Chapter V: The Malay (14)

Sandiford had divided acephalous animals into three classes: the first, in which the head was wanting; the second, where other organs were also missing; and the third, where the foetus presented an unformed mass. In the acephalous twin described by Beclard, no liver, spleen, stomach, or oesophagus could be discovered, and the intestinal tube commenced at the superior extremity of the body. The infant had ten ribs on each side, and regular nerves arose from the spinal marrow. Although headless animals may not be gifted with intellectual faculties evident to our senses, yet they clearly live and feel. The zoophytes and polypes, without brains or heads, possess irritability and sensibility; they can seek their food, seize it, reject what is not edible, are susceptible of the powers of light and heat, can contract their fibres when touched or injured, and, in short, manifest various innate or instinctive powers. Gall has maintained that the passions resided in the brain, and, therefore, that brainless animals did not experience their influence. This is a bold assertion. Can he prove that worms, insects, zoophytes, that possess only what is called a ganglionic system, are strangers to instinctive fears and partialities? I apprehend that it will be found that passions belong to instinct much more than to our volition.

It is nevertheless true that animals may be killed by wounding the spinal marrow, by the process commonly called "_pitting_." This practice may be traced to high antiquity; and Livy informs us that when the Carthaginian troops were routed, Asdrubal ordered their unmanageable elephants to be destroyed by driving the point of a knife between the junction of the head and spine.

From these observations it will appear quite clear that life has no necessary connexion with sensation, although the latter cannot be experienced without the former. Vegetables are endowed with vitality; but we have no reason to suppose that they feel. It is also more than probable that, as the degree of intelligence decreases, the intensity of the corporeal feelings are also diminished. Did not this scale of sensibility exist, insects could not live under the supposed agonies that the entomologist daily inflicts. This supposition does not rest upon indefinite reasoning, for in our own race we observe that those parts which are gifted with a reproductive power are possessed of the smallest degrees of sensation; and the cuticle, the hair, the beard, and the nails will even grow after death. This fact may calm the apprehensions of those very humane persons who look upon experimental physiologists as very monsters of barbarity. Vaillant took out the intestines of a locust, and stuffed it with cotton, then fixed it down in his box with a pin, yet, five months after, the insect moved its feet and antennas. Spallanzani has shown that the snail can renew its head.

All this confusion in theories and wandering of the imagination have arisen from our confounding the vital principle, of which we know nothing, with the phenomena of sensation, for which patient and calm investigation may account. That there does exist a principle of life that animates, vivifies, and preserves all living bodies, until its powers cease, no one can deny; although to find out its nature is a vain pursuit, as idle as our endeavours to penetrate into the _causes of causation_. As Richerand observes, "its _essence_ is not designed to preserve the aggregation of our constituent molecules, but to collect other molecules, which, by assimilating themselves to the organ that it _vivifies_, may replace those which daily losses carry off, and which are employed in repairing and augmenting them; the word _vital principle_ is therefore not designed to express a distinct being, but denotes the _totality of powers alone_ which animate living bodies, and distinguish them from inert matter, the _totality of properties_ and _laws_ which govern the animal economy."

Of all the doctrines upon this abstruse subject (of which I have noticed the principal ones), that of the pre-existence of an organic germ appears the most plausible, or at any rate the easiest to conceive. It was from this conviction that the ancients held as an axiomatic principle _Omnia ex ovo_. It is upon this theory that Buffon rested his organic molecules, and Ray his vital globules. The primitive lineaments of organization may be traced in the egg, even before it is fecundated. The embryo that we find in its involucra is soft, flexible, ready to receive the plastic impression of the vivifying secretion,--the fecundating agency that imparts existence and all its wondrous attributes, to the pre-existing _ova_, the _ova subventanea_. It does not appear that the first organ of the embryo which exhibits the living principle is the heart, hence denominated in the foetus the _punctum saliens_; the principle of life has probably organized every molecule of the animal long before this supposed fountain of vitality had been seen to flow. It is more likely that the nervous system has received the first impressions imparted by the fecundating secretion, which the ancients supposed to have been a direct emanation from the brain, and bearing in its vivifying molecules the life of every part of the being it was about to organize; thus Valescus: "Sperma hominibus descendit ex omni corporis humore, qui fit ex subtiliori natura. Habet autem hoc sperma nervos et venas proprias attrahentes se a toto corpore ad testiculos--a membris disconditur principalibus--a corde, epate, cerebro mittuntur spiritus, ex quibus resultat spiritus informativus, et non aliter nisi cum spermate--ergo ab iis principaliter sperma disconditur."

Such were the doctrines on this curious subject until the days of Fabricius d'Acquapendente and Harvey. Buffon, however, exerted all his eloquence to revive the theory. The following are the notions of this elegant writer, who unfortunately only studied natural history in books and cabinets. He maintains that there exist two sorts of matter,--the one living, the other dead: the first enjoying a permanent vitality; the second universally spread, passing from vegetables to animals through the channels of nutrition, and returning from animals to vegetables through the medium of putrefaction,--thus in a constant state of circulation to animate living beings. This vital matter exists in determined quantities in nature, and is composed of an infinity of organic molecules, primitive, living, active, incorruptible, and in relation, both as regards action and numbers, with the molecules of light, and enjoying an immutable existence, since the usual causes of destruction can only affect their adherence. It is these molecules which, being cast in regular moulds, constitute all the organized bodies that surround us. According to this doctrine, _development_ and _growth_ are only a change of form operated by the addition of organic molecules; _nutrition_, the preservation of this form by the accession of fresh molecules that replace those that are destroyed; _generation_, the combination of these particles; and _death_, their separation from cohesion and association.

