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The Monthly UNIV. v .
DEC 6. 1
Homoeopathic Review
Vol. 46, No. 11.]
NOVEMBER 1, 1902.
[Price is.
EDITED BY
A. C. POPP M.D.. & D. DYCE BROWN, M A., M.D.
Homoeopathy among the Students at Guy’s Hospital
Edinburgh Therapeutics. By R. E. Dudgeon, M.D.
Six Consecutive Years’ Work at a Private Nursing Institution with no
Mortality. By George Burford, M.B. (Continued from page 5 98) ...
An Essay on Medical Education. Suggested by the Address of Prof.
Henry E. Armstrong, Ll.D., Ph.D., V.P.R.S., President of the Educa¬
tional Science Section, British Association, 1902. By W. M. Storar,
L.R.C.P., L.R.C.S. (Ed.), Mount Charles, Belfast
The Present Status of Homoeopathy. Being the Presidential Address
Delivered before the Fifty-eighth Annual Session of the American
Institute of Homoeopathy, Cleveland, O., June 17, 1902. By James
C. Wood, M.D.
PAGE
641
657
670
678
Reviews.
A Lecture on Homoeopathy. By John Henry Clarke, M.D.
A Contribution to the (Etiology of Cancer. The Presidential Address
delivered before the East Yorks and North Lincoln Branch ot the
British Medical Association, at Hull, May, 1902. By Alex. Theodore
Brand, M.D., C.M.
Report of the Plague in Calcutta, June 1901—June 1902. By Major H. E.
Deane, R.A.M.C.
Meetings.
British Homoeopathic Society
Notabilia.
Therapeutics of Small.Doses ...
The King’s Tuesdays
Dietetic Preparations—Cadbury’s Milk Chocolate
Correspon dence.
The Richard Hughes Memorial Fund ...
A Note on Dr. Hughes’ “Principles and Practice”
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K^twf NoTTiw2 hiC HOMOEOPATHY AT GUY’S HOSPITAL. 64 L
THE MONTHLY
HOMEOPATHIC REVIEW.
HOMOEOPATHY AMONG THE STUDENTS AT
GUY’S HOSPITAL.
At the present time we find the same difficulty existing
which has existed ever since homoeopathy came into being,
namely, the almost impossibility of getting hold of students
at the various schools of medicine in order to point out to
them in what homoeopathy, in its principles and practice,
really consists. They, as a rule, go to the medical schools
utterly ignorant of the very meaning of the word, which,
in such young men just commencing the study of medicine,
is perhaps not surprising. But during their whole term
of study they are kept in ignorance of its meaning, aims, and
results by their teachers, who not only jeer at it and speak
of it with contempt, but, whether from ignorance on their
own part or otherwise, so misrepresent it that the student
ends his course of study, gets his diploma, and proceeds
to enter on practice with the most mistaken ideas of the
whole matter, if he ever gives it a thought. He believes,
not unnaturally, with implicit faith, what his teachers
tell him, and begins to treat disease in the “ orthodox ”
manner, and with the belief that homoeopathy is all
nonsense, and its adherents to be pitied, contemned, and
avoided as heretics. We, in our journals, keep pegging
away, availing ourselves of every opportunity of explaining
Vol. 46, No. 11. 41
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642 HOMCEOPATHY AT GUY’S HOSPITAL. ^^fNov^ifi^ 0
and expounding our views, principles, and practice; but
nine-tenths of what we write, in the hope of the seed
falling into good ground and bearing fruit, never meets
the eyes of those whom we most desire to influence,
namely, the young men of the profession in their term of
study, or at the end of it when they get their qualification
to practice. Could we succeed in getting any definite
channel of inter-communication we should have converts
in abundance, as they have but to see the truth for it to
appeal to their open minds. Of course their previous
teaching in regard to homoeopathy has to be antidoted,
but this would be fairly easily accomplished if we
once got hold of them and had a fair field and no favour.
It was, therefore, with much pleasure that in the Guy's
Hospital Gazette of March 1st we found a paper on “ Medical
Heresies ” which was read by Mr. Owen Richards, one
of the students at Guy’s Hospital, before the 44 Physical
Society ” on January 29th. The two medical heresies
Mr. Richards takes up are homoeopathy and Christian
Science. We do not feel flattered by the latter being
associated with us, but let that pass. Rut as to homoeo¬
pathy, we are only too pleased to find that at a students’
society of one of the largest medical schools in the
metropolis one of its members has the courage to come
forward and read an, on the whole, excellent account of
his subject, as accurate perhaps as one could expect from
a student, and, what is more, the paper is written with a
marked and unexpected fairness that is quite refreshing,
and is an example to his seniors in the profession which
we should be glad to see followed. Were such fairness
visible in more authoritative quarters in public utterances
and in print, not only would homoeopathy advance at a
much more rapid pace, but therapeutic treatment in the
old school would begin to enter on a new era of progress
which could only end in one way, namely, the adoption
of homoeopathy as the dominant practice. Mr. Richards
begins by an excellent and honest statement, which must
have at once appealed to his audience as a good reason
for their listening calmly to what he had to say without
prejudice. 44 These are,” he says, 44 both of them ( i.e .,
Homoeopathy and Christian Science) reasoned systems
of medical theory and practice ; they make no appeal to
the supernatural, they do not claim that their practitioners
possess any power which may not be exercised by any
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^SewfNoTr^ 0 H0MCEl OPATHY AT GUY’S HOSPITAL. 643
man who takes the trouble to study and understand their
principles. They lay the whole of their methods openly
before the public, and by doing so they purge themselves
of quackery. For the essence of quackery is the claim by
individuals to possess secret knowledge or power which
they keep secret for their own use and benefit.” He
further adds that 44 for the sake of fairness I have drawn
my information almost entirely from sources which they
themselves recommend, and from the little I have been
able to see personally of their methods.” This is as it
should be. The first thing in discussing any practice is
to know what one is speaking about, and to ascertain the
principles and practice of homoeopathy from proper and
reliable sources, and not from one’s own 44 inner conscious¬
ness,” as so many members of the old school do, in describ¬
ing it. The latter course results in setting up lay-figures
resembling nothing that ever before existed, and then
knocking them down—a very easy, but a very ridiculous
thing to do. Mr. Richards then proceeds to give a
history of the origin of homoeopathy, which, though not
altogether correct, answers his purpose. He says:—
“ Homoeopathy was founded in 1796 by Hahnemann.
Hahnemann was a Viennese doctor, who was very dissatisfied
with the state of medical practice at that time—which, indeed,
left much to be desired. He felt this so acutely that he had
given up his practice, and was earning his living by translating
books, and doing work in chemistry. While he was thus
occupied it occurred to him that it might be possible to arrive
at some more acurate knowledge of the action of drugs by
giving doses of them singly to healthy persons and observing
the effects. This was a perfectly sound method of experiment¬
ing, which apparently had been neglected. The tendency
at that time was rather to deduce the action of drugs from
general principles, or from authority, and to give them two
dozen at a time in one mixture. His first trial was with
quinine. He took several scruples of this in successive doses
at a time when he was quite well. He was thrown into a
feverish state which had some resemblane to the fever of
malaria. This first suggested to him the theory, which he
afterwards adopted, that diseases which are produced or
simulated by large doses of a drug in healthy people are curable
by small doses of that same drug in suph people—just as
malaria, which is produced or simulated in previously healthy
people by large doses of quinine, is cured with some certainty
in fever patients by small doses of quinine. He proceeds to
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644
HOMCEOPATHY AT GUY’S HOSPITAL. ^rtew^Nov^ifiM*!
test this hypothesis with other drugs, and he and others
carried out a most laborious examination of the symptoms
produced by large doses of almost all the known drugs of
that period. These researches extended over many years,
and their results are embodied in certain large volumes called
the Provings. The process of taking a dose of any drug and
recording the symptoms which ensued, was called the ‘ prov¬
ing ’ of that particular drug.”
Hahnemann was a German, not a Viennese. His
method of arriving at his law of similars was not exactly
as Mr. Richards describes. It was while translating
Cullen’s Materia Medica that he noticed there a statement
that cinchona could produce, in large doses in a healthy
person, symptoms closely resembling those of intermittent
fever. The brilliant idea occurred to him that perhaps
this was not a mere coincidence, but that it was an example
of what might be found a definite law in therapeutics,
namely, that the same drug which produces a train of
symptoms closely resembling any well-known form of
disease, would in smaller doses cure it. His first step was
to commence provings on himself with cinchona, and he
found that he could produce in himself all the main
symptoms of an attack of intermittent fever. He then
set to work to see, in the first place, if he could find any
conscious or unconscious illustrations of this theory in
the writings of physicians from the time of Hippocrates
downwards to his own time, knowing that Hippocrates
had stated that “ some diseases are cured by similars
and some by opposites.” In these various works, the
knowledge of which shows his marvellous erudition, he
found quite a large number of cases in point. His next
step was to “ prove ” other drugs on himself and his
friends in order to ascertain the pure effects of drugs
given singly to a healthy person. With these slight
corrections, Mr. Richards’ sentences are correct. It was,
however, cinchona that Hahnemann proved, and not
quinine, which was then not known. Mr. Richards’
next sentences are quite pardonable for a beginner in
the study of homoeopathy, as the “ schema ” form of
presenting symptoms, though valuable in many ways,
is at first a little confusing, and has been objected to by
many of our own school as not giving us the relation and
sequence of the different symptoms. It was to remedy
this defect that our late loved colleague, Dr. Richard
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Re°^fNo°v m i! 0 i^2 hiC HOMCEOPATHY AT GUY’S HOSPITAL. 645
Hughes, compiled that masterly and laborious work, the
Cyclopaedia of Drug Pathogenesy . Mr. Richards says:—
“ Unfortunately, these researches, which might have been
of enormous value, are rendered nearly useless by the arrange¬
ment of the results. All the symptoms either produced by
the drug, or simply following its administration, in the case
of perhaps a dozen ‘ provers ’ of different ages, constitutions,
and nationalities, are recorded indiscriminately ; and arranged
not under the names of those individuals who felt them, but
under the name of the organ to which they were referred.
Thus, if a drug caused headache in eleven cases and sneezing
in one, headache and sneezing would be put down together
under the title 4 head ’ with nothing to show that one was
commoner than the other. Further, all the mental and moral
conditions were recorded—that very common mental state
of 4 desiring to do a good action, but not one of any particular
kind,’ is attributed to a drug of which I have forgotten the
name. The result is a welter of conflicting and insignificant
symptoms ; thus, to belladonna are attributed no less than
1440 symptoms of various kinds.”
He then proceeds :—
“ However, out of all the confusion came certain facts,
which confirmed Hahnemann in his hypothesis.
Thus, belladonna given in a large dose produced a scarlatina
rash, fever, and a sore throat, the clinical picture of scarlet
fever. Hahnemann gave belladonna to scarlet fever patients
and they subsequently recovered. He gave it to healthy
people and they did not catch the disease when they were
exposed to infection.
Rhus toxicodendron , or the poison oak, a drug not in the
pharmacopoeia, when given in large doses, produced symp¬
toms which were considered an epitome of typhus or typhoid
fever. In small doses the sufferers from these diseases took
it and subsequently got well.
Aconite in the same way simulated and cured 4 simple
inflammatory fever,’ which I take to be septic fever. Incident¬
ally, one prover died of aconite poisoning.
Equally gratifying results were obtained with perchloride
of mercury in dysentery, and many other drugs could be cited.
In this w’ay, Hahnemann was led to develop his scheme of
medicine, which consisted essentially in observing the symptoms
produced in healthy people by large doses of single drugs, and
giving these drugs in small doses to cure diseases which
presented similar symptoms. This principle was embodied
in the motto— 4 Siinilia similibus curantur.’
The doses at first were small, but not minute. For some
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646 HOMOEOPATHY AT GUY’S HOSPITAL,
time Hahnemann gave the usual doses, and some of his
followers insist that the principle of homoeopathy is indepen¬
dent of any question of dosage.”
Mr. Richards is mistaken in supposing “ simple
inflammatory fever ” to be the same as septic fever.
The inflammatory fever cured by aconite is such as we
all know as the initial fever which follows a chill, or which
exists in the first stage of any acute inflammation, and
it has no place in the treatment of septic fever. We may
also explain to Mr. Kichards that, in regard to his last
sentence about the principle of homoeopathy being
independent of any question of dose, he is so far correct.
The essential principle is the selection of the remedy in
accordance with the law of similia, but the small dose
follows as a necessary corollary. For if the drug can
produce in a healthy body a set of symptoms closely
resembling those present in the patient and arising from
disease, it stands to reason that such doses would only
aggravate, and, as Mr. Richards himself says in a subse¬
quent sentence, “ Hahnemann was confronted with the
difficulty that fair-sized doses of many drugs only aggra¬
vated the symptoms which they were designed to cure.”
Hence, as a necessary corollary to the law of similars,
the rule of the dose is to give less than will aggravate the
disease under treatment. How much smaller the dose
should be, is really a matter of experiment in the first place
and of experience. The dose question then, though only
a corollary from the practical employment of the law of
similars, is yet far from being independent of it, but must
go along with it in order to obtain success.
But let Mr. Richards speak for himself as follows :—
“ However that may be, Hahnemann himself soon adopted
the system of minute doses, and explicitly embodied it in
his creed. This came to pass in the following way. Hahne¬
mann was confronted with the difficulty that fair-sized doses
of many drugs only aggravated the symptoms which they
were designed to cure. Thus, cantharides produces symptons
resembling 4 strangury,’ which I take to mean a spasmodic
stricture. Yet when a fair dose of cantharides was given to
a patient suffering from strangury, it not only failed to cure
him, but increased his sufferings enormously. In fact, a
century before homoeopathy was ever heard of, one Greenfield—
a member of the College of Physicians—was sent to Newgate
for malpraxis by the President of that College, because he
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HOMCEOPATHY AT GUY’S HOSPITAL. 647
had given cantharides to a patient suffering from this complaint
Similar disasters followed the use of many other drugs which
were theoretically indicated.
Hahnemann met this difficulty by saying that when drugs
are given in large doses we get their gross physical effects,
whereas when they are given highly diluted we get their
hidden remedial power. This change was due to the fine
division of their particles, and he instanced the difference
between metallic mercury given in its natural state and the
same metal given minutely divided, as grey powder. He
contended that the rubbing or shaking by which the drugs
were divided or diluted developed their properties as remedies.
This process of division he therefore called dynamization ,
and the resulting solutions he called progressively higher
potencies of the drug.
These dilutions were very considerable. The mother
tincture from which they were made was of the same class
as the B. P. tinctures, sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker.
Of course, many of the drugs are not pharmacopoeial.
The dilutions are arranged on a decimal scale. Thus,
the first dilution would be a 10 per cent, solution of the mother
tincture, the second a 1 per cent., and so on. Hahnemann
recommended the thirtieth dilution or potency for routine
use. The percentage of the mother tincture contained in
this would be represented by a decimal point followed by
26 noughts and a 1. Thus :—.000000000000000000000000001.
It is to be remembered that the tincture is only a solution of
varying strength of the drug, and that the medicine would
be given in doses of a few drops in a tumbler full of water.
In the same way solids were diluted with lactose. After
the sixth dilution with sugar, it was found possible to dissolve
them all in water—at any rate metallic mercury of this dilution
gave no undissolved residue. In the same way solutions of
lead, copper, platinum, zinc, and other bodies not readily
soluble in water were prepared. The subsequent higher
dilutions presented no difficulty.
Armed with these drugs the homceopathists soon found
proof of their value.
In 1836 the Asiatic cholera attacked Vienna. All the
hospitals were filled, and filled under pressure, so that there
was probably no selection of cases. The allopathic mortality
was 66 per cent., the homoeopathic only 33 per cent. The
homoeopathic hospital was presided over by an allopathic
doctor, who seems to have 4 covered ’ the avowedly homoeo¬
pathic treatment. This remarkable result produced a great
sensation, and as a result the Emperor removed the restric¬
tions which had previously been placed on the practice of
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648 HOMOEOPATHY AT GUY’S HOSPITAL.
homoeopathy, and placed the hospital on an equal footing
with the others, so that ‘ covering * became unnecessary.
The results continued to be extremely good. Statistics
are rather confusing, it will be simplest to take those of one
fairly definite type of disease, pneumonia .
In a series of 1,134 cases of this disease admitted to the
orthodox hospital at Vienna, there was a mortality of 23 per
cent.
In a series of 538 cases admitted during the same period
to the homoeopathic hospital, there was a mortality of 5 per
cent. That is to say, that on the face of these figures there
were more than four times as many deaths under the old
treatment.
The homoeopathists found the explanation of these results
in the efficacy of their medicines. The real explanation
would seem to lie in the very drastic treatment which these
cases received at the hands of the orthodox physicians of
that time. It was an epoch when calomel, tartar-emetic,
blistering and bleeding were the routine treatment of most
diseases. A good deal of light is thrown on this point by
the experiments of an orthodox physician of about that date,
Dr. Dietl of the Wieden Hospital, Vienna. Dr. Dietl
treated a series of 380 cases of pneumonia during three years
—85 were treated by repeated bleedings, with a mortality
of 20 per cent. ; 106 were treated with tartar emetic with a
mortality of 20*7 per cent, the remaining 189 were treated
simply by, diet, without any medicine ; the mortality among
these was only 7*4 per cent.
Thus we have the result that the treatment by either of
the two orthodox methods then in vogue, in a definite disease
of easy diagnosis, like pneumonia, gave a mortality of over
20 per cent. Nursing without treatment, or with homoeo¬
pathic treatment, gave a mortality of less than 8 per cent.
It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the orthodox
drastic treatment was responsible for a mortality, an additional
and avoidable mortality, of 12 per cent.
What the homoeopathists did was to save men from this
danger and let nature have a fair chance. Their treatment
probably differed more in form than reality from the modern
expectant treatment. At any rate, results like these caused
a rise and spread of homoeopathy all over Europe. The
medical trades unions of the time, the colleges and universities,
persecuted its practitioners, denied them degres, boycotted
them socially and professionally, expelled them from towns.
As orthodox medical practice improved, this acrimony died
away ; the orthodox doctors learnt what homoeopathy could
teach them, and the homoeopathists learnt to reject the
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^JkoTT^ HOMEOPATHY AT GUY’S HOSPITAL. 649
more mystical and extreme parts of Hahnemann’s teaching,
and the treatment of both is to-day surprisingly alike.
