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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVI. No. 



Among the host of specifies men natu- 

 rally sought for some guiding rule, some 

 informing spirit that would tell them be- 

 forehand and once for all how to match 

 these diseases with the predestined healing 

 agent. 



Sometimes this was found in the looks of 

 the plant. Its flowers or leaves or roots 

 somehow simulated the disease it was found 

 to cure. Thus the figwort was denominated 

 Scrophularia, apparently for its scrofulous 

 appearance. The liver-shaped leaves of 

 Hepatica, the liverwort, showed clearly 

 what was expected of it. And in the ig- 

 norance of what was really the matter and 

 of what really happened after a remedy 

 was absorbed, there were as many successes 

 as failures, and the dark mysteries of the 

 profession prevented any following up of 

 either. 



A more scientific application of the 

 method of resemblances lay in the study of 

 the effects produced by a drug in relation 

 to the symptoms of the malady it was to 

 cure. Like symptoms, like effects. Like 

 cures like. If your patient is troubled with 

 colic, give him a colic-producing drug. If 

 with eczema give him something to make 

 the skin smart. The same principle would 

 hold for all diseases. 



But with this went the saving clause of 

 homoeopathy or like treatment. Don't give 

 too much, and give good nursing. As time, 

 patience and good nursing are the best of 

 drugs, this method has had a large vogue 

 as well as a large effectiveness. If it is 

 based on a sound study of the human body, 

 its defects, its slips and its parasites, this 

 method must merge into the real practise 

 of medicine. 



For knowing the distemper, its causes 

 and its range, the method of treatment is 

 a minor matter. The idea that a disease 

 has a definite drug as its remedy, whether 

 in large quantities or small, is a relic of the 



middle ages. Drugs do not heal anything. 

 Some are palliative, resting in the cate- 

 gory of vaseline, cold cream or talcum 

 powder, some kill parasites directly as 

 quinine kills the animal organisms known 

 as malaria. Sulphur is death to the itch, 

 the visible cause of the distemper once 

 thought almost incurable, and known as 

 the " gall struck inwards." Others do 

 evil as stimulants or counter-irritants, that 

 good may come, helping on the one hand 

 through the incidental damage on the 

 other. 



But the metaphysical relation of drug to 

 symptom has no existence and has passed 

 out of medical practise never to return. 



With doubts of the efficiency of drugs as 

 remedies came theories of therapeutics by 

 which all drugs were discarded. Orthop- 

 athy in its day rejected them all, relying 

 on the well-known disposition of nature to 

 heal her wounds whenever she is let alone. 

 Hydropathy set people to sweating under 

 close envelopes of wet sheets, often, it is 

 true, to their great advantage. I can re- 

 member when the wet sheet packing and 

 the over soul were the test and signal of a 

 progressive nature, much as to-day are the 

 referendum and recall. 



Mind-healing in various forms has al- 

 ways found its place. It is a notorious fact 

 that when the symptoms of any disease are 

 graphically set forth, the average reader 

 finds most of these symptoms in himself. 

 It is only a step to the conclusion that these 

 symptoms are the cause of the disease. If 

 you can create the impression that the 

 symptoms do not exist you take away the 

 disease. For disease and symptoms are 

 alike the product of morbidity of mind. To 

 have faith is to cure this morbidity. One 

 of the leaders in this form of therapeutics 

 says: 



Sin, Sorrow and Sickness are all three illusions 

 of the Sinful Soul. . . . They are but troubled 



