HOMŒOPATHY.[14]
Samuel Hahneman, the founder of the system of practice called by this
name, was born at Messein in Saxony in the year 1755. At the age of
twenty he went to Leipsic, to obtain his education, with but twenty
ducats in his pocket. While he was going through with his course
of education, he supported himself chiefly by translating English
works on medicine. He professed to be dissatisfied with the common
modes of medical practice, and after he took his degree, instead of
becoming at once a practitioner of medicine, he preferred to gain
his livelihood by translating books, and by contributing to various
scientific journals in Germany.
It was in the year 1790 that he first broached the idea, which is the
great principle of the Homœopathic system, and which he soon dreamed
was to overturn and dispossess all other medical practice. He viewed
himself as a great reformer, as the founder of a system, and he was
soon ready to proclaim to the world, that his was the ‘great gift of
God to man.’ Discarding all the past experience of ages as useless,
with his mind filled with bright visions of his future greatness, he
was ready to say with Paracelsus, ‘the monarchy of physic is mine.’
In 1796 he published his first paper on the subject of Homœopathy, in
1805 his first work, in 1810 his famous Organon, and the next year
his Materia Medica. He died in Paris at an advanced age, only a few
years since, having lived to see his system adopted very extensively
all over Europe.
It will not be necessary to spread before the reader the principles
of his system in his own language. There is in his statement of them
considerable verbiage, which has quite a learned air, but which would
be unintelligible to the common reader. The essential principles of
his system are but two in number, when the mass of words comes to be
sifted by a little plain common sense.
The great principle, which lies at the foundation of this system, and
which has given it its name, is found in the Latin aphorism, _Similia
similibus curantur_. This is in homely English, Like things are
cured by like. In other words, a disease is cured by remedies which
produce upon a healthy person symptoms similar to those presented
by that disease. Thus vomiting is to be cured by a nauseant,
diarrhœa by a laxative, &c. Hahneman does not pretend that this is
a newly-discovered principle, but says that it has been acted upon
from time immemorial. Of this fact the following examples are given.
Senna has been used for colic; rhubarb for diarrhœa; thorn apple
for insanity; the sweating sickness has been treated by sudorifics,
frozen limbs by rubbing in snow, and burns by putting them to the
fire and by stimulating ointments. So Shakspeare alludes to the same
fact;
“Tut, man! one fire burns out another’s burning,
One pain is lessened by another’s anguish;
Turn giddy and be holp by backward turning;
One desperate grief cures with another’s languish;
Take thou some new infection to thine eye,
And the rank poison of the old will die.”
So also the common proverb ‘cure your bite with the hair of the same
dog’ has reference to the same principle.
All that Hahneman claims is, that he has taken this principle, thus
occasionally recognized, and demonstrated its applicability to the
whole range of disease, and made it the basis of a system of practice.
Hahneman says that there can be but three relations of remedies to
diseases—heterogeneity, opposition, and resemblance; hence severally,
the Allopathic, Antipathic, and Homœopathic systems of practice.
The Allopathic mode—that which treats diseases by creating another
disease—he says, “cannot cure in any 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.”
“Antipathic treatment is merely palliative. When the action produced
by the remedy employed, and which may seem to effect a neutralization
of the symptoms, or even a cure, ceases, the reverse process
immediately takes place—not only shall the primitive malady return,
but come it will with aggravated symptoms, and in proportion to the
doses administered.”
“The Homœopathic 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 go right to
the parts affected; and as two similar diseases cannot exist at the
same time in the same system, the natural symptoms give way, provided
the artificial ones slightly surpass them in intensity.”
The allopathic mode, he claims, is the mode of treating disease in
common vogue, and his followers call physicians generally by the name
of allopaths. Now we have no objection to the name which they assume
to themselves, but we do object to their giving inappropriate names
to their neighbors. The title of Allopath, thus impudently bestowed
upon us by Homœopathists, is not a correct title. The treatment of
disease by physicians of the old school, as they are termed, is not
characterized by any predominance of the allopathic principle. They
do not ordinarily attempt to cure a disease by creating another. They
do sometimes indeed make use of this principle. As good an example of
it as can be given is to be found in the application of a blister to
relieve internal inflammation. Here a new disease is produced, upon
a part which is able to bear it without injury, in order to cure the
disease in the internal organ. And no fact is better established, as
my readers will all allow, than that disease is sometimes thus cured,
although Hahneman says “_Allopathic_ treatment cannot cure in any
case.”
What Hahneman terms the antipathic mode is much used by physicians.
I mention as an example the treatment of spasmodic colic by opium.
This antipathic remedy in almost all cases cures this malady, though
Hahneman says the “antipathic treatment is merely palliative” and
never cures.
