RISE AND DEVELOPMENT OF HOMEOPATHY IN INDIA.

BY SARAT CHANDRA GHOSE, M.D.

Calcutta, India.

EVERAL of my eminent colleagues of France, London and

and Development of Homeopathy in India." At their earnest solicitation I write this article, and hope it will throw some light on the subject.

In olden times there were only Ayurvedic practitioners in our country. During the time of the Mohammedan invasion of India the Ayurvedic medical science had to undergo considerable loss. The Mohammedans tried their best to arrest the growth of the Hindu medical science, but all their attempts proved futile. The European physicians brought their own medical science with them. It is true that the art of surgery has been brought by them to a degree of perfection that excites our deep admiration; but surgery belongs to no school of therapeutics, and is equally the property of all the medical profession. The United States of America have produced many distinguished surgeons who are avowed followers of homeopathy, and only follow the shining foot-prints of Hahnemann. The therapeutic measures of the old school of medicine are nothing but a total failure. The branch of therapeutics in their hands has made very little progress. It is at a standstill. It is still standing where it was half a century before. There is a saying that “an increase of knowledge brings an increase of pain." I find it highly applicable to those who watch the swift revolution of medical theories. Views or opinions which have been considered as laugh-exciting hypotheses, are now looked upon as axiomatic truths or vice versa. Science is placed upon the foundation of facts; but it is sometimes led into extravagances by flights of imagination. Nowadays the microbe theory has been ventilated by some eminent doctors and reigns supreme. However, it has caused unnecessary and widespread consternation to the non-medical world and withal it has been a source of great trouble and annoyance to many a medical man. It is a noteworthy fact that certain infectious. maladies sometimes possess certain microbes which can not universally be regarded as he causa causans of them, but rather as their parasites. We do not as yet know whether the bacillus gives rise to the disease, or the disease gives rise to the bacillus. All the mu

cous orifices of the body in the healthy state harbor several species. of bacteria. It would, no doubt, prove an inestimable boon to the people if we could get the material causes of some maladies exhibited in bottles on our shelves, but we find not the slighest possibility of doing the same. Some physicians are now seen to regard the germ theory in an altogether different light and predict a cloudy future for it. The upholders of this novel theory have gone astray from the path of true pathology, and this patent fact is prone to exert a deleterious influence upon the progress of pathological science. I know these humble assertions of mine will not meet with universal approval, but I do not possess any axe of my own to grind. except the clean-cut edge of truth.

No qualified medical man in this country formerly paid any attention to our Hahnemannian remedies. He considered it beneath his dignity to study and practice homeopathy. If any doctor had the courage to embrace it, he was sure to be boycotted and to pay the penalty of a severe ostracism.

Dr. John Martin Honigberger, a German physician, was the first homeopath who came to India in 1839 to treat the late Maharaja Ranjit Sing Bahadur, who was then very dangerously ill, and his life was hanging on a thread. The attending physicians of this illustrious prince pronounced his case to be incurable. Dr. Honigberger took the patient under his treatment and cured him within an incredibly short time. After his departure homeopathy fell into the vortex of oblivion, and was not talked about for some time.

The year 1851 brought Dr. C. F. Tonnere, a French physician, in our midst in Calcutta. He set himself up as a homeopathic physician in Calcutta. He proved Acalypha Indica, which is a

valuable medicine in our Materia Medica. At this time our rich and popular townsman, Babu Rajendra Lal Dutt, belonging to the wellknown family of the Wellington Square Dutts, grew dissatisfied with the allopathic mode of treatment and began to study homeopathy with zeal and earnestness. As time rolled on Rajendra Babu's fame as a very successful homeopath became firmly established. About the year 1865 Dr. Berigny, a celebrated French homeopath came to Calcutta and began to practice homeopathy. Our distinguished countryman, Dr. Mahendra Lal Sirkar, then shone as a meteor in the horizon of our Indian allopathic doctors. He was then rising to the acme of popularity and fame. He was a neighbor of Mr. R. Dutt. Many desperate cases given up by Dr. Sirkar and other allopaths were saved from the jaws of

death by Mr. Dutt. Dr. Sirkar's calling took him to the bedside of the sick, and he unfortunately saw youths and maidens. plucked up in the flower of their age, and the healthy and vigorous felled like the oak and dying in a few hours. These patients were sanguine of their eventual convalescence, but unfortunately and to the great mortification of Dr. Sirkar, the official remedies could do nothing to nip the malady in the bud, and they, at last, breathed their last sigh. It can be asserted without any fear of contradiction that when the life of a patient seems to be fast ebbing away, and the patient appears to be no better than a corpse, one drop of our appropriate remedy possesses the necromantic power of rekindling the almost extinguished lamp of life into a living flame. This patent fact was constantly heard and marked by Dr. Sirkar in his extensive practice. Dr. Sirkar is a very conscientious man, and as such he began to thoroughly study homeopathy* This inquisitiveness on his part culminated in his all-absorbing faith in homeopathy, and made him an eminent homeopath in the long run. India is, no doubt, proud of having him as a son. His keen intellect enabled him to appreciate the innate truth and intrinsic excellenceof Hahnemann's homeopathy. Dr. Sirkar avowed his conviction by a bold and open declaration in 1867. The allopathic profession of Calcutta was taken by surprise when the news of his conversion was ventilated. Nobody thought for a single moment that Dr. Sirkar would not be swayed by the love of gold which was then coming to him in profusion, and that he would accept Hahnemann as his future guide. He betook himself to homeopathy as soon as his eyes were opened to the superiority of our remedies. conversion fanned the flame of ill-feeling and rage of the followers of Hippocrates in Calcutta, and brought his excommunication from the allopathic medical associations. But nothing could dry up the fountain of his faith. He stood firm as a rock before the violent blast of opposition of his enemies. I can think of no one in India who in our time and generation has rendered more brilliant service to our country, homeopathy and the advancement of science than this great homeopath. He has raised us in the estimation of the English-speaking peoples such as no one else has done. The interest and fascination of homeopathy have grown upon him with each advancing year. He is a living force which oscillates the pendulum of homeopathy in India. His erudition is the subject of admiration of the people and the government alike. No hostile critic will dare to utter a single word or write a single line in dis*This article was written before the death of Dr. Sirkar, which recently took place.

