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THE
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REJECTED CASES,
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JOHN EPPS, M.D.
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THE
REJECTED CASES;
WITH
A LETTER
ΤΟ
THOMAS WAKLEY, Esq., M.P.
ON THE
SCIENTIFIC CHARACTER OF HOMEOPATHY.
BY
JOHN EPPS, M.D.
AND THE BOOKSELLERS:
LONDON:
SHERWOOD AND Co., 23, PATERNOSTER ROW;
1
Į
!
1845.
}
T
i
i
1
..
LUNTLEY & DICK,
PRINTERS,
NEW BROAD STREET COURT, LONDON.
1
INTRODUCTION.
Or the cases published in this book, four were
sent to the editor of the Lancet, in the belief
that the most professional mode of communi-
cating medical results is to present them, in the
first instance, to the profession. The fifth case,
also, was sent to the same gentleman; and the
sixth case (not mine) was published in the Lancet,
as a report of the University College Hospital.
The fifth case was inserted, and is referred to
in the subjoined letter, from the gentleman who
is the sub-editor of the Lancet; the four first
were refused insertion, as will also appear from
the subjoined.
a l
?
iv
INTRODUCTION.
9, CAMBRIDGE SQUARE, HYDE PARK,
November 9th, 1844.
DEAR SIR,
I have been requested by Mr. Wakley, in
returning your communications, to express how much he
regrets his inability to insert them in the Lancet.
Although he entertains himself opinions far different
from those which you uphold, he would willingly have
given your cases a place, had it not been for the determined
opposition of the subscribers and readers of the Lancet to
any thing in the shape of homoeopathy. When your case
of hæmatemesis, [the fifth case referred to above,] was
inserted last winter, we received an avalanche of letters
from all parts of the country, couched in such terms as
to make it next to impossible for us to insert any further
communication of the kind. Mr. Wakley's personal regard
for yourself has induced him to hesitate about returning
your cases; but he has, at last, felt it imperative upon him
to do so, and he has particularly desired me to convey to
you his great regret at being compelled to take this
course.
I remain, Sir,
Very truly yours,
HENRY BENNET, M. D.
Sub-Editor.
Being thus shut out from the channel which I
have always looked upon with preference, I felt
it to be my duty to appeal, through such other
INTRODUCTION.
V
channels as are available, to the profession and to
the public.
To their calm and dispassionate judgment these
rejected cases are referred. The interest con-
nected with the whole is, in my mind, great; the
majority are cases deemed hopeless, and, till
homœopathy was tried, were to all appearance
truly so. Homœopathy realised a cure in these
cases—namely, in a case of a person bed-ridden
for twelve years, and now active; in another case
of a person who had been suffering from an
abdominal tumour for nearly fifteen years, per-
fectly cured; and in a third case of a person,
sixty-four years of age, belonging to an apoplectic
family, seized with coma, who has been restored
to perfect power.
I thought that the editor of the Lancet would
have been glad to insert such interesting reports;
and even though that gentleman has declined,
it appears to me that he ought to have inserted
them. For the grounds of such opinion, and
also for the reasons which have led to the belief
Vl
INTRODUCTION.
that homoeopathy is the only, and consequently
the true science, in reference to medicines and
their beneficial application to the cure of diseases,
the reader is referred to the following letter to the
editor of the Lancet, which forms an introduction
to the cases themselves.
ΤΟ
THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.,
EDITOR OF THE LANCET.
MY DEAR SIR,
Your refusal I regret. For your courteous mode
of expressing it, I thank you; and, in thus thanking you,
repay the courtesy.
I repeat, I regret your refusal. And why? Your
Journal is described, on its title page, as "THE LANCET,
Journal of BRITISH AND FOREIGN MEDICAL AND CHEM-
ICAL SCIENCE, CRITICISM, LITERATURE AND NEWS."
It is, at least, so its title asserts, a jour-nal; a day record
of the events of medical science-yes, even of medical
news; and, that such extent is implied in your Journal's
title is stated by yourself in the following editorial
remarks:-
-
"A well conducted medical journal, being bound to
present to its readers a kind of mirror of the medical
vili
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
opinions of the day, cannot be answerable for the scientific
views contained in the non-editorial articles which it
publishes.">
Such is your Journal's title, and such is your view of a
well conducted medical journal; and having such a title,
you, as its journalist, having such views, were bound to
insert communications. You may ask, What! all com-
munications? No, not all: but all medical facts, illus-
trating a new or making more intelligible an old, truth,
if such be genuine and of good authentication.
-
Refusal of admission into the pages of a Journal of so
wide an embrace as yours can be with propriety exercised
only on three grounds; first, that the stater of the facts
is not a man of veracity, and that consequently a fair
doubt may exist as to the said-to-be facts being facts;
second, that the stater is not qualified to form a judgment,
and that, hence, though a man of truth, his conclusions
are not to be regarded; and third, that the facts stated
are not interesting or useful.
In regard to the first ground of refusal-that the stater
of the facts is not a man of veracity, the only remark
needed is this, that I feel that such would not be with
you the ground of refusal in reference to me.
* Lancet, 1844, Vol. I. page 163.
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
ix
As to the second ground of refusal, that the stater of the
facts is NOT QUALIFIED TO FORM A JUDGMENT, I have
the belief, that this would not be a ground of refusal by
you in my case. Many, however, having, from being
misguided, associated homœopathy with folly, have put
down homœopathists as men of no mental training. It
may therefore be proper and just to detail the training
which, in this given case, has been gone through, in
order that the presumption, that the training has been of
an appropriate character, may be justified; and, that, by
consequence, the person trained is qualified to form a
judgment.
After a school education of seven years, four of the
seven having been spent at one of the chief grammar
schools of the kingdom, I was apprenticed to a metro-
politan medical practitioner for a period of five years.
(It is a pleasure to record that my master guided my
studies most sedulously). During that apprenticeship I
studied diligently; attending lectures on the various
branches of medical science during the two last years, a
privilege then not frequently granted. To these two years
a third year was added, so that I enjoyed three years of
public medical lectures and of anatomical and practical
education in London. After this period, the University
of Edinburgh became my alma mater; where, after three
years' uninterrupted residence, I graduated, having ob-
a 2
X
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
tained honours in the three classes where honours were
given; the third being exhibited (in those days a rare
bestowal) in a gold medal for an essay on the virtues of
plants belonging to the natural family of the ranuncu-
lacea; this fact tending to establish the direction of the
mind, even at that time, to the investigation of the virtues
of medicines. After graduation (my thesis "De Insania"
proclaiming as the best basis, on which the scientific
treatment of the insane could be founded, the science of
phrenology, a science as much contemned by the then
deemed heads of the medical profession as homœopathy is
now), I returned to the metropolis, in which I was
engaged thirteen years as a Lecturer on MATERIA MEDICA
and BOTANY, and for ten of the thirteen on CHEMISTRY
as well, having received many pleasing testimonies from
the examiners of my students in the branches of medical
science taught by me of the excellence of the instruction
imparted to them. I have further for fourteen years filled
the office of medical director in a highly important insti-
tution, and have, in all these conditions, been so placed,
that knowledge and that especially of remedies was, so to
speak, forced almost continually upon me.
These facts are, it is likely, well known to yourself;
their statement has been called forth by the circumstance,
that men, who have not had even the amount of medical
education herein detailed, have endeavoured to arrest the
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
xi
.
progress of homoeopathy by maintaining that homoeopa-
thists are quacks; that I, as one of that small band, am a
quack; and further, that because my feeling of self-respect
would never permit me to join, as a licentiate, the London
College of Physicians, that I am an irregular practitioner,
a phrase to persons unacquainted with the peculiarities
of the constitution of our medical bodies, conveying the
meaning of uneducated-one chosen to be a physician out
of due time, and brought into medical being in a wrong
way.
This statement of facts, it will I trust be seen, has been
made not simply to tell what the person, called John
Epps, has studied, but what a physician PRACTISING
HOMEOPATHY, had gone through, previously to embracing
homœopathy; and thereby an antidote will be provided to
the calumnious statement, which, in reference to this,
men, who ought to know and act better, are, it is to be
regretted, so diligently, and, in many cases, fraudulently,
engaged in spreading. Indeed, the sum of the whole of
this statement in reference to the second ground of refusal
to insert the medical facts communicated, is this: since
his fifteenth year, a physician, educated in the old system of
medicine, but now practising homœopathy, has been
diligently engaged in the studies connected with his
profession; his mental powers have been in a state of
continual activity; and as it is not usual that mental
xii
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
faculties benumb by active training, or that the powers of
judgment become weakened by the practice, connected
with the perpetual presentation of objects, on which these
powers find exercise, there is some ground for the assur-
ance, that an increase of years has not in his case caused
a decrease of mental ability or a vitiation of the powers
of judgment. Twenty-seven years' medical education, of
which twenty have been directed to the practical exercise
of the profession, do, in some degree, justify the idea of
the existence of a capability to judge of medical facts.
And when to this can be added, that you have even
recently deemed communications from that physician
worthy of insertion in your journal, there need exist no
hesitation in believing, that your refusal now to give his
communications place is not because you think he is
incapable of judging as to the existence of the facts, which
may be presented to him, and which he deems it desirable
to communicate.
In regard to the third ground of justifiable refusal to
insert medical facts in a journal professing such objects
as the Lancet-namely, that THE FACTS STATED ARE NOT
INTERESTING, the best refutation of this will be the cases
themselves. Indeed, the statement made by Dr. Bennet,
that the case of hæmatemesis,* "which you did insert,†
* Case V. page 51.
-
+ Lancet, Vol. I. 1843-4, page 542.
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
xiii
caused you to be overwhelmed with an avalanche of
letters [what a blessing is the penny postage!] from all
parts of the country," demonstrates, that that case by
itself had so much interest connected with it as to make
itself a mark for others to strike at.
Having thus detailed the grounds, on which a journalist
is justified in refusing the insertion of medical statements,
and having shown that these grounds do not apply to the
facts forwarded to you by me, I shall now detail one
reason, which appears to me imperatively to have called
for your insertion of them.
It unfortunately has happened, that you, as Editor of
the Lancet, have denominated homoeopathists as quacks,
and have denounced homoeopathy as quackery.* As you
have thus cast a stigma on homoeopathists and a slur on
homœopathy, does it not seem just, that I, as a homo-
opathist, should seek, and, that you, as an anti-homo-
opathist, should give, a field, in which truth and error
could be put in opposition; that you should allow the
homœopathist to show in the journal, carrying the
savi
* You have done worse than this: you have designated it as a fraud;
thus attaching moral turpitude to the advocacy. After referring to
HYDROPATHY, you add, "But it has a fellow fraud, and that imposture
comes as a proper pendant to the other. We allude to homoeopathy.".
Lancet, 1843, Vol. II. page 314.
xiv
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
imputation, that he is not a quack, and that homoeopathy
is not a quackery. You were not obliged to denounce
homœopathy, you might have left it alone; but, having
once thrown down the gauntlet, you ought to have been
ready to meet him, who is willing to take up your glove.
The medical profession would then have beheld the
contest, not of words but of facts-not of hypotheses but of
carefully compiled CASES, and would have decided. It
would have been an approximation to that of which you
are so admirant, a national concours. But you, my dear
Sir, say "No," and sincerely do I regret that negation;
it will be chronicled against you centuries hence.
You thus compel me to claim your attention to the
remainder of this letter, in which I hope to demonstrate,
that homœopathy is not quackery, and that homoeopathists
are not quacks; and if, in the demonstration, it be proved,
that your system is the quackery, and those practising it
are the quacks, such demonstration will afford merely
another verification of the old adage, "they, who live in
glass-houses, should not throw stones."
You, my dear Sir, must be aware that quackery and
science are antagonistic terms; they exist as antipodes.
To say anything is a quackery is to say it is not a science;
and to assert any thing is a science is to assert it is not a
quackery. Holding with Cicero, "omnis enim quæ a ra-
tione suscipitur de aliqua re institutio, debet a definitione
-
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ.,
XV
M.P.
it
proficisci, ut intelligatur, quid sit id, de quo disputetur";
may be well to define the sense, in which the word science
is used in the maintaining that homoeopathy is the only
science in medicine-practical medicine, medicine applied
* De Officiis, Liber. I. Caput ii.
to use.
The examination of the volume of creation demonstrates,
that a GOD of ORDER has, as such, left the traces of his
character thereon. The regularity of phenomena leads
the mind at once to infer a cause for such regularity; and
in searching for that cause, by a careful linking of the
phenomenon consequent with the phenomenon antecedent,
man has been, is, and hereafter, in future inquiries, will
be, led to the discovery of such a fixed connexion between
these phenomena, that he has felt, still feels, and will feel
compelled to use some term as expressive of such con-
nexion, and “LAW" is the term he has used, and so uses.
Thus he finds that caloric, applied to a body, causes that
body to occupy a larger space. Repeated experiments
with various bodies still farther demonstrate, that expan-
sion is the consequent of the application of the antecedent
something, caloric. He sees the conuexion; says, the
caloric is the cause of the expansion; and deduces at length.
as a law, fixed in the universe, CALORIC EXPANDS BODIES.
By an identical process of observation and reasoning,
xvi
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
man discerns other laws; and these laws, relating to any
one great department of the physical creation, constitute,
when grouped together, a SCIENCE, a sciens—a knowing
of what the Creator has done has fixed: so that science
is nothing more or less than the laws of the universe
fixed by the Creator, the knowledge of these being obtain-
able by induction, a process much talked about, but, it is
to be feared, from the care required in its following out,
little practised.
May
If these views be correct, it must follow, that all science
is certain; CERTAINTY is its feature, constitutes its
beauty, and is the stamp with which Heaven marks all
Heaven's doings.
Mark the results arising from the certainty connected
with the law of gravitation—
"From one sublime genius, from NEWTON, more light has
proceeded than the labour of a thousand years preceding has
been able to produce. The true theory of the movements of
the heavenly bodies, the law which regulates the fall of bodies
-that is, gravitation-has become the parent of innumerable.
discoveries. Navigation, and, in consequence, commerce and
industry, immediately felt its influence, and every individual of
our species has derived, and will continue to derive, as long as
mankind exists, incalculable benefits therefrom, both intellectual
and material."*
* Leibig, Lecture, pp. 3 and 4, Lancet, Vol. I. 1844.
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P. xvii
Why have such benefits arisen?
tainty connected with the law.*
Again, mark the results of the law which JENNER dis-
covered: the law that a disease of a like nature—namely,
cow pox, is successfully resistive, that is, prophylactic to
another disease, similar, but ofttimes fatal-namely,
Because of the cer-
* One of the most interesting and striking results, connected with the
certainty of science, is presented in the following facts, recorded in
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal—
(C
'Among the extraordinary scientific operations to which the obser-
vatory has contributed its aid, was that of instructing the officers of the
corps of Royal Engineers, who were appointed to trace the Canadian
boundary; one portion of which, a straight line of a distance of 70 miles,
was to connect two defined points. The country through which this line
was to pass is described as surpassing in its difficulties the conception of
any European. It consists of impervious forests, steep ravines, and
dismal swamps. A survey of the line was impossible; a plan was there-
fore arranged by the astronomer royal, founded on a determination of the
absolute latitude and difference of longitude of the two extremeties. The
difference of longitude was determined by the transfer of chronometers,
by a very circuitous route, from one end to the other; after which the
necessary computations were made, and marks laid off for starting with
the line from both extremities. One party, after cutting more than 42
miles through the woods, were agreeably surprised on the brow of a hill
at seeing before them a gap in the woods on the next line of hill, which
opened gradually, and proved to be the line of the opposite party. On
continuing the lines till they were abreast of each other, their distance was
found to be 341 feet, a difference which arose in an error of only a quarter
of a second of time in the difference of longitude. The performance of
this operation reflects the highest honour on the officers engaged. Transits
were observed, and observations made, on whose delicacy everything
depended, when the thermometer was lower than 19 degrees below zero,
and when the native assistants, though paid highly, deserted on account
of the severity of the weather."
xviii
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
SMALL POX. Before Jenner's discovery, the truly noble
Lady Mary Montague* demonstrated, that the introduc-
tion into the system, by inoculation, of the identical
malady, small pox, was less injurious than the spontaneous
attack of the disease itself; but Jenner demonstrated
how superior in this point of protection without dan-
ger, is the like, compared with the identical; in other
words, that the homeopathic method-the like-disease
method the "similia similibus " the introduction
*
เ
Lady Mary protested that in the four or five years immediately
succeeding her arrival at home, she seldom passed a day without repenting
of her patriotic undertaking; and she vowed she never would have
attempted it if she had foreseen the vexation, the persecution, and even
the obloquy it brought upon her. The clamours raised against the prac-
tice, and of course against her, were beyond belief. The faculty all rose
in arms to a man, foretelling failure and the most disastrous consequences;
the clergy descanted from their pulpits on the impiety of thus seeking to
take events out of the hands of Providence; and the common people were
taught to hoot at her as an unnatural mother who had risked the lives of
her own children. We now read in grave medical biography, that the
discovery was instantly hailed, and the method adopted by the principal
members of that profession. Very likely they left this recorded; for,
whenever an invention or a project and the same may be said of persons-
has made its way so well by itself as to establish a certain reputation, most
people are sure to find out that they always patronised it from the begin-
ning, and a happy gift of forgetfulness enables many to believe their own
assertion. But what said Lady Mary of the actual fact and actual time?
Why, that the four great physicians deputed by government to watch the
progress of her daughter's inoculation, betrayed not only such incredulity
as to its success, but such an unwillingness to have it succeed—such an
evident spirit of rancour and malignity, that she never cared to leave the
child alone with them one second, lest it should in some secret way suffer
from their interference."
A
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
xix
of a like poison, cow pox, is equally prophylactic, and
a thousand-fold less injurious than the identical method,
the introduction of the identical poison itself-small pox.
No slight practical evidence this of the superiority of the
principle of homoeopathy! What certainty Jenner has
afforded to society by the discovery of this law! A man
vaccinated* can, unblanched, look small pox in the face;
can dare a pestilence. As the instrument of bestowing
this power on man, a power becoming such only by its
being derived from the application of a law, Jenner's name
is immortal.
These illustrations have been brought forward to show,
that certainty is the child of science; not because science
per se produces certainty, but merely because science is the
will of the Creator, existing in relation to certain phe-
* "How was the still greater discovery of the immortal Jenner
received-Vaccination? Like every other discovery-with ridicule and
contempt. By the Royal College of Physicians, not only was Jenner
persecuted and oppressed; but long even after the benefits which his
practice had conferred upon mankind had been universally admitted, the
pedants of that most pedantic of bodies refused to give him their license
to practise his profession in London; because, with a proper feeling of
self-respect, he declined to undergo at their hands a schoolboy examination
in Greek and Latin. Even religion and the Bible were made engines of
attack against him. From these Errhman of Frankfort deduced his chief
grounds of accusation against the new practice; and he gravely attempted
to prove from quotations of the prophetical parts of Scripture, and the
writings of the fathers of the church, that Vaccination was the real Anti-
Christ."-DICKSON's Fallacies of the Faculty.
XX
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
nomena, producible or produced, discovered and chronicled
in orderly arrangement.
The corollary, deducible from these views, is, WHERE
THERE IS NO CERTAINTY THERE IS NO SCIENCE.
Now, my dear Sir, have you certainty, either in the
theory or in the practice of the healing art?
By "you" in this query, I beg to state, once for all, I
mean not you personally, for I believe you do not practise ;
but you, the representative of the old system treatment—
the allopathic, the antipathic, the palliative, the depletive,
the counteractive, the purging, the bleeding, the leeching,
the blistering treatment.
I repeat the question, do you have any fixed rule in the
use of remedies?—that is, have you, in the use of remedies,
any rule of which certainty is the feature?
