r. ~=~-,
3p.“- ’
4. '7 1"
§
\.
a“.
‘ . ~
\ 1l‘l‘1"4d1i“...1‘ln|
\ -
.
/
\6.il.|.l||‘lb ‘|l‘|'|l.“|.| ...:|l‘ .| I]. '10! ||:O.| "\-‘\.ll‘0) 6l\||\’\l|\|€|‘!
.,...o. .
0‘00“: £v600 .6
. 1| ..-
I} . I. .
. .0145 .0Q\
a
01.1
, w
I n..". I. 'III”I 0r0_. 0 nni .\nv.d.x_lit .liaﬁai I 4 .ll..\. 0 n ‘ i


ﬁwﬁﬁ . ,tvfﬁw
.3 ... . .. .r
. .. - ~\- >
. .. .0 A... ‘ . . ‘ ‘ .
»l.ol¢.a£lc.,olJ-wua-Oo$| ,
ivVQ 1..-...» 7.
. - A - I. . ~
n u ‘ .. .
4 no? 05‘... -.94¢€
i ¢1|.0‘ Q‘nlvaa‘lw
'0. ‘ D. ID
{*§
l I |100!\4.0.
n.l\,l |-|i'uu|
I lilunl
n
. . . . .
57 ?; LIL.» .
~ 05-08 - a n
.00.
i .,.
u no¢na
‘4‘
u‘wu muJmrqﬂ I . . . . . V V , V L . h . . -I.mvv1a.I.I».-.I.L
duh-sift. . I I .
II.
.I.~ . _ .-
.. II. I 1: ..f..,
‘4. I. II-
.. I .. ,.».v . I . V, I I .‘. I.I.. ...... I.. _
0 a I. I I I n I I I o I 005 III I . . . I I I I ‘I I 0 I I|\'IIIIIOIQ'.|IIII'\I\I‘AIIIII'II-IIII ‘III 10 I . . . . , . .. ‘ . ‘ v . _ v I I I IQIIIIiIIIIIIOiIIIIIIIIIIIQDIIUIIPIIIIIIII'ISY‘IQIII |QII.-III\IU.III.IIIIOI.| . I I (I it III.


S\
\ {>1
A: :2;
HA H/VEMA N/V
Hz's Inﬂuence upon M odern Medicine
AN ADDRESS
_ Delivered at the Homwopatlzz'c Feslz'zlal, Boston
April 12, 1887
' a
in!
By SELDEN $141. c 077; 111.0.
0f ﬁfiddldown, N. Y.
c»-
{x‘ s'iaﬁf.
e
i“
.w"
h
1*: ﬂ" J).
fish-r” if
a; l
HAHNEMAN/V, AND HIS INFLUENCE UPON MODERN
MEDICINE.
BY SELDEN H. TALCOTT, M.D., MIDDLETOWN, N .Y.
An Address delivered at tlze Homaeojatﬁie Festival, Baden, April 12, 1887.
NEARLY a century and a half ago a little child was rocked
in a rude cradle by its fond and hopeful mother, in the village
of Meissen, Saxony. One of the angels was swinging upon the
gates of Paradise, just as our sweethearts used to swing upon
the gates of their fathers’ homes, and looking down she beheld
this child, and was entranced by its wonderful beauty. So she
plucked from her own soul the spirit of goodness, of purity, of
angelic enthusiasm, and of heavenly wisdom, and she dropped it
down into the heart of that little child. The child grew to be a
man; the man became a scholar, a chemist, a discoverer, and
a physician ; and his name was Samuel Hahnemann.
Whoever has studied the life of Hahnemann can recognize, in
his every word and act, the presence of that lofty spirit which
came to him from the hands of his ministering angel.
From the charms of legendary lore we shall proceed to a con~
templation of serious and earnest facts.
In considering the achievements of any individual, we are
naturally prone to consider also those causes and influences
which may have impelled to mighty effort and to triumphant
success.
