142 The Evolution of Medical Science. 



translation of Cullen's Materia Medica from English into 

 German, and when his mind reverted back to the fetish- 

 system of therapeutics. He believed he saw a similarity- 

 be tween disease-symtoms and the effects on healthy persons 

 of such drugs as benefited them in such diseases. 



Now began another therapeutic war, that has scarcely 

 yet died out. The regular army never asserted any special 

 therapeutic doctrine in opposition to homeopathy. The 

 rebellious deserters affirmed the universality of what they 

 were pleased to call the law of similars.* They nick-named 

 their opponents Allopaths, although they knew the title to 

 be false. There never has been an organized body of men 

 believing in Allopathy, and no one knows this better than 

 homeopathic doctors. Eegular physicians to-day all know 

 that some drugs do act as if in accordance with the homeo- 

 pathic shibboleth. They also know that others act in just 

 the contrary way. Small doses of ipecac will check nausea. 

 That is Homeopathy. Large doses of Rochello Salts will 

 check constipation. That is Allopathy. Sulphur will 

 arrest the itch. That is neither Homeopathy nor Allopathy. 

 Regular doctors use all these remedies, taking such as ex- 

 perience proves to be good, whatever the theory by which 

 they act.f Homeopaths of late have been doing the same, 

 and their very best men are pointing out the dishonesty 

 and folly of adhering any longer to the title, since it has 

 become merely a means of deluding the ignorant public. 

 The future must give Hahnemann credit for sounding the 

 deatli-knell of polypharmacy and excessive dosage ; but he 

 will derive no honor for reviving exclusive Homeopathy, 

 which is merely a modified reversion to fetishism. The 

 progress of Bacteriology is fast putting an end to such 

 narrowly limited views, and this is aided by the light shed 

 by Evolution on the problems of Pathology, t 



Modern therapeutics takes note of the fact that both sim- 

 ilars and dissimilars are equally efficient, and that therefore 

 Allo])athy and Homeopatliy only partially express the tinith 

 that is at once both and yet neither. Electropathy, Hydro- 



* In the discuKsion which followed the lecture, Dr. W. S. Searle asserted that 

 Homeopathy is a scientific system of medicine. No method can claim to he 

 scientific, he declared, which remains a mere undigested accumulation of 

 empirical facts. Science only becomes such when we have discovered the un- 

 derlying law which determines the character and relationship of the facts. All 

 such laws are universal, and such a law of cure Homeopathy claims to have 

 discovered. The jjroof lies in its practical results for seventy years. 



tStille's Therai>eutics, vol. 1, ji. .'W. 



i American Naturalist, vol. 18, pp. 1 to i). 