It was said in olden time, "Oh, that mine enemy had
written a book!" You have written a book; from your
Journal I shall obtain answers to my query.
Answer the first:
CC
If the practice of medicine is to be redeemed from the
reproach of uncertainty, which is at present attached to it,—if,
as a science, medicine is to rank with other departments of
natural knowledge, it must be by having all its various branches
advanced, without exception."*
*Lancet, page 125, Vol. I. 1844.
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
xxi
You acknowledge, then, that uncertainty is at present.
attached to the practice of medicine; you acknowledge
that it wants something to enable it "to be redeemed."
It is not as yet redeemed from the reproach of uncer-
tainty.
The second answer will give additional proof that this
reproach of uncertainty attaches truly to the old system of
medicine and its practice. You herein detail the matters,
which, in your opinion, are necessary to be known before
such redemption can be effected.
"It is not sufficient that the most minute examination of the
tissues of the body and its organs, by the most improved
microscopes, should render our knowledge of morbid changes
occurring in disease perfect. If we could attain to a complete
interpretation of physical signs and the fullest etiology, (that
is, the causes of diseases,) still, without a knowledge of the
elementary constitution of the materials of the body, of the
aliments, of the chemical changes these aliments and materials
undergo in the processes of life, and ere they are cast out of
the body in the excretions, our pathology must necessarily be
imperfect. Nay, it is still necessary that we should study
these excretions further, and trace the chemical changes they
are subject to under the influence of remedial agents, and
until they are resolved into such forms as they ultimately take
after having served the purposes of the economy. And,
moreover, parallel with our chemico-pathology must be our
investigation into the nature and operations of remedial
agents. It is, perhaps, not saying too much to aver that
there is not a single agent employed in medicine, about which
xxii
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
there is not at present some point to be decided by a more
elaborate chemistry. Scarcely is there one remedy known to
be such, save empirically, the effects of which on the chemical
constitution of the fluids, of the solids, of the secretions, are
not, almost, if not altogether, unknown." (Lancet, Vol. I.
1844, page 225.)
Such is your second answer; and as you must acknow-
ledge that these matters, necessary, according to you, to
be known to redeem medicine from the charge of uncer-
tainty, are not known, your answer plainly is, we must
submit to the reproach of uncertainty.
Your third answer occurs in an essay, in which you
notice the wants of physiologists and pathologists.-
Magdal
D
"We want, too, to know of what our remedies consist-and
what changes they pass through in their uses--the part they
take as compounds or what functions their components
severally perform in the innumerable chemical processes, the
decompositions and recompositions of organic substances,
incessantly going on within a living organism-ALL THIS IS
almost, IF NOT altogether unknown."
What an immense number of matters are almost, if not
altogether unknown to you. How with all this ignorance
can you have certainty?
In an
But your fourth answer is still more decided.
essay, prefacing some remarks on the hyoscyamus niger
or henbane, are the following observations. Referring
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P. xxiii
to a previous essay, parts of which are the answers first
and second, already quoted, you proceed—
"No less haziness and uncertainty hangs around all our
vegetable remedies, especially those, which are indigenous to
this country. The compilers of systems of materia medica and
dispensatories are, after all, but compilers. They cannot be
expected to verify the statements they make, [Why not? J. E.]
but there is not one that we are acquainted with who has fairly
given the authorities, upon which his accounts of the effects of
vegetable remedies are stated. [Yet this uncertainty is satis-
factory to medical men of the old system. J. E.] Nothing
therefore is more difficult than to discriminate between con-
flicting opinions, and no part of medicine, as it is known and
practised, is so badly represented in books." But now, my
dear Sir, notice what you state next: "If the natural phi-
losopher or scientific chemist turns from his own science to
therapeutics, he would be led either to abandon his confidence
in the uniformity and stability of the laws of nature, or to
infer that the spirit of modern science has not yet animated
the practical physician."*
Here is a choice: that such is the state of uncertainty
in regard to the use of remedies in DISEASE-that is,
therapeutics, that an unprejudiced mind is left to the
necessity of giving up his faith either in the laws of
nature or in the science of the physician. The physician
will not expect nature to give way for him; and therefore,
* Lancet, 1844, Vol. I. p. 454.
xxiv
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
it is to be concluded, that your system will allow itself
to be placed in the category of things uncertain, and
consequently unscientific.*
And does not another and more painful question occur
to the mind-namely, if such be the uncertainty in
reference to the weapons, with which you combat diseases,
what, is to be expected, will be the RESULT of the conflict?
The answer, I stay not to seek.
But, my dear Sir, you not only have not certainty, but
you CANNOT have certainty in your system. It is im-
possible with your present modes of proceeding in the
treatment of disease to attain to certainty, and, if so, it is
impossible for you to be scientific.
* I have limited myself to quotations from yourself; but you may be
consoled in these statements of uncertainty by the statements of Bichat,
with whose fame as an anatomist and physiologist you are well acquainted:
"There is not in the Materia Medica-that is, the history of remedies
—any general system; but this science has been by turns influenced by
those who have ruled in medicine. The incoherent assemblage of
opinions themselves incoherent, it is perhaps, of all the sciences, the best
representation of the caprices of the human mind. What do I ? It is
say
not a science for the methodic mind; it is a shapeless assemblage of in-
exact ideas; of observations often pucrile; of deceitful means; of formulas
as absurdly conceived, as they are fastidiously collected. It is said, 'the
practice of medicine is disheartening.' I say more-it is not in any
respects that of a reasoning man, when we draw the principles in a great
measure from our Materia Medica."-BICHAT, Anat. Gen. Consid. Gen.
Tom. I. page 46.
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
XXV
Besides the character of certainty, science has the
feature of SIMPLICITY.
Simplicity has been named the soul of science; the
most scientific experiments are stamped with simplicity;
the most truthful in chemistry are beautiful from their
simplicity.
A chemist wishes to produce water. He introduces into
an exhausted glass receiver given volumes of oxygen and of
hydrogen, and fires the gases by an electric spark. Water
is formed. This is simple; and, because simple, the truth,
that water is a compound of oxygen and of hydrogen,
appears with clearness. But, suppose the chemist to
attempt, and even to be able to form water by allowing,
besides the oxygen and the hydrogen, other gases to enter
the receiver, would he be able to draw any certain con-
clusions, under such circumstances, respecting the water
formed?
The introduction of numerous elements is the intro-
duction of uncertainty.
Now have you simplicity in the practice of medicine?
Have you, in other words, simplicity in the administration
of medicines to the sick?
Where is the physician under your system whose prac-
tice is simple; that is, who uses one medicine at a time?
In your second answer, page xxi, you point out that it is
b
xxvi
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
necessary in order to bring medicine to a scientific
position, that the "chemical changes in the excretions and
the secretions, induced by medicines, must be known;"
but this knowledge would be immensely difficult to realize,
even when one medicine only is acting on these excretions
and secretions; but how can the changes be ascertained,
when three or four are acting at one time?
How, besides, can you tell what are the effects of any
one medicine, when you administer three or four medicines
at one time? It is true that you may intend to effect this
by one, that by another, and that by a third; but how do
you know that such effects are produced, each by each,
when the three are mixed together? You cannot know,
you cannot reach certainty. And why? Because you
leave simplicity.
To demonstrate that your experiments are of necessity
unsatisfactory-that they cannot have certainty to result
from them, the following cases, quoted from your Journal
will serve.
"TETANUS. Mr. Solly records, in the Medical Gazette, a
case of this disease which terminated favourably. The patient
was admitted into St. Thomas's Hospital, having, about seven-
teen days previously, received a lacerated wound of the little
finger of his left hand. The symptoms of a severe attack of
the disease were well marked, and the patient was discharged
cured, in about nine weeks from the date of his admission.
In reference to treatment it is quite impossible to say anything
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P. xxvii
definite. The patient was admitted under Mr. Green, and
treated by Messrs. Travers, Solly, and South, conjointly and
separately. Opium, Indian hemp, tobacco, turpentine, blisters,
brandy, &c., were administered ad infinitum. The spasms
seemed to abate after some doses of the hemp had been given,
but Mr. Solly is not disposed to place much reliance on this, as
a large blister was, at the same time, applied along the
spine."-Lancet, 1844, Vol. I, p. 163.
The next case is EPILEPSY.
"CURE FOR EPILEPSY. M. Lemoine has successfully
treated three cases of Epilepsy by the administration of the
following mixture:-Liquor ammonia-twelve minims, syrup
of orange flowers—one ounce, distilled water of linden flowers
-two ounces, and distilled water of cherry laurel-half an
ounce-for a mixture."
W
This is followed by a statement of the three cases.
"The active principles in M. Lemoine's formula, are the
ammonia and the prussic acid in the laurel water. The quan-
tity of the latter, however, is so small, that we cannot attribute
to it much influence over the morbid state of the economy.
Ammonia, as nearly every other medicine, has been tried
repeatedly in the treatment of this dire disease, and has failed.
Still we are so utterly powerless in most cases of epilepsy, that
no remedy, which is brought forward as a successful thera-
peutic agent, should be dismissed without having been tried in
the manner in which it is stated to have succeeded.-Révue
Medicale."
*Lancet, Vol. I. 1844, p. 8.
bl
xxviii
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
A third case may be selected. Its reference is to
NEURALGIA. It is recorded by Dr. Edward Binns :—
66
Leslie, a joiner and cabinet maker, has suffered many
years under neuralgia, in its most aggravated form; none of
the usual remedies afforded any relief. He was bled at Christ-
mas, to fainting, since which period, his attacks have been less
frequent and less severe. After venesection, he was treated
with arsenic (Fowler's solution) and citrate of iron. He is
now, comparatively speaking, free from neuralgic attacks; but
the disease, I regret to say, is not radically extirpated.”*
p
These three cases, I have selected from the volume
(Lancet, 1844,) now before me; but from the volumes
of your Journal hundreds of cases, presenting the same
uncertainty, might be gathered without difficulty; in fact,
the difficulty would be not to find them.
Can any one draw any certain conclusion as to the
remedy, that effected the cure in any of these cases?
In reference to the case of "tetanus," it is stated,
"the spasm seemed to abate after some doses of hemp
had been given," but it is added, "Mr. Solly is not dis-
posed to place much reliance on this, as a large blister
was at the same time applied along the spinc."
Mr. Solly was right in not deducing--and why? Be-
cause, while two means are in use, and a benefit results,
* Lancet, Vol. I. 1844, p. 699.
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
xxix
who can tell to which the effect is to be ascribed? Now,
had these leading surgeons, Travers, Solly, and South,
recognised the simplicity of science, they would have used
one remedial agent at a time, and thus have made their
observations useful. All that we learn is, that certain
remedies were given, and that a case of tetanus recovered.
Yet these men are scientific surgeons, and nevertheless
do not know how to experiment medically; they know
not, or at least do not adopt, the way to arrive at certainty.
So in the case of epilepsy-what was the remedy which
cured the patient? Can you tell, or can even M. Lemoine
himself?
And, in like manner, in the case of neuralgia-did the
arsenical solution, or the bleeding, or the citrate of iron,
do the good? Can Dr. Binns tell?
Do facts like these, which teach nothing, allow the
system which produces them to be called scientific?
Liebig remarks, "Every question, clearly and definitely
put, has been clearly answered. It is only when an
inquirer has no precise idea of what he seeks, that he
remains unanswered."* Can any one get a clear, a
definite answer to the question put in reference to the
cases of tetanus, epilepsy, and neuralgia-namely, what
* Lancet, Vol. 1. 1844, page 5.
XXX
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
"" no
was the curative agent? The answer is, No; and if
be the answer, science could not have been the
basis of the questioning of those diseases by remedies;
and he who does not put his question clearly and defin-
itely has no right to claim that he is scientific.
As long, then, as you, my dear Sir, question disease as
to what is its remedy, by numerous remedies, embodied,
as it were, in one questioning, you cannot get an useful
answer. Leaving simplicity, you leave science, and
leaving science, you lose certainty.
Your doings have uncertainty in their nature; your
faith that is your theory, must be uncertain too.
Is the present practice of medicine founded upon any
fixed principle in regard to the theory of treatment? If
so, what is it?
K
Not noticing the dismal discrepancies between the
various theories of disease itself, (I say, dismal, because
as all action comes from opinion, every unsound theory
sacrifices its victims,) look at the contradictions in the
practice.
Dr. James Johnson, one of the most judicious of the
old-system practitioners, recommends, in his "Diseases
of Tropical Climates," as the basis of all successful treat-
ment, "bleeding and calomel." Dr. Dickson asserts that
"bleeding and calomel are the most deadly enemies in a
tropical climate.
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
xxxi
In a certain hospital, it is rumoured, that large sums
have been expended annually on sarsaparilla, in the face
of the curious fact, that several physicians of the same
establishment compare its effects to a decoction of hay.*
Dr. James Johnson, in reviewing the conduct of the
indiscriminate prescribers of creosote, iodine, &c., observes,
"The patrons of the new remedies would seem, in their
experiments, to proceed on the principle of that hospital
physician who ordered his clerk to bleed the south ward,
and to vomit the north."
Mr. Simpson, in a letter published in your Journal,
thus writes respecting typhus fever—
CC
Having seen a great number of cases of the worst kind of
typhus fever, in Belfast, Dublin, Edinburgh, and London, and
having seen all kinds of treatment tried with nearly the same.
average success, I was at a loss to account for such contra-
dictory results. I had always heard the subject reasoned on in
a mathematical manner, and, of course, expected precise con-
sequences to given premises-namely, if (as one party say)
you have ten cases of typhus fever, and don't bleed, you are
sure to lose the half of them; but if you do bleed, you will, to
a certainty, save nine of them. The advocates of the other
system make the same calculations with the same confidence
as to the results. To my surprise, I found the one party
nearly as successful as the other."
*Black's "Principles and Practice," page 11.
xxxii
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
And this, my dear Sir, is your system of medicine, and
this you deem scientific.
Dr. Maunsell, in reference to the celebrated Dr. Arm-
strong, and his treatment of malignant scarlet fever,
remarks, "For such practitioners we know of no better
advice than that of the judicious Huxham, at least to
peruse the sixth commandment.”*
But perhaps the most lamentable proof of the want of
science, and the consequent want of certainty of principle
in your system of medical practice, is exhibited in the
fact, that the talented physiologist, Dr. Marshall Hall,
recommends what he calls "trial bleeding;"-in other
words, bleed a man to try whether or not it does him
good. If it does him good, all well; if not, it does not
* The uncertainty of opinion regarding the most common of diseases,
or, perhaps, more correctly stated, the most common concomitant of
most diseases-namely, fever, is thus attested by Dr. Bostock :---
"Let us apply these remarks to the case of fever, the disease which
has been styled the touchstone of medical theory, and which may be pro-
nounced to be its opprobrium. At the termination of the last century,
while the doctrine of Cullen was generally embraced, typhus fever was
called a disease of debility, and was of course to be cured by tonics and
stimulants. No sooner was it ascertained to exist, than bark and wine
were administered in as large doses as the patient could be induced, or
was found able, to take. No doubt was entertained of their power over
the disease; the only question that caused any doubt in the mind of the
practitioner was, whether the patient could bear the quantity that would
be necessary for the cure. To this treatment succeeded that of cold
affusion. The high character and literary reputation of the individual
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P. xxxiii
do him good. And it is not unlikely that he who tries
bleeding to see if it will do good, would designate as а
quack the physician who never gives a medicine without
the knowledge, that its curative power depends upon a
fixed law-the law that medicines cure diseases by the
power they possess of inducing in the human organism
similar, but not identical conditions.
Let us now step to the other side of the Atlantic, and
listen to that eminent physician, of your system, Dr. Rush
of Philadelphia.
"It seems to be one of the rules of faith in our art, that every
truth must be helped into belief by some persuasive fiction of
the School. And I here owe it to the general reader to
confess, that as far as I know, the medical profession can
scarcely produce a single volume in its practical department,
who proposed this remedy, its simplicity and easy application, the candid
spirit which was manifested, and the strong testimonials which were
adduced by its contemporaries, bore down all opposition, and we flattered
ourselves that we had at length subdued the formidable monster. But
we were doomed to experience the ordinary process of disappointment ;
the practice, as usual, was found inefficient or injurious, and it was, after
a short time, supplanted by the use of the lancet. But this practice was
even more short-lived than its predecessors; and thus, in a space of less
than forty years, we have gone through three revolutions of opinion with
respect to our treatment of a disease of very frequent occurrence, and of
the most decisive and urgent symptoms. Are we then to conclude
that all medical treatment is of no avail?-that it is all imaginary or
deceptive? We should feel most unwilling to be compelled to form such
a conclusion."-DR. BOSTOCK, History of Medicine, page 68, Cyclopæ-
dia of Practical Medicine.
b2
xxxiv
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
from the works of Hippocrates down to the last-made text-
book, which, by the requisitions of an exact philosophy, will not
be found to contain nearly as much fiction as truth.”
And he adds further-
Upon these points, and bearing in mind that we have now
in medicine the recorded practice of more than two thousand
years-let the reader refer to the proceedings of the medical
profession during the prevalence of the so-called "Asiatic
cholera,” and he will find their history everywhere exhibiting
an extraordinary picture of prefatory panic, vulgar wonder,
doubt, ignorance, obtrusive vanity, plans for profit and popu-
larity, fatal blunders, distracting contradictions, and egregious
empiricisms."
66
gand
(a)
No homœopathist would have ventured to say anything
so severe.
But to return. What means that phrase, now SO
common, "Fallacies of the Faculty"? Dr. Dickson, the
author of those "Fallacies," is strong, you must allow;
but he is so, in part, because that which he attacks is
weak, and in part, because there is some truth in him.
He has been fortunate enough to recognise a form of
the homœopathic principle-namely, that medicines cure
diseases by the power they have of producing symptoms
similar. The one form of this principle, recognised by
him, is, that the phenomena of disease present a periodi-
city, or what, a little amplified, he calls a CHRONOTHER-
MAL condition; and that certain medicines have a peculiar
GRA
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
XXXV
#
power of producing symptoms corresponding to those
which certain diseases exhibit; and, consequently, if given,
cure those diseases. This writer has discovered-perhaps
it would be more correct to say, has fallen upon, a part of
the great whole. That part is true, but it is true only as
a part; and the glory which he felt in the discovery of
this part has narrowed his mind so as to shut out the
whole; and he, in the weakness thus induced, has lowered
himself to misrepresent, and then to attack, the system of
homœopathy, in the truth of which, in the particular
direction in which he is successful, his strength to be
successful lies. He mistakes a time homoeopathicity for a
general homœopathicity; he is so enraptured with the
beauty of the leg, that he cannot turn off his view to
contemplate the symmetry of the perfect body; he lauds
a part, but vilifies a whole. But still he is strong against
the uncertainty of your system; and his strength is in
a lock which he has snatched from the Samson of
homœopathy.
Well might Adam Smith, the author of that text-book
used by all men who wish to understand the economy of
a nation—namely, "The Wealth of Nations," say, on
viewing the system of medical practice in his day, "The
great success of quacks in England has been altogether
owing to the real quackery of the regular practitioners."
Adam Smith, it may be said, lived many years since,
xxxvi LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
and medicine, in its practice, may have improved since.
You maintain that such is the case, and that no such
discrepancies exist now, as existed then, in medical prac-
tice. The following are your words:
“One of the apparently strongest arguments, brought for-
ward by unbelievers in the powers of medicine to prove their
assertions, is the great diversity in the practice of medical
men. But this argument is merely specious, and will not
bear the slightest scrutiny. It is more especially in the treat-
ment of inflammatory and febrile diseases that this diversity
exists, and in these diseases, precisely, the indication is one
which may be attained by a variety of means. DEPLETION is
the indication, and depletion may be equally produced by the
action of local bleeding, of large blisters, of purgatives, of
diuretics, or of diaphoretics: thus we find, that the physicians
who, in the treatment of pneumonia, in England, rely partly
on bleeding and partly on purgatives; in France, entirely on
bleeding, or on the application of large blisters; in Germany,
partly on bleeding and partly on critical evacuations, urinary
or cutaneous ;—all arrive at the same end-the depletion of their
patient, though by different methods." Lancet, Vol. I. 1844,
page 165.