The parents of Samuel Hahnemann were honest, truthful, and
pains-taking people. We catch a glimpse of the ﬁrst ray of pro-
phetic light in that statement of Hahnemann’s father: “If that
boy is permitted to live, I will give him lessons in thinking.”
The instructions of the parent were well absorbed by the
growing youth, and throughout the maturer years of our medical
master his time was occupied in the faithful continuance of that
marvellous mental operation known as thinking. The causes
and the effects of every conceivable question or problem in
medicine were thoroughly and carefully considered by Samuel
Hahnemann.
Like the immortal Goldsmith in literature, Hahnemann left
nothing in medical philosophy untouched, and he touched nothing
which he did not adorn.
Hahnemann became ﬁrst a student; secondly, a teacher of the
languages and sciences; thirdly, a physician, graduating, accord-
ing to some, at Erlangen in 1779, according to others at Heidel-
berg in 1781. He practised medicine until the uncertainties of
his art so discouraged him that he gave up in disgust the work
of attempting to heal. Then he became a chemist, and wrought
in that ﬁeld with a skill that made him famous, but his heart
2
was in medicine. Consequently, in 1791, we ﬁnd him engaged
as a physician in charge of an insane-asylum in Georgenthal,
near Gotha. After a few years of service in this institution we
ﬁnd him again pursuing his chemical studies and researches and
likewise engaged in' lecturing at Leipsic. From 1796, when he
ﬁrst enunciated the principle of his new system in Hufeland’s
“Journal of Practical Medicine,” to 1810, when he made his
most positive declarations to the world concerning homoeopathy,
Hahnemann was engaged in developing the new form of medical
practice. From 1810 to the close of his life, in 1843, Hahnemann
was a wonderfully industrious practitioner and the most successful
healer of disease whom the world has known, either in ancient
or modern times.
The story of Hahnemann’s life— his teachings, his privations,
his persecutions, and his ﬁnal triumph in Paris—is familiar to
you all, and needs no lengthy rehearsal.
Should you feel doubts as to the splendid character and
gigantic abilities of this man, you may have them removed by
considering the estimate placed upon Hahnemann by those who
were his contemporaries, by those who were rich in profound
knowledge, and by those who were familiar with his life-work.
Jean Paul Richter, the Sir Walter Scott of Germany, describes
Hahnemann as “a prodigy of learning and philosophy.” Sir
John Forbes declared him to be “a man of genius and a scholar, ,
a man of investigation, industry, and undaunted energy.”
Professor Christison, whose work on poisons is famous through-
out the world, quotes Hahnemann’s account of poisoning by
arsenic as the most graphic and accurate he could discover.
Hufeland describes him as “one of the most distinguished of
German physicians.” And Valentine Mott, one of the mightiest
and ablest of American surgeons, after visiting Hahnemann in
Europe, said of him, “Hahnemann is one of the most accom-
plished and scientiﬁc physicians of the present age.”
These words of praise, you must remember, have fallen from
the lips of those who were opposed to Hahnemann in medical
theory. They speak volumes in behalf both of the honesty of
those who uttered the words, and of the transcendent and im-
mortal genius of Hahnemann.
While it is interesting to note the salient facts in the history
of any life, it is yet more fascinating to contemplate that splendid
spirit of an individual which impels its owner to surmount all
obstacles, to disregard all difﬁculties, to drive the prow of one’s
bark through the darkest clouds and stormiest seas, and to sweep
on irresistibly to the ﬁnal harbor of a special and desired attain-
ment.