This ingenious system is not dissimilar to that of Maupertuis, who thought that the mysteries of generation could be explained by the usual laws of elective attraction. Various were the physical, metaphysical, and moral batteries raised against this visionary fabric. One single fact was sufficient to overthrow it. We constantly see parents deficient in a limb, or misshapen, producing perfect offspring; if each part of the economy was to transmit to its progeniture molecules similar to itself, the child would naturally be visited with the imperfection of the parent.

Notwithstanding these fallacies, we cannot but admit that chemical and molecular attraction constitute the principle that harmonizes all organized bodies. Generation is simply a function of organization and life. Organized bodies alone can generate. The living only can impart life. Animals and plants transmit to their descendants their several properties; and the inheritance of organization departs with the vital spark. Life is the property of no one; it is a transmitted heir-loom that never perishes; it resembles a torch that communicates an eternal flame while consuming itself. Organized beings have justly been considered the fuel of the universal vital fire, and we all are the _daily bread_ of that monstrous animal called _the world_. All are ingulfed in that vortex which Beccher has called the "_circulus aeterni motus_" Metempsychosis was simply an illustration of this fact recognised in all ages in the East, and taught in European schools by Pythagoras. Nothing perishes; and even combustion produces fresh combinations.

Poetical philosophy has considered _Love_ as the source and arbiter of _life_, and the _Venus Generatrix_ the fount of our existence. Lucretius recognises this power in the following lines:

Per te quoniam genus omne animantum
Concipitur, visitque exortum lumina solis.

Then again,

Omnibus incutiens blandum per pectora amorem,
Efficis ut cupide generatim saecia propagent.

Virey, a delightful French physiologist, seems to partake of this mythological opinion in the following passage: "L'amour est l'arbitre du monde organique; c'est lui qui debrouille le chaos de la matiere, et qui l'impregne de vie. Il ouvre et ferme a son gre les portes de l'existence a tous les etres que sa voix appelle du neant, et qu'il y replonge. L'attraction dans les matieres brutes est une sorte d'amour ou d'amitie analogue a celle qui reproduit des etres organises. Ainsi la faculte generative est un phenomene general dans l'univers; elle est representee par les attractions planetaires et chimiques dans les substances brutes, et par l'amour ou la vie dans les corps organises."

According to our amatory neighbours, the word _ame_, or soul, comes from _amor_ and _amare_, and _amare_ is derived from _animare_; hence _animation_ and _animal_ may be syllogistically referred to love.

I know not how far this etymological disquisition may illustrate the history of their _enfans trouves_, or our foundling hospitals, the inmates of which are generally uncommonly ill favoured by beauty. The offspring of the aforesaid Venus Generatrix must have been especially ungrateful; and if it be true that Julius Caesar was her son, he certainly exerted his best endeavours to depopulate his mother's territories.

OF THE HOMOEOPATHIC DOCTRINES.

It is a matter worthy of remark, that, while the doctrines of homoeopathy have fixed the attention and become the study of many learned and experienced medical men in various parts of Europe, England is the only country where it has only been noticed to draw forth the most opprobrious invectives. It is certainly true that no one but an ardent proselyte of the visionary Hahnemann could for one moment become the advocate of all his absurd ideas; yet, while we reject his errors, great and important truths beam from the chaotic clouds that shroud his wanderings; and, however wild his theories may be, incontrovertible facts have been elicited from his apparently inefficacious practice.

Before I enter into an examination of the practical views of the homoeopathists, I shall give a brief sketch of their doctrines and of their founder.

Samuel Hahnemann was born in Meissen in Saxony, on the 10th of April, 1755. His father was an humble porcelain manufacturer. The first rudiments of education that young Hahnemann received were gratuitous; and his master, pleased with the progress of his ambitious but needy scholar, strongly urged him to repair to Leipzig, where, at the age of twenty, he arrived, with exactly the same number of crowns in his pocket as he numbered years. At this university he zealously pursued his favourite studies of the natural sciences, supporting himself by translating French works, and giving lessons; and finally he graduated in the university of Eslan--in 1779.

It was during his arduous studies that Hahnemann was struck with the conflicting systems and the deplorable controversies which for centuries divided in turn the medical schools of Europe, and were triumphant or overthrown by scholastic revolutions; each doctrine being doomed to obscurity and oblivion in the ratio of its ephemeral splendour. The result of his reflections and experiments was the system of homoeopathy. Its novelty, its apparent absurdity, soon exposed him not only to opposition, but to violent persecution. As is usual in all cases of oppression, whether justly or unjustly resorted to, proselytes as furious and as fanatical as his persecutors joined their chief. Despite the sanatary regulations of Saxony, which prohibited physicians from dispensing their medicines, Hahnemann prepared and supplied his homoeopathic remedies; and, being expelled from Leipzig, sought a refuge at Koethen, where, exasperated by the harsh treatment he had experienced, he fulminated his anathema on all past and present systems of medicine with no small degree of furious resentment, pronouncing his doctrine to be stamped with the seal of infallibility, and denouncing all others as the aberrations of ignorance and error, or the speculations of imposture and fraud.

