Curiosities of Medical Experience Part 32

I have already stated that the h.o.m.oeopathists conceive that the infinite dilution of their atoms of medicinal substances increase their energy; and this fact they so strenuously maintain, that they a.s.sert that accidents of a serious nature may arise when this division is carried too far; and these accidents are then to be met with the medicinal antidotes they pretend to have discovered: thus, camphor is an antidote to cocculus; opium, to the crocus sativus; camomile and camphor, to ignatia amara; and so on.

The minuteness with which the specific actions of various medicinal substances on certain organs is detailed is scarcely credible; and the following extract from the h.o.m.oeopathic materia medica will give a slight idea of their industrious labours. Taking as an example phosphorus, which they affirm produces--

Vertigo, determination of blood to the head, headache in the morning, fall of the hair, difficulty in opening the eyelids, burning sensation and ulceration of the internal canthus of the eye, when exposed to the open air, lachrymation and adhesion of the palpebrae; inflammation of the eyes, with the sensation of particles of sand having been introduced; sparks and spangles floating before the eyes, a dark tinge in objects that are looked on, diurnal cecity, the appearance of a gray veil drawn before the eyes, pulsation in the ears, epistaxis, mucous discharge from the nostrils, foulness of breath, tumefaction of the throat, whiteness of the tongue, ulceration of the mouth, expectoration of glairy mucus, dryness of the mouth by night and by day, spasmodic eructation, nausea, sense of hunger after eating, anxiety after meals; in short, twenty-four octavo pages are devoted to the innumerable effects of this substance on the organism.

Of _magnesia artificialis_ three hundred and twelve symptoms are noted; six hundred and fifty of the _rhus radicans_; nine hundred and forty of _pulsatilla_; five hundred of _ignatia amara_; four hundred and sixty of _a.r.s.enic_: in short, volumes upon volumes are crowded with these observations, not only recording physical effects, but singular results on our moral faculties; such as serenity or moroseness, gaiety or sadness, a disposition to commit suicide or a fond partiality to life, courage or cowardice, a weak intellect or a vigorous conception. For instance,--common sea-salt occasions irascibility, lowness of spirits, taciturnity, melancholy, palpitation of heart, disposition to shed tears, pusillanimity, and despair; while potash gives rise to ill-temper without apparent cause at noon and in the evening, with violent paroxysms of rage in the morning, impetuous desires, furious pa.s.sion, with gnashing of teeth, if all around does not yield to the patient's desires; while the vision of a bird hovering about the window produces loud shrieks of alarm, exaltation of the intellects, and a horror of the future. So innumerable, indeed, are all these singular effects attributed to various medicines thus experimented, that no memory, however retentive, could possibly bear them in recollection. The following are the directions laid down for conducting this curious inquiry:

The person upon whom medicines are tried must be free from disease; but weak substances should be given to subjects of a delicate and sensitive const.i.tution. The medicine is to be tried in its most pure and simple state, possessing all its energies, taking special care that it is not combined with any heterogeneous substances during the day it is exhibited, and the time while its action is supposed to last. The diet must be moderate; all spices and high-seasoned food to be avoided, as well as green vegetables, roots, salads, &c. which are known to possess medicinal properties. The dose of the medicine to be similar to that which is usually prescribed by pract.i.tioners. If, at the expiration of about two hours, no effect is observed, a stronger dose is to be given. Should the first dose operate powerfully at the commencement, but gradually lose its influence, the second will be given the following morning; and a still stronger one, four times the strength of the first, be administered on the third day.

The result of these experiments being recorded, h.o.m.oeopathic agents are selected to oppose morbid symptoms; and when the choice of remedies has been appropriate, an aggravation of the symptoms is observed. This aggravation is usually considered as an increase of the disorder, whereas it is solely the effect of the h.o.m.oeopathic remedy. "For these phenomena," say the h.o.m.oeopathists, "were frequently observed by physicians, who little thought at the time, that they were the result of the medicines they had given." Thus, when the pustules of itch became more rife after the exhibition of sulphur, it was thought that the increase of the eruption was merely the affection _coming out_ more freely; whereas, the aggravation was occasioned by sulphur. Leroy informs us that the heart's-ease, _viola tricolor_, increased an eruption in the face. Lyrons says that elm-bark aggravated cutaneous affections, which were cured by this remedy; but neither of them were aware of the nature of this h.o.m.oeopathic development. For further information on this head, the Organon of Hahnemann must be consulted.