The early life of Hahnemann was full of discouragement, and
3
replete with those inﬂuences which would naturally divert a
weak mind from the achievement of an inborn purpose. But,
in studying the biographies of men, we ﬁnd that there are those
who cannot be repressed by unfavorable surroundings, or turned
from a certain goal by repelling inﬂuences. The insistance of
parents, and a special education, could not keep Goldsmith in a
curate’s gown. Much study and an expensive education in the
law could not hold Goethe from that career in letters for which
he was so grandly endowed. And, though the might of poverty
and the force of circumstance combined to keep Robert Burns
_ at the plough, he found it impossible to do any thing except to
give voice to the melody forever in his heart. And so it was
with Samuel Hahnemann. He was bound by the galling chains
of pOverty; he was repelled by the scorn and ridicule of his
eonfreres in the profession; he was invited to other ﬁelds of
labor, through his abilities as a chemist and a teacher: but in
the face of every adverse circumstance or diverting inﬂuence,
he felt himself impelled to become the exponent of a new
system of medical practice. And he rose with the mighty
power of an inspired purpose, a clear vision, a marvellous judg-
ment, and an iron will ; and he accomplished the work to which
_ he turned his tremendous energies. '
Hahnemann,not only made his mark as a chemist, and not
only considered and understood the relationships of the material
elements, but he seemed endowed with special power to pierce
the veil, and to acquire a deep and true understanding of the
subtle mysteries and operations of the human soul. As a result
of his clearness of vision in this direction, he formed an appre~
ciative estimate of those products which spring from the union
of soul and body, and which we call mental manifestations.
Hahnemann enunciated the fact, a fact which is now generally
recognized, that there are no mental diseases which do not owe
their existence to a bodily disease. He also recognized the fact
that bodily diseases may in turn be produced through mental
avenues, such as shock from grief, or anger, or sudden excite-
ment of any passion or emotion. Recognizing these facts, he
came to the conclusion that the treatment of diseases, bodily
and mental, must be based upon both a material recuperation of
the physical forces, and a spiritual tranquillizing of the mental
and the moral forces.
Hahnemann placed a truer estimate upon the brain and mind
than any physician who had preceded h1m. The ancients thought
that the brain was but a useless mass of crude matter, a sort of
overgrown gland, a mountain snow-cap to keep the rest of the
body cool. But the modern student ﬁnds, with Hahnemann, that
the brain, which the ancients despised, is the chief and most
4
important organ of the human body. ( The human mind, the
occupant of this brain, is the marvel and the mystery of creation.
It is swayed by every ﬂitting passion or impression, and yet
it is held in steady poise by the calm monitions of reason, of
cultivated judgment and of developed will.) In these respects it
resembles those wondrous rocking stones reared by the ancient
Druids. You remember that they were so ﬁnely poised that
the ﬁnger of a child could vibrate them to their centres, and yet
they were so ﬁrmly balanced that the might of an army could
not move them from their base. So it is with the human mind,
which has been thoroughly trained, carefully‘cultured, and kept
by its owner as a pearl without price. The smile of a child
can sway it to and fro, while the fagot of martyrdom could not
change one jot or tittle of its ﬁrm determination.
To Samuel Hahnemann is due the honor of having been one
of the great discoverers of the sensitz'veness, and likewise the
sz‘aéz'lz’z‘y, of the human mind. And the discovery of these facts
led this great physician to new and successful issues in the
treatment of disease.
Now, in considering the inﬂuence of such a man upon modern
medicine, we must glance brieﬂy at the condition of medicine
when Hahnemann began his study, and continued his wonderful
work. '
One hundred years ago, the doctrine of a humoral pathology,
under various and mystifying names, still swayed and inﬂuenced
the minds of medical men. Again, the works of Galen, which
had been accepted as medical Scripture for thirteen hundred
years, had not been utterly discarded; and in those works we
ﬁnd teachings as dark as the mysterious shadows of the middle
ages
Though Paracelsus had burned, with mighty ostentation, the
works of Galen and of Avicenna, he failed to dispose of their
inﬂuence, nor did he substitute any new or practical theory in
medicine. The inﬂuence of the “great empiric ” tended rather
to confuse medical theories, and to encourage boastfulness and
arrogance in the practice of the healing art. Cullen had, indeed,
written a materia medica, and the virtues of Peruvian bark as a
cure for intermittent fever had been discovered and partially
developed. Aside from this, the medicine of Hahnemann’s day,
as now generally acknowledged, was a jumbled mass of chaotic
theory, and of bungling and unsuccessful practice. Physicians
had no clear knowledge of disease itself, they had no well-de-
ﬁned law of therapeutics, they had no thorough understanding
of the nature and action of the commonest drugs. Polyphar-
macy everywhere prevailed. Every physician was a law unto
himself. Early in the Christian era, Scribonius Longus had pre-
5
. pared a life elixir, containing sixty-one deadly drugs ; and being
ignorant of the virtues of them all, he piously believed he could
ladle forth healing and happiness to all mankind. The imitators
of Scribonius lived in the nineteenth century, and a few of them
are not yet dead.
