OF THE AUTHOR. 
WHAT IS 
MODERN HOMEOPATHY? 
BY 
S. W. nWETMORE, M.D., 
FORMERLY PROF. OF DESCRIPTIVE AND SURGICAL ANATOMY IN MEDICAL DEPARTMENT OF 
WOOSTER UNIVERSITY, CLEVELAND, OHIO, AND FOR MANY YEARS DEMONSTRATOR OF 
ANATOMY IN MEDICAL DEPARTMENT OF UNIVERSITY OF BUFFALO ; MEMBER 
ERIE COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY, BUFFALO MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, 
ETC., ETC., ETC., ETC. 
REPRINTED FROM THE AMERICAN OBSERVER. 
DETROIT, MICHIGAN : 
PUBLISHED BY EDWIN ALBERT LODGE, M.D., 
OFFICE OF AMERICAN OBSERVER. WHAT IS MODERN HOMCEOPATHY? 
A PAPER READ BEFORE THE BUFFALO MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, 
SEPTEMBER 4, 1877, BY 
S. W. WETMORE, M.D. 
Mr. President and Gentlemen.—Some writer (his name es- 
capes me) says, “If one volunteers to sing or speak before a 
company, his efforts are open for criticism ; not so if he appear 
by request.” I may justly hope, therefore, for some indulg- 
ence while considering the theme and responding to the inter- 
rogation of “ What is Modern Homoeopathy ?” 
When I began to read medicine in 1852 I had scarcely 
crossed the threshold of my preceptor’s office when I heard him 
respond to that interrogation in this wise : “ It is a d d 
humbug, and I’d kick any d d fool out of my office who 
would have the audacity to advocate it.” 
A few days later the then great surgeon, Prof. Horace 
Ackley, M.D., of Cleveland, Ohio, corroborated this statement 
with great vehemence, uring more potent and a greater number 
of adjectives. 
I looked upon these men as expounders of the law, as ex- 
ponents of the great truths and principles which should guide 
me in my chosen profession. Anything and everything advo- 
cated or condemned by them was stored away in memory’s 
granary as facts unchangeable. Hence I was the better pre- 
pared to listen to the inuendoes, yes, satire, ridicule and con- 
demnation of homoeopathy by the faculty, at Ann Arbor, Mich- 
igan, where I attended lectures in 1857. During that long six 
months’course almost daily I heard it, asall medical students hear 
it, denounced bitterly as an atrocious imposition upon the credu- 
lity of mankind. One Professor, with no little showof philosophic 
bearing, would dissipate it into thin air by his mock analysis ; 
another would give Voltaire’s famous definition, “The art of 
amusing the patient whilst nature cures the disease,” while an- 
other would jocosely laugh at the infinitesimal medicinal 
moonshine, and declare it was as evanescent as Broussaism and 
would vanish like an ignns fatnns. My class-mates, all my as- 
sociates, the students en masse, e’en the atmosphere I breathed 
in and about the college, all were impregnated with anti-simi- 
lars. In short, during my entire pupilage I heard but one 
verdict, “ a gigantic humbug” a doctrinal monstrosity, and those 
who practiced it uneducated impostors. So time passed on, as 
time had gone, and with it my old prejudicial feelings which re- 
ceived a new impetus by listening to the lectures of the venerated 
Charles A. Lee, in 1861, in the University of Buffalo. On re- 
viewing the state of my mind at that period I remember that I 2 
WHAT IS MODERN HOMOEOPATHY? 
looked upon the old Professor as almost a monomaniac upon 
the subject of infinitesimals, while his colleagues seemed to take 
it jocosely and were much more liberal and rational, and evinced 
much more charity for what they seemed to term a harmless 
mode of treating disease. 
The following spring I bore away my hard earned diploma, 
proud of my alma mater, and full of 1'esprit du corps, ready to 
reiterate all I knew, and much that I did not concerning this 
subject matter, losing no time in doing so at every favorable 
opportunity, to my pupils, my private, classes, and in the dis- 
secting room of this college, for seven years, although I knew 
nothing of homoeopathy save that which I had gleaned from 
Pereira’s Materia Medica, volume one, page 168, I had never 
read one of its journals, or even conversed with one of its phy- 
sicians. I positively knew nothing of that which I condemn- 
ed, the measure and cause of my intolerance was my ignorance, 
as is the case of nineteen-twentieths of the physicians of our 
school throughout the globe to-day. The traditional teach- 
ings of our masters as well as the power of custom and fashion, 
or society’s opinion seemed to have held sway over our will to 
investigate that which was seemingly absurd. When we are 
to the world most wise we are really most replete with folly, 
and our ignorance struts in the garb of knowledge. We are 
too apt to allow some one else to think for us ; to think under 
others’ supervision. We should not take everything at second 
hand, but think, act, try, analyze and experiment for ourselves 
more. 
During the two winters it was my pleasing duty to teach 
Anatomy in the medical department of the University of Worces- 
ter, at Cleveland, Ohio, I heard more of homoeopathy, saw more of 
it, and realized its importance and status in society more than 
ever before. When I returned to my practice in the spring of 
1872 I resolved to investigate for myself. I procured Hempel’s 
work, read its preface, introduction, theory, etc., etc., with no 
little pleasure, but as soon as I had read his modus operandi of 
preparing remedies, attenuations, triturations, doses, etc., I 
threw down the book with that too familiar adjective, more 
forcible than euphonious, though uttered by that famous old 
surgeon, my preceptor, Dr. Sherwood, many years ago. I 
averred that Hahnemann must have been an old idiot, or a 
monomaniac, and his followers must needs be knaves or fools, 
for it was certainly the chief of humbugs. Without any fur- 
ther investigation we laid homoeopathy on the shelf, where M. 