Modern homoeopathic treatment is seen at its best in the
Homoeopathic Hospital in Great Ormond Street. This is
an extremely well equipped hospital, staffed by men from
Guy’s, Thomas’s, and the other big hospitals. The surgical
side is much what the surgical side of Guy’s would be if we
had a good deal more money and rather less work, a splendid
theatre, and bright, clean, roomy wards, with cases of hyster¬
ectomy, pylorectomy, excision of the rectum, and all manner
of other operations, doing, as far as one can see, extremely
well. The antiseptics used are biniodide, lysol, and carbolic
in the usual strengths; there is no question of dynamizing
them to a higher potency.
On the medical side the differences are more apparent than
real. In a case of enteric, for instance, the case is taken and
written up in the usual way ; no stress is laid on subjective
symptoms at the expense of physical signs. If necessary,
the diagnosis is helped by a series of Widals. The patient
is carefully nursed, and probably some drops of a high dilution
of Rhus toxicodendron are given in water every few hours.
I do not think any objection can be made to this, Osler
expressly says that water should be given freely in this disease.
On the other hand, when a case really requires drugs, the
drugs are given, and in effective doses. Ergot, potassium
iodide, iron, even sodium cacodylate, and many other
active drugs are given, at times, in what we should consider
full doses.
Naturally the practice differs in detail from ours. Sodium
salicylate in acute rheumatism is replaced usually by agaricus,
which I imagine contains a trace of muscarin, and morphia
is only given reluctantly.
But, speaking generally, the cases which do not need active
treatment receive high dilutions of rare drugs, to which their
cure is attributed. Cases which need drugs get them.
For anyone who wishes to amuse himself at the expense
of homoeopathy there is ample material. The Provings are
very funny reading, and Hahnemann in his later years
became increasingly fantastic and mystical. From absurdly
high potencies he progressed to recommending the method
of smelling a solution of the desired drug. He talks of homoeo¬
pathic treatment of one disease by another; of combating
emotions by small amounts of similar emotions artificially
produced. Thus, the soldier alarmed by the cannon’s roar
is fortified by the beating of a drum, that is to say, by a
small dose of a similar noise. The cries of the wounded are
meanwhile robbed of their terrors by the shrill scream of
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650 HOMCEOPATHY AT GUY’S HOSPITAL. ^^wfNov^fifl^ 0
the pipe. He finally loses himself in the quagmire of animal
magnetism.
But amongst all this nonsense we must not lose sight of
the great services which the homceopathists have rendered
us. At a time when drugs were given in mixtures of twenty
or thirty, they began to give single drugs. They instituted
experiments to define the action of each drug, and they gave
them either for a definite reason or not at all. They freed
us from a most painful and dangerous system of treatment.
Their experiments were inaccurate and badly recorded.
They took no account of anything but symptoms. Their
main idea was unsound, their writings were as windy as their
medicines were watery, but for all that they were the pioneers
of a rational system of therapeutics.”
We have given these long extracts from Mr. Richards’
paper, in fact we have practically engrossed the entire
essay, in order to show in his own words the essential
fairness of the writer’s intentions, and the evidence of his
having taken pains to read up his subject. The result
is just what we might perhaps expect from a superficial
survey of the question on the part of a student who has
not had the opportunity to test for himself the practical
truth of homoeopathy, which is the only test worth having.
It is easy to criticise and pick holes in what is known in
the old school as heretical teaching, and to laugh at the
extremes of a great genius who has revolutionized the
practice of medicine. But we are truly glad to see such
a paper read at a Students’ Medical Society. It draws
attention to the subject, and this is infinitely better than
the silent ignoring of it under the influence of “ orthodox ”
teachers. The great need of the present time is the
fearless investigation by students and practitioners of
homoeopathic principles and practice, and its open
discussion on its merits. And such a paper as Mr. Richards’
undoubtedly will help to encourage such liberty of opinion
and fairness in open discussion as is absolutely essential
to any real progress in scientific therapeutics.
There are, however, several points in the latter part
of the paper which we must notice before we end our
remarks. In speaking of the mortality in pneumonia in
Vienna under homoeopathic treatment as 5 per cent,
while under the expectant treatment it was 7*4 per cent,
it is hardly in harmony with Mr. Richards’ fairness
otherwise, to say, “ Nursing without treatment, or with
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HOMOEOPATHY AT GUY’S HOSPITAL. 651
homoeopathic treatment, gave a mortality of less than
8 per cent.” He might easily have drawn attention to
the fact that, in his own figures, the homoeopathic treat¬
ment showed a mortality of 2*7 per cent less than that
of the expectant treatment with nursing and no medicine.
There must be some reason for this fact, and one would have
expected that Mr. Richards would have concluded that
in the homoeopathic treatment there was something
decidedly better than the expectant method, and that he
would not have added that “ their treatment (i.e., of the
homoeopaths) probably differed more in form than reality
from the modern expectant treatment.” There must be
a very decided difference in the two treatments other than
in “ form,” when out of (taking his own figures) 538 cases
of pneumonia treated in the Homoeopathic Hospital
there was a mortality of only 5 per cent, while in “ the
orthodox Hospital ” out of only 189 cases there was a
mortality of 7*4. We commend this fact to Mr. Richards’
consideration, and ask him if he thinks he is quite fair
in thus stating his conclusions.. He also says that to-day
“ the treatment of both is surprisingly alike.” This is
not correct, except to a limited extent, and this limited
extent is due to the direct or indirect influence of homoeo¬
pathy. It has shown the profession how injurious and
barbarous the old “ orthodox ” treatment in Hahnemann’s
day, and for long afterwards, was. It has led to the
prescription of only a few drugs in one “ mixture,” and
latterly, in the hands of those who know, to the prescription
of single drugs only. It has led to the conviction that in
order to understand the action of drugs at all, they must
be tested or “ proved ” on the healthy human body. It
has led to the administration of much smaller doses than
used to be given. It has led to the recognition of the fact
that symptoms are not only not to be ignored, but that
they are really the guides to the selection of the medicine,
since it is by them—objective and subjective—that
disease in its multifarious forms manifests itself to our
knowledge. It has led, through the influence of Dr.
Sydney Ringer and others, to the adoption, without
acknowledgment of its source or its principle, of a large
amount of actual homoeopathic practice, and the absorption
into current practice of drugs which were never before
heard of in the old school, and the use of which was a
subject of jeers and merriment, but which were and are
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652 HOMCEOPATHY AT GUY’S HOSPITAL, ^^fxov^ifi^ 0
the daily employed medicines of the homoeopaths ever
since the time of Hahnemann. And because homoeopathy
has had this remarkable power and influence in revolu¬
tionizing the practice of the old school, so that its practice
at the present time is contrasted with that current in
Hahnemann’s time as light is to darkness, till Mr.
Richards can say that “ the treatment of both is sur¬
prisingly alike,” yet we cannot accept this statement
except with the limits we have named. The main and
essential difference between the treatment of the two
schools consists in the adoption of a rule of practice,
guided by a definite law in the one case, and the essentially
empirical, law-ignoring methods of the other. When
homoeopathic treatment is advocated and employed by
men of the old school it is only in the way of therapeutic
64 tips,” in which the bed-rock principle of similars is
studiously ignored and kept in the background. Till
this course of tactics is abandoned and the principle of
similars openly discussed and admitted, the practice of
the two schools must remain essentially distinct, and the
mere superficial resemblance, as shown by the large use
of homoeopathic medicines, small doses, and 44 tips ” by
our opponents, must remain merely superficial.
We note with pleasure that Mr. Richards has visited
the London Homoeopathic Hospital, and that he can
speak so highly of its equipment and its surgical side.
As to the medical side, while he admits that every care
(taking enteric fever as an example) is taken in writing
up the cases, etc., he remarks that 44 no stress is laid on
subjective symptoms at the expense of physical signs.”
He surely J understands that symptoms include objective
as well as subjective ones, the physical signs being of
course an essential part of the case as it presents itself
to us. The views of physical diagnosis were very different
in Hahnemann’s time to what they are at the present
day, and surely Mr. Richards must know that no man
in his senses nowadays would think of ignoring physical
signs, while at the same time going into minute detail
in the subjective symptoms present. When he says 44 The
patient is carefully nursed, and probably (the italics are
ours) some drops of a high dilution of rhus toxicodendron
are given in water every few hours. I do not think any
objection can be made to this. Osier expressly states that
water should be given freely in this disease,” we can see
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^“ y No°vTm‘ hlC HOMCEOPATHY AT GUY’S HOSPITAL. 653
that, in spite of his general fairness, his mind is still
prejudiced, and he is resolved to look on the homoeopathic
medicines as equal to so much cold water, which we regret
to observe. And when he goes on to say, 44 On the other
hand, when a case really requires drugs the drugs are
given, and in effective doses,” we always thought that a
44 drug ” was synonymous with a 44 medicine,” but Mr.
Richards probably means by 44 drugs ” medicines which
are chiefly and largely used in the old school, though
common to both pharmacopoeias. As to his examples, ergot
is in use in both schools, and we commend to his notice
our remarks on the dose question. Potassium iodide
in constitutional syphilis is a medicine whose action has
never been explained. It is certainly not antipathic,
and though we cannot claim it as being clearly homoeo¬
pathic, it more nearly resembles homoeopathic action
and similarity than anything else. It is admitted by both
schools to be specific, whatever its theory of action may
be, and consequently we should be culpably narrow in our
views were we not to prescribe it in this disease, and in
the usual doses. Iron, again, is known to both schools
as valuable in anaemia. Its modus operandi, whether as
a food or as a medicine, is still an open question with all.
But it has a distinct relation as a medicine in anaemia to
the law of similars, since it is well known that in places
where the drinking water is largely impregnated with
iron anaemia is very common. Sodium cacodylate was
recently introduced as a mode of giving arsenic in larger
doses than can be safely employed with the ordinary
preparations. Certain cases to which arsenic is homoeo¬
pathic may require larger doses than ordinary, such as
some obstinate skin diseases, and then there is surely no
objection to a homoeopathic physician making trial of
this new preparation of arsenic. We should like to know,
however, what 44 many other active drugs ” he saw given.
One would think that in order to make such an assertion
Mr. Richards had visited the hospital wards for months
on end, which is hardly likely, as he speaks of 44 the
little I saw,” and we know so well the practice of the
physicians there that we must be excused if we decline
to accept such a statement, especially when we find
him saying in the next paragraph that in acute rheumatism,
the salicylate of sodium of the old school is 44 replaced
usually ” by agaricus. This statement is sufficient to
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654 HOMOEOPATHY AT GUY'S HOSPITAL.
show how inaccurate are his observations on what he saw.
If agaricus was prescribed in any case of acute rheumatism
it must have been in a very unusual one, where the symp¬
toms were so peculiar as to call for agaricus. Agaricus
has no place in an ordinary case of acute rheumatism;
its pathogenesis does not in the least indicate it as a
remedy for the disease, and we may safely say that no
homoeopath would think of prescribing it unless some
individual case presented the symptoms indicating it,
which must be rare indeed. We ourselves never before
heard of agaricus being given for acute rheumatism, and
we have never seen a case indicating it. If Mr. Richards
did actually see it prescribed it would only show how
careful the physician who ordered it was, in watching
the symptoms of the case and being guided by them to
a very unusual remedy. But to say that this medicine
is “ usually ” the one given to replace the sodium salicylate
of the old school is quite enough to make us question the
accuracy of his other statements, though we have been
at pains to answer them. It is a pity that this “ fly in
the apothecary’s ointment ” should have been allowed
to mar the good points of the paper. But we suppose we
must allow for prejudice, even in observations at the
bedside.
One would have thought that when Mr. Richards,
after mentioning the success of aconite, belladonna, and
rhus in the homoeopathic treatment of diseases indicating
them, and adding, “ equally gratifying results were
obtained with perchloride of mercury in dysentery, and
many other drugs could be cited,” he would have been
open to the mental process of considering that possibly
all other drugs would act in the same beneficent manner
as the homoeopaths state that they do. But, as we have
said, we must allow for prejudice, which is one of the most
powerful and baleful antidotes to the clear vision of even
an honest enquirer after truth.
Lastly, we may note with surprise a small point, but
one not to be passed over in a medical essay, namely, his
speaking of “ strangury ” as a word he seemed never
to have heard of in any other than homoeopathic works,
and saying he supposed it meant “ spasmodic stricture.”
We would ask Mr. Richards as a favour to himself to
look up in any medical lexicon the meaning of the good
old word “ strangury,” or ask his teachers at Guy’s.
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tovie wf No°v m ri90? iC HOMCEOPATHY AT GUY’S HOSPITAL. 655
Cantharides has no place in the treatment of spasmodic
stricture, which is a very different condition from strangury.
If Mr. Richards will look at the October number of this
Review he will be interested in reading a record of the
conversion to homoeopathy of the late Dr. Horner, of
Hull, and of Dr. Mahendra Lal Sircar, of Calcutta,
both of whom were asked to write a paper against homoeo¬
pathy, and were bitter antagonists to the system owing
to their ignorance of it, but who, as Mr. Richards has
done, in order to write of it with knowledge, got hold of
authoritative homoeopathic books on the subject. They
found from these that it was not the unscientific quackery
they supposed it to be, but had an a priori claim to their
reason. They then had the honesty and courage to try
it in practice, with the result that both became convinced
of its truth, theoretically and practically, and they both
practised it ever afterwards with enthusiasm. We
sincerely trust that Mr. Richards will pursue the study
of this u heresy,” and that in the end his prejudice will
vanish, and that he may see the truth of the greatest
guiding law in the treatment of disease that has ever been
given to the world, and after a full personal testing of it
in practice be able to enrol himself in the number of those
who are not afraid, in spite of authority, to openly state
their convictions and act upon them.
As we stated at first, we end by saying that such a
paper as Mr. Richards’ is on the whole a valuable one
as opening up the subject of homoeopathy for free discussion
among his fellow-students, and inevitably tending to clear
the atmosphere of thought in the minds of the old school
rising generation, and to foster the expression of right to
liberty of opinion, which already exists in every branch
of philosophy and science, save in the one unique exception
of therapeutics.
In writing the foregoing article, when commenting on
Mr. Richards’ statistics in regard to the treatment of
pneumonia, we purposely avoided introducing any further
statistics from ourselves, preferring to keep rigidly to
the facts brought forward by Mr. Richards. But it may
be interesting to him and others to read an extract from
No. 40 of the “ Homoeopathic League Tracts.” These
valuable tracts, which may be had from the Homoeopathic
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656 HOMCEOPATHY AT GUY’S HOSPITAL. M Re^fN“v°TiM2 C
Publishing Co., Warwick Lane, E.C., we commend to
the study of Mr. Richards and others. They are well
worth reading and studying, and afford much field for
thought to any enquirer into the principles and practice
of homoeopathy. In 1852 Professor Henderson, of
Edinburgh, Professor of Pathology in the University,
read a paper on the treatment of pneumonia before the
Annual Congress of homoeopathic practitioners, which
in that year assembled in Edinburgh, and of which he
was president for the year. This essay he published in
the 10th volume of the British Journal of Homoeopathy.
The following is the extract from the No. 40 Tract, which
gives a sketch of the results which Professor Henderson
brought forward.
“ He had full details of forty-seven cases, and very nearly
full of three others, the majority of which occurred to M.
Tessier, the physician to the Hdpital Beaujon, in Paris, and
the remainder to himself. He analysed the progress of each,
and contrasted the results obtained by Dietl, of Vienna,
in his three groups of cases treated by venesection, tartar
emetic, and nursing without medicinal or other interference
—by what is termed ‘ expectancy.’ The febrile disturbance,
as indicated by the pulse, he found to have been at an end
in cases that were bled, in 11 1 days from the initiatory rigor ;
in those treated by tartar emetic, in 9*2 days ; in those by
expectancy, in 9*1 days ; and in those treated homoeopathic-
ally by himself and M. Tessier (the patients generally having
come under care on the fourth day of the fever), in 8 days
from its commencement; while in sixteen instances, where
the patient came under care on the second day, the fever had
disappeared on the sixth day. . . That the pneumonic
process can be abbreviated is still more strikingly shown by
Professor Henderson’s research. He computed the dura¬
tion of each case from the date of the first symptoms of the
inflammatory fever to the cessation of all local physical signs
—to the complete resolution of the hepatization.”
Treated by venesection, the average duration was 35 days.
„ ,, tartar emetic ,, ,, „ ,, 28*9 days.
„ „ expectancy ,, ,, ,, ,, 28 days.
,, ,, homoeopathy „ „ „ „ 1166 days.
“ These facts,” wrote Professor Henderson, “ present
not only a triumphant and irrefragable testimony to the
positively remedial powers of homoeopathy, but they likewise
prove, I think, that it cures and saves life in a different way
from that in which unassisted nature does in this disease ;
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^v“lwfNo°“riM2 hi0 EDINBURGH THERAPEUTICS.
657
it tends to cut short the disease by preventing exudation
or restraining it within very narrow limits, both of extent
and degree. Consolidation may indeed take place under
homoeopathic treatment, but that it does not consist in any
considerable amount of exudation into the air-cells appears
from the rapidity with which it vanishes. Within an average
of four days from the cessation of the fever the whole of the
local disease was gone. ”
EDINBURGH THERAPEUTICS.
By R. E. Dudgeon, M.D.
Dr. Byrom Bbamwell, the well-known Lecturer on
Clinical Medicine in the School of the Royal Colleges,
Edinburgh, whose Clinical Studies published periodically
till 1890 obtained a well-deserved celebrity, has commenced
a new series of these studies, the first number of which
has just been published, and is to be followed by others
at intervals of three months. This first issue is very
interesting, and doubtless the succeeding numbers will
prove equally so. The form in which the different subjects
are presented differs from any other works on clinical
medicine with which I am acquainted. A case of some
disease is introduced, examined, and the students are
asked to make the diagnosis and suggest the treatment.
As they generally give more or less erroneous answers,
the lecturer points out their mistakes and gives what he
considers the true diagnosis and the appropriate treatment.
There is no doubt Dr. Bramweil is a thorough master of
pathology, and his diagnosis is in most cases likely to be
correct. His treatment, too, as regards diet and regimen
is probably the best possible, but to the practitioner of
the method of Hahnemann his therapeutics often leave
much to be desired. In pathology and diagnosis Dr.
Bramweil belongs to the most advanced section of his
school, but in therapeutics he is essentially mediaeval,
by which is to be understood middle nineteenth century.