As might have been expected, few of his opponents thought it worth their while to study his system calmly and dispassionately; nor, indeed, was such an application necessary, for his doctrines needed no deep investigation on the part of his foes, so fraught were they with apparent errors and false deductions, not only from his own pretended experience, but the experience of ages. Finding that he could not enjoy a despotic sway over the schools, he was resolved at any rate to seek the palm of martyrdom, and had recourse to such violence in words and actions, that many of his enemies maintained he was a more fitting subject for a lunatic asylum than the _soi-disant_ founder of a rational doctrine; for he and his fanatical disciples set all ratiocination at nought, considering his _dixit_ as a fiat of condemnation passed on all who dared to doubt his infallibility, although at different periods their oracle was obliged to retract many erroneous assertions and contradict fallacious statements.

In the short view of his doctrines which I am about to give, these fallacies will become evident.

Hahnemann had observed in his studies and hospital practice that the prevalent systems of medicine were founded on the rational principle of combating effects by striking at morbid causes. Physicians sometimes endeavoured to attain this desirable end by producing in the system an artificial action differing from the nature of the malady, and founded their practice on the scholastic axiom of _contraria contrariis curantur_; at other times they raised or depressed the vital energies according to the prevalence of excitement or debility, or modified the character of the disease by revulsion and derivation, a practice which received the name of antagonistic, or _allopathic_,--a term used by Hahnemann in contradistinction to homoeopathy, and derived from [Greek: allos], _different_, and [Greek: pathos], _affection_.

In his therapeutic pursuits Hahnemann had been forcibly struck with the long-acknowledged fact that medicinal substances supposed to possess a certain specific property in the treatment of diseases, were known in the healthy subject to produce phenomena bearing a close analogy to the symptoms of those identical diseases. Thus, mercurial preparations occasioned symptoms of syphilis, sulphur produced cutaneous irritation, and, in some instances, the exhibition of cinchona had been known to bring on febrile intermissions. In various works he found these observations established. For instance, amongst many others, he found in the publications of Beddoes, Scott, Blair, and various writers, that nitric acid, which was known to produce ptyalism, relieved salivation and ulceration in the mouth. Arsenic, which, according to Henreich, Knape, and Heinze, occasioned cancerous anomalies in healthy subjects, was stated by Fallopius, Bernharde, Roennow, and many other surgeons, to be efficacious in relieving, if not curing, similar disorders; preparations of copper were asserted by Tondi, Ramsay, Lazermi, and numerous practitioners, to have produced epileptic attacks; and Batty, Baumes, Cullen, Duncan, and several experienced medical practitioners, recommended similar remedies in epilepsy. In short, the illustrations of the power inherent in certain substances to produce accidents analogous to the symptoms of the various diseases in the treatment of which they had proved efficacious, induced Hahnemann to consider whether a treatment founded on _similia similibus curantur_ might not be found more effectual than the former practice based upon the _contraria contrariis_. He was of opinion that no medicine was possessed of any _curative property_, but solely acted by its _morbific power_ of producing a disordered condition in the system; and on this and other principles, which we shall shortly notice, he asserts that nature does not possess any curative power, totally denying the _vis medicatrix_ of the schools. He further maintained, that there does not exist any specific malady; but that which we consider to be a disease is nothing but a complexity of symptoms, and that a cure can only be effected when these complex symptoms are made to disappear.

Impressed with these ideas, he and his disciples proceeded to try various medicinal substances upon themselves and others when in health, and, carefully recording the symptoms which these medicines produced, they drew up a statement of their various powers, that they might be afterwards resorted to, to relieve the same symptoms in a morbid state. Grounding this practice on the principle (in many instances correct) that two similar diseases cannot coexist, they conceived that if, to counteract a natural malady, one can produce by any medication an artificial derangement of the same nature, the artificial disorder will overcome the natural disease, and a radical cure be obtained. To explain more distinctly this idea, I shall quote the author's words.

"The curative power of medicines is thus founded on the property they possess to give rise to symptoms similar to those of the disease, but of a more intense power. Hence no disease can be overcome or cured in a certain, radical, rapid, and lasting manner, but through the means of a medicine capable of provoking a group of symptoms similar to those of the disease, and at the same time possessed of a superior energetic power."[31] And further,

"If two dissimilar maladies happen to be coexisting, possessed of an unequal force, or if the oldest disease is more energetic than the recent one, the latter will be expelled by the former. Thus, an individual labouring under a severe chronic disease will not be subject to the invasion of an autumnal dysentery, or any other slight epidemic. Larrey affirms that the districts of Egypt in which scurvy was prevalent were exempt from the plague. Jenner asserts that rachitis prevents the effect of vaccination; and Hildebrand assures us that phthysical patients never experience epidemic fevers unless of the most severe character."[32]

"If a recent affection, dissimilar to a more ancient one be more powerful than the latter, then will the progress of the latter be suspended until the malady is either cured or has been expended in its career, and then the old one will reappear."[33]

"But the result is totally different when two similar diseases meet in the organism; that is to say, when a pre-existing affection is complicated with one of the same nature, but possessed of more energy."[34]

"Two maladies resembling each other in their manifestation and their effects, that is to say, in the symptoms which they determine, mutually destroy each other, the strongest conquering the weakest."[35]

He further contends that the essential nature of every disease is unknown; that their existence is revealed by alterations and changes in the system perceptible to our senses, and constituting what are called _symptoms_, and it is the series of these symptoms which characterize the disease in its course and its development. According to his notions, the physician has only to follow and study the succession and the grouping of these symptoms; in short, the phases and the phenomena of diseases. Attack and destroy these symptoms, and you will have destroyed the malady.

All classification of diseases, and their various denominations, he therefore deemed absurd, as, according to his doctrines, no one disease resembles another; so various were their modifications, that, with few exceptions, it was idle to give them a particular name, since disease was simply a derangement in our organization manifested by peculiar symptoms.