Andral and Sir James Y. Simpson, Hooker, and Holmes had 
laid it many years before (and I have reason to think now with 
about the same amount of reasoning). I was taught to think 
that they were great men, and I was willing to adopt their con- 
clusions and think as they did, for I could not, through any 
known mode of reasoning, make it appear obvious that the law 
of similia similibus curantur was a correct one, and that an in- 
finitesimal dose of a known drug could have any utility what- 
ever in the treatment of disease. Dr. John Hunter used to WHAT IS MODERN HOMOEOPATHY? 
3 
say to his pupils, “don’t stop to think, but try, act, experiment, 
and analyze for yourselves.” Other great philosophers, like 
Bacon, Bartlett, and Hugh Miller, have taught us that “ no a 
priori reasonings or considerations could establish either the 
truth or falsity of alleged facts.” Verification or confutation 
can only be established by experiment. Fear and incompre- 
hensibility have kept us, like the old mariner, for many years 
hugging the barren shores of tradition. Descartes kindled a 
furious war against the theory of gravitation on the ground that 
it was incomprehensible, not knowing how bodies not in con- 
tact could affect each other. The opponents of Copernicus 
maintained that the earth stood still, otherwise a stone would 
not strike at the foot of a tower when let fall from the top. 
Whoever dares to hold an opinion of his own is considered and 
declaied an outcast, a pariah, but where should we stand to-day 
in astronomy if Galileo, Keppler, and Newton had not been of 
a different mind from Ptolemy ? Forced as I was to recognize 
the possibility of experimental research opening to my preju- 
diced mind the mysteries of this then supposed moonshine doc- 
trine of similars, I demurred on account of its preposterous 
character, and from that time up to within a short time I have 
been playing the part of a blind horse on a treadmill. Who 
among us has not at times been forced to give homoeopathy a 
thought ? What physician of ordinary observation has not 
seen favorable results under homoeopathic management that 
were considered hopeless cases in their own hands ? It is true 
we have had many, many, very many like cases with like re- 
sults that they had considered incurable, but “ let us give the 
devil his due.” In the one case too little medicine, in the 
other too much, might have been given ; extremes in both 
methods of treatment are not uncommon. That we, as rational 
prescribers, give too much medicine daily does not admit of 
cavil or doubt. I believe that nine-tenths of the cases that we 
are called to see will get well without any medicine at all, only 
requiring good nursing, dietetic and hygienic measures dictated 
by good sound sense assisting the vis medicatrix natura. 
Show me the practitioner of five, ten, fifteen, or twenty 
years’ experience who has not, time without number, become 
disgusted with drugs, having lost confidence in them and in his 
own ability, and who has not had a constant routine of disap- 
pointments and errors, and I will show you one who has given 
very little medicine. We are constantly floating on a sea of 
doubt and groping in the dark. When I began the practice 
of medicine I supposed it was a fixed science, as certain in 
practice as it appeared true in theory. I thought we had fifty 
specifics for every disease. I know now we have a hundred 
diseases without a specific. Magendie says “ Medicine is no 
science.” “ The science of medicine,” says Sir Astley Cooper, 
“ is founded on conjecture.” Sir John Forbes declares that in 
a large majority of cases diseases are cured by nature in spite 
of the doctors. Dr. Mason Good said of medicine that it was 
a jargon, and had destroyed more lives than war, pestilence 4 
WHAT IS MODERN HOMCEOPATHY 1 
and famine combined. Old Dr. Holcombe thought that doc- 
tors were blind men and struck at disease in the dark, and lucky 
if they killed the malady and not the patient. 
Who does not admire the remark of the dying Dumoulin, 
“that he left the two greatest physicians behind him, diet and 
water ? ” and who does not concur in the exclamation of Frap- 
part, “ Medicine poor science, doctors poor philosophers, pa- 
tients poor victims:” Having thus digressed, let us return to 
the question, what is the Modern Philosophy of Homeopathy} 
According to Holcombe, “ it is the cure of a natural disease by 
producing a similar artificial disease in the same parts and tis- 
sues, which can only be done by drugs or remedies which pro- 
duce similar symptoms; hence, similia similibus curantur, or 
‘ like cures like.’ ” 
The idea of similars was enunciated long before the Spar- 
tan republic in a book on the relations of medicine to man, at- 
tributed to Hippocrates, and at any rate the product of a re- 
mote period. The sentence is in original Greek, and says, 
“ sick people are cured by remedies which produce analagous 
diseases.” To one who has carefully traced the progress of 
medicine through the various chronological periods from the 
days of Galen to the present time it will appear obvious that 
not unfrequently diseases have been cured in accordance with 
the law of similars, or by remedies which in health are capable 
of producing analagous maladies. 
Dr. Holcombe says, “ This is the fundamental idea of ho- 
moeopathy, its true basis, its corner stone, its only essential ele- 
ment. All questions of doses, pellets, globules, tinctures of 
dynamizations, of what Hahnemann said, of what this or that 
disciple said or did, of imagination, diet, etc., etc., have no log- 
ical bearing on the question, and are altogether collateral and 
impertinent.” The principle of homoeopathy is independent 
of the dose. The best dose can only be adjusted by observa- 
tion and experiment. An ounce of sulphate of magnesia given 
in a case of diarrhoea is as homoeopathic as if it was given in 
grain doses. In the treatment of ordinary diseases, however, 
doses so small that they would be entirely harmless to a healthy 
system, and difficult of analysis by our ordinary methods have 
certainly been proven by experiment to be most curative in the 
treatment of diseased conditions. This may not appear so 
strange when we take into consideration “all the great opera- 
tions of nature, those of heat, light, chemical action, etc., and 
those also of the human frame, especially the wonderful modi- 
fications of the nerve fluid, and the physio-chemical changes of 
nutrition, are carried on by microscopic, atomic, and infinitesi- 
mal movements, entirely transcending our imagination.” 
