1849.3 HOMCEOPATHY. 34I 



. . . Dr. Gully feels pretty sure he can do me good, which 

 most certainly the regular doctors could not. ... I feel cer- 

 tain that the water-cure is no quackery. 



How I shall enjoy getting back to Down with renovated 

 health, if such is to be my good fortune, and resuming the 

 beloved Barnacles. Now I hope that you will forgive me for 

 my negligence in not having sooner answered your letter. I 

 was uncommonly interested by the sketch you give of your 

 intended grand expedition, from which I suppose you will 

 soon be returning. How earnestly I hope that it may prove 

 in every way successful. . . . 



[When my father was at the Water-cure Establishment at 

 Malvern he was brought into contact with clairvoyance, of 

 which he writes in the following extract from a letter to Fox, 

 September, 1850. 



"You speak about Homoeopathy, which is a subject 

 which makes me more wrath, even than does Clairvoyance. 

 Clairvoyance so transcends belief, that one's ordinary facul- 

 ties are put out of the question, but in homoeopathy common 

 sense and common observation come into play, and both 

 these must go to the dogs, if the infinitesimal doses have any 

 effect whatever. How true is a remark I saw the other day 

 by Quetelet, in respect to evidence of curative processes, viz., 

 that no one knows in disease Avhat is the simple result of 

 nothing being done, as a standard with which to compare 

 homoeopathy, and all other such things. It is a sad flaw, I 

 cannot but think, in my beloved Dr. Gully, that he believes 

 in everything. When Miss was very ill, he had a clair- 

 voyant girl to report on internal changes, a mesmerist to put 



her to sleep — an homoeopathist, viz. Dr. , and himself as 



hydropathist ! and the girl recovered." 



A passage out of an earlier letter to Fox (December, 

 1844) shows that he was equally sceptical on the subject of 

 mesmerism: "With respect to mesmerism, the whole country 

 resounds with wonderful facts or tales ... I have just heard 