We are also, according to Hahnemann, ignorant of the essential properties of medicines, and can only observe and record their effects by experimental observation. Like diseases, they also produce a derangement in our organism, manifested by peculiar symptoms, their sole action consisting in developing specific diseases.

In conformity with these notions, to cure disease we have only to produce a similar affection; the primitive one would then give way to the secondary affection artificially produced, and in time the artificial one would cease to exist when the means that produced it were no longer brought into action.

Homoeopathic medicines, he maintained, have the property of acting in a direct manner upon the affected part of the system; and this is proved when the disease, and the medicine given to relieve it, produce similar morbid manifestations: and he further contended that our vital organism was less susceptible of the action of natural affections than of those which are artificially produced.

On this basis did the homoeopathic doctrinarians ground their practice; but a still more singular theory was broached by their leader; he maintained that medicinal substances, to prove efficacious, should be administered in an attenuated and diluted state, carried to such an extent as to become infinite in their division; he further asserts that this infinite division, far from diminishing their medicinal power and properties, imparts greater energy and certainty of action when these particles encounter in our organization an affinity of disposition, or a homogeny in action; that is to say, that these atomic attenuations act with greater power in those affections which manifest symptoms similar to those which these very medicines are known to produce when experimentally tried upon a healthy subject.

Upon this principle the homoeopathist condemns all combinations of medicines as likely to neutralize each other's properties by their various affinities; therefore generally speaking, no fresh medicine should be given until the effects of the former have subsided; and to guide this practice, while they endeavoured to ascertain the symptoms produced by medicines, they also sought to ascribe certain limits to the duration of their action: thus, the influence of aconite lasts forty-eight hours, and that of crude antimony fifteen days.

Dreading all substances that could tend to weaken or neutralize the effect of medicine, the homoeopathists made it their particular study to discover the peculiar action of all alimentary substances on the organism, and characterized as antidotes all such articles of food as they considered opposed to this supposed action: thus, wine and vegetable acids were deemed antidotes to aconite; coffee, to Angustura bark; vinegar, to asarum, &c.

I have already stated that the homoeopathists conceive that the infinite dilution of their atoms of medicinal substances increase their energy; and this fact they so strenuously maintain, that they assert that accidents of a serious nature may arise when this division is carried too far; and these accidents are then to be met with the medicinal antidotes they pretend to have discovered: thus, camphor is an antidote to cocculus; opium, to the crocus sativus; camomile and camphor, to ignatia amara; and so on.

The minuteness with which the specific actions of various medicinal substances on certain organs is detailed is scarcely credible; and the following extract from the homoeopathic materia medica will give a slight idea of their industrious labours. Taking as an example phosphorus, which they affirm produces--

Vertigo, determination of blood to the head, headache in the morning, fall of the hair, difficulty in opening the eyelids, burning sensation and ulceration of the internal canthus of the eye, when exposed to the open air, lachrymation and adhesion of the palpebrae; inflammation of the eyes, with the sensation of particles of sand having been introduced; sparks and spangles floating before the eyes, a dark tinge in objects that are looked on, diurnal cecity, the appearance of a gray veil drawn before the eyes, pulsation in the ears, epistaxis, mucous discharge from the nostrils, foulness of breath, tumefaction of the throat, whiteness of the tongue, ulceration of the mouth, expectoration of glairy mucus, dryness of the mouth by night and by day, spasmodic eructation, nausea, sense of hunger after eating, anxiety after meals; in short, twenty-four octavo pages are devoted to the innumerable effects of this substance on the organism.

Of _magnesia artificialis_ three hundred and twelve symptoms are noted; six hundred and fifty of the _rhus radicans_; nine hundred and forty of _pulsatilla_; five hundred of _ignatia amara_; four hundred and sixty of _arsenic_: in short, volumes upon volumes are crowded with these observations, not only recording physical effects, but singular results on our moral faculties; such as serenity or moroseness, gaiety or sadness, a disposition to commit suicide or a fond partiality to life, courage or cowardice, a weak intellect or a vigorous conception. For instance,--common sea-salt occasions irascibility, lowness of spirits, taciturnity, melancholy, palpitation of heart, disposition to shed tears, pusillanimity, and despair; while potash gives rise to ill-temper without apparent cause at noon and in the evening, with violent paroxysms of rage in the morning, impetuous desires, furious passion, with gnashing of teeth, if all around does not yield to the patient's desires; while the vision of a bird hovering about the window produces loud shrieks of alarm, exaltation of the intellects, and a horror of the future. So innumerable, indeed, are all these singular effects attributed to various medicines thus experimented, that no memory, however retentive, could possibly bear them in recollection. The following are the directions laid down for conducting this curious inquiry:

The person upon whom medicines are tried must be free from disease; but weak substances should be given to subjects of a delicate and sensitive constitution. The medicine is to be tried in its most pure and simple state, possessing all its energies, taking special care that it is not combined with any heterogeneous substances during the day it is exhibited, and the time while its action is supposed to last. The diet must be moderate; all spices and high-seasoned food to be avoided, as well as green vegetables, roots, salads, &c. which are known to possess medicinal properties. The dose of the medicine to be similar to that which is usually prescribed by practitioners. If, at the expiration of about two hours, no effect is observed, a stronger dose is to be given. Should the first dose operate powerfully at the commencement, but gradually lose its influence, the second will be given the following morning; and a still stronger one, four times the strength of the first, be administered on the third day.