Such were his doctrines for a period of about twenty years,--doctrines which he emphatically p.r.o.nounced infallible, and founded on the immutable laws of h.o.m.oeopathy. In 1828, however, convinced by numerous failures in the treatment of chronic diseases, that other causes than those which he acknowledged,--such as the improper preparation of the medicine, or dietetic neglect on the part of the patient,--contributed to these disappointments, he announced that he had discovered the hidden source of the obstacles he encountered; and that, after many years of experiments and meditation, he had come to the conclusion that almost all chronic diseases originated from const.i.tutional miasmatic affections or predispositions, which he divided into _sycosis_, _syphilis_, and _psora_, or, in plain English, the itch. To this latter affection he attributes innumerable disorders. In diseases of a syphilitic character, he had found his mode of treatment infallible; and he therefore concluded that all obstinate and rebellious affections were the result of some other const.i.tutional predisposing circ.u.mstances. He tells us that he laboured in profound secrecy to discover this great, this sublime desideratum: his very pupils knew it not; the world was to remain in ignorance of his pursuits until he could proclaim the most inestimable gift that Divinity bestowed upon mankind. This immortal discovery was neither more nor less than the itch; to which malady, according to his views, since the days of Moses, seven-eighths of the physical and moral miseries to which flesh is heir, were to be referred. Whether rendered evident by eruptions, or latent from our cradle, it was a curse transmitted to us, by the modification and degeneration of leprosy, through myriads of const.i.tutions, and which only disappears from the surface to fester in malignity until it bursts forth again in the multifarious forms of innumerable diseases, amongst which we find scrofula, rachitis, phthisis, hysteria, hypochondriasis, dropsy, hydrocephalus, haemorrhage, fistula, diseases of the head and liver, ruptures, cataracts, tic-douloureux, deafness, erysipelas, cancers, aneurisms, rheumatism, gout, apoplexy, epilepsy, palsy, convulsions, stone, St. Vitus's dance, nervous affections of every description, loss of sight, of smell, of taste, stupidity and imbecility.[36] In support of this doctrine, Hahnemann adduces ninety-five cases recorded by medical writers, in which the disappearance of the itch was followed by various acute and chronic maladies.

The next miasmatic generator is _sycosis_, or the disposition to warty excrescences; but this source of disease Hahnemann does not consider so prolific as syphilis, or his favourite psora.

Such are the princ.i.p.al features of the h.o.m.oeopathic system. I have already stated that its followers consider the most minute particles of medicine more powerful than larger doses; they therefore have recourse to infinite trituration or dilution in three vehicles which they consider free from any medicinal property,--distilled water, spirits of wine, and sugar of milk; by these means they procure a decillionth or a quintillionth fraction of a grain. One drop of their solution is considered sufficient to saturate three hundred globules of sugar of milk; and three or four of these globules are deemed a powerful medicine. To give a better idea of Hahnemann's notions on this subject, I shall quote his own words:

"By shaking a drop of medicinal liquid with one hundred drops of alcohol _once_, that is to say, by taking the phial in the hand which contains the whole, and imparting to it a rapid motion by a single stroke of the arm descending, I shall then obtain an exact mixture of them; but two or three, or ten such movements, would develop the medicinal virtues still further, making them more potent, and their action on the nerves much more penetrating. In the extenuation of powders, when it is requisite to mix one grain of a medicinal substance in one hundred grains of sugar of milk, it ought to be rubbed down with force during one hour _only_, in order that the power of the medicine may not be carried to too great an extent; medicinal substances acquiring at each division or dilution a new degree of power, as the rubbing or shaking they undergo develops that inherent virtue in medicines which was unknown until my time, and which is so energetic, that latterly I have been forced by experience to reduce the number of shakes to two."

As a further ill.u.s.tration of this theory, he affirms that gold is without any action in our organism in its natural state; but that when one grain of this metal is triturated according to the above process until each grain of the last triturated preparation contains a quadrillionth part of the original grain of the mineral, it will be so powerful that it will be sufficient to place this single grain in a phial, to be inspired for a moment, to produce the most amazing results, and none more so than the faculty of restoring to a melancholy individual, disposed to commit suicide, his pristine partiality to life.

