H().M(K(.I'\THV 



7. VI 



demonstrated or refuted by theoretical 

 or a finnri arguments. Hence it is in tin- results of 

 experience in employing homo'opathically selected 

 medicines, especially in epidemics notoriously 

 attended by a great mortality under the usual 

 methods of treatment, tluil those who advocate this 

 method appeal to sustain their position. 



Knr example, in lx:{<i cholera was devastating 

 Austria, when a petition was presented to the 

 go\ ernnieiit to allow homo-opal liy to I >e tested. Dr 

 Fleischmann was accordingly ordered to fit up a 

 lio-pital in the Gumpendon suburb of Vienna for 

 the reception of cholera patients to be treated 

 boOMBOpathioally. The result showed that whereas 

 70 per cent, of those treated in the ordinary way 

 died, I)r Fleischmann lost only '<"> per cent. 



Again, in yellow fever, in 1878 the American 

 Institute of I IOIIHI-, .put liy appointed a com mission, 

 consisting of physicians who had had experience in 

 dealing with thin disease, to ascertain the number 

 of cases treated homo3opathically during the 

 epidemic of that year, and the rate of mortality 

 amongst them, The report showed that in and 

 around New Orleans 3914 cases were treated, with 

 a loss of -Jill, being a mortality of only G'(i per cent, 

 in this singularly fatal form of disease. 



Lastly, in the city of Melbourne typhoid fever 

 recurs in epidemic form every year. The Melbourne 

 Herald I of April 20, 1889, gave the following hospital 

 statistics or typhoid for three seasons. During 

 these three epidemics the Melbourne hospital, with 

 318 beds, received 1182 cases of typhoid, of which 

 181, or 15'31 percent., died. The Alfred Hospital, 

 with 144 beds, admitted 998 cases ; of these 135, or 

 13 '52 per cent., were fatal. The Homoeopathic 

 Hospital, with 60 beds, received 554 cases, of which 

 49, or 8 '84 per cent., died. 



Another argument in support of the contention 

 that homoeopathy affords a real basis on which to 

 select a medicine is drawn from the fact that 

 Hahnemann, when appealed to in 1832 to suggest 

 the medicines most likely to be useful in cholera, 

 without ever having seen a case, but merely from 

 .studying the symptoms of some that were reported 

 to him, and comparing these symptoms with those 

 produced by medicines he had experimented with, 

 named camphor, copper, and white hellebore as the 

 remedies ; and these, with the single addition of 

 arsenic, have since been found to be more service- 

 able in checking the disease than any others. It 

 is consequently urged that for a principle of drug- 

 selection to enable the physician to indicate before- 

 hand the appropriate remedy in an entirely new 

 form of disease is a strong proof of its truth, and 

 evidence of its value. 



Finally, hornoeopathists contend that the un- 

 acknowledged adoption of many of the practical 

 results of their teaching by physicians who pro- 

 fessedly repudiate homoeopathy is an additional 

 proof that this teaching is sound. The text-books 

 on Materia Medica which are now most popular in 

 the medical schools, the Handbook of Therapeutics, 

 by Dr Sidney Ringer, and Dr Lander Brunton's 

 Materia Mcdiai, Fnttrmaooloffy, n</ 77/r/v//wM//V.v, 

 abound with recommendations for the use of medi- 

 cines in diseases in which they were first known to 

 le of service through homoeopathy. Of these, the 

 use of aconite in inflammatory fever is one of the 

 most conspicuous. That it would be found capable 

 of reducing the fever with which acute inllamma- 

 tions are usually ushered in was an inference drawn 

 by llahnemaiin from the experiments that he had 

 made with it; and, when publishing his conclusion, 

 he foretold that it would entirely supersede the 

 necessity for blood-letting, then so constantly 

 employed in such cases. It was the endorsement 

 of this statement by Dr Uwins who hud to 

 .some extent tested the worth of homoeopathically 



-elected medicines at a in'-. -tin- ..! tin- |..,i.don 

 Medical Society in 1H30 that HO shocked the mem 

 bern present an to induce them to paw a resolution 

 precluding all reference to homo-opatliv at any 

 intuit: meeting. To use aconite in Hiuafl dofM.it in 

 acute inflammatory fever in thoroughly homoeo- 

 pathic, and is at the same time a very c.,i M mon 

 practice now among those who deny that homo-o- 

 pathy is of any value to the physician. Many 

 oilier medicines there are that are very generally 

 used by opponents of homoeopathy in conditions to 

 which they are homoeopathic, and in which they 

 were originally made known to be useful by tlio-e 

 who practise liomo-opat Ideally ; such, for example, 

 as arsenic in gastric irritation, ipecacuanha in 

 vomiting, corrosive sublimate in dysentery, bella- 

 donna in quinsy, \c. 



While homo'opathists accept these appropriations 

 as so many tributes to the truth of their doctrine, 

 and look upon them as important advances in thera- 

 peutics, at the same time, in the absence of any 

 Knowledge on the part of those who use them of 

 the doctrine which led to their employment, they 

 regard them as calculated to give rise to disap- 

 pointment in some instances. They do so for the 

 reason that sill cases of a given form of disease are 

 not so precisely similar as to admit of cure by the 

 same medicine. Thus, to give belladonna in all 

 quinsies, while of advantage in many, would be 

 useless in some, l>ecause all cases of quinsy do not 

 resemble that produced by belladonna. Some are 

 more like that occasioned by mercury, others that 

 of the poison of the honey-bee, or of one of the 

 serpent poisons, others that of the Phytolaccu de- 

 cttndra, and so on ; and it is, the homooopathist 

 argues, only when the doctrine of homoeopathy is 

 strictly adhered to in each individual instance of a 

 disease that that success which he contends will 

 follow his method can be looked for. 



From the date of the publication of 1 1 ah nemann's 

 first essay on Homoeopathy the opposition this doc- 

 trine has met with from the great majority of the 

 profession in Great Britain has been of the most 

 determined and persistent character. Of late years 

 the intensity of the bitterness of feeling which this 

 controversy aroused has been somewhat mitigated, 

 or perhaps the influence of public opinion has pre- 

 vented its indulgence to the same extent as formerly. 

 The last attempt to deprive a physician of his 

 hospital appointment on the ground that he was 

 treating his patients homoeopathically failed, while 

 several open adherents of tins doctrine are to be 

 found holding public health and poor-law appoint- 

 ments. The number of those who in (Jreat Britain 

 admit that they practise homoeopathy has never 

 at any one time exceeded 300. The chief hospital 

 where homoeopathy is practised is the London 

 Homoeopathic (1850), with ninety beds and a large 

 out-patient department. There are similar institu- 

 tions at Birmingham, Liverpool, Bath, Plymouth, 

 Bournemouth, Eastbourne, and Bromley ; and a 

 convalescent home in connection with the London 

 ll<pital has recently been o|ened at Eastbourne. 

 In addition to these there are about a hundred 

 liomieopathic dispensaries in different parts of the 

 country. 



In the United States of America, where public 

 opinion is more powerful than professional feeling, 

 hoimeopathv has .spread rapidly and widely, and it 

 is estimated* that nearly one-fourth of the qualified 

 practitioners of medicine in that country have 

 adopted it. There are over fifty hospitals and 

 nearly as many dispensaries ; and the journals 

 devoted to homoeopathy exceed a score in number. 

 It is taught in thirteen medical colleges and in 

 three of the universities. In Europe there is only 

 one university where there is a chair of Homceo- 

 pathy viz. at Budapest. 