The result of these experiments being recorded, homoeopathic agents are selected to oppose morbid symptoms; and when the choice of remedies has been appropriate, an aggravation of the symptoms is observed. This aggravation is usually considered as an increase of the disorder, whereas it is solely the effect of the homoeopathic remedy. "For these phenomena," say the homoeopathists, "were frequently observed by physicians, who little thought at the time, that they were the result of the medicines they had given." Thus, when the pustules of itch became more rife after the exhibition of sulphur, it was thought that the increase of the eruption was merely the affection _coming out_ more freely; whereas, the aggravation was occasioned by sulphur. Leroy informs us that the heart's-ease, _viola tricolor_, increased an eruption in the face. Lyrons says that elm-bark aggravated cutaneous affections, which were cured by this remedy; but neither of them were aware of the nature of this homoeopathic development. For further information on this head, the Organon of Hahnemann must be consulted.

Such were his doctrines for a period of about twenty years,--doctrines which he emphatically pronounced infallible, and founded on the immutable laws of homoeopathy. In 1828, however, convinced by numerous failures in the treatment of chronic diseases, that other causes than those which he acknowledged,--such as the improper preparation of the medicine, or dietetic neglect on the part of the patient,--contributed to these disappointments, he announced that he had discovered the hidden source of the obstacles he encountered; and that, after many years of experiments and meditation, he had come to the conclusion that almost all chronic diseases originated from constitutional miasmatic affections or predispositions, which he divided into _sycosis_, _syphilis_, and _psora_, or, in plain English, the itch. To this latter affection he attributes innumerable disorders. In diseases of a syphilitic character, he had found his mode of treatment infallible; and he therefore concluded that all obstinate and rebellious affections were the result of some other constitutional predisposing circumstances. He tells us that he laboured in profound secrecy to discover this great, this sublime desideratum: his very pupils knew it not; the world was to remain in ignorance of his pursuits until he could proclaim the most inestimable gift that Divinity bestowed upon mankind. This immortal discovery was neither more nor less than the itch; to which malady, according to his views, since the days of Moses, seven-eighths of the physical and moral miseries to which flesh is heir, were to be referred. Whether rendered evident by eruptions, or latent from our cradle, it was a curse transmitted to us, by the modification and degeneration of leprosy, through myriads of constitutions, and which only disappears from the surface to fester in malignity until it bursts forth again in the multifarious forms of innumerable diseases, amongst which we find scrofula, rachitis, phthisis, hysteria, hypochondriasis, dropsy, hydrocephalus, haemorrhage, fistula, diseases of the head and liver, ruptures, cataracts, tic-douloureux, deafness, erysipelas, cancers, aneurisms, rheumatism, gout, apoplexy, epilepsy, palsy, convulsions, stone, St. Vitus's dance, nervous affections of every description, loss of sight, of smell, of taste, stupidity and imbecility.[36] In support of this doctrine, Hahnemann adduces ninety-five cases recorded by medical writers, in which the disappearance of the itch was followed by various acute and chronic maladies.

The next miasmatic generator is _sycosis_, or the disposition to warty excrescences; but this source of disease Hahnemann does not consider so prolific as syphilis, or his favourite psora.

Such are the principal features of the homoeopathic system. I have already stated that its followers consider the most minute particles of medicine more powerful than larger doses; they therefore have recourse to infinite trituration or dilution in three vehicles which they consider free from any medicinal property,--distilled water, spirits of wine, and sugar of milk; by these means they procure a decillionth or a quintillionth fraction of a grain. One drop of their solution is considered sufficient to saturate three hundred globules of sugar of milk; and three or four of these globules are deemed a powerful medicine. To give a better idea of Hahnemann's notions on this subject, I shall quote his own words:

"By shaking a drop of medicinal liquid with one hundred drops of alcohol _once_, that is to say, by taking the phial in the hand which contains the whole, and imparting to it a rapid motion by a single stroke of the arm descending, I shall then obtain an exact mixture of them; but two or three, or ten such movements, would develop the medicinal virtues still further, making them more potent, and their action on the nerves much more penetrating. In the extenuation of powders, when it is requisite to mix one grain of a medicinal substance in one hundred grains of sugar of milk, it ought to be rubbed down with force during one hour _only_, in order that the power of the medicine may not be carried to too great an extent; medicinal substances acquiring at each division or dilution a new degree of power, as the rubbing or shaking they undergo develops that inherent virtue in medicines which was unknown until my time, and which is so energetic, that latterly I have been forced by experience to reduce the number of shakes to two."

As a further illustration of this theory, he affirms that gold is without any action in our organism in its natural state; but that when one grain of this metal is triturated according to the above process until each grain of the last triturated preparation contains a quadrillionth part of the original grain of the mineral, it will be so powerful that it will be sufficient to place this single grain in a phial, to be inspired for a moment, to produce the most amazing results, and none more so than the faculty of restoring to a melancholy individual, disposed to commit suicide, his pristine partiality to life.

Unfortunately for Hahnemann, many of these assertions are unsupported by facts or sound reasoning, and appear mere wanderings of an ardent imagination; and thus soaring in regions of fancy, he himself has struck many fatal blows to his own doctrines. For instance, what are the arguments he adduces to prove that in two similar diseases the strongest will overcome the weakest?

"Why," he exclaims, "does the splendid Jupiter disappear during the twilight of morn to the eyes of the contemplator? It is because a similar power, but possessed of greater energies, the breaking day, acts upon our organs."

