Vol. XXV. No. 4.] 
POPULAE SOIEiq-CE I^TEWS.- 
50 
[Original in PopnLAE Science News.] 
HOMEOPATHY IN RELATION TO THE 
KOCH CONTROVERSY. 
BV CHAHLES FESSENDEN NICHOLS. 
Dk. Koch's injection of fluid ( " parataloid " ) 
lias encountered, from tlie first, strong opposition 
from men of undoubted sagacity, witli tlie great 
Vircliow of Berlin at tlieir liead. To summarize 
tlie liistory of tlie past three months, the autop- 
sies (i. e., twenty-tliree bjf Vircliow) show gen- 
oral tuberculous infiltration of the bodies of the 
victims. Virchow states that t' the substance of 
the tubercle is not absorbed at its original resting 
places, and there are eruptions of fresh crops.'"* 
This injection of tuberculized glycerine practi- 
cally repeats the process which preceded the dis- 
covery of vaccination, in which, for the sake of 
protection from a dreaded disorder, a scab or diop 
of purulent material from a person sick of small- 
pox was injected into a healthy man. The man 
took small-pox; but his physician told him he 
ought to have it— he could be better cared for if 
the disease were early recognized. For instance, 
; in Boston liarbor the summer air was often util- 
llzed by parties of the inoculated who dotted cer- 
|tain islands with tents, in order that they might 
'have the distemper "—or let it have them. How 
[brutally liarsh was this treatment ! 
Yet science, disciplined by experience, is now 
[^accused of employing a method more barbarous 
J than that of inoculation, t Strong and healthy 
t persons only, and at a favorable time of the year, 
were chosen by their physicians to submit to the 
i latter process, and inoculation when once dis- 
f covered seemed a necessary precaution, thougli 
[vaccination soon became its substitute. Koch's 
jlnjections are, however, made under very different 
■ conditions : still more of his own horrible disease 
Tls forced into an already exhausted sufferer, and 
[the result is now announced. Koch, nevertheless, 
Jhopes "to extract from the tubercle bacillus its 
f<|urative substance alone." Meanwhile there is 
Ion all sides enduring faith that true curative 
ipower dwells in the parataloid. 
Whoever, then, like Gulliver shall succeed in 
oaxing from the Liliputian enemy the secret of 
poison balm, and can so cultivate or others ise 
S-epare the parataloid that, retaining still its 
arative power, it becomes innoxious, he has 
Hved this difficult problem. 
jTor twenty years or more, a most misunder- 
ood and maligned body of observers, homeo- 
fkths, lias recognized this indispensable curative 
rvice of the products of disease, and, in addi- 
i>n, the necessity I for their extreme attenuation, 
fore they might be safely administered in sick- 
88. "Tuberculinuni," "anthracin,'" and "syco- 
belong with such drugs as arsenic, which 
^velops deadly disease if given to persons in 
alth, but is curative in certain disturlied condi- 
Ons. The testimony given by these physicians 
^pears singularly fitting, and tlieir experience 
puld be of vital importance at this time of 
*Medical News, .January 17, 1891. See also Boston Medi- 
iand Surgical Journal, Marcli 5, p. 247; also Heports on 
Bpus in same number. 
IKoch's followers object to calling his metliod an inocula- 
m. The writer here simply compares the results of the 
J procedures. 
."Koch usually injects only one-millionth of a gramme 
. ,^ the active principle. From the effects of tiiis inconceiv- 
ably minute quantity some idea may be formed of the 
almost uncanny energy which the substance would display 
ir let loose, so to speak, in the fulness of its untiimed 
strength."— Sir Morell Mackenzie, in the Contemporaru Re- 
view. "One part to a ninety -eight billionth of the bulk of 
the whole body in a man weighing fifteen stone," is Dr. 
iUne 8 estimate, London Lancet, February 14, p. 367. 
wholesale experiment threatened by the followers 
of Koch. I will now attempt to describe the cul- 
tus and professional training of these men who 
are accused by the dominant school of failure to 
accomplish anything for medical science, of bigo- 
try, of narrowness and of "having a fixed be- 
lief."* 
The college requirements for students of home- 
opathy do not differ materially from those of the 
older school. Many of these students are already 
graduates of Harvard or of foreign medical 
schools, who afterward finish their studies at a 
homeopathic college. 
" By their fruits ye shall know them." Among 
the noteworthy results of a professional education 
in the methods of this school has been the discov- 
ery of unexpected remedial agents, far in advance 
of similar discoveries by other investigators. The 
homeopaths have long recognized the life result- 
ing from death in natural growth, and have not 
hesitated to explore filth,, decay, and disease, for 
morbific protlucts or nosodes. Diseased material 
from aniinals and plants and the poisonous secre- 
tions of reptiles, fishes, and insects are found to 
have indispensable curative powers in desperate 
01 obscure diseases, but are only thus helpful 
when the properties of each have been clearly 
dift'erentiatetl by a thorough proving. Is it gen- 
erally known what is meant by a proving or study 
of a remedial agent? Let me then briefly show 
you the labor, the research, and the professional 
skill required to make a proving. 
