resemble everything of which our senses can take cognisance-we can destroy, but we cannot imitate them. "There is no agent or power in nature," says Hahnemann, "capable of morbidly affecting man in health, which does not, at the same time, possess the power of curing certain morbid states." But what is this but another mode of expressing Shakspeare's words, "In poison there is physic?" Now," continues Hahnemann, "since the power of curing a disease and that of producing a morbid affection in persons in health, are inseparable from each other in all medicines, and that these two powers proceed manifestly from one and the same source, that is to say, from the property which medicines have of modify cular system, the heart and blood-vessels are to a great extent a Hydraulic apparatus, as you may prove, by tying an artery or compressing a vein; the blood, in the first instance, being arrested in its course from the left chamber of the heart; in the second, being stopped in its progress to the right side of it. What are assimilation, secretion, absorption, the change of the matter of one organ into another -of the fluids into the solids, and vice versá but operations of Vital Chemistry, and the Brain and Nervous System but the Vito-Galvanic or Vito-Electric apparatus by which these operations are effected? That the human body obeys laws purely physical, is still further exemplified by the fracture of a bone or the rupture of a tendon-and the reunion of both is the resulting dynamically the state of man; and that, of secretion under the influence of this Vital Electricity acting through the nerves supplying those parts. If, during childhood, the great nerve of a limb be paralysed, the growth of that limb becomes arrested, not only in its breadth, but length. The nerves, then, are the moving powers, and if you cut or divide them, neither a broken bone nor a ruptured tendon can reunite, so as to become useful. And do we not see analogous effects taking place in every kind of matter under the influence of the galvanic wire? By that we produce the decomposition and recomposition of bodies-various changes of motion and temperature-of attraction and repulsion of atoms-which, if we break the chain of the wire's continuity, immediately cease to take place, but which recommence the moment the wires are again brought into contact. That a living man can in an oven defy a degree of heat that would broil a piece of dead flesh, is perfectly true; but to what is this owing, but to the greater power of attraction which the particles of his body maintain to themselves in their living than dead state? Nevertheless, the degree of heat may be so raised as to decompose portions even of the living body, and finally reduce the whole to a state incompatible with life. And may not the electric state of all bodies, gold and silver for example, be similarly influenced and altered? How, then, can the phenomena embraced by the term LIFE be said to "resemble nothing which does not live?" They consequently, also, these cannot act on the diseased after any other inherent natural law than that which presides over their action on individuals in health; it follows from this, that the power of the medicine which cures the disease in the sick is the same as that which causes it to excite morbid symptoms in the healthy." That the strictly Medicinal substances all kill and cure upon one and the same principle, few will dispute who have listened to these Lectures. But the property which medicines have of modifying dynamically the state of man" is merely a Greek expression, signifying that they possess a moving principle. In this there is nothing new, for Shakspeare, as we have seen, said the same thing in good English two centuries before || Hahnemann was born. In the course of my next lecture, Gentlemen, I shall have the pleasure of demonstrating to you that medicinal substances can only disturb the existing temperature and motion of any organ or atom of the body, by the Electrical or Galvanic Force which they exert upon it through a nervous medium. Of this truth Shakspeare and Hahnemann were equally ignorant. "As soon," proceeds Hahnemann, "as we have under our eyes the table of the particular morbid symptoms produced in a healthy man by different medicinal substances, it only remains to us to have recourse to pure experiments, which alone are capable of determining what are the medicinal symptoms (or the symptoms produced by the medicine in the healthy subject) which ALWAYS arrest and cure certain morbid symptoms (i. e. diseases) in a rapid and durable manner, in order to know beforehand which of those medicines, the particular symptoms of which have been studied, is the surest method of cure in each given case of disease." all of which you are aware they sometimes do. When you order cold bathing, can you tell beforehand whether your patient shall come out all in a glow, happy and comfortable; or chilly and shivering, and not to be comforted? Till you can do this, you cannot with certainty tell by what given means you are to achieve a cure in any given case of disease. So far the art of physic is, and ever will, I fear, remain imperfect. The principle, Similia similibus curentur, or Like cures