Such is your solution of the discrepancy. I acknow-
ledge that candidly I could not believe my sight when I
read it. I looked whether the book before me was the
Lancet. It was.
What do you tell the world? DEPLETION is depletion,
and as all practitioners deplete, all agree. You, the
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P. xxxvii
editor of a scientific medical journal, declare, that deple-
tion of blood is virtually the same, in relation to its effects
on disease, as depletion by an increased flow of urine, by
an increased discharge of perspirable fluid: "Depletion
may be equally produced," are your words. In other
words, to remove a more than usual quantity of urine,
secreted from the blood, is curative, upon the same
principle as the removal of a given quantity of the blood
itself; and that to draw away half a pint of serous fluid,
by means of a blister, is curatively the same as drawing
away half a pint of the blood itself. Shade of John
Hunter! "the blood is the life thereof."
Why, my dear Sir, Morrison and Holloway, as far, at
least, as inflammatory and febrile diseases are concerned,
will claim to be your pupils: they deplete; "all arrive,"
say you, "at the same end-the depletion of the patient,
though by different modes. How Holloway and you could
have quarrelled is really extraordinary. You should meet.
and mutually acknowledge, as Peachum to Lockit in the
Beggar's Opera, "Brother, brother, we have both been in
the wrong.
در
This depletion view presents the most decided proof of
the want of science in your system.
Looking at this-looking at the facts already recorded
-looking at your answers to the questions already pro-
posed,-nced we wonder that at the meeting of the
xxxviii
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
British Association for the Advancement of SCIENCE, held
in 1844, a proposal was made to the Committee to extinguish
the MEDICAL SECTION of the Association; and what is
more, that this proposal came from gentlemen, "to whose
labours," you yourself testify, "the profession owes so
much ;”—“that they were at the head of the movement
which is attempting to banish medicine, as a science,
from the British Association."*
These gentlemen are honest; they see that the Asso-
ciation meet for science, and finding that medicine is not a
science, (they know not homoeopathy,) deem it has no
business there. "They who are favourable to the change,
assert, first, the present inefficiency of the medical section,
and, secondly, the NON-SCIENTIFric character of medicine."
Need we wonder, in reference to this state of the
medical section, and the non-scientific character of medi-
cine, that when it was proposed at the Association, to
cause the science embracing the investigation of the
physical characters of nations, or ethnology, to be a graft
on the medical section, the ethnologists made a spirited
remonstrance against being thus grafted on the medical
section, which, to use the words of a writer in Chambers's
Edinburgh Journal, "has always been felt as a withered
branch of the Association."
*Lancet, page 78, Vol. II. 1844.
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
xxxix
Do you, my dear Sir, want any more evidence?
A vulgarism, though truly expressive, states, however,
that "two blacks will not make a white;" and it is not
less true, that to prove your system unsound, does not
cause the one, advocated by me, to be sound. In other
words, that the old system of medicine is unscientific, and
consequently uncertain, in reference to the physician, and
perilously uncertain in reference to the patient, does
not make homœopathy scientific or certain to the phy-
sician, or safe to the patient.
I shall therefore now attempt to prove to you that
HOMEOPATHY IS A SCIENCE.
Homœopathy presents certainty, in presenting a law.
It teaches that a law regulates the action of medicines
"DISEASES ARE
on diseased bodies: this law being,
CURED MOST QUICKLY, SAFELY, AND EFFECTUALLY, BY
MEDICINES WHICH ARE CAPABLE OF PRODUCING SYMP-
TOMS SIMILAR ΤΟ THOSE EXISTING IN THE PATIENT,
-
AND WHICH CHARACTERISE HIS DISORDER.
It maintains that this law is universal; that all medi-
eines acting curatively, have acted, do act, and will for
ever act, in accordance with the principle embodied in
this law; in fact, that all medicines are specifics-each
one being specific to the given disease, of which, if taken
by a healthy person, it produces the resemblance.
This clear, well-defined law gives certainty, and pre-
xl
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
sents simplicity. It affords the foundation on which the
homœopathist builds. It affords the mariner's compass,
which enables him to steer clear of all the quicksands
which the misdirected ability of Cullen, Boerrhave, Brown,
Clutterbuck, Broussais, Armstrong, and others, have
thrown up, to the destruction of medical navigators, and
of the crews with which they were entrusted.
The homoeopathist ensconces himself in this one point.
He cannot be charged with beating about the bush. He
stands upon an unity. He has no loophole of retreat.
He gives his opponent the knowledge of his vital part.
Disprove the law, and homoeopathy is undone.
But in thus propounding his principle he feels his
strength to be, that his foundation is in a law of the
Creator-a law, the discovery of which arose from careful
deduction, resulting from a happy coincidence which
affected the mind of Hahnemann;* even as a happy coin-
cidence affected the mind of Newton, and led to the
discovery, by deduction, of the law of gravitation.
Having this law, we need not be troubled, in our
curative proceedings, by the contending opinions and
never-ending inquiries respecting counteraction, revulsion,
stimulation, depletion, palliation, and hoc genus omne.
*For the history of this discovery I beg to refer you to that work a
copy of which I forwarded to you some time since, " Homoeopathy
Explained." Published by Sherwood & Co.
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
xli
We have one rule.
We have certainty; we have more, we have simplicity.
But it does not follow that because simplicity is pos-
sessed, the thing possessing it is essentially true and
scientific.
But there is one feature which all science has-namely,
the power of explaining facts.
Indeed, this affords the analytic way of investigation,
by which any law propounded can be tested, so that it
can be known to be a law of the Creator. That which,
better than any other, explains the facts, is the law-
is the truth.
You are palsied.
M
Why do men believe in the law of gravitation, put
forth by Newton? Because it explains most satisfactorily
the facts, connected with the states and the motions of
physical masses.
If such mode of testing be the one in general science,
the homœopathist is justified in claiming this mode for
the justification of the law, put forth by Hahnemann.
The homœopathist looks around and detects multitudi-
nous instances illustrating the curative power of like upon
like.
You knock yourself.
You rub the part knocked-that
is, you use a succession of gen-
tle but rapid knockings.
You use strychnine, which pro-
duces palsy.
xlii
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
You burn your fingers by a hot
cinder or a hot iron.
You scald yourself.
You are frost-bitten.
You are griped.
You are relaxed in the bowels.
You are sick.
You have asthma.
You have sore throat.
You hold the finger to the fire---
that is, you put heat, the same
thing, in another form.
You apply hot spirits of turpen-
tine and Dr. Kentish's burn
liniment; but you do not do
identically* by scalding your-
self again.
You rub with snow, a result of
frost, but you do not expose
yourself to the identical frost
again.
You use colocynth, which gripes.
You use rhubarb, which relaxes
the bowels.
You use antimony, which pro-
duces sickness.
You use ipecacuanha, which pro-
duces an asthma.
Belladonna taken, which, accord-
ing to Mr. Wade, produces
swelling of the tonsils and in-
flammation of the palate (Lon-
don Medical and Physical
Journal, 1827) will cure it.
* Some, and you, my dear Sir, among the number, seem not to recog-
nize the difference between the like and the identical. The homoeopathist
does not say if a man has overloaded his stomach by taking one dinner, he
is to cure himself by taking another dinner; or that a man, who is drunk,
is to cure himself by an additional debauch; but he maintains, that to
cure the consequenses of an overloaded stomach he is to take a medicine,
which has the power of producing symptoms similar to those, which an
overloaded stomach produces; and that to cure the drunkenness-that is,
to remove its effects, the person must take that medicine, which has the
power of producing symptoms similar to those produced by the intoxi-
cating liquor taken; and the homoeopathist knows what these are.
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
xliii
You have sweating sickness.
You have strangury.
You inhale chlorine gas, and
have induced a violent wheez-
ing cough with expectoration.
You have ague.
Your horse is about to shy from
fright.
You have grief.
You weep.
You give medicines which excite
sweat; and Sennertus, in his
work De Febribus IV. cap. 15,
relates that the English sweat-
ing sickness in 1485, which,
Willis states, carried off at first
ninety-nine patients out of
one hundred, was only subdued
by the administration of su-
dorifics.
Cantharis, which produces stran-
gury, will cure it.
Chlorine has become famous in
cough affections, particularly
in phthisis.
You give arsenicum, which pro-
duces ague, and it is cured.
HIPPOCRATES, Lancet 280.
You strike him, and, by this
other fright, prevent his shy-
ing.
"The theatre often has been re-
sorted to, to remove fits of
low spirits, and it is a singular
fact, that a tragedy oftener
dissipates them than a comedy.
The remedy, though distressing
to persons with healthy minds,
is like the temperature of cold
water to persons benumbed
with frost; it is exactly pro-
portioned to the excitability
of their minds, and it not only
abstracts attention from them-
selves but revives their spirits."
DR. BENJAMIN RUSH.
“Weep with those who weep."
-Bible.
xliv
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
You rejoice.
CC
Rejoice with them who re-
joice."-Bible.
Illustration might be added to illustration, but these
few will serve to show the general bearing of the prin-
ciple; indeed, it is my belief, that, in a few years, all
actions and reactions will be found to be dependent upon.
the homoeopathic law.
Indeed, the homoeopathic law is the rendering definite,
in regard to the use of remedies, the principle put forth
so clearly by JOHN HUNTER. He says, "As I reckon every
operation in the body an action, whether universal or partial,
it appears to me, beyond a doubt, that no two actions can
take place in the same constitution, nor two local diseases
in the same part at the same time.
"It naturally results from this principle, that no two
different fevers can exist in the same constitution, nor in
the same part, at one and the same time.
'A patient may have the scrofula, scurvy, lues, small-
pox, &c., at the same time; all this is indeed possible,
but then no two of them can exist in the same part of the
body at the same time."*
Such were the views of this extraordinary man, and
homœopathy verifies them. The homoeopathic principle,
*John Hunter's Treatise on the Blood, &c.-Fourth Edition, 1794,
Introduction, pages 4, 5.
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
xlv
discovered by Hahnemann, demonstrates the acuteness
and the accuracy of Hunter; homoeopathy stating that
it is impossible that two similar diseases, "two different
fevers," to use Hunter's phrase, can exist in the same con-
stitution at the same time; and the homoeopathic phy-
sician, feeling this, labours to discover the medicine
which will produce a similar disease; he administers that
and cures the patient.
You, my dear Sir, idolise John Hunter, and then treat
with contumely a verification of his principle.
Add to the views already brought forward, to the
corroborative theory of John Hunter, the facts which the
practice of homoeopathy-in other words, the efficacious
use of medicines in diseases, guided by the homoeopathic
law, as exhibited daily throughout the world in thousands
of instances- -a mass of evidence to the soundness of the
theory and to the stability of the law is afforded, which
must arrest the attention, and, it is believed, command
the respect of the candid and unbiassed.
J
Again recalling the mind to the axiom, that certainty
and simplicity are the features of science, let me point out
how clearly the science of homoeopathy appears in the
mode, adopted by homoeopathists in the DISCOVERY of
remedies.
In an article in your Journal, which seems to have been
xlvi
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
written both under the feeling that you had gone too far
in acknowledging the uncertainty of medicine, and in
declaring the immense amount of knowledge necessary to
be acquired before certainty in medicine can be attained,
and under the desire to defend medicine from a charge
of one of your correspondents, an old-system practitioner,
Dr. Livesay-namely, "we are still, in the nineteenth
century, as far as the precise results of our practice.
(medical) go, almost as uncertain as those to whom
anatomy was unknown, physiology a fable, chemistry a
fancy, and surgery a charm,"-you remark, as a kind of
denial to Dr. Livesay's assertion, "finally, the actions of
all therapeutic agents have been analysed and tested over
and over again, in health and in disease, and with the
assistance of our increased knowledge in the various other
departments of science.”*
You must find some difficulty to make this statement
tally with the answer already recorded to the query res-
pecting the certainty of medicine. Still, the statement
itself has a two-fold interest, first, that in your anxiety to
defend the old system of medicine, you have been led to
state what is not accurate, and second, in so stating, have
recognised the proper method of proceeding in discovering
the virtues of medicines.
* Lancet, 1844, Vol. I. page 288.
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P. xlvii
You assert, "the actions of all therapeutic agents have
been analysed and tested OVER and OVER again in health
and in disease."
Now I ask for the authorities of such analyses and testings
in health. You cannot give them. Where are the old-
system practitioners, half a dozen excepted, and these
only to a trifling extent, who have ever tried upon them-
selves or upon others, in health, remedial agents? Medi-
cal men are not fond of taking physic.
Such taking of medicines in health, which this quotation
proves you recognise as a mode of analysing and testing
the virtues of medicines, is the only way by which the
powers of therapeutic, disease-curing agents, can be dis-
covered. Haller recognised this; he states, "Nempe
primum in corpore sano medela tentanda est, sine pere-
grina ulla miscela, odore et sapore ejus exploratis, exigua
illius dosis ingerenda, et ad omnes, quæ inde contingunt,
affectiones, quis pulsus, quæ respiratio, quænam excre-
tiones attendendum. Inde ad ductum phenomenorum,
in sano obviorum, transeas ad experimenta in corpore
@groto."*
This method of ascertaining the virtues of medicines by
trying them on the healthy, (that is, learning their pure-
their unmodified effects,) which Haller thus points out as
* Pharmacopeia Helvetica. Basle 1771, in fol. p. 12.
xlviii
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
the proper one, and which you bring forward, but incor-
rectly, as the method adopted by the followers of the old
system, is that, which those whom you have designated as
quacks, have had the sagacity to recognise and the courage
to practise, not upon other people but upon themselves-
a practice methinks not much like to quackery.
Where, among the whole range of the centuries during
which medicine has existed, and physicians have prevailed,
can you point out a man, who, for a period of thirty years,
and being in possession of health, took medicines,
observed and recorded their effects, and who, besides, had
the power to persuade his wife, his sons, his daughters,
and many friends to follow his example, all having the
same object in view-namely, the discovery of the pure
effects of medicines? Homœopathy can produce such a
wonder his name was HAHNEMANN; a man who has left
behind him an imperishable memento of his genius-six
octavo volumes, filled with the records of the effects of
medicines, produced upon himself and his friends, he and
they being in health at the time of administration; and
from these volumes and the truths contained in them, the
cures of thousands have been worked out, while every
day's experience brings an addition to the multitude of
those, who are receiving the benefit of his labours. They
bless him, and millions, yet unborn, will bless him.
:
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
xlix
But homœopathy is scientific, not only in the mode
recognised and followed by homoeopathists, in discovering
the virtues of medicines, but also in the mode of ADMI-
NISTERING medicines to the sick.
Simplicity, to repeat, is a feature of science. This
feature, in reference to the administration of medicines,
under your system, you, as has been already shown, do
not possess. You administer many medicines, and cannot
tell that which produces the benefit, if benefit does result.
The homœopathist's method is simple. One medicine
at a time is his rule; and this rule is essential. The
homœopathist maintains, that every circumstance which
may, in any way, tend to interfere with the operation of
the one medicine, should be carefully avoided; so that, in
addition to simplicity, in reference to the medicine itself,
he seeks to preserve that simplicity, by forbidding all
external and internal interferences with its action.
When the chemist has tried an experiment, and gives
the result, how much interest is felt in the detail he gives
of the numerous precautions he adopted to prevent any
and every source of fallacy creeping in, so as to vitiate his
chemical experiment! We admire, applaud, and hold up
his ingenuity for an example. But when the homoeo-
pathic physician, in trying his curative experiment, labours
to remove every cause of non-success, by freeing his
experiment from every circumstance that may interfere
C
1
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
J
with its success, you make as a ground for sarcasm, that
"A variety of circumstances are required to be taken into
consideration, at a great sacrifice of time, and much mock-
profound application is required from its disciples; there
are a THOUSAND niceties to be considered, as regards even
posture, and still more, functional condition." Thus,
the care, which is an honour to the chemist, trying his
experiment on inanimate matter, and consequently, as
such, comparatively viewed, little liable to be modified, is
a source whence insult is obtained for the homœopathic
physician, trying his experiment upon a human animate
machine, and which, as animate, is more complicated, and
very liable to be modified by a variety of causes. His
very care to realise a scientific result, is made, by men
who have not science in their practice, a means of attack
upon his scientific result. "O tempora! O mores!"
To conclude this view of the scientific character of
homœopathy.
Science presents itself as the embodiment of law.
The old system of medicine has no fixed universal law.
Homœopathy has a fixed universal law" similia
similibus."
Science produces certainty.
The uncertainty of the old system of medicine, you
have pointed out.
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
li
The certainty of homoeopathy has, it appears to me,
been clearly demonstrated.
Science, founded upon a law, gives precision, in the
attempt to gain the object sought after.
Does your system give precision?
Homœopathy does. Thus say, that a new disease
appears; while the old-system practitioners are trying this
and that, these and those, without any fixed rule, the
homœopathist at once seeks out a remedy that has the
power of producing phenomena similar: he applies this,
and cures.
Hence the steady and immediate success of
the homœopathic treatment of Asiatic cholera. Where
one was cured under the old-system treatment, three to
four were cured under the homœopathic.
Science presents simplicity in the mode of using means.
Homopathy presents simplicity, both in the mode of dis-
covering remedies, and in the mode of using them, when
discovered.
On all these grounds, I boldly claim the rank of science
for homœopathy.
You will now, I am compelled to hope, grant, that the
homœopathic principle is simple and intelligible, because
single and uncomplicated; that the method of obtaining a
knowledge of the virtues of medicines, by trying the medi-
cines singly on a healthy person, is one which has a
cl
lii
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
scientific appearance about it; and that the method of
giving to the person diseased only one medicine at a time,
is the likeliest method to lead to a knowledge of the exact.
curative powers of the medicines employed. But still
you may dispute the science of the FORMULE, under which
the medicines, prescribed homœopathically, arc exhibited
to the sick. You will perhaps still maintain, that the
idea of curing diseases, or of deducing any knowledge of
effects of remedies on diseased persons, from the exhibition
of the remedies in the millionth, billionth, decillionth part
of a drop or grain, is perfectly ridiculous.*
"L
* One would have imagined that you, the publisher of Liebig's Lectures,
would have been the last to doubt the power of medicines in infinitesimal
quantities, since he tells you, that an infinitesimal quantity of sun light,
namely a ray, we cleave asunder into rays, which, without any power of
illumination, produce the most important alterations and decompositions
in organic nature." He tells you further, that it is indispensably neces-
sary to the manifestation of chemical affinity, that the atoms of substances
should be in immediate contact with each other, or at IMMEASURABLY
small distances. He tells you further-
"We are acquainted with animals possessing teeth, and organs of
motion and digestion, which are wholly invisible to the naked eye. Other
animals exist, which, if measurable, would be found many thousands of
times smaller, which, nevertheless, possess the same apparatus. These
creatures, in the same manner as the larger animals, take nourishment,
and are propagated by means of ova which must, consequently, be again
many hundreds of times smaller than their own bodies. It is only because
our organs of vision are imperfect that we do not perceive creatures a
million times, even, smaller than these."-Lancet, Vol. I. 1844, p. 31.
When to this is added, that there is a distinct branch of chemistry,
relating to the action of imponderable bodies; that Herschel has desig-
nated the branch of chemistry that treats of light, a thing in infinitesimal
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
liii
But why such conclusion? Is this conclusion scien-
tific? What does it amount to? To this-that you put
your judgment of what ought to be, against what is.
