99 66

dence that Hahnemann was 'one of the most accomplished and scientific physicians of the age, "one of the most distinguished German physicians," "a prodigy of learning." This is evidence from men who knew and conversed with him, physicians and surgeons of the highest rank in the dominant school. Following this come statements which are rank exaggerations made by extremists whose words might better have been left unquoted. We doubt if exaggeration ever helped any cause. It is not true that "the art of medicine is founded on conjecture and improved by murder."—even if Sir Ashley Cooper did say it. Nor is "Medicine a pestilence to mankind'-nor was it, nor would it be "so much better for men and so much worse for the fishes" if “all the drugs were cast into the sea," no less an authority than Oliver Wendell Holmes to the contrary notwithstanding. We hold that the author might better have stopped with just one quotation, namely, that from Dr. Quain, who, thirty years ago, said, “Alas, our means of curing disease do not make equally rapid progress. This is not as some assert, because disease cannot be cured but simply because our knowledge of remedies is deficient." Now doesn't that strike you as a fair proposition, while the other statements condemn themselves as being rabid and untrue?

Here is a paragraph which should be printed on every envelope used by a homeopathic physician: The "law of similiars," as it is familiarly called, is in harmony with all nature. Likes beget likes, likes are drawn unto likes, a smile begets a smile, a frown begets a frown. Like sounds produce harmony, unlike sounds produce discord; and harmony, not discord, brings sweet temper, appetite and good digestion. Sunlight brings good cheer, darkness brings despondency, and so throughout the realm of nature the law of likes is ever uppermost."

It's true, isn't it? But we don't like what follows: "Sphinx, pyramid and obelisk will become worn away by the desert sands; amphitheatre, parthenon and temple will melt in the glowing heat of the sun; feudal castles, moss-covered and ivy-grown, erected to commemorate knightly deeds of chivalry, will crumble to dust; even Homeopathy itself may lose its name, but the immutable law of cure, similia similibus curentur, resting on the rock of truth, will last forever.' That's eloquent and perhaps true-but hardly "coldly judicial," as it were.

Here is another strong paragraph: "The methodical testing of

drugs on the healthy was first done by Hahnemann; he saw at once the fallacy of obtaining a knowledge of drug action by testing upon animals, knowing that the effects of medicines vary according to the animal experimented upon. Thus it is known that rabbits will eat Belladonna leaves, pigs will eat of Nux vomica freely, hogs and horses will eat Aconite, all of which substances are poisonous to man. We know, too, that drugs affect different animals differently, thus Ipecac is an emetic to man and dogs, but not to rabbits. Conium will poison the horse, but not the ox.'

Now that idea can be grasped by the student. It's a fact, and clearly demonstrates that the best way to learn how a remedy is going to affect man is to try it upon man.

Then the author shows, by quoting the "Lycopodium" experiment, with which all are familiar, that the average homeopathic physician has the same remedy for the same set of symptoms, while ten of our allopathic brethren have just as many ways of treating this same set of symptoms.

Then he takes up the point made by one of the other essayists that homeopathy, while taking pathology into close consideration, does not use it as a foundation upon which to base treatment, hence the ever changing theories regarding pathology have no effect upon homeopathic prescribing-nor are his prescriptions governed by fashion, as the author clearly shows. Of course not-they are governed by a law, a science, and science and law are not affected by notions and theories of every Tom, Dick and Harry who think that disease is always amenable to serums or creosote, or sulphuretted hydrogen or blue glass or what not. The homeopathic prescriptions of to-day have for their basis the same law observed fifty and a hundred years ago. It's a law and therefore unchangeable.

In paragraphs following, the author takes up statistics of all sorts. He refers to the economy of homeopathic practice, to the growth of the school, to the reduction of death rate in various institutions, and in various diseases fatal in large proportion under allopathic treatment, etc., etc., etc. He shows quite conclusively that there has been a decided change in the quantity of drugs administered for given diseases and that the practice of compounding remedies has to a very large degree been abandoned, the single remedy being prescribed more and more often as the years go by and knowledge of drug action increases. It has always been a question in our mind as to

whether this latter fact would not be a fact to-day regardless of Homeopathy. Certainly knowledge of drug action has advanced rapidly during the last quarter of a century and it logically follows that with this increasing knowledge, physicians of all schools would necessarily be more accurate in their prescribing.

Homeopathy as "Sectarian Medicine" is discussed as follows: "Sectarians we are in the same sense that a man may be a Christian and yet a protestant, an American citizen and yet a republican, a physician and yet a homeopath. Sectarianism is the offspring of originality and the guardian of progress.

