History
of Homœopathy : Its Origin ; Its Conflicts.
by Wilhelm
Ameke, M. D.
Presented by Dr
Robert Séror.
Part
II : Opposition to Homœopathy.Criticism of
Hahnemann’s first homoeopathic essay.
As has already been several times mentioned, Hahnemann
first brought forward his method of healing in the year 1796,
in Hufeland’s
journal.
[Essay on a New Principle, &c. Lesser Writings, p. 295.
]A very unfavourable criticism of it appeared soon after in the
journal
der Erfindungen, [St. 22,
p. 71.]
by Hecker.It was to the following effect :
a
, Hahnemann’s
statement of the large number of specific remedies is exaggerated and
opposed to rational medicine.
b
, The effects of
medicines on the body are so various that they can scarcely be
estimated. Nevertheless it cannot be denied that the proving of
substances on healthy persons may give valuable indications for their
employment as medicines.
c
, The effects on sick
persons are still more variable. Hahnemann’s
principle has, there-fore, no basis.
d
, The effect of certain
remedies in accordance with the principle similia
similibus is only apparent ;
if this were so, smoke, which causes inflammation of the lungs, would
also cure it.
e
, Hahnemann
pays too much attention to symptoms.
f
, He recklessly
recommends certain very poisonous substances — arsenic, belladonna,
hyoscyamus, stramonium, &c.— and for this advice he cannot expect the approval of cautious
physicians. He therefore concludes that ”Hahnemann’s
principle is a principle without a principle,” that it has no
practical value and leads to empiricism and the pernicious employment
of poisons ; there are better ways of working than this, which rests
on vague, mistaken, and nonsensical allegations.This was
Hahnemann’s
first reception ; he did not answer it, but complained incidentally
later, in 1800,
that he had been ” badly treated by this periodical.”All medical men, however, were not of
Hecker’s
opinion.A later reviewer says :
[Pierer’s
Allgem. medic. Annal. des 19
Jahrh., 1810,
Nov., p. 961]”
Hahnemann
has in this article given ample proof of his sagacity, and has thrown
much light on the properties and uses of many medicines.”” This article has excited much attention, and has been
subjected to sharp criticism, which has caused the suppression of
original and fruitful ideas, probably to the detriment of
science.”Another physician, Dr. A. Fr.
Fischer
writes, [Die Homöopathie vor
dem Richterstuhle der Vernunft. Dresden, 1829,
p. 32.]concerning this first essay :
Feeling most strongly that the accurate appreciation of the effects
pf medicines, particularly of those which are extremely powerful, is
indispensable for perfecting the medical art, we gaveHahnemann
our approval when he began to investigate the remedial powers pf
various medicines, and to indicate a new way for their proper
appreciation, the results of which he communicated in the second and
thud volumes of the older Hufeland’s Journal. He at that time
thought it right to administer medicines in doses adapted to the
animal body, as is shown by the reports of cases communicated by him
to th tt journal.Kurt
Sprengel’s
judgment [Kritische Uebersicht
des Zustandes der Arzneykunde in dem letzten Jahrzehend. Halle, 1801,
p. 303]
upon the same article is as follows :Samuel
Hahnemann
has made an interesting attempt in the general theory of therapeutics
to furbish up anew the ideas of the old methodists as to the
transformation of the body, by showing by a clear induction that most
of the powerfully acting specific remedies are useful, in as much as
they produce an artificial irritation, often causing symptoms similar
to those of the disease.Our common experience of the action of artificial
counter-irritation, by means of which the morbid irritation is
removed, confirmsHahnemann’s
theory completely.
Amongst the notices of
Hahnemann’s
teaching in Hufeland’s
journal itself,
we find the following :In
1799,
Sponitzer,
[Vol. VII., St. 2,
p. 80.]
a medical writer of repute,
afterwards nominated Regierungsrath to the Government of Pomerania,
writes :—” In this case, to give only one or at most two remedies
would be merely to act in a capricious and irrational manner and to
neglect the patient. Therefore, I do not agree with HerrHahnemann.
Simplification may be carried too far. Indeed, such abstract ideas are
liable to be often misunderstood and badly applied, and are of little
value in actual practice.” The author expands this view in an
article on the difficult teething of children, in which he commends
the employment of emetics, clysters and aperients. ” These latter
must be continued through the whole course of the illness if there is
any ground for suspecting the retention of concealed noxious
matters.”The simplicity of
Hahnemann’s
doses of medicine appears to Professor Nolde,
of Rostock [Vol. VIII., St. 2,
p. 68.]
(1799)
” so natural and clear that it can admit of no doubt. On the
other hand, it would be going too far to act always in accordance with
Hahnemann’s
proposal to use only one single remedy in diseases,” this would,
indeed, be quite wrong, e.g., cantharides must often be given with
camphor, opium with aperients, &c.These remarks and views show that
Hahnemann’s
ideas were not understood. He wanted to know the specific relations of
different medicines to special kinds of diseases, to special parts of
the body and to special tissues ; he wished to overthrow the crude
ideas respecting morbid matters, and to get rid of the chimney-sweep
and stupefying methods of treatment.He showed a correct physiological apprehension of the subject, even
if he could not utilize the physiology of his day in support of his
views. And his colleagues come forward and prate about ”
concealed noxious matters ” and a combination of opium with
aperients.In order that opium might not paralyse the peristaltic action of
the bowels and thus prevent the expulsion of the morbid matters, an
aperient must be given at the same time. This was scientific practice.
The Prophylactic of
Scarlatina.The following confession shows the character of the prescriptions
then in use. In Vol. X. (St.3,
p. 60),
1800,
Wichmann,
after speaking of Hahnemann,
says that he gives some remedies in which he has confidence quite
alone. ” By doing so I make the apothecary, who is accustomed to
prescriptions a foot long, shake his head over my meagre
prescriptions, or even look upon me as at idiot.” So that doctors
were ashamed to order simply remedies.This makes
Hahnemann’s
remarks (p. 80)
intelligible.Dr.
Jani,
of Gera, [Med. chir. Ztg., IV., 316,
Oct., 1800.]
was the first who wrote about Hahnemann’s
remedy and prophylactic for scarlatina, belladonna.He states that with this remedy he had observed good results in
several cases, but that it was not an unconditional prophylactic.
” It is therefore conceivable,” he says, ” that the
worthy Dr.Hahnemann
made his observations under a more favourable concurrence of
circumstances than I did, and was thus led to a false
conclusion.”In mentioning small doses,
Jani
says that these have met with opposition on the part of the public.n the following year,
1801,
a reviewer, who had himself made no practical experiments; writes on
the subject of Hahnemann’s
doses in the same periodical (IV. 100)
:” It would be worth while giving the man a civic crown, or,
better still, a big pension, to keep him from writing any more of such
incredible things.”
Hufeland
was of a
different opinion : — [Huf.
Journ. VI., St. 2]I was sorry that a man whose services to our art have been so great
should have been so badly used in reference to his prophylactic for
scarlet fever, and I cannot deny that the almost infinitesimal
smallness of the dose of belladonna staggered me…..In any case it [
Hahnemann’s
treatise] contains valuable hints on the more subtle effects of
medicines and the modifications they may receive in various states of
the organism and in the preparation and mode of exhibition of the
remedy, to which generally no attention has been given.
The Therapeutic rule of
Similars.[Here it is expressly acknowledged that most physicians in
contradistinction toHahnemann,
usually gave no attention to the preparation and exhibition of
medicines.] There are undoubtedly secrets here unsuspected by the
ordinary pharmaceutist and practitioner, and the voice of a man who
has occupied himself for more than ten years with the preparation and
administration of narcotic and other poisonous substances, deserves
the greatest attention.I, at least, am persuaded that the usual quantitative proportion of
remedies is not always the right principle for determining their
effects, and that a grain may, under certain circumstances and
combinations, produce more effect than a ten times greater quantity
— nay that even the smallest dose may produce results not to be
obtained by a large one.In the year
1800
Hufeland in his System der
prakt. Heilkunde [Jena und
Leipzig, 1800,
Vol. I., p. 201.]
gives his judgment as follows
(he is speaking of the choice of the remedy) The resemblance of the
effects of the remedy to the symptoms of the disease.We notice, for instance, that a certain remedy induces mania in a
healthy person, or produces general or local convulsions or paralysis.
This may lead us to employ this remedy in cases of mania and in
similar convulsions or paralysis. Belladonna which makes a healthy man
maniacal cures the insane.Violent emotions which can produce a form of intermittent fever can
also cure it. This principle enunciated byHahnemann
may doubtless serve to guide us to the discovery of useful remedies,
but it always remains an empirical principle, and seems to be only
applicable in purely nervous diseases.
Pr Christoph Wilhelm HUFELAND (1762-1836)In Vol. XIII. of Hufeland’s
Journal,
1802,
an instance of cure by means of veratrum album on the principle
indicated by Hahnemann
is related.The
Med. chir. Zeitung contained,
1801
(I. 253),
a criticism of the Arzneischatz,
with Hahnemann’s
notes, in which he so clearly and convincingly showed the absurdity of
mixing medicines and enjoined simplicity in prescriptions. The
reviewer does not give Hahnemann
one word of approbation for this, but blames him for rejecting an
electuary of valerian, cinchona and sal-ammoniac, as both the worst
way to administer it and an unhappy combination. ” Both theory
and experience,” so says the reviewer, ” are in favour of
this combination,” and strong doses are likewise necessary.In
1805
the article entitled Medicine
of Experience appeared in
Hufeland’s Journal. [Lesser
Writings, 497.]
Hahnemann’s
first book of Provings.Though the author in
1796
still held to a large extent the ordinary views, the peculiarity of
his ideas is here more prominently given.It is evident that he had reflected and worked hard during the past
nine years. He advances his views with much greater confidence, and
insists on the necessity of proving medicines in order to ascertain
the finest shades of their specific relations to the several parts of
the body, and to I use them when those same structures are similarly
affected upon which they act specifically.
Dr Johann Gottfried RADEMACHER
(1772-1850)It must be clearly under-stood, and we therefore call attention to
it, that he did not seek for specific remedies against certain
definite pathologico-anatomical forms of disease, nor yet such as act
on certain organs, asRademacher
proposed ; he expressly protested against this. His idea was to trace
the effects of medicines up to the ultimate perceptible phenomena.The first collection of the effects of medicines on healthy
organisms, according to his own observations and those of others was,
as is well known, published in the work,Fragmenta
de viribus medicamentorum, 1805.He himself indicates its character by calling it ”
fragmenta,” and he by no means concealed from himself the defects
of this first at-tempt, which were also pointed out by the critics.This was, at any rate, the first undertaking of the sort, and was
meritorious on this account ; a reviewer[Hufeland’s
Bibliothek, XVI., p. 181.]
characterised it as ” a remarkably interesting and meritorious
work.”
Augustin
[Wissenschaftl.
Uebers. der ges. med. chir. Literatur des Jahres 1805,
p. 409.]
called it ” the results of
some excellent experiments on the effects of medicines on the human
organism.”Hahnemann
‘s Medicine
of Experience, the
forerunner of the Organon, met
with the following reception in the Med.
chir, Zeitung (III. p. 25),
1806
:No great benefit, either to the theorist or the practitioner, is to
be obtained from this diffuse treatise of99
pages full of paradoxes. Hahnemann
appears to have no idea of medical science in its highest sense for he
confines it entirely to the senses.
Unable to influence routine practice.
Every disease, according to him,
is produced by some special unnatural irritation, and in order to cure
diseases we have nothing to do according to Dr.Hahnemann,
but to oppose to it another morbific agent of very similar action.
Such is his idea of the action of remedies ! But enough of this !In the year
1807
Hahnemann
wrote the article in Hufeland’s Journal,
Fingerzeige auf den homöopathischen Gebrauch der Arzneyen in der
bisherigen Praxis. This was
also unfavourably criticised in the Med.
chir. Zeitung (1808,
II. p. 147),
because Hahnemann
only paid attention to symptoms :” Such things are learnt incidentally by every father of a
family.” The instances adduced are said to be vague, and often to
prove the principle ” contraria contrariis.” The reviewer
uses the expression ” homoeopathic,” without hesitation.Hahnemann
‘s endeavours did
not produce the effect they should have done, his proposals to prove
medicines methodically in order to ascertain their specific action on
one’s own body, remained without result. This was also the case with
his further proposal to use as simple prescriptions as possible, and
not to repeat a dose until the former one has exhausted its effect, so
that the knowledge of the manner and extent of the operation of
remedies may, by means of united efforts and a rational mode of
procedure, be firmly grounded and extended. The old routine practice
went on as before.