This is a defective analogy. Hahnemann tells us that a stronger power banishes a weaker one in a permanent manner, whereas the bright planet he here alludes to will return with the night. Then again:--

"With what do we endeavour to relieve the olfactory nerves when offended by disagreeable odours? By snuff, which affects the nostrils in a similar but in a more powerful manner." This is not correct: when the action of snuff has ceased, the disagreeable effluvia become again offensive. In some instances his poetical vagaries are preposterous. "By what means," he adds, "do we endeavour to protect the ears of the compassionate from the lamentations of the poor wretched soldier condemned to be scourged? Is it not by the shrill notes of the fife united to the loud beat of the drum? How do we endeavour to drown the roar of distant artillery that causes terror in the heart of the soldier? By the roll of the double drum;--nor would this feeling of compassion, this sense of terror, have been checked by admonition or by splendid rewards. In the same manner our grief, our regret, subside, upon receiving the intelligence, true or false, that a more lively sorrow has affected another person." It would be idle to dwell upon the absurdity of such visions and erroneous statements.

To support his doctrines, Hahnemann should have proved, 1st, that medicinal powers do produce an artificial malady similar to the natural affection; 2nd, that the organism only remains under the influence of the medicinal disease; 3rd, that this medicinal disease is of short duration; and 4th, that all these effects can only be produced by a medicine selected according to their similarity of symptoms. Our theorist has utterly failed in his endeavours to establish these facts; therefore have his doctrines been impugned by many of his most zealous disciples, amongst whom may be mentioned Griesselich, Rau, Schroen. The aggravation which he asserts takes place after the exhibition of a homoeopathic medicine is not only unsupported by proof, but positively denied by many of their practitioners; and Hartman plainly affirms that, after a homoeopathic dose, the patient frequently experiences a state of calm, a disposition to slumber, and often falls into a profound sleep more or less prolonged, in waking from which he finds himself much relieved, if not perfectly cured. Thus several physicians who have adopted his practical views reject many of the doctrines on which they are founded; and a homoeopathist has justly compared his works to a wild virgin forest, in which we meet with a number of valuable trees and plants in the midst of arid brushwood and parasitic weeds that would check the growth of the most useful productions.

Yet, notwithstanding the many gratuitous assertions, and consequent erroneous inductions, we meet with in the _Organon_, it is probable that this system is destined to operate a gradual but material revolution in the _practice_ of medicine. As to theories, we must agree with Voltaire when he said "En fait de systeme, il faut toujours se reserver le droit de rire le lendemain de ses idees de la veille."

Hippocrates laid down in his Aphorisms the incontrovertible fact, "Duobus doloribus simul obortis, non tandem eadem in parte, vehementior alterum obscurat. A. 46." To a certain degree, it was upon this assertion, which the experience of ages has confirmed, that Hahnemann founded the principal and most important point of his doctrine; but, going much farther than the father of medicine, he affirms that similar diseases effectually remove each other. For centuries practitioners have been acting homoeopathically; the exhibition of specifics, in fact, being nothing else. As we have already shown, specifics are known to produce symptoms similar to the diseases they cure. Hitherto the number of such medicines has been confined to a very few agents; and perhaps with the exception of mercury, sulphur, and bark, with their several preparations, scarcely any article in the materia medica could have claimed this peculiar property. To extend these limits, which confined in so exiguous a compass our therapeutic agents, has been the laborious and singular study of Hahnemann and his disciples. Haller had first given the example, and they arduously applied themselves to discover by experiments on the healthy subject, both upon their own persons and others, what were the peculiar effects or symptoms produced by various medicinal substances. These observations are so numerous and confused, that, on reading them, we feel plunged in a chaotic labyrinth of symptoms, without any clue to extricate ourselves from its perplexing mazes. Still, from this multifarious catalogue much important information can be collected; and it cannot be denied that the homoeopathist has not only thrown a new light on the action of many medicines which we daily prescribe, but brought into practical consideration the necessity of attending to dietetic discipline, by an investigation of the several properties of our usual _ingesta_.

It is obvious that any enthusiast who would blindly embrace the foregoing doctrines without serious and deep investigation, and boldly apply the wild theory to practice, would at once throw open the flood-gates of absurdity, and lend his aid in destroying, if possible, with one fell swoop, the result of ages of mature study and experience. Hahnemann, to fertilize the fields of science, had recourse to inundation instead of wise and cautious irrigation; and the fury with which he and his rash disciples maintained their opinions materially tended to retard their progress. Truth needeth not violence; its own lustre will beam through surrounding darkness, without being dragged into light.

The objections to Hahnemann's doctrines are glaring. The art of healing, from the dawn of science until the present day, has been more or less founded on the faculties of reasoning. We are taught, in the first instance, to observe carefully the phenomena of disease, and, by referring effects to probable causes, endeavour, however difficult the task, to trace their catenation. Many of these causes are perhaps sealed for ever in the inscrutable book of our destinies; yet, if we cannot obtain a knowledge of the origin of these disorders, still when we take into mature consideration the complication of all accidental circumstances, and from visible effects seek invisible relations, guided by our experience in anatomy, physiology, and the revelations of pathology, we may find this pursuit less difficult than it may be imagined. But the homoeopathist despises and rejects as idle, all those collateral means of diving into nature's arcana. He bids us dwell only upon evident symptoms, or, in other words, look to the effects alone, and cast away all thoughts of discovering their causes. Nothing can be more illogical than this argument; for certainly we can scarcely hope to remove effects without striking, as far as in our power lies, at their cause. To deny the existence of any specific affection because we cannot account for its origin, is absurd. As well might we reject the use of medicines known to possess specific properties, from our utter ignorance of their _modus operandi_. The exclusive consideration of symptoms would lead us into lamentable error, since the same symptoms are observable in various diseases. Similar pains, for instance, may be the symptoms of rheumatism, nephritic affections, and calculus; headaches may arise from inflammation, and from various and well-known sympathies with distant organs: yet, without seeking to ascertain these relations, the mechanical and empirical homoeopathist will prescribe such medicines as are known to occasion pains in the loins, or headaches; only bearing in mind perceptible derangements, heedless of the phenomena of organization, the state of the secretions and excretions, the history, the rise and progress of the disorder, or the idiosyncrasy of the patient. The liver is diseased; the discovery is of no importance. We have only to attend to the pain extending up the clavicle and shoulder, or the uneasiness experienced in the right hypochondrium: the pulse, the respiration, the condition of the excretions, the temperature of the skin, the appearance of the tongue, are all regarded as minor considerations. It is not _hepatitis_ that we are called upon to cure; it is to relieve a pain in the shoulder and in the hypochondrium, or a difficulty of lying on the left side.

