 
 
Consumption mid Lung Complaints. xxxi 
 
 physicians of the present day can diagnosticate a case 
 of Phthisis any better than such men as C. J. B. 
 WiUiams, Walshe, Clark, and Quain. 
 
 Still, in spite of all these disturbing circumstances, 
 there would be very little difficulty in having the ques- 
 tion threshed out were there only scientific obstacles in 
 the way. I have been pleading this cause of humanity 
 and common sense for thirty-five years past, though 
 possibly some readers may think the cause I am 
 pleading is only my own. I little care whether they 
 do so or not, I am used to such things. But if any one 
 feels an interest in this question, either from personal 
 motives, sympathy for relatives or friends, concern for 
 the public welfare, or from the natural kindness of a 
 benevolent disposition, he will find that the settling of 
 it would be of more use than the endowment of many 
 charities, and I would ask him to reflect upon the 
 following facts, which sum up shortly what precedes. 
 
 In 1855 Consumption was looked upon as the most 
 incurable of all diseases. Dr. C. J. B. Williams, one of 
 the founders of the Brompton Hospital, the introducer 
 of cod liver oil into England, with Walshe, one of the 
 leaders in the new practice of auscultation, and with 
 him the highest authority then living in England for 
 the treatment of this disease, publicly stated that out of 
 7,000 cases of which he had a record, and which had 
 been treated by cod liver oil, change of climate, and other 
 means, he had only cured seventy-five. 
 
 The mortality in the Brompton Hospital in 1855 was 
 ninety-six per cent. 
 
 
 
xxxii The Stceckiological Cure of 
 
 It was then I published my discovery of the curative 
 action of the Hypophosphites in Consumption.* 
 
 At that time the action of these salts was unknown. 
 It was thought to be highly poisonous, and it is 
 nearly certain that a pound weight of any Hypophos- 
 phite salt read// made could not then have been obtained 
 in London or Paris in return for a pound weight of gold. 
 Since the publication of my discovery the use of the 
 Hypophosphites has been continually extending, and 
 has been attended by a yearly continuous and corre- 
 sponding decline in the mortality from Phthisis. In 1889 
 alone in England and Wales the number of patients 
 
 * The following Tables show the decrease in the mortality from 
 Consuuiption produced by the treatment since my discovery of the 
 action of the Hypophosphites. See my book Coiismnptian and the 
 Hypophosphites, p. 363. 
 
 Dk. C. J. B. WiLMAMs' Cases. 
 
 Cases Treated. Cm-ed and j^.^^^^ Mortality 
 
 Improved. per Cent. 
 
 1855 ... 7,000 ... 75 . 6,925 ... 98-9 
 
 Brompton Hospital. 
 
 Cases Treated without the Use of the Hypophosphites. 
 
 Cases Treated. f "^'^'^ ^"f Died. Mortality 
 
 Improved. per Cent. 
 
 1SG3 ... 6,001 ... 251 ... 5,750 ... 95-8 
 
 Brompton Hospital. 
 
 Cases Treated loith the Use of the Hypophosphites. 
 
 ^P°r*« Cases Treated. Cure.l and ^.^ Mortalit^y 
 
 of Improved. per Cent. 
 
 [gig}-- l.WO - 802 ... 198 ... 198 
 
 Since then no reports iiave, I believe, been pnl)lishcd by this Hospital 
 
CoiisuiiqdiOH and Luikj Complaints. xxxiii 
 
 who would have died of Consumption under the old state 
 of things would have heen 70,000. The numher who 
 did die of the complaint, according to the Registrar- 
 General's Report, was 44,738. There has thus been a 
 saving, in one year, of upwards of 25,000 lives. Of 
 the number who have died, I now say without hesita- 
 tion that nine-tenths might have been saved by the 
 scientific employment of the Hypophosphites as a pre- 
 ventive in those who are predisposed, or as curative 
 agent in the incipient stages of the disease. 
 
 But to realize what this means, we should take into 
 account not only the number of lives which might be saved, 
 but the terrible amount of suffering, both mental and 
 physical, entailed upon families by the long sickness of its 
 members often when already grown up, the loss to the 
 
 
 
 Cases Published 
 
 BY ME. 
 
 
 Year. 
 
 Total 
 Cases Treated. 
 
 Cured. 
 
 Improved. 
 
 Died. 
 
 1856 
 
 35 
 
 
 9 
 
 11 
 
 14 
 
 1858 
 
 79 
 
 
 17 
 
 10 
 
 22 
 
 1SS5-6 
 
 75 
 
 
 18 
 
 31 
 
 5 
 
 1887-8 
 
 149 
 
 
 25 
 
 79 
 
 6 
 
 1889 
 
 88 
 
 
 12 
 
 25 
 
 8 
 
 1890 
 
 87 
 
 
 18 
 
 32 
 
 5 
 
 1891 
 
 40 
 
 
 16 
 
 Percentage, 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 1856 
 
 100 
 
 
 25-7 
 
 31-4 ... 
 