The rule of a century ago was not, how little of a poisonous
drug could be administered, and the cure of the patient be
effected; but, how much could the patient take before he died!
Herberden, in 1782, shortly after Hahnemann graduated in medi-
cine, wrote concerning Peruvian bark, that twenty-four drachms
a day for six days, providing it could be “got down,” would
usually weaken the fever, and free the patient from danger of
relapse. Fourteen hundred and forty grains of powdered Peru-
vian bark per day for six days in succession was one of the pre-
scriptions for intermittent fever a hundred years ago. Even our
old-school brethren, some of them at least, would recoil from
using so much at the present time.
The human form divine, whenever disordered, was looked upon
in those days as a mass of diseased matter, and the more you
could reduce the mass, the more surely you could dispel the dis-
ease. Von Humboldt states that “ the diseased matter is really
the whole living matter itself, so far as its form and position are
changed, and the balance of its elements is disturbed.”
Such was the idea of disease, and such the practice of medi-
cine, during the latter portion of the eighteenth century. About
that time, however, vague attempts to change the programme
were being inaugurated. The fountains of the great deep were
evidently breaking up, and a series of diverse experiments were
being made upon the helpless sick. Depletion was followed by
stimulation, and stimulation by efforts to produce chemical
changes in the general constituents of the body. The patient
was knocked down by drugs, and braced up by wines, and
drenched, and whitewashed, and galvanized by the various prod-
ucts of alchemy and chemistry. Only that which was physical
and material could be examined or comprehended. Man was a
species of India-rubber god, wound up, and turned loose to run
his erratic and uncertain course. Only'chemicals could affect
him when sick, according to the prevailing notions of the waning
century.
But revolutions are sometimes followed by reformations; and,
consequently, there is always hope for mankind.
Hahnemann made a careful study and investigation of the
wonders of chemistry; he wrote one of the most scientiﬁc dis-
sertations upon arsenic that was ever penned by mortal man;
he discovered a process for converting alcohol into vinegar;
he recommended a method for the crystallization of tartar
6
emetic ; he discovered a new variety of mercury—the mercurius '
solubilis —which has been an immeasurable beneﬁt to suffering
humanity; he developed a wine test, or rather a metal test,
which has stood the wear and tear of more than fourscore years.
As a chemist, he rose to an equal eminence with any master of
his time. But he was not satisﬁed with attempting to cure dis-
ease by so-called chemical measures. He found them inadequate
to the desired ends. He investigated disease, and found it to
be a disturbance of vital force, a force which is imponderable,
and which cannot be evolved from any crucible of chemical art.
