like syphilis, it becomes constitutional, an opinion to which M. Ricord, the foremost man in all the world in a practical acquaintance with venereal diseases, would be loth to subscribe. While syphilis and sycosis have a considerable share in the propagation of chronic diseases-decidedly the diamond of the brilliant trio, the cynosure of the faithful believers, is Itch. To it nearly every chronic disease, from scrofula to corns, is referred, and to eradicate it, Hahnemann has a special set of remedies, which he styles Antipsorics, among which sulphur of course occupies the place of honor. The world, even the skeptical medical world, might admit their efficacy, could the antipsorics cure their illustrious classifier, and his admirers, of their overweening itch for the marvellous. That, alas ! is beyond their power. Most opportunely do we discourse of the marvellous, for the next and last grand homœopathic dogma deals marvellously in it. We allude to the doctrine of infinitesimals-which, however, the brethren may protest and deny, is as really and essentially a part of their system, as is the dictum, similia similibus curantur. For, against CORNS there are recorded no fewer than twentysix remedies, among which, are Antimony, Caustic, Tin, Nitric Acid, Phosphorus, Phosphoric Acid, Rhus Toxicodendron, Silver, Veratria and Potash—all to be administered internally. Now, let them be administered in full doses, and how long will the patient continue homœopathic? Nay, how long will he continue in the world? Sad cure! for who would lose, though full of corns, By too large a dose of Homœopathy? Hahnemann's directions for the preparation and administration of medicines are briefly as follows: Express the juice of plants, and add an equal quantity of alcohol to preserve it; or if more convenient, the plant may be powdered, bottled, corked and stowed away in a safe place. Then if two drops of a mixture of equal parts of alcohol, and the recent juice of any medicinal plant, be diluted with ninety eight drops of alcohol, in a vial capable of containing one hundred and thirty drops, and the whole twice shaken together, the medicine becomes exalted in energy (potenzirt) to the first developement of power. The process is to be continued through twenty-nine additional vials, each of equal capacity with the first, and each containing ninety-nine drops of spirits of wine. The thirtieth, or decillionth, developement is the one in most general use.* A like process is used with mineral and animal substances after they have been raised in the form of powder to the millionth degree.† Hahnemann severely reprehends the conduct of certain practitioners who carry their bottles about with them, and by the indefinite shaking, confer on their medicaments a formidable augmentation of energy. He says, "too strong a homœopathic dose will infallibly in jure the patient." "The dose of the homœopathic remedy can never be sufficiently small, so as to be inferior to the powers of the natural disease, which it can at least partially extinguish and cure, provided it produce an almost insensible aggravation of the disease." "The effects of a dose are by no means diminished in proportion, as the quantity of the medicinal substance is attenuated. Suppose that one drop of a mixture containing the tenth of a grain of any medicinal substance, produces an effect a, a drop of another mixture containing merely a hundredth of a grain will only produce an effect = "|| What exquisite mathematical precision! Who will dare affirm henceforth that medicine is not a certain science? We are indebted to Hahnemann for a law, second only to that which the immortal Kepler wrought out from the scroll of the heavens, after he had perused it night and day for so many years. "The higher the dilutions, the more rapidly and with the more penetrating influence do they act." He even provides for an exaltation of ten degrees above the thirtieth. *Organon, p. 200 †Loco. Citat. Organon, p. 202, et sequent. ||Organon, p. 206. Again: "Homœopathic remedies operate with most certainty by smelling the medicinal aura from a saccharine globule impregnated with a high dilution. Such a globule kept in a close vial will retain its energy, at least from eighteen to twenty years."