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NATURE 



\ya71. 26, I 



very large, and similar doses have produced in other 

 people vomiting and gastro-intestinal irritation. In 

 Hahnemann it produced symptoms of ague, but instead 

 of concluding that the cinchona had simply brought back 

 an attack of his old enemy, by acting as an irritant to his 

 stomach, he concluded that cinchona bark had a specific 

 power to produce ague. Others who have tried the ex- 

 periment, and who have not had ague before,have naturally 

 failed. 



Hahnemann's system was greatly ridiculed and opposed 

 both during his life and since, and yet, in spite of its 

 absurdities in regard to dose, it has a number of adher- 

 ents. The reasons of this are perhaps not very hard to 

 find. For instead of homoeopathic medicines being 

 disagreeable to the patient, as those of regular practi- 

 tioners too often are, they are given in a form which is 

 rather pleasant than otherwise, and Hahnemann's rules 

 of diet and regimen were very different from those fol- 

 lowed by regular practitioners of his time. While they 

 were apt to consider that anything that seemed agreeable 

 to the patient was dangerous and to be forbidden, Hahne- 

 mann, placing full reliance on the influence of his in- 

 finitesimal doses, allowed the desire of the patient for 

 food and drink to be gratified within proper limits, and 

 the temperature of the chamber as well as the quantity 

 of the bed-clothes to be regulated according to the wishes 

 of the patient. There can be no doubt that the attention 

 given by Hahnemann and his followers to diet and regi- 

 men have been of great service, not only to the patients 

 they have treated, but to the whole medical profession. 

 It is obvious that such a system as Hahnemann's — gratify- 

 ing the desires of the patient so far as it was judicious, 

 giving remedies in such minute doses as could at all 

 events do no harm, and at the same time encouraging the 

 patientwith the positive assurance that the infinitesimal 

 doses were of the utmost potency to effect a cure — had a great 

 advantage over the system of allopathy. This advantage 

 was to a certain extent shared by antipathy, inasmuch as 

 both it and homoeopathy acted on a definite plan, and 

 chose their drugs according to what they supposed to be 

 fixed laws. 



Although so far behind the other two in some respects, 

 allopathy had this great advantage over them, that it 

 depended simply on the results of experiment ; and al- 

 though it might be influenced, and was influenced at 

 times, by prevailing fashions, its followers were still 

 searching after truth, while the others falsely supposed 

 they had already found it. With the development of 

 pathology and a truer insight into the nature of disease, 

 the term allopathy has fallen to a great extent into 

 disuse, and most of what we might term the orthodox 

 practitioners of the present day object to range them- 

 selves under any "pathy" whatever, but aim at a rational 

 practice founded on the one hand upon the know- 

 ledge of the nature of disease, and on the other of 

 the action of remedies. Where these are insufficient to 

 guide them, they fall back simply upon empiricism ; 

 expecting, however, that before long, wider knowledge 

 may increase their power to cure their patients. Their 

 power is no doubt very greatly on the increase ; and we 

 have only to look at the fact that within the last itw years 

 they have been able by the use of substances belonging to 

 the aromatic series of chemical compounds to regulate 



the temperature of their patients, so that whereas 

 formerly physicians were obliged to stand by idly 

 while their patients died of high fever, they can now 

 prevent the temperature from rising too high with almost 

 perfect certainty, and thus save their patients' lives. 

 Every day fresh contributions are being made both to 

 the physician's knowledge of the nature of disease and 

 his power to modify it or prevent it. 



Yet still the regular physician is but a seeker after 

 truth, and as yet no infallible rule by which to select his 

 medicines is known to him. He cannot lay down with 

 dogmatism that the medicine which he is about to ad- 

 minister is the only one or the very best one that can 

 possibly be given, as a homoeopath might do. He is 

 therefore to a certain extent at a disadvantage as com- 

 pared with the homoeopath, especially in the treatment 

 of those cases where the disease is not extremely severe, 

 and where the effect upon the mind of the patient 

 counts for as much or more than the action of the 

 medicine itself. The want of a definite rule on the 

 one hand affords an opportunity for the homoeopath 

 to sneer at the regular practitioner, while at the same 

 time he complains that the regular practitioner refuses to 

 have any dealings with him. But there seems to be no 

 other course open to the regular practitioner, for he 

 considers that the homoeopath must do one of two things : 

 he either believes in homoeopathy, or he does not. If he 

 believes in homoeopathy as founded by Hahnemann, and 

 prescribes for his patients infinitesimal doses with a 

 conviction that he is actually modifying the disease 

 from which they suffer, the regular practitioner regards 

 him as a fool ; while he would apply a still stronger term 

 to the man who does not believe in Hahnemann's system, 

 and uses powerful drugs in large doses, but nevertheless 

 professes to treat his patients homoeopathically. It is as 

 useless for a regular practitioner to treat a patient along 

 with a believer in homoeopathy as it is for a modern 

 chemist to undertake a joint research with a believer in 

 phlogiston ; and therefore the regular practitioner refuses 

 to meet him in consultation so long as he holds homoeo- 

 pathic doctrines. But if the homoeopath gives up his 

 belief in infinitesimal doses, and in the universal appH- 

 cation of the rule " similia similibus curantur," he has 

 given up the essentials of homoeopathy, and has no more 

 title to the name of homoeopath than Hippocrates had. 

 If he has given up the thing he should give up the name 

 and join the ranks of orthodoxy, but if he still retains 

 the name for the sake of gain he can hardly expect to be 

 welcomed by the orthodox part of the medical profession. 

 It is very unfortunate that the " odium medicutn" should 

 exist, but the homoeopaths seem more to blame for it 

 than the followers of rational medicine. 



DARWINISM AND ETHICS. 

 The Ethical Import of Darwinism. By Jacob Gould 



Schurman, M.A., D.Sc, Sage Professor of Philosophy 



in Cornell University. (London : Williams and 



Norgate, 1888.) 

 Morality and Utility. By George Payne Best, B.A., 



M.B. (London : Triibner and Co., 1887.) 



WE will consider these two little books together, as 

 in some measure the latter, although earlier in 

 publication, answers the former. 