Der
allgemeine Anzeiger der Deutschen.
Medical articles in a daily paper.
In
1808
he attacked the traditional mode of treatment in a series of articles
in the Allgemeiner Anzeiger
der Deutschen, and
powerfully exposed the miserable character of medicine as then
practised. We have above quoted some passages from them. These
articles were almost all anonymous, and were mostly rejoinders to
previous articles from the pen of other physicians ; so that there is
no foundation for the accusation that Hahnemann
was actuated by unworthy motives or unprofessional conduct in writing
in this paper — an absurd reproach which his opponents are in the
habit of casting upon him with greater frequency and vehemence the
farther his day recedes from our own.[The author proceeds to show by a series of quotations from and
references to articles that were published between1801
and 1822
in this paper (which was
first published under the title of Der
Anzeiger, then as Der
Reichsanzeiger, and finally
from 1806
as Der allgemeine Anzeiger
der Deutschen) that medical
men of the highest rank frequently made use of it to carry on medical
controversies with one another, to publish hospital statistics, to
recommend special modes of treatment for special diseases, and even to
trumpet their own nostrums and offer them for sale.Some of these medical contributors were the most illustrious
physicians of the day, occupying the most exalted positions, such as
Court Physicians, Medicinalraths, Hofraths, Professors of Universities
and Chief Physicians and Surgeons of various hospitals.The names of many of them are still remembered in medicine, such as
Hufeland,
Professor Juncker
of Halle, Professor Kreysig
of Wittenberg, Professor Harless
of Eringen, Professor Feiler
of Altdorf, Dr. von Bernard,
physician in ordinary to the King of Bavaria, Professor J. B. von Siebold,
head surgeon of the Julius Hospital, Würzburg, Professor Kieser
of Jena, Professor Lobenstein–Lobel
of Jena, Hofrath Dr. Fenner,
Medicinalrath Dr. Wendelstadt,
Professor Dzondi
of Halle, and many others of equal rank and renown.The treatment recommended by these coryphaei of old physic would
stagger the most ardent advocate of heroic treatment of our days. One
renowned doctor, “perhaps the greatest and most experienced
authority on the diseases of children of all times,” as an
enthusiastic colleague describes him, earnestly recommends his
colleagues to treat all cases of croup with leeches and blisters,
” as these,” he says, ” are the best, indeed the only
remedies for the disease.”A learned professor recommends all doctors and attendants in
hospitals where infectious diseases are treated, ” to establish
issues in both arms, and keep them constantly discharging,” in
order to keep them from catching these diseases. A doctor enjoying an
important municipal post, strongly advises typhoid fever to be treated
with purgatives and emetics given every clay, ” for most patients
feel strengthened after this medicinal stimulation.’The same professor who advised issues as prophylactics against
infectious diseases further recommends for protection against the
prevailing typhus epidemic, besides issues, blood-letting, emetics and
purgatives. Another doctor, the President of the Bavarian Medical
Board, counsels all his colleagues, “who have the welfare of
their patients at heart,” to employ frequent venesections and
antiphlogistics in typhus, because he is convinced that it is an
” inflammation of the brain.”One blood-thirsty enthusiast calls on the State to compel doctors
to resort to instant blood-letting in inflammatory diseases. A
distinguished Professor recommends his own machine for the cure of
spinal curvature, and begs the editor to speak a word for it. One
doctor promises to reveal his discovery of the nature of yellow fever
if only one thousand persons will subscribe half a thaler each. A
professor professes to cure all agues in old or young by means of
glue.An Inspector-General of hospitals denounces the treatment of
syphilis with mercury, and calls upon “all medical men in the
kingdom” to treat it with a mixture of cream of tartar, cinnamon,
opium and ammonia. Another doctor offers for sale a nostrum for
syphilis which he says he has discovered. Thus, it will be seen thatHahnemann
did nothing unprofessional or unusual in publishing medical articles
in this daily paper, which was not political, but was the organ
through which scientific and literary men of all sorts were accustomed
to interchange ideas.But what a contrast do
Hahnemann’s
contributions offer to those of his colleagues. It was in this paper
that he published between 1801
and 1821
that series of interesting and original essays, which will be found
translated in the Lesser
Writings.
Their titles are :
View of
Professional Liberality at the commencement of the 19th
Century ; On a proposed rented or Hydrophobia ; Objections to a
proposed substitute for Cinchona Bar ; Observations on Scarlet Fever ;
On the present want of Foreign Medicines ; On the value of the
Speculative Systems of Medicine ; On substitutes for Foreign Drugs ;
On the Regeneration of Medicine ; Address to a Candidate for the
degree of M. .D. ; On the prevailing Fever ; Signs of the times in
Ordinary Medicine ; On the Treatment of Typhus ; — of Burns ; — of
Venereal Diseases ; — of Purpura Miliaris.
— ED.]
Criticism of
Hahnemann’s Organon.
Hecker’s attack on the “Organon.”
In the first half of the year
1810,
Hahnemann’s
Organon of rational Medicine appeared.It was criticised in July of the same year by A. F.
Hecker.
[Annalen der gesammten Medicin,
Vol. II., pp. 31
and 193.]All
Hahnemann’s
exaggerations and mistakes were clearly exposed, but the good was
rejected together with the bad. This critique reveals the personal
irritation of the writer.Here is one example —
Hahnemann,
in the Organon, incidentally
blames Hecker
for having used ” various mixtures ” of medicines. Hecker
remarks (p. 228,
note) : It was in a case of caries. I used only1
. A simple solution of
corrosive sublimate in distilled water with liq. myrrh.2
. Powders for internal use
of calomel, sulphuret of antimony and sugar.3
. Some purgatives of calomel
mixed with jalap on account of a good, many thread-worms.Greater simplicity was impossible, moreover a cure was soon
effected.Whoever calls the remedies used ` various mixtures of medicines’
lies”
(the ” lies ”
printed prominently to attract special attention).
Here were five remedies used at the same time, and yet
“greater simplicity was impossible.” Anyone not acquainted
with the medical literature of that time, can form from this an idea
of the usual prescriptions when they werenot
simple, and this was usually
the case.In the
Allg. med. Annalen
des 19
Jahrhunderts, a
simple reference was made to
the Organon in
Nov. 1810,
with the following introduction :The system of rational medicine which
Hahnemann
has unfolded in this work deserves to be favourably judged because the
author has been known for more than 20
years as a thoughtful physician and a good observer, who has laboured
with unwearied energy to establish and confirm his previously stated
opinions, and at the same time he has maintained his reputation as a
skilful and successful practitioner. Of course this does not prove the
validity of his statements, nor should it influence the unbiassed
judgment of the reader. The saying : opinionum
Commenta delet dies remains
eternally true.In
1811,
a full criticism appeared in the January number of the Med.
chir. Zeitung. This journal
answered the same purpose as Schmidt’s
Jahrbücher does
now ; it contained criticisms of the whole of medical literature. The
most prominent physicians of Germany were among its contributors.
Unfortunately the reviews appeared anonymously.The reviewer begins by blaming the great self-sufficiency with
whichHahnemann
comes forward and looks down upon his colleagues. The proofs he
adduces of his principle are not sufficient ; Hahnemann
pays too much attention to symptoms. ” How can that be rational
where there is no question of thought, and where nothing but
observation by means of the senses is required.” Strict
individualisation is good, but it may be carried too far.The keeping of a carefully-conducted clinical journal which
Hahnemann
recommends is very difficult in ordinary practice. ” Every
disease represents a special process, which like every other natural
process, runs its own fixed course.” [P.
92.
Virchow in his Oration on Schönlein (pp. 22
and 67),
asserts that the expression “morbid process” was first
employed in 1824
by Stark in a clear and lucid manner. This, and other passages show
that this statement is not correct.]
Desultory attacks of
the Enemy.In certain cases, where by supporting the vital energy the process
of healing in the direction taken by nature can be furthered and
brought to a more speedy conclusion, the homoeopathic principle may,
in the opinion of the reviewer, prove useful, but it can never be the
chief principle of medicine.The reviewer has quite a different estimation of the work in its
relation to pharmacology. The experiments of the author, made with
medicines on healthy persons and their results may have a very
important influence on this branch of medicine.The review is written in a very calm style, in spite of
Hahnemann’s
attacks on the ordinary practice.A second review appeared in the following number of the same
journal which likewise blames the vehement -tone of the author and
opposes the mode adopted of establishing the new principle of cure.
” Who would not have expected better logic from a man who has in
other ways done so much for medicine ?
Similia similibus curentur
is
a maxim which no rational physician of any experience will deny, but
it is to be accepted, not in Hahnemann’s
sense as a universal therapeutic rule, but only in special cases to
which we are guided not by rational, but by empirical medicine.Hahnemann
‘s idea would,
doubtless, have been gratefully received by the medical public if he
had announced it as applicable only in certain cases and not
universally.”After refuting certain theories of
Hahnemann’s,
the following judgment is passed :The reviewer must admit that in these
222
pages the author has expressed many fine ideas, and has displayed much
originality, but it is a pity that their application is too general,
and that he attempts to prove that his homeopathic system is
universally applicable.If the intelligent reader draws correct conclusions he will lay
down the book not altogether without having derived some satisfaction
from its perusal. The reviewer desires further to ask this question,
which concerns medical jurisprudence : Is this mode of procedure whichHahnemann
here teaches, to make experiments with all sorts of drugs (even
poisons) on healthy human beings, in order to obtain a rational
materia medica according to homoeopathic principles, quite allowable ?This reviewer, too, preserves a judicious calm. Both reviews avoid
touching on the question of doses.Hahnemann
answered none of
these reviews, but remarked upon his opponents’ statements, without
personally attacking them (with one single exception in which he was
provoked to do so) — a fact which is important in forming our
judgment of Hahnemann
— in a subsequent edition of the Organon,
as well as in the
introductory remarks to the, provings of medicines in the Reine
Arzineimittellehre.
His son, Dr. Frederick
Hahnemann,
published a Refutation of
Hecker’s Attacks (Dresden, 1811.).Indeed, even an opponent of
Hahnemann,
Professor Puchelt,
condemned Hecker’s
virulence. [Hufeland’s Journal,
1819,
St. 6,
p. 10.]He complains of “the dogmatic and contemptuous criticisms of
homoeopathy in some of the journals ” — he probably alluded to
theNeues Journal der
Erfindungen &c. in der Medicin, Vol.
I., St. 3,
which, soon after the appearance of the Organon,
published a violent
criticism similar to that in the Annalen — and he strongly condemns Hecker’s
criticism. ”
Hecker
merely attacks and
does not appreciate or do justice to Hahnemann’s
doctrine. He who wishes to judge fairly of an opinion must note hold
the opposite one to be unconditionally true.”
Puchelt’s
review of
homoeopathy in Hufeland’s
Journal did
not appear until 1819
— nine years after Hecker’s
criticism.Up to that time
Hahnemann’s
views are only mentioned’ incidentally in this journal.Thus in
1810
a doctor mentions [Vol. XXXI.,
St. 9,
p. 75.]
that in Karlsbad and the neighbourhood sufferers from diarrhoea had
taken a glass of hot spring water with very good effect, and he calls
this an illustration of Hahnemann’s
therapeutic principle.Two years later
[Vol. XXXV.,
St. 11,
p. 94.]
the same thing happened when arsenic was mentioned as a remedy in
intermittent fever.About the same time
[Vol.
XXXIV., St. 5,
p. 88.]
a physician protests against Hahnemann’s
demands for simplicity of medical treatment and during these eight
years no one took up the pen in support of Hahnemann’s
opposition to the mixing of remedies.Prescriptions remained just as long, and the hotch-potch of
remedies continued to flourish.
Recognition of some good in
Hahnemann’s
doctrine and practice.The efficacy of belladonna in scarlet fever, recommended by
Hahnemann,
is called attention to in various passages, and in 1812
Hufeland
writes in a note : [Vol. XXXIV.,
St. 5,
p. 120.
]” It certainly deserves continued and careful investigation.
For to be deterred by the infinitesimal smallness of the doses is to
forget that here we have to do with a dynamic, i.e., living action,
which cannot be weighed by pounds and grains.Is to dilute always to weaken ?