No one will pretend to deny that our safest, perhaps our sole, guide in the study of disease is the group of symptoms, that become more and more perceptible during the course of our investigations. It was principally on the study of symptoms that the most learned practitioners of every age and country grounded their diagnosis and their prognosis; but they never viewed them either singly, or in their complexity, as unconnected with the particular diseases to which they were not only essentially united, but from which they originated, and of the existence of which they were to be considered the diagnostic signs. Therefore did the ancients classify them as principal and accessory, univocal and equivocal, characteristic or common, as they afforded more or less information in our pathological deduction; and in that light they were weighed with greater or less application, as our judgment could only be formed by the attentive consideration of the phenomena of the organism in health and in disease.

But while the homoeopathist's attention is chiefly directed to the discovery of means that can enable him to produce symptoms analogous to those of the disorder, he seems to disregard the laws of sympathy, by which our organism appears to be ruled; a mysterious agency which can only be ascertained by observation and experiment, when, to use the words of a distinguished writer,[37] "by the former we may be said to listen to nature, by the latter to interrogate her." Health depends upon the due co-operation of all these associations; and one organ in the wonderful machinery cannot be deranged in its functions without influencing others, however distant and unconnected they may appear. In this co-ordination, these vital relations have been very properly divided into mechanical, functional, and sympathetic. Their study constitutes the groundwork of all rational induction. It is not by individual or complex symptoms that we can decide where the want of equilibrium is to be traced. Various have been the theories on this most important subject, and great have been the erroneous ideas dogmatically laid down. The illustrious Bichat himself erred when he maintained that sympathies were aberrations--morbid developments of our vital properties. Sympathies, on the contrary, may be considered as constant phenomena, essential and inseparable from our organism, whether in health or in sickness; and are, if I may be pardoned the expression, co-ordinated to co-operate with each other in their mechanical, their functional, and their sympathetic associations.

An incarcerated hernia causes hiccup, nausea, vomiting. Will the homoeopathist tell us that we must seek in his catalogue of innumerable effects some substance which is known to produce similar symptoms? Surely the rupture must first call our attention. This example is adduced as referring to nearly every case in which it might be rashly attempted to separate causes from effects. The mammary glands are variously affected in uterine diseases; their impressions are reciprocal, yet the uterine affection must be the chief object of our solicitude. A peculiar pruritus is a symptom of calculus. Are we then to administer a homoeopathic dose of _cannabis_, or any other medicine which may give rise to a similar sensation? It may be objected to this observation that these are purely surgical cases, in which we need not be guided by symptoms to discover causes; but it has too frequently happened that nausea and vomiting have been attended to, while the hernia was overlooked, until fatal accidents were manifested. Moreover, a diseased liver, a diseased spleen or kidney, would be just as perceptible as hernia or calculus, if these parts could be brought into view or contact.

It may be said that an erroneous notion of Hahnemann's doctrines on this subject has been taken; it is therefore necessary to quote his own words:

"It may be easily conceived that the existence of a malady presupposes some alteration in the interior of the human organism; but our understanding can only lead us to suspect this alteration in a vague and deceitful manner, from the appearance of the morbid symptoms, the sole guide we can depend on except in surgical cases. The essence of the internal and invisible change is undiscoverable, nor have we any means of guarding against deceptive illusions."[38]

"The invisible substance that has undergone a morbid alteration in the interior of the human body, and the perceptible changes, which are externally developed,--in other words, symptoms,--form by their union what is called disease; but the symptoms are the only points of the malady which are accessible to the physician, the sole indication whence he can derive any intuitive notion, and the principal objects with which he ought to become acquainted to effect a cure. From this incontestable truth there is nothing discoverable in disease beyond the totality of its symptoms to guide us in the selection of our curative means."[39]

It is not to be supposed that an experienced physician, although a homoeopathist, will rest satisfied with this study of symptomatic medicine, without endeavouring to attach these effects to some cause, however occult it may appear; but such a doctrine becomes pernicious, since it bids us close the only book of truth that can reveal our errors,--_post mortem_ investigations. Surely, if a group of certain symptoms attend a disease which, when terminating fatally, shows disorganization in certain viscera, we are not only justifiable in giving to that disorganization a specific name in our scientific classification and categories, but in considering the symptoms of no other importance than as corroborative of those facts that morbid anatomy daily brings to light.