“ There are many natural agencies, malaria, effluvia, etc., 
which cannot be seen, felt, weighed or analyzed by man, that 
produce the most powerful morbid impressions on the system, 
so gradually, and insensibly too, that man at the time is wholly 
unconscious of their action. It is not unreasonable to suppose 
that drugs may act in a similar manner, nothing being felt by WHAT IS MODERN HOMCEOPATHY ? 
5 
the patient during the gradual removal of the disease. The 
modern discoveries in physical science help us not only to real- 
ize the existence and powers of infinitesimal atoms of medi- 
cine, but they give us some information of how they act. It is 
conceded that all the operations of nature, the beginnings of 
life, take place on an infinitesimal scale. Light causes the 
chemical changes in the ultimate cells which determine the or- 
ganization of plants. Now the wave length of each ray of 
light is many millionths of an inch, and thousands of millions 
of vibrations of that wave of light occur in a single second. Each 
individual vibration of that infinitesimal wave contributes its 
share to the grand result, the growth and forms of the vegeta- 
ble kingdom. Not one vibration could be changed or lost 
without affecting the first steps of organization, and thereby 
modifying the whole final issue. From this fact we easily pass 
to the corresponding idea that the homoeopathic atom may 
start or excite in the diseased ultimate molecule infinitesimal 
changes of nutrition which shall quietly and imperceptibly 
affect organic movements of which we see only the beneficent 
result.” 
It would seem ftom consulting the best authority in this 
school that in the treatment of disease homoeopathy has its 
limitation. It cannot always be brought into requisition from 
the fact that it only professes to cure those morbid conditions 
which can be imitated on the healthy body. It does not claim 
to be complete in itself, but simply a reform in the department 
of therapeutics, that homoeopathy begins where allopathy ends, 
and therefore the homoeopath should be thoroughly acquainted 
with every system of medicine. Holcombe defines a homoeo- 
pathic physician “ to be one who uses the surgical, obstetrical, 
mechanical and chemical measures of the old school, and in 
the treatment of disease is guided by the homoeopathic law.” 
This law seems to have been partially recognized by several 
distinguished modern writers of our school. The first citation 
is from Trosseau. “ There is every proof that local inflamma- 
tions are frequently cured by the direct application of irritants, 
which cause a similar inflammation, the artificial irritation sub- 
stituting itself for the primitive one.” Trosseau, ct Pidoux 
traits dc tlicrapeutique, tome one, page 470. Upon this ground, 
(says Dr. Simon’s Cyclopedia of Practical Medicine, volume 
four, page 375.) ‘‘we are disposed to suggest the use of strych- 
nine in tetanus, not that we have become followers of Hahne- 
mann, but that it is a simple and undeniable fact that disorders 
are occasionally removed by remedies which have the power of 
producing similar affections.” “ The same medicine may pro- 
duce opposite effects in health and disease,” says Wood. 
“ Thus, cayenne pepper, which produces in the healthy fauces 
redness and burning pain, acts as a sedative in the sore throat 
of scarlet fever. A concentrated solution of acetate of lead 
acts as an irritant, while the same solution very much diluted 
will act as a sedative.” Wood’s Therapeutics, vol. I., page 32. 
As philosophical practitioners we all treat diseases homce- 6 
WHAT IS MODERN HOMOEOPATHY ? 
opathically every day without giving it a thought of the ho- 
moeopathic law. A few of the instances might be enumerated 
in passing, like the ordinary applications to granular eye-lids, 
the ordinary collyria, nitrate of silver to ulcerated throats, or 
surfaces anywhere, the use of blisters, iodines, caustics in vari- 
ous conditions, are all examples in point. It is obvious that 
they produce a similar artificial disease, and the return to 
health is the result. It is supposed that every drug has cer- 
tain affinities for certain organs and tissues of the human sys- 
tem, and it has been proven that “ what nitrate of silver is to 
the eye or throat, belladonna is to the brain, cantharides to the 
kidneys, arsenic to the stomach, tartar emetic to the lungs, cal- 
omel to the liver, nux vomica to the spinal cord, etc., etc.” 
From our own experiments we know that colocynth con- 
centrated will produce terrible griping, given in small doses 
one drop of the tinct. every x, xv or xx minutes will control a 
certain kind of colic. Cantharides produces stranguary, dilut- 
ed, will relieve it in a short time. Arsenic will inflame the 
alimentary canal, diluted and given properly it will cure gastri- 
tis and some kinds of diarrhoea. Belladonna in small doses 
will relieve a congested brain, while large doses will produce it. 
Ipecac in large doses will produce nausea and vomiting, diar- 
rhoea and dysentery, very much diluted it will control nausea 
and vomiting. I think it will not unfrequently control sympa- 
thetic nausea when everything else fails, while large doses, say 
grains xx to xxx, will cure obstinate diarrhoeas and acute dys- 
entery. Many, many more morbid conditions treated by like 
therapeutical means might be mentioned which have come 
within our limited experience during the last past few months, 
but enough to satisfy us that there is something in the homoeo- 
pathic law of cure. 
It was an accidental circumstance that caused me to take 
up homoeopathy from the shelf where our verdict had laid it in 
1872, and when I resolved to experiment I pledged myself not 
to take anything on the ipse dixit of any man, and hence I 
treated my cases secundum artem, using the lowest potencies in 
the form of mother-tinctures. Having had no confidence in 
the dilutions as recommended : the attenuations, triturations, 
globules, pellets, etc., I have never used them as yet. I have 
no sympathy whatever with those who advocate the “ dynamic 
or spirit like” effects of medicines. If there is any utility what- 
ever in the higher attenuations it must be (in my judgment) 
through the undulatory theory of the nerve force, or by the 
means of the law of undulatory interference, which is possible. 