Does not dilution often cause new developments and an increased
display of the more delicate properties ?”In the same year
[Vol.
XXXIV., St. 5,
p. 120.
] Hofrath Schenk,
of Sieger, publishes passages from a letter of Hahnemann’s.
Schenk
asked for advice as to the use of belladonna in scarlet fever.Hahnemann
sent three grains
of an extract prepared by himself “because the officinal extracts
are often very uncertain and their properties are often destroyed by
the heat of the fire, &c.,” and gave information as to its
further preparation. ” I was exhorted to try to overcome any
incredulity arising from the smallness of the dose ; it was rather too
large than too small, for we had at present no idea of the force
residing in. powerful medicines.”
Schenk
here expresses his
thanks to Hahnemann
for his readiness in sending him the belladonna, and gives an account
of the very favourable results produced by this remedy in a prevalent
epidemic.
Criticism
of Hahnemann’s De Helleborismo Veterum.
Hahnemann
‘s inaugural thesis,
published at Leipzig, De
Helleborismo Veterum, [Lesser
Writings, p. 644.]
was favourably noticed in many
places.” Though the action of veratrum may not be so beneficial as
the author thinks, he has nevertheless rendered a further service by
collecting all the data referring historically to this method of
treatment, and he here gives a complete historical account of it ;
such a work as the present has all the more interest because similar
works are rare.The first traces of the use of ver. alb. are to be found
1500
years before Christ,”
&c. [Med. chir. Ztg., XIX.,
p. 234.]Another reviewed
[Allg. med.
Annalen das 19
Jahrh., 1812,
p. 1053.]
calls the thesis ” an interesting contribution to the history of
medicine collected with care and in a critical spirit.”A third
[Augustin,
Wissensch.. Uebers. d. ges. med. chir. Literatur, 1812,
p. 337.]
considers it a very
“thorough treatise.” Professor Choulant
is stated to have said that this work displays great learning — an
opinion that every reader will confirm.In
1812
Kranzfelder
wrote, Symbola ad criticen
novae theoriae, Homoeopathia dictae, Erlangae 1812,
a work directed against Hahnemann,
which seems to have excited no attention.Hahnemann
stated publicly in 1813
[Allg. Anz. d. Deutschen, 1813,
p. 634,
note.] that Homœopathy in the
space of three years had found so ” many estimable adherents and
practitioners.”If we hesitate to believe the testimony of the first homoeopaths
that his teaching had spread rapidly among students and doctors, this
is nevertheless manifest from an article by ProfessorClarus,
of the Faculty of Leipzig, [Huf.
Journ., 41,
St. 4,
p. 112.]
who opposes the opinion of his
colleagues, that Hahnemann’s
lectures should be suppressed by force.Science should be free. ” I conclude these remarks with the
wish that a proposal, which I advanced long since, may,
notwithstanding its difficulties, be carried out, viz., to testHahnemann’s
doctrines by a commission composed of scientifically trained doctors,
and with the co-operation of Dr. Hahnemann
himself, in a hospital.”The difficulties must have been on the side of the allopaths, for
Hahnemann
often expressed a wish for a hospital.We shall see later how
Clarus
saw fit to change his opinion. We here pass over the political
journals — the Leipziger
Zeitung, and the Hamburger
Correspondent — which
also confirm the spread of
Homœopathy, although they do not espouse Hahnemann’s
side.The vehemence of the contest advanced
pari
passu with the spread of
homoeopathy. The allopaths and the apothecaries of Leipzig were on one
side, Hahnemann
and his adherents on the other, and the public espoused the cause of
one side or the other.
Hahnemann’s
treatment of Prince Schwarzenberg.
Death of Prince Sckwarszenberg.
The contest found its way into the political papers of Leipzic,
into the beershops, into the domestic circles, and reached its climax
when PrinceSchwarzenberg,
the winner of the battle of Leipzic, consulted Hahnemann.
The latter had been requested by the Prince to come to Prague to
give him the benefit of his advice.Hahnemann
declined this, and
invited the patient to take up his abode in Leipzic.So he travelled there to be treated by
Hahnemann.
He had had several attacks of apoplexy and suffered from a heart
disease. Certainly the Field-Marshal improved underHahnemann’s
treatment ; he was able to go out for regular walks.Dr. Jos.
Edler von Sax,
and other allopaths, declared that Hahnemann
neglected to employ ” powerful measures,” and that he was
responsible for hastening the Prince’s death.Some time before the fatal termination of the illness
Hahnemann
visited the patient, accompanied by Dr. Marenzeller
who had been sent from Vienna, and found the allopaths employed in
making a venesection.After that he never visited the patient again, as Dr.
Argenti
relates. [Hom. Behandlung der
Krankheiten, 2nd
edit., Presburg and Leipzig, 1820,
p. 22.]Unfortunately I am unable to ascertain how often the bleeding was
repeated. Five weeks later, on the15th
October, 1820,
the Prince died.
Clarus
remarks :
” On the same day, and nearly at the same hour, his solemn
funeral procession passed along the same road as that on which he had
made his triumphal entrance seven years before.”The post-mortem examination, which was most minute and thorough,
revealed several apoplectic foci.” The size of the heart is uniformly increased to double the
normal, and at the same time the walls of the right ventricle of the
heart are attenuated and those of the left enormously thickened.The valves of the heart are not ossified but extremely thin and
delicate.” The art. coronar., hepat. and splenica, as well as the
ascending aorta, showed” traces of commencing ossification.”The report was signed and sealed by
Clarus,
Dr. von Sax,
Dr. Samuel Hahnemann
and Prosector Dr. Aug. Carl Bock.
Hahnemann’s
rejection of blood-letting.It is easy then to judge whether the attack of
Hahnemann’s
opponents on account of his neglect of blood-letting was justified.
But anyhow they had the majority on their side.Doctors and chemists at length contrived to obtain the prohibition
ofHahnemann’s
dispensing his own medicines, and he, therefore, left Leipzic for Cöthen.The constant spread of homoeopathy caused its opponents to take
greater notice of it in a literary way than previously.In
1819,
Dr. Bischoff’s
pamphlet, which has been already quoted, appeared, and in it the
neglect of blood-letting is severely condemned, as is also ” the
general tone of the Organon, which
is not worthy the importance of the subject,” and many of Hahnemann’s
theories are scouted.He particularly mentions
Hahnemann’s
former services to medicine, and commends Hahnemann’s
mode of preparing medicines (p. 120),
as well as his proving of drugs. ” This part of the work is
always valuable ” (p. 117).He rejects the homoeopathic system, and lauds (in I the preface and
later) ” the method of the ordinary system of medicine which by
the labours of physicians is of so much benefit to mankind.” The
views of the author on the subject of blood-letting will be given
by-and-bye.The same year saw the publication of Prof.
Puchelt’s
treatise in Hufeland’s
journal (a. a.
O.)” It is the aim and object of this article to criticise
Hahnemann’s
homoeopathy which has recently spread so much among the younger
doctors and has begun to gain a certain amount of acceptation among
the non-medical public.A more complete examination of this system seems to me to be
specially well-timed, as very little has been hitherto done in this
direction.”He then condemns
Hecker’s
hostile attacks.He severely criticises
Hahnemann’s
contempt for the sciences auxiliary to medicine (and in this even Hahnemann’s
adherents soon joined him), and opposes some theories in Hahnemann’s
Organon, on
which, however, no stress had been laid by Hahnemann
himself, and which even his most faithful disciples have rejected.
Attacks
on Hahnemann in Leipzig. Opinions of various authors on homoeopathy.
Modified acceptance of some of
Hahnemann’s
doctrines.He blames
Hahnemann
for forming a system and despising every-thing else in medicine.He proposes to use homoeopathy in the case of “dynamic”
affections and in such organic diseases as arise from ”
derangement of the nervous system.”” I should like to know
Hahnemann’s
opinion on this modification of his therapeutic principle……For the rest, we heartily wish that homoeopathy, if it once becomes
allied with scientific medicine, may have a still greater influence
[what influence had it at that time ?] in producing greater simplicity
and moderation in the use of medicines.”What he says about the personal feeling of allopaths towards Hahnemann
explains so well the cause of their inveterate hostility that we must
let the author speak for himself.However contradictory it may appear at first sight to attempt to
cure diseases by remedies which produce similar effects, it must be
admitted that the paradox disappears when more careful consideration
is given to the question than has hitherto been usually given by the
opponents of homoeopathy.I believe, indeed, that the system would not have met with so much
opposition, that, on the contrary, it would even have been accepted
and employed by a great number of physicians, ifHahnemann
had not declared open war upon the whole existing medical art, for
every one who has lived and worked in it, knows it is not
so entirely built on sand as
Hahnemann
maintains.It would be possible to quote here from the first allopathic ”
authorities ” any time during the last forty years, quite as
strong a condemnation of the allopathic therapeutics asHahnemann’s,
though perhaps not stated in such impassioned terms as they were not
engaged in an animated controversy as he was.If he had not allowed himself to be borne away by the rage, which
twenty years ago, was very common among the best men, for reforming
the whole science and destroying everything that was old ; if he had
yielded less to the spirit of opposition which led him to take up a
position of antagonism to other medical men, he would have met with a
more cordial reception, and would have been been more practically
useful.In what follows, the feeling of personal irritation displayed by
the allopaths is still more clearly shown :With the hostile attitude assumed by him towards other doctors,
some self-effacement is required to attain the point of view from
which he may be justly judged, and what is useful extracted from his
teaching ; we are apt to be prejudiced against him by many offensive
expressions, which indeed may have been deserved by some, but
certainly not by all the thoughtful physicians against whom they were
directed. [Hahnemann’s
principal therapeutic charges were directed against all allopaths of
the period without exception].This excited a prejudice against him which it was necessary to
overcome before a calm judgment could be arrived at becoming a seeker
after truth.This power of self-control is not possessed by all, and least of
all by those who most deserve the reproach of writing careless
prescriptions. The latter act asHahnemann
does with the whole of medicine, they reject the good with the bad,
and throw all on one side because some few things do not please them.The author’s characterisation of the medicine of that day shall not
be kept back from the reader, because it serves to indicate a phase in
the history of medicine, and is also of importance for our purpose.
” We live now in a time in which most systems are blended and
united.The mechanical and chemical views of the organism [We must remember
the condition of physiological chemistry in1819]
have united, are subordinated to, or collocated with the
dynamico-vital view.The humoral and solidary theories are amalgamated, and have
resolved themselves into the idea of the reciprocal action of the
solid and fluid portions of the organism.” From this sentence we
seem to be transported into our own times, but the next brings us back
into the good old times. “The evacuating and stimulating, depicting and fortifying, and many
other conflicting methods of treatment dwell peacefully side by side
in general therapeutics, and mutually limit one another ; all arc used
by our con-temporaries in various diseases, though one may prefer one
method — another another.”Here the entire unsoundness of the allopathy of that period is
indirectly admitted.In
1822,
the first homoeopathic periodical appeared, Archiv
fiir die hom. Heilkunst, edited
by Dr. E. Stapf,
and later by Stapf
and Gross.
Drs Stapf & Gross.In the same year, the allopath,
Jörg,
published his Kritische Hefte
für Aerzte und Wundärzte (Leipzig
bei Knobloch), in which he attacked the Organon
and the homoeopathic
provings of drugs.At the same time Dr.
Groh
published a criticism of Hahnemann’s
system in Oken’s periodical Isis
(1822,
p. 120),
and he characterises it as a doctrine ” acting like a breath of
poisonous air on the blossom of medicine, which was beginning to
unfold after its long winter sleep.”
Homoeopathic Works of
Darkness.But he was no blind antagonist. He accepted a great deal, and owned
thatHahnemann
had taught ” much that was good and true” in the Organon.
