In how far we shall succeed remains to be seen. We are fully aware that the field is a very wide one, and that we shall not fail to do it justice, but with your kindly support and earnest endeavors, I trust we may find it of mutual pleasure and benefit.

With this brief introductory, we will take up a few questions that should interest all medical students.

One of the first questions that must come to the medical student is, "What school shall I study?" "If in the Homeopathic, why?"

As members of a school relatively small in numbers it behooves us from time to time, to consider why we should remain distinctive and ask medical students to study a system more or less exclusive, why not all be members of one large medical body; why remain sectarian when it is so much pleasanter to belong to one large and universal body?

I shall take a few minutes of your time this evening in presenting what seem to me cogent reasons for maintaining a separate organization or school, and for asking you, as students, to study Homeopathy.

To understand the question it will be necessary to study somewhat the origin, aims and success of Homeopathy.

Homeopathy, from the Greek "Omoios"-like-and "pathos❞— affection-finds its expression in the Latin Similia similibus curantur-likes are cured by likes-refers alone to the application of drugs in the cure of the sick, and has nothing whatever to do with anatomy, physiology, chemistry and the numerous other collateral branches taught in the various schools of medicine.

Hahnemann (born 1755; died 1843) was recognized by our opponents as a learened man of his day. In 1790 when translating "Cullen's Materia Medica," he was impressed with Cullen's description of the action of cinchona and decided to test its action on himself. He was surprised to find the result, a condition very similar to an intermittent fever, for which he had frequently given cinchona with relief. This led him to formulate the sentence, Similia similibus curentur-likes may be cured by likes. He had not yet experimented sufficiently to convince himself that similia is a law of nature, hence used the subjunctive form of the verb. He, however, determined to test the subject in practice. This implied the prov

ing of drugs on the healthy, and being a chemist, he prepared his own remedies. He was thus led into conflict with apothecaries and physicians which assumed wide dimensions and engendered bitter animosities. He was driven from place to place by both physicians and apothecaries, but from experiment came a conviction of the truth of the law of similars. With a tenacity of purpose found only in men of strong individuality, he went forward in his investigations and left us a monument of labor worthy the man.

The law of similars, with its attendant single remedy, small dose and mild measures was so antagonistic to the then prevalent school with its absence of law, its polypharmacy, massive doses and heroic measures-blood-letting, actual cautery, blisters, purgatives, murcurializations, etc., that a union of the two could not be thought of even had Hahnemann been treated with consideration by his cotemporaries, but meeting with contempt and ridicule by his former associates and colleagues, there was but one course open for him viz., to start a new school of therapeutics. This he did, and in it Homeopathy, as a distinctive school, had its birth.

At the time Hahnemann announced the law of similars and first practiced according to it, the practice of the old school was decidedly heroic. Fevers were treated with frequent and copious bloodletting, and had been so treated for many centuries-in fact from the time of Hypocrates (B. C. 460-370), or earlier. Mercury was used in ruinously large doses; blisters, setons, purgatives, etc., were used on the slightest pretext on theories which radically changed with new leaders in medical thought, but which generally carried the idea that disease is a material something which can be drawn out of the system with the blood, purged from the bowels, thrown from the stomach by emetics, drawn to a definite part by blisters, and run out of the body by an issue produced and maintained by a seton, etc.

In opposition to this, Hahnemann introduced a system of medication according to a law of nature, and not only abstained from venesection purgatives, emetics, mercurializations, blisters, setons etc., but also gave medicines in infinitesimal doses.

While it resulted in the founding of a new system of medicine, it at the same time, made rapid inroads on the old school methods.

Writers of all schools unite in giving Hahnemann credit for greatly modifying the practice of medicine. His results were so much superior to those of his opponents that they, recognizing the fact, and yet being unwilling to give credit to either the law of similars or the insignificant dose, concluded that nature did all, and that their heroic measures were worse than useless.

Thus one after another of the then prevalent measures were dropped until venesection became almost a thing of the past, and the other measures rarely resorted to.

If Hahnemann were mistaken in every idea that he advanced, and had simply shown the uselessness of medical measures of his day, his life were not in vain-so much is admitted by our friends of the old school at this day.