Nous verrons, among the polychrests, whose pathogenesis I 
have carefully studied, is one remedy which, per se, if I were to 
ignore all others, would more than pay me for my pains-taking, 
and, if homoeopathy had done nothing for therapeutics but re- 
veal the virtues of Aconitum Napellus it might even die content. 
The multiplicity of morbid conditions controlled by this single 
remedy are perfectly surprising. It is principally indicated, 
however, in acute inflammatory diseases. I have reduced the WHAT IS MODERN HOMCEOPATHY ? 
7 
temperature more readily and permanently with drop doses of 
the tinct. every x, xv, xxx or lx minutes, than with quinia, sali- 
cylate soda, or anything I have ever used. I have treated the 
different forms of croup, catarrhal, spasmodic, and pseudo- 
membranous with marked success, and if I could have but one 
remedy in the treatment of the most formidable variety, I would 
use Aconite, and with cloths wrung out of iced or cold water ap- 
plied round the neck, should expect to save more patients than 
we do now with all our armamentarium. Methinks I hear you 
questioning the homoeopathicity of the application of cold, 
whatever the rationale may be. It has certainly been remedial 
in my hands. Its effect is probably through the vaso-motor 
nerves, or those of reflex action. The application of dry heat 
to superficial burns (familiar to every housewife,), or turpentine 
to those where there is destruction of tissue, or the application 
of snow to parts frozen, may be accounted for in the same way, 
although they are among the best instances which illustrate the 
homoeopathic neural pathology, and relieved by mechanical or 
mechanico-chemical measures. Cold applied to the throat the 
while Aconite is being given alternately every hour or twro with 
bromine or iodium not unfrequently relieves the very worst 
forms of false membrane croup in a few hours. Not only in 
croup but many other morbid conditions of children as well as 
adults I have learned to look upon a few drops of Aconite and 
some of its congeners as so many little giants, and have stood 
with awe, like the old Jew who witnessed the contest between 
the little shepherd boy, David, and Goliah. He must have 
been astonished to see the great giant fall from the effects of a 
little pebble stone after having resisted sword and bludgeon for 
so long a period. It is seemingly unnecessary to detail the 
great variety of cases I have treated by the law of similitude, 
the most of which have been equally as encouraging. Post 
hoc ergo propter hoc. “ That a little leaven may leaven the 
whole lump.” That it is better to be penny wise than pound 
foolish ; that there is multum in parvo, though that little be of 
spectroscopic dimensions, and that these medicinal infinitesi- 
mals hold sway over morbid conditions administered in accord- 
ance with the law of similia similibus curantur; to say the 
least, at times, more satisfactory than remedies given according 
to the principles of contraria cortrariis curantur. This result 
being the product of my own experimentation, I am positive of 
the integrity of my deductions, and inasmuch as it is our right 
and duty to employ any method or measure which the vast do- 
main of nature may offer, I know of no good reason why I 
should not persist with my research, and adopt all that may be 
utilized in the treatment of disease. 
As in society’s gossip we should never be influenced by 
ex parte statements. Vox populi is not by any means vox 
Dei. In matters of such vital importance we should investi- 
gate for ourselves unbiasedly, and reserve our vituperation 
until we have proof positive. Do not forget the old French 
fable of the famished fox, the drum and the hen, where 8 
WHAT IS MODERN HOMCEOPATHY1 
it was found that that which made the most noise was false 
and unsatisfactory. My convictions may impinge upon others’ 
notions, yet it is every one’s prerogative and duty to abide 
by his best judgment, and in so doing I am frank to say, as 
eclectics, as rational physicians who have the good of man- 
kind at heart, who labor for others’ interests as well as our own 
we should select from all sources irrespective of pathies, or isms, 
or creeds, or dogmas, or society’s opinions. It is in perfect 
rapport with true scientific research and the principles of right, 
candor, duty and justice. He who ignores a doctrine, a drug, 
or a remedial measure because of its name or association with 
some pathy, or ism, without giving it investigation, is unworthy 
of the name of teacher. It is true I have been culpable of that 
which I criticise, but then I was blind ; now I see ; and have 
the moral courage to say, peccavi. I was then like Nelson at 
the battle of the Baltic, who looked with his blind eye because 
he did not choose to see that the admiral had struck his colors. 
I have no penchant for homoeopathy. In fact my early edu- 
cation was so completely imbued with the spirit of disgust that 
it has been one of the greatest barriers to overcome. Never- 
theless if I find by actual experience that Hahnemann’s reme- 
dies, administered in accordance with his law, or any other, more 
remedial, I shall have no hesitation to being them into requisi- 
tion, whereupon some Rip Van Winkle, some inimical, captious, 
critical “ cuss” will probably feed me with the bread I have so 
often cast upon the water ; with the same propriety I might be 
called a hydropath, or uropath, or thermopath, as a homoeo- 
path ; the while I am still an all-opath, and doubtless always 
will be, though free to select from all sources at the risk of be- 
ing considered heretical. After more than twenty-five years 
of earnest pupilage in the various departments of our science, 
I feel that I have but a smattering of each ; but this I do know, 
that there is certainly something in homoeopathy. The influ- 
ences which have led me to this conclusion are both objective 
and subjective ; not only that which I have been forced to see 
by my own experiments, but by looking about me and seeing 
the great tidal-wave which is every moment rising higher and 
higher. Had it not been reared upon a basis, not unlike that 
of the old Eddystone lighthouse, it would have perished and 
been washed away with the surf, scum, and drift-wood. But 
it has battled with the tempest, buffeted the waves, and stood 
the cross-fire of its enemies for more than three-score years. 