He calls him an ”
earnest thinker, one of the best physicians of our time.”He considered it “very praiseworthy” in
Hahnemann
to call attention to the necessity of individualisation. He blames the
large number of medical men who neglect this counsel, and compares
them with the knights errant. ”I would like to see these
practici
errantes, many of whom have
been robbing their suffering fellow creatures of blood and money to
the disgrace of scientific Germany, follow these and other teachings
of the, in many respects, conscientious Hahnemann,
as slavishly as they can.”The reason why the critic considered
Hahnemann
“conscientious in some respects” only, is very soon seen.Hahnemann
rejected
bloodletting in inflammation of the lungs, inflammation of the brain,
croup, etc., as also calomel in large doses, and that was
unpardonable.In speaking of the mode of employing remedies ” he unwillingly
omits to mention (on account of lack of space) the praiseworthy matter
contained in this section,” and he says, with reference toHahnemann’s
proposed method of discovering the curative properties of medicines by
testing them on healthy organisms, ” I rejoice to have arrived at
a point where Hahnemann’s
services to medicine become conspicuous.”…He had a profound insight into the inner springs of life when he
advanced or confirmed the principle that with regard to the action of
drugs as with everything in life there are alternating states.”
“It is to be hoped that
Hahnemann
may continue on in the path he has begun to tread, though his materia
medica may still be a rudis
indigestague moles.”
As the same kinds of attacks on the part of his opponents were
constantly repeated during the following years, it is not worth while
to give more of them in detail. We need only mention that such attacks
became more and more vehement.In
1824,
there appeared : Works of
Darkness in the Domain of Homeopathy, brought
to light by Dr. Th….. and Authentication
of the Facts mentioned in the ` Works of Darkness,‘
by the same author, Altenburg.
Hahnemann
likened to the Devil.These contained nothing but idle gossip, untruths and personal
at-tacks on the homoeopaths of Leipzic, but they are welcome as
furnishing evidence of the method of attack pursued by the allopaths.Under the pseudonym ” Dr. Th. was concealed the personality of
a Dr.Meissner,
who appears in the text in the third person as a witness.Even a few allopaths deprecated such conduct,
[Augustin,
l.c., 1824,
p. 334.]
and he was cited before the
tribunals and punished.Hofrath and Physicus Dr.
Rau,
an old and respected physician, wrote in 1824,
On the Value of Homoeopathic
Treatment, in which he
exposed the weak sides of Hahnemann’s
theory, but declared himself in accord with his therapeutic
principles.This work and
Rau’s
high reputation attracted many physicians to homoeopathy.”
Rau
was already well known as a thoughtful man,” according to Schmidt’s
Jahrbücher (Vol.
7,
p. 164),
and it is added that he only turned to homoeopathy after a’ practice
of twenty-two years and tested it for twelve years before defending it
publicly.From this time onwards pamphlets and counter-pamphlets appeared in
such numbers that it would be a wearisome and profitless task to
examine each individually.We will only mention in connexion with this period, a book by
Professor L. W.Sachs,
of Konigsberg, A Final Word
on S. Hahnemann’s
Homœopathic System, in
which Hahnemann
is compared to the devil. (Leipzig, 1826,
p. 52.)There is no fault, no error in the devil, he is out and out the
false, the reprobate, the lying one.Now, the homoeopathic system does not suffer from errors (if such
could be shown in it, that would redound to its honour !), it is not
impregnated with false notions (such could be refuted, corrected,
minimised and changed into true ones) it is not illogical (it must in
that case be logical in some places, it must have some internal
coherence : — but it has no more than a heap of sand) it has not the
faults possessed by any other system, no human weakness, but it is
contrary to all our conceptions, to all laws of thought, and all the
results of experience ; it scorns all Nature’s teaching,mocks at reason, excludes all
truth. It cannot be said of it, as Polonius says of Hamlet’s madness,
” there is method in it.”
Hufeland acts as Umpire. Proposes a
compromise.On the other hand, the advantages reaped by the allopaths from
Hahnemann’s
researches are evident. Jörg
published in 1825,
Materials for a future
Materia Medica, obtained by Experiments on Healthy Persons, Leipzic.He instituted these experiments with the help of students, and
arrives at the conclusionHahnemann
came to more than twenty years previously, viz., that medical men have
little or no knowledge of the positive effects of medicines. In the
course of this work we shall see how certain of Hahnemann’s
teachings begin to take effect, even in the camp of his opponents.
Hufeland’s Journal
was
distinguished by the fact that in it the combat was carried on with
decency.
Hufeland
himself seems to
have zealously occupied himself with homoeopathy for several years.In the year
1826
(St. 1.
p. 20
u. f.) he thus formulates his views
1
– It calls attention to the
necessary individualisation of cases.
[This is a confession that medical men neglected this requisite, as do
the allopaths of our time.]2
– It will help to give a
proper importance to diet.3
– Will do away with large
doses.4
– Will lead to simplicity
in prescribing medicines.5
– ” It will lead to a
more exact testing and knowledge of the effect of drugs on the living
subject, as it has already done.”6
– The homoeopathic system.
will direct more attention to the preparation of medicines and will
lead to a stricter supervision of the apothecaries.7
– It can never do positive
harm.8
– It will give time to the
diseased organism to recover itself quietly and uninterruptedly. [It
gives the diseased organism the physiological impulse to curative
action, without complicating the natural disease with a medicinal
disease.]9
– ” It will diminish
in an extraordinary degree the expense of treatment.”
1
– It may prevent rational
treatment. [What is rational ?]
John Brown (1735-1788)
Dr Broussais.
2
– Would have an injurious
effect upon the study or medicine, as was the case with the systems of
Brown
and Broussais.
[Right for that time.]3
– Would cause sins of
omission. [Blood-letting and
emetics !]4
– Would constitute an
attack on the fundamental principles of all good medical police. [The
dispensing of medicines by the practitioner !]5
– Deprives physicians by
its maxims of their respect for and trust in the healing power of
Nature, to which, however, the homoeopath gives full play. ( ?)
Hufeland
writes, in
reference to the dispensing of medicines by the physician :The writer by no means fails to recognise that there are two sides
t4
the question, and he believes that on this subject he is entitled trip
give an opinion, as during the first ten years of his practice he
dispensed his medicines himself ; it being then the custom in Weimar.He knows by experience that a medical man gives medicines prepared
by himself with much greater certainty and confidence, and that while
preparing them many new and happy thoughts may strike him which he can
use for the benefit of his patients, just as they do every artist who
prepares the instruments of his own art…..The patient gains by the diminution in expense ; indeed, he thinks
that it may be accepted as a self-evident proposition, that it is more
to the interest of the physician to have reliable medicines, and his
conscience is more concerned in the matter than is the case with the
apothecary.But the monopoly of the apothecaries offers, on the whole, greater
security,[The apothecary gains
more money.] especially the
check on doctors through their prescriptions. [Are
medical practitioners, then, conscienceless poisoners ? How often do
not the apothecaries make fatal mistakes, which would have been
impossible for the doctors.]
Something good may be learned from
Homeopathy.I advise a union in both these respects, so that the doctor should
prepare his medicines, or cause them to be prepared, and should then
give them to the apothecary to dispense.[Then patients exist for the benefit of the apothecary ?]
The following is
Hufeland’s
opinion concerning homoeopathic preparations :With regard to the purely dynamic effect of remedies as accepted by
homoeopaths, no one can believe more fully in that than the author, as
he has often expressed in his writings. That every effect produced on
the living organism, and therefore also the effect of every remedy, is
anactio viva, has
long been my principleThat in the case of many volatile substances an almost infinite
divisibility, far beyond all ponder-ability, is compatible with a
continued efficacy is shown us in the case of musk.A few grains of this substance are able to perfume the air of a
whole room, so that every atom smells of musk and must, there-fore,
contain some particles of musk, certainly not stronger than the
trillionth dilution, and yet the musk does not lose in weight.It has long been observed in the case of ipecacuanha that the
smallest doses,13th
or nth grain rubbed up with sugar, acquire very great and even new
powers. Might not then other volatile substances, particularly
narcotics, possess a similar, almost endless divisibility, and yet
continue to be able to act on the organism ? This is certainly a
question that deserves investigation. [But
still waits for it, as far as the allopaths are concerned.]To have been the first to call attention to the increase of
efficacy by the increase of the points of contact by solution in a
fluid or by long continued trituration, is undoubtedly a merit ofHahnemann’s,
and deserves thanks.In the same year (St.
1,
p. 29-60)
a detailed account is given of homoeopathic cures by Dr. Messerschmidt,
of Naumburg, and he pursues the subject later on in St. 2,
pages 59.102.
Rummel
contributes a
polemical article on the homoeopathic side (St. 5,
p. 57-74),
and a longer article on
homoeopathy (St. 3,
p. 43-74).Dr.
Widnmann,
of Munich, blames the bad and praises the good sides of homoeopathy
(in the April number of 1827),
and writes on the same subject in 1828
(St. 2,
p. 3-41).In the year
1828,
Dr. Ant. Fried. Fischer,
of Dresden, wrote an article in the same journal On
some Defects of Allopathy, with Remarks on the Homeopathic Method of
Treatment. [Huf. Journ.,
1828,
St. 2,
p. 42-60.]There is first the subject of diet, to which the homoeopaths assert
that allopathy does not give sufficient attention.If we observe the practice of many allopaths, the discovery is
involuntarily forced upon us that frequently even where the
therapeutic treatment is mostsecundum
artem, much too little
attention is paid to diet.This fact must have been often observed by every attentive and
impartial physician, for opportunities are not wanting, and this to
such a degree that this lack of attention to diet has often astonished
even thoughtful non-professionals, and has caused them to become
converts toHahnemann’s
doctrines.In vain do we attempt to point out to them the slippery and
insecure foundation of his system, for they are far too enlightened to
credit any of our teaching with a firm and stable foundation.What do our scientific explanations matter to them ? they have seen
how in a brief space of time one system succeeds another ; how thea
priori assumptions and
assertions even of the most learned doctors are quickly refuted by
experience and shown to be untrue.Attracted by the simplicity of homoeopathy, the practical
application of which is neither unpleasant to the palate nor
burden-some to the purse, the well regulated and strict diet enjoined
by homoeopathy induces them to lend a willing ear to the new doctrine.This, however, they would not, according to the author, have done,
if allopaths had paid greater attention to diet — a subject on which
the author dilates. In the strict diet of the adherents of the
homoeopathic system we may see “how powerful is the influence of
physicians who are resolute and confident in their principles and in
themselves….Even if it is entirely irrational, yet the very follies of this
school should admonish us to make an earnest searching examination of
our therapeutic treatment.And here it may be mentioned that our pharmaceutical prescriptions
are much too composite.Only a few of us really strive after simplicity in prescribing. Our
prescriptions ought to be chemically correct and as simple as
possible, if they are not to be the laughing stock of homoeopaths and
the jest of all well-educated people…Until then we cannot be surprised if educated laymen, and
especially those who have a knowledge of natural science, make merry
over themixtum
compositum of
our prescriptionsThe so-called magistral formulas cannot be excluded from
investigation…
Opinions
of the opponents of homoeopathy in regard to bloodletting, emetics and
purgatives.
Neglect of blood-letting
the great sin of Homoeopathy.A mode of treatment simplified in this manner would redound to the
credit of our art, and would preventHahnemann’s
bait from attracting any more deserters, and would contribute to gain
more respect for the art among thoughtful students of medicine.”“The constant changing of medicines,” the author
continues, ” is likewise a sign of indecision, and in this
particular, too, we must learn from homoeopathy.”Homoeopaths do not bleed, and God only knows how they arrive at the
desired result in those cases where bleeding is the only mode by which
we can expect to save the patient ! There are many laymen who do not
like bleeding, and these go over to the homoeopaths. We must therefore
obviate the necessity of blood-letting by means of a regimen which
does not conduce to the formation of blood…We possess in oxy-muriatic acid an agent best calculated to alter
the crasis of the blood and to subdue its orgasm ; but we must not be
sparing of it but must administer it in the greatest quantities as a
drink. It is a pity that this acid never quite loses its peculiar
coaly smell……Only thus does it seem to me to be possible to convince the
educated part of our fellow-citizens of the reliability of our method
of treatment…The medical man who acts according to homoeopathic principles
prepares his medicaments to a great extent himself ; it is most
important to him that the simple remedies which he alone has brought
into use should not only be prepared with the greatest care, but
should also be promptly administered.With us the preparation of medicines leaves much to be desired
The apothecary, therefore, should be an experienced chemist and a
good botanist, qualities which are not always found singly, much less
in combination, in the same person.This must be mended … If we had arrived at this, we
also, likeHahnemann,
should be able to give our patient a guarantee of the purity,
excellence and freshness of our medicines, and no longer would there
be occasion for the witticisms of those who are eager to find fault
with the allopathic method of treatment.