But we have, if not in medicine, at least in other de-
partments of science, too much information to permit us
to allow any man to shelve a proposition by placing his
what ought to be against what is.
We have had so many
declared impossibilities becoming, notwithstanding the
quantities, by the title of "Actino-Chemistry;" and add to this, the
established truth, that a sun-beam cannot fall upon a body, without pro-
ducing a molecular or chemical change,-it seems difficult to conceive
how you should doubt the action of bodies remedial on bodies diseased, in
minute quantities.
But I wonder not at you, because Liebig himself is not affected by the
truths which he himself propounds. That chemist, with all his greatness,
has not that highest of all greatness, consisting in the non-utterance of
opinions on a subject, which, not having investigated, he cannot understand.
He remarks-
"Can we wonder that men wholly ignorant of physiology and chemistry,
although in other respects rational, should adopt the absurd notions of
Hahnemann, that his doctrines should prevail in Germany, and find
disciples in all countries"?-Lancet, 1844, Vol. I. p. 6.
This is his question. The question he ought to have put is, Ought we
not to wonder that men, who assert that actions chemical take place at
IMMEASURABLY small distances that animals millionesimally small
exist, should venture dogmatically to assert, that actions cannot take
place between medicines in immeasurably small quantities and diseased
states? And another question, which he ought to have put to himself, is,
whether it does not exhibit his conceit in rather an unpleasant form, in
charging those who adopt homoeopathy as wholly ignorant of physiology
and chemistry. Hahnemann himself was a profound chemist. Dr.
Christison takes him as an authority, quoting him frequently in his article
on "Poisoning by Arsenic."
M
liv
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
declaration that such was their character, possibilities,
that all such talk is now deemed nugatory. Navigation
by steam across the Atlantic, is now to be seen, despite
of Lardner, who said that it was an impossibility. Tra-
velling by steam on railways has made Stephenson im-
mortal, and those who called him a fool, fools. The
priests' of Galileo's days impossibility of the earth going
round the sun, has been a possibility in nature from
the beginning, and is become now a possibility even to a
child's understanding.
The "
ought to be" argument will be legitimate, when
the propounder can assert with truth, "I know ALL the
laws of the creation, and the thing proposed is in
opposition to those laws; " but that you, with all the un-
certainty attached to your system of medicine, will venture
to assert that you have this knowledge, even in reference
to medicine, is not very likely. Your modesty will, no
doubt, cause you to respond to the observations of La-
place, "Nous sommes si loin de connâitre tous les agens
de la nature et leurs divers modes d'action, qu'il serait
peu philosophique de nier les phénomènes, uniquement
parcequ'ils sont inexplicables dans l'etat actuel de nos
connaissances."
Pray banish this "ought-to-be" state of mind, and the
reasoning founded thereon. This is a self-esteem which
no man of science will, though fools may, tolerate. The
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
lv
man of science asks, in reference to any fact brought before
his view, Is it? and seeks the proof; and science guides him
in the selection of the means probative. If then, you, my
dear Sir, ask in the philosophic spirit, Do you mean to
assert that you cure diseases with medicines in these MINUTE
doses, prescribed in obedience to the homeopathic law? I
answer, I Do; and add further, that for the last seven
years I have used none but homoeopathic medicines, and
that during the whole of that time, I have not given any
medicine to be internally administered at a higher strength
than the millionth part of a drop or grain. Rarely,
indeed, is such quantity administered-not more than
once a week. I add further, that during the last three
years, I have prescribed at an average for upwards of
forty patients daily; that I have kept a record of the
history and of the symptoms of every case, and that these
records fill four large quarto volumes, each volume con-
taining nearly two thousand pages, as well as about
twenty smaller volumes, each containing about a hundred
pages. And I further state, that there is not a public
hospital or dispensary in London, from which I have not
received patients dismissed some as incurable, and
whom homœopathic means have, under my guidance,
cured; that all forms of disease, common to this kingdom,
acute and chronic, hydrophobia excepted, have come under
my care; and further, I can add, that such is the extent
lvi
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
of diffusion of homoeopathic means, that numerous
families now, in the place of the senna, the salts, the
manna, the blue pill, the castor-oil, the magnesia, the
rhubarb, and other domestic remedies, which they for-
merly used, use only globules, medicinated with the
remedies, at the infinitesimal dilutions-that is, at these
billionth, trillionth, quadrillionth, and decillionth dilutions.
These patients, to whom I have referred, get well.
What am I to infer? What do you infer, when your
patients get well?
You are called to a patient with typhus fever; you
prescribe certain medicines for that patient; the patient.
gets well; what is your conclusion-your sequitur? The
medicines cured him.
I am called to a case of typhus fever; I give homœo-
pathic remedies, and in minute doses, to my patient; the
patient gets well; what is my conclusion-my sequitur?
What yours was-the medicines cured him.
No, say you, this is a non-sequitur. But why is it a
sequitur in your case, and a non-sequitur in mine? You
prescribe medicines with some fixed object in view; you
gain that object, and you believe that the object is gained
by means of the the medicines you prescribed; and this
you infer, because there was in your mind, in prescribing
such medicines, a relationship between the object to be
gained, and the means to gain it. Well, I prescribe a
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
Ivii
medicine, with a certain object in view; I gain that
object, and I believe the object is gained by means of the
medicine I prescribed; and this I infer, because there
was in my mind, in prescribing such medicine, a relation-
ship between the object to be gained and the means
to gain it.
And mark how much more ground of certainty the
homœopathist has that the medicines given by him
do gain the object, than you have in reference to your
medicines, and the object you have in view. The
homoeopathist prescribes the medicine, on the ground
that it has the power of producing symptoms similar to
those exhibited in his patient. You have no such rule.
The homoeopathist has a fixed rule to guide him in the
choice of means, and thus he is enabled to ascertain
exactly how far those have corresponded to a given expec-
tation; he has, to requote Liebig's words, "a question
clearly and definitely put," and the reward gained is, that
it is clearly answered."
(C
But if you judge from your results that the means
brought them about because there was a pre-existing
relationship in your mind between such results and the
means to attain them, how much more certain can the
homœopathist be that his conclusion as to the results
obtained by him are really such. You give many medi-
cines, and use many means at the same time. He
St
c 2
lviii
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
uses only one medicine at a time. If one source of
fallacy exist in reference to his experiment, many exist
in reference to yours.
But the homoeopathist is not at all in a hurry to get at
a conclusion. He knows, perhaps better than those who
affect to despise him, that though causation must come
out of coincidence, coincidence is not always causation.
He knows that coincidence, to indicate causation, must be
universal in fact, he has learned what has been so well
expressed by the most talented of physiologists, "the
discernment of UNIVERSAL CONNEXION AND CONTINUITY
amounts to the discovery of truth.”*
'The natural philosopher," Liebig informs us, “endea-
vours to ascertain the conditions of a given phenomenon."
The homœopathist recognises this as a truth; he gives a
remedy to gain a given effect; he realises that effect,
which is health; and he seeks the conditions. Thus, he
gives, in true SCARLATINA, (not in all fevers with scarlet
eruption,) belladonna: he cures. He repeats this over
and over again, and similar is the result. He had pheno-
mena-namely, feverish heat, scarlet redness of skin,
enlarged tonsillar and other glands, &c.; he gives bella-
donna-the feverish heat ceases, the scarlet redness dis-
appears, the tonsils return to their natural shape and size.
* Regnum Animale de Intestinis.
Temat
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
lix
These constitute another series of phenomena. He asks
the condition linking these phenomena; and he finds it to
be this—the administration of a body that has the power
of producing in a healthy person phenomena presented in
the first series of phenomena.
I have had upwards of a hundred cases of scarlatina
during the late epidemic, and when the disease presented
the phenomena correspondent to the phenomena produced
by belladonna, health was realised by the use of this
medicine.
Take another case. The homœopathic physician has a
case of Dysentery. He finds the phenomena to be similar
to those which corrosive sublimate produces, when a person
is poisoned by it; he gives the quadrillionth part of a
grain of this medicine, and he cures. Here, again, are
two sets of phenomena. He seeks the condition connect-
ing them, and finds it to be corrosive sublimate. I have
cured numerous cases of the worst forms of dysentery by
corrosive sublimate in these minute doses.
Again, the homœopathic physician is called to a case of
Strangury. The patient passes bloody urine, half a
spoonful to a spoonful, every two to three minutes, with
agonizing pain, sometimes making ineffectual, but dread-
fully painful efforts. The physician gives the millionth
part of a drop of the cantharis solution, prepared accord-
ing to the homœopathic formula, and the water passes
lx
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
freely without pain in the course of a few hours. I have
seen numerous cases of this nature-aye, I have known
such results, when the agony has been so great, that a
strong minded man has told his attendants to remove
his razors, and has begged me, on my arrival in his
chamber, to give him some narcotic to kill him. I gave
him cantharis, and cured him.
But these instances might be multiplied so as to fill a
book. I will conclude these references by the statement
of another fact.*
I used to be a martyr to sore throats, and, before
It is a common statement, " Homoeopathy may do in chronic, but
what will it do in acute cases?" An answer will be found in the cases
published; but the following statements afford the best answer. They
are to be found in WILDE's "Austria, its Literary, Scientific, and
Medical Institutions, and Guide to the Hospitals and Sanatory Establish-
ments of Vienna," a work, quotations from which are in the Lancet.
* "And although I neither advocate that doctrine, nor slander its sup-
porters, I deem it but the part of truth and justice to lay the following
statement before my readers. One of the cleanest and best regulated
hospitals in the town is managed on the homoeopathic plan. The follow-
ing circumstances led to its erection :-The rapid spread of this mode of
treatment in Austria, and the patronage it received from many noble and
influential individuals in that country, attracted the attention of the
government several years ago, who, with their characteristic jealousy of
innovation, then issued an order forbidding it to be practised. As, how-
ever, this had not the effect of suppressing it, but as it seemed rather to
gain strength from the legal disabilities under which it thus laboured, it
was determined in 1828, to test its efficacy in the military hospital of the
Josephinum. With this view, a commission was nominated, consisting
of twelve professors, all of whom, it is but fair to observe, were strenuously
opposed to the homoeopathic doctrine. Dr. Marrenzeller, a veteran homo-
opathist, and a contemporary of Hahnemann, was appointed as the physician,
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
lxi
becoming a homeopathist, had the ammonia liniment
and the flannel wrapper in continual requisition, besides
using purgatives as counter-irritants. (I knew no better
method then.) Since I have been a homoeopathist, if
I have a sore throat, I put two globules of belladonna
on my tongue, and, with nought else, I am well, in nine
cases out of ten, the next morning; the tenth sometimes
requires a globule of mercurius.
And yet, I suppose, you, my dear Sir, would tell me,
that if I go to bed with a sore throat, and rise in the
morning without one, having taken two globules of bella-
and two members of the commission always attended him during his visit,
and at the expiration of every ten days, reported the progress of the cases
under his charge. The only part of the report published is that of
Drs. Jager and Zang. It contains a very brief outline of the cases and
their treatment, and expresses the surprise of these eminent professors at
the happy issue of some of them. The commission, however, as a body,
came to the conclusion, that from results obtained from their investiga-
tions, it was impossible to declare either for or against homoeopathy.
One of the twelve, however, subsequently stated his conviction of the
efficacy of the system from these trials, and has since remained an open
adherent of it.—p. 271.
"Whatever the opponents of this system may put forward against it, I
am bound to say, and I am far from being a homoeopathic practitioner,
that the cases I saw treated by it in the Vienna hospital were fully as
acute and virulent as those which have come under my observation else-
where; and the statistics show that the mortality is much less than in the
other hospitals of that city. Knoly, the Austrian protomedicus, has pub-
lished those for 1838, which exhibit a mortality of but five or six per
cent; while three similar institutions on the allopathic plan, enumerated
before it in the same tables, show a mortality as high as from eight to
per cent.”—p. 277.
ten
lxii
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
donna on going to bed, and this not on one occasion, but
twenty, thirty, and forty occasions; and that, on the
occasions when I have trusted to nature, the attack not
being so violent, I have risen with my sore throat worse,
which then, by taking the belladonna, has been relieved in
six or eight hours, —"you have been deluded." Such
assertion would indicate a scepticism more absurd than
the grossest credulity, and would justify calling to your
mind the observation of Dugald Stewart, "Unlimited
scepticism is equally the child of imbecility as implicit
credulity."
But to conclude this lengthened letter. Its conclusion
will be the statement, and I trust the proof of that state-
ment, that
J
HOMEOPATHY WILL EXTINGUISH QUACKERY.
In medicine the thing required to expel quacks is to
make it a science; and the great basis of such estimation
being obtained for medicine in the public mind, is to
demonstrate to the public, that the physician regards and
treats each case as an individuality.
At present, such is not the prevalent belief in the public
mind, and the language of medical men has no tendency
to induce such belief.
You talk of RHEUMATISM, and of curing rheumatism ;
but there are numerous rheumatisms. There is a rheu-
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
lxiii
matism where MOTION increases the pain, and another
where motion diminishes the pain. There is a rheumatism
in which HEAT increases, and a rheumatism in which heat
diminishes the pain. There is a rheumatism in which
TOUCH aggravates, and one in which touch cases the pain.
There is a rheumatism in which EXPOSURE TO THE AIR
augments, and one in which exposure to the air diminishes
the pain. There is a rheumatism that is worse by night,
and one that is worse by day; and a third that is equally
painful by day and by night. There is, moreover, a rheu-
matism in which, on the appearance of perspiration, relief
is obtained, and there is a rheumatism to which perspira-
tion brings no relief. There is a rheumatism attended
with chilliness, and there is a rheumatism attended with.
constant heat. There is a rheumatism which is stationary
to one joint, or one side of the body, and there is one
which moves from one part to another.
All these are called rheumatisms; yet each one is dis-
tinct, requires a distinct remedy, which remedy the
homœopathist knows, having been enabled to discover, or
rather to know, by the truth of his principle guiding him
in the selection of his remedy.
p
Get the public to understand these facts-and the
same remarks apply to every genus of disease-and do
you think that we should see any remedy for rheumatism,
generic rheumatism, put forth to gull the public? All
lxiv
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
the "rheumatic pills," "lotions," "embrocations," would
be banished, because the public, knowing that no two
rheumatisms are alike in every particular, and that there-
fore no
one medicine can cure different rheumatisms,
would despise the charlatan who thus in such case would
put forth his pickpocketry.
EVERY CASE OF DISEASE IS AN INDIVIDUALITY.
Homœopathy is gradually working this truth into the
public mind, and, by so doing, is silently, but effectually,
undermining quackery.
You could never work this truth into the public mind.
You might talk till midnight about the difficulties of the
healing art-about the science required to practise it, but
in vain. The public, seeing your practice, and reading
your works, and hearing your converse, recognise at once
that it is all routine; that salts and rhubarb, iodine and
sarsaparilla, mercury and its form-blue pill, bleeding,
leeching, cupping, blistering, and mustard poultices,
purging, emetising, are the almost invariable formulæ.
The public thence infer, that diseases are treated rightly
by any one who has the boldness to bleed, to blister; they
feel that you are all alike; they see the not regular prac-
titioners use what the regular do; and as they cannot
discover that the shilling is modified by the hand that it
passes through, they mind not you, when you call your
shilling the true coin, and the other the counterfeit.
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
lxv
It is true, the language of medical men has of late years
improved. The student, when asked what he would do
in such or such a disease, is directed to reply, It would
depend upon circumstances. This is good, because such a
modification is a recognition of the individuality. But
this is of little use in resisting quackery, because he cannot
tell the circumstances, and what he would do under the
circumstances.
Thus, a student is told by his teacher, that if QUININE
does not cure the ague, to try ARSENIC. But could not
any empiric obey this advice, as well as the cleverest
student in the kingdom? Certainly; and it will be so,
until the medical student obtains a knowledge, to be
gained only by hard labour, and quick perception, and
sobered judgment, of what are the circumstances which
render quinine certainly curative of ague, and those which
render arsenic certainly curative of ague. But You
CANNOT give him this knowledge; and if you cannot, can
you expect quackery to become extinct?
is, give arsenic, if quinine does not cure.
Is not this empi-
ricism of the lowest kind? and yet you complain of
quackery. But the homœopathist can tell, by the cer-
tainty which his principle affords, which is THE ague that
bark will and arsenic will not cure, and also which is THE
ague that arsenic will and bark will not cure. He detects
the individuality of the disease; he seeks for a remedy
Your only rule
Ixvi
LETTER TO THOMAS WAKLEY, ESQ., M.P.
having an analogous individuality, and on its application
he rests his cure.
And yet you, my dear Sir, have immortalised yourself
by designating and holding forth homœopathy as a
quackery.
With best wishes,
Believe me, sincerely yours,
JOHN EPPS, M.D.
CONTENTS.
CASE I.
A PATIENT, BED-RIDDEN FOR THIRTEEN YEARS, RESTORED
TO ACTIVE USEFULNESS.
•
CASE II.
AN ABDOMINAL TUMOUR, DECLARED INCURABLE, REMOVED
BY HOMEOPATHIC MEANS.
CASE III.
A CASE, IN WHICH A FARTHING WAS SWALLOWED, AND
DISCHARGED A MONTH AND A DAY AFTER THE DATE
ON WHICH IT WAS SWALLOWED.
CASE IV.
A CASE OF COMA, APPROACHING TO AND CONSIDERED AS
APOPLEXY, TREATED WITH COMPLETE SUCCESS
CASE V.
A CASE OF HÆMATEMESIS, OR VOMITING OF BLOOD
1
14
29
36
51
HOMEOPATHY APPLIED IN PRACTICE.
CASE I.
A PATIENT, BED-RIDDEN FOR THIRTEEN YEARS, RESTORED
TO ACTIVE USEFULNESS.
MRS. THOMAS, aged 51, consulted me Sept. 21, 1842.
This patient had been confined to her bed THIRTEEN
years, at the time of the first consultation. For twelve
years, she has not been able to stand; or, more minutely
and correctly stated, has not been able to put her foot to
the ground. In her bed, further, she needed always to be
propped by three pillows, both by night and by day.
She had been, before consulting me, under the care of
upwards of ten medical practitioners. She was, about nine
years since, in Bartholomew's hospital, under Drs. Roupell
and Pardoe. Dr. Roupell said, they had tried all they
could think of, and he was much disappointed at the want
of benefit. Dr. Pardoe was even more disappointed; and
the patient was told, that the lungs were so much diseased,
B
2
that it was impossible any thing more could be done.
She was dismissed incurable.
Mr. Harvey, who attended her before she was wholly
confined, and two years after she was confined, gave her
no hope, continually expecting death to take place, and
often expressed his wonder that she remained so long.
Mr. Thomas, who attended her last, tells her, now she
has recovered, that he could not have believed, did he not
see her restoration. "It seems impossible !" "I cannot
understand it!" are his remarks.
This patient, from the state thus described, has been,
by homoeopathic remedies, restored to the ability to pursue
her business,-to walk even miles.
It is worthy of remark, that she was induced to consult
me with the view of gratifying a benevolent lady. She
had no hopes of having her condition altered; and, after
she had placed herself under homœopathic treatment, she
was urged by all others by whom she was visited, Dr.
Davy, a retired physician who occasionally called upon
her as a friend, excepted, to give up homocopathy. Dr.
Davy suggested, that as the old system had done her no
good, and could, so far as past experience of its effects testi-
fied, do her no good-she might try the new.
Some may be inclined to remark, "Perhaps the case was
'nervous.'" One answer to such an observation is, that a
"nervous" disease is a disease, and the physician ought to
be able to effect its removal, by establishing the standard
of health, from which the "nervous" disease is a deviation.