Unfortunately for Hahnemann, many of these a.s.sertions are unsupported by facts or sound reasoning, and appear mere wanderings of an ardent imagination; and thus soaring in regions of fancy, he himself has struck many fatal blows to his own doctrines. For instance, what are the arguments he adduces to prove that in two similar diseases the strongest will overcome the weakest?

"Why," he exclaims, "does the splendid Jupiter disappear during the twilight of morn to the eyes of the contemplator? It is because a similar power, but possessed of greater energies, the breaking day, acts upon our organs."

This is a defective a.n.a.logy. Hahnemann tells us that a stronger power banishes a weaker one in a permanent manner, whereas the bright planet he here alludes to will return with the night. Then again:--

"With what do we endeavour to relieve the olfactory nerves when offended by disagreeable odours? By snuff, which affects the nostrils in a similar but in a more powerful manner." This is not correct: when the action of snuff has ceased, the disagreeable effluvia become again offensive. In some instances his poetical vagaries are preposterous. "By what means," he adds, "do we endeavour to protect the ears of the compa.s.sionate from the lamentations of the poor wretched soldier condemned to be scourged? Is it not by the shrill notes of the fife united to the loud beat of the drum?

How do we endeavour to drown the roar of distant artillery that causes terror in the heart of the soldier? By the roll of the double drum;--nor would this feeling of compa.s.sion, this sense of terror, have been checked by admonition or by splendid rewards. In the same manner our grief, our regret, subside, upon receiving the intelligence, true or false, that a more lively sorrow has affected another person." It would be idle to dwell upon the absurdity of such visions and erroneous statements.

To support his doctrines, Hahnemann should have proved, 1st, that medicinal powers do produce an artificial malady similar to the natural affection; 2nd, that the organism only remains under the influence of the medicinal disease; 3rd, that this medicinal disease is of short duration; and 4th, that all these effects can only be produced by a medicine selected according to their similarity of symptoms. Our theorist has utterly failed in his endeavours to establish these facts; therefore have his doctrines been impugned by many of his most zealous disciples, amongst whom may be mentioned Griesselich, Rau, Schroen. The aggravation which he a.s.serts takes place after the exhibition of a h.o.m.oeopathic medicine is not only unsupported by proof, but positively denied by many of their pract.i.tioners; and Hartman plainly affirms that, after a h.o.m.oeopathic dose, the patient frequently experiences a state of calm, a disposition to slumber, and often falls into a profound sleep more or less prolonged, in waking from which he finds himself much relieved, if not perfectly cured.

Thus several physicians who have adopted his practical views reject many of the doctrines on which they are founded; and a h.o.m.oeopathist has justly compared his works to a wild virgin forest, in which we meet with a number of valuable trees and plants in the midst of arid brushwood and parasitic weeds that would check the growth of the most useful productions.

Yet, notwithstanding the many gratuitous a.s.sertions, and consequent erroneous inductions, we meet with in the _Organon_, it is probable that this system is destined to operate a gradual but material revolution in the _practice_ of medicine. As to theories, we must agree with Voltaire when he said "En fait de systeme, il faut toujours se reserver le droit de rire le lendemain de ses idees de la veille."

Hippocrates laid down in his Aphorisms the incontrovertible fact, "Duobus doloribus simul obortis, non tandem eadem in parte, vehementior alterum obscurat. A. 46." To a certain degree, it was upon this a.s.sertion, which the experience of ages has confirmed, that Hahnemann founded the princ.i.p.al and most important point of his doctrine; but, going much farther than the father of medicine, he affirms that similar diseases effectually remove each other. For centuries pract.i.tioners have been acting h.o.m.oeopathically; the exhibition of specifics, in fact, being nothing else. As we have already shown, specifics are known to produce symptoms similar to the diseases they cure. Hitherto the number of such medicines has been confined to a very few agents; and perhaps with the exception of mercury, sulphur, and bark, with their several preparations, scarcely any article in the materia medica could have claimed this peculiar property.

