ESSAY I. WHAT IS HOMEOPATHY? "The philosopher [and the physician] should be a man willing to listen to every suggestion, but determined to judge for himself. He should not be biassed by appearances, have no favourite hypothesis, be of no school, and in doctrine have no master. He should not be a respecter of persons but of things. Truth should be his primary object. If to these qualities be added industry, he may indeed hope to walk within the veil of the temple of Nature." MICHAEL FARADAY. ESSAY I1 WHAT IS HOMEOPATHY? "True philosophers, who are only eager for truth and knowledge, never regard themselves as already so thoroughly informed, but that they welcome further information from whomsoever and from whencesoever it may come; nor are they so narrow-minded as to imagine that any of the arts or sciences, transmitted to us by the ancients, are in such a state of forwardness and completeness, that nothing is left for the ingenuity and industry of others." WILLIAM HARVEY. AMONG the many important topics of the day, none having reference to this life only can possess higher claims to calm inquiry and earnest attention than the various resources which are available to mankind when suffering from bodily disease. In the present age of discovery and invention, it would be remarkable if, while every branch of science and art is rapidly improving, the resources of medicine remained stationary. Would it not be surprising if, while all around are sailing forward, we saw the physician alone becalmed? But this has not happened; the onward wave has reached the healer's barque, the breeze has caught his sail, and he also is gallantly in motion upon the mighty waters of natural science. There are, indeed, many who would stoutly stand upon the "old paths;" but here we have no inspired prophets and apostles, as happily we have in an affair 1 This Essay was first published in 1852. " of higher moment, upon whom to rest as upon a firm foundation. The opinions of mere men, however venerable by their antiquity, are like shifting sands;— they are not stable because they are not true. The intelligent and thinking people of the present times do not, in physical science, remain content to echo the sentiments of a master. Nature's laws and nature's facts alone are able to stand the rigid scrutiny to which all teaching is now unreservedly exposed. Some men's minds, under such an apparently unsettled and disorderly state of things, become sceptical and faithless. This arises from indolence; they will not give themselves the trouble to investigate, and thus they throw truth and falsehood overboard together, and vainly try to rest upon a negative. But, to the more active and industrious mind, the same condition is stimulative to exertion. Truth is sought after with earnestness, and, when found, is embraced with satisfaction and delight. Among the medical inquiries of the day, Homœopathy, in the judgment of many, is the most important which has yet appeared, while it is condemned by the voices of many more as a dishonest fallacy. It is proposed to consider, in a few words, what homoeopathy is not, and what it really is. 1. Homœopathy is not a novelty. In a Sanscrit poem called Sringara Tilaka, written by Kalidasa, who was one of the ornaments (or gems, as they were commonly called) of the court of Vikramaditya, king of Ujayin, whose reign, used as a chronological epoch by the Hindus, is placed about fifty-six years before the Christian era, the following line occurs, which shows that the fact involving the principle of homœopathy, had, in the East, even at that early period of time, passed into a proverb : श्रूयते हि पुरा लोके विषय विषगोषघ "It has been heard of old time in the world that poison is the remedy for poison." Hahnemann observes that "the author of the book ‘Περὶ τόπων τῶν κατ ̓ ἄνθρωπον, which is among the writings attributed to Hippocrates, has the following remarkable words : “ Διὰ τὰ ὅμοια νούσος γίνεται, καὶ διὰ τὰ ὅμοια προσφερόμενα ἐκ νοσούντων ὑγιαίνονται,” &c.,— By similar things disease is produced, and by similar things, administered to the sick, they are healed of their diseases. Thus the same thing which will produce a strangury, when it does not exist, will remove it when it does." These sentiments are thus expressed by Cornarius in his translation in 1564: "Per similia morbus fit, et per similia adhibita ex morbo sanantur. Velut urinæ stillicidium idem facit si non sit, et si sit idem sedat."2 The learned Dr. Francis Adams, in his translation of the works of Hippocrates, published in 1849, by the Sydenham Society, thus comments upon this passage: The treatment of suicidal mania appears singular,'Give the patient a draught made from the root of mandrake, in a smaller dose than will induce mania.' He then insists, in strong terms, that, under certain circumstances, purgatives will bind the bowels, and astringents loosen them. And he further makes the important remark that, although the general rule of treatment be 'contraria contrariis curantur,' the opposite rule also holds good in some cases, namely, 'similia similibus curantur.' It thus appears that the principles both of Allopathy and Homœopathy are recognized by the author of this treatise. In confirmation of the latter principle he remarks, the same substance which occasions strangury will also sometimes cure it, and so also with cough. And further, he acutely remarks, that warm water, which, when drank, generally excites vomiting, will also sometimes put a stop to it by removing its cause." 113 1 Organon, translated by Dudgeon, p. 106. 2 Hippocratis Opera, Juno Cornario interprete, 1564, pp. 87, 88. 3 Works of Hippocrates, translated by Francis Adams, LL.D., Sydenham Society, 1849, vol. i, p. 77. |