He found that a disturbance of vital force resulted in the
impairment of normal bodily functions, and this impairment
produced changes in the quality, the arrangement, and the distri-
bution of the molecular atoms of the body. He found that dis-
eases arise not only through the inception of hurtful substances
into the system, by means of deleterious food or drink, or by the
inhalation of contaminated or bacterial air; but he also found
that diseases may arise from shock through mental impressions,
and that this latter cause produces quick damage, resulting in
changes in the vital forces and in the organic structures. He
found that drugs hitherto used in a blind way for the cure of
disease were capable of developing marked and positive abnor-
mal symptoms within the hitherto healthful body. _ And he also
found that by the use of a proven drug, in modiﬁed quantities,
he could remove the symptoms of disease in a person suffering
in a similar manner as the one who had partaken of a given
drug, and that, too, without ﬁrst causing an aggravation. Again,
he ascertained by actual experiment that the qualities of a drug
may be transmitted to new vehicles, thus enabling him to use
the powers of a drug with even more certainty and safety than
before. '
To recapitulate: Here, then, are some of the achievements of
Samuel Hahnemann : —
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
“sz'mz'lz'a similz'éus cur/amide,” -— a law upon 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, admin-
istering emetics, and all forms of unnecessary depletion.
7. He deﬁned medicine in a manner comprehensive enough
7
for all time. In his Lesser Writings he states (“ A knowledge
of diseases, a knowledge of remedies, and a knowledge of their
employment (that is, for the cure of disease), constitute medi-
cine.” That deﬁnition has not as yet been improved upon.
8. e reduced the size of the dose, until all danger of aggra-
vation from the drug was removed. He proved the possibility
of successful treatment by the administration of medicines in
minute quantities; and when that fact was determined, there >
was a gradual abandonment of the “kill or cure” doses of the
ancients.
‘9. He developed in medicine the doctrine of transmitted
force, —— a doctrine that the inherent powers of a drug may be
passed from the original material to new material without a
necessary loss of their natural energies.
Who can estimate the inﬂuence of such a man who wrought,
during an eventful life, such miracle-like achievements? He
developed a philosophy as comprehensive, as beneﬁcent, and as
far-reaching in \its conception of usefulness, as the prodigious
philosophies of Aristotle, of Plato, and of Lord Bacon. This
man worked alone, unaided, uninspired, save by his personal
sense of the possession of a mighty and glorious truth. With
that truth in his soul, he rose like a giant from the ranks of the
people, seized the masses of antique theory and uncertain con-
jecture by which he found himself surrounded, and hurled them
into the yawning gulf of a well-earned oblivion. He portrayed
with the clearness of sunlight the folly of old-time methods of
treating the sick by rash and blindly heroic means, and he
proved the powers and effects of drugs upon himself ere he ven-
tured to administer them as medicines to the sick. He covered
Europe with the evidences of his marvellous medical skill; be
swept back the tide of long and bitter persecution by the sub-
lime triumphs of his art; he kept up the glorious carnival of
his successful practice until he was crowned with surpassing
honors in Paris; and he rested not until, by the grandeur of
his achievements, the city of Leipsic, from which he had been
driven as a fugitive and a vagabond, erected a stately monument
to his name, — a monument that remains to this day as a ﬁtting
memorial to his magniﬁcent and imperishable memory.
While Hahnemann and his followers have been opposed at
every step during the past eighty years, the cause of homoeop-
athy has continued to exist as a bright and growing cause.
The principles which he avowed, and which his enemies sought
to depreciate, have at last become, though unwillingly and unad-
mittedly on the part of some, the settled principles of modern
medical practice. The lancet and other harsh methods of de-
pletion have been laid away or rarely used. Polypharmacy is
8
almost a thing of the past, having been practically discarded in
Germany, the medical Mecca of , the world.
The use of the single remedy and the divided dose is now
taught by such leaders in the old school as Ringer, and Far-
quarson, and Bartholow, and Piffard, and T. Lauder Brunton,
and C. J. F. Phillips, and A. A. Smith, and Professor Gubler.