Hufeland
then again
expresses his opinion on the subject of homoeopathy :After repeated trials, and a careful collection of evidence, and
after proper consideration of the objections, I hold the same opinion
concerning it as I expressed two years ago.I have seen many successful and indeed highly surprising cures
brought about by its means, chiefly in chronic nervous complaints,
where other kinds of treatment had been tried in vain.But I have also seen unsuccessful cases, and many which lasted
longer and were more tedious than they would have been if other modes
of treatment had been employed
The chief fault to be found with it however is the neglect of those
two most important means of saving life — bleeding and emetics,
which it is impossible to replace, and for the neglect of which
nothing can afterwards make up.The histories of two cases are given. A child had croup. The
homoeopath gave hep. sulph. and within twenty-four hours the symptoms
of croup disappeared, but the next day capillary bronchitis supervened
and the child died. “The child would probably have lived if leeches had been applied at
the beginning by means of which the inflammatory diathesis would have
been stopped.”(No one now would agree with the honourable and well-intentioned
Hufeland,
any more than they would recognise the correctness of the following
view) : Another child had ” erysipelas of the face,” and
this disappeared under homoeopathic treatment ; but an abscess formed,
it would ” probably ” have been prevented by the application
of leeches.It would be as wrong to make homoeopathy the universal system of
treatment, and not to use what is really good and true in it, as to
discard it altogether.Let us welcome it as a new method of curia disease, but subordinate
it to the approved rules of a rational modeof treatment Let its task be to discover new specifics against
individual diseases…No homoeopathic art of medicine, but a homoeopathic method in
rational medicine !Dr.
Fischer,
of Dresden, quoted above, appears soon to have altered his temperate
view of homoeopathy into the very opposite.He wrote in the following year (
1829,
Dresden), an indignant pamphlet, entitled, Homoeopathy
before the Judgment Seat of Common Sense.
The good recognised by the author a year before in
Hufeland’s
Journal, has
marvellously shrunk in this book, which is a ” text book of
instruction for educated people,” for, ” even among a public
claiming to be highly educated, as is the case in my beloved native
town [Dresden, where among other homoeopaths, Trinks
and P. Wolf
practised], homoeopathy is making rapid and bold strides.”…..
Dr Karl Friedrich Gottfried
TRINKS (1800-1868)The most shameless bragging of a boastful homoeopath.”
Germany disgraced by being the
birth place of Homoeopathy.Allopaths could not understand how homoeopaths can be so shameless
as to assert that many diseases can be more easily cured under
homoeopathic treatment than under the irrational treatment by
blood-letting.Notwithstanding all attacks on the philosophical elaboration of the
science of medicine, it stands firm and radiant in immortal ethereal
splendour in the everlasting mansion of sublime intelligence,
shed-ding forth life-giving and fertilising beams over all branches of
knowledge and culture. That which prejudiced contemporaries dare to
mock at will be honoured and cherished by a wiser posterity, as
containing the ideas and principles of true wisdom.He is indignant at the idea of dispensing with bleeding, which is
hallowed by the experience of1000
years.It is a humiliating and shameful thought that Saxony is the
birth-place of this false doctrine, and Dresden the principal arena of
the homoeopaths.[The Leipzic allopaths were in the habit of complaining that
Leipzic was the chief scene of action of these “children of
darkness.”]So much is undoubtedly true that the inhabitants of Leipzic have
pretty well got rid of these magical doctors, and they would rather
welcome black-a-moors than these genii.They have, indeed, left there an evil odour behind them, but it
will not be difficult for aClarus
to destroy it, as the salt works of Kösen
are near at hand, and it is easy to procure Nordhausen oil of vitriol
(p. 7.)According to
Fischer
Homoeopathy proved a failure in Vienna, although that city is not
quite free from its contamination. ” The capital on the Spree
alone is a laudable exception to the rule, because the medical
authorities there are earnestly concerned to preserve the inhabitants
of the town from such fanfaronades ! Why do they not hasten thither ?Because they shun the light and wish to hide behind the mask which
would there be forcibly dragged away ; ” (in1833
the spread of homoeopathy in Berlin is lamented, consequently only
four. , years later.) ”The basis of homoeopathy is furnished by bold and unprovable
assertions,” and this is enforced by reference to the ”
heroes of grey antiquity.” A year before he had blamed the
allopaths for not paying proper attention to diet, the preparation of
medicines, &c., now in all these particulars they are far superior
to the homoeopaths. The author states that he has already exposed the
” follies” of the homoeopaths in a non-medical journal, theDresdener
Merkur.
We also once gave
Hahnemann
our approval when he first attempted to ascertain the curative
properties of various medicinal substances, and to open a new way for
a just estimation of their powers, in the second and third vols. of
the older Hufeland’s
Journal. [Why
did he not then publicly come forward on Hahnemann’s
side ? It was, in great part, the indolence and indifference of his
colleagues which embittered
Hahnemann
against them].From the following passage it appears that from the beginning he
did not rightly understandHahnemann.
He continues :
All the less can we allopaths be astonished that Dr.
Hahnemann
and his adherents declare the medical traditions of thousands of years
to be deception and folly, scorn our knowledge, and do not trouble
themselves about the older medicine and its main doctrines…..Great self-control is required to restrain one’s pen.
When
Hahnemann
dares to deny the crises of diseases which no school and no physician
has ever ventured to dispute, which thou-sands of physicians have
recognised in their works, and which millions of practitioners have
witnessed at the sick bed, we can only compassionate such an
aberration of human intellectI and other allopaths think nothing of experiments. on senseless
animals.The homoeopath can render no help when the efforts of Nature to get
rid of injurious matter are too violent, or on the contrary, when
Nature’s efforts are too weak and ineffectual.Homoeopathy is nonsense. “Hence, both English and French look
upon it as a chimera, and in those countries no one thinks of trying
it.” (The author must soon have heard the lament over the spread
of the detested homoeopathy beyond the Rhine and the Channel).We have selected this article from among the multitude, and gone
into it more fully, because the author was a physician of repute, and
because it is a type of most of the other allopathic diatribes of this
time, which constantly repeat themselves, and which it would be waste
of time and paper to examine individually.Before we describe the quarrel in its further developments it is
necessary to understand the
Medical Standpoint
of the Opponents,particularly with regard to blood-letting, emetics, and purgatives,
whichHahnemann
so pitilessly attacked.
“Scientific”
reasons for bloodletting.
Blood-letting the sheet anchor
of Scientific Medicine.Dr. J. R.
Bischoff,
professor of clinical medicine, and senior physician to the General
Hospital at Prague, Considerations
on the medical treatment hitherto pursued, and on the first principles
of the homæopathic doctrine of disease. Prague,
1819.PAGE
111
: Hippocrates
would have saved many lives — ” it can be proved from his
records of cases of disease ” — if he had employed ” a
cooling treatment, administered mild purgatives and used derivatives
and blood-letting.”At p.
126
and following, the author attacks Hahnemann’s
statement :” Homoeopaths were much more successful than the ordinary
school, which, as has lately again become the fashion, on theoretical
grounds advises only the so-called antiphlogistics and merciless
blood-letting,[He is alluding
to the treatment of pneumonia.] and
does a monstrous deal of harm thereby.”
Bischoff
appeals to the
sense of duty and to the con-science of physicians, ” to the
approved experience of centuries,” and to Hahnemann’s
own instructor, Quarin.No harm had ever arisen from a right employment of bleeding, but
” great good has been done by it.”Out of
197
patients, who suffered from inflammation of the lungs and the pleura,
only ten died in his hands (as all his students could testify), and of
these ten four suffered from phthisis, and three were victims to
mistakes in diet.Neglect of blood-letting produces chronic disease ; he had bled two
women of eighty-one and ninety-seven years respectively with
favourable results. He, in conjunction with a friend, bled a strong
man twelve times in three days and a-half, taking a pound of blood
each time, and ” after the twelfth time profuse bleeding from the
nose ensued twice, and the blood still showed a marked inflammatory
coat.Nature gave thus the most convincing proof that not an ounce too
much blood had been taken. In six weeks the patient was entirely
restored –More especially in Hemoptysis and pulmonary apoplexy, in certain
cases of nervous diseases and many other affections, blood-letting is
often the only saving remedy.”The true physician should not suffer himself to be deterred from
the repetition of blood-letting when it is seen to be necessary,
” by the lamentations of the bystanders, who look askance at this
proceeding ” ; he must conquer himself and think of the words ofHahnemann,
although they refer to the very opposite set of circum-stances :“The oak garland bestowed on us by a good conscience rewards
us a thousand-fold for such self-conquests.”Prof.
Puchelt [Hufeland’s
Journal, 1819,
St. 6,
p. 11,
note.]”agrees
entirely” with Bischoff.
The Med. chir. Lei/wig also
(1820
I. p. 93,
84)
declares itself to be in accord with Bischoff’s
views about bleeding.
Contraria contrariis, the true
therapeutic rule.Prof.
Heinroth
expresses the following views in the Anti-Organon.
Leipzig, 1825.We must begin by stating that
Heinroth
was a physician of note.” This great mind, who would measure himself with his
intelligence ?” says a certain Kreisphysicus Dr.Wesener.
[Hufeland’s Journal,
1828,
p. 69.
]Mention is made of the ” learned
Heinroth
” in Schmidt’s
Jahrbücher, [Vol.
7,
p. 106.]
and in many other places, and
this Anti-Organon is
also spoken of as ” Heinroth’s
classical work.” He is not unknown to the history of medicine.PAGES 52 and 53
: — What
becomes of experience in Hahnemann’s
observations of patients if he did not find bleeding of great use in
inflammation of the lungs ?PAGE 94
: — The author
would acknowledge the principle of similars in emetics for over-loaded
stomachs, copious blood-letting for headaches, palpitation of the
heart, &c., in the absence of that natural remedy, epistaxis.Hahnemann
does not admit this
: “What are we to infer from, that ? That all physicians without
exception, even the most talented and successful, have acted in a
senseless and thoughtless manner.”This will give the reader some idea of the ” irresistible
logic and the classical style in which
Heinroth grapples with and
throws his opponent ; he first assumes the truth of Hahnemann’s
principles, and then logically demonstrates the absurdities to which
they lead.”PAGE
99
: — How salutary are
the-above-mentioned leeches, cupping, blisters, &c. Where does Hahnemann
mention these remedies ? And even venesection is Herr Hahnemann
not an avowed enemy of this great remedy ?……. Do we not see the
most exhausting hemorrhages arrested by bleeding to syncope ?PAGE
181
: — We can therefore say that
the great therapeutic principle is contraria
contrariis.
Freiherr von
Wedekind,
Prüfung des homöopathischen
Systems. Darmstadt, 1825
:PAGE
49
: — I am perhaps the only
living writer who am a pure materialist in contradistinction to Hahnemann.He combats both here and in
Hufeland’s
Journal, 1828,
Hahnemann’s
dynamism, respecting which the opinions of homoeopaths themselves are
sufficiently known.PAGE
56
: — The beneficial effects of
blood-letting and emetics, &c., are spoken of. ” I should
like to know what physician would not retire from practice if he were
obliged to renounce even the employment of purgatives.” He then
exclaims : ” I should like to ask whether the acknowledged
impossibility of foregoing the use of evacuating medicines and
bleeding is not the most convincing proof of the worthlessness of Hahnemann’s
doctrine in practical medicine ? ”PAGE
132
: — How on earth could the
learned and renowned – Hahnemann
fall into the error of promulgating such a doctrine, and how could he
be so audacious as to speak in such disparaging terms of the
physicians who lived 3000
years before him, and of his con-temporaries ?
Wedekind
was one of the
most distinguished physicians of his day, a disciple of Fr. Hoffmann,
and a pupil and friend of L. Hoffmann,
the iatro-chemist.***
Dr. Fr.
Groos,
Court Physician to the Grand Duke of Baden, Ueber
das homöopathische Heilprincip. Heidelberg,
1825.PAGE
24
: — Is there any other method
of treating true inflammatory fevers of such universal application,
and yielding such good results as Sydenham’s
antiphlogistic method ? where, therefore, the principle contraria
contrariis leads to a
radical cure.
Dr Thomas SYDENHAM
(1624-1689)
Sydenham
was, as is well
known, a great advocate of bleeding.