We are accused of trading on a name as if sectarianism was fanaticism. The apostle Paul was accused of belonging to the hated sect of Nazarenes. Josephus styled the Christians a sect. We are coolly asked to abandon the name, as England asked the early colonists to abandon their ideas of freedom. 'True sectarianism,' says Helmuth, 'is compatible with the highest degree of learning; whilst it is firm for the preservation of rights, it has the greatest toleration for the opinions of others. In fact, I might say throughout the world, in theology and in medicine, sectarianism is the authorized expression of doctrine, the definite intellectual expression of belief. I hold that if sectarianism had been a bar to its progress medicine to-day would be an incongruous mass of poorly ascertained facts; for, from the time that the sons of Hippocrates founded the dogmatists to the period when the allopathic school forced the Homeopaths to become sectarian, the history of medicine is the history of sects, all having more or less influence upon the progress of medical science; nay, more, the majority of the illustrious leaders whose names have descended to our times as acknowledged fathers in medicine were sectarians.""

"Bacteriological Therapeutics" is treated thus:

"The late Rudolf Virchow, one of the greatest medical men whom science has produced, announced a short time before his death that modern bacteriological therapeutics rested on a homeopathic basis. The same may perhaps be said of antitoxine; of the Pasteur treatment for hydrophobia; of vaccination or the treatment of tuberculosis by tuberculium or nuclein."

There's food for thought right there. Just study that paragraph and see if there is not more than a grain of truth in it.

Achievements of Hahnemann are noted in the words of the brilliant Talcott:

"1. He portrayed the true nature of disease and described it as a disturbance of vital force.

2. He enunciated the law of similars embodied in the doctrine, 'similia similibus curentur,'-a law on which scientific medicine is inevitably based.

"3. He inaugurated the plan of proving drugs upon the healthy before using them as medicines for the sick.

"4. He discarded polypharmacy as unscientific.

"5. He adopted the plan of using the single remedy for the safe and speedy cure of disease.

"6. He made war against bleeding, blistering, purging, administering emetics and all forms of unnecessary depletion.

"7. He defined medicine in a manner comprehensive enough for all time. In his Lesser Writings he states: 'A knowledge of disease, a knowledge of remedies and a knowledge of their employment (that is for the cure of disease) constitutes medicine.' That definition has not yet been improved upon.

"8. He reduced the size of the dose until all danger of aggravation from the drug was removed. He proved the possibility of successful treatment by the administration of medicines in minute quantities, and when the fact was determined there was a gradual abandonment of the 'kill or cure' doses of the ancients.”

The author has evidently studied the colleges of our school. In no uncertain words he tells of the advanced position taken and held by them. He asserts with the best of foundation for such assertion that there can be had no better education in medicine in any college. of the old school, even though the oldest of our colleges is but a little more than half a century from its beginning-and it's the same way with our literature. There is no branch of medicine which is not represented in books written by physicians of the Homeopathic school, and these books are equal to the best of those written by old school men. And in therapeutics they are the better.

Summing up, the author gives three reasons "why students of medicine should select the Homeopathic school."

First. It offers all that old school medicine can offer in the medical field, and more, since it adds thereto a knowledge of homeopathic medicine, Materia Medica and therapeutics.

Second. It is a scientific system; its practitioners are possessed of knowledge not possessed by any other one system; its colleges and

teaching facilities, laboratories, hospitals, libraries, journals-all institutions of the school-are surpassed by none in the great medical field. Third. It offers a profession that is not overcrowded, fields that are virgin, opportunities that are waiting, fame and fortune to be

won.

We have had great pleasure in reviewing thus extensively these "prize essays." The Homeopathic school is under everlasting obligations to the donor whose generosity made their production possible. No one will doubt the good effect they will have in sustaining on a sound basis the claims of the Homeopath to scientific practice. They should be most widely circulated. Still it has occurred to us that after the first enthusiasm over their production has worn off they will be used but little. The main reason is that they are too long. The new series contemplated by the Medical Century will be better because they are to be limited to essays one-third as long. But even these will be too long to be read by the average man. If we are to issue tracts why not make them tracts in fact as well as in name? The American Tract Society has made a most exhaustive study of this whole matter and as a direct result this organization issues tracts few of which contain as many as five hundred words and each deals with some one thought, some one idea. That's what is needed in our school. The paragraph, "Economical Side of Homeopathy," would in itself make a good tract. So would the paragraph, "Is Homeopathy a Sectarian Medicine?" So would the first paragraph we have quoted-concerning "Harmony in Nature." Another one might be written on "The Dose," another one on "Attenuation of Homeopathic Medicines," another one quoting Talcott's "Achievements of Hahnemann." Perhaps a dozen short tracts might be issued and scattered broadcast, explaining each one some particular point in Homeopathy in a way that would appeal to the average man and not take up more than two or at most five minutes of his time in the reading of it. Perhaps some one will undertake to boil down each of these essays or those to come. If they do they will make them very much more popular and thus much more effective.

These essays may be had from the Medical Century Company, No. 9 E. 42nd Street, New York City.