That our old-school brethren are recognizing the effects of
drug provings upon the mind as well as the body, is evidenced
by the following quotation from an article by J. Leslie Tobey,
M.D., L.R.C.P., London, printed in the “American Journal of
Insanity ” for April, 1887 : “ Belladonna produces, in over-doses,
mania; hyoscyamus, jealous furor; pulsatilla anemone, religious
melancholy; nux vomica, ill humor and passionate irritability;
mercury, moral perversion; ignatia, lycopodium, etc., dejected,
sorrowful humor ; opium, intellectual ideation ; alcohol, madden-
ing, vicious, profane impulses; stramonium, morbid fear and-
cowardice; hasheesh, intellectual delusion.”
Surely our friends are recognizing at last the light which has
shone from the brilliant teachings of Hahnemann for more than
fourscore years. _
It is a generally recognized fact, that there is a gradual but
steady increase in the longevity of the people. This is one of
the marked effects of the teachings of Samuel Hahnemann. He
not only cured the sick, but he gave us rare lessons relative
to the avoidance of disease by proper quarantine in contagious
cases, by suitable and careful daily diet, by wise methods of
development and fortiﬁcation of the human body against dis-
ease, by the avoidance of all depletory measures, and by the
utilizing of all proper hygienic and sanitary means for the pro-
motion and the preservation of health.
The truth in medicine, as sown by Hahnemann, has produced,
and is still producing, a rare and luxuriant fruitage.
“ A single seed,
When soil and season lend their alchemy,
May clothe a barren continent in green.”
The world has been blessed with some great physicians.
Many of these have attained what might be called a ripe old
age. To show you what has been done in the line of personal
living, in accordance with personal beliefs and theories, we now
present the ages of some of the most distinguished physicians
who have lived within the Christian era :-
Galen, whose Cyclopaedia of Medicine was the text-book of the
nations for thirteen centuries, died at seventy; Von Helmont
at sixty-seven; Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the
blood, at seventy-nine ; Sydenham, at sixty-ﬁve ; Vesalius, the
9
father of anatomy, at ﬁfty ; Eustachius, the discoverer of the valv-
ular structures of the heart, lived until he was seventy-four;
Stahl also died at seventy-four; Boerhaave at eighty; Von
Heller, the father of physiology, at seventy-one; John Hunter at
sixty-ﬁve ; Cullen, whose Materia Medica Hahnemann trans-
lated, at seventy-eight; Jenner at seventy-four; Abernethy at
seventy-six ; Sir Astley Cooper at seventy-three ; Sir Charles Bell
at sixty-eight; Abercrombie at sixty-three.
Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homoeopathy, lived in
accordance with the principles which he so fully and carefully
enunciated, until he was nearly ninety years of age. His gigantic
intellect remained unimpaired to the last, and his mental facul-
ties were bright and strong to the day of his death. So you see
that he outstripped them all in so living “ that his days might be
long in the land.”
It is interesting to note the effects which have been produced
by the teachings of Samuel Hahnemann upon the treatment of
patients in the public institutions of various countries. To un-
derstand these effects, we may brieﬂy compare the death-rates
in some of the hospitals for the insane, as they were recorded
eighty or ninety years ago, and as they are recorded at the
present time. ‘
At the Bicétre, in France, from 1784 to I 794, the death-rate was ‘
48.75. At Salpetriere, from 1805 to 1813, the death-rate was
28.17. At the Retreat, in York, England, from 1796 to 1836,
the death-rate was 22.22. At Wakefield, from 1818 to 1836,
the death-rate was 31.61. At Aversa, Italy, in twenty years,
the death-rate was 21.35. In Amsterdam, Holland, from 1832
to 1837, the death-rate was 21.56.
During a period of four years, ending Sept. 30, 1885, the death-
rate in the old-school asylums for the acute insane, in the State
of New York, was 5.90. That of the Middletown Asylum,
under the new system of treatment, was 4.47. During the year
ending Sept. 30, 1886, the death-rate under old-school treat-
ment, in the New York asylums, was 5.16. In the Homoeopathic
Asylum at Middletown, the death—rate for the same period
was 2.99.