To extend these limits, which confined in so exiguous a compa.s.s our therapeutic agents, has been the laborious and singular study of Hahnemann and his disciples. Haller had first given the example, and they arduously applied themselves to discover by experiments on the healthy subject, both upon their own persons and others, what were the peculiar effects or symptoms produced by various medicinal substances. These observations are so numerous and confused, that, on reading them, we feel plunged in a chaotic labyrinth of symptoms, without any clue to extricate ourselves from its perplexing mazes. Still, from this multifarious catalogue much important information can be collected; and it cannot be denied that the h.o.m.oeopathist has not only thrown a new light on the action of many medicines which we daily prescribe, but brought into practical consideration the necessity of attending to dietetic discipline, by an investigation of the several properties of our usual _ingesta_.

It is obvious that any enthusiast who would blindly embrace the foregoing doctrines without serious and deep investigation, and boldly apply the wild theory to practice, would at once throw open the flood-gates of absurdity, and lend his aid in destroying, if possible, with one fell swoop, the result of ages of mature study and experience. Hahnemann, to fertilize the fields of science, had recourse to inundation instead of wise and cautious irrigation; and the fury with which he and his rash disciples maintained their opinions materially tended to r.e.t.a.r.d their progress. Truth needeth not violence; its own l.u.s.tre will beam through surrounding darkness, without being dragged into light.

The objections to Hahnemann's doctrines are glaring. The art of healing, from the dawn of science until the present day, has been more or less founded on the faculties of reasoning. We are taught, in the first instance, to observe carefully the phenomena of disease, and, by referring effects to probable causes, endeavour, however difficult the task, to trace their catenation. Many of these causes are perhaps sealed for ever in the inscrutable book of our destinies; yet, if we cannot obtain a knowledge of the origin of these disorders, still when we take into mature consideration the complication of all accidental circ.u.mstances, and from visible effects seek invisible relations, guided by our experience in anatomy, physiology, and the revelations of pathology, we may find this pursuit less difficult than it may be imagined. But the h.o.m.oeopathist despises and rejects as idle, all those collateral means of diving into nature's arcana. He bids us dwell only upon evident symptoms, or, in other words, look to the effects alone, and cast away all thoughts of discovering their causes. Nothing can be more illogical than this argument; for certainly we can scarcely hope to remove effects without striking, as far as in our power lies, at their cause. To deny the existence of any specific affection because we cannot account for its origin, is absurd. As well might we reject the use of medicines known to possess specific properties, from our utter ignorance of their _modus operandi_. The exclusive consideration of symptoms would lead us into lamentable error, since the same symptoms are observable in various diseases. Similar pains, for instance, may be the symptoms of rheumatism, nephritic affections, and calculus; headaches may arise from inflammation, and from various and well-known sympathies with distant organs: yet, without seeking to ascertain these relations, the mechanical and empirical h.o.m.oeopathist will prescribe such medicines as are known to occasion pains in the loins, or headaches; only bearing in mind perceptible derangements, heedless of the phenomena of organization, the state of the secretions and excretions, the history, the rise and progress of the disorder, or the idiosyncrasy of the patient. The liver is diseased; the discovery is of no importance. We have only to attend to the pain extending up the clavicle and shoulder, or the uneasiness experienced in the right hypochondrium: the pulse, the respiration, the condition of the excretions, the temperature of the skin, the appearance of the tongue, are all regarded as minor considerations. It is not _hepat.i.tis_ that we are called upon to cure; it is to relieve a pain in the shoulder and in the hypochondrium, or a difficulty of lying on the left side.

No one will pretend to deny that our safest, perhaps our sole, guide in the study of disease is the group of symptoms, that become more and more perceptible during the course of our investigations. It was princ.i.p.ally on the study of symptoms that the most learned pract.i.tioners of every age and country grounded their diagnosis and their prognosis; but they never viewed them either singly, or in their complexity, as unconnected with the particular diseases to which they were not only essentially united, but from which they originated, and of the existence of which they were to be considered the diagnostic signs. Therefore did the ancients cla.s.sify them as princ.i.p.al and accessory, univocal and equivocal, characteristic or common, as they afforded more or less information in our pathological deduction; and in that light they were weighed with greater or less application, as our judgment could only be formed by the attentive consideration of the phenomena of the organism in health and in disease.