He does not hold with so many of the medical lights of
the present day, that the business of the physician is not
to cure, but only to treat disease. On the contrary he
says: “ Our great object as practical physicians is to
cure disease,” which is precisely what Hahnemann says
in the first aphorism of his Organon. He does not despise
Vol. 46, No. 11 42
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658
EDINBURGH THERAPEUTICS.
and disparage the use of drugs in disease like Gull,
Goodhart, and many others of his school; on the contrary,
he has an unbounded faith in the remedial powers of
medicine, ancient and modem, and of counter-irritants,
setons, and even of blood-letting by leeches, venesection,
and cupping. It is almost refreshing in these days of
medical pyrrhonism to meet with an authority of no mean
reputation in the old school who displays such an old-
fashioned confidence in the drugs and appliances of our
youth.
The first article in this new series of Clinical Studies is
a lecture on Chlorosis and Pernicious Anaemia. For the
treatment of chlorosis he recommends iron in the form of
Blaud’s pill, and 44 rest in bed.” Of course iron in some
form or other is necessary, but I have often found a
wineglassful of Flitwick water or a grain or two of ferrum
redactum taken after a meal to be sufficient. As regards
44 rest in bed,” that is often impossible ; for many chlorotic
girls are engaged in domestic service or other indispensable
duties, and cannot be kept in bed without losing their
livelihood, so we have to cure them while they are still
performing moderate domestic or other remunerative
duties. As the menstrual function is generally deficient,
sometimes suppressed, pulsatilla, of which Dr. Bramwell
knows nothing, is often extremely useful.
As regards the next subject considered, pernicious
anaemia, Dr. Bramwell had already obtained a considerable
reputation for his treatment of this serious disease by
means of arsenic. He says : 44 Provided a patient who
is suffering from pernicious anaemia can take large doses
of arsenic, I almost always find that improvement, and,
in many cases, temporary cure results,” but he says also,
44 1 have never personally known any case in which a
lasting cure has been brought about by the administration
of arsenic.” 44 1 was led to try arsenic,” he writes, 44 in
the treatment of pernicious anaemia, for the following
reasons : I know that in pernicious anaemia the heart is
in an advanced stage of fatty degeneration ; I know that
in fatty degeneration of the heart arsenic is often of great
benefit.” Very good, but why is arsenic of benefit in
fatty degeneration of the heart ? Surely because it
possesses the power to cause fatty degeneration of the
heart, as is shown in many of the cases of poisoning by
arsenic recorded in the Cydopcedia of Drug Pathogenesy.
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E8T“twfi^v m rm™ 0 EDINBURGH THERAPEUTICS. 659
But this is only a round-about sort of homoeopathy, for
fatty degeneration of the heart can hardly be considered
an essential factor in pernicious anaemia. The homceo-
pathicity of arsenic to pernicious anaemia is shown in a
much more decisive manner by many of the symptoms
of its toxic action. Dr. Hughes, in his last great work
on the Principles and Practice of Homoeopathy , shows that
the effects of arsenic resemble pernicious anaemia in a
more direct manner, viz., in the necrosis of the red cor¬
puscles, the febrile symptoms, and the anasarca; he
might have added, in the characteristic discolouration of
the skin, in the fatty degeneration of the heart if this
must be considered a characteristic feature of pernicious
anaemia, and in the ecchymoses so frequently seen in this
disease. The treatment of pernicious anaemia by arsenic
has been successful in the hands of homoeopathic prac¬
titioners. Thus Dr. C. Blackley relates (in the ninth vol.
of the Annals) four cases which were apparently cured
by arsenic, Dr. Arnold relates a successful treatment in
the 41st vol. of this Review , and Dr. Galley Blackley
another in the same volume of this periodical. Dr.
Bramwell seems to think that the medicine to effect the
best results must be given in the largest possible doses,
even up to 60 drops per diem of Fowler’s solution, but cases
successfully treated by our colleagues got very much
smaller doses, that of Dr. Arnold never more than two
drops of the 1st centesimal dilution three times a
day. Dr. Galley Blackley’s case did not improve in the
hospital under an alternate use of arsenic and phosphorus,
but was apparently subsequently cured by arsenic adminis¬
tered under the advice of an allopath—so probably in
larger doses than Dr. Blackley had employed. I may
mention that in the homoeopathic cases the characteristic
mis-shapen blood corpuscles were observed when the
arsenical treatment was commenced, and that when the
cure was effected these had disappeared. It is impossible
to suppose that a man of Dr. Bramwell’s intelligence
should be unaware of the striking resemblance of many
of the pathogenetic effects of arsenic to the characteristic
symptoms of pernicious anaemia. But if he knows this,
as I presume he must, he must see that the cure of the
disease by this drug is a conspicuous example of a homoeo¬
pathic cure. But instead of acknowledging this, he says
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660 EDINBURGH THERAPEUTICS.
that he was led to the selection of arsenic by the circum¬
stance that arsenic is often of great benefit in fatty
degeneration of the heart, hardly a pathognomonic or
peculiar symptom of the disease. But even then he
could scarcely fail to see that the relation of arsenic to
fatty heart is manifestly homoeopathic, as this morbid
lesion has frequently been observed in cases of poisoning
by that drug.
Three cases of chorea follow. The first was complicated
with endocarditis. The treatment was absolute rest in
bed, a fly-blister over the region of the heart, though Dr.
Bramwell thinks it very uncertain that a blister is of use
in endocarditis ; however, he adds, “ it may do good, and
can certainly do no harm ” ; milk diet, “ a grain of quinine
three times daily, and gradually increasing doses of
arsenic,” quantity not stated ; probably the quinine
antidoted to some extent the increasing doses of arsenic.
The next case is a girl of 7J, in whom the choreic symptoms
were very slight. She did not improve after a fortnight
of treatment as an out-patient, but rapidly improved
when admitted as an in-patient, kept at rest in bed and
fed with large quantities of milk. No medicine appears
to have been given. The third case, a girl, aged 14, had
severe chorea, chiefly on the left side. She was well dosed
with arsenic ; 6 drops of Fowler’s per diem for two days,
then 9 drops for two days ; 12 drops the next two days,
then 15 drops for two days, and lastly 18 drops per diem.
These heroic doses made the patient much worse, spasms
increased, she became very restless and sleepless, pulse
more rapid, temperature rose slightly. So medicine was
discontinued, and perfect rest, isolation, and large quan¬
tities of milk were prescribed, under which treatment she
rapidly improved, though after six weeks’ treatment she
was not quite well apparently, for she was instructed to
continue the treatment at home. Evidently the medicinal
treatment was a complete failure.
The next article is on epilepsy, and a case is given which
is an exquisite example of what I have termed mediaeval
treatment. The patient, a young woman, aged 23, had
been suffering from epileptic attacks for three and a half
years. The fits were on an average four a day, generally
slight, but attended with loss of consciousness and spasms.
She got 20 grs. of bromide of lithium three times a day
for four years. The lithium bromide was given in place
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661
Monthly Homoeopathic
Review, Nov. 1,1902.
EDINBURGH THERAPEUTICS.
of the combination with potassium, sodium or ammonium,
because the patient was dyspeptic, lithium being good
for dyspepsia. After taking the medicine for a year
u the fits practically ceased altogether.” Notwithstanding
this the medicine was continued in the same doses for
three years, or as stated in the next page for four years.
After that for two more years (next page says one more
year) in 10-gr. doses three times a day, and for six months
longer in the reduced dose of 5 grs. three times a day.
Thus the total quantity of bromide of lithium taken by
the young woman amounted to upwards of 26 lbs.!
Evidently, with respect to the bromide treatment of
epilepsy, Dr. Bramwell does not share Dr. Goodhart’s
opinion, who said in his address at the annual meeting
of the British Medical Association of last year: “It has
become the routine treatment of epilepsy, and as such
I think it often does a great deal of harm, and I am by
no means certain that it does any equivalent good.”
I think it would be difficult to find a practitioner on this
side the Tweed who would continue to administer such
enormous doses of bromide for five years after the fits had
apparently been cured. A common experience of prac¬
titioners is that bromides, while suppressing the epileptic
fits, have a disastrous effect on the mental faculties of the
patient. I remember a gentleman, whose wife had under¬
gone the bromide treatment for epilepsy under that
distinguished specialist the late Dr. C. B. Radcliffe, telling
me that the fits had ceased, but that his wife had become
an idiot. But possibly the brains of Scotch lassies are
made of tougher material.
The next article is on megrim, and a case is given illus¬
trating Dr. Bramwell’s treatment of this disease. During
the megrim the patient had to take 20 grains of phenacetin
as soon as the attack occurred. If this did not relieve
the headache she was to take a second similar dose at the
end of an hour; and if still unrelieved, a third dose at
the end of another hour, but never more than 60 grains
in one day. He does not tell us what to do if the third
dose misses fire. In order to prevent the recurrence of
the attacks the patient got 7 to 10 grains of salicylate
of sodium with 2 or 3 drops of Fowler’s solution three
times a day. Under this treatment the attacks of megrim
were greatly reduced in number, and perhaps severity,
but they were not completely checked, for she writes
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662 EDINBURGH THERAPEUTICS. M Re^ew^J“?l! , lW2 C
some time after having returned home that she had had
one severe headache, while apparently still going on with
the medicine.
The next article is entitled “ Jacksonian epilepsy,” and
is more conspicuous for its pathology than for its thera¬
peutics. A case of the disease illustrates the article,
or clinical conversazione as we should call it. The subject
of the disease was a girl, aged 4, who had suffered for some
weeks from convulsive attacks affecting the left lower,
and occasionally also the upper, extremity. The disease
which Hughlings Jackson first described, and to which
his admirers have given his name, consists of painless,
usually clonic, spasms of a localized group of muscles,
without loss of consciousness. Why it should be called
epilepsy is not very obvious, as it does not seem to have
a feature in common with epilepsy; even the convulsions
are utterly unlike, being limited to a small group of
muscles, and these are greatly weakened or even paralyzed
by the convulsions. In this case the spasms occurred
at the rate of two or three a week. The child looked
perfectly healthy and well nourished, and was of a singularly
placid disposition. Follows a great deal of learned talk
arid much cross-examination of the students about the
pathology of the disease, resulting in the conclusion that
in this case the cause of the malady was a tumour in the
brain somewhere about the Rolandic area of the right
side. The students being asked how to treat the case,
one suggested “ operation.” This Dr. Bramwell thought
was premature ; drugs must first be tried. One student
suggested bromide of potassium. That might do as a
palliative, especially if combined with chloral hydrate,
but would not disperse the tumour. Another student
proposed iodide of potassium. “ Yes,” says the Dr.,
“ that is the drug.” So this medicine was given from the
beginning of November, at first 2 grains, gradually
increased to 15 grains, three times daily. But the attacks
continued with unabated severity and frequency, so on
the 20th January the iodide was discontinued, and 10
grains of bromide of potassium with 5 grains chloral
hydrate given three times daily, reduced on the 21st
January to 5 grains bromide and 2J grains chloral. Here
the history of this interesting case breaks off, so we do not
know what effect this energetic medication had on the
health of the little girl. As Dr. Bramwell never gives
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N^Ti^ 0 EDINBURGH THERAPEUTICS. 663
us a reason for his drug selection except in the case of
pernicious anaemia, we are left to conjecture why he gave
the remedies mentioned in this case. We may imagine
that the iodide of potassium was given because iodine
has a reputation for dispersing tumours, but why, on the
failure of the iodide, bromide of potassium and chloral
hydrate, which had previously been ruled out of the list
of possible remedies, should be given to the little patient,
passes our limited intelligence to discover. It would seem
that Dr. Bramwell thinks of powerful drugs what he
formerly stated with regard to fly-blisters, if they do no
good they can do no harm ; but we are precluded from
thinking so, as on p. 85 he says, “ too active drug treatment
may do more harm than good ” ; but probably he does
not think 15 grains of iodide of potassium three times a
day too active drug treatment for a child of four years old.
What a pity he did not know the value of cuprum in
such cases! I think it rather unfortunate that the
name “‘epilepsy ’ 5 should have been given to this disease,
for the word is naturally a temptation to the allopathic
practitioner — who has an ineradicable tendency to
prescribe for names of diseases in place of diseased
individuals—to adminster bromide, a temptation to
which, in this case, Dr. Bramwell himself has succumbed ;
though he had previously declared that the drug
is not a real remedy for the disease, as the result proved.
The next article is on ichthyosis. Thyroid extract
seems to have been of use in some of his cases, though
rather as a palliative than a cure. This from an observer
of one of the cases is no unusual experience of thyroid
extract givers : “ His mother tells me that he keeps well
as long as he takes the thyroid extract; he relapses when
it is stopped.”
The last article is a lecture on the treatment of acute
pericarditis. Dr. Bramwell deliberately rules out aconite
from the medicines suitable for pericarditis, and he of
course knows nothing about the virtues of spigelia in
that disease. That his favourite treatment by a large
fly-blister to the precordial region, even when aided by
leeches and cupping glasses, can compete with these two
remedies in the successful treatment of peri- and endo¬
carditis, no homoeopathist who has witnessed their successful
employment will allow. The lecture concludes with two
cases in which the heart’s ventricle was penetrated by
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064 EDINBURGH THERAPEUTICS. M ^ewfNov <B lfl902®
the aspirating needle intended for the pericardium. The
one case died within an hour ; the other, notwithstanding
that she seemed before the operation in articulo mortis,
rallied after 10 ozs. of blood had been withdrawn from
the heart by the aspirator, and regained perfect health.
Although the treatment in this case may seem to have
been a kind of rough homoeopathy, it would not be prudent
to imitate it, as its success was hardly to have been,
anticipated.
I have thought it worth while to give a criticism of this
new periodical, as it seems to be issued as a sort of counter¬
blast to the therapeutic scepticism of most of the exponents
of physic on this side the border. Dr. Bramwell is not
the man to lament with Sir Douglas Powell that his medical
art “ cannot cure a common cold,” for he seems ready
to tackle and try to cure the most serious diseases.
He would not answer the question, “ Why do we give
drugs ? ” like Dr. Goodhart, “ To hide our ignorance,
or to mark time while we watch and wait.” Dr. Bramwell
gives drugs because he believes they will cure his patients.
He is sometimes disappointed, but he is never discouraged ;
he will try, try, try again till he succeeds in mastering the
disease, or the disease succeeds in mastering him. It is
refreshing to turn from the scepticism of the physicians
of the southern metropolis to the therapeutic faith of
those of the northern city, and personally I feel grateful
to Dr. Bramwell, as he reminds me of the heroic treatment
I witnessed in the Edinburgh Infirmary in the late thirties
or early forties of last century. At the same time it is
sad to think that one who possesses such an enthusiasm
for his art, such a profound knowledge of pathology, and
such skill in the diagnosis of disease, should display such
a crude empiricism in therapeutics, and should wilfully
neglect to study and practise the rational and only scientific
method of treatment that is now entering on the second
century of its career, and is successfully practised by
thousands of qualified practitioners all over the world.
Can that Edinburgh faculty which was adorned by the
illustrious pathologist William Henderson, the great
exponent and defender of the scientific method of Hahne¬
mann, only now show us its eminent pathologists wasting
their energies on the futile cultivation of discredited
Christisonian therapeutics ? What would not scientific—
by which I mean homoeopathic—medicine gain by the
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SIX CONSECUTIVE YEARS’ WORK. 605
accession to its standard of zealous and intelligent
diagnosticians like Dr. Byrom Bramwell ? Cum talis sis ,
ntinam nostras esses !
SIX CONSECUTIVE YEARS’ WORK AT A PRIVATE
NURSING INSTITUTION WITH NO MORTALITY.
By George Burford, M.B.,
Physician for Diseases of Women to the London Homoeopathic
Hospital.
(Continued from p. 598.)
Continuing the detail of this six years’ work, the abdominal
sections I here classify in similar series, followed by a
few special cases selected for annotation.
After the question of a Nursing Home, already alluded
to, had been decided, the next important item was the
preparation of the patient for operation, where surgical
measures were requisite.
As regards abdominal section, my usual course is to keep
the patient under observation some few days before
operation—to become acquainted with the average state,
to note the urinary output day by day, to regulate the
dietary, to eliminate carefully any constipation, and for
the most part to put the patient on arnica in attenuation
as a vulnerary. In cases of fibroid tumour of the uterus,
whenever marked anaemia had been followed by cardiac
defects, a preliminary course of strychnine nit. T ^ con¬
tinued over a fortnight or less, I have found of the
greatest service.
Cases requiring Ovariotomy.
('use Medical Attendant I Disease Operation I Result
“ I
A. Dr. Carfrae - - Ovarian cystoma - Ovariotomy - Recovery
B. J Dr. Shackleton - Unilocular cyst - Ovariotomy -! Recovery
C. : Dr. F. Clifton - Huge dermoid cyst - Ovariotomy - Recovery
D. Dr. Graham Wills! Ovarian teratoma - Ovariotomy - Recovery
E. Dr McKilliam - Ovarian cyst with Ovariotomy - Recovery
pregnancy -
F. Dr. Kennedy - Ovarian miutilocular | Ovariotomy - Recovery
cyst -i
G. Dr. Ed. Capper - Double ovarian cystic Ovariotomy -j Recovery
j i disease - t
The distinction I have drawn between cases of disease
of the appendages with and without chronic peritonitis,
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666 SIX CONSECUTIVE YEARS’ WORK.
is a clinical as well as a pathological one. When chronic
peritonitis co-exists, the Fallopian tubes have usually
undergone gross changes, and are responsible for the
peritonitis secondarily evoked. In the absence of this
complication, ovarian defects are commonly the forties
et origines mali.
Cases of Chronic Disease of the Appendages,
with Peritonitis.
Case
Medical Attendant
Disease 1
Operat.on
| Result
H.
Dr. Madden
Double pyosalpinx -
Salpingectomy
- Recovery
I.
Dr. Blyth -
Double tubo-ovarian
Oophoro - salpin -
disease -
gectomy -
- Recovery
«T.
Dr. Shackleton
Double tubo-ovarian |
Oophoro - salpin¬
i
disease -
gectomy -
- Recovery
K.
G. B. - - -
Pelvic peritonitis, R.
Removal of R.
1
appendages involved
appendages
- Recovery
Cases of Chronic Affection of the Appendages,
without Peritonitis.
Case
Medical Attendant
Disease 1
Operation
Result
L.
Dr. Greig -
Chronic pelvic pain -
Salpingo-
oophorectomy
Recovery
M.
G. B. -
Chronic pelvic pain,
| Salpingo-
with haemorrhage -
oophorectomy
Recovery
X.
Dr. Neild -
Chronic pelvic pain,
Salpingo-
enlarged ovaries -
1 oophorectomy
Recovery
O.