In regard to many of the remedies which cure disease, it may be said,
that we know not in what manner they do it. As an example I will
refer to cinchona, and quinine, the essential principle of cinchona,
in curing intermittent fever. The fact that they will cure it in most
cases is as well established as any fact in medicine, but _how_ they
do it no one knows. Many explanations have been ventured, but they
are mere conjectures. Hahneman asserts, that cinchona and quinine
cure intermittent fever on the homœopathic principle, because, as he
declares, he has found, that these articles produce on persons in
health symptoms similar to those of this disease. His experience,
however, does not correspond with that of others, who are more
competent to observe correctly, than one who looks at everything
through the distorting medium of a favorite theory. Cinchona and
quinine have been given to many persons in health, both in large and
in small doses, in order to test the truth of Hahneman’s alleged
experience, and no such results as he describes have followed. They
seem to be singularly confined to Homœopathists.
We see occasionally, but _only occasionally_, effects from agents in
the treatment of disease which seem to have their explanation in the
principle, that one disease is cured by temporarily creating another
similar to it. Hahneman fixed his eye upon these few facts, his mind
became filled with the _one idea_ which he there saw, and he was soon
blind to everything else. Losing thus his mental equilibrium, he
became an errorist precisely in the same way that thousands have done
before him.
The second great principle of Homœopathy is, that a peculiar
power, a ‘dynamic power,’[15] as Hahneman calls it, is communicated
to medicinal substances by minute division, with agitation and
trituration. This Hahneman considers as his grand discovery. This was
wholly an original idea with him, and if it be a really discovered
_fact_ that a peculiar power is thus given to medicines, the credit
belongs to him, and to him alone.
The minuteness of the subdivision prescribed by Hahneman is extreme.
He does not talk of doses so large as the millionth part of a
grain—this would be horribly disastrous. A hundred millionth of a
grain is quite a formidable dose. A decillionth is the common dose,
and this numeral is expressed, after the old method of enumeration,
by an unit with a string of _sixty_ cyphers. If we suppose the
population of the earth to amount to a thousand millions, a grain,
if taken in the dose of a decillionth of a grain, would supply every
inhabitant of the earth with a septillion of doses. And if each
one should take three decillionths of a grain a day, the present
inhabitants of the earth would require very nearly a sextillion of
years to use up the whole grain.
A Dr. Dufresne reports a case in the Bibliotheque Homœopathique, in
which he unfortunately administered an over dose, the _one hundred
millionth_ of a grain of strychnine, a medicine which physicians
ordinarily give in the dose of a fifteenth or tenth part of a grain.
It was a case of neuralgia. He does not say at what time he gave
this over dose of a hundred millionth of a grain. But after taking
it he says, “the patient was seized with a paroxysm of the neuralgia
in the night about an hour earlier than the regular period of its
attack. The usual symptoms were experienced, but it was remarkable
that they occurred in an inverse order, attacking those parts last
that were attacked first before. _The dose was much too strong._
Madame B. was like a mad woman all night; the racking pains seized
her whole head, and her face was swollen and burning hot.” But it
seems that after all, this over dose cured Madame B., for “there was
but one slight accession of the complaint afterwards: the lady has
ever since been perfectly well.” Dr. Dufresne adds that he should
never again be guilty of such over-dosing, but that had he to treat
Madame B’s. malady over again, he should give a decillionth of a drop
of the alcoholic tincture.
Hahneman and his followers do not talk of these exceedingly small
doses in regard to powerful medicines only, but also in regard to
medicines considered almost inert. Nothing is more common with
Homœopathists than to give a decillionth or two of a grain of
charcoal or oystershell, or common salt.
Hahneman thought much of the amount of agitation and trituration,
which were employed in preparing medicines. He gives very particular
directions as to the exact number of minutes to be consumed by
different portions of these processes. In mixing one grain of any
substance with a hundred grains of sugar of milk, he directs that
the mixture shall be made thus—the grain of substance is to be added
first to a third part of the sugar of milk and they are to be rubbed
together six minutes—the mass is then to be scraped from the pestle
and mortar, which is to take four minutes—now it is to be rubbed
again six minutes—then scraped into a heap, which is to take four
minutes—the second third of the sugar of milk is now added—rubbing
six minutes follows—scraping together four minutes—rubbing six
minutes again—another scraping together four minutes is followed by
the addition of the last third of the sugar of milk—then there is
rubbing six minutes, scraping together four minutes, and six minutes
more of rubbing completes the mixture. But this is only the beginning
of the preparation which is required. A long course of processes is
directed to carry the medicine to its proper state of dilution, up
to the billionth, trillionth, quadrillionth, even the decillionth,
degree. For a more full statement of Hahneman’s directions, I refer
the reader to Dr. Holmes’ Lecture on Homœopathy.
Hahneman is very particular as to the number of shakes to which
medicines in solution should be subjected. On this point he says,
“A long experience and multiplied observations upon the sick lead
me within the last few years to prefer giving only two shakes to
medicinal liquids, whereas I formerly used to give ten.” What
particular effect this difference in the amount of shaking has upon
the ‘dynamic power’ of the medicines, he does not see fit to say.