But Hahnemann was not mistaken. His teachings were positive, and so far as the efficacy of the law of similars is concerned, were positively true. Herein lies the difference in the teachings of the two schools to-day. The old school following the line of centuries of empiricism or clinical experience as they prefer, in which an attempt is made to make a close and careful analysis before and after the administration of a remedy, and if the results are favorable, a continued use of the drug in similar cases has established particularly nothing, or as one of their well-known authors, Dr. H. C, Wood, states: "Scarcely anything beyond the primary facts that quinia will arrest an intermittent, that salts will purge, and that opium will quiet pain and lull to sleep." Quoting the same author further:

"Experience is said to be the mother of wisdom. Verily, she has been in medicine rather a blind leader of the blind; and the history of medical progress is a history of men groping in the darkness, finding seeming gems of truth one after another, only in a few minutes to cast each back to the vast heap of forgotten baubles that in their day had also been mistaken for verities. In the past there is scarcely a conceivable absurdity that men have not tested by experience, and found to be the thing desired.

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"Narrowing our gaze to the regular profession and to a few decades, what do we see? Experience teaching that not to bleed a man suffering from pneumonia is to consign him to an unopened grave

and experience teaching that to bleed a man suffering rom neu monia is to consign him to a grave never opened by nature.

"Looking at the revolutions and contradictions of the past-listening to the therapeutic babel of the present, is it any wonder that men should take refuge in nihilism, and like the Lotus-eaters, dream that all alike is folly?"

Take up Reynolds' system of medicine and under the head of Croupous Bronchitis you may read: "Various remedies have been recommended, but apparently their use has not been followed with much success. During the paroxysm, venesection has been practiced; sinapisms and blisters applied to the chest, and various other drugs administered, viz., the different sedatives, tarter emetic, ipecacuanha, calomel, opium, alkalines and salines. Inhalations might be of use. In the intervals, Fuller has occasionally seen benefit from the use of tartar emetic, in moderate doses, for several weeks. Iodide of potassium has been employed with success. The alkalies and their carbonates have also been recommended. The health must be maintained, and tonics given, if necessary, especially if there is any sign of tuberculosis. Quinine, iron and cod liver oil are often called for."

From this you will note that the practitioner who is called to treat a case of croupous bronchitis, may or may not bleed, may or may not blister, may or may not use sedatives, tartar emetic, ipecacuanha, calomel, opium, alkalies and salines. If he act at all it is because certain things "have been tried," others "have been recommended," yet others "may be called for," or because "Fuller had occasionally seen benefit from tartar emetic, in moderate doses, for several weeks."

The only thing he is told to do is to maintain the health by tonics. Hahnemann in speaking of the same condition says: “If A should not answer, try B, and if this will not do, a choice lies among C, D, E, F, G; I have often found H and K of service, others recommend most highly J and L, and I know some who cannot sufficiently praise M, U and Z, whilst others extol N, P and T. S and X also are said not to be bad in this disease. Some English physician recently recommended Q in preference to all others in this affection; I certainly would be inclined to give it a trial." (1809, Lesser Writings, p. 522.)

Such is medicine without any law of application. Each individual uses his own judgment, and no two treat alike.

Dr. T. Lauder Brunton, an old school author of no mean reputatation, aptly says: "Our ideas are often hazy and indefinite. We give medicine at random, with no definite idea of what it should do, and trusting to chance for good results. When a remedy fails in its work, we can give no reason for the failure. We do not even seek out a reason, but content ourselves with saying: 'O! it did not act as it usually does.""

That old school medicine of the past has been a signal failure, quotation after quotation from their leading men would support. That their medicine of the present, the so-called physiological, is destined to stand we have no reason to think.

Homeopathy, on the other hand, teaches that there is a law of cure Similia, similibus curantur-likes are cured by likes. That a drug taken by a well person will produce a condition with a train of symptoms; that this condition and train of symptoms found in a patient, but not due to the drug, will be cured by it.

The principle is simple. All you have to do is to study well the action of various drugs on the healthy subject, and you can apply them, no matter what the name of the disease, or whether you can name it at all. You have a rule of action in every case, and one that will not disappoint you, if you know well the action of drugs.

While the principle of drug application is simple, the same cannot be said of drug action, or Materia Medica, under which head you will study it in this college. This is the essential and only difference in the schools of medicine.

That the old school has made wonderful strides in its surgery, pathology, diagnosis and various other branches in the past century no one will for a moment question. They deserve great credit for their original investigations-microscopic and otherwise-for the great progress made.

The mass of physicians of all schools are earnest, conscientious and hard-working men, and they deservedly stand high in the esteem of people amongst whom they labor.

I would not detract one iota from the praise due them, but in the matter of therapeutics our old school friends progress little, if any, an