He must needs be blind in more than one eye who cannot see 
that its superstructure is something more than imagination, 
faith, sugar pills, water medicine, diet, delusion, etc. If there 
is not something in this doctrine why is it that the thinking 
classes, the greatest scholars, the best educated and most scien- 
tific men, the greatest travelers and most wealthy people pat- 
ronize it ? Now-a-days people are not apt to worship false 
gods and throw away their money upon uncertainties, and risk 
their health, their lives, and the dearest treasures on earth to 
everybody,—their children. If there is nothing in it why are WHAT IS MODERN HOMCEOPATHY? 
9 
there in the United States alone to-day nearly seven thousand 
homoeopathic practitioners who have graduated in our schools ? 
It is very strange indeed if there is nothing in this law of cor- 
respondence that those of our school who have given it the 
greatest attention, the most thought, and have carefully invest- 
igated and experimented for themselves, invariably adopt, ad- 
vocate, and practice it. And of the great number of learned 
men who have become enthusiasts, I have never heard of but 
one of any note who eventually became a dissenter, and that 
was Dr. Peters, who afterwards, I understand, succumbed to 
ra m oil is sent en t. 
Sir John Forbes, one of the most distinguished physicians 
of Great Britain, while editor of the British and Foreign Medi- 
cal Review, thus expressed himself in relation to homoeopathy, 
“That it comes before us in an imposing aspect and claims our 
attention on grounds which cannot be gainsaid. It presents 
itself as a new art of medicine, as a mode of practice utterly at 
variance with that long established in the world and claims the 
notice of mankind on the irresistible ground of its superior 
power of curing diseases and preserving human life. And it 
comes before us now, not in the garb of a suppliant, unknown 
and helpless, but as a conquerer, powerful, famous and triumph- 
ant. The disciples of Hahnemann are spread over the whole 
civilized world. There is not a town of any considerable size 
in Germany, France, Italy, England or America that does not 
boast of possessing one or more homoeopathic physicians, not a 
few of whom are men of high respectability and learning, many 
of them in large practice, and patronized especially by persons 
in high rank. New books on homoeopathy issue in abundance 
from the press, and journals devoted exclusively to its cause 
are printed and widely circulated in England and America. 
Numerous hospitals and dispensaries for the treatment of the 
poor on the new system have been established, many of which 
publish reports blazoning its successes not merely in warm 
phrases but in hard words and harder figures of statistical tables.” 
The late Mr. Liston, one of the greatest English surgeons, and 
of whom Edinburgh has reason to be proud as one of the great- 
est surgeons she has ever produced, had the manliness, the hon- 
esty, the candor and liberality to avow in public that he derived 
his knowledge of the remarkable power of Aconite in subduing 
inflammatory fever, and of Belladonna in curing erysipelas from 
homoeopathy. He often expressed his regrets that the power 
of Aconite to abate vascular over-action and supercede the ne- 
cessity for abstraction of blood in many diseases was not known 
to him earlier, because he was convinced that it would have 
prolonged the life of his father, whose death had been hasten- 
ed, in his opinion, by ill-judged copious venesection. This 
distinguished man having been encouraged by the success 
which had attended his administration of Aconite and Belladon- 
na, requested Dr. Quin to furnish him with a few notes of other 
diseases and the names of the medicines usually prescribed by 
him for their cure. The request was immediately complied WHAT IS MODERN HOMOEOPATHY 1 
10 
with, and he subsequently informed Dr. Quin that he had em- 
ployed the following medicines with great success: Arnica 
montana, internally and externally, in severe contusions, lacer- 
ations and incised wounds ; Rims toxicodendron in sprains, 
luxations, swellings and painful joints ; Nux vomica in irrita- 
tion of the bladder, obstinate constipation, and in some cases 
of partial paralysis ; Bryonia alba in rheumatism and in arthri- 
tic pains of the joints ; Chamomilla in diarrhoea, and as a palli- 
ative for toothache ; Pulsatilla in retarded and suppressed cat- 
amenia ; Mercurius solubilis alternated with Belladonna in cy- 
nanche tonsillaris, and ulceration of the fauces, and a variety of 
other medicines in diseases where they were homoeopathically 
indicated. Concessions are occasionally made to the homoeo- 
pathicity of certain drugs by those who claim to be disbeliev- 
ers in the law, thus, the great unbeliever (?) Sir James Y. Simp- 
son, said in a lecture before the class in the University, “ that 
Ipecacuanha causes vomiting, though he failed to cure a case of 
vomiting from pregnancy until he took the advice of Dr. Arndt, 
a homoeopathist, and gave a half grain of Ipecac, and so cured 
his patient.” The same version of this remark was given by 
Dr. Stewart and George Wild, M.D., who were pupils of Dr. 
Simpson’s and both present at the time it was delivered. They 
however subsequently became eminent homoeopathic practi- 
titioners and authors. 
Much of the homoeopathic literature to which I have had 
access I must confess is far from possessing classical scientific 
merit or medical erudition, and yet there are some works that 
will well compare with our best in pathology, practice of medi- 
cine, surgery and gynaecology. The gigantic strides made by 
homoeopathy can not be better illustrated than to quote from 
Dr. Holcombe, from whose productions I have received many 
valuable hints. Dr. H. was an eminent old school practitioner 
for twenty years, having graduated at the University of Penn- 
sylvania. His father also was an eminent physician of the old 
school. To-day Dr. H. stands at the head of the homoeopathic 
ranks. He says “ the witnesses to the spread and influences 
of homoeopathy are numerous. We will call a few of them to 
the stand. 
