interview they agreed, if we would not disturb the bill as introduced, giving a Board for each Judicial Circuit, which feature we opposed, to accept the proper amendments giving us our own State Board. These amendments were introduced the following day, accepted, and the bill became a law. the establishment of the State Board of Health, which the yellow fever epidemics of 1887 and 1888 had convinced the people was a necessity. Dr. C. W. Johnson of Jacksonville, and myself were on hand to watch legislation, but nothing was attempted inimical to our interests. At this time we had a conference with several Allopathic physicians and they proposed that a committee from both schools of medicine should confer together, and draw up a bill for presentation at the regular session of the Legislature, which would be satisfactory to all parties. It was thought œopathic Medical Examiners for Florida, best however that the matter should be deferred for two years. When the Legislature met in May a bill was unexpectedly introduced by some physicians, who were members, to regulate the practice of medicine. It provided for an Examining Board for each Judicial Circuit, composed of three physicians, but of course they were all to be of the Allopathic school. It also provided that a physician coming before the Board for a license, must be a graduate of a college recognized by the American Medical Association, That certainly was a most brilliant scheme to bury forever out of sight all those who would not bow down to the Allopathic idol. It aroused us into immediate activity, but by the time the bill had passed the House and gone to the Senate for its concurrence Dr. C. W. Johnson and myself were on the ground, and none too soon. The Senate Committee had reported favorably upon it, and it was to come up for second reading on the following day. The committee, however, gave us a hearing, and arranged a conference with us of the Allopathic physicians who were pushing the bill. After a rather stormy In due time the Governor appointed Dr. T. J. Williamson, of Eustis, Dr. C. W. Johnson, of Jacksonville and myself members of the first State Board of Hom and I believe the first in the United States. As showing what can be accomplished by persistent effort, I will state that the satisfactory status of Homœopathy in Florida is due to the zeal of less than a half dozen practitioners. Even this could not have been brought about except for a friendly spirit among the members of the Legis lature. In my intercourse with these gentlemen, I have always found a spirit of fairness to prevail which can be relied upon for just treatment. Show them that you are only asking for your rights, and the members will fight for the weaker party. Correspondence. News and Comments. BY OUR CHICAGO CORRESPONDENT. DR. S. E. Chapman, of Watsonville, California, recently wrote the symptoms of a patient, sent copies to an equal number of Homœopaths and Irregulars, and requested a prescription from each. The replies were just what might have been expected. Without exception the followers of Samuel Hahnemann prescribed Lycopodium; whilst the Irregulars, true to their colors, wandered around through the materia medica at an astonishing rate. No two of them prescribed alike, and, as the followers of Medieval Therapeutics are known to base their prescriptions upon a pathological foundation, it is presumed that each prescriber gave the disease a separate name and set his sails accordingly. The incident ought to teach Homœopaths the folly of making pathology the basis of treatment. Apropos of this, it may be instructive to remind the reader that The World, of New York, recently sent a woman reporter to six of the foremost Allopathic physcians of the metropolis for a prescription for headache. Of course, the sufferer (?) got six opinions and as many prescriptions, for which she paid thirty dollars. Now, if Col. Cockerill the managing editor of The World, will send his subordinate to six, or to twenty, physicians of the Progressive School of Medicine, he will learn a great truth which we will not insult the intelligence of our readers by pointing out. * It is the unceasing complaint of the Blood-and-Blister School that Homœopathic practitioners treat sick people according to symptoms; that the followers of Hahnemann "ignore" the "true disease" and fight only "its manifestations." We bless God that the charge is partially true. "This man has pneumonia," declares the Irregular. "How do you know?" inquires the Homceopath (or Regular). "Because," rejoins the Bleeder-andBlisterer, he has fever, pains in the chest, crepitant rales, cough, and, in short, the symptoms which indicate beyond all ques tion that the disease is inflammation of the lungs." "Very good, but what is a rale?" "A symptom, of course." 