701 



HOMOEOPATHY. 



HOMOLOGOUS SERIES. 



702 



' Clementine Homilies ' are supposed by Le Clerc to have been forge 

 by an Ebionite in the 2nd century. (Lardner's ' Credibility,' pt. i > 

 c. 29.) 



In modern use the term " homily " is applied to a discourse read 

 out of a book, and not composed by the preacher. 



In the 8th century a collection of homilies was compiled from the 

 writings of the fathers by Paul the deacon and Alcuin, at the com- 

 mand of Charlemagne. This collection is called the ' Homiliarium of 

 Charlemagne.' 



At the period of the Reformation in England two books of homilies 

 were published by authority, in order to ensure xmiformity of doctrine 

 and to supply the defects of some of the clergy. The first book was 

 published hi 1547, and consists of twelve' homilies, many of which 

 are ascribed to Cranmer, and others to Latimer, Ridley, and Pilkington ; 

 the second, containing twenty -one homilies, supposed to be written by 

 Bishop Jewell, was published in 1562, though composed earlier. They 

 were appointed to be read in churches every Sunday, unless there 

 were a sermon. These homilies are recommended by the 35th 

 Article of the Church of England as " containing a godly and whole- 

 some doctrine ; " a list of them is given in the Articles appended to 

 most Prayer Books ; many of them are divided, so that in the whole 

 there are forty-four discourses. Of the first book, which is less 

 known, the following are the heads : 



1. A fruitful exhortation to the Reading and Knowledge of Holy 

 Scripture ; in two parts. 



2. On the Misery of Mankind, and of his Condemnation to Death 

 through everlasting, by his own Sin ; two part*. 



3. On the Salvation of Mankind, by only Christ our Saviour, from 

 Sin and Death everlasting ; three parts. 



4. A short Declaration of the true, lively, and Christian Faith ; three 

 parts. 



5. Of Good Works annexed unto Faith ; three parts. 



6. Of Christian Love and Charity ; two parts. 



7. Against Swearing and Perjury; two parts. 



8. How dangerous a thing it is to fall from God ; two parts. 



9. An Exhortation against the Fear of Death ; three parts. 



10. Concerning good Order and Obedience to Rulers and Magis- 

 trates ; three parts. 



11. Against Whoredom and Uncleanness ; three parts. 



12. Against Contention and Brawling; three parts. 

 HOMCEOPATHY, the art of curing founded on resemblances, 



expressed in the Latin expression " similia similibus curautur." It is 

 derived from the two Greek words " S.uoios " " similar," and " ireiflos," 

 " feeling " or sensation, and hence a condition of body, such as that of 

 disease. According to this law, disease is cured by remedies which 

 produce upon a healthy person effects timilar to the symptoms of the 

 complaint under which the patient suffers. 



This system of medicine stands in direct contradistinction to that 

 founded upon the principle of treating diseases by their oppositeS; 

 " contraria contrariis curantur," which has served more or less as a 

 guiding law since the time of Galen. To this last method the disciples 

 of the new school have given the name of Allopathy, from the two 

 Greek words " S\Aot," " other," and " T<Wor," " condition." This 

 distinctive nomenclature will be adopted in this article as a matter of 

 convenience, and to avoid circumlocution. The arguments adduced 

 in support of the truth of the homoeopathic law seem principally 

 drawn from three sources, namely, from popular experience, from 

 observations upon the effects of medicinal agents recorded in the works 

 of eminent medical men of different schools and various epochs, and 

 from experiments upon healthy individuals made by the founder of 

 the system and his disciples upon themselves. 



1st. Popular experience has proved that the safest manner of 

 restoring the circulation of a fro/en limb is to rub it with onow 

 (mnilia similibus) ; warm applications, according to the evidences of 

 the same experience, would cause the destruction of the part affected 

 (contraria contrariis). 



Again, severe burns are most quickly cured by the use of heated 



spirits of wine or oil of turpentine, which excite a very similar sensa- 



Ith.mgh in a greatly modified degree (similia similifaus). Cold 



applications, although they give temporary relief, are, as is well known, 



illy followed by increased inflammation and severe after-suffering 



(contraria contrariig), as corroborated by the evidence of John Hunter, 



Kentish, Sydenham, and other medical names of high repute. 



The homocopathists also insist that the acknowledged efficacy of 

 Jenner's great discovery is a powerful argument of the truth of the 

 homoeopathic law, since by producing a similar disease an almost 

 perfect immunity from attacks of the small-pox is obtained. 