Dr. Neild - -!
Chronic pelvic pain.
|
cirrhosed ovary
j R. ovary removed
Recove y
P.
Dr. Bodman
Chronic ovaritis
Salpingo-
oophorectomy
Recovery
Q.
Dr. Purdom-
Chronic ovaritis, with
L. ovary removed,
retroflexion -
vagino-fixation -
1 Recovery
Cases requiring Hysterectomy.
I have here included both abdominal and vaginal
hysterectomy.
Case
Medical Attendant
Disease t Operation
Result
R.
Dr. Gardiner
Carcinoma of corpus
Gould
uteri - - -i Hysterectomy
Recovery
S.
Dr. Searson
j Fibroma uteri - - Hysterectomy
Recovery
T.
Dr. Washington
1 Cancer of cervix Vaginal hyster-
i Epps
i ectomy
Recovery
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^°v“fNoTr^ hiC SIX CONSECUTIVE YEARS' WORK. 667
Other Abdominal Operations.
Case Medical Attendant Disease
Operation
U. j G. B. -
V. G. B. -
W.
Dr. Wallis -
- Gall stones - -j Cholecystotomy
- Ventral hernia - - Rectification
- Suppuratory ectopic Removal
gestation
Result
-j Recovery
- j Recoveiy
Recovery
Malignant Disease of the Breast (Two Cases).
1. The first of these cases is unusually interesting.
Removal of the right breast for malignant disease some
five and a half years ago has not been followed by any
recurrence of the disease up to date. Additional interest
lies in the fact that this patient has, and has had for many
years, a very large fibroid uterine tumour. The growth
in the breast occurred during the active history of the
fibroid; removal of the breast was not followed by any
alteration in the character of the uterine growth. This
the patient still possesses, though its troublesome symptoms
are very much lessened and the patient’s health improved
solely by therapeutic measures.
2. In the other case, one of diffuse malignant disease,
sufficient time has not yet elapsed to allow a reliable
verdict on the final issue.
Certain among these cases were of unique interest, and
a short summary of the principal points in selected instances
here follows :—
Ovariotomy at the seventh month of Pregnancy : Healthy
child delivered at term.
A married lady, seven months advanced in pregnancy,
was found by her medical attendant to have also an
abdominal cyst of some dimensions. In addition to the
acute distress due to the bulk of the mass, intractable
vomiting, with much impaired nutrition, caused a grave
prognosis to be given unless relief were forthwith obtained.
Operation being decided on, ovariotomy was performed,
the cyst removed, and the physical condition thereafter
was entirely satisfactory.
On the third day mental aberration ensued, with marked
insomnia, conditions which were very soon controlled by
the use of actsea 3x. The lady made a good recovery ;
pregnancy proceeded without interruption to term, when
delivery of a living and well-developed child was safely
effected.
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668 SIX CONSECUTIVE YEARS’ WORK. ^wewfNov^fisa^
Cholecystotomy for Gall-stones.
A single lady, who had recently spent some years in
Spain, came to me in a chronic condition of dyspeptic
ill-health, checquered by repeated abdominal crises.
Her complexion was muddy and sallow; there were no
marked articular troubles and no loss of flesh. An acute
seizure while under observation satisfied us as to the local
origin of the pain; examination under anaesthetic dis¬
covered no organic abnormal physical signs.
Exploratory abdominal section, continued into the
gall-bladder, shewed this viscus to contain several stones
of a mulberry shape; these were removed, and the gall¬
bladder drained for some weeks. The convalescence was
somewhat tardy; but in time, with sea air and an
appropriate dietary, the improvement in health was all
that could be wished.
Abdominal Section for Suppurative Foetus from Ectopic
Gestation.
A married lady, with a history of repeated crises in the
earlier months of pregnancy. Foetal movements were
felt up to about the sixth month, then ceased ; a condition
of intra-peritoneal suppuration began to develop, with
pyrexia, vomiting, and diarrhoea, free perspirations, and
much emaciation. The maximum temperature was 102°.
The pelvic conditions precluding any safe vaginal
operation, the abdomen was opened, the uterus incised,
pints of foetid pus evacuated, the foetus removed, and the
placenta peeled off. The uterine incision was for the
most part closed, then the abdominal opening correspond¬
ing, and the abscess cavity drained with gauze.
After many oscillations and a prolonged convalescence
the patient ultimately fully regained her normal health ;
the period returned, and painlessly; and within a year
of her perilous plight she was able to cycle with ease.
Ovariotomy for Large Dermoid Tumour.
A single lady, set. about 25, was accidentally discovered
by her medical attendant to have a large abdominal,tumour,
he being in attendance for some thoracic symptoms.
Though the patient was single, the existence of the tumour
was neither known to herself nor observed by her friends.
Careful medical examination at once detected it, and she
was sent up to me for operation. At the operation a very
large and typical dermoid ovarian tumour, weighing in
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^ewrNo°v m ri 902 hiC SIX CONSECUTIVE YEARS’ WORK. 669
all the quite unexpected sum of thirteen pounds , was
removed. The patient made a good recovery. It is
singular that so weighty a mass had developed without
causing any symptoms of local discomfort.
Bilateral Salpingitis , with Secondary Ovarian Implication.
A lady, set. 43, had been curetted for haemorrhage some
ten years previously by Dr. Wesselhoeft. Three and a
half years ago the haemorrhage returned, and later, what
purported to have been a severe attack of peritonitis,
developed. She now suffered much pain, and unduly
frequent and very prolonged periods made her anaemic.
Therapeutic treatment proving ineffective, abdominal
section was performed; both Fallopian tubes found
considerably diseased, with numerous and dense adhesions
involving both ovaries. The appendages were enucleated
and removed, a good recovery ensued, and health and
vigour completely restored.
Gangrenous Uterine Fibroid , with Anosmia from Haemor¬
rhages and Septic Absorption.
A married lady, suffering from considerable blood losses
and very foetid discharge, was considered by an eminent
consultant in town to have malignant uterine disease,
and radical operation was proposed. Electing to put
herself under homoeopathic care, she called in a colleague,
who brought her to me for opinion. Examination showed
the vagina to be filled with a foetid mass issuing from the
cervix uteri, which was itself quite free from implication.
I diagnosed the state as that of gangrenous fibroid, a view
which was supported by the results of operative removal.
The patient made a thorough recovery, and has since lost
her marked anaemic and cachectic condition, having
recovered her health and strength completely.
Ovarian Tumour of Rapid Growth and Uncommon
Character.
A single lady, aet. 25, was brought to me evidently
suffering from an abdominal tumour of dimensions, which
had recently been discovered by her medical adviser.
The physical signs were those of a semi-solid mass, no
fluctuation thrill being obtainable. As in the course of
a couple of months’ observation the mass increased rapidly
and marked emaciation was developing, I performed
abdominal section, removing a large ovarian growth,
appearing to the naked eye like a dermoid ; hair and bony
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670
MEDICAL EDUCATION.
Monthly Homoeopathic
Review, Nov. 1, 1902.
plates were distinctly visible. Submitting it to the
examination of Mr. Targett, he pronounced the mass to
be a teratoma in type. The patient made an excellent
recovery.
Vaginal Hysterectomy for Carcinoma of the Fundus Uteri .
A single lady, aet. 56, and some years past the menopause,
noticed the recurrence of irregular but slight haemorrhage
from the uterus. There was no pain, the general health
was good, and the organism well nourished. Examination
under anaesthetic showed an enlarged uterus, and fragments
removed by curetting, submitted to expert examination,
indicated the already-suspected presence of cancer.
Vaginal hysterectomy was performed under local
conditions of much difficulty. The convalescence was
marked by urinary difficulties, which yielded to appropriate
measures, and the recovery thereafter proceeded with no
further break.
The foregoing is an account of the principal surgical cases
under my care at a single Nursing Home during this period.
I have purposely left out of consideration my cases at other
similar institutions, and those where operation has been
conducted at home. In order to point the moral, I have
selected this place and the cases there treated in order
to demonstrate the almost absolute certainty of result
where the operator is well acquainted with his nurses,
these again being thoroughly familiar with his detail of
after-treatment, and the whole procedure carried out
under conditions the suitability of which have been
attested by results.
Minor cases and purely medical cases have not been
included in the list, these having no particular bearing
on the main argument.
AN ESSAY ON MEDICAL EDUCATION.
Suggested by the Address of Prof. Henry E.
Armstrong, Ll.d., Ph.D., V.P.R.S., President of the
Educational Science Section, British Association,
1902.
By W. M. Storar, L.R.C.P., L.R.C.S. (Ed.), Mount Charles,
Belfast.
The British Association for the Advancement of Science
has met, discussed its affairs, and departed. Belfast has
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MEDICAL EDUCATION
Monthly Homoeopathic
Review, Nov. 1, 1902.
671
been honoured. It remains now to be seen in what
respects we are disposed to profit by the knowledge we
have gained and the advice we have received. I have
no wish in this short essay to discuss any of the scientific
papers which were read by some of the most eminent
savants of our day. Many of the addresses were upon
topics too abstruse to be followed with any intelligent
interest by any except specialists or experts in particular
branches of science. So for my purpose I shall confine
my attention to the Presidential address in the Educa¬
tional Science Section by Professor Henry E. Armstrong,
L1.D, Ph.D., V.P.R.S.
The one idea running through the whole of his brilliant
and eloquent address is that most of our present educational
systems are obsolete, out of date, not abreast of the latest
discoveries in science, and therefore unsuitable for helping
our students to advanced positions in the world of industry
and commerce. Prof. Perry, in the engineering section,
had exactly the same complaint to make. Prof. Armstrong
therefore pleads for an entire revision of our methods,
for more respect for the individuality of students, for
more exercise of the scientific imagination, in order to
liberate education from the grip of the senile hand now
holding power in our schools, colleges, and universities.
While he directed his scathing criticism against the
prevailing antiquated modes still settled like a blight over
education in general, I could not help feeling that many
of his remarks applied with equal force to the state of
medical education in this country—a subject in which I
take a very great interest.
Prof. Tyndall said in 1870 that “ science had already
to some extent leavened the world.” That is over thirty
years ago, and many wonderful things in most branches
of science have been discovered in that time; but it is
generally admitted that, while surgery has advanced by
leaps and bounds until there is scarcely an organ in the
body which has not felt the surgeon’s knife, medicine or
therapeutics, which is the science and art of healing, has
made scarcely any apparent progress at all. Professor
Armstrong, with his mind on education generally, and I,
with my mind on medical education, ask, “ How are we
to become plastic to the extent that the growth of know¬
ledge demands, in order that rigidity may be relaxed,
that conservatism may give way to a wise spirit of advance ?
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MEDICAL EDUCATION.
672
Monthly Homoeopathic
Review, Nov. 1, 1<K)2.
And he answers in one short phrase only, “ By the scientific
use of the imagination.” Next he says: “ But the
tendency of our education is to kill rather than develop
the very power on which the progress of the world depends.
The prevailing policy is that of the party in power, and,
more often than not, of a caucus behind it. Those who
dare to differ or offer advice are looked at askance, and
always with jealous eyes, and too often everything is
done to block the way of the reformer, not from any base
motive, but, as a rule, from sheer inability to appreciate
what is proposed—from sheer lack of imaginative power.”
How closely all these remarks apply to the blind and
stupid obstruction which has met that grand generalization
of Hahnemann in the realm of therapeutics, only those
who have made a careful study of the history of homoeo¬
pathy know.
“ Few will deny that we are seldom other than creatures
of habit, and that plasticity of mind is a rare attitude.”
There is no member of my profession (and I say this
without any fear of contradiction whatever) who has had
sufficient plasticity of mind to venture to study Hahne¬
mann’s researches and those of his followers, and who
has also made a few experiments himself, who has not
become perfectly convinced of the enormous value of
this theory in the practice of physic. Unfortunately the
said plasticity of mind is so rare that the majority of the
members of the medical profession condemn the theory
before they have tried it, generally on the ipse dixit of an
antiquated professor who, from the depths of his inner
consciousness, and from that only, knew by instinct that
there was nothing in it!
“ The importance of the part played by theory in
science cannot be exaggerated. We have only to think
of the influence exercised by the Newtonian theory of
gravitation, by the Daltonian theory of atoms, by
Faraday’s conception of lines of force, by the wave theory
in its varied applications, by the Darwinian theory of
evolution ; we have only to think of the way in which
the reflections of one weak man in a secluded Kentish
village have changed the tone of thought of the civilized
world. Such theories are the very foundations of science.
While facts are the building stones, theories furnish the
design, and it is the interpretation of facts in the light of
theory, and the considered application of theory to practice
Digitized by v^ooQle
i^°vTe^fNoTn P ^ hic medical education 673
that constitute true science. The marvellous development
of scientific activity during the past century has been
consequent on the establishment of fruitful theories.
If teachers generally would pay more attention to theory
their teaching would doubtless be more fruitful of result;
facts they have in plenty, but they lack training in the
considered use of facts. False prophets among us have
long taught the narrow doctrine that practice is superior
to theory, and we pretend to believe in it. That the
belief is founded on misconception may safely be con¬
tended, however; the two go together and are inseparable.”
Francis Darwin says of his father that “ he was just to his
theories and did not condemn them unheard, and so it
happened that he was willing to test what would seem
to most people not at all worth testing.” Would that this
eminent example of a mind “to let” were more common
in our profession. It would not then be necessary to
bewail the fact that a most fruitful theory has been lying
about which has, wherever applied, worked an extra¬
ordinary revolution in the practice of medicine. Physicians
generally are content to be guided by what they call
empiricism or rule of thumb, which is no rule at all, and
any kills or cures effected by that system or no system
are reckoned “ regular ” because guided by no “ regula ”
or rule. Out of this bewildering chaos a careful study
of Hahnemann’s theory of homoeopathy would undoubtedly
lead them. But “ our schools are paying no proper
attention to the development of imaginative power, or
to giving training in the use of theory as the interpreter
of facts; didactic and dogmatic teaching are producing
the result which infallibly follows in their wake, sterility
of intellect.”
This result has come about so surely among physicians
of the old (or allopathic) school that few of them consider
there can be any way out of their present muddle, and,
sad to relate, most of them seem content to remain where
they are. Dr. Cuming, the late Professor of Medicine
at Queen’s College, Belfast, did not believe in physic,
and naturally most of his students are somewhat of that
opinion; in fact, a mild scepticism about the value of
drugs at all, tempered by a strong feeling that the public
should still continue to swallow them, is the prevailing
medical fashion. To this curious, sterile,'* inert impasse
Yol. 46, No. 11. 43
Digitized by v^ooQle
674 MEDICAL EDUCATION,
has the profession come, all for the want of a reliable
working theory.
But “ the priesthood of the craft are, in fact, possessed
by the spirit of narrow parochialism, and upholders of
an all too rigid creed, being lineal descendants of a privileged
class whose functions were far more limited than those
which must now be discharged by teachers, if teaching
is to be given which will serve as an efficient preparation
for life under modern conditions.”
The theory which Hahnemann resuscitated and spent
the best part of his life in demonstrating as of extreme
value in the practice of physic, is so simple and so easy
of being tested that it has earned the supercilious scorn
of those who sit in high places in the colleges and univer¬
sities, and those who have sat at the feet of the scornful
have very naturally imbibed the same notions. In order
to show how fruitful of good this theory has long since
proved itself I need only mention the following instances—
a few of many—in which it has guided physicians to what
is now recognized generally as the best results in the
practice of medicine :—
1. The treatment of cholera by camphor, arsenic,
and copper.
2. The treatment of malaria by cinchona and quinine.
3. The treatment of dysentery and tropical diarrhoeas
by arsenic, corrosive mercury, and salines.
4. The treatment of simple chills and fevers by aconite.
5. The treatment of renal and cystic affections by
cantharis, turpentine, and iron.
Quite recently Surgeon-Major Deane, of the Indian Army,
was awarded the Kaiser-I-Hind gold medal for the best
results in the treatment of bubonic plague, chiefly with
dilutions of the serpent venoms, guided thereto by his
special knowledge of Hahnemann’s theory.
Curiously, many physicians treat many of the above
diseases with some of the remedies suggested by the
similia similibus or homoeopathic theory, but they do so
without any real knowledge of or respect for the theory
which has placed such treasures in their way; they get
their knowledge in a haphazard fashion from some casual
informant and apply it crudely, and therefore with less
happy results than if a conscious and grateful recognition
of the value of the theory were guiding them. And for any
further progress they are just as much in the dark as ever.
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Monthly Homoeopathic
Review, Nov. 1 , 1902.
MEDICAL EDUCATION.
675
“ That familiarity with the name of this theory should
breed such contempt is passing strange, but how great
the guilt in these days of those who allow the contempt
to grow up, knowing as they must that the ignorance is
easy to dispel, knowing also that those versed in the
mysteries have ever sought to lay bare all that is within
their ken.”
It is quite sufficient in most medical circles to mention
the word homoeopathy to have the whole theory ruthlessly
condemned with contempt, and without examination
or enquiry of any kind. This theory has been before
the scientific world for over a century, but on
account of the ignorance and apathy, and lack
of imagination in high places, it has been forced
to fight its way painfully to some sort of recognition.
And this recognition is neither small nor grudging in
places where an environment suitable for the reception
of new ideas prevails, and where there are fewer vested
interests in the antiquated lore which vaguely promenades
as science in this college-ridden and professor-ridden
old country. We are only just beginning to rise superior
to the dead hand which prescribed that we should spend
the best years of our youth in painfully poring over
2,000-year-old classics. We cannot forget that we live
now in a real live world, and that the most of the knowledge
we should acquire is for everyday use.
Until Hahnemann promulgated his theory, medicine
had scarcely made any progress for a thousand years.
Bleedings frequent and copious, and mercurial salivation,
setons, searing irons, and always violent purgation were
the order of the day. The very name of our oldest medical
paper, The Lancet , is evidence of the sanguinary gruesome¬
ness of the practice of our fathers. All other medical
theories have died a natural death within a very few
years of their birth. Hahnemann’s theory alone survives,
and that it is a reliable working hypothesis must be
evident from the fact that it has weathered a hundred
years of contumely and bitter persecution, and that it
now numbers among its accredited followers over 15,000
physicians in the United States, about 300 in Great
Britain and Ireland, and still more in our free and pro¬
gressive colonies of Canada, Australia, India, and the
Dependencies. In fact, there is no country in the world
where this theory has not received recognition from men
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676
MEDICAL EDUCATION.