But while the h.o.m.oeopathist's attention is chiefly directed to the discovery of means that can enable him to produce symptoms a.n.a.logous to those of the disorder, he seems to disregard the laws of sympathy, by which our organism appears to be ruled; a mysterious agency which can only be ascertained by observation and experiment, when, to use the words of a distinguished writer,[37] "by the former we may be said to listen to nature, by the latter to interrogate her." Health depends upon the due co-operation of all these a.s.sociations; and one organ in the wonderful machinery cannot be deranged in its functions without influencing others, however distant and unconnected they may appear. In this co-ordination, these vital relations have been very properly divided into mechanical, functional, and sympathetic. Their study const.i.tutes the groundwork of all rational induction. It is not by individual or complex symptoms that we can decide where the want of equilibrium is to be traced. Various have been the theories on this most important subject, and great have been the erroneous ideas dogmatically laid down. The ill.u.s.trious Bichat himself erred when he maintained that sympathies were aberrations--morbid developments of our vital properties. Sympathies, on the contrary, may be considered as constant phenomena, essential and inseparable from our organism, whether in health or in sickness; and are, if I may be pardoned the expression, co-ordinated to co-operate with each other in their mechanical, their functional, and their sympathetic a.s.sociations.

An incarcerated hernia causes hiccup, nausea, vomiting. Will the h.o.m.oeopathist tell us that we must seek in his catalogue of innumerable effects some substance which is known to produce similar symptoms? Surely the rupture must first call our attention. This example is adduced as referring to nearly every case in which it might be rashly attempted to separate causes from effects. The mammary glands are variously affected in uterine diseases; their impressions are reciprocal, yet the uterine affection must be the chief object of our solicitude. A peculiar pruritus is a symptom of calculus. Are we then to administer a h.o.m.oeopathic dose of _cannabis_, or any other medicine which may give rise to a similar sensation? It may be objected to this observation that these are purely surgical cases, in which we need not be guided by symptoms to discover causes; but it has too frequently happened that nausea and vomiting have been attended to, while the hernia was overlooked, until fatal accidents were manifested. Moreover, a diseased liver, a diseased spleen or kidney, would be just as perceptible as hernia or calculus, if these parts could be brought into view or contact.

It may be said that an erroneous notion of Hahnemann's doctrines on this subject has been taken; it is therefore necessary to quote his own words:

"It may be easily conceived that the existence of a malady presupposes some alteration in the interior of the human organism; but our understanding can only lead us to suspect this alteration in a vague and deceitful manner, from the appearance of the morbid symptoms, the sole guide we can depend on except in surgical cases. The essence of the internal and invisible change is undiscoverable, nor have we any means of guarding against deceptive illusions."[38]

"The invisible substance that has undergone a morbid alteration in the interior of the human body, and the perceptible changes, which are externally developed,--in other words, symptoms,--form by their union what is called disease; but the symptoms are the only points of the malady which are accessible to the physician, the sole indication whence he can derive any intuitive notion, and the princ.i.p.al objects with which he ought to become acquainted to effect a cure. From this incontestable truth there is nothing discoverable in disease beyond the totality of its symptoms to guide us in the selection of our curative means."[39]

It is not to be supposed that an experienced physician, although a h.o.m.oeopathist, will rest satisfied with this study of symptomatic medicine, without endeavouring to attach these effects to some cause, however occult it may appear; but such a doctrine becomes pernicious, since it bids us close the only book of truth that can reveal our errors,--_post mortem_ investigations. Surely, if a group of certain symptoms attend a disease which, when terminating fatally, shows disorganization in certain viscera, we are not only justifiable in giving to that disorganization a specific name in our scientific cla.s.sification and categories, but in considering the symptoms of no other importance than as corroborative of those facts that morbid anatomy daily brings to light.

It is generally admitted that most nosologies are imperfect, and may occasionally lead the young pract.i.tioner into error. This is easily accounted for when we consider the Protean forms that the same disease a.s.sumes in different individuals; yet, without this cla.s.sification, the science of medicine could not be studied. A certain arrangement is necessary to simplify all our pursuits in natural science, and to seek a variety we must know the order and the genus.

Had Hahnemann given a better system of nosology than those we possess, and with his truly praiseworthy zeal and industry enumerated the various symptoms of disease as minutely and as accurately as he has recorded the effects of medicinal substances, his labours might have proved a most valuable addition to our store of knowledge.