I suppose he means that the more shakes a medicine receives, the
greater is its power. If this be true, what a tremendous ‘dynamic
power’ must be imparted to some of the liquid medicines in the saddle
bags of country doctors, as they jog about from place to place; and
yet, poor unobserving mortals, they never discern any of the effects
of this power though they might be very apparent to the acute vision
of Hahneman and his followers.
The common idea on this subject is, that when any substance, as
tartar emetic, for example, is _fully_ dissolved in water, no amount
of shaking can effect a more intimate union between the tartar
emetic and the water. Nor can it alter the nature of the union, so
as to give the solution any new power, or any increase of power. In
order to alter the nature of the union, you must introduce a third
agent, which shall act _chemically_ upon the tartar emetic and the
water.
This is true so far as we know; and it was universally acknowledged
to be true till Hahneman came out with an opposite opinion. But
to establish what is so opposite to all past experience, and to
overthrow what has been considered by all as an established fact,
the very best of proof is necessary. Hahneman says, that the proof
is to be found in the effects of the solutions, to which agitation
has communicated the ‘dynamic power.’ And if the effects, which
he asserts that he and other Homœopathists have seen, are really
produced, then the proof I allow is competent.
Some loose analogies, which have hardly the shadow of plausibility
are much relied upon by Homœopathists in advocating the efficacy of
their medicines. In relation to the ridicule which has been cast upon
_the little doses_, Dr. Hering says, “suppose _electricity_ had at
its first disclosure been sneeringly called _the little tempest_, how
ridiculous might it have appeared to those persons who were incapable
of comprehending its minuteness or its might.” And the minute
division of matter, as, for example, in the making of gold leaf and
in the diffusion of odors, is often alluded to by Homœopathists, as
illustrating the power of the little doses. When they will prove
that a little electricity will produce a greater effect than a large
amount of it, that a decillionth of a grain of gold will make a
stronger leaf than a whole grain with the same extent of surface, or
that a decillionth of a grain of musk can be made to give out a more
powerful odor than any ‘allopathic’ quantity of it: then I will not
only grant that the analogies are good ones, and that they go to show
that Homœopathy is probably true; but I will also engage to prove,
that a tack-hammer can give a stronger blow than a sledge, that
smallness is always the emblem of might, that a man will be better
nourished by Homœopathic doses of food than by the usual allopathic
ones, and any other ridiculous thing of a kindred character.
Having thus noticed the two great principles of Hahneman’s system,
let us now see on what kind of observation or experience these
principles rest. If the experience be satisfactory in its amount and
character, then, however opposed these principles are to the ideas
and doctrines current among physicians, we must admit them to be
true. It is to _facts_ that I appeal—_numerous_, _well observed_,
_well attested_, _comparable_ _facts_. Nothing else can settle this
question. If the decillionth of a grain of strychnine, or mercury,
or charcoal, or salt, or oystershell, does produce palpable and
measurable effects upon the human system, lasting twenty, thirty,
forty, or fifty days, and does thus cure disease, as Homœopathists
assert, let it be proved by _facts_.
As an example of the character of the observations, which are
relied upon by Homœopathists to establish this point, I will take
Jahr’s Manual of Homœopathic Medicine published in 1838. It was
‘translated from the German by authority of the North American
Academy of the Homœopathic Healing Art.’ This book is high in favor
with all the Homœopathists in this country. It is a closely printed
octavo volume of six hundred pages. Four hundred pages are occupied
with descriptions of the effects of about two hundred remedies,
and the remaining two hundred pages contain a Repertory, as it is
called, in which the symptoms are arranged alphabetically, with the
remedies which produce them opposite. The Repertory is of service
in investigating cases, and, if we understand it, it is to be used
in this way. A list is to be made of the symptoms presenting in any
case, and then the remedies appropriate to the cure of these symptoms
can be found opposite to them in the Repertory.
The descriptions of the effects of remedies are exceedingly minute
and particular. I will give a few examples, taken almost at random
from the descriptions of a few articles. ‘_Drawing_ pain in _hollow_
teeth, extending to the eye-brows—cracked _upper_ lip—stitches in
_hollow_ teeth, _when biting_—pain and pungency in the _elbow_,
which allows one not to stretch or exert the arm—pungency in the
knee and bend of the knee—inflammation and swelling of one _half_
of the nose—torpor and stiffness of one _half_ of the tongue (which
half?)—blood blisters on the _inside_ of the _upper_ lip—loss of
appetite chiefly for bread and tobacco-smoking—phlegm is hawked
out, chiefly in the morning—rending and stinging in the _corns_—red
itching spots on the _shin-bone_—tightening pain in the _joint_
of the elbow—blueish spots on the _fore arm_—tremor of the hands,
when occupied with fine small work—tingling in the _points_ of the
toes—tingling in the arms and _joints_ of the fingers—perspiration
on the hands, and _between_ the fingers—stitches in the ankle _when
stepping out_ (not when stepping in)—a voluptuous tickling on the
_sole_ of the foot, _after scratching a little_, making a _man_
(woman too?) almost mad—ulceration of the _big_ toe, with a pricking
pain—after stooping some time, sense of painful weight about the
head, upon resuming the erect posture—an itching, tickling sensation
at the _outer_ edge of the _palm_ of the _left_ hand, which obliges
the person to scratch.’