Another answer to this observation will be found in the
detail of the symptoms under which the patient laboured
3
at the time of consultation, when she placed herself under
my care: symptoms, so numerous, so distressing, as to
justify, to a certain extent, the opinions of the medical
gentlemen, both as to the hopelessness of her case, and
the wonder connected with her cure.
Symptom 1. Burning heat of body.
Symptom 2. Burning heat of chest.
Symptom 3. Flushes of heat.
Symptom 4. Burning pain at chest.
Symptom 5. Soreness of chest.
Symptom 6. Great tightness of chest.
Symptom 7. Great difficulty of breathing.
Symptom 8. Chest symptoms worse in the evening.
Symptom 9. Burning of the hands on the inside.
Symptom 10. Skin of hands dry and parched.
Symptom 11. Giddiness in head when sitting.
Symptom 11a. Occasional headache.
Symptom 12. Excessive thirst.
Symptom 13. Great fulness in bowels.
Symptom 14. Great heat, and pressure in bowels.
Symptom 15. Bowels confined.
Symptom 16. Stools in lumpy portions.
Symptom 17. Slimy matter discharged with the stools.
Symptom 18. Spasm in bowels, sometimes agonizingly
severe.
Symptom 19. Urine variable; sometimes free, some-
times in small quantities, and high
coloured.
Symptom 20. No white discharge.
B 2
4
Symptom 21. Eyes weak.
Symptom 22. Ancles swell.
Symptom 23. Ancles hot.
Symptom 24. Joints of fingers stiff.
Symptom 25. Joints of elbows stiff.
Symptom 26. Left arm painful at elbow; she cannot
lift the arm to the head.
Symptom 27. Cannot straighten the fingers.
Symptom 27a. Fingers bent.
Symptom 276. Fingers swollen at the joints.
Symptom 28. Sleeps badly.
Symptom 29. Expectorates considerably, the sputa
sometimes tinged with blood.
Symptom 30. Has great pain in the back.
Such is the detail of the then existing sufferings of
Mrs. Thomas. The following treatment was directed:-
Aconite, four globules, in four ounces of water-a sixth
part the first thing in the morning for three mornings,
then every other morning. Pulsatilla, four globules, in
four ounces of water-a sixth part at 4 p. m. for two days,
and then every other day. If the bowels should not act
in four days, then to take two globules of opium, to pro-
mote the action. I recommended her to take a tumbler
of cold water the first thing in the morning.
The four globules of aconite, and the four globules of
pulsatilla, would last nine days; and when concluded, she
was directed to repeat, but to wait a day or two occasion-
ally at the conclusion of the mixtures, made as directed,
W
5
10
November 24, 1842.-Mrs. Thomas consulted me a
second time.
She was much better. She is dressed, looks nicely,
and has been able to get, with some little assistance, across
her room.
It will be remembered that she had not put
her foot to the ground for twelve years.
Notwithstanding the improvement in her symptoms,
she is suffering from a severe hacking cough, she being
peculiarly liable to take cold, which, when affecting her,
manifests itself first in stiffness of the head, and of the
neck; by tightness, and then the chest becomes affected.
Symptom No. 1. Burning heat of body better.
Symptom No. 2. Better.
Symptom No. 3.
Symptom No. 6.
Symptom No. 7.
Symptom No. 9.
The flushes occur now principally on ex-
ertion, and are worst in the evening.
Symptom No. 4. The burning pain at the chest is
lessened.
The tightness of the chest is lessened.
The difficulty of breathing is lessened.
The burning in hands is lessened, but
becomes increased morning and
evening.
Skin much softer.
Symptom No. 10.
Symptom No. 11.
Giddiness is felt most when exerting
herself in talking; dizziness better.
Symptom No. 11a. Better.
Symptom No. 12. The thirst is less.
Symptom No. 16. The bowels act every other day.
6
Symptom No. 18. Has had only one slight attack of
spasm.
Ancles still hot.
The left elbow is painful at times.
Can bend all the fingers of the left
hand, but not of the right hand;
three fingers she can bend; but
the index finger is permanently
fixed at a right angle.
Sleeps better.
Has great pain in the back.
Symptom No. 23.
Symptom No. 26.
Symptom No. 27.
Symptom No. 28.
Symptom No. 29.
Ordered four globules of nux vomica in four ounces of
water—one fourth part for two evenings, and then every
other evening. This mixture was ordered to be repeated,
waiting after each mixture a day, or two days, or three
days, as the symptoms improved.
January 26, 1843.-Mrs. Thomas consulted me a third
time.
My patient was still further improved. She had been
down stairs into the parlour, which she had not been able
to effect before for the last thirteen years. The stairs are
steep, and yet the only inconveniences were-on descend-
ing, a little giddiness, and on ascending, a little fatigue.
She has again put on stays, a part of dress she has, for
thirteen years, been unable to wear, on account of the
tenderness not allowing her to bear the pressure.
7
Symptom No. 1. The burning heat is now the most
troublesome symptom that remains.
The heat is dry and burning.
Symptom No. 5. The soreness of chest, though trou-
blesome at times, is much better.
Symptom No. 9. The burning at the hands is still
further lessened, though trouble-
some at times.
Symptom No. 11. The giddiness, produced by talking
and sitting up, is relieved by lying
down.
Symptom No. 12. Still thirsty, tongue furred, but
cleaner at the edges.
Symptom No. 13. Has sometimes tympanitic distension
of the bowels.
Symptom No. 15. Bowels improved, though not yet
regular.
Water steadily free.
Symptom No. 19.
Symptoms No. 24,
25, 26.
She feels very bad in the night, par-
ticularly in the arms and the
hands ; the hands are hot, and
swell.
Symptom No. 30. The pain in the back is better; her
nails break.
Ordered aconite, four globules in four ounces of water—
a sixth part every eight hours, to subdue the pain; and
to be followed by sulphur, taken alternately week by week
with pulsatilla-of each four globules in four ounces of
8
water; one spoonful at 11 a. m. and one at 7 p. m. for
two days, and then alternate days.
April 19, 1843.-Mrs. Thomas consulted me a fourth
time.
She still had steadily progressed. She had been much
tried; the windy weather causing the chimney of her
room to smoke so much, that she was obliged to have
either the door or the window open, which subjected her
to severe colds; the colds being attended with sneezing and
running from the nose. I directed her to take two glo-
bules of aconite, and, four hours after, two globules of
nux vomica, dry on the tongue.
Symptom No. 1. The burning heat is better.
Symptom No. 10. The skin of the hands has become
moister.
Symptom No. 11. Giddiness felt when standing up; is
relieved by lying down.
Symptom No. 22. The ancles still swell.
Her symptoms are on the whole much better. The
swollen state of the joints of the hands, and the stiffness
of the fingers, became now the principal points of con-
sideration; and, with the view of relieving these, I ordered,
after some aconite, one drop of the third dilution of the
tinctura acris, in four ounces of water-one spoonful at
11 a. m., and one at 7 p. m., for two days, and then
every other day.
C
9
At the latter end of April, Mrs. Thomas went out for a
walk. Her feelings can be supposed, but not described.
Freedom in the open air after thirteen years confinement !
October 23, 1843.-She walked to and from her house
in Bagnigge Wells to St. Martin's Le Grand.
July, 1844.-She called on me, previous to going to
the sea-side, wishing to have some rules for her guidance.
This case establishes the power of the homeopathic
remedies used. The course of the cure renders all escape
from a recognition of this power impossible. Every thing
here was against homoeopathy, and yet homœopathy
triumphed.
"Imagination did it" will not answer for the phe-
nomena; for the record is, that the imagination was not
running in the homoeopathic direction, or if it did at all
run in that direction, it amounted only to the feeling
"to please a kind lady." Besides imagination is quick
in its effects, it is a Cæsar's veni-vidi-vici matter; the
progress here was slow, serial, and successively progres-
sive. Step was gained after step; each means worked
out what it was intended to effect.
B 3
10
"It is nature,” in the sense, in which the phrase is
used by opponents, will not answer for the phenomena
produced. And why did not nature do it before? Why
should she walk with the patient in the road to health
only when the homoeopathist attends the walking? Why
did nature not accompany the allopathic-the old-system
practitioners, who treated this patient, to the best of their
ability?
Another feature, demonstrative of the power of homo-
opathy and the radical change it worked in the consti-
tution, is the permanence of the cure. How often do we
find patients, who are dismissed from hospitals and public
institutions, as cured of the maladies for which they were.
treated, become in a few weeks' time invalided of the same;
results, showing that these cures were merely temporary
suspensions of the diseased states. This patient remains
well now, a period of nearly a year and a half; and is
able to pursue her fatiguing occupation.
It was-it is a cure.
This case has been deemed by most, who knew the
sufferer, as wonderful; by many it has been declared
miraculous (in this way does wonder speak); but-
behold the contrariety of opinion! (if that indeed can
be called opinion, which is prejudice throttling thought)
the sneerer and the interested shield themselves
against the reception of the facts of, and of the de-
ductions from, the case, by the utterance of the easily-
Pandadagda
•
11
mouthed, but hideously vulgar, when unjustifiably applied,
phrase "humbug."*
Abused or not abused, the facts stand. Certain phe-
nomena of disease were present; certain remedial means
* I have quoted this phrase advisedly. Its use by persons who
ought not to demean themselves by such language, when canvassing
the opinions and the practice of men whose talents are, if not
superior, at least equal with theirs, and whose medical education has
been, in many cases, much more extended, is to be lamented, but
not so much to be wondered at, when the following statement,
abridged from Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, (No. 32, New Series,
p. 94) is read. Drs. Gall and Spurzheim asserted in their works,
that the brain, instead of being, as commonly held, a mere pulpy
mass, is a most beautiful and complicated structure, being pervaded
by fibres of two kinds, converging and diverging-a fact now uni-
versally acknowledged. They presented, in their works, drawings
and illustrations of these fibres. Dr, Gordon of Edinburgh, a
lecturer on medical science, wrote an article in the Edinburgh
Review, (No. 49, published June 1815,) of which the following are
extracts:- It is our painful duty to remark, that the system is a
complete fiction from beginning to end. . . . Their writings have
not added one fact to the stock of our knowledge respecting either
the structure or the functions of man, but consist of such a mixture
of gross errors, extravagant absurdities, and downright misstate-
ments, as can leave no doubt, we apprehend, in the minds of honest
and intelligent men, as to the real ignorance, the real hypocrisy,
and the real empiricism of the authors.'
درد
This leading lecturer in Edinburgh had the hardihood to make
these monstrous assertions, without taking the trouble to ascertain,
by examining the brain, whether the asserted structure was a fuct:
but, further than this, when Dr. Spurzheim visited Edinburgh, and
invited him to come to a demonstration on the brain itself, of the
asserted structure, Dr. Gordon refused to be present.
Need we wonder, however much we may lament, that smaller
minds should use the phrase quoted above, in reference to homœo-
12
were used, and certain results in the aggregate called
health, follow. These facts are indubitable.
:
The homoeopathist sees these results are arrived at
after the use of means, which he is led to select in obe-
dience to an ascertained law: he has no other reason for
using these means: he does use them: he sees results
which he knew must result from means selected and em-
ployed in obedience to the law (the law itself he knowing
to be true) and he, seeing these results, to his mind,
arising of necessity, maintains without hesitation, that
here is an after-a post hoc; and that, as these result in
obedience to the law, by which the means employed before
(the a before) are regulated, he further maintains that
these results are the consequence—the propter hoc.
In fact, he sees antecedence and consequence; he sees
them invariably as connected with the use of certain means
in a given case, according to a fixed law. He has brought
before him the view of the great mental philosopher, Dr.
Thomas Brown: "Power, in short, is significant, not of any
pathy, when in reference to positive facts-facts capable of ocular
demonstration, such were the impudent assertions of the Edinburgh
Reviewer. To such little minds, if their organisation does not render
them insensible to the advice, the following remarks in Chambers,
may be recommended as worthy of attention: "What others had
ascertained by experiment and careful inquiry, he [Dr. Gordon] repu-
diated upon mere supposition. Wishing to be very philosophical,
he mistook scepticism for caution, whereas investigation alone could
have served his end. And thus, where he thought he was pillory-
ing two empirics, he has only stuck himself up as a durable
memento of the danger of over-confident disbelief."
13
thing different from the invariable antecedent itself, but of
the mere invariableness of the order of its appearance in
reference to some invariable consequent; the invariable
antecedent being denominated a cause, the invariable con-
sequent an effect;"* and he has, in the contemplation of
this view of cause and effect, the satisfaction of knowing,
that he has the power in medicine, of removing, by
practice founded upon a fixed principle, the diseases to
which humanity is subject. And if he fails, it is not
because the law, discovered by the illustrious Hahnemann,
is unsound, but because he himself has made a mistake.
in the selection of the appropriate means antecedent.
He has a power, but not the right power; but this is not
from the non-existence of the power, but from his want of
skill in the selection of the means adapted to realise the
activity of that power in the right direction. The law,
"Similia similibus curantur," is immutable, heaven-fixed;
the application requires human mind, which is fallible.
* Dr. Thomas Brown, "Philosophy of the Human Mind,"
Lecture VI., Tait's Edition, p. 35.
CASE II.
AN ABDOMINAL TUMOUR, DECLARED INCURABLE, RE-
MOVED BY HOMEOPATHIC MEANS.
THIS case cannot be introduced better than by the
following letter from the mother of the patient herself,
addressed to me. The letter is given unaltered, in order
that its peculiar character should not be lost.
(6
August, 1844.
"SIR,
"In compliance with your wish, I made an account
of my daughter's complaint as well as my memory affords
me, not having kept it in writing. The complaint first
made its appearance in the year 1825, at the age of nine
years, when she was placed under the medical care of the
Gerrard Street Dispensary for one year; during which time.
twelve doctors met to consult as to what the complaint
was, when they decided it was a tumour, and wanted to
put in an issue, which I would not consent to. They gave
her some drops to take, beginning at one drop, and in-
15
creasing it to thirty at one time, which caused the feet to
swell, and the teeth to drop out; deriving no benefit from
them, she left off attending them. They also ordered
leeches several times. After this she went to Welbeck
Street Dispensary. They decided it was a rupture, and gave
her some slate-coloured powders; but, deriving no benefit,
she left them, after attending them about six months.
After this, she went to Sir Astley Cooper, who, having
examined her, decided it was a disordered spleen. He
gave her some inward medicine, ordered leeches several
times, at one time as many as twenty-four. After this,
he ordered a plaister, which kept on about two months
without deriving any benefit. He then recommended sea
air, but not being inclined to part with her, she left him
after attending him about six months. After this, I took
her to Dr. Thomas, who did not say what it was, but
stated, that, if it were his own child, he should let her
take her chance. He gave her no medicine. From that
time she attended no doctor till 1840, when I took her to
Dr. Roe, who very coolly said, he could relieve it, but that
there was no cure for it. He ordered a blister, but did
not receive any relief from that, and did not attend him
again. After this, I paid a guinea to Mr. Liston for his
advice, who said that nothing possible could cure her, which
was very disheartening to me.
“About that time, I heard great talk of the homœopathic
system of treatment, and felt inclined to try it. So I placed
her under your superior care, who stated that it was
curable, but that it would take thirteen or fourteen months
to accomplish it; at the end of which time, she was
16
discharged as a perfect cure; and has, since that time,
felt no return of the complaint, but enjoys a perfect state
of health, which she never did before; for which, she, as
well as myself, return you our sincere thanks, for effecting
so wonderful a cure as you have, assisted by the power of
our great Creator.
"As this is the nearest account I can give, I beg leave
to remain,
"Your humble Servant,
pa
"MARY STEPHENS."
Eleanor Smith,* aged twenty-five, single, consulted me
June 29th, 1841. She has been sixteen years ill, having
suffered from the presence of an abdominal tumour.
The tumour is now of a globular character, and of a
size so considerable, that had it been equal over the abdo-
men, the first inference would have been, that she was far
advanced in pregnancy. Indeed, from the age of fourteen,
the enlargement was so apparent, that persons, passing
her in the street, have been seen and heard to express
their astonishment at so young a person being pregnant.
The symptoms she experienced, when coming under my
care, were the following:-
Symptom 1. Pain at the left side.
h
*The difference between the name of the mother of the patient,
and that of the patient herself, is explained by the fact, that Mrs.
Stephens's name is that of her second husband.
17
Symptom la. She could not lie on the right side, she
felt so heavy a weight, as it were drag-
ging from the opposite side.
Symptom 2. A movement across the chest and the
bowels.
Symptom 3. She feels worse on standing, and on walk-
ing; the pain is relieved by sitting down.
Symptom 4. She has pain in the left thigh from the
hip to the knee; the pain being so great,
as to oblige her to stand with her leg
lifted up from the ground.
A
Symptom 5. Bowels act only by medicine.
Symptom 6. An acute pain across the bowels just before
action.
Symptom 7. Her monthly period occurs once in two
months.
Symptom 8. Her feet swell.
Symptom 9. She has pimples on her face.
Symptom 10. She sweats readily on exertion.
Symptom 11. She has a peculiar yellowish, dingy com-
plexion.
Symptom 12. She continually feels tired.
Symptom 13. She has severe pains in her back.
Symptom 14. Her appetite is rapidly falling off.
pa
Symptom 11a. Her teeth are almost black from the
medicines she has taken.
Ordered crocus, three globules in eight spoonfuls of
p. m. for
water-one spoonful at 11 a. m. and one at 7
two days, and then every other day, till finished.
18
July 5th, 1841.-Consulted me again.
She was improving.
Symptom No. 4. Pain in thigh still very troublesome.
Symptom No. 5. The bowels, which used to act only
by means of purgatives, are now
regular.
Ordered iodium, three globules in eight spoonfuls of
water-one spoonful at 11 a. m. and one at 7 p. m. for
two days, then alternate days. Also crocus, three globules
dissolved as the iodium-to be taken if the pain in the
thigh continues undiminished.
July 26th, 1841.-Consulted me again.
E. S. has taken, since the last consultation, three
globules of iodium, at three distinct periods, and three
globules of crocus.
Symptom No. 3. Movement is less painful.
Has less pain down the thigh.
Bowels act daily.
Symptom No. 4.
Symptom No. 5.
Symptom No. 8.
Symptom No. 14.
The feet no longer swell.
Feels a little sickness directly after
breakfast.
Ordered to continue iodium.
August 30th, 1841.-Consulted me again.
Is improving.
Symptom No. 3. Has an internal soreness when moving.
Symptom No. 4. Pain in the thigh is lessened.
19
Symptom No. 5.
Symptom No. 7.
Symptom No. 12.
Symptom No. 13.
The bowels are regular.
Monthly period has been regular the
last two months.
She still feels tired.
Has had more pain in the back
during the last week.
Symptom No. 14. The sickness has gone.
Ordered the alternate use of baryto carbonas, and iodium,
and should the internal soreness continue, then arnica;
and, if still persisting, then aconite.
Symptom No. 3.
Symptom No. 7.
November 9th, 1841.-Consulted me again.
Is much better. The tumour, though not much dimin-
ished, has assumed a shape much more assimilated to the
natural form of the abdomen.
She can stand better.
The last monthly period was at six
months interval.
Symptom No. 9. She has many pimples about the chin,
which "come to a head and break.”
Symptom No. 11. Tint of skin is much clearer.
Symptom No. 11a. Teeth still discoloured.
Symptom No. 12. The tired feeling is better.
Symptom No. 14. Still better.
Ordered to continue the alternate use of baryta carbonas,
and iodium.
December 8th, 1811.-Consulted me again.
20
The tumour is decidedly less. It projects still a little
at the side of, and above the left groin.
Symptom No. 7. The monthly period is now quite reg-
ular as to time.
Symptom No. 9. Pimples are fewer in the face, but are
numerous on the shoulders -- the
pimples itch a little.