Groos
strove to pronounce
an impartial judgment :The principles
contraria
contrariis and similia
similibus have each their
unqualified application, each in suitable cases will conduce to a
radical cure.PAGE
36
: — Homeopathy will become an
extremely valuable and integral part of medicine and will remain a
treasure-house of noble and original ideas.But his beloved venesections, emetics and purgatives formed a
party-wall which separated him fromHahnemann,
as it did so many of his other opponents.
Mückisch
, Die
Homöopathie in ihrer Würde, &c. Vienna,
1826
: Mückisch
was director of the second Hospital for Children’s Diseases of Vienna.PAGE
1
: — Medicine has incontestably
made important progress towards perfection in the nineteenth century ;
whereby with the greatest possible certainty it protects the lives of
generations and saves them from premature death by the innumerable
host of diseases. But it has only attained this high position as a
science of experience, moulded and regulated by rational criticism.PAGE
41
: — The universal organic law
of nature is contraria
contrariis.
PAGE
53
: — Intimately conversant with
children’s diseases for fifteen years I have treated a thousand such
children with derivative and revulsive remedies, or, in other cases,
with purgatives and enemata, or emetics, or blood-letting, or by
re-establishing eruptions which had been driven inwards by means of
artificial cutaneous irritants, and have almost always obtained a
rapid and permanent cure.PAGE
60
: — In cases of atony of the
stomach and of the primae
viae from quantitative
indigestion, manifested by stomach-ache, headache, spasms, oppression
of breathing, vertigo, &c., should we not give an emetic, which is
the approved remedy for these sufferings ?PAGE
72
: — Thousands and thousands of
persons suffering from inflammation of the lungs have been quickly and
permanently cured by blood-lettings in sufficient quantity and
frequency, but we never imagined that artificial bleeding and
antiphlogistic agents of all kinds cure in such cases by similarity of
symptoms. Nature herself often cures antipathically inflammation of
the brain by spontaneous bleeding from the nose and inflammations of
the abdomen by metrorrhagia.
Seignare, purgare, clysterium
donare.PAGES 93 and 94
: —
We quarrel most with Hahnemann
for his neglect of purgatives and emetics, for we have regarded them
as accredited remedies in obstructions, gastric crudities, material
hypochondriases, and generally in accumulations of unassimilable
matters and such like, because when indicated our patients made speedy
and permanent recoveries through their employment.PAGE
95
: — Time, which tries all doctrines, will show whether by the
general acceptance of homoeopathy all purgatives and emetics may be
dispensed with, for hitherto they have proved the most indispensable
and salutary remedies in material diseases of the digestive system
caused by our modes of living.
Elias, Homöopathische Gurkenmonate.
Halle,
1827
:PAGE
42
: — The fact that it allows
patients suffering from inflammatory diseases to be suffocated in
their blood is no very brilliant proof of the harmlessness of
homoeopathy.PAGE
44
: — Homoeopathy is only
innocuous in three out of a hundred cases in which it is employed.1
/ Because, though the
prevailing morbid character may not be absolutely inflammatory but
either purely catarrhal, bilious, gastric, nervous or complicated,
still plenty of cases occur in which bleeding either general or local
is in-dispensable ; and some chronic diseases, particularly dropsies
combined with great weakness, in my experience and that of. other
physicians (and it is perhaps worth as much as that of the
homoeopaths) sometimes require general bleeding, and cannot be cured
without it.2
/ Because it ignores the
periculum in mora.3
/ For a hundred other reasons.
Fischer
, Dresden. Op.
cit. 1824.PAGE
3
: — Complete ignoring of the
aid afforded by Nature, of the real essential important vis
medicatrix naturae…. neglect
of remedies found to be
valuable during thousands of years, e.g., bleeding, which no school,
by whatever name it was called, could ever dispense with, much less
reject as useless, superfluous and injurious.PAGES 3 and 4
: —
An impudent and inexcusable attempt to reject to the injury of
humanity as erroneous and false the therapeutics which rests upon
experience the edifice erected by the most distinguished thinkers of
all ages and nations, which possesses an inestimable wealth of
experience and can show the votive tablets of millions of cured
patients, could only be exchanged for a system that should earn the
undivided approbation of all adepts in the art — a system which we
could hardly expect to get from gods, never from men.PAGE 10
: —
It is exceedingly unlikely that homoeopathy can certainly and
radically cure active inflammations without bleeding.PAGE
31
: — Magistral formulas and
mixtures devised by distinguished practitioners cannot be altered by
conscientious medical men.PAGE
40
: — Only a cold-blooded wretch
could see without indignation how Hahnemann
has ridiculed and disparaged the old school of medicine, and looked
down with pride and contempt upon those mighty spirits who have earned
immortal honours for their services to the art of preserving life.PAGE
54
: — The depreciation and
disparagement of a Hahnemann
and his confederates cannot rob us of the trophies we have won in the
treatment of acute and chronic diseases.PAGE
76
: — Among the higher and more
wealthy class of citizens where the efforts of nature to cure are
either too violent or too powerless for obvious reasons homoeopathy
seldom succeeds.PAGE
80
: — It is obvious that the
homoeopath, unless he secretly employs allopathic methods, cannot cure
certainly and radically those inflammations which are called acute,
phlogistic or sthenic.For in these cases commensurate bleeding can alone obviate the
excessive reaction, the application of cold to the surface of the body
alone can reduce the temperature to the normal, and a sufficient
quantity of medicines containing oxygen alone can restore the
disordered respiratory process, otherwise the disease will suddenly
paralyse all the functions like a narcotic poison, and life will go
out in ardent heat !Anyone who, in cases like this, where the life hangs by a thread
and the great danger demands instant and copious abstraction of blood,
plays with the life of a fellow-creature by the culpable neglect of
what is essential, and in the spirit ofHahnemann
employs neither general nor local bleeding, nor the absolutely
indispensable antiphlogistic method, has no claim to the name of a
conscientious physician.PAGE
81
: — The author can speak from
personal experience ; more than once his existence has depended solely
upon an immediate employment of venesection, and he has experienced
how every moment the blood pressed more and more upon the central
organs and increased the danger to the highest degree ; after the
commencement of the venesection, and while the foaming blood was
flowing, he at once felt a return of bodily and mental vigour to its
normal condition !Only those who have been in equal danger can realise how entirely
at such moments the life depends upon the lancet, and that no known
agent can replace venesection. Unfortunately cases are not wanting
where homeopaths have unexpectedly lost their patients by their
criminal neglect of bleeding, or have been the cause of their becoming
hopelessly paralysed.PAGE
82
: — If the followers of Hahnemann
boast that they have sometimes cured cases of acute inflammation…..
we are justified in
believing that they used deception and employed allopathic medicines.
Homoeopaths are fools, criminals and murderers.
PAGE
84
: — And how disastrous are the
results of the neglect of bleeding ! if the patient is not at once
killed, it is all the worse for him, for he falls into a rapid or slow
cachexia, which kills him in an exceedingly painful manner — and in
the face of this the homoeopathic school pretend to dispense with
bleeding ! they, forsooth, boldly and impudently declare that they
treat their patients, indifferent to consequences, according to the
caprice of a man whose sole delight is in contradictions, who,
untroubled by the evil he does, strives only to act in direct
opposition to the experience of 1000
years.Woe to those who suffer from inflammation of the brain, liver,
lungs, spleen or stomach, from croup, pleurisy, pericarditis,
peritonitis, enteritis, cystitis or metritis ! they will obtain no
relief or even alleviation from homoeopaths ; it is in these cases
that the homoeopath (as we have often observed) deceives the patient,
and in the anxiety of his heart resorts to allopathic treatment.We are always deeply distressed when we are assured that
inflammation of the lungs has been rapidly and agreeably cured by a
homoeopath without recourse to bleeding ! In such cases we always wish
that it may be a false report, and that some good-natured person has
been persuaded to testify to it.This amiable confession is indeed worthy of thanks, and deserves to
be noted.PAGE
61
: — Homoeopathy must appear to
every rational being to be the excrement of a mind whose brain has
suffered decomposition in the living body.We cannot here subjoin
Hufeland’s
opinions, as expressed in his Journal
in 1830,
and in a separate treatise, Die
Homöopathie, [Translated in
B. J. of H., Vol. XVI., p. 197.]
published, in 1831,
by Reimer
of Berlin, without a feeling
of sorrow at the unfortunate aberration of a man who had spent a long
life in disinterested labour for the benefit of humanity.PAGE
9
: — It may be permitted to an
old man to look at things in a light different from that in
which they are regarded by
eager youth.One is placed in quite a peculiar position, when one has already
lived through several ages of human life in the domain of science and
witnessed so many meteors arise, dazzle and disappear ; so many
systems, each of which professed to be the sole true one, thoroughly
exploded.PAGE
12
: — I made a declaration to
this effect in the Journal
für praktische Heilkunde in
1826
[known to the reader] : “Time will show.”PAGE
22
: — Among these are first the contraria
contrariis . No one will
deny that excess of blood can be removed by abstraction of blood.PAGE
30
: — But thereby the vital germ
of inflammation is not destroyed ; this blood-letting alone can
effect.PAGE
23
: — Who is there who has not
witnessed the excellent effect of purgatives….. of cutaneous
irritants, of issues ?….. the immense experience of thousands of
years.PAGE
38
: — How I wish my feeble voice
could be heard like thunder ! What, as regards chronic, not dangerous
cases, may be a permitted, temporizing, indifferent, easily remedied
treatment, in such cases becomes a
crime.He, who out of fanatical regard for his mode of treatment, when
life is at stake neglects to use the remedies which a thousand years’
experience has proved to be the best ; he who, for example, omits
blood-letting when the patient is in danger of being suffocated in his
own blood, in cases of pneumonia, apoplexy, encephalitis and generally
in inflammations of important organs, and death, or some chronic,
incurable disease ensues — such a one has the sin of
blood-guiltiness on his conscience, which if he do not immediately
feel it, will some day weigh painfully upon him, when the intoxication
of fanaticism shall have passed away — such a man is doomed by
justice to punishment, if not by an earthly, yet certainly by a higher
tribunal ; for he is a murderer by omission, just as much as he who
sees his neighbour in danger of drowning and refuses to pull him out
of the water.Simon, S.
Hahnemann,
Pseudomessias. Hamburg, 1830.PAGE
140
: — So for example, there can
be no doubt that, especially in cases of hereditary predisposition to
consumption, an occasional venesection and issues on the arm are the
best means of preventing its development and of retarding its
progress.Every experienced practitioner has had in his own practice
instances of this, and of such a convincing character that none of the
nonsense of the Organist [so he callsHahnemann]
can upset or even shake it.PAGE
297
: — If for instance, on rare
occasions, a considerable pneumonia recovers without venesection, that
is a rara avis, nigro
simillima cygno ;
for, as a rule, when an
energetic antiphlogistic treatment is omitted, the patient becomes
consumptive or soon dies of pulmonary apoplexy.
Simon
, Geist
der Homöopathie. Hamburg, 1833.
PAGE
25
: — We strive to moderate the
congestion of important organs, partly by diminishing the mass of
blood, and partly by agents which control the circulation and divert
it from the implicated organs.In
Simon’s
Anti-homöopath. Archiv (1835
Heft III. p. 120)
a physician says :” The reviewer would be afraid of doing something very
superfluous if he tried to demonstrate the universally admitted
advantages of bleeding, and the methodus evacuans.”
Without shedding of blood there is no salvation.
Every number of this journal, which worthily represents the
allopathic style of polemics, affords similar instances of views
expressed in the same tone.This is
Simon’s
opinion of Hahnemann’s
intellect : ” He is always the same unreliable ignoramus, both in
medicine and in science.” [Anti-hom.