Let us now direct our attention to the absurdities to which these opinions have led. Solely attentive to effects, and heedless of the disorganization of various important parts of the human economy which morbid anatomy detects, Hahnemann endeavours to discover the occult causes--the original source--the germ--of the malady, which most likely are beyond the reach of our researches; and he boldly affirms that all chronic diseases spring from syphilis, a disposition to warts and the itch. Now experience has proved that such an a.s.sumption is unfounded. The most healthy subjects, those who attain the finest old age, are more liable to this disgusting affection than the wealthy and cleanly part of the community. The Irish and Scotch peasantry from their infancy, and through life, are most subject to psora; and certainly our soldiers and sailors, amongst whom the disease is common, are not more predisposed to chronic diseases than any other cla.s.ses of society, of course not taking into consideration the effects of unhealthy climates.

Syphilis, it will be readily granted, has a considerable share in producing anomalous _sequelae_, more especially when in combination with mercury. Warts, except of a syphilitic character, were never known to germinate diseases; indeed, they affect the most healthy and robust individuals. Yet to these three miasmatic causes does Hahnemann attribute nearly every disease that was ever known to afflict mankind; while he pa.s.ses over in silence the predisposition to scrofula, gout, rheumatism, to which we can unfortunately trace with too much certainty the source of much human misery.

That the itch is a disease of great antiquity is a matter of doubt. It has been maintained that it is the same eruptive disorder described by Celsus under the appellation of _scabies_; yet this writer does not allude to its contagious nature, and moreover says, that in some cases it disappears completely, whereas in others it is renewed at certain periods of the year.

Celsus, moreover, includes other forms of pustular eruptions among the different species of scabies, not sufficiently distinguishing them from each other. The character of his scabies is more a.n.a.logous to the lichen agrius of Willan.

Nor did the ancients consider their _psora_ as our itch. It appears to have been the scaly tetter, which they sometimes denominated _psoriasis_, at others _lepra_, a synonymous affection; but neither pustular nor vesicular. Leprosy, indeed, is a malady totally distinct from the itch in all its characters. Hahnemann a.s.serts that the species of leprosy that afflicted the Jews, and which is described by their legislator in the 13th chapter of Leviticus, was the itch; but any one who will peruse this description will perceive that it does not bear the slightest resemblance to that disorder. It appears, on the contrary, to have been that kind of leprosy called _leuce_ by the ancients. Nor was leprosy constantly attended with itching, one of the chief characteristics of the malady, and from which sensation it derives its very name. Hippocrates mentions a leprosy that usually occasioned a prurience before rain. There are no diseases in the cla.s.sification of which more obscurity exists than in cutaneous affections; and Hahnemann's ideas would tend to increase this confusion, since he tells us that he considers the _framboesia_ of America, the _sibbens_ of Norway, the _pellagra_ of Lombardy, the _plica_ of Poland, the _pseudo-syphilis_ of the English, and the _asthenia Virginiensis_ of Virginia, complications of his three miasmatic principles; and he further informs us, no doubt on the faith of some idle tradition, that _psora_ lost its external deformity on the return of the Crusaders, who brought from the Holy Land the use of linen shirts, a cleanly and salutary precaution that eradicated the disease at a period when France had no less than two thousand hospitals for the reception of _itch_ patients,--a plain proof that he confounds leprosy with itch, since the hospitals he alludes to were distinctly considered leper-houses.

It is certainly true that there does exist in our system a constant predisposition to eruptive affections of some kind or other. We are born heirs to certain exanthematic affections, such as the measles and smallpox; and it would be as difficult to find a being morally immaculate as an individual free from speck or blemish. Many of these eruptions are considered of a critical and salutary nature; and the ancients fancied that nature relieved herself by throwing upon the surface some "peccant humours." Hence their dread of the retrocession of any of these "breakings out;" and there is no doubt but that accidents frequently followed their sudden disappearance, in the same manner as drying up an issue or a blister established for some time, and become habitual, may occasion internal mischief; but to maintain that all chronic diseases arise from three eruptive principles is a most gratuitous and untenable a.s.sertion.

Enthusiastically anxious to support his doctrines, Hahnemann is frequently led into erroneous a.s.sertions. Thus he tells us that life will suddenly cease if a little water, or the mildest liquid, is injected into a vein; whereas experience has proved, in the treatment of cholera, and various other instances, that the most stimulating solutions may be thus introduced, not only with impunity, but with salutary results.

It is needless to enter more deeply into the ungracious business of pointing out errors, many of which were evident to Hahnemann himself; since, not only in the several editions of his Organon, but in various paragraphs in the same volume, he contradicts himself.