 40 
 
 1858 
 
 100 
 
 
 21-5 
 
 12-6 ... 
 
 27-8 
 
 1885-6 
 
 100 
 
 
 24-0 
 
 41-3 ... 
 
 6-6 
 
 1887-8 
 
 100 
 
 
 16-7 
 
 53-0 ... 
 
 4-6 
 
 1889'' 
 
 100 
 
 
 13-6 
 
 28-4 ,. 
 
 9-0 
 
 1890 
 
 100 
 
 
 20-6 
 
 36-7 ... 
 
 5-7 
 
 1891 
 
 100 
 
 
 40-0 
 
 37-5 .. 
 
 GO 
 
 The year of lutiueuza. 
 
 c 2 
 
xxxiv The Stcecliiological Cure of 
 
 commiinity thus produced, and the spreading of the 
 disease among the rest.* I unhesitatingly assert that 
 at the present day almost every one who dies of Con- 
 sumption does so through his own fault or his doctor's : 
 his own fault in not applying for advice in time, or 
 not following it, or his doctor's hy not using the proper 
 means. 
 
 Let us assume that the results which I have stated as 
 now obtainable by my complete methods are true, and 
 that out of forty patients thus treated not one died. 
 Let us further recollect that mine were not selected 
 cases, but that all who came to the Dispensary 
 were put under treatment. It follows that all, 
 or nearly all, the 45,000 persons who died of 
 Consumption last year must, at some time or other, 
 have been in a stage of the disease not more 
 advanced than that in which were the forty patients 
 who were treated at my Dispensary. There are uj)- 
 wards of 30,000 medical practitioners in Grreat Britain. 
 Let us suppose that some means had been found of 
 inducing 1,000 of these to each take charge of forty 
 patients and to treat them by the means I have dis- 
 covered.! The question which was first raised by me in 
 1857, thirty-six years ago, would be fully solved in less 
 
 * See Third Report of my Free Dispensary. 
 
 t There is one fact which stands out prominently among the effects 
 proiluced hy the addition to tlic Hypophosphites of my new stoechio- 
 logical remedies, and that is the ahnost total disappearance of hiemorr- 
 hage. With other modes of treatment than mine the fmpiency with 
 which l>lood-spitting occurs vaiii-s between forty-five and sixty-two 
 per cent, (see First Report of my Dispensary, p. 7). 
 
CoHsamjition and Lung Complaints. xxxv 
 
 than thirty-six months, and, provisionally so at least, 
 in less than thirty-six weeks ; and, as I foretold, thirty- 
 six years ago, Consumption would he a thing of the past. 
 
 Among all the mighty deeds effected by our modern 
 civilization, is there one mightier and better than this ? 
 And if our civilization is anything like what we 
 fondly believe, is not this a matter worth more trouble 
 and interest than nine-tenths of the questions, I care not 
 what they may be, for which public opinion is every day 
 stirred ? 
 
 We may boast with truth that in this country 
 there is more philanthropy running about seeking 
 to do good, and more money to back it, than in 
 any other country in the world ; but it runs in 
 channels, its courses have already been marked 
 out ; or if any of it is free and unappropriated, 
 there are plenty of appliances on the watch ready to 
 capture it and direct it to their own purposes. Any new 
 claim upon its action, or even upon its mere attention, 
 must be engineered, and this engineering can only be 
 done through an organization of private solicitation, 
 or through the action of the press. Now, the capa- 
 city for invention in science does not confer upon 
 a man any special talent for working either of these 
 two kinds of social machinery ; rather the contrary. 
 Accustomed as he is to converse with Nature, to 
 listen to a voice which when it says Yea always 
 means Yea, and when it says Nay always means 
 Nay, he feels very unqualified to pick his way 
 among the shifting aspects and delusive utterances of 
 
xxxvi The Stcechiological Cure of 
 
 his fellow-men. If he sometimes attempts to do so, 
 he can seldom bring himself to stoop as low or as often 
 as might be required. He is wont to move in a sphere 
 of things where he feels independent, and his mental 
 habit is to rely upon himself. When, therefore, he is 
 called upon, not to invent or to discover, but to work 
 the means necessary for the propagation of the results 
 he has attained, he too often withdraws from the attempt 
 with a feeling of sadness not unmixed with disgust, and 
 lets things be as they are. As our old poet Daniel 
 says — 
 
 " Seeing thus the course of things must run, 
 Ho looks thereon not strange, but as fore-done." 
 