* "In acute diseases, the dose may be repeated every 24, 12, 8, 4, hours or oftener, but in chronic miasms, the most subtle dose can be repeated at intervals of 40, 50, or 100 days."t Having thus hastily, and without much comment, sketched the boldest dogmas of the system, let us briefly review them seriatim. And when a person presents himself with extraordinary pretensions, the admission of which demands in some degree a confidence in his veracity, we naturally ask what sort of a character he has previously borne. The answer to this query in Hahnemann's case will be very unsatisfactory, his course previous to the promulgation of homeopathy, having been very incorrect, and, judged by a modern medical standard, very culpable. It is known, and his warmest friends cannot repel the charge, that he had invented and patented several secret nostrums, which he sold at a high price. With so dishonorable a rise, his sun might be expected to culminate in even greater dishonour, and it does so in his last and crowning nostrum, which we are now considering. But what sort of facts are these, and who testify for and against them? Take bark, the drug with which he started. As far as we can ascertain, only two persons have testified to its ague-producing power-our author, and a Dr. Dixon, the founder, we believe, of the Chrono-thermal system. The latter gives only one case. Now Hahnemann's evidence after his disgraceful quackery, cannot be received, and Dixon's is not much better. On the contrary, the renowned Andral made the fullest experiments on this and other drugs, and never succeeded in reproducing a solitary homœopathic fact.‡ And thousands of persons have used quinine and bark for debility and non-periodical diseases, why have not a few of them testified to having been thrown by it into ague? Again, as to sulphur. It is hard to believe that it will produce a disease similar to itch, unless the curious Homœopathist will show under the microscope an Acarus sulphuris, about the shape, size and general appearance of the Acarus scabei, in which modern researches have proved itch to consist. But many of the alleged facts bear falsehood upon their very front. Who that has seen, that terrible malady, hydrophobia, will believe that it either has been or can be cured by belladonna, which Hahnemann reports as a sure remedy. And why is amaurosis not as tractable a disease, as simple conjunctivitis, since on his principle Hahnemann assures us that belladonna will control it? Henceforth we have no reason to dread tetanus, since all kinds of it are cured by caustic potash, if we may believe Stutz and Hahnemann. The most obstinate constipation, ileus itself, may be derided, since it bows to the power of lead in bullet form-nor, we are informed, did these pills operate by their weight, for then gold, which is heavier, would have answered the purpose. Hahnemann forgets that lead is rather the cheapest. Again; others of the alleged facts, like the last, if admitted, are wholly inapplicable, or can be explained without the aid of homœopathy. For instance, arsenic will cure angina pectoris, for Tachenius and Thelanius have seen it give rise to strong oppression of the chest, a thing likely enough to happen, when the subject was, from its effects, about ceasing to breathe entirely. Unrecognized idiosyncrasy is forced into the ranks of the new doctrine. Hahnemann and Sampson quote cases of extreme susceptibility to the action of ipecac,-that drug, in the minutest quantity afloat in the air, bringing on in certain persons of very irritable fibre, severe paroxysms of asthma, which it will relieve in others. But some will fall into convulsions at the sight of a cat. Is any part of a cat therefore remedial in convulsions? A lady was thrown into a similar state, whenever a plate containing pease boiled in mint," was set before her. Are pease boiled in mint therefore to have a place in the Material Medica Pura? Hahnemann gravely relates that the Princess Maria Porphyrogerita, restored her brother, the Emperor Alexius, from a state of syncope, by sprinkling him with rose water, and he refers the cure to the properties of rose water. The cure of ileus by opium, of scalds and burns by heating, and of frost-bites by cooling applications, of dysentery by purgatives, of diarrhoea by rhubarb, the prophylaxis of the vaccine disease, and many other facts to which he exultingly points as proofs of his theory, can be perfectly well explained without it. To avoid the trouble of too frequent reference, we may state that the above facts and many more are scattered throughout the Organon. But do the principles deduced from the facts narrated in the Organon, stand the test of modern discovery in chemistry, pathology and therapeutics? By no means. It is not true that diseases are not mechanical, or chemical changes of the material substance of the body, &c. Disease may originate in a mental cause, may first invade the nervous system, but both mental and bodily maladies often have evidently a material, even mechanical and chemical cause, as when a spicula of bone presses on the brain, producing insanity or epilepsy. But however disease may be lighted up, from the moment of its inception, it is accompanied and essentially modified, by the most serious changes of the nature above indicated. McGregor and Malcolm have investigated and published the variations which the quantity of carbonic acid in expired air undergoes during disease. Becquerel and Rodiert have, by a series of careful and elaborate experiments, both demonstrated the principle, and settled *London and Edinburgh Monthly Journ. of Medical Science, 1843, p. 1. †Gazette Med. de Paris for 1844. |