Symptom No. 11. The skin is much clearer.
Symptom No. 11a. The teeth are still yellow.
Ordered sulphur-three globules, to be followed by
baryto carbonas, and iodium.
January 18th, 1842.-Consulted me again.
Her form is still better. There is still a little swelling
at the left groin. The abdomen feels hard across the
navel, but there is no swelling.
Symptom No. 9. Pimples are better.
Symptom No. 11. The skin is quite clear.
Symptom No. 11a. The teeth are still yellow.
Ordered to continue sulphur, barytϾ carbonas, and
iodium.
February 23rd, 1842.-Consulted me again.
She is better in every respect.
Ordered the medicine to be taken in still smaller quan-
tities-namely, three globules in ten spoonfuls of water-
one spoonful twice a day.
Mou
A
Pr
21
The patient was, as will be seen from the past history,
steadily progressing. The tumour had progressively less-
ened.
She happened, however, to be in Regent's Park on the
broad walk, on one of the windy days in March. Her
umbrella was torn from her by the wind, and to save it
she ran, she thinks, nearly a quarter of a mile.
This brought on, as might be expected, great pain in the
side, and renewed the old malady. The pain in the back
was so severe that she could scarcely stand.
Ordered aconite and arnica.
March 21st, 1842.-I was consulted again.
Her complaint still increases. She is confined to her
bed. She has pain in her side. Experiences great tight-
ness at the side. Feels as if her inside was being dragged
down. She cannot find relief from her pain in any posi-
tion. Every time she moves she retches very much. She
is very sick. Every thing she drinks returns. She is in
an intense fever, though her teeth chatter, and she shakes
with cold.
Ordered aconite and nux vomica.
March 23rd, 1842.-I was consulted again.
Has had a dreadful night. Bowels very relaxed. Pain
in her back very severe, and the pains in the region of the
tumour, are as if she were stabbed with knives. She screams
and groans with pain. She has great tenderness of the
22
abdomen; appears sinking; believes that she cannot pos-
sibly recover. She has a bad cough.
Ordered aconite and bryonia.
March 24th, 1842.-I was consulted.
She is somewhat better; tongue is not so white. She
is less chilly.
March 25th, 1842.-Has pain still in the tumour; but
the knife-digging pains are better. Directly she moves, the
retchings and the heavings of the stomach occur with vio-
lence. The abdominal tenderness is better. The bowels
are less relaxed; several small transparent portions, like
isinglass, come from her. Cough still very troublesome,
keeping her awake.
Ordered rhus toxicodendron, and, if the retching occurs,
ipecacuanha.
March 26th, 1842.-I was consulted again.
Pain in the region of the tumour still, but less. The
heaving is not quite so bad. She feels an inward burning
after eating or drinking. The bowels have not acted for
two days. She had no rest last night. She cannot go to
sleep. The cough is better. She has taken ipecacuanha
for the retching.
Ordered ipecacuanha for to-day, and rhus for to-morrow.
23
March 28th, 1842.-I was consulted.
She was
Feels soreness at the region of the tumour.
restless all the night; feels ill all over. She has some-
times burning fever; sometimes she is chilled. She
retches still whenever she moves. The bowels acted last
night. The stool was natural. She has fallen asleep; the
perspiration literally dropped from her.
Ordered pulsatilla.
March 31st, 1842.-I was consulted again.
The soreness is almost gone. She dozes. The fever
has ceased. She still perspires. No retching, but she
feels a little sick. Has had no action of bowels since the
27th.
Here it is worthy of remark, that the patient, though
labouring under an acute and a highly dangerous disease,
becomes decidedly better, though the bowels did not act for
several days.
Ordered opium, two globules.
April 5th, 1842.-I was consulted.
Soreness very little. Sleeps. Perspires at night. Was
sick a little yesterday. No appetite.
since Friday.
Bowels not active.
Ordered nux vomica.
April 8th, 1842.-I was consulted.
No soreness. Sleeps, but not soundly. Perspiration
24
has ceased.
Sick but once.
Sick but once. Feels as if the heaving was
about to return. Bowels have acted once a day. Much
phlegm after eating; the phlegm being raised by a kind
of retching, having some resemblance to that attendant
upon the hooping-cough. She has great weakness in the
ancles and in the knees.
Ordered pulsatilla.
April 11th, 1842.-I was consulted.
Soreness gone.
which rises.
Cannot go to sleep. Has much wind,
Bowels active. Weak in legs.
Ordered lycopodium.
April 15th, 1842.-I was consulted.
Has shooting pains in the region of the tumour, pro-
ceeding to the back, and downwards. She has no fever,
but a restlessness keeps her awake. Appetite not so good.
She has had no action of the bowels for the four last days.
Ordered bryonia; and, if the bowels are not relieved,
then opium.
April 18th, 1842.-I was consulted.
Had an action of the bowels an hour after taking the
opium.
The
April 20th, 1842.-Much better on the whole.
stitches dart to the other hip. They cause her to cry out.
25
She cannot walk without taking hold of the chairs. She
staggers as if intoxicated.
Ordered pulsatilla.
April 25th, 1842.-I was consulted.
Stitches gone.
choked with phlegm.
She is still unable to walk. Almost
Ordered baryta carb.
May 2nd, 1842.-Walks a little better. The choking
with phlegm is much relieved.
Ordered baryta carb. at longer intervals; and aconite,
if any soreness should return.
May 10th, 1842.-I was consulted.
Has been purged during the last week. Had two ac-
tions of bowels this morning. She is much stronger on
her feet.
Ordered sulphur.
May 18th, 1842.-I was consulted.
The purging, after ceasing, has returned. She has not
been periodically well the last two months.
Ordered pulsatilla.
C
26
June 2nd, 1842.-I was consulted.
Purging ceased. Bowels rather confined. Has a beat-
ing at the side.
Ordered pulsatilla.
June 15th, 1842. I was consulted.
No settled pain. Has pain and tenderness, sometimes
on the one side, sometimes on the other.
Ordered sulphur.
June 30th, 1842.-I was consulted.
No pain since last consultation. The swelling seems
wholly gone. Tenderness is wholly gone.
Ordered pulsatilla-to be used occasionally.
August 18th, 1842.-My patient called. She is quite
well. The tumour is gone. The abdomen is soft at the
She looks plump, healthy, and
site of the tumour.
cheerful.
September 27th, 1844.-She called, and, after an inter-
val of upwards of two years, she has no symptom of her
old complaint. She called to thank me, and on reading
to her the statement of her case, she vouched for its cor-
rectness, and stated she will be happy to certify the same.
She holds a stall at one of our public bazaars, and
stands a great number of hours per day.
J
27
This case presents two or three points of interest.
The first is, as must be evident to all, the interesting
nature of the cure.
Here is a patient, who has been ill for years, who has
been treated, but without success, by many eminent men,
-whose case had been declared incurable, by men still
more eminent, and yet, who became well, and, what is
more, remains well-being able to engage in an active
occupation.
S
A second point of interest, is, that one medicine, used in
the homoeopathic treatment of this case with success, is
one that is frequently used in similar cases, under the
common system of treatment, and, it is not unlikely, had
been given in this case before the patient came under
homœopathic treatment; this medicine is iodine, which is
frequently used, under the common system, to remove
glandular enlargements, and which, be it remembered,
from the doses in which it is given, oftentimes renders.
glandular enlargements permanent.*
This medicine, in infinitesimal doses, is efficacious, mark-
edly so-a striking proof, not merely that infinitesimal
doses of the properly selected and properly prepared
* That this is not surmise is evident from the following fact,
which must have attracted the attention of any one with any power
of observation, who has practised the old system of medicine,
namely that after having been pleased at the benefit at first
derived from the use of a remedy, he has, at last, been grieved, not
at the mere cessation of the benefit, but at the rapid inercase of the
diseased state. He has produced a medicinal disease.
c 2
28
remedy are efficacious, but that, also, they are effectual
where the usual doses of the same medicine are not. This,
to some, extraordinary, is not at all so to the homoeopathist,
-he knowing that the process, by which the homœopathic
remedies are prepared, developes their virtues to an incon-
ceivable degree.
A third point of interest in this case is, that an acute
attack, induced by an accidental circumstance, was by
professional direction, rendered curative.
No physician is justified in inducing an acute attack ;
but it is sometimes beneficial, when, especially in young
people, such acuteness of condition supervenes, as then
results can sometimes be gained, which, without such
supervention, could not be gained.
Another fact presents itself, upon the perusal of this
case-namely, that the vulgar notion, propagated by those
who know better, that homoeopathists use only one medi-
cine, because all their medicines are colourless, is untrue.
In this case, thirteen remedies-crocus, iodium, baryto
carbonas, aconitum, arnica, sulphur, nux vomica, bryonia,
rhus toxicodendron, ipecacuanha, pulsatilla, opium, lycopodium
were used; and the reason why each was selected, under
the circumstances in which they were used, the homoeopathic
physician can explain.
29
CASE III.
A CASE, IN WHICH A FARTHING WAS SWALLOWED, AND
DISCHARGED A MONTH AND A DAY AFTER THE DATE
ON WHICH IT WAS SWALLOWED.
REBECCA BRAGG, aged two years, was brought to me
April 11, 1844, her mother being in considerable trouble
because the child had swallowed a farthing.
Castor oil had been administered to the child before she
was brought to me. She vomited blood after the farthing
was swallowed. I prescribed arnica-three globules, to be
taken during the course of the week: this was on account
of the blood.
April 18th, 1844.-She has been, and is, very sick, and
has cried when she cats, but she has cried less the last two
days; she has not vomited any blood since taking the
arnica. Her mother states that she passes, by stool, sub-
stances like flakes of white paper.
Ordered pulsatilla, three globules (for the sickness and
the peculiar stools), to be taken during the week.
30
April 25th, 1844.- The sickness very much better; she
does not cry; has passed no more portions like paper.
Her mother expressed with satisfaction, "She is much
better."
Ordered pulsatilla to be repeated, but the doses at
larger intervals.
May 4th, 1844.-She has passed the farthing; it having
been retained within her one month and a day.
The farthing which the mother, with a considerable
expression of joy, brought, was of a late coinage. Its
surface was dingy, presenting an appearance somewhat
similar to that produced by the action of fire on a metallic
body. She passed it without any apparent pain. Her
sickness is altogether gone.
This case shows how absurd is the common notion, that
such bodies must be expelled, and that forthwith, from the
intestinal canal. There can be but little doubt that most
of the injuries recorded by writers, as resulting from the
swallowing coins, are produced by the purgatives used on
such occasions; these purgatives destroying the healthy
condition of the intestinal canal, and thereby rendering
the coin injurious: not because the passing of the coin is
in itself so destructive, but because the medical practitioner
has, by his poisonous purgatives, made a diseased surface,
over which the coin has to pass; and, in addition, has per-
31
haps produced, by thus diseasing the intestinal surface, a
condition of the secreted fluids, which causes them to act
powerfully on the coin in the passage, which action the
fluids of the intestinal canal, formed when that canal is
in its usual state, would not have exerted.
The non-insertion of this case in a journal devoted pro-
fessedly to the diffusion of medical science, is the more
extraordinary, since in the number preceding that in
which this, if published, would have appeared, and also in a
number consequent, cases, relating to a similar accident, are
published.
These cases follow. They are reported here, in order
that a comparison may be instituted. The particulars are—
t
PASSAGE OF A FOREIGN BODY THROUGH THE PRIME VIE.
BY FRED. RICHARDSON, ESQ. *
..
Sunday, May 19, three, p.m.-Grace Symes, aged nine
years, swallowed a halfpenny; it occupied about half a
minute in passing the oesophagus, its passage through
which was attended with considerable pain. About two
hours afterwards, vomiting commenced, and continued
unabated until five o'clock the next day (twenty-four
hours), at which time the child suffered excruciating pain,
and I have no doubt it was then passing the pylorus; for
* Lancet, No. 11, p. 309, Vol. I. 1844.
32
from that time the pain and vomiting ceased. At five
o'clock on Tuesday (fifty hours after it had been swallowed)
it was voided with the fæces, but not without considerable
difficulty. The halfpenny is not at all altered in appear-
ance by the juices of the stomach, but the edges are
brightened by mechanical attrition in its passage."
(6 PASSAGE OF A COIN THROUGH THE PRIME VIE.
BY J. SMELLIE, ESQ. *
"A newsman, æt. 35, in showing some juggling tricks to
his companions, where he could, in part, swallow substances
and bring them up again at pleasure, in making an attempt
with a shilling, being too small to find even a temporary
residence in the oesophagus, it dropped into the stomach.
In trying his skill upon a pennypiece, he found, to his
misfortune, that it was too large; for it got down a certain
length, and became so fixed as to defy his efforts to remove
it. He was brought to me, in about ten minutes afterwards,
in a most distressed state, complaining of a sense of
strangulation, breathing only in gasps. On introducing
the probang, the coin could be readily detected lying firmly
imbedded in the oesophagus, nearly opposite to the cricoid
cartilage, occupying, at its seat, the entire diameter of the
tube, and forming a lid, as it were, to the œsophagus, and
* Lancet, No. 14, p. 413, Vol. I. 1844.
33
required some degree of steadily and carefully applied
force to displace it. Its further progress downward was
easy, till it arrived at the superior orifice of the stomach,
but it ultimately passed while in the act of swallowing
some toasted bread. It passed through the bowels in
seventeen days, producing in its progress occasional in-
sufferable costiveness, with peculiar shooting pains through
the abdomen, lasting but for the moment. The shilling
was voided on the morning of the sixteenth day, unaltered
in appearance. The penny had assumed a dusky, oxidised
look, having a most striking resemblance to depositions
produced by the electrotype. The treatment consisted
in the continued use of demulcents, with occasional purges
of castor oil. Measurement, one inch and a quarter.
"Query. Was this changed appearance of the copper the
effect of its contiguity to the silver coin during its passage
through the stomach and bowels?" [Negative is the
answer, for the same appearance was presented in the
farthing, page 30.]
The history of these two cases, compared with the
history in the case not admitted to be published, estab-
lishes this truth-that the means effectual in the case
rejected, although the signs of injury were greater in this
case than in the others, were not attended with the
inconveniences, which attended upon the treatment adopted
in the latter of the two cases admitted. In the first case
no treatment is recorded. It seems, therefore, reasonable
c 3
34
to have expected, that a means of removal, so beneficial,
as being without attendant sufferings, should have gained
a place in a journal, professing to detail all medical mat-
ters which may diminish the sufferings of the diseased;
and that the journalist should at least have left to the
readers of his journal, to judge how far they might choose
to adopt the one method or the other.
The facts too were interesting: the coin, in the case not
admitted, passed in a month and one day; in Mr.
Smellie's case, the shilling passed on the sixteenth day,
and the penny on the seventeenth day; and in Mr. Rich-
ardson's case, on the third day; so that, though the coin
was smaller, it took longer to pass through Rebecca Bragg,
and yet it produced, by this much longer delay, no additional
sufferings. This surely is a fact which has some interest.
Perhaps the journalist's journalic conscience urged as
an excuse, that the homoeopathic means had no effect,
and that had no arnica, no pulsatilla been administered,
the farthing would have passed.
For the sake of present argument, grant this. The
publication of the case would then have done good; for it
would have shown that medical men do much mischief in
their attempts to force these bodies through the intestinal
canal. It would have shown, that it is best, in these cases,
to let alone to wait.
But it is denied that the use of arnica and of pulsatilla
was without effect.
Arnica, every
Why were these medicines chosen?
homœopathic physician knows, and numerous allopathists
know also thanks to homoeopathic instruction, conveyed
35
in the very pages of the journal referred to,-that arnica
is a specific for discharge of blood, produced by contusion.
This child had vomited blood, most likely from the abrasion
produced by the passage of the farthing; after the arnica,
no blood was passed or vomited.
But she was "sick and cried," and there was "diarrhoea,
consisting of flaky substances." The homeopathic phy-
sician knows that pulsatilla is specific in such a combina-
tion of phenomena; and, of consequence, as the result
proved in the case under review, these symptoms disap-
peared under the use of pulsatilla.
It thus appears that two different remedies are chosen,
each for given ends; these remedies are exhibited-one not
known to allopathists at all, but homoeopathically used,
a medicine most invaluable; and the ends sought for are
realised. Here, surely, are antecedence and consequence;
and the causation, it is concluded, must strike the unpre-
judiced mind.
* See Lancet, Vol. II. 1840–1, page 362–366; being a paper
on Arnica Montana, as a therapeutic agent in bruises, sprains,
lacerations, corus, swellings, excessive fatigue, &c. This paper
was published by Sherwood & Co., and since its publication in the
Lancet, and its republication, the use of Arnica, which formerly
was almost wholly out of use, has so augmented, as to have given
rise to the need for the following notice :—
"The great and increasing demand for tincture of Arnica, has led
many drug merchants to vend a root which is not that of the Arnica
Montana. -British Journal of Homœopathy.
>
36
CASE IV.
A CASE OF COMA, APPROACHING TO AND CONSIDERED AS
APOPLEXY, TREATED WITH COMPLETE SUCCESS.
MR. K., aged 63, married, had for some time previous
to his attack, complained of a peculiar pain in the head,
and a sort of paralysed feeling in the right side of his
body. His son had often pressed him to consult me, but
without effect.
It is worthy of record, that Mr. K. belongs to a family
of which several have been carried off by apoplexy.
A few days previously to the attack, he told his eldest
son, that the pain in his head was so bad, that it, if con-
tinuing, must make him go out of his mind.
On the Sunday, though complaining of his head, he
attended Divine worship at Dockhead Chapel; on Monday,
in the evening, heard a scientific lecture, and, after
returning home, ate a hearty supper.
On Tuesday morning, he rose early, went to market.
His son followed, and found, on meeting his father at
market, that he could not remember whether or not he
37
had paid for the sheep he had bought. As he stood at
the market, he fell forwards, but did not fall down. His
son got him into the cart and drove home; Mr. K., on the
road homeward, often falling forwards suddenly.
.
Besides the pain in the head, on the Tuesday morning,
he complained of chilliness.
On reaching home, he was put to bed, and became
unconscious. Mr. Batchelour was called in, and the family
sent for me in the evening (Tuesday).
The following was his state:-
Comatose; permanently unconscious; eyes closed; hands
and arms lax; no stertor in the breathing; does not toss
about his arms; pulse firm and regular, but laboured;
mouth open; lies on his back immoveable.
Ordered opium, three globules at once; two more four
hours after; to be followed by rhus, two globules, if the
tongue becomes brown and cracked, but, if the face is
much flushed, by belladonna.
August 2nd, Wednesday.-Passed a tolerable night, took
the opium twice; seems somewhat less comatose, but is
slightly flushed. Passed his water unconsciously in the bed.
Mr. Batchelour, after the opium, thinking the symptoms
indicated belladonna, gave belladonna.
The tongue is covered with a thin coating of brown fur,
and is rather dry.
It was agreed, that should the tongue continue brown, and
he pass his water in bed, and the coma remains, he should
take rhus toxicodendron; otherwise to continue the opium.
38
August 3rd.—He has taken opium, two globules of the
sixth dilution.
Mr. K. remained last night in the same comatose state.
The right pupil unaffected by the light of a candle, the
left affected slightly. No stool since this seizure; passes
his water unconsciously; has perspired very heavily ;
about five a. m. the perspiration was profuse, and was
continued till about eight p. m., (when I saw him) though
less profuse. He has a fidgetty itching about his nose,
twitching it with his fingers. He can put either hand to
his nose.
He swallows. He moves his legs. He has
had but one interval of consciousness, and that was (if
it was consciousness) indicated by uttering the phrase
"happy," in reply to some question of his daughter. No
convulsion. He expectorated something this afternoon
into his mouth, but his daughter had to wipe it off his
tongue. He yawns at times, and hiccups after swallowing.