 J. F. CHUECniLL. 
 
 82, WiMPOLK Strekt, 
 London, W. 
 
Consumption and Lung Complaints. xxxvii 
 
 SUMMARY OF WORK DONE AT 
 DR. CHURCHILL'S FREE DISPENSARY. 
 
 The results obtained from the opening of the Dispensary 
 in December, 1885, to its close September 15th, 1891, 
 were as follows : — 
 
 The Hypophosphites used were in all cases those 
 prepared by H. H. Swann, of Paris. 
 
 Total number of Patients treated 1,518. Of these were 
 suffering from 
 
 Consumption 
 
 Asthma and Bronchitis 
 Nose and Throat 
 Whooping Cough 
 Various ... 
 
 
 
 512 
 584 
 258 
 34 
 130 
 
 Number of Attendances of Patients at Dispensary — 
 
 
 DAILY. 
 
 
 WEEKLY. 
 
 
 1886 to Dec. 31st. 
 
 5,576 
 
 
 
 
 1887 
 
 7,878 
 
 
 
 
 1888 
 
 7,407 
 
 + 
 
 170 
 
 
 1889 
 
 4,449 
 
 + 
 
 2,254 
 
 
 1890 
 
 3,288 
 
 + 
 
 2,518 
 
 
 *1891 to Sept. 15th. 
 
 1,304 
 
 + 
 
 1,490 
 
 
 29,902 + 6,432 == 36,334 
 
 7 
 
 d.^ 094- != Number of days' treatment 
 ~£u^\jAi':t for weekly patients. 
 
 9Q 009 — Number of ditto for daily 
 4,V,i)\J4, patients. 
 
 TA- Q9fi = Total number of days' 
 < '±,f7.«u treatment. 
 
 * A smaller number of Patients were treated in 1891, because, as many 
 of them in former years had left oil the treatment as soon as they 
 felt better — they were made to give a promise that they would con- 
 tinue the treatment as long as the Physician thought the case required. 
 — See note, pp. viij. and ix. 
 
 For further particulars see Reports of Asthma, Bronchitis, and other 
 Eesjiiratory Com plaints successfully treated by Stteclnological Remedies, 
 and the Yearly Reports of my Dispensary. 
 
xxxviii Tlie Stoechiological Cure of Cons^imption. 
 
 The following tables show the results obtained in the 
 different classes of disease : — 
 
 Consumption — of the 512 Patients treated were — 
 
 Cured 89 
 
 Improved ... ... ■•• ... 160 
 
 Died 24 
 
 Remaining under Treatment 120 
 
 Nil 119 
 
 Asthma and Bronchitis — 584, of whom were — 
 
 Cured 1(59 
 
 Improved ... ... ... ... 188 
 
 Died 3 
 
 Remaining under Treatment ... ... 119 
 
 Nil 105 
 
 Diseases of the Nose and Throat — 258, of whom 
 
 wore — 
 
 Cured ... 107 
 
 Improved ... ••• ... ••• 87 
 
 Died None 
 
 Remaining under Treatment ... ... "23 
 
 Nil ... ■•■ ... -+1 
 
 Whooping Cough — 84, of whom were — 
 
 Cured •■• 16 
 
 Improved ... ... ... ... 10 
 
 Died ... .• ... None 
 
 Remaining under Treatment ... ... None 
 
 Nil 8 
 
 Various, not classed — 130, of these were — 
 
 Cured 42 
 
 Improved ... ... ... ... 43 
 
 Died None 
 
 Remaining under Treatment .. . ... 13 
 
 Nil 32 
 
 Those under the heading "Various" comprised the following: — 
 Gout and Rheumatism 28, Neuralgia 9, Heart Disease 23, Goitre 1, 
 Eczema 1, Ajihonia 1, Hay Fever 7, Gastric Ulcer 2, Ana-mia 24, 
 Ozffina 8, Pharyngeal Deafness 7, Dysphagia 1, Nasal Polypus 4, 
 Otorrhcea I, Dyspepsia 1. (For the cases of Consumption, see note, 
 p. xxxiii.) 
 
 Nil means that the cases were slight, or that the ])atients 
 were under treatment too .short a time to produce any niarked elfect 
 (usually less than a fortnight). 
 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 1 
 
 This bg^k is due on the date indicated below, or at the 
 expiration of a definite period after the date of bon-owing, 
 as provided by the rules of the Library or by special ar- 
 rangement with the Librarian in charge. 
 
 DATE BORROWED 
 
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 DATE BORROWED 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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RG311 ^^'^ 
 
 1893 
 
 Churchill