like, which Hahnemann assumes as his own discovery, was known not only to medical men long before his day, but was acted upon by the vulgar time immemorial. A passage which Shakspeare puts in the mouth of Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet, is a proof that it was practised at the period he wrote. Tut, man! one fire burns out another's burning, To the same purpose he says in Hamlet :- So here we have over again the exploded doctrine of SPECIFICS, or remedies "which ALWAYS arrest and cure" certain morbid symptoms! The whole sentence is somewhat confused and parenthetical; but from it and other passages you may, nevertheless, see that while Hahnemann obtained a glimpse, and a glimpse only, of the principle of unity upon which remedies act, not only was he ignorant of the real nature of their power, but also of the utter impossibility of predicating in any one case of disease, what remedy would certainly achieve amelioration, far less a cure. This sentence he never could have written, had he known that every medicinal power, being a Repulsive Force in one individual and an Attractive Force in another, may act inversely in any two cases of the same disease. If there be a truth more sure than another in By desperate appliances are relieved. physic, it is this, that until we have absolutely tried a medicinal agent in any given case, we What is all this but similia similibus curentur ? cannot possibly tell whether it shall be a remedy You see, then, that Hahnemann, instead of or an aggravant in that particular case. No, being a great discoverer, as he wishes to make Gentlemen, the ague-patient may come before out, is only at the most a Reviver of an old you; but whether arsenic or bark, opium or principle. Yet upon this principle, strange to prussic acid, shall arrest his disease, you can say, neither he nor his followers act! They no more with certainty predicate, than you say one thing and do another; for while they can determine beforehand whether harsh or declare their readiness to cure by powers havsoft measures, or either, will reclaim a refrac- ing precisely the same action as the causes, tory child, or subdue an ungovernable steed. how can they reconcile with that statement Trial and experience are your only guides. their practice of treating grave disease-disease This much, however, you may, in the majority proceeding from a grave agency, by the dissiof cases of any given disease, predict, that milar agency of infinitesimal physic! What is such agents as have generally a definite power "infinitesimal" Physic? It is the division of for good or for evil over definite parts of the a grain of opium, not into quarters, sixteenths, body, are the class from which you are to or sixtieths,-no, nor into hundreds or thouexpect most benefit in a disease of such parts sands even,-but into millions and ten mil--but which of them, the experience of that lions! And rules and regulations for its proper case itself can only tell you; for how can you division into such parts are actually given in know without such individual experience that Homœopathic books! A grain of opium, or opium will vomit, rhubarb excite epilepsy, or the common dose of this drug, is to be conipecacuan cause asthma in particular cases? | verted, forsooth, into medicine enough for ten thousand men; and upon the same principle, || miracles effected by Animal Magnetism. doubtless, a loaf of bread may be made a dinner for an army! Gravely to argue the case e-if grave disease could be caused by the millionth or decillionth part of a grain of our common medicinal substances, what apothecary's apprentice, who must be constantly rubbing, shaking, and inhaling medicines in this comminuted state, could possibly enjoy a day's health ?—and yet it is by such doses-if opaque matter reduced to invisible minuteness can be termed such-that diseases are to be cured! Where, then, is the Similarity of remedy to cause in the Homoeopathic treatment? In his " Organon," Hahnemann tells us, that almost all chronic diseases are the result of a morbific miasm, which he calls the Psoric, or the itch principle; and this, he says, and two other evil miasms, the Syphilitic and the Scrofulous, may be looked upon as the parents of all the diseases of man!-Mere phantoms, Gentlemen, of an excited imagination-mere crotchets of a mind clouded with the ghosts and goblins of those nurseries for grown-up children, the German Universities. Of his utter ignorance of the true motions and changes of the organic matter of the body, whether in health or disease, and of the thousand morbific causes visible and invisible that daily occur in life, there could be no greater proof than this announcement; you who are no longer in the dark have only to hold up the torch of truth to dash his day-dream to the dust! When I first heard of the Homœopathic doctrine of infinitesimal physic, I felt tempted to believe that the whole was a weak invention of those enemies to medical truth, the medical reviewers, knowing, as I do, the trickery and misrepresentation in which these gentry indulge when acting on behalf of the professional tradesmen whose mercenaries they are. His own volume has, however, undeceived me; his own Organon developes the