The flush on his check was purple; now it is florid, and
the check is hotter than natural. His tongue has now a
whiter tint, being less brown than it was.
While waiting below (Dr. Cronin was paying a friendly
visit to the patient), Mr. K. spoke to his wife in answer to
some question. I went up stairs, and was pleased to find,
that though again comatose, he, in swallowing some fluid
put into his mouth, mouthed it-that is, used active muscular
power in the swallowing it. This indicated progress, as
he had not exhibited this muscular action before.
I warned his family not to try to induce him to speak;
that their desire to hear him speak must not on any
account induce them to rouse him; that if they did try to
39
(C
rouse him, even to get one word," the curative process
would be arrested, since the attempt to speak must be
attended with a forced exercise of brain, which, in its
state, must be injurious.
It was agreed to give aconite, to be followed by arnica,
if the flush was not lessened by the aconite.
August 4th.-Improvement proceeds. He slept better
last night; has several times opened his eyes; is more con-
scious; is able to give a rational answer. The heat is
less. He has taken the aconite. He moves his limbs,
endeavours to turn, which he was unable even to attempt.
The movements are natural, though he is unconscious of
them.
Ordered aconite at night, and rhus in the morning.
August 5th.-Received a letter from Mr. Batchelour, in
which he writes, "I cannot express to you how gratified I
am in writing that our patient is so much better. An
extraordinary and sudden change for the better has taken
place. He became conscious; but fancied himself from
home."
The directions respecting conversation were recalled.
to the family's attention.
August 7th, morning.-Is more lively and sensible, but
still imagines himself from home.
A son from Bath, who had been sent for to see his
father, before death, reached home. With him Mr. K.
40
talked much, and also with friends, who called in to see
the (to them) wonderful restoration! O, that (thus used)
destructive curiosity!
The consequence was as might be expected.
August 7th, evening.-Very low and exhausted. Tongue
brown in the middle, but moist at the edges; the coma.
has returned with increased power; breathing very faint.
August 8th.—Mr. K. has free action of the limbs,
though unconscious; expectorates.
Ten a. m.-Pulse good; tongue improved; has slept
naturally; has had a stool; has passed urine; dozed from
eleven to two p. m. Then passed urine; all the afternoon
remained tolerably quiet in a doze; excepting a slight
twitching movement and a picking of the bedclothes.
Perspirations.
Took belladonna.
Nine p. m.-The twitchings have diminished; still
comatosc; at nine p. m., he roused a little; spoke; moved
his hands and arms up and down; passed urine uncon-
sciously; breathing very faint; expels wind upwards and
downwards; exhaustion excessive. Seems as if he must
sink; legs extended; head buried in the pillow.
Midnight.--Cold perspirations. Gave rhus, and bathed.
his face and rubbed his nose with rhus tincture of the
first dilution; was much revived; spoke distinctly; ap-
peared conscious for a short interval; became comatose
41
again, the coma having a character more like natural
sleep; remained so till six on Thursday morning (August
10th), when he roused; spoke distinctly and sensibly;
eyes looked well; pulse good; tongue improved; head
more raised on the pillow; asked for drink; continued
awake an hour, then slept; remained sleeping till eleven,
when he roused, took some milk and water, and slumbered
till twelve; after which, he roused again, and moved his
hands about.
Awake some time in the afternoon. At four p. m. took
gruel, swallowed it with ease; went to sleep at five p. m.;
breathing varies; sometimes snoring, sometimes breathing
faintly. At eight p. m. breathing exceedingly faint; he
picks the bedclothes; moves his hands. At half-past
eight roused a little; took gruel; opened his eyes, looked
around, then fell off into an easy and natural slumber.
At half-past ten took gruel with apparent satisfaction.
August 11th, thrce in the morning.-Restless move-
ments; breathing faint; convulsive twitchings in left arm.
Half-past six took grucl. Five p. m., very low, gave rhus.
Six a. m., breathing more regular, but very low Eight
a. m. seemed fast sinking; hands quite cold; cold perspira-
tions, muscles of mouth convulsed. Gave phos ac.; had a
wonderful effect. At one p. m. appeared very rational;
wanted to get out of bed to pass urine; spoke quite sen-
sibly. Turned on his side twice; his usual position during
the coma was flat on his back; slept comfortably, rousing
occasionally. Five p. m., on waking wished to get out of
42
bed; moved about for the purpose of so doing; fancies
himself away from home. He says he thinks a good
strong cup of tea would do him good; expectorates fre-
quently; took with great enjoyment a cup of cocoa; yawns
occasionally; thinks he shall have gout, because he has a
pain in his great toe. Got him out of bed; bore the fatigue.
very well. When in bed again, he experienced a great
inclination for the bed-pan; attempted to get out of bed;
was very restless and fidgetty; went to sleep for about an
hour; woke and soon after had a stool and passed water,
of both which he seemed fully conscious. He has still a
strong desire to get out of bed; has frequent stoppages of
breath.
August 12th.-Last night, after the consultation, Mr.
K. went into a heavy sleep till two a. m., he then became
restless, and continued so for two hours; opened his eyes
and appeared conscious of pain and uneasiness of posture;
relished a cup of grucl; kept awake till ten; took medi-
cines; slept; roused at a quarter to one o'clock, waved his
hands very much. At half-past two recovered his senses
sufficiently far as to recognise his daughter, asked her how
she was, and attempted to embrace her. He still passes hist
water in bed. Ic afterwards became, as before, uncon-
scious; and at eight p. m. he had cold perspirations. At
half-past nine, he became very faint; swallowed a cup
gruel, sighed and said, "Oh dear me"; indicated, by a
movement of his hands, that he felt uncomfortable from
the wet things under him; and, when the attendants were
of
43
removing them, he seemed to raise his back, as if conscious
of their removal. The cold perspirations now ceased;
the natural warmth had returned to the skin.
Agreed to give baryta acetas.
August 13th, twenty minutes past one a. m.—Took
baryta acetas, which he swallowed, though still comatose;
has taken gruel several times; quarter past three a. m.,
took a globule of baryta acetas; quarter past four a. m.,
awoke, and raised his head and put his hand under his head;
had strong hiccups. Eight a. m., awake for some time;
is quite conscious of his family coming into the room;
asked his daughter how she was; would hold his daughter
by the hand; took medicine quarter before eight. I saw
him at six p. m., his face was reddened; but the colour
gives on pressure; pulse weaker, but not quick with the
weakness; water passed involuntarily; no stool for three
days; eyes more sensitive to light, and he is evidently
much more affected by external impressions. The stoppage
of the breath is much less frequent to-day.
Agreed to give opium, if the bowels confined, the stupor
increasing and the breathing worse; but, if the redness
and the heat increase, then aconite; but, if with the redness
and the heat, there is swelling, then arnica, alternately with
aconite, waiting six hours between the doses of aconite and
arnica.
August 14.-Had a good night; gave no further medi-
cine last night. Remained perfectly calm through the
same
44
greater part of the night. Awoke this morning more
sensible; asked the hour; took gruel twice during the
night; recognised Mr. Batchelour, and asked "what
news"? The tongue, which, last night, was covered with
a white fur, is now less covered. Has passed his water in
bed; bowels inactive for five days. Repeat his medicine ;
if the bowels are troublesome, then an injection of three-
quarters of a pint of warm water.
In the evening Mr. K. had a relapse; he became hot,
feverish, drowsy. Aconite was given, one globule of the
sixth dilution. Right check is puffed, and the minute
vessels appear enlarged; aconite and arnica alternately
he
every four hours. He took arnica at twelve p. m.
roused up after this, and appeared quite rational; passed
urine twice in bed, though not asleep; slept till two a. m.;
then took aconite; awake for two hours; pulled at the bed-
curtains; turned the clothes down from him. He was
sensible of the removal of the wet bedclothes; he was
sensible to noise, hearing and referring to some cats cater-
wauling; awoke at a quarter past five; took the arnica;
spoke several times, and desired to get up; slept again,
and awoke at nine; fancies himself in Scotland; (his
daughter had been to Scotland a short time before his
illness). Aconite at half-past nine. More sensible; pupils
acted upon by light; pulse good; no stupor at present;
bowels not open; asked for urinarial several times, and passed
water freely. Quarter to eight p. m. I saw him, his mouth
more closed than it had been; his eyelids more firmly
closed; breathing comfortable; free of fever; skin cool and
comfortable; no perspiration.
Jang
45
Continue arnica, at longer intervals.
August 16th.-Improving, no stupor, no fever; wanders
slightly; tongue has its skin peeling off; the back is ulcer-
ated from lying.
Arnica internally, and arnica poultice externally on the
back.
August 17th.-Saw Mr. K. at eight p. m. He awoke
from a comfortable slumber, and recognised me. Cool,
comfortable. He had a stool at five o'clock, which passed
without much difficulty; little blood; the eyes act com-
fortably with the light; his tongue is white, coated on one
side.
Continue arnica.
August 18th.-Has been restless; wishing to get out
of bed; talked strangely about people cutting him up; not
rational; has no fever; pupils dilated; tongue white ;
sensible as to passing his water. The principal incon-
venience is a restlessness in lying. He sat up half an
hour yesterday.
Ordered stramonium, two globules at 11 forenoon. He
became more sensible in the evening.
August 19th.-Rose at ten. Remained up till eight.
Wandered in mind very much; talks about being made a
catholic; exhibited towards night signs of jealousy; very
46
musical in the afternoon; fell in the afternoon from the
sofa, which did not seem to affect him. Slept last night
from ten to twelve; after which he became restless, turned
about very much, and was feverish.
Ordered aconite.
August 20th.-Skin cool; wanders still; tongue white;
pupils dilated; wished for some rum and water and roast.
He says he thinks his intellects are injured. "I don't
know, but find it so," was his remark.
In the afternoon he had a motion; reached the front
room; walked stronger; sat by the window; recognised
his neighbours; appeared much affected, and said he was
thankful to get home once more. He appeared much
more sensible, during the time he sat up; made several
rational remarks; referring to the catholics and to the
nuns only occasionally. He went to bed at eight p. m.,
was left for a few minutes, and was attempting to get up,
being very anxious to know everything that was going on.
Ordered stramonium for two days, to be followed the
day after by aconite.
August 21st.-Better; he has wandered much the last
two days, but this morning he is more rational, though at
times not seeming to know where he is, or what he is
*Of the passing of this he was partially unconscious. He was
unconscious of the exhibition of the enema of warm water, which
had been administered.
47
about; he has become rather jealous; bowels have been
acted on; he has passed his water, asking for the urinarial
more rationally than for some time.
Has a gouty-like swelling on the right toe; to this he
has been subject; this swelling causes him a little pain.
Ordered aconite and pulsatilla; if jealousy continues,
hyoscyamus.
October 18th. The patient now recovered; and at the
present date, June 22nd, 1844, is perfectly well, pursuing
his business, and looking better than even before his
illness.
.
Such, then, is the history of this case. The minuteness
of detail will be useful, as developing the grounds upon
which, in similar cases, hope of a favourable termination
may be founded. The minuteness will also show the
gradual progress of the return from a diseased to a natural
state-from a suspension of power to a freedom from that
state of suspension.
Another point of interest connected with this case, is,
that the symptom-namely, stoppage of the breath, the
phenomenon which so frequently precedes death in these
cases, was overcome. It is now understood that the causes
of violent or sudden death are referrible to the causes
acting either in "directly depressing or suspending the vital
action of the organs of circulation, or in their obstructing
the arterialization of the blood, and thereby arresting the
circulation of the lungs. The second condition is brought
48
about by injury to the nervous system, arresting respira-
tion by causing insensibility—that is, producing death by
coma, beginning at the brain." *
In other words, death is caused by the circulation being
arrested by the cause, acting on the brain, producing the
arrest of the circulation at the lungs. If, therefore, the
respiration becomes affected, as it did in this case, the
danger accumulates. Yet, notwithstanding this, success
attended the treatment.
The developement of a species of insanity at the con-
clusion of the comatose state presents a matter of much
interest.
The mind has, as it were, been suspended in its activi-
ties; it gradually is restored to its power, as yet lost; and,
in its restoration, shows a predominant activity of some
organs, the predominance causing a kind of insanity. It
is, in reference to the mind, what the first movements of a
paralysed limb are to the usual movements of a healthy
limb.
It will show also the necessity of constant attention in
these cases. Had not the patient taken the rhus on one
occasion, and the phosphoric acid on the other, his life
would, according to all fair probabilities, have ceased.
;
This history will further show, that this diseased state
can be removed without blistering and bleeding in fact,
there is good reason to believe, that blistering, and bleed-
ing, and purging, suspend, by diverting the life power from
* Alison's Outline of Pathology, Chap. I. page 3.
49
its curative direction and action necessary to restoration ;
or, if not, cause palsy or mental imbecility.
This case evidently was one very little likely to be
attended with success. The advanced age of the patient-
sixty-three; the belonging to a family, members of which
had died of apoplexy; the relapses the patient experienced—
all constituted difficulties, which, homeopathy having sur-
mounted, testify to the power of the remedial means,
regulated in use by its principle.
The family of my patient was literally besieged by
friends, who almost insisted on homoeopathy being dis-
missed, insinuating, that the family would have to regret
their obstinacy, as the cause of their father's death. Even
the clerical friend, not content with being received with
respect, as spiritual prescriber, disgracefully and imperti-
nently took advantage of the inquisition which his office
induced him to assume, to point out (no doubt from a strong
sense of duty!) a better medical method.
But all was of no avail; members of the family * had
been saved by homoeopathy, from diseases which had been,
by allopathic means, ineffectually treated, and they refused
* The following letter is a reply to a note to know the exact
age of my patient :-
"Dr. Erps.-Dear Sir,
"I answer yours of yesterday. I have to inform you
that my dear father was in his sixty-fourth year, and he was taken
ill on the 1st of August, 1843. I am thankful to say, he continues
in the possession of good health and reason.
66
'I am greatly obliged for the interesting account of Mrs. Thomas,
and trust the truth as it is in homoeopathy may go on 'conquering
D
JorM
50
any other advice; and the father lives to fill his place in
the old arm chair, still to call forth the kind sympathies.
of home, and to constitute one main link in the chain
of domestic willinghood.
[It is my duty to state that to Mr., now Dr. Batchelour's
careful watching, the successful result in this case is,
indeed, much to be ascribed.]
and to conquer.' Myself, as an individual, and our family col-
lectively, have great reason for thankfulness that ever such a
glorious system should be in practice.
"My dear parents join me in kind regards, and believe me, dear
Sir, yours in respect and esteem,
M. A. K."
October 26th, 1844.
Maou
51
CASE V.
A CASE OF HÆMATEMESIS, OR VOMITING OF BLOOD.
MRS. WAITE, aged 23, married only a fortnight. I
was requested on Saturday, July 15, 1843, by the mother
of this patient, to visit her daughter, whom she represented
as in a most dangerous state, and rapidly becoming worse.
I learned, that, on the previous Monday, the patient, to
outward appearance, was very well, but in the afternoon of
that day was seized with giddiness and faintness, fell, and
was found lying on the floor. This was followed by the
vomiting of a large quantity of blood, which continued
daily more or less, decreasing a little till Friday, when
(she having had some powerful purgative medicine admin-
istered by her medical attendant) it increased, and on the
Saturday, the day I was consulted, still increased. Such
was the state, indeed, that the surgeon in attendance said
if another vomiting took place the result must be fatal.
When I arrived, which was about a quarter past one,
p. m., I found the patient lying on the bed with white
cheeks, white lips, white blanched fingers, with a swollen
transparency about them, eyes half closed, pulse rapid,
and weak, excessive anxiety of countenance, the tongue
Sal
52
blanched, but with a tint indicative of approaching typhus,
the teeth encrusted with a sordes, cold sweats often
breaking out, and she herself excessively thirsty. Besides
these symptoms there was the peculiar restlessness, so
striking m these cases, causing her constantly, so far as
her weakness would allow her, to change her position.
Her mother stated further, that the patient experiences
continual pain round the waist, this becoming violent
before she vomits, the pain being after the vomiting for a
short time relieved. Her appetite was gone; her bowels
had been very violently acted upon by the medicines ad-
ministered to her before I saw her; the motions were black
and knotty; her water passes regularly; her last monthly
period was natural. I satisfied myself that she had had
no blow, no extra exertion. I ascertained, also, that she
had had pain round the waist for eight or nine weeks
before she was married, and also a pain at the heart, the
latter continuing after her marriage.
I gave the patient at once three globules of aconite, in
a wineglass of water, and ordered the following:-
Arsenic, four globules, in four ounces of water—the
fourth part to be taken immediately, and the dose to be
repeated every fourth hour.
I left with the patient three globules of veratrum, to be
given in case she fainted away.
Sunday morning, July 16th. The patient vomited some
blood soon after I left her yesterday. She took the
M
53
arsenicum mixture; slept in the beginning of the night,
but, after waking, became restless, and has so continued
ever since. She has not passed any water since I saw
her yesterday. Her paleness is, of the two, rather worse,
and her appearance (to her mother) was worse than it was
yesterday; her bowels have not acted. She has not com-
plained of the pain round the waist and upper part of the
bowels. She fainted yesterday, and the veratrum globules
were administered. She feels, to use her own words,
"heart-sick;" retches very much, but brings up nothing;
she wishes to die.
Ordered, for the continual retching, ipecacuanha, four
globules, in four ounces of water-a spoonful for each
dose. The dose she was ordered to take after each violent
retching.
On Sunday night, at ten, p.m., her husband came in
great anxiety, wishing me to visit his wife immediately, as
they all expected she was dying. On arrival I found that,
though the previously existing symptoms existed, still
they were not augmented to the degree that by this time.
they must have been if she were really worse; I therefore
gave hope.
Gave three spoonfuls of her ipecacuanha mixture and
left, in case the exhaustion should increase, three globules
of china (cinchona) to take; otherwise to continue the
ipecacuanha mixture.
54
Monday, July 17th.-She was restless all through the
night, till the morning. At four in the morning her
nother administered the three globules of china. She
then fell asleep, and slept better since that hour than she
has since Friday. She took a cup of cocoa and some
barley-water, and both remained on the stomach. She
has not vomited since the arsenicum on Saturday. She
camplained last night of pain in her head, and wandered
much; her eyes not closed when asleep. She is now hot
and thirsty; her forehead also is hot; the retchings have
diminished; her bowels have not acted; she is restless
when awake.
Ordered aconite, four globules, in four ounces of water.
Ft. mist., No. 1.
Ordered nucis vomica, four globules, in four ounces of
water. Ft. mist., No. 2.
I directed that she should take a fourth part of No. 1
mixture at once; wait four hours, then take a fourth part
of No. 2; wait six hours, and then repeat as before.
July 18th.-Slept still better last night; was not awake
more than an hour, from twelve to six; her eyes more
closed in sleep; she seems still inclined to vomit, but to-
day it is rather heaving; water passes freely; bowels not
opened; she complains of a pain in her stomach and of a
fullness. Her hands burned last night, and this evening
she is a little feverish. To-day she is decidedly better;
her lips are less blanched. She is, however, more sleepy
to-day.
55
Ordered three globules of opium, to be taken if the
bowels remained confined and the restlessness increased,
and the eyes half closed, and the tongue should become
brown, and the sleep comatose. If all these symptoms do
not appear, then to continue the aconite and nux vomica
mixtures.
July 20th.-Slept well for four hours last night, and
slept with her eyes closed; has had very little retching;
tongue not so black; thirst less. She has not as yet eaten
anything, but expressed a wish for some stewed cels.