A much more gratifying and important task is now undertaken, to prove, by the evidence of facts, supported by practical reasoning, that the art of healing is more indebted to the h.o.m.oeopathic doctrines than to any system that has. .h.i.therto been delivered in our schools.

That the all-bountiful Creator, in permitting, for purposes unknown to us, mankind to be visited by so many scourges, has also scattered around us means to counteract these evils, cannot be a matter of doubt. Instinct leads animals to find out these salutary agents, and various specifics have been discovered by man. The rudest savage is in possession of curative substances unknown to civilized man, and performs cures where learning and experience have proved of no avail.

To extend the limits of specifics, must therefore be considered a most desirable step towards adding to our means of relieving disease; and in this pursuit it is impossible to bestow too much praise on the h.o.m.oeopathic observer. Enthusiasm--predilection to a favourite but persecuted system--may induce an ardent proselyte not only to deceive others, but unwittingly to deceive himself. It is therefore not only possible, but probable, that in the experimental investigations of the effects of medicine, Fancy, in her multifarious colours, may have depicted, with apparent fidelity, a state of body and mind that only existed in an excited imagination; but when we behold various individuals, distant from each other, and totally unconnected, observing similar results from the exhibition of various medicinal substances, we have no right to call their a.s.sertions into doubt. These a.s.sertions, moreover, are not laid down dogmatically, but are earnestly recommended to be submitted to the test of experiment. For instance, the h.o.m.oeopathist has found out that certain substances, by diminishing the energy of the heart and arteries, subdue inflammatory action as effectually as venesection. This is a fact daily witnessed, and of which any pract.i.tioner may convince himself. It is not a.s.serted, that in cases of sudden determination of blood, which require immediate revulsion and abstraction of the vital fluid, h.o.m.oeopathic remedies will be found possessed of sufficient activity to afford prompt relief; but experience has fully proved that in cases which can admit of a few hours' delay, these medicines very frequently supersede the necessity of debilitating the patient by a copious loss of blood.

Dr. Paris, in his admirable work on Materia Medica, has justly observed, "that observation or experiment upon the effects of medicine is liable to a thousand fallacies, unless it be carefully repeated under the various circ.u.mstances of _health_ and _disease_, in different climates, and on different const.i.tutions." This has been the main object of the h.o.m.oeopathist; and a further quotation from the above distinguished writer will ill.u.s.trate the importance of their labours. "It is impossible to cast our eyes over such multiplied groups (of medicinal substances) without being forcibly struck with the palpable absurdity of some, the disgusting and loathsome nature of others, the total want of activity in many, and the uncertain and precarious reputation of _all_, without feeling an eager curiosity to inquire, from the combination of what causes it can have happened that substances at one period in the highest esteem, and of generally acknowledged utility, have fallen into total neglect and disrepute. That such fluctuation in opinion and versatility in practice should have produced, even in the most candid and learned observer, an unfavourable impression with regard to the general efficacy of medicines can hardly excite our astonishment, much less our indignation; nor can we be surprised to find that another portion of mankind has at once arraigned physic as a fallacious art, or derided it as a composition of error and fraud. A late foreign writer, impressed with this sentiment, has given the following _flattering_ definition of our profession: _Physic is the art of amusing the patient, while Nature cures his disease_."

With such a lamentable view of the practice of medicine, can we be too thankful to those observers who strenuously endeavour to rescue it from the dark trammels in which prejudice and interested motives have bound it?

In no country more than in Great Britain is such an investigation desirable. We have become proverbial from our incessant abuse of a farrago of medicinal substances; and what is usually termed an _elegant prescription_ signifies an amalgam of various drugs and preparations, which most probably, by their affinities, neutralize the expected effects of each other; for, however great and flattering may have been the discoveries of modern chemistry, many of these affinities are unknown to us. Surely when our labours cannot detect any difference in the component parts of the purest Alpine atmosphere and the deleterious air of a loathsome dungeon, we cannot expect to form a correct idea of pharmaceutic combinations.