Monthly Homoeopathic
Review, Nov. 1 , 1902.
of the highest scientific rank and culture. To quote
Prof. Armstrong again: “ Unfortunately it too often
happens that those placed in authority are the very last
to attempt to march with the times. Bodies such as our
universities might have been expected to lead the way,
to keep a most watchful eye on all that was happening,
and to note and apply all improvements. The very
contrary has been the case. As a rule they have advanced
only under severe pressure from outside, and scarcely a
change can be credited to their initiative. It does not
seem to have occurred to them that an Intelligence
Department would be a desirable appendage. All suffer
from the fatal blot that discretion and authority are
vested in a few heads of departments; the younger and
more active spirits have no opportunity granted them
while their minds are plastic, full of courage, and instinct
with advance ; so when the time comes that they can
act they have lost the desire through inanition. This is
the terrible disease from which all our public offices and
many industries suffer. It is right to accord experience
its proper value, but it is wrong to put aside youthful
energy and inventiveness. Our American cousins owe
their advance largely to the recognition of these facts.”
I have already mentioned the great and growing
estimation in which Hahnemann’s theory is held in the
United States, which is the best evidence possible of its
paramount fruitfulness. In fact, physicians over there
who have no knowledge of the practical value of that
theory are considered quite old fogies and out of date.
Prof. Armstrong speaks slightingly of the value of
college diplomas and university degrees, which are evidence
more often of opportunity and capacity for cramming
than of really great intelligence. This system of examina¬
tions, he says, “ leads to the worship for ever afterwards
of those who have gained prizes, instead of regarding them
but as victors for the moment and requiring them at each
step to give fresh proof of power. Nothing is more unwise
than the way in which we over-rate the pretensions of
the ‘ first-class ’ man; we too often make a prig of him
by so doing. Those who succeed best in examinations
are too frequently not those most fitted for the work of
the world. A long experience has convinced me that the
boys a few places down a class are, as a rule, the best
material. Those at the top have acquisitive power, but
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Monthly Homoeopathic
Review, Nov. 1, 1902.
MEDICAL EDUCATION.
677
more often than not they lack individuality and the power
of exercising initiative. We must base our judgment
in the future on evidence of training and of general conduct,
not on isolated examinations. ... If our young
people fail to show intelligence in later life, it is as a rule
because the conditions under which we place them in
earlier life are such as not only to leave their intelligence
undeveloped, but, what is far worse, such as to mar their
ability.”
“ There are three courses open to examining bodies—
to lead, to maintain themselves just abreast of the times,
to stagnate. As a matter of fact the last is that almost
invariably chosen—a syllabus when once adopted remaining
in force year after year. Consequently examinations tend
to retard rather than to favour the introduction of improved
methods.”
Hahnemann himself would never have become a doctor
of medicine if that degree had not been secured before
he promulgated his theory.
Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood,
was boycotted by all his contemporaries. We are told
no one over forty years of age believed in his discovery,
although anyone might have verified it in ten minutes.
Galileo would have pleaded in vain for a Fellowship of the
Astronomical Society of his day, for was it not decreed by
the Authorities that the earth, not the sun, was the centre
of our planetary system ? Dr. Pope, whom I have the
honour of knowing, was refused his M.D. at Edinburgh
University after he had passed all his examinations, because
it became known that he was sympathetic to Hahnemann’s
theory. Mr. Harvey, another medical gentleman, a
friend of mine, was not allowed to sit for his final examina¬
tion at Aberdeen University, because he would not engage
not to practice occasionally according to that theory.
Mr. Blake, of Taunton, had his Membership of the Royal
College of Surgeons, London, taken from him for the same
reason. Dr. Pearce, of Northampton, was consigned to
Newgate by Mr. Wakeley, of the Lancet (coroner for
Middlesex), on a charge of manslaughter for failing to
cure his brother (Mr. Pearce) of cholera, although Dr.
Pearce was himself stricken with the same malady, and
therefore unable to attend to him.
Now what is the remedy for all this ignorant boycotting
of valuable information ?
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678 THE STATUS OF HOMCEOPATHY. ^e^ew^Nov^fiS^
The schools and colleges, and professors, are so full of
mutual admiration for each other and the glorious positions
they occupy, that it would seem an impertinence to disturb
their amiable equanimity by the suggestion that there are
ideas and theories waiting for examination which they
should bestir themselves to investigate. Practically
they say, “ What we don’t know now isn’t worth knowing.
If we have not evolved any theory, you may depend upon
it any other must be quite worthless.”
It is hopeless, therefore, to appeal to the colleges or
to the heads (so-called) of the profession. The people
must take this affair in hand for themselves, and decline
any longer to submit to the tender mercies, which are
cruel, of a very unenlightened professional ring. When
the demand for up-to-date practitioners is created by
a more enlightened public opinion, the supply will very
shortly be forthcoming. Unfortunately, on this matter
the people have been kept very ignorant, and the best
informed of them have been afraid to stand up against
the browbeating and insolence of the ordinary physicians,
who are, with a few honorable exceptions, far too ready
to pronounce an all too summary verdict upon this theory
without any previous adequate enquiry.
A British Homoeopathic Association has quite recently
been formed, with its head office in London, for the purpose
of enlightening the people on this very important subject.
The following are some of the officers of the Association:
President, The Earl Cawdor; Vice-presidents, The Earl
Dysart and Lord Calthorpe ; treasurer, Joseph Howard,
Esq., M.P. And on the general committee are : R. W
Perks, Esq., M.P., Sir Robert Hunter, W. M. M’Arthur,Esq.,
M.P., Col. Clifton Browne, and others. Anyone interested
in this Association should write to the Secretary, 29,
Monument Street, London, E.C.; or for a list of literature
upon the subject of Homoeopathy, to the Homoeopathic
Publishing Co., 12, Warwick Lane, London, E.C.
THE PRESENT STATUS OF HOMOEOPATHY.
Being the Presidential Address delivered before
the Fifty-Eighth Annual Session of the American
Institute of Homoeopathy, Cleveland, 0., June 17,
1902.
By James C. Wood, M.D.
The American Institute of Homoeopathy convenes to-night,
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THE STATUS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 679
June 17, 1902, under very different conditions from those
which confronted it fifty-seven years ago at the first
meeting. Then it was an infant in swaddling clothes,
with a membership of but forty; now it is a giant with a
membership of over 2,000. Then there were less than
300 homoeopathic physicians in the United States; now
there are over 15,000. Then there were no homoeopathic
colleges and no hospitals; now there are twenty colleges
and 340 hospitals, dispensaries, and sanatoriums under
homoeopathic control, having properties and endowments
aggregating several millions of dollars. Then there were
but two journals devoted to the interest of homoeopathy
and homoeopathic therapeutics ; now there are thirty-two.
Then the literature of homoeopathy was limited to a few
books devoted to Materia Medica and therapeutics alone ;
now the whole domain of medicine has been covered by
writers who practice and teach the law of similars. Then
for a member of the so-called regular school to consult
with a member of the so-called homoeopathic school,
meant professional ostracism and disgrace; now such
consultations are of daily occurrence, and are openly
advocated by men occupying high positions in the
American Medical Association. Then, and up to five
years ago, no credit was given by colleges under the control
of the older school for time spent in homoeopathic colleges ;
now students in homoeopathic colleges, and homoeopathic
graduates, are placed on a par in nearly all colleges of
the older school with students of, and graduates from,
so-called regular institutions. In short, the world has
been moving in matters medical as well as in matters
religious and political, and he who ignores this fact is
either purblind or a laggard. Persecution on the part
of the dominant school was followed by tolerance; tolerance
has been followed by respect; and respect, unless we
guard carefully our vantage ground, will prove but the
forerunner of assimilation.
I am prompted this evening to indulge in the foregoing
retrospection and prognostication for the purpose of
bringing the issue which so much concerns the school
homoeopathic fairly and squarely before you. I cannot
better define and emphasize the present attitude of the
dominant school towards the homoeopathic than by
quoting from Dr. Reed’s presidential address last year,
before the American Medical Association. In describing
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G80 THE STATUS OF HOMCEOPATHY.
the “ New School of Medicine ” (Dr. Reed does not mean
by this term the “ homoeopathic ” school, but rather the
new school of thought), he says: “ It acknowledges no
distinctive title, it heralds no shibboleth. It is a school
of human tolerance, of personal independence, of scientific
honesty. It is the slave of neither prejudice nor pre¬
conception, and abandons the accepted truth of yesterday,
if it be only the demonstrated error of to-day. It places
no premium upon personal prerogative, and extends no
recognition to individual authority. It makes no pro¬
clamation of completeness, no pretension to sufficiency.
It recognizes that truth is undergoing progressive revelation,
not ending to-day, but continued through the ages. It
yields its plaudits to achievement, and recognizes that
he is the greatest among men who reveals the most of
truth unto men. It greets as a friend him who thinks,
though he think error; for, thinking, he may think truth,
and thereby add to the common fund. It heeds all things,
examines all things, judges all things.”
Again, Dr. Wm. Osier, of Johns Hopkins University, in
the New York Sun, of January 27, 1901, said: “ The
century has witnessed a revolution in the treatment of
diseases and the growth of a new school of medicine.
. . . A new school of practitioners has arisen which
cares nothing for homoeopathy, and less for so-called
allopathy. It seeks to study rationally and scientifically
the action of drugs, old and new.”
Many similar quotations could be made from the
writings of prominent men of the dominant school, but
the two distinguished gentlemen whom I have quoted
represent a type of thinkers of that school which is con¬
stantly increasing in numbers. On the other hand, a
similar type of thinkers is growing up in the homoeopathic
school; and in many articles upon the present status of
homoeopathy, and its relations to other systems of thera¬
peutics, these thinkers have shown a disposition to meet
their old time antagonists more than half way. In view
to these facts I am prompted to-night to propound the
following questions, and to answer them to the best of
my ability:—
1. What influence has homoeopathy had, if any, upon
the medical thought and practice of to-day as represented
by the dominant school of medicine ?
2. Has homoeopathy fulfilled its mission, and should
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SewfNoTri 902 hiC THE STATUS OF HOMCEOPATHY. 681
we now permit ourselves to become a part of the dominant
school of medicine ?
3. What evidence can we put forth going to show that
the law of similars, upon which the homoeopathic school
is based, is a law of nature and a law of cure worthy of
being elaborated and studied by all who have at heart the
best interests of humanity ?
4. What have been the chief obstacles to the growth
of homoeopathy, and to its acceptance by the dominant
school of medicine ?
5. Is homoeopathy losing in numbers, prestige, and
popularity, as claimed by certain writers of the dominant
school ?
6. What should be our attitude toward that school
and toward innovations in medicine ?
These, I submit, are vital questions, and should be met
fearlessly and without equivocation. As true scientists
and sincere humanitarians, we should be willing to cast
aside theories which time and experience have proved
untenable, and supplant them by others which seem more
reasonable and seem also better to conform to modern
thought and attested facts. I shall, therefore, undertake
to answer them in the spirit of one who cares for schools
of medicine as such, the homoeopathic not excepted, only
so far as he believes that the art of healing can best be
subserved by maintaining, for the present at least, distinct
organization.
I begin then by asking: “ What influence, if any, has
homoeopathy had upon the medical thought and practice
of to-day as represented by the dominant school of
medicine ? ”
I quote a few extracts from Holmes’ Principia Medicincc,
which was a standard work in medicine one hundred
years ago, when Hahnemann began his studies. For
inflammatory fevers, venesection is advised “ until the
pulse returns to its proper strength.” For ophthalmia,
“ bleeding, especially from the jugular veins; cupping
on the nape of the neck ; leeches to the temples and
below the eyes, frequently repeated; blisters applied
to the neck, behind the ears, on the head and temples;
setons and issues in obstinate cases.” For pneumonia,
“ large and repeated blood-letting; when the strength
does not admit of further venesection, cupping should
be performed betwixt the shoulders; clysters, blisters,
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682 THE STATUS OP HOMOEOPATHY.
large doses of tartar emetic, etc.” For toothache,
“ venesection, mercurial purgatives, sudorifics, emetics,
scarifying the gums, leeches to the gums, blisters behind
the ears, etc.”
This much merely to show that down to the time of
Hahnemann 2,400 years of empiricism had done little
to dignify medicine as a science, or even to elevate it to
the standard of an art. For hundreds, nay, thousands
of years talented men had been engaged in the cultivation
of the profession of physic. They toiled amidst dis¬
couragements and dangers, and exercised a philanthropy
and a devotedness for which our meed of praise is offered
with an ungrudging hand. But the inference that such
efforts did more than blaze the way for that which was
to follow, cannot be admitted.
In 1813 Pinel, one of the most celebrated of continental
writers, said of the therapeutics of his day : “ The Materia
Medica has been nothing but a confused heap of incon¬
gruous substances, possessing, for the most part, a doubtful
efficacy, and nothing, perhaps, is more just than the
reproach which has been attached to it, that it presents
only a shapeless assemblage of incoherent ideas and of
puerile, or, at least, of illusory observations.”
Fifty years later Dr. Paris, the President of the Royal
College of Physicians, wrote: “ The revolutions and
vicissitudes which remedies have undergone, in medical,
as well as popular opinion, from the ignorance of some
ages, the learning of others, afford an ample subject for
philosophical reflection.” “ And,” he says, “ passing to
modern times, we should not be surprised at the very
imperfect state of the Materia Medica as far as it depends
upon what is commonly catted experience. Ray attempted
to enumerate the virtues of plants from experience , and
the system serves only to commemorate his failures;
Vogel likewise professed to assign to substances those
powers which had been learned from accumulated experi¬
ence ; and he speaks of roasted toad as a specific for the
pains of gout, and asserts that a person may secure himself
for a whole year from angina by eating a roasted swallow.”
Polypharmacy was carried to such an extent that some
of the most popular prescriptions, during the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, contained from fifty to one
hundred ingredients.
It was Hahnemann who first brought order out of chaos
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No°“®°i^ hic the status of homceopathy. 683
and placed therapeutics on a scientific basis. He it was
who advocated the systematic proving of drugs upon the
healthy, the single remedy, and the minimum curative
dose. As is well known, he also enunciated the law of
similars as expressed in the formula, similia similibus
curentur . While the law of similars was suggested by
writers before the Christian era, and later had been revised
by Boulduc Thoury, Von Storck, and especially by Stahl;
and while both Haller and Von Storck emphasized the
importance of first trying upon the human body the
remedy unmixed with any foreign substance, no one of
these men had actually made such provings in a systematic
way. This painful path was first trodden by Samuel
Hahnemann. How greatly his pioneer labours have
influenced the older school, we can easily determine by
examining their literature. Their Materia Medicas are
now filled with the provings of drugs upon the well. Their
pages contain innumerable illustrations of the application
of the law of similars ; and the advantage of administering
remedies separately, “in order (in the language of one
of the most recent writers) to more accurately observe
their effects, as well as to discontinue, or change the dose
of, any one which may be necessary,” is pointed out by all.
Their improved and more refined pharmacology was made
imperative by homoeopathy.
Much more might be said going to show the influence
which Hahnemann and his teachings have had upon
modern medical thought; but, inasmuch as the facts
which I have put forth are attested by men like Fletcher,
Mott, Forbes, Liston, Trousseau and Bristowe of the older
school, it seems necessary to adduce no further evidence
under this head. Let me say, however, before passing
to my next topic, that I am not so foolish as to assert that
without Hahnemann and his followers, medicine would
have remained where it was when Hahnemann enunciated
his great law of cure. On the contrary, I am inclined to
believe that if the law of similars had been presented by
one less dogmatic than Hahnemann, and had not been
so obscured by mysticism and unthinkable hypotheses,
it would long ago have become the working rule of all
schools of medicine in the application of drugs to disease.
My second question follows the first in logical sequence :
“ Has homoeopathy fulfilled its mission, and should we
now permit ourselves to become a part of the dominant
school of medicine ? ”
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684 THE STATUS OF HOMOEOPATHY,
The spirit of the times is encouraging amalgamation
and co-operation in competing corporate, business, and
philanthropic enterprises, and why should not the great
schools of medicine bring themselves into harmony with
this spirit ? Even theology, which has ever been weighted
down by bigotry and dogmas, is learning the great lesson
that truth is the prerogative of no denomination and no
sect. The modem theologian believes with the great
Swiss reformer, Zwingli, that the Father of Truths spoke
truths to Plato, to Socrates, to Buddha, to Mohammed,
and to Confucius, as well as to the Founder of Christianity.
In this spirit there was held ten years ago during a Rational
Exposition the “ World’s Congress of Religions.” Upon
the same platform sat side by side Jew and Gentile,
Catholic and Protestant, Mohammedan and Buddhist,
Trinitarian and Unitarian, Dogmatist and Free Thinker,
Materialist and Transcendentalist. A survey of theological
history during the last years of the century just closed
reveals a spirit of religious tolerance which should bring
the blush of shame to the cheek of him who is the disciple
of Hippocrates.
Nevertheless, one who sincerely believes that he is
advocating a principle and a truth which is destined,
when it is fully elaborated and universally accepted, to
benefit mankind beyond all human computation, would
be a moral coward to salve his conscience for the sake of
peace and harmony, or for position. When a great and
powerful body, such as is the dominant school of medicine,
which has antagonized us for years, which never granted
us concessions that were not forced, which bitterly opposed
our admittance into state and governmental institutions,
suddenly changes front, tears down its high walls of
intolerance and exclusivism, and receives with open arms
“ him who thinks, though he thinks error, for, thinking,
he may think truth and thereby add to the common fund,”
it behoves us as custodians of that great principle and
that great truth to question the motive, and act with
deliberation.
I impugn neither the honesty nor the good intentions
of men like Reed and Osier. They have become thoroughly
imbued with the idea that homoeopathy, possessing,
perhaps, a modicum of good, has now outlived its usefulness,
and that the rank and file of the members of our school
are anxious to renounce our name and abjure our principles
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^ewfNoTr^ 10 THE STATUS OP HOMCEOPATHY. 685
for the sake of becoming an integral part of the body
medical. They recognize (Dr. Reed says it in so many
words) that the homoeopathic profession, especially in
co-operation with the eclectic school, is powerful enough
to defeat any medical legislation, proscriptive or otherwise,
which the dominant school may desire to inaugurate.
This condition of affairs, says Dr. Reed, “ was brought
about under the stimulus of ostracism and the fostering
care of public sympathy thereby induced.” If, therefore,
we will drop our distinctive name, apologize for having
so long remained a “sect” in medicine, and promise to
commit no lese majeste in the future, we are to be received
into the fold of so-called regular medicine.