Her bowels still inactive, though she has felt a desire this
morning to relieve them, but without effect; water clear;
still pain and a sense of fullness about the stomach, and
she cannot bear pressure at the pit of her stomach; she
has complained, also, of a severe pain in her back; her
temper is peevish; her restlessness, when awake, is much
lessened; her lips begin to assume a shade of redness;
hands less hot. Has taken some becf-tea. She did not
take the opium globules.
Ordered an aconite and a pulsatilla mixture, four globules
in each; and ordered a bread-poultice, on which twenty
drops of the tincture of pulsatilla, of the first dilution, were
dropped, to be applied to the pit of the stomach, and
directed, that, should the bowels not act the next day, she
might have an injection of warm water.
July 22nd. Her improvement is great; all her family
and friends are astonished; she sleeps well; lips are more
56
natural; tongue less black; ate a boiled sole yesterday;
bowels still inactive, though she has had two injections.
She has a little pain in the head, and more pains and
rumblings in her bowels; the pain in the stomach is gone.
Ordered four globules of cocculus-one globule every
eight hours, in a wineglass of water, for the inaction of
the bowels, the rumblings, and the pain.
July 23rd.-Bowels inactive still; complains of her
head; slept well last night, and awoke quite sensible; her
colour is returning. She complains of pain in her stomach
and bowels, and there is some soreness on pressure.
Ordered to continue the cocculus till three, p. m., when,
if her pains were not better, one globule of aconite, and
four hours after, one globule of nux vomica.
July 24th.-Head better; she is stronger; eats heartily ;
took some mutton yesterday; bowels still inactive; about
four, p. m., felt a wish to relieve the bowels but with no
effect; she has severe pain in her back, and some tender-
ness about the bowels; water free and clear; slept well
last night, but had during sleep one of her eyes open; she
has still a little day-restlessness.
Ordered one globule of opium in a wineglass of water,
every eight hours, for the inaction of the bowels and the
sleeping with the one eye open.
July 25th.-Slept well last night and with the eye
57
closed. After taking three doses of the opium her bowels.
were freely open: the stools black and offensive; lips are
regaining rapidly their natural colour; the fingers have
still a marbly hue.
Ordered a globule of opium once a day.
July 31st. The patient is able to sit up, and to walk
about the room without assistance; she eats heartily, but
sometimes brings up her food; the bowels have been con-
fined since the 28th; water clear. The monthly period
has not appeared; she has pain in the back of the head
and great soreness there,-of these she continually com-
plains.
S
B
G
Ordered pulsatilla, one globule, in two spoonfuls of
water-one spoonful twice a day.
August 8th. She paid me a visit; she had been at
"public worship" on the Sunday. The back of the head
is painful when she lies down, and the pain has kept her
awake the last two nights. Her food agrees; appetite.
good; food remains quiet; bowels tolerably regular. The
soreness of the back of the head she ascribes to the fall at
the commencement of her illness.
Ordered arnica, and my patient became well.
This case presents several interesting features.
The first is the inactivity of the bowels. The bowels did
not act for ten days, and yet, notwithstanding this inaction,
58
the patient became steadily better. I am quite satisfied
that this inaction of the bowels was an essential to the
cure; and, further, that, had this patient's bowels been
forced open by purgative medicine, hæmorrhage would
have recurred, and death must have been the sequel.
A second feature of interest is the evidence afforded in
the effect produced by the opium on the bowels, of the
power of opium in removing inaction of the bowels in
certain conditions.
[I may add here, that I have cured the most obstinate
constipations by opium, in infinitesimal doses; but let it
not be supposed, in proffering this statement, that I assert
that opium is the cure for constipation generally. Opium
will cure the constipation, which is attended with symptoms
to which it is homœopathic—that is, to that with symp-
toms like those which the opium has the power of producing
in a healthy person. Those, therefore, who think to cure
constipation by the use of opium without first ascertaining
whether the concomitant symptoms are similar to those
produced by the operation of opium, will be themselves
deceived, and will injure their patients.]
Such, then, was the homeopathic treatment of this case
of hæmatemesis: a cure was obtained. Cases of hæmate-
mesis have recovered under the old system of treatment;
but the question for the public to decide is whether the
means in the one method are to be preferred to those
cmployed in the other, and whether treatment, founded upon
an empirical basis, as is the old practice, is so worthy of
59
trust as is practice, founded on a scientific basis--that is,
the basis of a fixed principle, as is the homoeopathic practice.
To enable a conclusion to be come to on this point in
reference to this particular malady, the following case,
extracted from the Lancet, treated at the University Col-
lege Hospital, being very well and minutely drawn up, is
here presented to the view.
A CASE OF HÆMATEMESIS.
JOHN SINCLAIR HART, aged 48, was admitted under
Dr. Taylor on August 24, 1841. He is a married man,
of moderate conformation, dark hair, sallow complexion,
and deeply marked by the small-pox; a cabinet-maker by
trade, of very temperate and sober habits, and has gen-
erally enjoyed good health. He has occasionally, however,
suffered from disordered liver, but never had jaundice;
the attacks were generally accompanied by severe pain in
the right hypochondrium shooting towards the corres-
ponding shoulder, increased by pressure over the region
of the liver, and by a full inspiration; he has a slight
cough, with not much expectoration, nor much disorder of
the stomach; says he gets very sallow at these times, and
is unable to lie on his left side, on account of a dragging
pain in the right side. This does not exist except during
the attacks: the first attack he had was in 1815, the last
in 1840; cannot attribute them to any particular cause;
had been out of work for seventeen weeks previous to the
present attack, and in consequence had been unable to obtain
60
sufficiently nourishing food; had animal food never more
than once a week; he had been working unusually hard
during the last week, and frequently had to lift very heavy
weights; he had not been drinking, and was previously in
good health. On Friday afternoon whilst at work, he
suddenly felt very faint and giddy, with the sensation of a
great weight and oppression at the stomach, pain at the
epigastrium, and tenderness over the abdomen. These
symptoms continued, but he remained at his work for two
hours and a half, still feeling very unwell; he then went
home, but felt no difference, and at the end of two hours
the faintness amounted to complete nausea, and he vomited
half a pint of dark coagulated blood unmixed with alimentary
matter, and not at all frothy. After vomiting he felt some-
what better of the faintness, but the pain and weight at
epigastrium continued even more severe; he slept soundly
during the night; and next morning, though still feeling
very unwell, he went to work, and continued there all day;
he took his dinner and a pint of ale with some relish, but
soon afterwards experienced a great increase of the pain
and weight at his epigastrium, and he now began to have
pain and tenderness on pressure in the right hypo-
chondrium; he applied to a druggist, who gave him some
medicine, which did him no good. Next day (Sunday) he
took some ginger and rhubarb, and afterwards some
castor-oil; the latter opened his bowels, and brought away
a considerable quantity of solid, very dark coloured fæcal
matter: the faintness had now quite left him, and he
observed to-day for the first time that he had become very
sallow, not having been so previous to the attack.
61
On the Monday the pain and sensation of weight at the
epigastrium continued very severe, and the pain extended
thence towards the left shoulder; he had also pain and
tenderness in the right hypochondrium, but no pain in the
corresponding shoulder. The soreness over the whole upper
part of the abdomen was so great that he could not bear to
have his trowsers buttoned; he also felt to-day, for the first
time, severe pain of a dull, heavy character in his forehead;
he took no medicine, but passed a considerable quantity of
dark matter by stool, which was of a less solid consistence
than yesterday, and in the evening assumed more the
colour and consistence of tar. He was admitted to-day,
Tuesday, at noon, into the hospital.
Present Symptoms. On admission he seemed very
languid and weak, complained of alternate chills and
flushings, acute pain in the right hypochondrium, much
increased on pressure, and when he lies on his left side he
complains of pain and a dragging sensation on the right;
he also complains of headache, sensation of weight and pain
at the epigastrium, the latter shooting towards the left
shoulder: the pain at the epigastrium is not incrca. d after
taking food (which, however, is followed by a sense of
weight), and not increased by hot drinks; he says that he
has also pain between the scapula, that he is giddy and
faint, but has had no return of the vomiting since Friday
night; he has no cough nor expectoration; no preter-
natural heat of skin; the face is sallow and yellow, but
the whites of the eyes are not affected; pulse eighty-six,
tolerably full; tongue furred; complains of thirst; bowels
not opened to-day; urine tolerably abundant, but high-
*
dak
62
coloured, and depositing a sediment. On examination by
percussion, the liver was found to project considerably
below the margins of the ribs.
August 25th.-To be cupped in the right hypochondrium
near to the epigastrium to twelve ounces. Five grains of
blue pill to be taken twice a-day, and half an ounce of
castor-oil occasionally.
August 26th.-Pain and tenderness in the epigastrium
and right hypochondrium; much relieved by the cupping;
he still complains of the giddiness and frontal headache,
and also of ringing in his cars; he slept well during the
night; bowels open; the motions have an offensive odour;
the yellow tinge of his countenance is rather increased;
pulse ninety-four, small; there is a loud bellows-murmur
with the first sound of the heart; heard best between the
cartilages of the third and fourth ribs on the left side; it is
also audible at the apex and in the neck: there is in addi-
tion a loud, continuous bruit de diable heard in the neck.
C
August 28th.-Feet and ancles rather oedematous and
pit on pressure; he can now bear firm pressure in the
region of the liver, but still complains much of the pain in
his left shoulder; countenance very pale, and less sallow
than at last report; mucous membrane of mouth very pale;
headache much less, but he is still very giddy.
August 31st.-Improving; stools of a lighter colour,
but not yet of their natural hue; his mouth is sore from
the pills, which were ordered to be omitted.
63
September 2nd. Still continues to improve, but remains
very pale and sallow; less headache and giddiness; no pain
in the region of the liver; bowels open; stools natural;
appetite better.
September 3rd.-To have half an ounce of castor-oil
directly.
September 4th.-The headache and giddiness are much
less, but he is still very pale and sallow; the symptoms of
hepatitis and meloena are gone, and little but an anomic
state of the system appears to remain; the bellows-murmur
with the first sound of the heart is still heard at the base
and in the neek, but less loudly in the latter situation ;
pulse seventy-six, soft.
To have ten minims of the tincture of sesqui-chloride of
iron in an ounce and a half of camphor mixture three times
a-day.
September 8th.-Better; increase the dose of iron to
fifteen minims.
September 9th.-Take twenty minim doses of the iron.
September 11th.-Much improved, but still complains
of great weakness; appetite improving; bowels open;
tongue clean.
September 15th.-Better, stronger; appetite improving;
complains very much of palpitation, but the bellows-mur-
mur with the first sound of the heart is much diminished,
64
but still heard at the base; colour of countenance still
sallow, but less so.
September 17th.-Improving. Take twenty-five minim
doses of the iron.
September 20th.-Strength improving every day; still
a yellow tinge in his countenance, which is pale; no
oedema of the feet and legs for some days past.
Take thirty minim doses of the iron.
September 21st.Urine clear, pale, sufficiently abun-
dant, and not altered by the addition of nitric acid.
September 24th.--Feels much stronger; more colour in
his face and lips; palpitation much less troublesome; a
loud murmur is still heard with the first sound of the
heart; also the continuous murmur in the neck; appetite
good; bowels open.
September 28th.-Still continues to improve slowly,
but steadily; less sallowness of the face, which, with the
lips, is still much blanched, but they are gradually ac-
quiring more colour; the palpitation is still troublesome
occasionally, but not so much nor so frequently; the
bellows-murmur with the first sound of the heart and the
continuous murmur in the neck are still heard distinctly ;
he has had no return of the oedema of the feet, and he is
gaining flesh and strength; bowels regular; appetite very
good; pulse eighty; stools dark coloured.
65
October 1st.-Improving.
October 4th. Complains of a little pain and griping
after taking the draught, which he says does not taste of
camphor as formerly.
Ordered to be remade with camphor mixture.
October 5th.-Better; medicine does not cause any
uneasiness now.
To have thirty minims of the iron for a dose.
October 6th.-Increase the dose of iron to thirty-five
minims.
October 11th.-Murmur with first sound of the heart
very slight; continuous murmur in the neck not heard
to-day; the liver cannot be felt below the margins of the
ribs, except in the epigastrium, where there is also dulness
on percussion.
October 20th.-Went on steadily improving till to-day.
Discharged, cured.
Such is the history of this case treated under the old
system. It will be well, in order to judge of the merits of
the two methods, to compare the symptoms of the two
cases, and the remedies used.
SYMPTOMS.
Mrs. WAITE.
1. Giddiness and faintness.
Mrs. W. fell, and was found
lying on the floor.
JOHN SINCLAIR HART.
1. Very faint and giddy.
J. S. H. remained at his work
two hours and a half, and
went to work the day after.
66
SYMPTOMS.
2. Vomited a large quantity of
blood.
Vomited each day from Mon-
day till Friday, getting less
toward that day, when it was
again brought on by the surgeon
giving a powerful purgative,
and got worse to Saturday.
3. Stools black and knotty.
4. Continual pain round the
waist. Pain and fullness at
stomach.
5. Cannot bear pressure at the
pit of her stomach. Tender-
ness about the bowels.
6. Severe pain in her back.
7. White cheeks and white lips.
9. Tongue blanched.
10.) White blanched fingers,
11. Swollen, semi-transparent.
12. Teeth encrusted with a sordes.
13. Cold sweats.
14. Excessively thirsty.
15. Appetite gone.
16. Excessively restless.
17. Pulse rapid and weak.
18. Pain at heart.
19. Retches very much.
20. Wishes to die.
(Continued.)
2. Vomited about half a pint of
dark coagulated blood on
Friday.
J. S. Hart vomited blood only
ONCE.
3. Passed, by purging, a con-
siderable quantity of very
dark coloured foecal matter.
Sunda
5. The soreness over the whole
of the upper part of the ab-
domen was so great that he
could not bear to have his
trowsers buttoned.
6. Pain at the left shoulder, and
pain between the shoulders.
7. Face sallow, and yellow, and
pale.
8. Mucous membrane of mouth
very pale.
9. Tongue furred.
10.
11.
(
Feet and ancles rather cede-
matous, and pit on pres-
sure.
14. Complains of thirst.
17. Pulse 86, tolerably full pal-
pitation.
67
SYMPTOMS. (Continued.)
21. Fainted.
22. Pain in head.
23. Pain at back of head: kept
her awake two nights.
24. Wandered much in her sleep.
25. General heat.
25a. Heat in forehead.
Mrs. WAITE.
July 15. Aconite, 3 globules.
Arsenic, 4 globules.
Veratrum, 3 globules,
in case of fainting.
From a perusal of this columnar view, and a general
review of the symptoms of the two cases, there can not be
the slightest hesitation in recognising that the case of
Mrs. Waite was by far the worse.
Both have their disease removed.
July 16. Ipecacuanha, 4 globules
China, 3 globules.
July 17. Aconite, 4 globules.
Nux vomica, 4 globules.
July 18. Opium, 3 globules.
July 20. Aconite, 4 globules.
22. Frontal headache, still heavy.
REMEDIES.
Pulsatilla, 4 globules.
Pulsatilla poultice.
July 22. Cocculus, 4 globules.
July 23. Aconite, 1 globule.
Nux vomica, 1 globule.
July 24. Opium, 1 globule.
July 25. Opium, 1 globule.
25. No preternatural heat of skin.
BY WHAT MEANS?
JOHN SINCLAIR HART.
Aug. 25. To be cupped to twelve
ounces. Five grains of
blue pill twice a-day.
Half an ounce of cas-
tor-oil occasionally.
Aug. 31. His mouth becoming
sore from the pills,
they were ordered to
be omitted.
Sept. 3. Half an ounce of castor-
oil directly.
Sept. 4. Ten minims of the tinc-
ture of the sesqui-chlo-
ride of iron, three times
a-day in an ounce and
a half of camphor mix-
ture.
68
REMEDIES. (Continued.)
1
July 26. Opium, 1 globule.
July 27. Opium, I globule.
July 28. Opium, 1 globule.
July 31. Pulsatilla, 1 globule a
day.
August 8. Arnica.
Sept. 8. Dose of iron increased
to fifteen minims.
Sept. 9. Twenty minims of the
iron tincture.
Sept. 17. Twenty-five minims of
the iron tincture.
Sept. 20. Thirty minim doses of
the iron tincture.
Oct. 6.
Thirty-five minim doses
of the iron tincture.
Oct. 20. Cured and discharged.
Granted, that the cure was effected in both cases by the
remedial means used, will not the comparison between the
means employed in each case establish the superiority of
the homoeopathic?
Here are tasteless medicines, nocuous only to the
disease, perfectly uninjurious to the general constitution,
effecting a cure. On the other hand, in the other case,
we have a painful, surgical operation-cupping; then a
most disgusting, offensive, and injurious medical action,
by mercury, ending in salivation; and not ending in this,
for the production of salivation is attended with a modi-
fication of the constitutional state, favourable to the
production of what are miscalled rheumatic affections, but
which strictly are mercurial diseases.
The man is castor-oiled as well: and, then having pulled
his constitution down, they have to build him up by tonics,
as they are named or rather misnamed.
In the homeopathic treatment there is no need of tonics :
69
the homoeopathist never uses them; in fact, tonics are
poisons, which, when they are homoeopathic to what is
called the debility, which, truly is a diseased state UNCURED,
act, not by giving tone, but by removing the remaining
diseased state, and thus really curing, appear to give tone.
And these practitioners who talk about tonics, condemn
homœopathic practitioners, as mere symptom-treating
practitioners. Are not these tonic notions of theirs but
superficialities of the worst sort?
Another circumstance is worthy of remark.
The patient, homeopathically treated, was cured at her
own home; the patient, allopathically treated, was cured at
the hospital; and the cure, as performed at the patient's
home, from the circumstance of its being effected at home,
was a result more difficult to effect than the effecting the
cure of the same disease on the patient at the hospital.
This view may seem strange, but its truth will appear
(and the truth hath some important bearings) when it is
considered, that the patient at home is surrounded with
the same circumstances as before the attack; whereas, the
patient, taken into the hospital, is surrounded with improved
circumstances. However comfortable the circumstances of
the patient may be at home, they are not improved.
The patient, Hart, had been out of work nearly seventeen
weeks; he had, by necessity, not been well fed, been
anxious, and stinted in every respect; he had the res
angustæ domi, and their unpleasant attendants.
He is transferred to an hospital, where he has a clean
bed; air pure, compared with that of his own home; good
warmth; good food, and regular attendance.
70
These things of themselves, even his physician would
allow, gave new power to his constitution,* and helped
to a great extent, if not principally to his recovery. Here
diet, in its wide sense, did much.
The cure too, notwithstanding, is effected in a much
shorter time. The man went into the hospital on August
25th, and was discharged October 20th, a period of fifty-
seven days; the patient, homoeopathically treated, came
under my care on July 15th, and was free from medical
treatment by August 15th, a period of thirty-one days.
I may add that this day, January 8th, 1845, I saw the
mother of my patient, and she states that Mrs. Waite has,
since the period when she was under treatment, given birth
to a child, and is now in excellent health.
**On this ground, of the greater comforts presented to the poor
in hospitals, than in their own homes, it happens, that hospital cures
do not exhibit to half the extent as do cases, treated privately, the
efficacy of the medicines used: they exhibit the efficacy of the CHANGE
OF CONDITION.' And it is on this ground, that hospital physicians
are by no means as successful in private as they are in public practice.
They carry their hospital-learned notions to the bedside of the private
patients, and forgetting that they do not possess the counterbalancing
benefits of better air, better food, (if food can be taken,) better
clothing-proceed with their measures, which were not destructive
in the hospital, because there the counterbalancing circumstances
existed; but which are decidedly destructive in private practice.
It is true that some hospital physicians are successful private
practitioners, but then these are men of extraordinary power, who
are capable, by the strength of their minds, of resisting the biassing
influence of their daily hospital experience.
UNIV. OF MICHIGAN,
DEC 19 1912
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