number of shakes and rubs by which the millionth part of a grain of quinine may become one of the deadliest poisons, and the ten millionth part of a grain of opium, a medicine to cause you to sleep your last sleep! But Hahnemann is a disciple. of Mesmer, and he tells you to watch the Do that, he says, and you will no longer doubt the cures which may be achieved by infinitesimal physic. Now, so perfectly ready am I to believe what he or his disciples may tell me upon this point, that it is a medical maxim of mine, "Anything may do anything, and anything may not do anything," according to the ignorance and credulity of the patient, if it be a charm; or according to the constitution and exigencies of the case, if it be a physical agent. In which light infinitesimal physic is to be viewed, you, Gentlemen, may decide at your leisure. What but Faith or a Fancy to try could induce people to put themselves under the hands of a homoeopathic practitioner? The influence which Confidence, simply, may produce on the body, we have proved by what took place at Breda, in 1625. During the siege of that city, three or four drops of a hocus pocus medicine were said to be sufficiently powerful to impart a healing virtue to a gallon of water! The thing was believed, and the sick immediately took up their beds and walked. To tell the sensible part of mankind that you can cure any disease with the millionth or decillionth part of a grain of opium, bark, or aconite, would only excite their ridicule; but you know how little will influence the minds of the multitude, who, being ignorant, are naturally weak and credulous. You remember what I told you at my last lecture. The same reparative power of nature by which a cut finger is healed, will cure nineteen out of twenty cases of most diseases, without the assistance of any physic at all. Such cases, when treated homœopathically, that is, with hope and humbug, are of course set down as wonderful cures; and wonderful they are, indeed, when compared with the results of the apothecary-system,-a system by which every similar disorder, for the most part, is aggravated through the interference of the routinists, who, partly by playing on the fears of the patient, and partly by making his stomach an apothecary's shop, generally contrive to prolong the case so long as the subject of it will continue to act according to their rules. Here the homoeopathic similia similibus, Hahnemann has done both he adopts it as his motto, but practises on a principle the reverse. What does it mean? Power opposes power. Did we require to be told this by Hahnemann? The doctrine, Like cures like, was so obvious as to be a popular axiom in every age-but it is only the minor of a major proposition, a fragment of the great Abstract Law-ANY GIVEN POWER, APPLIED IN A PARTICULAR DEGREE AND AT [On the publication of the first edition of this work, the Homœopathists accused me of not understanding their principles. My answer to that was, that I had at least read their own books, and if I was such a fool as not to be able to understand their writings, they were greater fools not to write more intelligibly. "Your true no-meaning puzzles more than sense!" doctor may safely retort on the old practitioner. || drive by truth or over it." In the case of With the mass of mankind the homoeopathist has only to affect a superior knowledge of the visible and invisible world, speak confidently of the cures, real or supposed, effected by his treatment, and talk mysteriously of the rubs and shakes by which he imparts a magical or magnetic virtue to his infinitesimal physic. Should a doubt remain, he may hint at the wonders of Electricity or Galvanism; for a little mixture of truth will make his mummery go down better-just as a little apparent candour will make you more readily give credence to a calumny or a scandal. In both cases a complete want of principle is the chief element of success on the part of the impostor-and faith the weakness or strength of the dupe. If the former only get the latter to listen to him, he may inoculate him with a fancy to try-that of itself implies faith. However small at first, it will be sure to increase by thinking and talking about the new method. A little opposition is a good thing sometimesthe patient gets heated up by it. If he has a tendency to improve, he will improve the faster if he finds himself deceived, he will conceal the fact, as he would be sorry that others should not be as great fools as himself. Patients of the class who consult Homœopathic practitioners, generally collect together, talk, discuss, and theorise till they work themselves into a kind of Fever-such fever, or rage, by exciting and animating them, will, in many cases, be infinitely more beneficial to their constitution, than the draughts and mixtures usually inflicted,-not, remark, so much on account of the necessities of the patient as the needy condition of the routine practitioner. Having once become partisans and disciples, they next find a pleasure in making converts. With this object before them, they work body and mind in the cause. Can you wonder they should, in many cases, get well by the new mode of life to which they have taken? This, Gentlemen, is the secret