HOMCEOPATHY AS A SCIENCE. 735 



has been the means of lessening in a considerable degree the monstrous 

 poly-pharmacy which has always been the disgrace of our art, by at 

 once diminishing the frequency of administration of drugs and lessen- 

 ing their dose. . . . 



" In a word, almost every drug in our overflowing materia medica, 

 whether inert or active, has been on one ground or another copiously 

 prescribed in every variety of disease under the supposed sanction of 

 this pseudo-specific on empirical indication. Nor let it be supposed 

 that this empirical practice is one of the past day only. It is at this 

 very time in as great vogue as ever, although its employment may be 

 often veiled under the technicalities of newer science. 



" Nor is it confined to the ignorant or inexperienced among us, but 

 adopted and followed by men of the greatest abilities and greatest 

 eminence in the profession. . . . 



" As in religion and politics, and in those departments of knowl- 

 edge which are not of a positive or demonstrable kind, early and long- 

 continued education, comprising not merely direct instruction, prop- 

 erly so called, but the influence of habitual example, deference to sen- 

 iority and superiority, unconscious imitation, etc., induce conventional 

 belief of the strongest kind strong as demonstrated truth itself and 

 create a sort of wizard circle of power, beyond which the mind of the 

 disciple, however bold, scarcely ever dares to wander. So in medicine, 

 the great majority of practitioners retain the same doctrines and pur- 

 sue the same practice which they learned in the schools, or, if changing 

 both doctrine and practice, as time and fashion dictate, hold fast, at 

 least, the great fundamental doctrine impressed upon the very core of 

 their professional hearts viz., that the interference of Art is essential 

 in all cases, and therefore never to be foregone. It need not, there- 

 fore, surprise us that it is only a very small minority of medical prac- 

 titioners who, in ordinary circumstances, can see in disease the true 

 workings of Nature through the artificial veil which conventionalism 

 and professional superstition have thrown over them. . . . 



" The conviction of the great autocracy of Nature, in the cure of 

 diseases derived from this source, is much more widely spread among 

 the senior members of the profession than is at all believed by the 

 great body of practitioners. . . . The number of cases that recover 

 and would have died had Art not interfered is extremely small." 



These trenchant words from Sir John Forbes carry great weight 

 as a commanding critic in his own profession. Had his strictures upon 

 his brethren and their practices come from an alien pen, they would 

 undoubtedly have been attributed by the allopathic school to malevo- 

 lence and ignorance ; and, doubtless, Sir John Forbes will not escape 

 the same fate, because, if his statements are true, those of whom they 

 are spoken are incapable of perceiving or admitting their truth. 



But, conceding the allopathic to be a correct or a possible system 

 of cure, it by no means follows that because it requires large doses to 