With such minuteness of observation as this, the Materia Medica
of Homœopathy must contain a _mass_ of facts, _if they really are
facts_. They are claimed to be such, established by numerous and
careful observations. Let us see how this is done. If an individual
take an article, his condition is watched for some length of time,
according to the duration of the effect of the article. This is
various. The effect of carbonate of lime (common chalk) lasts fifty
days; saltpetre, seven weeks; red pepper, twenty days; salt, fifty
days; &c. If then common salt, for example, be the article, all
bodily conditions, all sensations, all mental states, &c., occurring
within fifty days, are to be set down as the effects of that salt.
A collection of many such histories of cases is used in making up a
complete description of the effects of this article. And so of other
articles. The four hundred pages of descriptions of the effects of
remedies in Jahr’s Manual are, according to the statement of Hering
in his introduction to it, made up precisely in this way.
If all action in the human system were produced only by what is
applied to it from without, and if the system could be so insulated
that only one thing at a time should be permitted to act upon it,
in this case, and in this only, would such kind of observation be
available. But how is it? _Numerous_ agents are constantly acting
upon the system—food of various kinds—air, through the medium of the
skin and the lungs—variations of temperature—varying electrical and
other states—mental influences—processes resulting from previous
impressions—all these exert a constant influence, modifying the
effects of remedies almost infinitely. Some allowance is indeed
made or affected to be made, by Homœopathists, for _some_ of these
influences; but, after all, the remedy administered is considered as
overtopping them all—it has _supreme_ possession of the patient, by
virtue, I suppose, of its _dynamic_ power. All symptoms that can
be observed in him, whatever they may be, are the effects of the
medicine, and Hahneman considers the various influences of which I
have spoken as only modifying these effects, and that to a limited
degree.
Proceeding after the manner which I have described, it is no wonder
that Homœopathists make out such a wide range of symptoms for each
remedy. The symptoms said to be produced by nux vomica, with all
their various conditions, amounted some time ago to about twelve
hundred. How many the recent researches of Homœopathists have added
to them I know not. Even chamomile, a simple mild tonic, as it is
universally considered by our good mothers, has three full pages of
symptoms ascribed to it, beginning in this formidable way—“Rheumatic
drawing, tearing pain, with a disabling numbness in the parts
affected, most aggravated at night, frequently with continued
thirst, heat and redness of _one_ cheek, and hot perspiration on the
head in the hair—vehement pains, almost insupportable, leading to
desperation, aggravated by every movement. Pains mitigated by warm
cataplasms—beating pains as from occult suppuration—cracking in the
joints, particularly in the lower extremities.”
The _mental_ effects of chamomile are thus given. “Hypochondriac
paroxysms of anxiety, as if the heart would break—restlessness, with
anxious groaning and tossing about—irritable readiness to weep, with
whining and howling, frequently on account of _old_ or imaginary
offences—aversion to music, &c.”
If one who knew nothing about chamomile should read over the three
pages of the effects attributed to it, he would be justified in
supposing it to be a fit agent for inquisitorial torture, instead of
being the innocent thing which all nurses and old women think it to
be.
The effects of sodii chloretum (common salt) occupy four and a
half pages. Its _mental_ effects are thus described. “Melancholic
sadness, with searching for many unpleasant things, much weeping, and
increased by consolation—sorrowfulness about futurity—anxiousness,
also during a thunderstorm, chiefly at night—indolence, aversion to
talk, joylessness, and disinclination to labor—hasty impatience and
irritability—easily frightened—hate of _former_ offenders—fretfulness
and disposition to angry violence—inclination to laugh—alternation
of fretfulness and hilarity—great weakness of memory and
forgetfulness—thoughtlessness and mental dissipation—misusing words
in speaking and writing—inability to reflect, and fatigue from mental
exertion—awkwardness.”
The mental effects of sulphur are thus given. “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 frightened—restlessness
and hastiness—caprice, moroseness, and ill humor—irritability and
fretfulness—disinclination to labor—great weakness of memory—diliria
and carphologia—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.”
The description of _all_ the effects of sulphur occupies _seven_
pages, and if it be a true description, it certainly must be a very
terrible thing to take sulphur.
There is a great show of accurate discrimination on the part of
Homœopathists. Extreme niceness of observation is claimed to be
absolutely requisite for the successful practice of Homœopathy.
The distinctions which are made in regard to symptoms are not only
minute, but sometimes laughably so.
Pain is divided into simple, rending, pressing, tightening, rasping,
rheumatic, stinging, jerking, periodical, contracting, burning,
boring, spasmodic, cutting, bruizing, cramping, drawing, compressing,
constringing, sore, disabling, squeezing, &c. Some of these
distinctions our ‘allopathic’ mind cannot comprehend. Perhaps the
acuteness of a Homœopathic mind may recognize the exact difference
between pressing, compressing, constringing and squeezing pains, but
I confess that I do not.