Archiv, I., H. 2,
p. 25.]An anonymous writer,
Wunder
der Homöopathie. Leipzig, 1833.PAGE
60
: — True inflammation of the
lungs cannot be cured without venesection……PAGE
61
: — Homoeopathic swindlers and
accoucheurs with their confederates and accomplices.PAGE
64
: — Nature has many ways and
means of remedying disorders of the organism, and the investigation of
these ways and their application in suitable cases is the task of
medical science.Nature relieves plethora of blood by haemorrhages ; the
accumulation of peccant matters in, and the overloading of, the
alimentary canal she relieves by spontaneous evacuations without the
aid of art… She combats inflammation by suppuration and gangrene by
inflammation.PAGE 69 and 70
: —
That chronic diseases often follow the suppression of itch was well
known to all physicians, and Hahnemann
need not have transcribed 13
pages from the writings of others in order to prove it, unless his
love of lucre induced him to do this in order to increase his
honorarium.PAGE
111
: — This is the weak side of
homoeopathy ; it endangers the recuperation of the organs, the health
and life itself by its neglect of general and local blood-letting.At the end of this work we read :
” Let everyone now draw his own conclusions as to which side
truth lies on.” Dr.Zeroni,
Hofrath of the Grand Duke of Baden, Ueber
Heilkunde, Allöopathie and Homöopathie. Mannheim,
1834.PAGE
23
: — In this disease (scarlet
fever) the greatest dangers can be obviated by the employment of the
well-known and approved remedies of medicine, among which bleeding
occupies the first place.PAGES 25 and 26
: —
The author repeatedly speaks of the necessity of blood-letting in
scarlet fever.PAGE
27
: — Unprejudiced observation
shows that in dysentery all the symptoms of the disordered bowels
often disappear after venesection.PAGE
31
: — One or more venesections
are often necessary in dysentery.PAGE
32
: — Venesection is often
necessary in dysentery to save life….. the homoeopath allows the
patient to die.PAGE
35
: — True inflammations, if
left to themselves, end in death.PAGE
36
: — In true inflammatory fever
the patient will die if not bled in time.PAGE
37
: — In inflammation of the
lungs the patient cannot be saved except by large and repeated
blood-lettings.PAGES 39 and 40
: —
I once saw suppuration and adhesion follow pleurisy and blamed myself
for not having taken enough blood…. I advise homoeopaths to take
particular pains to learn the diagnosis of inflammation of the lungs
and pleurae and especially of inflammatory fever.PAGES 45 and 46
: —
In my experience patients after recovery from intermittent fever in
our climate should not leave the house for at least twenty days. [Hahnemann
recommends as much fresh air as possible.] — I have drawn attention
to the importance of venesection, purgatives and tonics.PAGE
63
: — It may now be generally
assumed that the homoeopaths have not the smallest knowledge of true
medicine….. the observations of the most remarkable men of the day
…. experience…. venesection.PAGE
76
: — The homeopath is not a
physician ; he does not know the means by which life may be saved.Conclusion : Let us hope that good sense will some day triumph over
medical prejudicesC. A.
Eschenmayer,
Professor in Tubingen. Die
Allöopathie und Homöopathie. Tubingen,
1834.PAGE
39
: — In cases of general
orgasm, depleting agents, and venesection must be quickly employed in
order to control reaction.…… There are material hindrances to the operation of the vital
force, such as accumulations of bile, mucus, lymph, worms and
excrements, which must be removed by emetics and purgatives.PAGE
61
: — When the action of a
pernicious irritation is diminished by bleeding, depleting agents and
blisters, who would look for a drug disease here ?The author pronounces an objective judgment on homoeopathy, and
acknowledges many of its advantages.PAGE
30
: — I agree with Hahnemann
that a great reduction to simpler principles is required, and
particularly to such as have a practical value, and that the whole
array of hypotheses should be abandoned to oblivion, &c.PAGE
37
: — How can the uncertainty
with regard to the action of drugs be removed ? Only by proving them
on the healthy, and then seeking for a principle by which they may be
applied in disease. Hahnemann
adopted this plan and discovered the principle. Only in this way can
we obtain specific medicines, and this is the goal for which medicine
should strive.
PAGE
47
: — As Newton was led to the
discovery of the law of gravity by the fall of an apple, so Hahnemann
after a few experiments was led to this thought : are not those drugs
which produce certain conditions in the healthy capable of curing the
same symptoms in the sick ?Many observations tended to confirm the truth of this thought, and
Hahnemann
now undertook the great experiment with a perseverance and
intelligence from which we cannot withhold our admiration.PAGE
100
: — The homoeopathists, and
chief among them their master, confess that they are unable to explain
how atoms of medicines still display striking effects on the organism.Still such is truly the case, and at least
400
physicians confirm it by their own experience.Even Dr.
Kopp,
the unprejudiced critic of homeopathy, is from his own experience so
convinced of the efficacy of the 30
th dilution that he is ready to testify to it on his oath.PAGE
38
: — Homoeopathy is so
thoroughly based on experience, that to deny this betrays either
ignorance, caprice, prejudice, indolence or fear of the new system.PAGE
134
: — Homoeopathy was founded by
a man who has the fullest right to lead physicians on a new path. It
has already formed a school which contains many hundreds of worthy
adherents, we should therefore allow it full scope.PAGES 98 and 99
: —
Confesses that before Hahnemann
physicians neglected diet.Prof. Dr.
Riecke,
also of Tubingen, gave an address on September 27th,
1833,
the birthday of the King, in which he expresses the following views : [Allg.
Anz. d. Deutschen, 1834,
p. 4288.]In time homeopaths will return to bleeding …… As homeopathy now
stands it is so replete with scientific contradictions, so full of
illogical conclusions, that it can have no future before it as a
system. It is nevertheless quite wrong to regard it as a phenonemon of
no importance.It has attacked allopathy on its weakest side, that is, its materia
medica, has drawn attention to the monstrous defects of ourmedicine, and a total reform can no longer be postponed …… As
yet no university has taken any notice of homeopaths.In Leipzic a private hospital was established. The student must
therefore study homoeopathy in its literature, which embraces more
than three hundred volumes for and against, none of which will be
found in the libraries of the universities. No mere ephemeral sect has
ever possessed such a literature.
The homoeopathic physician must absolutely prepare his drugs
himself, which considering their simplicity is not difficult.As all homoeopathic medicines have neither chemical reactions,
colour, taste nor smell, there are absolutely no conceivable means of
assuring oneself of their genuineness except by the physician
preparing them him-self.The preparation of his medicines by himself is therefore a
conditio
sine qua non for the
homæopathic physician.Prof. F. G.
Gmelin
(with Eschenmayer
and Riecke
the third Tubingen Professor who wrote about homoeopathy between 1834
and 1835)
Kritik der Principien der
Homöopathie. Tubingen, 1835.PAGE
63
: — It is a well-known fact
that a wound will not heal, takes on a bad appearance and may become
serious if round worms are present in the intestinal canal. When the
worms have been expelled it at once heals. Stoll
observed something similar during an epidemic of biliary fever.
Trifling wounds would not heal, excited serious symptoms, but at once
became benignant and healed when the bile was evacuated by means of an
emetic.PAGE
64
: — Very few physiologists
now-a-days deny that the blood is living matter ; nevertheless an
undue quantity of it is often a great obstacle to its proper
circulation and interferes with the free activity of the vital force.PAGE
92
: — In this way, for example,
laxatives relieve headaches and diuretics lung and heart affections.
As the greatest danger to the patient lies in the concentration of the
morbid action in one organ, its diffusion through several organs will
be of material benefit in serious cases.PAGE
60
: — The old school can pride
itself on having advanced to such perfection in the knowledge and
treatment of many serious diseases, incurable as a rule when left to
themselves, as, for instance, important inflammations, particularly of
the lungs and brain, acute hydrocephalus, croup, general syphilis,
&c., that it will certainly cure the great majority of these.PAGE
65
: — If the blood is excessive
in quantity or consistence, the circulation, and therefore life itself
is in jeopardy, just as the mechanical occlusion of the windpipe
instantly kills even the strongest man.In these cases spontaneous or artificial bleeding, as is well
known, restores to health an apparently dying man.Hahnemann
entirely denies that the blood is ever in excessive quantity.PAGE
243
: — Homoeopathy denies the
oldest and best recognised maxims, e.g., the employment of bleeding in
true inflammations, of emetics where there is excessive quantity of
bile.PAGE
239
: — In all medical systems,
however they may differ amongst themselves, the necessity of
blood-letting in true inflammations, and of emetics in biliousness is
recognised — homeopathy is almost ( ?) the only exception.
Prof. L. W.
Sachs,
director of the Dispensary at Konigsberg. Die
Homöopathie und Herr Kopp, Leipzig,
1834,
says (page 4)
that he had been asked by the Berlin Society for Scientific Criticism
to write a review of the works of both sides.PAGE
240
: — P. Frank’s
remark concerning the therapeutics of inflammation of the lungs
“vita sors unica ex cuspide haeret lanceolae,” is the simple
truth.PAGE
245-247
: — Kopp recounts a case of
speedy cure of pleurisy without bleeding, under homoeopathic
treatment.PACE 247
: —
I repeat that the circumstances were not as related by Herr Kopp,
and that the facts of the case were not as he represents them.Such cures without bleeding could not be scientifically explained,
therefore they did not occur.Judgment upon
Hahnemann
:PAGE
61
: — As is always the case with
limited intellects and ignorant men, he has not here, and has never
elsewhere, succeeded in emancipating himself from the barren
abstraction of his vain speculations.As he was previously acknowledged to be a man of ordinary sense, he
ought to be examined in reference to his morbid aberrations…. in
short he must be handed over to a sensible mad doctor, (conclusion
page26.)
Hahnemann
has always shown
himself deficient in logical reasoning.Hahnemann
‘s article in Hufeland’s
Journal, Bd.
4
[the reader knows it] shows his inability to fundamentally grasp a
simple idea, and pursue it consistently back and onwards ; and this
article is the best he ever wrote (ib. page 57).
Stieglitz
[Die
Homöopathie, Hanover, 1835,
p. 198.]
calls Prof. Sachs
” a highly talented author.”
Lockner
, Die
Homöopathie in ihrer Nichtigkeit, 1835.PAGE
34
: — The homoeopath will not
bleed as the numerous wretched victims everywhere where conscientious
homoeopaths are allowed to pursue their course uninterrupted show.
[This is an appeal for interference by the State].
Lesser
, Die
Homöopathie, Berlin, 1835.To the doctor of medicine, who in the year
1935
shall be professor of history in the medical faculty of Berlin, the
author dedicates this in the year 1835.
PAGE
34
: — Rational medicine (this
designation was first used by Hufeland
in his Journal in
1828,
in contradistinction to homoeopathy) not in order to characterise
homeopathy as irrational, but only to intimate that allopathy treats
logically and homeopathy by analogy [a distinction which the
homeopaths energetically repudiated.The homoeopath, Dr.
Attomyr,
held that for more than 100
years the word ” rational,” as now used by allopaths, was
derived from rations, e.g., as one now speaks of large or small
rations for horses ; this made the allopaths very angry.]Rational medicine guides the vis medicatrix, and seizes the reins
of unintelligent nature when it sees her wandering from the road and
causing disaster.PAGE
144
: — In order to prove that
homoeopathy neglects rational treatment the well-known passage of Hufeland
is quoted : ” He who neglects bleeding when life is at stake when
the patient is in danger of being suffocated in his own blood, and
death occurs, has the sin of blood-guiltiness on his conscience
deserves punishment by the law……. is a murderer by omission,”
&c.After the author has communicated some statistics referring to his
own military hospital, which “prove” that bleeding is
indispensable, he proceeds to quoteHahnemann’s
own words, [Allopathy. See
Lesser Writings, p. 830.]
to show his utter futility :It is incomprehensible how the allopaths can consider it a great
sin if ; in inflammatory diseases, e.g., pleurisy and pneumonia, blood
be not drawn off and that repeatedly and in large quantity. But if
this is an efficacious sort of method, how can they reconcile it with
the fact that of all who die in a year, a sixth part of the whole
number dies under them of inflammatory affections, as their own
statistics prove ? not one twelfth of them would have died had they
not fallen into such sanguinary hands [this agrees strikingly with the
subsequent statistics of the Vienna experiments], had they but been
left to nature, and kept aloof from that old pernicious art. Hundreds
and thousands more die miserably every year, the most promising youths
of the country, in the flower of their age — of wasting, consumption
and ulceration of the lungs.You have their deaths on your conscience ! for is there one among
you who has not laid the seeds for it by your fine mode of treatment,
by your senseless blood-lettings and your antiphlogistic appliances in
a previous inflammation of the lungs, which must thereby inevitably
turn into pulmonary consumption and prove fatal ?This irrational antipathic, barbarous mode of treating pneumonia,
by numerous venesections, leeches, and debilitating remedies (called
by you antiphlogistics) yearly sends thousands to the grave by fever
from deprivation of the forces, dropsy and ulceration of the lungs !
Truly an excellent privileged mode of quietly destroying wholesale the
very flower of mankind.