A proving: is made by administering to several 
healthy persons a substance or extract and re- 
cording its eft'ects, with the ultimate object of 
using the proven material in disease. Each agent 
must be studiedf with regard to its chemical, 
functional, and whole pathological effects in the 
body ; study the pulse, actions of the heart, lungs, 
brain, kidneys, liver, systems of nerves, blood- 
vessels, lymphatics, glands, digestive organs, ma- 
chinery of the senses, each anatomical part and 
tissue; study the connection of the proven mate- 
rial with eruptions, parasites, contagions, cli- 
mates, influences inherited or acquired ; note the 
resemblance of this to other drugs and its anti- 
dotes. Above all there must be perceptions of 
mental states, tact to avoid deceit, artistic insight, 
and quick sight. For all these matters, sought 
out by stethoscope, ophthalmoscope, sphymo- 
graph, microscope, analyses of the urine, blood, 
etc., and the whole armentarium of a modern 
physician, enter into the preparation of a proving 
and must be brought together with laborious, 
painstaking care before the proving is offered. 
Prof. Constantine Hering prepared, in the year 
1850, for his colleagues of the mediciil college at 
Allentown, Pa., a scheme of twenty closely-writ- 
ten pages— simply directions for epitomizing and 
recording their proviugs. 'I1ie systematic habit 
of German university training which has given 
their prestige to German .scientists was thus early 
brought to bear upon students in this matter. A 
proving is accepted and enters materia medica and 
text-book only after its characteristics have been 
confirmed by scores — often by hundreds— of inde- 
pendent observers. At last the proving stands, 
full of interest, a new discovery, an elaborate- 
sometimes a learned — analysis, entirely unknown 
to old school methods; and one more weapon is 
ready for use. 
The authorized works of homeopathic materia 
medica ai-e very numerous; fully 1,100 remedies 
•See Prof. H. C. Wood's Yale address; also addresses 
published in Medical and Surgical Reporter: all previous to 
November, 1889. 
t Usually fn a so-called " College of Provers." 
are available.* Many practicing physicians carry 
in memory the chief characteristics of the greater 
proportion of these. Proviugs and the reperto- 
ries founded upon them naturally differ in value; 
yet a curious observer must, I think, find in the 
general result the evidence of such persistent in- 
dustry and scientific research that all statements 
which assume a lack in either respect obviously 
proceed from uninformed persons. 
Regarding attainments in literature and the lib- 
eral sciences per se, a welcome addition, no doubt, 
to the real service of medical men, and the sup- 
posed lack of which on the part of these practi- 
tioners has been made the subject of grave com- 
ment, t to four bright spirits only, in all these two 
thousand years of physicians, have seats been 
assigned among the immortals! Hippocrates, 
Galen, Sir Tliomas Browne, and finally Dr. Holmes 
have, severally, gained a place in letters. Each 
of these is a rebel and an innovator ; for without 
rebellion and innovation was never yet wrought 
any good thing. But fifty years have passed 
since the death of Hahnemann, himself a man 
whose vast learning was fully recognized in his 
time.J Meanwhile neither poet nor sage has yet 
chanced to be "an ornament to his profession"; 
the fact is, its founders have been at work so hard 
that they have had no time to hold up their heads 
to sing. 
Let us now enquire what has been accomplished 
for medical science by the elaborate proviugs of 
the homeopaths ; for the raison detre of a proving 
has not been explicitly given in the preceding 
pages. Hippocrates, Hahnemann and Sydenham 
hypothecated and finally taught that the testing 
of medicines upon the healthy would show the 
exact curative power of each remedy in disease; 
this doctrine was formulated by Hippocrates in 
theophorism or axiom similia similibus curentur, 
cure by similars. .Jenner by vaccination and Pas- 
teur and Koch by their inoculations, have, more 
recently, illustrated the effects, under this hypoth- 
esis, of a limited class of remedies ; but to Hahne- 
mann and his successors alone, with their 
elaborate system of full, descriptive proviugs of 
nearly every known medicinal agent, is due the 
gradual establishment of a law educed from the 
original working-hypothesis of Hippocrates. 
That the law of similars cannot be explained 
a priori (f. e., upon any material or mechanical 
grounds) is, to my mind, at once to be admitted 
before we can accept it as a fundamental principle 
or starting-point, exact like that of electricity or 
chemical force. The law is that disease is cured 
by an influence similar to that which produces it. 
However daring the fii-st assumption of this law 
of similai'g, it has now passed through the stages 
recorded in the history of every established 
science, i. e., it has been submitted to induction, 
deduction and verification. 
Mere observation of instances is not inductive 
and does not lead to science until through the 
study of instances we rise to fixed law. With 
such a law, pi-ophec}- or deduction must be possi- 
ble and the accuracy of this prophecy, or verifica- 
tion, will be a fresh test of the original law. The 
homeopathic law, being tested in reference both 
to noi-mal and the diseased conditions of the 
human body, has the logical advantage of a double 
verification, and may thus be said to be rediscov- 
* Bcenninghansen's Repertory, an early publication, might 
fairly be compared with Roget's Thesaurus, or a modern 
lexicon. The recent compendiums (of which three are 
available) aggregate many hundred pages of closely-printed 
text. 
t See letter In the London Times, January 8, 1889; also Dr. 
O. K. Newcll's annual address before the Massachusetts 
Medical Society, 1890. 
f See the writings of Jean Paul Bichter and Broussals. 