Outside of insane-asylums we ﬁnd that during the year 1876
the death-rate in the old-school charity hospitals of New York
City ranged from eight to twelve per cent; while at the Homoe-
opathic Hospital on Ward’s Island, for the same year, the death-
rate was 6. I4. Since that year, the ﬁrst after the Homoeopathic
Hospital was established on Ward’s Island, the death-rates in all
the New York City hospitals have been lighter than they were
previous to the establishment of the Homoeopathic Hospital.
This shows the beneﬁcial inﬂuence of competition, as well as the
IO
beneﬁcial effects of homoeopathic treatment of disease, in our
public hospitals.
Contrasting the death-rates of the olden times, where they
range from twenty-one to forty-eight per cent, with those of the
present day, where they range from less than three to about ten
or twelve, you will note a marked change for the better.
With regard to the results attained by the homoeopathic treat-
ment of typhoid fever,\of pneumonia, of scarlatina and of cholera,
the comparison in favor of the new system of medicine is re-
markable. You are so familiar with these statistics that we will
not repeat them here.
Samuel Hahnemann not only lived up to the fulness of his
own time, but, like all who are truly great, he projected himself,
his work, and his inﬂuence, upon the undiscovered future. Some
of the theories which he but dimly outlined have since been de-
veloped by scientiﬁc processes into reasonable and understand-
able truths. While some have sought to claim that the psora
theory of Hahnemann simply meant the itch, and that this great
physician failed to discover the existence of the acarus, or itch-
mite, as an exciting and continuing cause of the skin disorder,
we ﬁnd, upon close investigation, that Hahnemann did know
about the itch insect; for he writes, concerning the itch: “I
agree with those who attribute the disease to a living cause.”
And, concerning the remedy which he applied for the cure of the
itch, he says : “ All insects and worms are killed by sulphuretted
hydrogen.” To confound the eruption caused by the itch-mite
with the constitutional and farmeaching dyscrasia termed psora,
is, stating it mildly, a mistake of his enemies, and not of Samuel
Hahnemann.
Concerning the cholera, he says, “It grows into an enormous
ly increased brood of those excessively minute, invisible, living
creatures so inimical to human life, of which the contagious
matter of cholera most probably consists.”
The master of homoeopathy did not fail to discover the mystery
of the itch-mite, and, unaided by the microscope, yet with unerr-
ing vision, he recognized the comma bacillus of cholera, about
which the renowned Koch has written so much within the past
few years.
But grander than all his discoveries concerning the physical
and material nature of disease, his recognition of the inﬂuences
of imponderable forces upon the life and the health of the physi-
cal structures of man, of which we have already spoken, was a
discovery which shall last while the earth lasts and the inhabit-
ants thereof continue to live.
No other author has more fully portrayed the subtile inﬂu-
ences which the mind exerts over the body. N 0 other author
II
has so fully described and portrayed the effects of drugs in the
production of abnormal mental conditions.
Here is the secret and source of Hahnemann’s power as a
physician to the sick, and in the future the potency of the mas-
ter will become more apparent as the reﬁned subtilties of the
human mind become better understood.
Hahnemann was a physician who not only sought to cure dis-
ease, but he endeavored, also, to fortify and protect the com-
'munity against the encroachments of pathological enemies. The
prophylactics which he proclaimed against cholera and scarlet
fever are among the most benign measures ever instituted.
The experiments of Pasteur at the present day, in seeking, by
homoeopathic prophylaxis, to ward off the approaching crisis of
hydrophobia, are experiments in line and in sympathy with the
homoeopathic idea.
. The modifying and renovating inﬂuences which Samuel Hah-
nemann shed upon modern medicine are immeasurable and
incomputable. His achievements as a renovator of the old and
a proclaimer of the new deserve to rank with the proclamations
of a Martin Luther and the discoveries of an Alexander Von
. Humboldt or a Sir Isaac Newton.