The mere hopes of being able to relieve society from the curse of constant drugging, should lead us to hail with grat.i.tude the h.o.m.oeopathist's investigations. That many physicians, but especially apothecaries, who live by overwhelming their patients with useless and too frequently pernicious medicines, will warmly, nay furiously inveigh against any innovation of the kind, must be expected as the natural result of interested apprehension; and any man who aims at simplicity in practice will be denounced as guilty of medical heresy. Have we not seen inoculation and vaccination branded with the most opprobrious epithets, merely because their introduction tended to diminish professional lucre?

In these remarks upon medicinal combinations, it is not meant to infer, that, because they are chemically incompatible, they are ineffectual,--experience has proved the contrary; but no one will contend that, if we can attain the same beneficial results from a single ingredient, administered in small quant.i.ties and at distant periods, as from the exhibition of repeated and nauseous doses of pills, powders, draughts, potions, &c. which hang over the bed of sickness, nay, of slight derangements, like the sword of Damocles, we have not effected a most salutary reform in the practice of physic. It is related of one of these ingenious and industrious pract.i.tioners, that, having seen a prescription, that only contained half a dozen medicines, he exclaimed, "What! nothing more?" To which the prescriber replied, "If you choose, sir, we'll step over to the apothecary, and see what else he has in his shop."

Specifics may be divided into two cla.s.ses; the one producing a peculiar effect upon particular organs, the other producing general results. Thus, the action of cantharides and digitalis on the urinary system, of emetics on the stomach, of certain purgatives on the small intestines, and of others on the large ones, are generally known; whereas the action of mercury and opium is still a matter of controversy. A study of these effects const.i.tutes the chief object of the h.o.m.oeopathist; and, having determined their peculiar action, these medicinal agents are given singly, and, as we have already observed, in the most minute doses.

It is this division into infinite fractions that has drawn upon the h.o.m.oeopathic practice the denunciation of the allopathic physicians, as it is considered utterly impossible that such imponderable particles can produce any beneficial or prejudicial effect; and the Academy of Medicine of Paris, when officially condemning the doctrine, a.s.serts, in support of this argument, that great danger arises from it "in frequent and serious cases of disease, where the physician may do as much injury, and cause no less mischief, by ineffectual means as by those which are prejudicial."

This is perhaps one of the most important points of the h.o.m.oeopathic doctrine. If these fractional doses are inert, and yet the disease is cured, then must the successful treatment be solely ascribed to the dietetic regimen and the efforts of nature. However, experience has afforded abundant proofs that these infinite atoms do produce positive and evident effects. What appears to our feeble organs an atomic fraction may produce phenomena on the organism which we cannot comprehend, but should not therefore be denied. Let one grain of iodine be dissolved in one thousand five hundred and sixty grains of water, the solution will be limpid; let two grains of starch be dissolved in two ounces of water and added to the first solution, and the liquor will forthwith a.s.sume a blue tint. In this experiment the grain of iodine has been divided into 1/15360. Dissolve the four-hundredth part of one grain of a.r.s.enic in four hundred thousand parts of water, and the hydric-sulphite will bring it into evidence. Let a five-thousandth part of a.r.s.eniate of ammonia be dissolved in five hundred thousand parts of water, and the addition of the smallest proportion of nitrate of silver will obtain a yellow precipitate.

Numerous experiments of a similar nature may be daily resorted to, to prove that the most minute particles of two substances possessed of chemical affinities may be brought into action, although diluted _ad infinitum_. But the power that the smallest particle possesses in producing natural phenomena cannot be more evidently proved than by Spallanzani's experiments in fecundation. This physiologist having wrapped up a male frog in oil-silk, fecundation could not take place; but having collected on the point of a camel-hair pencil a particle of the fecundising fluid, he succeeded in vivifying thousands of eggs. Surprised at this result, he dissolved three grains of the secretion in a pound of water, and one globule of the solution was endowed with the same faculty.

In this case the globule of water only contained 1/2994687500 part of one grain. This curious experiment has been tried with a similar result by Prevost and Dumas. How imponderable and impalpable must be the effluvium which enables the dog to track his master for miles! the particle of atter of roses that perfumes a whole chest of clothes! and what must the power of the aroma be which is preserved for thousands of years in some Egyptian mummies! Would the vulgar believe in the wonders of the solar and gaseous microscopes unless they were exposed to view? In these we behold in amazement myriads of individuals in one drop of fluid, each of them as perfect in organization as the mighty mammoth of old or the sagacious elephant of our days, endowed with distinct habits, destructive and reproductive propensities and faculties.