2nd. They endeavour to show by a number of observations collected 

 from the works of different medical allopathic authors, that many drugs 

 recorded by them as curative in different forms of disease were observed 

 by other*, also allopathists, to produce effects closely resembling the 

 Hymptoms of those very forms of disease, or in other words, that they 

 acted upon the principle, similia similibus : an instance or two will be 

 sufficient illustration. The English sweating sickness, which committed 

 such ravages in the year 1485, and for some time baffled the physi- 

 cians, yielded, according to Willis, to sudorifics; and it is upon 

 record that after the adoption of this mode of treatment very few died 

 of it. Opium in general causes extreme drowsiness, heavy and 4eep 



sleep ; and it has, according to the testimony of many allopathic 

 physicians, proved curative in diseases characterised by similar 

 symptoms. Moreover, it is asserted by the homocopathists that all the 

 remedies acknowledged as specifics by the medical profession, of what- 

 ever school, act upou this law ; for instance, they maintain that 

 Peruvian bark produces medicinal symptoms closely analogous to those 

 of marsh fever, and that the well-known efficacy of mercury in syphilitic 

 complaints, and of sulphur in various forms of cutaneous disease, is 

 attributable to the same power (similia similibus), and as above stated, 

 that the action of vaccine matter, as a prophylactic or preventive 

 medicine against small-pox, depends upon the same law. 



3rd. Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of this system of medicine, 

 being struck, as noticed in his life [HAHNEMANN in Bioo. Div.] , with 

 the close analogy between the symptoms produced by Peruvian bark 

 and those of the forms of disease for which it was considered a specific, 

 and having obtained similar results from other medicines tried upon 

 his own person, was led to the discovery of the homoeopathic law ; and 

 he, believing that the mode of operation of all remedial agents was in 

 perfect harmony with this principle, by repeated experiments upon 

 himself and some medical friends, converted to his opinions, first 

 determined their direct action and then employed them in disease. 

 The practical results obtained by himself and the physicians of his 

 school are appealed to by them as a further confirmation of the truth 

 of their fundamental law. 



The extremely minute quantities in which the remedies are admi- 

 nistered, seem to form a marked difference between the homoeopathic 

 and all other schools of medicine. The homocopathists however assert 

 that this is merely a point of practice to be determined by the phy- 

 sician at the bedside of his patient, and that in the application of the 

 homoeopathic principle to the treatment of disease, it was soon found 

 that remedial agents given in the doses usually employed, acted too 

 energetically upon a frame already predisposed to their influence by 

 the affinity existing between their medicinal effects and the morbid 

 signs of the disease ; and hence a gradual diminution was made in the 

 quantity of the medicine exhibited, in order to approximate to that 

 amount which might exert its full curative power without aggravating 

 the sufferings of the patient by an excess of medicinal action. The 

 result has been, the general adoption among homocopathists of the 

 minute doses at present in use. 



Homoeopathy numbers in its ranks many medical men who had 

 obtained high repute and professional eminence in the other systems, 

 before they embraced the principles of homoeopathy, and seems to be 

 more or less diffused in all parts of the world, if we may form any 

 opinion from its literature, which comprises medical works in German, 

 Italian, English, French, Swedish, Russian, Spanish, Latin, and Portu- 

 guese. The system has also adherents in North and South America 

 and Asia. The great bulk however of the medical profession are more 

 or less opposed to its adoption. This has arisen from the fact, that 

 with an increased knowledge of disease and the action of medicines, 

 there has been a tendency amongst medical men to discard all general 

 theories of the nature of disease and the action of medicines. Although 

 it is assumed by writers on homoeopathy, that there is an allopathic 

 theory, no well-educated medical man would adopt any such theory. 

 The facts of homoeopathic writers will stand even should their theory 

 be forgotten ; and it is to be regretted that the founder of this system, 

 and his followers, have sought to impress their views rather as mem- 

 bers of a sect than as men of science. The opposition which their 

 views have experienced has been mainly due to this sectarian tendency. 

 The question between homoeopathists and other members of the 

 medical profession, is rather social than scientific, a question rather of 

 medical ethics, than of the interpretation of facts. 



HOMOGE'NEOUS and HETEROGE'NEOUS, terms' applied in 

 mathematical language to expressions which have or have not the same 

 number of factors of a given sort. Thus, with respect to x and y, 

 axt + bxy + cxPis homogeneous, but a # s + b y is heterogeneous. 



HOMOLACTIC ACID (C,H 4 O e ). A peculiar organic acid described 

 by M. Cloey as being produced in the manufacture of fulminating 

 mercury. It is a colourless syrupy liquid of specific gravity V197, 

 and is isomeric with glyeoffic acid. M. Dessaignes regards homolactic 

 acid as impure glycollic acid. 



HOMOLOGUES. [HOMOLOGOUS SERIES.] 



HOMO'LOGOUS, a term applied in Euclid to those magnitudes 

 which are both antecedents in a proportion, or which are both conse- 

 quents. But when the four proportional magnitudes are all of one 

 kind, the right of alternation empowers us to make and call any two 

 terms homologous, of which one is an extreme and the other a mean. 



HOMOLOGOUS SERIES. When the formula) of the individual 

 members of certain families of organic compounds are compared, it is 

 found that these formula; bear a very simple relation to each other, 

 and that the individual members of each family differ in composition 

 by two equivalents of carbon and two of hydrogen, or by some 

 multiple of this number. The family of organic bodies to which 

 common alcohol belongs affords an illustration of this graduated com- 

 position, as will bu seen from the following table of the formula; of 

 these bodies : 



Methylic alcohol . 

 Vinic alcohol (spirit of wine) . 

 Propylic alcohol . 



C a H 4 0, 

 O.H.O, 

 C,H 8 0, 