It is generally admitted that most nosologies are imperfect, and may occasionally lead the young practitioner into error. This is easily accounted for when we consider the Protean forms that the same disease assumes in different individuals; yet, without this classification, the science of medicine could not be studied. A certain arrangement is necessary to simplify all our pursuits in natural science, and to seek a variety we must know the order and the genus.

Had Hahnemann given a better system of nosology than those we possess, and with his truly praiseworthy zeal and industry enumerated the various symptoms of disease as minutely and as accurately as he has recorded the effects of medicinal substances, his labours might have proved a most valuable addition to our store of knowledge.

Let us now direct our attention to the absurdities to which these opinions have led. Solely attentive to effects, and heedless of the disorganization of various important parts of the human economy which morbid anatomy detects, Hahnemann endeavours to discover the occult causes--the original source--the germ--of the malady, which most likely are beyond the reach of our researches; and he boldly affirms that all chronic diseases spring from syphilis, a disposition to warts and the itch. Now experience has proved that such an assumption is unfounded. The most healthy subjects, those who attain the finest old age, are more liable to this disgusting affection than the wealthy and cleanly part of the community. The Irish and Scotch peasantry from their infancy, and through life, are most subject to psora; and certainly our soldiers and sailors, amongst whom the disease is common, are not more predisposed to chronic diseases than any other classes of society, of course not taking into consideration the effects of unhealthy climates.

Syphilis, it will be readily granted, has a considerable share in producing anomalous _sequelae_, more especially when in combination with mercury. Warts, except of a syphilitic character, were never known to germinate diseases; indeed, they affect the most healthy and robust individuals. Yet to these three miasmatic causes does Hahnemann attribute nearly every disease that was ever known to afflict mankind; while he passes over in silence the predisposition to scrofula, gout, rheumatism, to which we can unfortunately trace with too much certainty the source of much human misery.

That the itch is a disease of great antiquity is a matter of doubt. It has been maintained that it is the same eruptive disorder described by Celsus under the appellation of _scabies_; yet this writer does not allude to its contagious nature, and moreover says, that in some cases it disappears completely, whereas in others it is renewed at certain periods of the year.

Celsus, moreover, includes other forms of pustular eruptions among the different species of scabies, not sufficiently distinguishing them from each other. The character of his scabies is more analogous to the lichen agrius of Willan.

Nor did the ancients consider their _psora_ as our itch. It appears to have been the scaly tetter, which they sometimes denominated _psoriasis_, at others _lepra_, a synonymous affection; but neither pustular nor vesicular. Leprosy, indeed, is a malady totally distinct from the itch in all its characters. Hahnemann asserts that the species of leprosy that afflicted the Jews, and which is described by their legislator in the 13th chapter of Leviticus, was the itch; but any one who will peruse this description will perceive that it does not bear the slightest resemblance to that disorder. It appears, on the contrary, to have been that kind of leprosy called _leuce_ by the ancients. Nor was leprosy constantly attended with itching, one of the chief characteristics of the malady, and from which sensation it derives its very name. Hippocrates mentions a leprosy that usually occasioned a prurience before rain. There are no diseases in the classification of which more obscurity exists than in cutaneous affections; and Hahnemann's ideas would tend to increase this confusion, since he tells us that he considers the _framboesia_ of America, the _sibbens_ of Norway, the _pellagra_ of Lombardy, the _plica_ of Poland, the _pseudo-syphilis_ of the English, and the _asthenia Virginiensis_ of Virginia, complications of his three miasmatic principles; and he further informs us, no doubt on the faith of some idle tradition, that _psora_ lost its external deformity on the return of the Crusaders, who brought from the Holy Land the use of linen shirts, a cleanly and salutary precaution that eradicated the disease at a period when France had no less than two thousand hospitals for the reception of _itch_ patients,--a plain proof that he confounds leprosy with itch, since the hospitals he alludes to were distinctly considered leper-houses.

It is certainly true that there does exist in our system a constant predisposition to eruptive affections of some kind or other. We are born heirs to certain exanthematic affections, such as the measles and smallpox; and it would be as difficult to find a being morally immaculate as an individual free from speck or blemish. Many of these eruptions are considered of a critical and salutary nature; and the ancients fancied that nature relieved herself by throwing upon the surface some "peccant humours." Hence their dread of the retrocession of any of these "breakings out;" and there is no doubt but that accidents frequently followed their sudden disappearance, in the same manner as drying up an issue or a blister established for some time, and become habitual, may occasion internal mischief; but to maintain that all chronic diseases arise from three eruptive principles is a most gratuitous and untenable assertion.

Enthusiastically anxious to support his doctrines, Hahnemann is frequently led into erroneous assertions. Thus he tells us that life will suddenly cease if a little water, or the mildest liquid, is injected into a vein; whereas experience has proved, in the treatment of cholera, and various other instances, that the most stimulating solutions may be thus introduced, not only with impunity, but with salutary results.

It is needless to enter more deeply into the ungracious business of pointing out errors, many of which were evident to Hahnemann himself; since, not only in the several editions of his Organon, but in various paragraphs in the same volume, he contradicts himself.

A much more gratifying and important task is now undertaken, to prove, by the evidence of facts, supported by practical reasoning, that the art of healing is more indebted to the homoeopathic doctrines than to any system that has hitherto been delivered in our schools.

That the all-bountiful Creator, in permitting, for purposes unknown to us, mankind to be visited by so many scourges, has also scattered around us means to counteract these evils, cannot be a matter of doubt. Instinct leads animals to find out these salutary agents, and various specifics have been discovered by man. The rudest savage is in possession of curative substances unknown to civilized man, and performs cures where learning and experience have proved of no avail.