Witness the conceded fact that it is not the practice of the 
ignorant, of the incapable, or the fantastic and hypochondriacal, 
but that it absorbs and holds the lion’s share in proportion to 
numbers of the strong minded, intelligent, and traveled portion 
of society which recognizes and treats homoeopathic physi- 
cians as honorable and enlightened men and benefactors of hu- 
manity. 
Witness a great effort made by hundreds of the most dis- 
tinguished and aristocratic men in England to have homoeo- 
pathy introduced into the army and navy of their country. 
Witness the official recognition of homoeopathy by the 
state of New York in the recent law directing that applicants 
for license to practice in that state shall be examined upon WHAT IS MODERN HOMOEOPATHY ? 
11 
homoeopathy as well as upon allopathy by the state commis- 
sioners. 
Witness the splendid banquet given by the City Council 
of Boston to the members of the American Institute of Homoe- 
opathy on the very spot where, eighteen years before, Oliver 
Wendell Holmes had predicted the speedy and utter extinction 
of the infinitesimal heresy. 
Witness the great fair in Boston given while the Massachu- 
setts allopathic association was expelling the homoeopathic 
members from its body, a fair requiring three of the largest 
halls in the city to hold, and which realized $80,000 for a ho- 
moeopathic hospital. 
Witness how the New York Ophthalmic Hospital, one of 
the largest and best endowed Eye and Ear hospitals in America, 
passed entirely from allopathic to homoeopathic hands. 
Witness, the people of Michigan insisting through their leg- 
islature that homoeopathy should be taught to the students of 
the medical department in their state University. 
Witness the legislature of New York appropriating $300,- 
000 to the establishment of a homoeopathic insane asylum. 
Witness how the Common Council of St. Louis compelled 
the allopathic professors to admit homoeopathic students to the 
hospital clinics on an equal footing with their own. 
Witness the decisions of the New York judiciary fining an 
allopathic physician for calling a homoeopath a quack; declar- 
ing quackery to consist in conduct and not in creed, and insur- 
ing the protection of the law to honest and capable men when 
assailed by malignant partisans of another school. The quacks 
on both sides are exactly alike, and so are the gentlemen. 
Witness the utter defeat which the allopathic faculty have 
sustained in several of the states where they endeavored to get 
control of the licensing systems with a view to the oppression 
of those whom they are pleased to term “ irregular” practi- 
tioners. 
Witness the indignant remonstrances of the people at the 
removal of the Commissioner of Pensions from office by his al- 
lopathic superior on the sole ground that he was a homceopath- 
ist, remonstrances so widespread and influential that they in- 
duced the government of the United States to declare that no 
distinction should be made on account of differences of opinion. 
Witness how a life insurance company has been founded 
and prosperously conducted on the basis that human life is 
safer and longer on the homoeopathic system that any other. 
Homoeopathy has met all the great epidemics and ever 
proved itself equal if not superior to the old school. When 
people say that the medicines are too weak to trust in severe 
cases, they do not remember, or do not know, that the great 
triumphs of homoeopathy have always been effected in the most 
malignant class of diseases, such as cholera, scarlet fever, yellow 
fever, croup, erysipelas, dysentery, diphtheria, etc., etc. The 
fearful epidemics of cholera in 1848-9 gave the most astonish- 
ing impetus to homoeopathy, and its special superiority in yel- 12 
WHAT IS MODERN HOMCEOPATHY1 
low fever has more than anything else established it on a per- 
manent basis in the southern states.” 
These facts are sufficient to prove that the efforts of the 
homoeopathic school to enlighten and educate the public mind 
as to its character, rights and privileges, have been attended by 
brilliant results. The public cares nothing for our theories or 
our squabbles. It estimates men by their attainments and 
their conduct, and medical practice by its failure or its success. 
It instinctively and sensibly denounces as bigotry and persecu- 
tion any act of intolerance of one school towards another. If 
these declarations by the doctor are true, and they have been 
corroborated by other competent authority, it would appear ob- 
vious that the epithets so generally heaped upon this mode of 
practice are misnomers. If our curiosity was more easily 
piqued, and our professional hauteur, which has so long stood 
upon the pinnacle, would stoop to investigate the hidden mys- 
teries which appear so preposterous, I am quite sure we would 
be agreeably surprised (to say the least) and if not adopt them 
would eventually ignore much of that which we have all our 
lives been taught and accustomed to look upon as the sine qua 
non in sound scientific practice. But we are so wilful, so ob- 
stinate, so inconsiderate and self-opinionated that it is only by 
accident that we are forced to give the theme any considera- 
tion. This has been the case with those who have become 
most eminent, among whom might be mentioned Prof. William 
Henderson, a colleague of Sir James Y. Simpson in the Uni- 
versity for many years, and Dr. Thomas Skinner, of Liverpool, 
who was a pupil of Prof. Simpson, and in 1851-2 took his 
gold medal in gynaeocology and obstetrics, and finally became 
his private assistant at his residence in Edinburgh. After 
some twenty years of reputable practice, he was placed hors 
de combat on account of a malady which baffled the skill of his 
compeers for three years, during which time he travelled much 
by land and sea, and in a very remarkable way was introduced 
to the noted homceopathist, Dr. Edward W. Berridge, London, 
who cured him in a short time. Dr. Skinner is to-day an emi- 
nent practitioner, teacher and author. Dr. Henderson is 
numbered among the derid, but has left behind his footprints in 
the .sands of time which it would be difficult to erase. Many 
more great minds have followed in their wake, not only in 
Europe but in America, whose erudition, high culture, scholarly 
attainments and success as practitioners have made them world 
renowned. Suffice to say that if such men as these declare 
magna est-veritas etprevalebit I can not consider it an oppro- 
brium for one so humble as I to reach out for something more 
tangible, more satisfactory, more realistic and positive than 
that which is being preached in the market places by the ramb- 
ling Peters and Pauls, and while you, like some Greek disciples 
just emerging from the Athenian portico, glorying in the wisdom 
of the ancient philosophers, may be laughing to scorn my dis- 
position for research, my liberalism and moral courage to pro- 
mulgate the answer to the question of this subject matter, I WHAT IS MODERN HOMCEOPATHY. 