I am willing to admit that the “ unity of medicine ”
under proper conditions is something devoutly to be
desired. But the dominant school of medicine is not yet
ready to accept these conditions, They involve a full
recognition of homoeopathy and the law of similars by all
colleges and societies of that school, so that homoeopathy
shall be taught in such colleges as thoroughly and as
earnestly as at the present time it is taught in our homoeo¬
pathic institutions. That time will not have arrived
until homoeopathy shall have so perfected its peculiar
system of therapeutics as to have gained a large number
of advocates among the writers and teachers who designate
themselves as “ regulars.” That that time will come in
the future there is not the shadow of a doubt, and I shall
further along endeavour to show how we, as a school,
may hasten its advent. Meanwhile some light may be
thrown upon current tendencies by citing the experience
of a prominent member of an old school faculty in this
city, who one year ago, in order to obtain the sentiment
of the profession regarding the wisdom of establishing
a homoeopathic chair in his college, sent a reply postal
card to all “ regular ” physicians in the State of Ohio,
asking their opinion on the subject. Nearly every man
under forty years of age was in favour of establishing the
chair, while almost without exception the older men
opposed the scheme. This is valuable testimony, and
shows conclusively that it is to the younger men we must
look for unprejudiced thought and action.
I have already endeavoured to show the impress which
homoeopathy has left upon the dominant school. But
this impress has been general rather than specific. The
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686 THE STATUS OP HOMOEOPATHY. M Re^ewfNo
therapeutics of that school is yet in the most chaotic
state. Empiricism of the rankest kind still characterizes
its literature and its teachings, even in the application
which it makes of homoeopathic remedies. Vaunted
specifics come and go like the morning dews. To-day
some remedy is heralded as a universal panacea for certain
diseases and certain conditions; to-morrow it is assigned
to oblivion, there to remain with the thousands which
have preceded it. This process has continued until the
average old school practitioner has become a therapeutic
agnostic, so far as internal medicine is concerned, relying
rather upon mechanics, dietetics, and prophylaxis, than
upon remedies to cure disease.
This is a sweeping arraignment, but testimony in support
of it can easily be adduced. No one will, I think, question
the standing of Dr. James F. Goodhart, who delivered
the annual address on medicine before the 1901 meeting
of the British Medical Association. Dr. Goodhart asks
the question, “ Why do we give drugs ? ” “ Often,” he
answers, 44 not because the disease demands them, but
because the patient is not happy until he gets them;
too often he is not happy then. They are sometimes given
to hide our ignorance, I fear, or to mark time while we
watch and wait. They are sometimes given as a gambler
on the 4 Exchange 5 speculates in futures, an enhanced
reputation being the windfall that it is hoped to secure ;
and then we often give drugs as an experiment in the hope
that they may do good.”
As to drugs themselves, he says: 44 Diseases run in
fashions and so do drugs. Their popularity is enormous,
far in excess of their merits; and by and by they sink
into the cold shade of neglect. . . . Who does not
even now remember the boom of antipyretics. A few
of them remained to us for other purposes; but as anti¬
pyretics, who gives them now ? . . . They were
rushed for more than they are worth, and they are now
buried by later booms, such as animal extracts and
antitoxin, and many of these will be buried too.”
These are not the sentiments of one who has no right
to speak ex cathedra in the counsels of his school. Dr.
Goodhart has but few peers as a writer and teacher. Nor
is he a sporadic case. He but echoes the teachings of
men like Osier, Tyson, and Anders of this country, writers
who have produced works classic in all that pertains to
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THE STATUS 0F homoeopathy. 687
the domain of causation, pathology, and diagnosis. One
has but to pick up any modern text-book on practice
belonging to the older school to find in almost every
chapter confirmation of Dr. Goodhart’s agnosticism so
honestly expressed.
It is indeed refreshing to turn from the agnosticism and
uncertainty which characterize the therapeutics of the
school to the precision and the permanency of the thera¬
peutics of the homoeopathic school. The indications for
bryonia in rheumatism and pleuritic pains were given us
nearly one hundred years ago. Bryonia is just as useful
to-day as it was then for the conditions enumerated,
when the indications prevail. And so it is with hundreds
of other remedies based upon a law of nature immutable
and unchangeable rather than upon an hypothesis put
forth to explain supposed facts and phenomena.
From the standpoint, then, of a homoeopathic physician,
it is not yet time to surrender either our name or our
distinct organization. The law of similars, or if you please,
the law of substitution, can no more be separated from
the distinctive name of “ homoeopathy ” than can the
teachings of Martin Luther be separated from that of the
Reformation. In another twenty years the term “ homoeo¬
pathic,” which in the past has acted like a red flag flaunted
in the face of an angry bull, will not grate upon the ear
of progressive and liberal men of whatever school, any
more than at the present time do the terms “ psychopathic,”
“ neuropathic,” and “ hydropathic.” The school which
has so long been thrown into hysterics by the term
“ pathy ” is rapidly being split up into many.
With this single reservation, then, that we shall hold
fast to our historic name and to our fundamental principle,
we can meet the liberally inclined gentlemen of the older
school more than half way in all matters pertaining to
the public weal, whether they have for their object the
betterment of civic government or the advancement of
medical education. There can be no possible objection
to our affiliating ourselves with their societies, provided
that in so doing we are not called upon to renounce either
our name or our principles; and if they admit us to.
affiliation, we, on our part, ought to be equally magnani¬
mous and open the doors of our societies to all physicians
complying with the standard educational requirements,
upon the same terms. If they advance methods of cure
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688 THE STATUS OF HOMOEOPATHY. M ^wfN«Tlfi902 C
which can advantageously supplant the law of similars,
we shall remain receptive and open to conviction. But
we believe we still have a mission to perform in perfecting
and advancing that law, so that it will be accepted by
all schools as a working law in therapeutics. Until that
mission is performed, we shall preserve our independence
and our identity.
Again, however pleasant may be the relationship existing
between the two schools of medicine among the teachers,
writers, and specialists of the respective schools, especially
in localities where homoeopathy is strong numerically,
this feeling does not prevail in communities where homoeo¬
pathy is but feebly represented. In order to speak
authoritatively upon this subject, I wrote a personal
letter to representative members of this Institute residing
in various sections of the United States and Canada,
asking the following questions :—
1. What is the relationship existing between the two
professions in your city ?
2. Is the homoeopathic profession received kindly in
the various hospitals of your city under old school control,
and upon the same terms as is the regular profession not
connected with the staff of such hospitals ? Do the mem¬
bers of the regular profession consult with homoeopathic
physicians, and do they treat you fairly and squarely ?
3. Is there any discrimination made in official appoint¬
ments ?
4. Do the two professions meet harmoniously and
pleasantly in a social way ?
A tabulation of the answers to these questions shows
that in nearly all cities in which homoeopathy is strong
numerically, the relationship existing between the two
schools is reasonably cordial and pleasant; that consulta¬
tions between members of the respective schools are of
common occurrence, and that the homoeopathic profession
has access to nearly, if not quite, all the hospitals under
old school control. In the city of Cleveland the utmost
cordiality and liberality prevails between the two pro¬
fessions, and many of my warmest friends are men of the
older school. On the other hand, in sections of the
country where homoeopathy is not fully established, the
bitterest antagonism on the part of the dominant school
still exists. Consultations are held but rarely, if ever;
homoeopathic physicians are debarred from the established
hospitals; the grossest discrimination is made in official
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appointments, and socially there is no intercourse. All
this in the year of our Lord 1902, and 250 years after
Wm. Harvey said, “ I claim that liberty, which I willingly
yield to others, namely, in subjects of difficulty, to put
forward as true such things as appear to be probable
until proved to be manifestly false.”
To be continued in our next issue.
REVIEWS.
A Lecture on Homoeopathy . By John Henry Clarke, M.D
London : Homoeopathic Publishing Co. 1902.
This lecture, dedicated to the sisters and nurses of the London
Homoeopathic Hospital, was delivered at the Hospital to the
nurses. Dr. Clarke very properly considered that the nurses
should be made aware of the true meaning and aims of
homoeopathy—its “ idea ”—so that they should more fully
enter into the aims of the physician when nursing a case of
illness for him. This is really a very important thing, not
only for nurses, but for the general public to understand.
Many of our patients are staunch homoeopaths from having
observed on themselves and others the beneficent action of
the medicines in curing disease cito , tuto, et jucunde, but are
practically ignorant of the raison d' etre of it, of the true
meaning of similia similibus , and of the beauty of having
a law in medicine. They do not fully appreciate the immense
advantage that homoeopathy has over the old school in being
able to treat disease by a definite and sure law instead of by
haphazard empirical methods. To remedy this defect of
ignorance on the part of a considerable portion of the homoeo¬
pathic public, Dr. Clarke has published his lecture in a nicely -
got-up little book. He explains the principles of homoeopathy
in a popular way, so that it can be understood by anyone,
and it is thus well fitted to attain its object. It is eminently
readable, and if once begun it will be read through. We
heartily commend it, and we hope it will have a wide circulation.
A Contribution to the (Etiology of Cancer. The Presidential
address delivered before the East Yorks and North Lincoln
Branch of the British Medical Association at Hull, May ,
1902. By Alex. Theodore Brand, M.D., C.M., Driffield,
Medical Officer, Driffield Cottage Hospital. The Aberdeen
University Press, Ltd., 1902.
We have received the above address, and have pleasure in
noticing it, as a very interesting one. Dr. Brand names the
various theories explanatory of the origin of Cancer which
Vol. 46, No. 11. 44
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have been promulgated from time to time, and finds them
all unsatisfactory. He adopts and advocates the theory of
outside infection, regarding which he says, “ Of course the
acceptance of the Infective theory includes the acceptance
of the existence of an infective micro-organism, whether
microzoon or microphyte, not yet discovered ; but this need
not stand in the way of its acceptance, since no one questions
the fact that Variola, Pertussis, Scarlatina, or Morbilli, etc.
are infectious and due to the influence of micro-organisms,
although no germs have, so far, in these cases been isolated.”
He brings a good deal of evidence in support of this theory,
and he is so sure of its truth that he says, “ It seems to me
that, after all, any trying to hold a brief for the Infective
hypothesis of Cancer is a work of the purest supererogation,
since it must be evident that it is hopeless to attempt to
explain the causation of cancer on any other ground.” But
it by no means follows that because all other theories fail to
explain its cetiology, the infective theory should be sound.
We are sorry we cannot accept this theory, against which
there is much to be adduced. To take one point only, which
Dr. Brand notices, on the question of heredity—he admits
that belief in heredity and in the infective theory are incom¬
patible, which is unfortunate, as we think that evidence is
strongly in support of the hereditary transmission of cancer.
He admits that 50 per cent, of cases of cancer show cancerous
parentage, and this most men would think a striking fact,
and one not easily set aside as evidence. Yet he says, “ The
occurrence of cancer in several members of a family after
the death of parents from that disease, cannot be accepted
as evidence of heredity ; but, on the contrary, it can, and
ought to be accepted as evidence of infection from an obvious
source.” It is curious how facts can be interpreted as
evidence in totally opposite directions.
One point of much interest Dr. Brand brings forward,
namely, the occurrence of peculiar spots on the skin in cancer
cases. He noticed this first when a student, “ a quarter of a
century ago.” In this case—mammary cancer—he noticed
the chest “ had scattered over it a number of bright scarlet,
shining, punctate spots, unaltered by pressure, and varying
in size from a pin’s head to a split pea.” The surgeon opera¬
ting said he had noticed such spots before. Since then Dr.
Brand has rarely or never failed to find them, sometimes few
and small, at other times larger and more numerous, but
almost invariably present. He has found them not only
in mammary cancer, but in pelvic cancer, and in a “ case of
cancer of rectum and liver.” He quotes Leser, Freund and
Hollander, as having found the same thing occurring in their
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691
practice, and Leser says that “ he has not seen any literary
notice of it in such a connection.” They also consider that
these spots have a definite relation to cancer, and that when
found in large numbers in young or middle-aged people, there
is every reason to suspect cancer.” Dr. Brand refers to a
paper on “ the origin of cancer,” published in 1872, by the
late Campbell De Morgan, of Middlesex Hospital, in which
he describes what seems to be these spots, and which got to
be known at the Middlesex Hospital as “ De Morgan’s spots.”
They are, however, never found to develop into cancerous
growths. It would be interesting to know if observations
on an extensive scale showed that the existence of such spots
are the rule in cancer, or otherwise, what their meaning is,
and what their diagnostic or prognostic value.
The address is interesting, and shows careful thought and
study.
Report of the Plague in Calcutta , June , 1901 —June 1902.
By Major H. E. Deane, E.A.M.C. Special Health Officer,
Calcutta, 1902.
We have received this very interesting and able report, full
of careful observation, thought, and important deductions.
Major Deane’s mind is evidently a pre-eminently open one,
ready to receive facts from every source, and entirely free
from prejudice in his conclusions. The first paragraphs of
the Report embody his views and frame of mind in dealing
with his subject. “ Learn to say 4 1 do not know ’ ” (Rabbi’s
exhortation). “ Have two special objects in view with regard
to diseases, namely, ‘to do good or to do no harm’ (Hippo¬
crates’ Epidemics). The first of the above quotations
might be taken as a model of an abridged plague report.
The advice contained in the second was given in the 5th
century, and applying it to plague policy has not been
improved upon in the twentieth.” !
We have not space to go into many details,' and this seems
the less necessary as Major Deane has, we believe, sent an
elaborate paper on Plague to the British Homoeopathic
Society. We therefore only draw attention to the main points
of the Report. It was expected that a more severe outbreak
than formerly would take place in 1901, and still worse in
1902. But while in the former two years the epidemic was
practically stationary, it declined in 1902. Major Deane
considers that one cause of the lessened extent of the plague
in Calcutta, as compared with some other places, is the
“ bustee ” construction of the city, and the figures “ seem
to afford some corroboration of the opinion that the further
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we get away from darkness and stagnant air, the fewer people
we find attacked by plague.” And the “ bustee ” construc¬
tion of houses minimises the darkness and stagnant air that
elsewhere obtains. “ The only other visible factor I can
see is the method of dealing with the disease—disinfection.”
As to the mode of infection of plague, Major Deane has made
a most interesting and important investigation, and in a
clear and logical manner proves, as far as we can judge, the
conclusion he has formed, namely, that infection is chiefly
conveyed by the air. It would take too long to give his
arguments, but they seem to us to be convincing. The
prevalent belief that dead rats are the chief source of infection,
Major Deane does not hold. He says, “ I cannot convince
myself that they (dead rats) are anything more than an
unimportant means of spreading the disease.” He concludes
the report by a long section on the methods of prevention of
plague, first, by demolition, where possible or permissible,
of insanitary, dark houses ; and secondly, by disinfection.
This process, carried out chiefly by perchloride of mercury,
has been most successful, and when thoroughly done, has
been found to make a plague-infected room perfectly safe
for almost immediate re-occupation.
The whole report is most instructive, and will well repay
study on the part of those who are interested in this fatal
disease. It is an exceedingly able and judicially impartial
one, and reflects great credit on Major Deane, the Special
Health Officer.
To Major Deane’s report are added appendices by Drs.
Pettifer, Hossack, and Crake, and it is but fair to say that
Dr. Pettifer lays much greater stress on rata as a source of
infection than Major Deane does.
MEETINGS.
BRITISH HOMOEOPATHIC SOCIETY.
The first meeting of the session 1902-3 was held at the London
Homoeopathic Hospital, on Thursday, October 2nd, 1902.
Dr. Roberson Day of London, President, in the chair. There
was an excellent attendance of Fellows and Members. The
business of the evening was the inaugural address of the
President, which was entitled
t * Efficiency in Homceopathy.
and of which the following is a summary of the leading points.
Dr. Roberson Day said that in the selection of a suitable
subject for his Presidential Address, he had sought a matter
which all have at heart, rather than a purely medical one:
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the advancement of Homoeopathy, and the necessary factors
upon which such advancement depends.
For many years our fathers have most diligently been sowing
the seed, by their practice and the cures they accomplished,
by their dispensaries and the founding of hospitals, by their
writings, and in the early days by lecturing on Homoeopathy.
To-day the harvest is well nigh ripe, and ready for reaping,
but alas ! the labourers are few. The question confronts
us, How are we to meet this difficulty ?
Perhaps no means are more successful in spreading homoeo¬
pathy than our hospitals and dispensaries. Hospital
Extension is therefore what we must aim at. In this vast
metropolis, with its 5,000,000 inhabitants, what hospital
accommodation have we ? There is only one homoeopathic
hospital, and its last annual report tells us that with its 100
beds and out-patient department, 1,092 in-patients and
21,822 out-patients received treatment. Certainly an
entirely inadequate provision for the needs of London.
Liverpool has long been a stronghold of homoeopathy, and
possesses the second largest hospital in the kingdom. There
is also a very large dispensary at a distance from the hospital,
but in connection with it and under the same jurisdiction. At
the Mount Vernon Hospital for Consumption, at Hampstead,
the out-patient department is in Fitzroy Square. Not only
is there no necessity for a connection between the out-patient
department and the hospital, but for many reasons it would
be better if all hospitals could be removed into the pure
country air, away from the crowded centres of population,
and where land is cheap. Our hospitals can be vastly increased
in efficiency by extension of out-patient facilities. The
number of our beds is limited, but the out-patients are un¬
limited. In 1897, at the London Homoeopathic Hospital,
there were 16,000 out-patients, in 1901, 21,000, an increase
of over 1,000 a year ; whereas the in-patients are limited to
100 beds. Seeing that it is now fifty-eight years ago since
the hospital was founded, the time has surely come when
the nuclei of other hospitals should be established. New
Out-patient Departments should be established and affiliated
with the parent hospital, and have a local influential com¬
mittee. They should become self-supporting, a scale of
charges should be made similar to those at private dis¬
pensaries, and this should allow the medical officer to
receive an honorarium after paying expenses. The title of
Assistant Physician or Assistant Surgeon might well be
attached to the post of medical officer, and it would serve
the additional purpose of keeping suburban men in touch
with the central hospital.
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Another important point is the need of tadl-qualified medical
men. Homoeopathy has suffered too much in the past from
the man who with some smattering of medicine and a bogus
M.D. degree, has set up in practice as a homoeopath, and ad¬
vertised his “ Homoeopathic Dispensary ” by sandwichmen
parading the streets ! It behoves the members of this Society
to be worthy of the master who first enunciated the law of
similia similibus curentur . At the age of twenty he was
familar with eight languages, and by his indomitable energy
educated himself at Leipsic and Vienna Universities, defraying
the cost by his translations and literary work. As the sculptor
gains an inspiration from the Venus of Milo or the beautiful
marbles of Canova and Thorwaldsen, so may we from the
pioneers of Homoeopathy, who amidst much persecution and
opposition founded a system of medicine which has revolu¬
tionised the world of physic.