All these different kinds of pain are produced by different agents,
and different agents cure them. Not only so, but the same pain
requires different remedies, as it appears in different parts. Thus
while one remedy cures a pain in your _whole_ neck, quite another one
cures the same pain in the _nape_ of the neck. Different remedies are
required to relieve the same pain in the shin, the heel, the ball of
the foot, the toes, &c.
I counted up in the Repertory, twenty-four kinds of toothache, in
addition to a great variety of other sensations in the gums, the
teeth and the roots of the teeth. Besides, there are fifty-five
conditions under which toothache appears, resulting from different
agents. Some of these are a little singular. Thus Rhododendron is apt
to produce toothache in a thunderstorm, and therefore, according to
Homœopathic reasoning, is the appropriate remedy for toothache which
is particularly disposed to come on in a thunderstorm—a disposition
of toothache of which I never heard before. The remedy for toothache
which comes on when riding in a vehicle is sepia—no remedy is
mentioned for it when it comes on when riding horseback, or going
on foot. Homœopathic researches have not extended as yet to these
points. Pulsatilla is the remedy for toothache in the _spring_, but
there is no remedy especially for it in summer, autumn, and winter.
Such gaps in Homœopathic experience ought certainly to be filled up.
The varieties of toothache are rendered still more numerous by the
symptoms with which it is connected. I counted eighteen of these.
Among them are coldness of the ears, twitching of the feet and
fingers, and a necessity to run about.
An aversion to different things is produced by different remedies.
Thus colchicum causes an aversion to pork—zinc to veal and
fish—selenium to salt food—hellebore to sour crout—arnica to
broth—assafœtida to beer—sabadilla to wine[16]—belladonna to
vegetables—sulphur to washing one’s self—tartarized antimony
to tobacco smoking—spigelia to tobacco-snuffing, &c. Nothing
is mentioned as causing an aversion to tobacco _chewing_. Some
Homœopathists had better extend the line of discovery in that
direction.
Jahr has some singular grouping of symptoms. Under the effects of
colchicum we have “mental exertion, touch, bright light, smell
of pork, and improper behavior of others, exacerbates the case
excessively.” In relation to the pork, he does not say whether it is
cooked or uncooked—there is certainly a failure in the nicety of his
discrimination here.
These Homœopathists sometimes make wonderful discoveries. In the
notice of the effects of stramonium, I find this. “Air passes out of
the ears.” Does stramonium, I would ask Mr. Jahr, or his translator,
Mr. Hering, set up the manufacture of air in the ears, or does it
punch a hole through the drum of the ear, and thus let the patient
blow air from his mouth through the ears? Our allopathic mind cannot
divine how air can come from the ears except in one or the other of
these two ways.
But enough of this. The reader, I trust, has had a sufficient insight
into Homœopathic observation, to see that it proves nothing. If it
proves what it professes to do, then anything may be made to prove
anything that may be desired. We laugh at the folly of the fly on
the coach, that supposed itself to be the cause of all the dust
made by the prancing horses, and the whirling wheels; but the folly
of the fly is as nothing, compared with his, who considers all
symptoms, bodily and mental, for fifty days as resulting from a few
decillionths of a grain of sulphur, or salt, or oystershell. And
yet it is upon such ridiculous assumptions as these, falsely called
“observations,” that the system of Homœopathy is based. The results
of these observations, we are informed in Dr. Hering’s introduction,
“have, through the zeal of the Homœopathists, already filled more
than _fifteen_ octavo volumes.” The Materia Medica of Hahneman
himself fills six volumes. It is spoken of by his followers as “a
rich arsenal, from which Homœopathy may arm itself against every
known disease; it contains at present nearly 80,000 combinations
of symptoms, with the corresponding substances which shall produce
their counterparts; and it goes on every day to be still farther
enriched, and to such an extent, as to leave it utterly impossible
to assign any limits to the future developments of Homœopathy.”
What a stupendous monument of human folly is this confused mass of
rubbish! It is no wonder that a man who could invent such a system
as Homœopathy is, should at last place as a cap stone upon this
monument the grand discovery, which he says it cost him twelve years
of research to make, viz. that seven eighths of all chronic diseases
come from a _psoric_ virus, of which psora (vulgarly called itch) is
only the simplest development!
But it is said that, laugh as we may at the ridiculousness of
Homœopathy, as a system, it is really successful in practice. If we
are to take the testimony of such observers as Mr. Jahr, and his
brother compilers of the fifteen octavo volumes of “observations” to
this point, I must beg leave to demur. But the doctors who practice
according to these same fifteen octavo volumes, and the multitudes,
especially the _female_ multitudes, who practice in their families
with their little boxes filled with little phials of little globules,
with a little pamphlet of directions, testify, that Homœopathy is
eminently successful. Such _was_ the testimony also in regard to the
success of Perkins’ Tractors, Dr. Beddoes’ Gases, and St. John Long’s
Liniment. That testimony does not avail just now, and I suspect
that some years hence, when some other delusion shall succeed in
supplanting Homœopathy, the present testimony of Homœopathists to its
success will avail as little.