13 
pray you to remember the lesson taught by St. Augustine ; in 
things necessary we must have unity, in things doubtful liberty, 
and in all things charity. 
Three months have elapsed since the foregoing was 
penned, during which time I have improved every favor- 
able opportunity to treat acute diseases in accordance with 
the law of correspondence or similars. I have treated a 
great many cases of infantile diarrhoea with pleasing results. 
The remedies used in small and frequently repeated doses have 
been for the most part ipecac, veratrum album, arsenic, phos- 
phoric acid and mercury. Two cases of strangury were treated 
successfully with drop doses of tincture cantharides ; a third 
case vvas not benefited and after two days it was discontinued, 
and one grain doses hourly of solid bals. copaiba were substitu- 
ted ; after eight hours the patient reported almost entirely 
relieved. The remedy was continued pro renata with mucilagi- 
nous drinks for three days. 
Several cases of idiopathic and bilious colic yielded with 
like treatment to tincture of colocynth. My first case was so 
amusing that I beg leave to detail it. Early on the morning 
of May 14th I was called to see , aged 23 years ; 
found her suffering intensely from pain of a colicky character, 
which she averred had continued all night, accompanied with 
almost incessant vomiting, and her facies hippocratica evinced 
the truthfulness of her statement. Inasmuch as she positively 
refused the use of the hypodermic-syringe and disliked to take 
opiate enematas, and all the domestic remedies having been 
brought into requisition, including sinapisms and hot fomenta- 
tions to the epigastrium, I gave her a powder of morphia and 
bismuth. It had not much more than reached the stomach 
before it was vomited ; in a few moments she took another with 
like result, whereupon I concluded to try Colocynth, which I 
purposely put in my pocket,, having learned from the messenger 
that I was to see a case of colic. I dropped twelve drops into 
twelve tea spoonfuls of water and gave her a tea spoonful, 
which was retained. In ten minutes I gave another, in fifteen 
another. At this juncture I was obliged to absent myself on 
account of a case of labor. Returning in six hours my patient 
reported that “ after the third dose of that stuff in the tumbler 
she began to grow easier, and after the sixth she was almost 
entirely relieved from pain ; she had had a little retching but 
had not vomited.” One week later her sister came to my office 
and reported that my patient “ was suffering again from the 
same malady, and she had sent her for some of that tumbler 
medicine.” I prescribed the same, and as I learned afterward, 
with like results. 
Now here was a case, which is only one of many, that per- 
fectly surprised me, as I had no faith whatever in the remedial 
influence of the drug, but I knew it could do no harm in the 
event that it proved futile, and in the meantime I might per- 
suade my patient to submit to the hypodermic syringe. But 
what cured my patient ? Was it faith, imagination, delusion, 14 
WHAT IS MODERN HOMCEOPATHY ? 
or had that irritation of the gastric nerves and the spasmodic 
condition of the canal just got ready to behave ? What was 
the rationale ? No, it was not faith, imagination or delusion ; 
for the patient did not know what I was giving her, nor do I 
believe that such pathological conditions yield of themselves so 
suddenly. If this drug in its infinitesimal dose is to be crowned 
with a laurel, (and it certainly should be), by what physiologi- 
cal reasoning can we account for it ? We have not been taught 
to look upon it as an anodyne, a nullifier, a narcotic or pain 
assuager. It certainly did not control the malady by paraly- 
zing the nerves as the morphine would have done. It did not 
mollify by diminishing the amount of blood in the part, nor did 
it relieve by revulsion. We know that a larger dose in a heal- 
thy person is capable of producing an artificial disease similar 
to the natural one that existed in this case. The modus opcr- 
andi or rationale I will not attempt to elucidate at this time ; 
suffice to say that in my judgment it could only have been 
brought about by its interference with the undulatory condition 
of the nerve fluid. 
A few days since the vice-president of this association, 
knowing that I was giving some attention to the value of small 
and frequently repeated doses, very kindly placed in my hands 
a recent number of the New York Medical Record, which con- 
tains an article on this subject read before the New York Med- 
ical Association, by S. Henry Dessau, M. D., one of the physi- 
cians to the dispensary and foundling asylum. It appears that 
the doctor has been experimenting with modern therapeutics 
and his results will show that his conclusions necessarily concur 
with mine, already detailed. A careful perusal of his article 
will richly repay any one endowed with sufficient scientific 
spirit to mark the progress of the therapeutical part of medical 
study. A brief resume of the practical part may not be unin- 
teresting. He says “ that in consequence of his attention hav- 
ing been particularly attracted to the frequency with which 
Ringer in his hand book of therepeutics recommended small 
doses of medicines, that we have been accustomed to use in 
much stwaUej: doses, for entirely different diseases, he was in- 
duced to give them a trial.” In the treatment of vomiting in 
children, whether due to stomach and intestinal disorder, or as 
a complication of pneumonia, he found the administration of 
drop doses of the wine of ipecac, repeated every hour, to act 
with the greatest success. In cases where diarrhoea coexisted 
and especially that form resembling dysentery, th. same dose 
appeared to exert a curative effect. In the vomiting which 
follows a debauch, especially in women, he has treated several 
cases with drop doses of Fowler’s solution of Arsenic repeated 
hourly, and says it works like a charm. In the morning vomit- 
ing of drunkards he gives it in drop doses three times a day 
before meals. In the vomiting which often complicates phthisis 
and its allied affection, chronic bronchitis, independent of that 
brought on by the cough, he gives either Antm*-, in from three tot 
five grains, in solution every second or third hour, or drop doses WHAT IS MODERN HOMOEOPATHY 1 
15 
of the wine of antimony every hour. The latter seemed to 
speedily relieve the vomiting, particularly when accompanied 
by an exacerbation of bronchitis characterized by wheezing 
and great dyspnoea. In the bronchitis of children, where the 
coarse mucous rales produce loud wheezing with a loud asth- 
matical cough, he gives tea spoonful doses every hour or two of 
a solution containing one grain of tartar emetic to one pint of 
water, and claims they yield readily to its administration, and 
furthermore that when an intestinal catarrh coexists with the 
bronchial catarrh, the same remedy and dose will control both. 