Prophecies of the dire effects of
discarding Phlebotomy.After the lapse of fifty years, the professor will agree with us
thatLesser
could have hit upon no more unfortunate plan of demonstrating the
utter futility of Hahnemann’s
doctrines than that of contrasting Hufeland’s
and Hahnemann’s
expressed opinions.PAGE 175
, the house physician
prescribes venesection ” the old lady,” neglects his advice
and consults a homoeopath ; naturally she subsequently died of
apoplexy ” in the first year of her homoeopathic career.”This is
apparently
the same lady mentioned in an article by Griesselich
in the Allgemeine homeopath.
Zeitg. [Vol. III., p. 40,
1883.]
Dr Philip Wilhelm Ludwig Griesselich (1804-1848)The report disseminated by South German Journals, that homoeopathy
is to be prohibited throughout the whole of Prussia in consequence of
an unfortunate case that occurred in Berlin, turns out from
information given byStiller
to be false.The death of an old lady who had long been treated with all manner
of stimulants and counter-irritants, who was treated first by HofrathRecher,
and then after much persuasion by Stüler,
and who suffered from asthma, afterwards complicated by a paralytic
stroke, for which the world would have wished to see her bled,
probably gave rise to this report, which was received with much
jubilation by the physicians here [Karlsruhe].PAGE
182
: — Lesser
continues : I know that there are acute diseases in which bleeding
must be resorted to as soon as possible and that very copiously in
order to save life…… I also know that, in many cases, if it- is
postponed for ten or twelve hours, nothing can repair its neglect ; I
know that occasionally large venesections, of 30
to 40
ounces (2-2’z
pounds) are of the greatest service, and that in many cases such
repeated bleedings may be necessary. I know, &c., &c.PAGE
184
: — When once the facetious Attomyr’s
youthful blood shall cease to effervesce so much, a less amount of
vapour will be generated in his brain-pan, and when he then comes to
his senses he will have recourse to blood-letting.PAGE
188
: — Many an inflammation
passes into mortification especially when treated by a homoeopath.Such unfavourable results ensue because either no blood is drawn,
or bleeding is not practised with sufficient vigour or sufficiently
early ……. Inflammatory diseases are no doubt not always followed
immediately by death, but death often ensues slowly by adhesions,
exudations, thickenings, contractions, indurations,……
obstructions, ulcerations, and other sequelae of the inflammatory
disease. All these evils would be avoided, and many tedious sufferings
and dyscrasias prevented, if the homoeopath would only bleed.PAGES 191, 218, 227, 234, and 243
,
contain similar statements about bleeding, which will not be without
interest for the professor of the year 1835.
PAGE 34
Note
: — Lesser shows that he agrees with Simon in regarding Hahnemann
as ” a gross ignoramus in medicine and in science.”In
1836,
Professor Most,
[Encyclopädie der Medicin, 2nd
edit., Leipzig, 1836,
p. 1045.]
in his article Homöopathie,
quotes Hufeland’s
words : ” Voice of thunder…… crime……murderers….. the
law should take cognisance of it….. and adds :” Thus
Hufeland.
May his warnings be taken to heart by every physician.”Up till the year
1840,
seldom did an
anti-homoeopathic work appear which did not violently reproach
homoeopathy for its rejection of blood-letting, &c.We will spare the reader the perusal of extracts from all of them.
We shall only cite a few more authors to show the kind of medical
arguments with which they sought to crushHahnemann.
Hofrath and Leibmedicus
Holscher,
of Hanover, speaks in 1840,
[Hannover’sche Annalen fur
diegesammte Heilkunde, Bd. V., p. 865.]
of “the tooth of time which
is eating away homoeopathy,” thinks that homoeopaths will return
to bleeding, and thereupon makes the following observation :” It is a consoling fact in the history of medicine that it
gives us so many proofs that we cannot be deprived of really useful
salutary measures, either by juggling or quackery, or the efforts of
isolated imposters or their dupes.”Another author, whom we must trouble the reader with, is Dr.
Leopold vonWindish,
first physician of the Royal Freetown Pesth, Director of the town
hospital of St. Roch, &c., &c. Schmidt’s Jahrbücher,
1836.
Vol. 9,
p. 224
:
Homeopaths all rogues and liars.
The frequently occurring acute rheumatic fevers and inflammations
of the chest require antiphlogistic treatment….. often in the same
patient at short intervals, eight or more copious venesections must be
performed [the interpretation of the word “copious” is left
to the imagination]…… The cruor is always covered by a thick and
tough coat [this was the scientific proof of the necessity of
bleeding]…..We should not be chary of bleeding, for we have seen
such patients, treated according to such fallacious and mischievous
doctrines [homoeopathy to wit] without blood-letting, die a frightful
death from suffocation [the author carefully omits reference to any
particular case].Verily I should despise myself, if I could be so lost to shame as
that I should communicate to the medical world fictitious cases
invented by myself and not observed at the bedside ; particularly in
our days when, owing to the unhappy schism introduced by homoeopathy
into medicine, not only every rational practitioner, who when it is
required bleeds his patients, is denounced, but also, owing to the
various opinions caused thereby among physicians as well as laymen of
all degrees, disputes, quarrels, enmities and even persecutions are
excited, and a war to the knife declared ; all of which would never
have occurred had not the founder of homoeopathy pretended to have
obtained the mastery over nature, into whose secrets no created being
has penetrated, to mould its eternal laws, which are unknown to him as
to all mortals, according to his fancy…… to mislead so many
educated and uneducated people by sophistry, falsehood and cunning.Can anything more dangerous or irrational be conceived than what
homoeopathy teaches concerning bleeding ?…… which condemns the
physician who, in sthenic inflammations of the parenchyma and pleura
of the lungs, and at a time when only a thin partition divides life
from death, can only save the patient by the lancet ? — which
confidently maintains that these diseases can be cured with greater
certainty and rapidity by its remedies without recourse to the
murderous fleam.I do not know which to admire most in this homæopathic doctrine,
its founder’s ignorance or his presumption…… As long as I do not
myself see these wonderful homoeopathic cures, I shall continue to
disbelieve them, the more so as I have seen in our hospital several
cases of inflammation of the lungs treated homoeopathically, that is
to say, without bleeding, perish miserably.Further on the author gives full rein to his rancorous hatred of
homoeopathy. He is really very angry with it.I cannot help thinking that these cases were not real pneumonias
but merely trifling rheumatic affections easily relieved by rest in
bed, warmth, restricted diet, &c. ; the laity, and especially
sensitive ladies, have been too ready to accept them for genuine coin,
of course not to the disadvantage of the homoeopaths.The insignificant cough accompanied by pain in the side or external
muscles of the chest yields to the warmth of bed and the administered
homœopathic powder….. without venesection, without leeches or
blisters, in short, without any
of the allopathic impedimenta ; naturally it is thought wonderful,
gold and praise are lavished upon the practitioner, who laughs in his
sleeve and congratulates himself on his skill in hoodwinking the
patient.
The sanguinary reign of Broussais.
Dr Broussais.What did the homoeopaths say to all this ?
They defended their views in innumerable works — they demanded an
opportunity of displaying their superior results in the hospitals.In vain ! ” You are charlatans, impostors, and swindlers !
” was the answer they got. “Experiments have been tried in Russia and lots of other places, and
their results have been unfavourable to you. Your ignorant presumption
knows no bounds.The State should proceed against this medical demi-monde who stifle
their consciences in the purse.” This is the sort of language
with which homoeopaths were met in allopathic literature.The same contest raged in America, England, Italy and France.
Broussais
reigned in
France.Opposed to this rational Parisian professor, were the rational
German professors, who, however, know how to bleed — innocent midges
!Most diseases were supposed to depend upon ”
gastro-enteritis,” which must be treated by blood-letting, as if
the blood in the patient’s body were the most virulent poison.The results were horrible :
In the year
1838,
Broussais
treated by his method 219
cases of inflammation of the lungs in his hospital ; of these 137
died, i.e., more than 62
per cent. ; the remainder recovered slowly, and had serious subsequent
diseases [Gaz. méd. de Paris, 1839,
Vol. V., p. 193.]
— nevertheless everything was done scientifically.The homoeopaths were never weary of protesting against the folly of
bleeding and excited in the minds of the public more and more
disinclination to submit to it, and the allopaths complained bitterly
of this. Here and there an allopath appeared as an opponent of
bleeding ; among theseKrüger-Hansen
was conspicuous.
All sense and worth
on the side of Allopathy.The expressed opinions of such authors were carefully collected by
the homoeopaths, and disseminated as confirming the soundness of their
practice.The political and literary papers were dominated as nowadays by the
allopathic majority, and were used by them to inculcate the doctrine
that everything coming from the mouths of homoeopaths was to be
disbelieved.They were all charlatans, swindlers, impostors or dupes, and
Hahnemann
was the devil himself. How could truth come from the mouths of such
people ?The most distinguished physicians, the professors, the Hof- and
Geheimraths, the Royal physicians, all the Universities, the Municipal
authorities, the State itself, in short, with few exceptions, ”
all the intelligence, learning, integrity, worth and honesty of the
world ” were on the other side.The trade in leeches was carried on wholesale, these animals were
bought and sold in hundreds of thousands, in millions ; in Paris at
the time ofBroussais
there was a regular leech exchange.Germany possessed a valuable export trade in leeches to England and
France,[Hufeland’s Journ., 1826,
St. 3,
p. 59.]
where all the universities and
learned corporations were in favour of bleeding.
Jean-Baptiste VAN HELMONT
(1577-1644 )In the preceding centuries van
Helmont
(1577-1644),
Sylvius
(1614-1672),
Bordeu
(1721-1771)
inveighed against excessive bleeding.
Franciscus Sylvius 1614-1672
Théophile de Bordeu (1722-1776)
Bontekoe
(1647-1685)
also entirely rejected venesection. He preferred diluting the
rebellious blood, and for this purpose recommended Chinese tea, which
was at that time a rarity.Fifty or more cups were to be taken daily ; the East Indian Company
should out of gratitude have voted him a handsome sum of money for
this.Latterly,
Brown
and his followers tried to mitigate the medical thirst for blood.
Nevertheless, the “scientific” treatment always kept the
upper hand.Common sense was in favour of bleeding. Bleeding from the nose
relieves congestion of the head, the relief is felt at once ; and so
it is with other bleedings.Is this not a very important hint to us from nature ? Must not the
physician follow the way indicated by nature ? And what will become of
medicine if we do not hold by what we see with our eyes and understand
with our reason ?What changes does blood undergo in inflammatory diseases ? It has
become morbid from excess of albumen ; the fibrin is morbidly
increased in quantity. It is the fibrin which obstructs the finer
vessels and retards the circulation and produces consolidation and
ultimately suppuration. Rational therapeutics imperatively requires
the diminution of the morbid albumen and of the pathological fibrin ;
this is treatment of the cause.What is the condition of the lung after death in a case of
pneumonia ? It is gorged with blood. What is the condition of the
heart ? It is full of thick, dark-coloured blood. The blood overloads
the organs, and the patient is suffocated in his blood. The organs
must be disembarrassed.These are the simple but true laws of science. Medicine, however,
must be tried by its results, says the professor, experience at the
bedside must support the deduction if it is not to remain an empty
theory. The professor, therefore, takes his audience to the bedside
and opens a vein ; the patient experiences a momentary sense of
relief.The proof of the correctness of the theory is thus afforded, it is
evident and clear. The evil after-effects are not considered ; the
subsequent course of the disease, especially if it be unsatisfactory
and not in accordance with the theory, is not seen by the clinical
professor, it is left to his assistants.Even as late as the
5th
decade of this century the ” scientific ” bleeding practice
was still flourishing.
Skoda
and Dietl,
of Vienna, were considered first rate clinical teachers. Skoda
was still a rational bleeder.In the year
1842,
[Oester. med. Wochenschrift, 1845,
No. 3.
Elwert, Beitrag zu den Rickschritten, &c., Bremen, 1840,
p. 24.]
he treated in the hospital at
Vienna fifty-nine pneumonias, of which sixteen died, though ”
free venesection usually gave relief.”Gradually a few voices made them-selves heard throwing doubt on the
indispensableness of bleeding, and these voices increased in number
every year not without meeting with ” rational ” and violent
opposition.
Dietl
was one of the most
decided opponents of venesection.Copyright
© Robert Séror 2006.