But it is true, I most cheerfully allow, that Homœopathy is more
successful than any _exclusive_ system of practice, which is
characterized by _positive_ medication. It is so, simply because
it leaves the curative power of nature to act freely, undisturbed
by any officious interference. It is also true, that Homœopathy is
more successful than any _over dosing_ practice of any kind. But it
is _not_ true that it is anything like as successful as a cautious
_eclectic_ practice. I mean by this a practice which selects its
remedies from every source where they are to be found, _governing
its choice by the actual effects ascertained by careful observation,
without regard to any theory or any exclusive system of doctrines_.
This is the only proper mode of practice, (if it can be called a
_mode_,) and though it makes no such loud pretensions as are made
by the different exclusive modes of practice, in their strife for
popularity, it is pre-eminently successful. I mean successful in
curing disease. I do not refer at all to success in obtaining the
public favor—that is quite another thing.
The success which Homœopathy has realized, in obtaining its hold
upon the community, results from several causes which I will briefly
notice.
1. Mental influence. This system of practice is especially calculated
to produce a great effect in this way. The very idea, that there is a
peculiar power imparted to the little globules by their preparation,
acts upon the imagination of the patient. It gratifies too the love
of mystery, so common, and so ready to respond to the appeals which
are made to it. The minute examination of symptoms, of which such
display is made by Homœopathic physicians, adds to this influence
upon the mind, by its imposing air of deep and patient research.
2. A strict regard to diet and regimen. This I need not dwell upon.
3. The influence of the curative power of nature, the efforts of
which are not interfered with by Homœopathy. This is the chief cause
of all the cures which Homœopathy claims to itself, as the undoubted
results of its infinitesimal doses. The two influences first named
prepare the system for the operation of this curative power.
4. A comparison between the results of Homœopathic practice and those
of the practice of over-dosing physicians. Such a comparison will
generally tell in favor of Homœopathy, because the plan of giving no
medicine and relying upon a favorable mental influence and a strict
regulation of diet and regimen, is much better than storming a
patient with drugs, as one would a citadel with balls.
5. An occasional use of remedies in the ordinary doses. This is
practised more often than is commonly supposed, and especially by
those who have from mere pecuniary motives left the ranks of the
‘Allopaths’ and adopted the Homœopathic practice. They _know_ that
in acute diseases especially, there is sometimes pressing need of
something more than the tiny doses, and they resort for the moment
to their old mode of practice. And it is easy to do this secretly if
they wish, for calomel, morphine, &c. are not very bulky medicines,
and a good dose of them can easily be put into a very few little
globules. Many a Homœopathic patient is thus saved from death by the
‘old practice,’ while Homœopathy gets all the credit of it.[17] Mr.
Constantine Hering, in his introduction to Jahr’s Manual, complains
that some of his brethren are not strictly orthodox—that they are
guilty of the inconsistency of mixing the practice of the old and of
the new school together. This complaint however comes with an ill
grace from him, for I once knew this prescriber of decillionths of
a grain of such inert things as salt and oystershell, direct for a
patient a nightly dose of half a teaspoonful of red pepper—a dose
quite large enough to suit an ‘Allopath’ or even a Thompsonian.[18]
6. The facility with which people are imposed upon in their attempts
to estimate the comparative merits of modes of practice by their
_results_, is another source of the popularity of Homœopathy. Most
persons, as I take occasion to show in the chapter on Good and Bad
Practice, have an opportunity of witnessing but a _limited_ range of
facts in medical practice—altogether too limited to enable them to
arrive at any just conclusions. And then the flying reports abroad
in the community on this subject are exceedingly vague, and are not
to be relied upon. Yet these limited observations, and these reports
bruited about by the loose tongue of Madame Rumor, are the boasted
facts, by which Homœopathy, like every other delusion, has gained its
popularity.
Such being the sources of the popularity of Homœopathy, I do not
wonder at all that it has acquired so extensive favor with the
public. Neither do I wonder that many very sensible persons have
been captivated with it; for the evidence upon which they base their
preference is so limited and so loose, that it is calculated to
mislead any who rely upon it. And I would not reproach nor ridicule
them for this preference; but I would simply ask them to look
carefully at the nature of the evidence, on which the success of
Homœopathy is so confidently asserted. If they will do this, they
will find that the evidence is insufficient and deceptive.