As so often happens when circumstances become easy,
sloth is apt to creep on. Visitors, and particularly foreigners
who come to this country, have no means of finding where
the homoeopaths are, for they have like lambs lain down
beside the wolves, and in certain streets in the West End they
literally live next door to each other. An American visitor
to London unexpectedly falls ill at one of the big hotels.
In answer to his enquiries he is assured that there is no homoeo¬
path in London, but that Dr. X. is very able and always
attends the visitors. Consequently, Dr. X. (an allopath),
is called in. How can this state of things be remedied ?
This Society publishes annually a list of the names and
addresses of its members, but in an awkward form. What
is needed is a Directory, carefully edited, which shall contain
the names and addresses of all qualified practitioners with
their qualifications, and any other details of use to our patients.
We can do much for our chemists, as they for us. They
exist for the homoeopathic public, and can do much to further
the interests of homoeopathy in ways which are precluded to us.
There is need for more homoeopathic chemists, but more
pressing need for more homoeopathic doctors. This certainly
is the most urgent need of our times. On all sides we hear
the lament that there is no homoeopahtic doctor in the town
or district. Wherever a homoeopath settles there is soon
established a stronghold of homoeopathy—Bournemouth,
for instance—while Great Yarmouth, with a larger popula¬
tion, has no one to represent homoeopathy. The reason is
not far to seek. There are the old difficultes and opposition
to be met in every town where a homoeopath settles for the
first time ; no friendly hand will be extended by the medical,
profession, and he must to a great extent labour alone.^To
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face this state of things requires much steadfastness of
purpose. Is it not possible as a Society to extend a helping
hand to our younger members who are about to settle in life ?
Is there not a responsibility which has not hitherto been
recognised ? Could not an “ Advisory Committee ” be
formed, of a certain number of our members qualified by
their years and knowledge of the needs of homoeopathy, to
give advice ? It should be their especial duty to ascertain
the state of homoeopathy in this country, and where would
be the most favourable centres for opening fresh ground:
An estimate could be arrived at as to the number of converts
to homoeopathy already settled in a district. Further than
this, we should in certain cases approved :by the committee,
offer temporary financial assistance to enable the new settler
to stand the siege of the first few years. The whole matter
should be put on a sound financial basis, and the fund could
be subscribed by an increased yearly subscription ; or even
a limited liability company could be formed, and members
and others who have the welfare of homoeopathy at heart,
asked to subscribe for its shares.
It is a question whether any good ever comes of controversy ,
or that it has helped on any cause in any way. The most
important controversy of recent years was carried on in the
“Times” newspaper, and the strife so grew that even “Punch”
had a cartoon upon it. What was the result ? Everything
soon settled down as before, the bruises of the fray alone
were left! Still, much depends on the attitude maintained
towards the profession. The American Institute of
Homoeopathy has defined a homoeopathic physician as
“ one who adds to his knowledge of medicine a special knowledge
of homoeopathic therapeutics. All that pertains to the great
field of medical learning is his,—by inheritance , by right.”
One of the most conspicuous differences between the two
schools of medicine is the belief of the homoeopath and the
disbelief of the allopath in the power of medicine. In an
admirable address by Professor Wood of America, occur
the following remarks made by Dr. Goodhart before the
British Medical Association, 1901. “ Why do we give drugs ?
Often not because the disease demands them, but because
the patient is not happy until he gets them ; too often he
is not happy then. They are sometimes given to hide our
ignorance, I fear, or to mark time while we watch and wait.
They are sometimes given as a gambler on the “ Exchange ”
speculates in futures, an enhanced reputation being the
windfall that it is hoped to secure ; and then we often give
drugs as an experiment, in the hope that they may do good.' ?
v How different is the case for homoeopathy ! We are never
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at a loss to prescribe something, and we know, the more
accurately we watch the pathogenesis of the drug in question,
the more certain we are of a cure. Although, no doubt,
there is less active persecution to-day than formerly, still
it does exist. We are still treated as outcasts, our contribu¬
tions are refused publication in the medical journals, we
are not allowed to join any of the medical Societies, even
the Medical Defence Union refuses us membership, and the
College of Physicians so tyrannizes over its members that
even those who would meet us in consultation dare not do
bo. Dr. Gairdner naively remarks, “ The true physician
derives his chief claim to that character from his perfect
intellectual and moral freedom.” The quotation is com¬
mended to the notice of the College of Physicians.
The best course to pursue in the face of such hostility is
to leave such severely alone , never to miss an opportunity
of showing courtesy, and at all times to stand firmly on our
rights as equally well qualified to treat the sick, nay, better
qualified, since we have added a knowledge of homoeopathy
to our previous studies. Occasionally, however, an enquiring
mind is met with, and it is well to make a commencement
with such by an invitation to our hospital, for here can be
seen the practical application of homoeopathy.
But where we find one medical man of an enquiring mind,
we find fifty laymen who are open to conviction. We must
consider the laity of to-day, and how well-informed many
of them are on medical subjects. It is to them we must
look and appeal for justice, for they come to the subject
with unbiassed minds.
In Hahnemann’s days the system of medicine was little
short of barbarous in its practice, but thanks to the lessons
of homoeopathy, a great change has come over the old school
medicine. It behoves us to be well abreast with the times.
Many advances have been made since the time of Hahnemann
—the germ theory of disease, bacteriology, antiseptics, and
antitoxin serums ; and it is our duty to emulate the spirit
of Hahnemann, who was not behind his times, but a long
way ahead.
The establishment of special departments at the London
Homoeopathic Hospital has done much to further the progress
of homoeopathy, but there are still some vacancies to be
fiUed.
Our nurses have been a perennial source of solicitude.
We are all convinced of their superiority ; they
understand our ways, they conscientiously carry out our
directions, they uniformly give satisfaction wherever they
go ; and yet we have never been able to devise a method of
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retaining their services. They either join some old-established
nursing institute, or in twos and threes take quarters for
themselves as private nurses. What is needed is a Nursing
Hostel, under a competent matron, and distinct from the
hospital. Telephonic communication is essential, and
residence at the institution.
The great majority of the public have no idea of the persecu¬
tion homoeopathy still suffers at the hands of the majority
of the profession, and some up-to-date statement of what
homoeopathy is, and the unreasonable attitude of the allo¬
paths, would be of the greatest value; some short pamphlet
that we could put into the hands of our patients should do
much to clear away misrepresentation.
. “ Efficiency ” in ourselves, in our Society, in our institu¬
tions. We do not want the man of divided aims, who will
treat his patients more Hahnemanniana , and when in difficul¬
ties will call in consultation Sir X. Y. Z. to administer the
remedies of an empirical school of medicine. There still
exists the chasm which divides those who prescribe by a
guiding rule and those who prescribe empirically. Emerson
said, “ Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.”
Much work remains to be done, and it is our privilege, nay,
more, our duty to assist in a cause which, although only
partially acknowledged, has contributed so much to alleviate
the sufferings of humanity.
A hearty vote of thanks was accorded to Dr. Roberson
Day for his address, and thereupon at his invitation as
President, the Society adjourned for supper at the Hotel
Russell.
NOTABILIA.
THERAPEUTICS OF SMALL DOSES.
In the former times the tendency was to give large doses of
medicine. A pint bottle was frequently filled, and a table¬
spoonful, and sometimes two, were given at a dose. Some of
the older books recommend forty, and even sixty grains of
quinine at a dose ; and twenty grains of calomel were given
at a time, and even more. The tendency is now towards
elegance and small doses. Since the discovery of the various
alkaloids, it is more common to prescribe small and frequently-
repeated doses, and many authorities claim that they are
equally effectual as larger doses. I do not advocate small
doses in all cases, for there are diseases which can be treated
with heroic doses. In follicular tonsilitis and scarlet fever,
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one-grain doses of potassium chlorate every hour will afford
much relief, and is likewise beneficial in diphtheria. One-
grain doses of croton-chloral every half hour is beneficial in
facial neuralgia. In obstinate cases of urticaria, sodium
salicylate in two-grain doses every half hour acts well; also
does drop doses of balsam copaiba every half hour.
Sydney Ringer says : “In the so-called irritative dyspepsia,
where the tongue is furred, and the papillae red and prominent,
a drop dose of Fowler’s solution taken shortly before eatings
will be found of great benefit. Administered in the same way,
it will arrest the distressing vomiting of drunkards, and
simultaneously improve the state of the stomach.” Given
in the same dose it is often beneficial in vomiting in pregnancy.
One-tenth grain pilocarpin hydrochlorate hypodermically
is useful in erysipelas, and Waugh claims it a specific in sthenic
cases. Drop doses of wine of ipecac is useful in vomiting of
cancer, given every fifteen minutes; also in vomiting of
children. For vomiting of infants, A. A. Smith, of New York,
has used one grain of calomel to one ounce of lime water ;
to this add one pint of pure water, and give a teaspoonful of
this mixture every ten minutes. In the wheezing and cough
of children with bronchitis, good results may be obtained with
tartar emetic, one half-grain to one pint of water, a teaspoonful
every half hour. Sick headache is sometimes relieved by
drop doses of tincture of nux vomica every five minutes.
One of the best remedies for inflammation of the bladder
is one drop of tincture of cantharides every hour. A drop of
the tincture given three or four times a day is particularly
useful where there is a desire to make water accompanied by
great pain in the region of prostrate gland, and along the
urethra, while at other times severe twinges of pain are felt
in the same part; the urine being healthy, or otherwise con¬
taining an excess of mucus, or even a small amount of pus.
Women, especially of middle age, often suffer from a desire
to pass water and inability to hold it for a long time, others
cannot help passing urine on standing or sneezing or coughing ;
one drop three times a day gives great relief, and sometimes
cures with astonishing rapidity, even where symptoms have
lasted for a long time.
In excessive menstruation fluid extract of ergot has been
successfully used in minim doses every half hour for six or
eight hours before expected flow. A simple febrile condition
with hot, dry skin, full bounding pulse, may be relieved by
half minim doses of tincture of aconite repeated every half
hour ; also useful in nasal catarrh, and the commencement of
tonsillitis. Subacute nasal catarrh, with abundant secretion,
is often allayed by minim doses of tincture of belladonna
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every half hour until eight or ten minims are given. Apo-
morphin in doses of 1-200 grain four times a day often pro¬
duces brilliant results in spasmodic cough. Cannabis indica
1-3 to 1-2 grain given for weeks three times a day is useful
in the treatment of migraine.
Atropin in doses of 1-200 grain usually controls night
sweats. Digitalis in small doses frequently repeated exerts
a beneficial influence over various kinds of haemorrhages.
In cases of tonsillitis, when the tonsils are enlarged and
almost touching, and danger of patient suffocating, one-third
of a grain of mercury-with-chalk every hour will relieve the
trouble. The same powder in same doses four times a day is
beneficial in mumps. Small and frequently repeated doses
of calomel, 1-26 to 1-10 of a grain every hour, are useful in
diarrhoea of children. Likewise, in so-called bilious vomiting
of adults.
Many more examples might be referred to, but I feel this
is sufficient to prove much smaller doses might be used than
usually are. I claim no originality, but have collected these
facts from various sources, and have demonstrated the most
of them by actual practice.— Read before the St. John Medical
Society , by J. H . Gray , M.D.
(And still the old school say there is nothing of value in
homoeopathy.— Ed.) From the Minneapolis Homoeopathic
Magazine , March.
THE KINGS TUESDAYS.
The principal events in the life of his Majesty King Edward
VII. have happened on a Tuesday— viz., on Tuesday, Nov. 9th,
1841, his Majesty was born ; on Tuesday, Jan. 25th, 1842, he
was baptised ; on Tuesday, March 10th, 1863, he was married ;
on Tuesday, Dec. 8th, 1863, he was appointed a member of
the Privy Council; on Tuesday, Nov. 21st, 1871, it was
definitely ascertained that he had contracted typhoid fever;
on Tuesday, Feb. 27th, 1872, he attended the Public Thanks¬
giving Service for his recovery ; on Tuesday, Jan. 22nd, 1901,
he succeeded to the throne ; on Tuesday, Jan. 29th, 1901,
the Royal Standard was hoisted at Marlborough House for
the first time ; and on Tuesday, June 24th, 1902, his Majesty
underwent an operation for perityphlitis. As an exception
to the above-mentioned cases it may be stated that it was on
a Monday (July 18th, 1898) that the King sustained a fracture
of the left patella through missing his footing while descending
the spiral staircase at Waddesdon Manor during a visit to the
late Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild.— Lancet , July 5, ’02.
Quoted from the Calcutta Journal of Medicine .
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DIETETIC PREPARATIONS.
CADBURY’S MILK CHOCOLATE.
We have pleasure in bringing under the notice of our readers
the Milk Chocolate prepared by Cadbury Bros., Ltd., of
Birmingham. It is a confection of exquisite flavour and a
food of special value. It is made by the most modern methods,
only high class cocoa, fine loaf sugar, and full cream fresh milk
from the pastures of Worcestershire, etc., are used.
The following is the analysis :—
Fat .
Cocoa Butter ..
Milk Fat
Cane Sugar
Milk Sugar
Proteids or Albuminoids
Asli
Moisture
Indigestible Fibre
Undetermined Bodies
30 3
22*6
7*7
420
10*9
10*3
2*1
1*6
per cent,
per cent,
per cent,
per cent,
per cent,
per cent,
per cent,
per cent.
0’75 per cent.
2 05 per cent.
Alkalinity of the Soluble Ash (calculated as K20 = 0*16 per cent.)
From a consideration of these figures, the value of this milk
chocolate as food is very evident.
A considerable proportion of the cocoa butter is replaced
by the still more valuable and readily assimilable fat, i.e.
milk fat, which gives the chocolate a delicate mellow flavour,
as well as adding to its digestibility.
Turning to the sugar contents, it will be seen that part of
the cane sugar is here replaced by milk sugar, so well known
to the medical profession for its property of non-fermentation.
Whereas in ordinary plain chocolate the sugar amounts
from 50-60 per cent, in Cadbury’s milk chocolate only a
little over 40 per cent is present, so that the exceedingly sweet
taste is avoided, and also the thirst-producing tendency
which is noticed in chocolates having high cane sugar contents.
The albuminoids of the milk and cocoa, both readily
digestible, are present to the extent of 10*3 per cent, giving the
chocolate high place as a nerve and muscle food, and being
of particular value to those who have to undergo severe
exercise.
A point worthy of attention is the very small quantity of
indigestible fibre, thus pointing to freedom from shell or husk,
and leaving practically the entire chocolate available for
assimilation.
The chocolate is, we are assured, entirely free from colouring
matters and preservatives, such as salicylic acid, boracic acid
or borax, and formalin, and the low alkalinity of the soluble
ash shows that the cocoa used in the manufacture is free from
added alkalis, such as potash, etc.
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Monthly Homoeopathic
Review, Hoy. 1,1902.
CORRESPONDENCE.
701
Nevertheless, the percentage of moisture is so low, that the
chocolate possesses excellent keeping qualities, and undergoes
no deterioration in any climate.
We can heartily recommend this milk chocolate, both as a
confection and as a food of great value in all circumstances.
It is perhaps the finest preparation of the kind on the market.
It is made up in cakes of different sizes.
CORRESPONDENCE.
THE RICHARD HUGHES MEMORIAL FUND.
To the Editors of the “ Monthly Homoeopathic Review.”
Sirs, —As only about one third of the British homoeopathic
practitioners had replied to our circular issued at the beginning
of June inviting subscriptions to this fund, the enclosed
reminder was circulated last month. I am asking the treasurer
to send you a list of any fresh subscriptions he has received
up to the latest date available before you go to print. The
amount collected, though considerable, still falls a long way
short of what we had hoped it might have reached. We wish
to notify, through you, that the fund must close finally at
the end of the year, and to ask all our colleagues who have
not yet replied, “ dare cito” as there will be no fear that they
will be asked “ dare bis”
Yours sincerely,
Edward M. Madden.
See. to B. H. S. Committee for the Richard Hughes
Memorial.
Burlington House,
Bromley, Kent,
Oct. 16,1902.
British Homoeopathic Society,
London,
Sept ., 1902.
The Richard Hughes Memorial Fund.
Dear Sir,
As no reply has so far been received from you
in answer to our circular appeal issued two months ago,
soliciting subscriptions to this fund, and as we feel sure it can
only be through some accidental neglect or oversight that you
have not already responded to it, we venture to ask you again
not to let this opportunity go by of paying a well deserved
tribute to the colleague who has done more than anyone in
this country to advance Homoeopathy and to assist us all in
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702
CORRESPONDENCE.
MHsrHoMBopcttk
ft wi e w. Vov. 1.1901.
practising it, and at the same time of enabling those he has
left behind to feel his loss less acutely from the mere material
standpoint.
It is needless to repeat here the reasons already given
for raising this Fund, or to re-state the intention of giving the
whole, or very nearly the whole, of the sum raised as a free¬
will offering to his widow and children, but we would strongly
urge upon you that, for the credit of British Homoeopathy, it
is essential that this Fund should be contributed to, each
according to his means, by all who hold it dear, and therefore
beg of you once more to join us in this effort.
We are, yours very faithfully,
J. Roberson Day, President of the B.H.S .,
Chairman.
J. G. Blackley, Treasurer.
G. F. Goldsbrough,
Jas. Se arson,
Ed. M. Madden, Secretary.
The Committee appointed by the Council of the B. H. S. for
this fund.
P.S. Promises or Cheques should be sent to the Treasurer
at 29, Devonshire Place, London, W.
As a sequel to the above letter, Dr. Blackley has sent
us the following further list of donations. Eds. M. H. R.:—
£
s.
d.
£
s.
d.
Dr. A. C. Pope
5
0
0
Dr. Cavanagh ..
2
2
0
W. Willett, Esq. (per Dr.
A. G. Wilkinson, Esq...
0 10
0
Burwood)
3
3
0
Dr. Ord.
1
1
0
Dr. F. H. Bodman
2
2
0
„ F. W. Clifton
1
1
*0
,, Chris. Wolston
3
3
0
H. H. Corbett, Esq. ..
1
1
0
„ T. H. Hayle
2
2
0
Dr. Hervey Bodman ..
1
1
0
,, Chapman ..