paragement to homeopathy without fearing a logical and vehement contradiction as long as Dr. Sirkar will live, move or have his being.

The Calcutta Journal of Medicine, edited by him, is the glorious monument of his knowledge of homeopathy. The Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, established by him, has removed a long-felt desideratum in India, and stands as a shining evidence of his love of science. He is not only known as an eminent homeopath, but he is a man of science. He has devoted his life-blood to the advancement of science in India. He is the only doctor in India who has been honored with the bestowal of the L.L.D. degree of the University of Calcutta.

The government has honored him with the title of C.I.E. He was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the Calcutta University, and a member of the Bengal Legislative Council. Such is our M. L. Sirkar, M.D., L.L.D., C.I.E., who is respected and admired alike by the government and his countrymen for his versatile genius, matchless intellect, moral courage and independence of character. We fervently pray to God that his life may be spared to us for a long time to come.

Dr. Berigny was the first to start a Homeopathic Dispensary in Calcutta. He did much to propagate the principles of homeopathy in India. He left Calcutta after a few years and died on his way home. Babu B. L. Bhaduri, L.M.S. followed the example of Dr. Sirkar and came into the field. Dr. L. Salzer, of the University of Vienna, came to Calcutta a few years before. Though a distinguished homeopath his name was not then so well-known to India as to-day: Dr. Bhaduri's conversion to homeopathy was due to the influence of Dr. Salzer. Dr. Bhaduri was under grateful obligations to Dr. Salzer. Dr. Salzer was a good mentor and Dr. Bhaduri a studious and intelligent student. In time the latter became a very successful homeopath. He did yeoman's service to the cause of homeopathy in India. Homeopathy in India has sustained a heavy loss by his death. This melancholy event took place in March, 1891, at the comparatively early age of 50 years.

Dr. Salzer is a. profound master of homeopathy, and has rendered really incalculable service to the spread and appreciation of homeopathy in this country. Drs. Salzer and Sirkar are the two first-grade homeopaths in Calcutta, and are the two shining and solid pivots in India upon which the fabric of homeopathy turns. Dr. Salzer is generally considered to have been more of a popularizer than scholar, and perhaps it is true that he cannot claim the originality or the depth of knowledge of some of his American col

leagues, yet it must be admitted by even his most hostile critics that some of his contributions to homeopathic literature have been both permanent and valuable, such for instance, is his work on "Cholera." It is pregnant with originality from the beginning to the end.

P. C. Mojumdar took his L.M.S. degree from the Calcutta Medical College in 1878, and has been practicing homeopathy since 1880. He went to the World's Homeopathic Congress held in Chicago, and won there his M.D. degree. The late Dr. B. N. Banerjia, who graduated in the same year with Dr. Mojumdar, settled at Allahabad. He practiced there for a few years as an allopath. After his conversion to homeopathy he came down to Calcutta and set himself up as a homeopathic practitioner. Dr. Sirkar loved him very much. In fact he was loved by all. To him belongs the lion's share of the credit of popularizing the Hahnemannian system in Calcutta and elsewhere. His amiable disposition, unfailing attention to, and skillful management of cases, his kindness of heart, and his thorough knowledge of homeopathy endeared him to all who came in contact with him. He built up such an extensive practice in Calcutta that he had no time to take his meals. regularly. The rich and the poor were equally benefited by him. A child of a beggar could draw his sympathy in a greater degree than that of a Croesus. A halo of divine endearment hang about his person. He wrote to me many unsolicited letters while I was engaged in proving Ficus Religiosa and Nyctanthes Arbor-tristis, which have been appreciated by the eminent homeopaths and pharmacists of London, France, Germany and America, and which have been favorably mentioned by Dr. John H. Clarke in his "Prescriber," and his "Dictionary of Practical Materia Medica." He always gave me valuable instructions. His epistles were replete with many words of encouragement and praise.

His constitution could hardly cope with his labors, and he fell as a martyr before the shrine of duty. He was the first in India who got the honorary M.D. degree from America. He was cut off in the prime of life by the inscrutable degree of God, and we mourn his untimely loss with universal regret. He was the first homeopathic physician among the second-grade homeopaths in Calcutta. After his demise other second-grade homeopaths began to rise in practice and public estimation.

The late Dr. M. M. Bose was the first native of India who crossed the seas and went all the way over to America to obtain his M.D. degree. He was a graduate of the New York Homeopathic Medical College. As long as he lived he could not secure a decent practice. But he did a giant's service to the cause of homeopathy