Before I leave this topic, I wish to present to the reader a
case somewhat parallel to that of Homœopathy, which may serve to
illustrate farther the way in which medical delusions acquire their
hold upon the public mind. A clergyman in a small town in Germany,
interpreting the passage of Scripture, ‘the prayer of faith shall
save the sick,’ as having a literal and an universal application,
some years ago went into the practice of medicine among the people
of his charge upon this idea. He gives no medicine, but merely
visits the sick and prays with them. All kinds of disease, acute
and chronic, are submitted to this treatment. He tells those that
apply to him, that there is no need of doing so, if they will only
themselves repent of their sins, and lift up the prayer of faith.
It is only in default of their penitence and faith that his prayers
are required. He shows great shrewdness in pointing out the sins of
the vicious, to which he attributes their diseases. This adds much
to his reputation, and to the mental influence which he exerts upon
the sick. He is sincere in his views, and takes no compensation for
his services to the sick, which he performs in connexion with his
pastoral labors. His success is so great, that no physician has been
able to get a living in the place where he resides, and invalids come
to him from all the country round, even to the distance of fifty
miles.
In this instance, there are some of the same elements of success
that exist in the case of Homœopathy. His mental influence upon his
patients is very decided. He leaves the curative power of nature
to act undisturbed. And added to these sources of success may be
mentioned, as having a considerable influence, a reformation in the
life of some of those whose vices he faithfully points out to them.
So far as apparent results are concerned, it is quite as proper
to attribute a curative ‘dynamic power’ to the prayers of this
clergyman, as to the infinitesimal doses of Hahneman.
Homœopathists often boast of the inroads which their system has
made upon the ranks of the medical profession. But it is an empty
boast. If the Homœopathic physicians in this country could be
gathered together, it would be an assemblage for the most part of
very common men. No superior order of talent would be found among
them. There would be none who are distinguished for true research;
none who have made any respectable additions to the literature of
medicine, or to its store of experience; and none who have ever had
any commanding influence. There would be some indeed who are reputed
among Homœopathists to be great men; but none, who previous to their
conversion to Homœopathy, were considered great by the medical
profession. A large portion of that assemblage, I am persuaded from
what I have seen, would be made up of men, who have no true faith in
the so-called science of Homœopathy, but have a strong faith in the
deception which can be practised by means of it upon the community,
and its consequent availability in a pecuniary point of view. Those
who have such a strange cast of mind, as to dupe themselves into a
belief of Homœopathic doctrines, after a thorough and scientific
examination of them, I suspect would be in the minority.[19]
Though Homœopathists commonly look down with contempt upon
Thompsonism, as being vulgar and unscientific, there is really
considerable resemblance between Samuel Thompson and Samuel Hahneman.
Let us look at some of these points of resemblance.
Both have a theory on which their practice is based, and nothing is
deemed true that does not correspond with that theory.
Both reject all former theories and observations as worthless. Their
light is the true and only light. “The medical world was in total
darkness till I arose,” said Hahneman; and so said Thompson.[20]
As Hahneman said, “the Allopathic method never really cures—the
Homœopathic method never fails to cure;” so said Thompson, the
“regulars” cure no one—my system always cures curable cases.
Both claim that all who get well under their system are cured by it,
and give no credit to nature; and upon these asserted cures they
build the reputation of their systems.
Both began their career as arrant quacks. Samuel Thompson sold his
patent rights to practice after his theory; and Samuel Hahneman sold
his secret nostrum for the cure and prevention of Scarlet Fever.[21]
Both were exceedingly dogmatical and authoritative, and both
quarrelled with their followers who did not yield to all their
assumptions.
The followers of both have very generally imbibed the spirit of the
“venerated founders” of these systems, and are very sure that they
are right, and everybody else is wholly wrong.
The followers of both look upon physicians as a body as being
wilfully blind to the truth, and unwilling to adopt anything new,
simply because it is new.
There are a few points in which those noted “reformers” _differ_,
which I will very briefly notice.
While Thompson was an illiterate man, Hahneman was an educated man;
and, if the making of many books is a proof of learning, then he was
a learned man. Thompson’s Materia Medica is but a single little
book; but Hahneman’s Materia Medica fills six large octavo volumes.
Thompson’s theory is rude, and has no air of learning. Its philosophy
knows nothing of the modern chemical nomenclature, but reckons earth,
air, water, and fire, as elements. Hahneman’s theory, on the other
hand, has a long name of classic Greek derivation, is more finely
spun, and is learned in its guise.
Hahneman has obtained special favor with the refined and learned and
wealthy; while Thompson has been for the most part the favorite with
those of common minds and limited information.
There is one particular in which the two systems differ very widely.