0 10
6
„ Wills
1
0
0
,, Eubulus Williams
1
1
0
,, Pincott
0 10
6
„ Vincent Green
2
2
0
,, F. S. Arnold
1
1
0
„ W. H. Roberts ..
1
0
0
,, Seelenmeyer
3
3
0
„ Murray
1
1
0
,, L. E. Williams
2
2
0
„ H. Mason ..
1
1
0
Miss Cunard Cummins
1
1
0
R. M. Theobald, Esq., m.a.
2
2
0
,, H. C. Madden (per
Dr. Percy Wilde
5
0
0
Dr. Madden) ..
5
0
0
„ B. W. Nankivell ..
1
1
0
Brighton Fund (per Miss
„ Edith Neild
0 10
6
E. Harvey) ..
1
11
6
„ Ramsbotham
5
5
0
Dr. A. R. Croucher
1
1
0
,, Spencer Cox
1
1
0
,, Clifton Harris
1
1
0
F. H. Shaw, Esq.
2
2
0
,, A. E. Hawkes
2
2
0
Dr. Newbery
1
1
0
—
_
,, H. A. Eaton
1
1
0
74
4
0
,, Rowland Wilde
1
1
0
Previously reported 709 15
6
,, Wingfield ..
1
1
0
—
—
„ Miller
1
1
0
Total £783 19
6
„ Scott
1
1
0
—
—
—
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Monthly Homoeopathic
Review, Nov. 1,1902.
correspondence:
703
A NOTE ON DR. HUGHES’ “PRINCIPLES AND
PRACTICE.”
To the Editors of the “ Monthly Homoeopathic Review.”
Dear Sirs,— Having just looked over the last and crowning
work of our late esteemed colleague, I can endorse all the
favourable comments that I have seen upon it, and quite
expect that it will be regarded in future by a large portion,
if not the whole, of the homoeopathic world, as the ablest
presentation of our system that has yet been written. It
is not my object at present to eulogise a work that stands
above any praise that I can offer; my object is simply to
make a remark on a point that is really of not much impor¬
tance, but is. perhaps, worth alluding to. In considering
the Schema at p. 63, he says, “I may quote Dr. Dudgeon’s
caustic discretion of the Schema. ‘ It is, ’ he says, ‘ as
unnatural and artificial an arrangement of the features of
many allied morbid portraits as though an artist should paint
a family group, arranging all the eyes of all the members of
the family in one part of the picture, all the noses in another,
the ears all together, the noses all together, and so on. From
such a picture, correct though each feature might be, it would
be a difficult matter for us to build up each separate portrait,
and it is equally difficult for us to ascertain the various morbid
portraits from the tableaux Hahnemann has presented us
with in his materia medica.”
On reading this over I was reminded of the fact that some
years ago I pointed out the unsoundness of the analogy in
the Review , and hoped we should never hear it quoted again,
but Dr. Hughes has allowed it to escape his critical eye. If
the analogy had been a fair one, Dr. Dudgeon’s criticism
would have been called for, and nothing he could say would
have been too caustic in treating such a stupid arrangement.
But a moment’s reflection will show us that it is not so. We
do not, in grouping the symptoms, say of chamomilla, collect
the symptoms of the different members of the order Com -
positce and throw them together indiscriminately, as we are
supposed to do by the illustration. One medicine only is
dealt with at a time, and the various provings of it rather
resemble a number of photographs of one and the same
person taken from different points of view, which when
collected give a completer picture of the individual than any
single one could give. This is so obvious that Dr. Dudgeon
himself will see that he is saddling the Schema with a defect
that does not rightly belong to it. It has its unquestionable
imperfections, that we are all conscious of, but this particular
one cannot be assigned to it, and I must ask Dr. Dudgeon’s
indulgence for once more drawing attention to it.
Birkenhead, Oct. 1 6th. P. Proctor.
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704
CORRESPONDENTS.
Monthly Homoeop a thic
Review, Nov. 1,1902.
NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS.
**• We cannot undertake to return rejected manuscripts.
Authors and Contributors receiving proofs are requested to correct
and return the same as early as possible to Dr. Dyck Brown.
The Editors of Journals which exchange with us are requested to
send their exchanges to the office of the 1Review, 59, Moorgate Street,
London, E.C.; or to Dr. Dyce Brown, 29, Seymour Street, London, W.
Dr. Pope, who receives several, has retired from practice for the last
two years, and now lives at Monkton, near Bamsgate.
London Homeopathic Hospital, Great Ormond Street,
Bloomsbury. —Hours of attendance: Medical (In-patients, 9.30 ;
Out-patients, 2.0, daily); Surgical, Out-patients, Mondays 2 p.m. and
Saturdays, 9 a.m. ; Thursdays and Fridays, 10 a.m. ; Diseases of Women,
Out-patients, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 2.0; Diseases of
Skin, Thursdays, 2.0; Diseases of the Eye, Mondays and Thursdays,
2.0; Diseases of the Throat and Ear, Wednesdays, 2.0; Saturdays,
9 a.m. : Diseases of Children, Mondays and Thursdays, 9 a.m. ; Diseases
of the Nervous System, Thursdays, 2.0; Operations, Tuesdays and
Fridays, 2.30; Electrical Cases, Wednesdays, 9 a.m.
Communications have been received from—Major H. E. Deane
(Calcutta); Dr. Dudgeon, Dr. Blackley, Dr. Goldsbrough,
Dr. Burford (London) ; Dr. Storrar (Belfast), Dr. Proctor
(Birkenhead); Dr. Madden (Bromley) ; Dr. A. T. Brand (Driffield);
Dr. Hawkes (Liverpool); Dr. Bichey Horner (Cleveland, Ohio).
BOOKS RECEIVED.
A Contribution to the Etiology of Cancer . By Dr. A. T. Brand,
Driffield, 1902. A Lecture on Homoeopathy. By John Henry Clarke,
M.D., London. The Homoeopathic Publishing Co., 1902. Homoeopathic
World, October. The Therapist , October. Medical Era, September.
Homoeopathic Recorder , September. Minneapolis Homoeopathic
Magazine , September. American Medical Monthly , September.
Homoeopathic Envoy , October. Pacific Coast Journal of Homoeopathy,
September. Medical Brief, October. The Clinique , September.
Medical Advance, September. Medical Century, October. Medical
Times, New York, October. Le Mois Medico-Chirurgical, Paris,
August and September. Revue Homcepathique Frangaise, October.
Revista Homcepatice Catalana, September. Annaes de Medicina
Homoeopathica , July. Leipziger Populare Zeitschrift filr Homtiopathie,
October. Allgemeine Homdopathische Zeitung, September and
October. Homoopathisch Maandblad, September. Transactions of
the American Institute of Homoeopathy, 1902. The Journal of the British
Homoeopathic Society, October. The Principle of Homoeopathy Applied
in the Treatment of Milk Fever in Cows. By J. Sutcliffe Hurndall
M.B.C.V.S., 1902
Papers, Dispensary Reports, and Books for Review to be sent to Dr. D. Dycb
Brown, 29, Seymour Street, Portman Square, W. Advertisements and Business
communications to be sent to Messrs. E . Gould & Son, Limited, 59, Moorgate
8treet, E.C.
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[1902.
THE NATURAL AND ONLY GENUINE
CARLSBAD SALT
(IN CRYSTALS OR POWDER) is prepared from and contains all the constituents
of the famous
‘SPRUDEL SPRING’at CARLSBAD
the water of which is largely prescribed in cases of CHRONIC GASTRIC CATARRH,
HYPEREMIA of the LIVER, GALL-STONES, DIABETES, RENAL CALCULI,
GOUT, and DISEASES of the SPLEEN, &c.
The CARLSBAD SPRUDEL SALT in Powder has the great advantage in not
being affected by change of temperature or exposure to the atmosphere, and therefore in
this form is the most reliable.
To avoid imitations , see that the wrapper round each bottle bears the signature of the
SOLIE AGENTS,
INGRAM & ROYLE, LTD.,
E/yST PAUL’S WHARF, 26, Upper Uianjes St., E.C. /^nd at Liverpool & Bristol.
Samples Free to Members of the Medical Profession on application.
TINCTURES.
“There are two distinct classes of tinctures in homoeopathic pharmacy
today, one prepared from the dry drug, or, more frequently, from
allopathic extracts and tinctures; this is the way the cheap tinctures are
made that supply those who regard cheapness of more importance than
quality in medicine The other class in homoeopathic pharmacy, supplied
from fresh plant tinctures, tinctures made from plants so fresh from
mother earth that they would grow again if replanted. These tinctures
contain the real curative forces.”— Homoeopathic Recorder .
E. GOULD & SON, Ltd., 59, Moorgate Street, London, E.C.
Third Edition. Revised and Enlarged, cloth 10s. 6d.; half bound, 14s.
THE BRITISH
Homeopathic Pharmacopeia.
PUBLISHED FOR THE
Irlfitl Homoeopathic Society,
BY
E. GOULD & SON, Ltd., 59, Moorgate Street, E.C
*
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November 1] MONTHLY HOMOEOPATHIC REVIEW. [1902.
THE NATURAL MINERAL WATERS OF
CELESTINS.
For Diseases of the Kidneys, Gravel, Gout, Rheuma¬
tism, Diabetes, etc.
GRANDE-GRILLE.
For Diseases of the Liver and Biliary Organs, etc.
HOPITAL. For Stomach Complaints.
All the above mix well with Wines and Spirits.
CAUTION. —Each Bottle from the State Springs bears a Neck Label with tht
words “ Yichy-Etat ” and the names of the Sole Agents—
INGRAM & ROYLE. LTD,
LONDON: I LIVERPOOL: i BRISTOL:
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NOW COMPLETE.
Parts II. and III., Large 8vo, pp. 96. Price 4/- each.
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IN ONE VOLUME. Cloth. Price 21/-.
A Repertory to the Cyclopaedia
of Drug Pathogenesy.
.A-lCsT IlsnDIEiX: S^n^^TO^-A.TTJiyr
Compiled by
RICHARD HUGHES, M.D.
“It should be understood that, outside of its importance as a complement of
the Cyclopaedia of Drug Pathogenesy, this work will form a distinct repertory in
itself; the most reliable and valuable, up to the present time, of any repertory
in homoeopathic literature.”— New England Medical Gazette.
London: E. GOULD & SON, Ltd., 59, Moorgate Street, E.C.
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TONIC WINE.
DIGESTIVE. NON-IRRITANT.
A CARDIAC TONIC.
A natural Wine which does not contain Coca, Kola, or
any like drug.
This wine has now thoroughly established its reputation, and has
been prescribed with success by many of the leading homoeopathic
practitioners for some years past.
It is eminently suited to persons of a nervous temperament who
suffer from weakness of the heart’s action, and weak digestive powers.
It has no irritating effect on the mucous membranes like most wines
and spirits.
It raises the vitality , while whisky and other spirits, however much
* diluted, lower it. — (Foods: By Dr. Edward Smith, F.R.S.)
Nearly all wines (except the most expensive) and spirits irritate
the mucous membranes of the alimentary canal, causing flatulence,
ultimate depression of spirits, &c.
Persons of gouty or rheumatic disposition, who drink no other
alcoholic liquors, may use this wine with great benefit.
As it creates no craving for stimulants, its use as a tonic may be
discontinued at any time without inconvenience. By raising the vitality
it tends to enable patients to dispense with the use of alcohol altogether.
“Vocalists would do well to give the new ‘tonic wine’ a trial. It is
undoubtedly the best wine now in the market, as it raises the vitality and
assists digestion, and does not contain coca, kola, or any like drug. In flavour
it resembles a pure dry hock, and we can, from experience, recommend it
to aU vocalists, as it brightens the voice without the after depression
which generally follows the use of wines, &c .”—The Gentleman's Journal ,
August, 1892.
It is sold in half bottles at 16/- per doz., carriage free.
E. GOULD & SON, Ltd.,
59, MOORGATE STREET, LONDON, E.C.
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LATEST CLINICAL THERMOMETERS.
NEW PATENT ASEPTIC CLINICAL THERMOMETER.
The '• Hygienic,” which has no divisions or figures on the tube, so that it can always be
washed in water only. This Thermometer will supply doctors with what they have been looking
for for years, viz., a Thermometer that requires no washing in disinfectant solution after being
used. There are no marks of any kind on the stem to convey infection or hold dirt, the divisions
and figures being on the case itself, into which the thermometer is slipped after use, and a reading
of the temperature then taken.
Full particulars of this and others (from 1- each upwards) supplied by
£. GOULD & SON, Ltd., 59, Moorgate Street, LONDON, E.C.
GOULD’S CONCENTRATED PURE COCOA.
Devoid of artificial flavouring. Prepared from the finest nuts, and rendered easily
digestible. Does not require boiling. This preparation consists of the finest
Cocoa, deprived of the indigestible fatty matter existing m the nuts, by pressure. It is
very soluble, easily assimilated, and forms a most nutritious and agreeable beverage for
dyspeptic and other invalids, as well as for those in health. Sold in {-lb., 4-lb., and
1-lb. tins, price 1/-, 2/-, and 3/9.
GOULDS NUTRITIVE HAIIt WASH.
Contains the ingredients essential to stimulate new growth and (unless there be total
atrophy of the hail* follicles) in the course of ten to fourteen days the improvement is quite
perceptible. Hence, it is a useful application when falling off of the hair occurs after
certain fevers, pneumonia, chronic headaches, different eruptions of the scalp, erysipelas,
seborrhcea, and a variety of minor disorders, which do not prevent the hair growing again.
It should be used night and morning, or in the morning only, diluted with an equal volume
of Eau-de-Cologne or water. In bottles at 2/6 and 4/6 each.
GOULDS ANTISEPTIC TOOTH POWDER.
A new and excellent dentifrice for cleansing the teeth, gums and mouth, and purifying
the breath. Its greatest and most valuable qualities are those which influence the causes
of dental decay, the ingredients of which it is compounded having been found to prevent or
retard this process—the fertile cause of neuralgia, dyspepsia, and general ill health. It
gives firmness to the gums where a tendency to sponginess exists, and corrects offensive
breath. It is also very pleasant in use, ana will be found a valuable toilet requisite.
In bottles at 1/-, 1/6, and 2/6.
GOULDS SPIRIT OF PINES.
A product of distillation, yielding the healthful and ozonising vapour of the pine forests.
Specially recommended as an elegant disinfectant and deodorant for dwelling-rooms and
bed-chambers, as well as for sick rooms.
Sprinkled about the room, the Pine Spirit diffuses a refreshing odour, which at the same
time soothes the nerves and relieves the breathing organs.
The great advantage possessed by this preparation over ordinary perfumes is due to the
fact that the latter merely mask the unpleasant effluvia, while tne Pine Spirit completely
and instantaneously deodorizes them. Sold in bottles, provided with sprinklers, at 1/-, 1/6,
2/6, and 4/6.
£. GOULD & SON, Ltd., 59, Moorgate Street, London, E C.
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LONDON HOMEOPATHIC HOSPITAL,
GREAT ORMOND STREET, BLOOMSBURY.
The Board of Management are prepared to receive applications for
the appointment of Assistant Surgeon. The successful Candidate
must possess registerable qualifications, and, be, or become, a Member
of the British Homoeopathic Society. Any Candidate canvassing the
Members of the Board, Medical Council or Medical Staff is thereby
disqualified.
Applications, with 60 copies of Testimonials, must be sent in
immediately, addressed to the Secretary-Superintendent, of whom
further particulars may be obtained.
August, 1902. G. A. CROSS, Secretary-Superintendent.
H AVERSTOCK HOUSE, Cheriton Place, Folkestone, conducted on
Christian and Temperance principles. Every comfort for those
not strong (non-infectious) and others. Those unable to walk taken to
and fro to sea front and Leas Shelter in bath chairs (free) morning and
afternoon. Private sitting-room if desired. Terms: Board residence, 2 to 8
guineas weekly; reduction October to Easter. Cycles housed.—Miss
Woodward (Member of Royal British Nursing Association). Telegrams,
“ Comfort.” Book Central Station.
Liverpool Hahnemann & Homoeopathic Dispensaries, Hope St.
W ANTED, a Non-Resident STIPENDIARY MEDICAL OFFICER.
He must be Qualified and Registered. Salary, .£100 per annum.
Private Practice allowed. For particulars apply to the Secretary, Thos. Cooper.
1 #. 6 d. net.
P ROTOPLASM :—Its Origin, Varieties, and Functions. By John
W. Hayward, M.D.
“ In this little book Dr. Hayward has most successfully collected together and stated, in a popular
way, the chief points in the theory of the origin of living things. Metrical Times.
Bristol: John Wright & Co. London: Simpkin & Co. Ltd.
W ANTED to purchase on easy terms, a Homoeopathic Practice of from
J6600 to <£800 a year, or to know of a good opening for a Homoeopathic
practitioner.—Apply “ S,” c/o E. Gould & Son, Ltd., 59 Mqorgate St, K.C.
W ANTED by Dr. H. P. Scott engagement with view to partnership, or
purchase, or would undertake the care of invalid obliged to travel,
etc.—Address at 58, Torrington Square, W.C.
RECENT AMERICAN WORKS.
D iseases and therapeutics of the skin. j. h. Allen.
1902. 10/- net.
“PRACTICE OF MEDICINE. Pierre Jousset. 1901. 88/- net.
HE PRACTICE OF MEDICINE. A. C. Co wperthwaite. 1901. 80/-.
i_
T
J)RACTICAL MEDICINE. F. Mortimer Lawrence. 1901. 15/- net.
P OCKET BOOK OF MEDICAL PRACTICE. Gatchell. 4th Edition.
1901. 10/-, net.
J^EGIONAL LEADERS. E. B. Nash. 1901. Half morocco. 7/6 net.
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the Society, and a Summary of Pharmacodynamics and Therapeutics. Bale,
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Each containing One Grain of any Trituration.
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THEY ARE NOT COMPRESSED,
BUT MOULDED.
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CONTAIN TALC (a magnesium silicate
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NO ADDITION OTHER THAN SPIRIT IS REOUIREO
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Characteristics of the Homoeopathic Materia Medica. M. £.
Douglass. 1901. 25/-.
Mental Diseases and their Modern Treatment. S. H. Talcott.
1901. 12/6.
A Monograph of Diseases of the Nose and Throat. George
H. Quay. 2nd Edition. 1900. 6/6 net.
A Systematic Alphabetic Repertory of Homoeopathic Remedies.
Antipsoric, Antisyphilitic and Antisycotic Bcenninghausen. Translated by
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