66 What are all the other indications but symptoms?" And thus the man with "three thousand years of experience" behind him is cornered. If the man who goes to a bedside, examines a patient, finds rales, cough, rusty expectoration, pain in the chest, he groups these symptoms and gives them a name covering the whole. If such a man is not prescribing for symptoms we should like to know what in creation he is prescribing for. Things which are equal to each other; pneumonia and the group of symptoms which the word implies are one and the same; therefore the Mullethead who prescribes for "pneumonia" is prescribing for "symptoms." In reply to a correspondent who asked if there was not a medical college in Louisville, Kentucky, which graduated students after two courses of lectures, The Chicago Herald says that "all such institutions are catch-penny affairs, not worthy a moment's consideration;" that "the student who does not wish to throw his money away will take a four years' course of study," and that the time has arrived when the present scandal of diploma grinding must cease. The Herald simply voices the sentiment of enlightened papers the country over. We do not wonder that the daily press so frequently sneers at the pretentions of the medical profession. Great journals such as The Herald are edited by men who have brains enough to see through the worse than hypocritical vapor that separates the rest of the world from the medi The cal degree. We could name a dozen newspapers of national influence and circulation that are continually printing reflections upon the culture of physicians. Louisville "medical colleges," bad as they are known to be, are no worse than scores of others. How is the standard of requirements in The Herald's own city? How about Cincinnati? St. Louis? New Orleans? How about the country generally? The present scandalous situation will remain as long as medical colleges are conducted after the fashion of livery stables and butcher shops. It is truth to say, and we are sure that no man who is entirely honest with himself will deny, that a great many "medical colleges" are no more and no less than physicians' coperative advertising associations. It follows as the night follows the day that business considerations will outweigh all scientific claims in such institutions. The public does not expect a sane man to conduct a butcher shop for glory, any more than it expects a railroad to be run for charity, and why should it expect physicians to defy the great economic laws of the universe in the matter of conducting a medical college! The editor of The Eclectic Medical Journal, of Cincinnati, is unhappy because some Homœopaths have "stolen" certain remedies from the Eclectics, and, after the fashion of thieves, have made off with the booty without so much as a tender of thanks. This sort of talk is very amusing. The fact is well known among enlightened people that Eclecticism owes its high place in public esteem to the circumstance that it is in great part Homoeopathy. Take Homœopathy out of Eclecticism and the latter will find itself resting on the broken crutch of Allopathy. The New York Medical Times is natur ally much impressed with an "Address on Medicine," delivered by Prof. H. C. Wood, M. D., LL. D., at Yale University. The address may be "able and scholarly," as The Times denominates it, but we are not to be blamed for declaring it to be far from logical. To be plain, we think Prof. Wood's address was a mighty poor excuse for what might have been something better. He says: "Strange, is it not, that this alleged law which has made the name of Hahnemann immortal was not originally framed by him, but is plainly stated in the works of that really great man-Hippocrates!" "Alleged" law! Not, then, a law at all. And Hippocrates is a really great man for discovering what in Hahnemann's case amounts to nothing! "For 2300 years this generalization has survived; it must possess some peculiar vitality, some measure of truth, and I myself believe that as a rule of practice it will at times lead to a good result. * * Ipecacuanha, when given in large doses, will cause vomiting, but under certain circumstances when administered in minute quantities it will relieve vomiting. Witnessing such administration and such triumph, the bystander cries-Great is similia similibus curantur, and Hahnemann is its prophet! But a second case of vomiting appears which is increased by Ipecacuanha and is relieved by Opium, which does not vomit when given to the normal man in large doses, but makes him insusceptible to the action of emetics. Now the upholder of the doctrine of dissimila dissimilibus curantur, cries-"Be hold, I have the truth-the remedy which produces the opposite to the symptom is the remedy to relieve the symptom." "Opposite to the symptom" is good; very good indeed. What is the opposite of sore throat? What is the opposite of lumbago? What is the opposite of vomiting? and what drug or drugs will produce these opposites? Will Prof. Wood tell us, or was he simply firing into space without much regard for anything? Will The Times tell us what it regards as the opposite of tooth-ache? We "might have said headache?" Certainly, we might. Well, what is the opposite of headache, and what drug will produce that opposite? Is constipation the opposite of diarrhea? If so, what is the opposite of dysentery? Is a sober man the opposite of a drunken man? Possibly, but what drug will produce sobriety? We are in dead earnest about this matter and we want answers to our questions. Prof. Wood speaks of the opposite of vomiting; we want to know what the opposite of vomiting is and what drug will produce