In the gastro-intestinal catarrh of infants (the summer com- 
plaints) he uses calomel one-sixteenth of a grain every hour, 
hydrg. cum. creta one sixth of a grain with s. n. Bismuth, grains 
three to five, hourly repeated. In cases that resemble dysen- 
tery, or where the stools are mucous and are accompanied with 
more or less straining, with or without blood, he imitates Rin- 
gers practice in giving the bichloride of mercury, grain one to 
sixteen ounces of water, one tea spoonful every hour or two ; 
this is half the strength recommended by Eustace Smith, and 
Ringer adds one grain to ten ounces of water. When a case of 
gonorrhoea can be seen in the first twenty-four hours of the 
attack, he says an injection of a solution of chloride of zinc, 
one grain to a pint of water, used every hour, will cut short the 
disease in twenty-four hours. He prescribes drop doses of 
copaiba hourly in urticaria with good results, and treats cases 
of retarded menstruation with hourly drop doses of fluid extract 
of ergot. He recommends fluid extract of hamamelis in drop 
doses in obstinate epistaxis, belladonna in sore throat and facial 
erysipelas, nux vomica in sick headaches, whethei due to error 
in diet, constipation, or no apparent cause. He has cured cases 
of strangury arising from subacute vesical catarrh with tincture 
of cantharides in drop doses hourly repeated. Speaks of small 
doses of pulsatilla in painful menstruation ; mentions several 
cases of tetanus and hydrophobia cured with strychnia. For 
the purpose of reducing temperature he speaks very highly of 
the tincture of Aconite in drop doses every fifteen minutes 
to one hour, but says its use in the general profession has been 
discouraged by a prejudice of its favor with homoeopathic prac- 
titioners. 
I have thus given you a synopsis of the results of an in- 
quiring mind, one that is apparently reaching out for new 
features and facts in the therapeutical art; a regular educated 
physician, but one who appears to me to be wilfully blind, or 
else he lacks the moral courage to stand up before his fellow 
man and acknowledge that he has been experimenting with 
modern homoeopathy. When asked how, and upon what prin- 
ciple these small doses cure disease, he replies, “on the princi- 
ple of actual experience, but that it is not upon the law of sim- 
ilars, for he had too many satisfactory demonstrations of the 
undoubted efficacy of full doses of medicines in the treatment 
of certain diseases to allow him to confine his belief in thera- 
peutics to a single principle, and gives as an example the 16 
WHAT IS MODERN HOMOEOPATHY I 
treatment of acute dysentery with half dram to one dram doses 
of ipecac, one dose usually effecting a complete cure. From 
this statement I infer the author is not aware that according to 
the best authority in the new school of therapeutics, among 
whom might be mentioned one whom he quotes a quasi homce- 
opathist, Hughes, of London, that the question of dose has noth- 
ing to do with the treatment of disease in accordance with the 
law of similitude. The dose of ipecac mentioned is as homoeo- 
pathic as if it were the fractional part of a grain. If ipecac, 
tartar emetic and arsenic are not homoeopathic to gastric and 
intestinal irritations, if strychnine is not homoeopathic to tetanus, 
cantharides to strangury, colocynth to colic, nux vomica to 
diseases of the nervous system, and belladonna to an ordinary 
sore throat, then I certainly agree with Dr. Mason Good that 
the science of medicine is truly a jargon. 
I do not believe that I am an Ishmaelite among you, 
only so far as my frank acknowledgements are concerned, 
for I have frequently communicated the results of my ex- 
perimentation to the members of the profession as often as I 
have met them, to which many of them have replied : “Yes, 
I too have been using homoeopathic remedies, but it won't 
do to acknowledge it, we would be ostracized and excom- 
municated by the societies.” Nonsense! What difference 
should it make to us by what principle medicines control dis- 
eased action ? If we are convinced that the law of similitude 
is a correct one, so far as it goes, then let us like men of honor 
and integrity, which our noble profession demands of us, meet 
the facts face to face and adopt them. In so doing we would 
not necessarily compromise ourselves with that class which 
throng the ranks composed of uneducated, illiterate tradesmen, 
ex-cathedra ministers, politicians and stevedores ; and yet I am 
not quite certain but that the quickest way to exterminate 
them would be to affiliate, in which event stringent laws would 
soon crowd them to the wall. 
But this was not the object of this paper. However great 
efforts are being made in Great Britain as well as in our own 
country to blend the two schools ; and their efforts will doubt- 
less be accomplished in the course of human events. 
Hoping that these erratic thoughts may be instrumental in 
stimulating you to personal experiments with small and fre- 
quently repeated doses, which constitute a part of modern 
homoeopathy, I submit the same for your consideration.