Samuel Hahnemann deserves to be crowned and canonized as
one of the world’s greatest benefactors. More than a century
has elapsed since his great work began, but his inﬂuence is
neither dead nor forgotten. ' The monopolizing greed of his
opponents cannot absorb them, nor will the careless apathy of
his professed friends dim the lustre of his rare achievements.
We may turn always, with proﬁt and with pleasure, to his written
works, as to an old gospel that is ever new; and we' shall ﬁnd
therein, if we study them aright, fruitful sources of inspiration,
of encouragement, and of helpful information. It is only when
we stray from the teachings of the master, when we grow weary
of making those patient and profound investigations so necessary
to a proper understanding of disease and the best methods of
curing it, that we turn our faces from the light, and direct our
footsteps into paths of darkness and disgrace.
Are the virtues and powers of homoeopathy exhausted? A
thousand times, no! They are as yet but partially discovered,
imperfectly understood, and feebly utilized. One of the saddest
failings of our times, and it is a failing which has touched with a
leprous hand the brightest pages of human history, is that weak-
ness of human nature which makes us prone to forget and for-
sake the faith of our fathers, and to slip away from those eternal
truths which are hidden in the arcana of nature, waiting only for
human intelligence, guided by divine inspiration, to discover and
bring to proper use.
12
What we need is expressed in the sigh of the poet, --
“ Oh for a closer walk”
in the footsteps of our great medical master.
Fidelity to a purpose is the strongest impulsion towards the
goal of success. That success may mean death in the perform-
ance of duty to-day, but immortal glory throughout the coming
future. Fidelity to a purpose is a rare quality, and infrequently
found ; but when it is discovered it excites profoundest admira-'
tion and enthusiasm. It was ﬁdelity to a purpose that caused
Leonidas and his four hundred to hold the pass at Thermopylae.
It was ﬁdelity to a purpose that carried Cardigan and his “noble
six hundred” through the battle hell at Balaklava. It was ﬁdel-
ity to a purpose that stimulated Cambronne to hurl back an in-
sulting epithet into the teeth of the British general when, upon
the fated ﬁeld of Waterloo, that general had the audacity to ask
the Old Guard of Napoleon to do what it never had done, and
never could do,—-to surrender in the face of an overpowering
foe. And it was ﬁdelity to a purpose that stirred the brave
color sergeant of Mississippi to tell his colonel on the eve of
battle, “I will bring back those colors in honor, or I will report
to God the reason why.”
Such examples of ﬁdelity to a purpose cheer and strengthen
and encourage us all in the performance of our daily and toilsome
duty.
When William of Orange assumed a mighty rulership, he
placed one hand upon the Magna Charta, and the other on the
hilt of his sword, and swore a solemn oath: “I will maintain ;”
and the power which he developed continues in all the avenues
of commercial, intellectual, and social enterprise throughout the
entire world.
Friends of Homoeopathy, on this most auspicious occasion, let
us take anew the oath of loyalty to our cause. Let us place
one hand upon the Organon, and the other upon the hilt of a
determined purpose, and let us swear that we will maintain and
develop those principles in medicine which have come down to
us from the masterly mind of the “Sage of Coethen.”
Thus shall we be enabled to confer the blessing of safe and
speedy cures upon sick and suffering humanity; and thus shall
we' most surely perpetuate and intensify the fadeless glory of
Samuel Hahnemann.
l\jllljjllllljjllljlljjljjl


,uI 2.... 3 . In.
I L . I. > .>.
4
v , I . I.
l Iu..\o. .
h n f... I
I. I o I
i .. o . . - ..a
. Pf....i..u.f?f.¢
a}, .. 2.
. II
o
9.


. a) a .
. “huff-1.3.53 .. a"... new.“
IIIQ- IsvQ~¢I_1Iu.
s n.. no.3
. P“?!
s»v..\.
a I c... . . .
b .. c .
I c oaia&h&¢.0_
Q. a... l.
at. . .
3.. . .l.n:
. a
‘v‘ "a.
:1;
,1