of any success obtained in the course of the Homœopathic treatment. Like the French "médecine expectante," it is a system of placebo. What is new in it is not true; what is true is not new. Savage Landor says rightly, "most disputants Since the publication of the second edition. they have changed their tune, and say I have borrowed from Hahnemann-to which I reply, -rich men seldom borrow, and never steal. If the homoeopathists will be so good as to put in print the instances in which I have neglected to acknowledge anything I have borrowed from them or others, I will very much thank them for reminding me of what is right.] LECTURE IX. PHYSIC AND POISON IDENTICAL-REMEDIAL MEANS GENTLEMEN, From the History of Medicine we learn, that after Charms came Simples. To the list of our remedial means, chance and experience successively added Poisons. "Wherefore," asked Pliny, "has our mother, the Earth, brought forth so many deadly drugs, but that, when wearied with suffering, we may employ them for suicide?" If such was the opinion of the polished Roman, can you wonder at the belief of the rude Carib, and the still ruder Boschman, that poisons were sent them for the destruction of their national enemies? The friends of the Chronothermal System see the matter in another light. In common with the believers of the Christian creed, they assume, that the beneficent Creator of all things sent nothing into the world for the destruction of his creatures. By the motion of men's hands the Pyramids were produced. The same motion, acting reversely, might make them vanish from the plains where they have stood the wonder of centuries. If the identical power, then, which may render a temple or a tower a heap of ruins, applied in another fashion to the materials composing it, first erected the fabric-why may not the motive power of a physical agent, which, wrongly administered, has destroyed the life of man, be employed, in a right direction, to preserve his existence? "Philosophy, wisdom, and liberty, support each other; he who will not reason is a bigot -he who cannot is a fool-and he who dares not is a slave!"-[Sir William Drummond.] The base and selfish, of all ages, have ruled mankind by terror. By this the priest has trampled down reason; the despot, the rights of a people. To this passion the charlatan appeals, when he sneeringly speaks of particular substances as poisons, the better to distinguish them from his own nostrum of universal and absolute safety! What is the real meaning of the word poison? In its popular sense, it signifies anything in nature, that, in a comparatively small quantity, can shorten, or otherwise prove injurious to life. It is, then, a term of relation-a term depending entirely on degree, volume, or scale. But what is there under heaven, when tried by this test, that may not become a poison? Food-firewater-air-are these absolutely innocuous? The glutton dies of the meal that gorged him; is that a reason why we should never eat? The child is accidentally involved in the flames of a furnace; must we, on that account, deny ourselves the warmth of the winter-hearth ?— Air has chilled, and water drowned; must we, therefore, abandon air and water?-Yet, this is the mode in which certain wiseacres reason on medicine! We must cease, according to these praters, to use opium medicinally opium which, in one degree, has so often given relief to suffering; because the suicide, in another, has settled his earthly account with it! We must repudiate the curative effects of arsenic in Ague; because, with a thousand times the quantity adequate to that desirable end, the cut-throat and the poisoner have despatched their victims by arsenic!-We must linger life away in the agonies of gout and rheumatism, instead of resorting to colchicum, which has so often cured both; because people have been accidentally destroyed by colchicum in a volume never given for either of these diseases! How many distressing complaints has not prussic acid cured or alleviated; yet, we must abjure its benign influence in this way, forsooth; because love-sick maidens, and men maddened by misfortune, have ended their lives with prussic acid, in a quantity which nobody ever dreamt of giving for any disease whatever! By the same enlightened Philosophy, we must not pat a child's head, because a blow might knock it down! Gentlemen, need I tell you, that the whole of these agents, in their medicinal doses, are as safe as rhubarb in its medicinal dose; and safer than wine to some people, in the quantity usually taken at table. But granting that, even in their medicinal doses, each and all of these substances, in common with everything in existence, occasionally produce the temporary inconvenience of disagreeable feeling,-is that any reason why we should abandon their use, in the cure of diseases attended with feelings for the most part more sensibly disagreeable! What on earth, worth accomplishing, was ever accomplished without a similar risk? -We cannot cross a thoroughfare without the risk of being jostled-ergo, we must never cross a thoroughfare! Gentlemen, ubi virus ibi virtus, is as true in most things as in medicine. Poison and Physic are, in truth, ONE and IDENTICAL, for any earthly agent may |