that opposite. "A law of nature has no exception, and if exceptions be found to an alleged law, it is plain that the law is only an allegation and not a reality." How about the Siamese Twins, and tubal pregnancies, and supernumerary fingers, and web feet? Are these monstrosities not exceptions to the laws of Nature? "Symptoms are the mere surface play of disease, marking only with great uncertainty the currents, whirlpools and rocks that lie hidden far underneath." Is it not remarkable that symptoms, which really mean nothing and which are of no account in the treatment of a case, should ALWAYS be present in sickness! Prof. Wood next proceeds to prove the insufferable hypocrisy of the Blood-andBlister School in this fashion: "I have already stated, however, that sometimes the so-called law of similars is a successful theory for work." How in heaven's name can a "so-called law," which is no law at all, be successful in anything? "This man, who is not a man, and, therefore, something else, possibly an ass, is a good citizen on occa sions." We admire such trash as this, coming, as it does, from a doctor of laws! It increases our respect for the degree of LL. D. "But far more patient than this [law of cure] is the fact that in most acute cases the tendency is toward recovery." Then why such dosing as the Allopathic school endorses? If the "tendency is toward recovery," why interfere with drugs? "Regular" practice gives the lie to "regular" talk. "Modern medicine became possible not through any truth contained in the theories of the "German dreamer;" but because of the accidents attending the working out of these theories." Prof. Wood is by this time in such a hopeless tangle that we will stop a moment to extricate him from the meshes of his own net. In the first place, Hahnemann discovered nothing, next Hippocrates is declared to be "a really great man" for hinting at the same thing; i. e., nothing; then there is some truth in the law of similars; finally, Hahnemann is a "German dreamer," and his theories are false from beginning to end. Our respect for the title of LL. D. is growing. Dr. Wood next adduces some unhappy metaphors and winds up with a string of sophistries of which the foregoing quotations are moderate specimens. The address will hardly go into classical literature with "Paradise Lost," and we do not believe that John Stuart Mills' "System of Logic" will be supplemented by anything that Horatio C. Wood, M. D., LL. D., is capable of writing. In conclusion, if The Medical Times is determined to found a school of medicine, why call the new school anything? A "New" system of medicine, to be consistent, must exclude everything old, just as, according to The Times, a "Homoeopathic" school must reject everything not Homœopathic. But we are not discussing the consistency of The New York Medical Times at the present moment. The consistency of that journal is about on a par with the piety of his Satanic Highness. The Barriers Broken. SIMILIA. MEMPHIS, TENN., Feb. 20, 1890. Editor Southern Journal of Homœopathy: DEAR SIR-Two members of our school, Dr. Geo. G. Lyon, of Mobile, Ala., and Dr. Myers, of Whistler, Ala., have recently been arrested for nonconformity with the law regulatimg the practice of medicine in Alabama. Dr. S. W. Brooks, a graduate of a Georgia medical college, who has been located in Alabama for about a year, has recently come out of the same ordeal triumphant. The case was decided against him in the lower courts, but he appealed it to the Supreme Court, which decided that the State did not have police powers and the offense was not an indictable one, or, that the party could not be punished under Section 4078 of the Code of Alabama, when a physician having a diploma from a reputable medical college had said diploma recorded in the Probate Judge's office in the county he proposed to locate. This decision will not stop proceedings against Drs. Lyon and Myers. The medical laws of Alabama are a blot upon the statutes of that State, and are void because they are unconstitutional. The decision aforementioned opens the doors of Alabama to all doctors of any school who have diplomas, and as there are many good locations in the State, it is hoped that the Homœopaths will proceed to pitch their tents among the good people of Alabama, register their diplomas, and settle down to business without fear of molestation or the bugbear of an Allopathic (exclusively Allopathic as in Alabama) Medical Examining Board. The timid Homœopath who dreads the fiery ordeal need no longer fear its partisan influence. The doors are open to you. The people will welcome you. To those desiring to locate in Alabama, I would refer them to Hon. George G. Lyon, Demopolis; Dr. J. H. Henry, Montgomery; Dr. A. E. Meadow, Blocton; Dr. Myers, Whistler; Dr. George G. Lyon, Mobile; Dr. W. J. Murrell, Mobile, Mr. H. C. Hull, Sheffield; Dr. Pampinella, Mobile; Dr. A. N. Ballard, Birmingham; Dr. Jules Fabre, Birmingham; Dr. A. M. Duffield, Mobile; Dr. Smith, Decatur; Dr. J. A. Rountere, Heartzell; and Dr. J. A. Dearth, South Lowell. Respectfully, E. LIPPINCOTT, M. D. Doctor, write out your subscription for the JOURNAL on the accompanying blank and send it to the publisher at once. |