Though it cannot be said of Thompsonism, that it has never cured
anybody, for it may _chance_ to cure like anything else; yet, in its
general influence upon the medical practice of the community, it has
been an unmitigated evil. Its influence has been to give currency
to the over-dosing, which has been so popular, and so destructive
to health and life. But Homœopathy, on the contrary, is doing a
good work in helping to destroy the undue reliance upon positive
medication, of which I have spoken in the chapter on Popular Errors,
as being quite prevalent in the medical profession, and exceedingly
so in the community at large. And when Homœopathy shall have passed
by, as pass it will, like other delusions before it, I believe it
will be seen, that Hahneman had a vocation to fill, of which he never
dreamed, and that he has unwittingly done more good than harm to the
permanent interests of medical science.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] It may be proper to state at the outset, that the author has
himself suffered no encroachments from Homœopathy, and so has no
personal feelings to gratify in attacking it. It has not seemed to
find, for some reason, a congenial soil among the hills and rocks
of Norwich. Two Homœopathic physicians, (one of them a man of good
education, and with favorable adventitious circumstances) have tried
to get a foothold among us, but have failed. The author has many
friends and acquaintances who are inclined to Homœopathy, some of
whom have their little boxes of medicines, and swallow globules,
and administer them to others. He is, however, on the best possible
terms with them; and Homœopathy is, in his intercourse with them,
more a subject for agreeable pleasantry, than for warm or even grave
discussion.
[15] Dynamic is a word of Greek derivation, meaning simply powerful.
Hahneman’s ‘_dynamic_ power’ then, learned as it sounds to vulgar
ears, in plain English, is powerful power. It reminds me of a
patient, who in her fondness for expletives always spoke of her
weakness as a _debilitated_ weakness.
Hahneman seems to have been fond of words derived from the Greek, and
those, too, of no Homœopathic size. Hence such words as Allopath,
Homœopath, Heterogeneity, Pharmaco-dynamics, &c.
[16] The discoverer of this fact is certainly a great benefactor to
his race—what multitudes may be saved by Sabadilla from a drunkard’s
grave!
[17] The inconsistency of Homœopathists in using medicines in
Allopathic doses is sometimes of the most barefaced character. An
instance of this kind I lately met with in a New York paper. It
seems that the Homœopathic physicians in that city appointed a
committee to draw up some directions, to be given to the citizens
for the prevention and treatment of Cholera. The directions are all
quite consistent till you come to the 12th which reads thus: “If the
diarrhœa should become profuse (with or without pain, and vomiting,)
the discharges being watery and whitish, and the strength rapidly
failing, take five drops of spirits of Camphor every half hour until
it is effectually stopped. Should these symptoms become very severe,
three drops of Camphor may be administered every five minutes.” In
this direction they make a complete leap from Homœopathy over to
Allopathy. In the first eleven directions they adhere most strictly
to the Hahnemanic _attenuations_ and _triturations_. But these, you
will observe, respect those only who are threatened, or imagine
themselves to be threatened, with cholera. It is well enough to amuse
such with the ‘third attenuation’ of Cuprum or Veratrum. But in the
twelfth direction, which is for those who are actually attacked
with the disease, the attenuations and triturations are forgotten;
for it now gets to be a serious business, and the tiny doses will
not do. _Three drops of Spirits of Camphor every five minutes!!!_
If the patient should be dosed at this rate, for twenty-four hours,
he would take nearly _two ounces_ of spirit of Camphor. The whole
Homœopathic committee could not use up this quantity in a twelvemonth
in all their _extensive_ practice, if they should give it strictly on
Hahnemanic principles.
[18] In the Domestic Physician, intended as a guide for families
who practice Homœopathy, this same Dr. Hering, who has adorned the
book with an engraving of himself represented as learnedly poring
over some work, (I presume one of that same 15 octavo volumes,) thus
discourses of physicians, under the head of Effects of Mercury.
“This is the universal elixir of the quacks in all diseases—who,
whilst they pretend to restore their patients to health, destroy
their constitution. They administer it as calomel in powders, or
dissolved as corrosive sublimate, or in pills—those abominable blue
pills.” And then, “that no one may be deceived, at least not those
for whom a physician prescribes,” he goes on to give the different
Latin names of these preparations of mercury, as they are written in
the prescriptions of physicians, or quacks, as he so modestly calls
them: This is a little impudent in one who prescribes as remedies,
and in this very book, two preparations of mercury, and one of them
the most powerful of all, corrosive sublimate, made more powerful
too, according to his theory, by the ‘dynamic power’ imparted to it
by Homœopathic subdivision and trituration.
[19] It is proper to remark here, that some, who at first adopted
Homœopathy from mere pecuniary considerations, may afterwards have
come to a full belief in it. For if, previous to their adoption of
this practice, they were undiscriminating over-dosers, _as most of
those physicians who have turned Homœopathists once were_, they find
themselves actually more successful in the treatment of disease
than they were before their conversion. This is owing only to the
discontinuance of their over-dosing, but they of course refer it to
the “dynamic power” of their globules.
What I have said of the general character of Homœopathic physicians
will probably provoke them to pour out upon me the vials of their
wrath. But as they will undoubtedly administer it in _Allopathic_
doses, and will not stop to give it a “dynamic power” by “dilution”
and “attenuation,” I shall, I think, be able to stand up against it.
[20] So also says Turner, the founder of a new system just rising
into notice, styled Chrono-Thermalism.
[21] This fact, though well authenticated, is carefully omitted in
all notices of him by his followers.