A LECTURE 
o 
ON 
HOMCEOPATHY, 
by 
WM. L. BREYFOGLE, M. I). 
“ Head not to contradict and refute, itor to believe and take for granted, 
nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.” 
Loud Bacon. 
LOUISVILLE, KV: 
SIIKKRILL. WILSON A- CO., 1 ’ I! I N T i.! J S, •»!■> W KST MAIN STUKKT. 
187:5. A LECTURE 
ON 
H O M CEO PATH Y. 
BY 
WM. L. BREYFOGLE, M. D. 
“ Bead not to contradict and refute, nor to believe and take for granted, 
nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.” 
Lord Bacon. 
LOUISVILLE, KY: 
SHERRILL, WILSON & CO., PRINTERS, 20-J WEST MAIN STREET. 
187-5. I NT RO DUCT ION. 
“True philosophers, who are only eager for truth and knowledge, never 
regard themselves as already so thoroughly informed but that they wel- 
come further information from whomsoever and whencesoever it may 
come; nor are they so narrow-minded as to imagine any of the arts or 
sciences, transmitted to us by the ancients, in such a state of forwardness 
or completeness, that nothing is left for the ingenuity and industry of 
others.” 
William Harvey. 
Among the many important “topics of the day,” none, hav- 
ing reference to this life only, can possess higher claims to 
calm inquiry and earnest attention than the various resources 
which are available to mankind, when suffering from bodily 
disease—a trial which few, if any, at all times escape. 
In the present age of discovery and invention it would be 
remarkable if, while all around are sailing onward, the physi- 
cian alone was becalmed; while every branch of art and 
science is progressively and rapidly improving, the resources 
of medicine remained stationary. But this has not happened, 
the onward wave has reached the healer’s barque, and he also is 
afloat upon the mighty waters of natural science. 
There are indeed many who would stoutly stand upon the 
“old paths,” but in this case we have no inspired prophets and 
apostles, as happily we have in an affair of higher moment, 
upon whom to rest as upon a firm foundation. The opinions 
of mere men, however venerable by age, are but a sandy base. 
The people of the present age are not given to echo the sen- 
timents of a master. Nature’s laws and nature’s facts alone 4 
INTRODUCTION. 
are able to stand the rigid scrutiny to which the sentiments 
of men, in physical science, are now so unreservedly exposed. 
Some men's minds, under such an apparently unsettled and 
disorderly state of things, become sceptical and faith-less. 
This arises from indolence; they will not give themselves the 
necessary trouble to investigate, and thus they throw truth 
and falsehood overboard together, and vainly try to rest upon 
a negative. 
But to the more active and industrious mind the same con- 
dition is stimulative to exertion. Truth is sought after with 
earnestness, and when found, is embraced with satisfaction 
and delight. 
Among the medical inquiries of the day, Homoeopathy in 
the judgment of many, is the most important which has yet 
appeared, while in the opinion of many more it is “the biggest 
humbug that ever was.” 
It is proposed to consider, in a few words, what Homoe- 
opathy is, and what it is not. It has been well said, “there are 
truths which some men despise, because they will not examine 
them, and which they will not examine because they despise 
them.” Homoeopathy is one of these. Men of large scien- 
tific attainments, and indefatigable in adding to their store of 
knowledge, think it foolish because they are ignorant of its 
truth, and this notion of its folly hinders them from becoming 
acquainted with the evidences in its favor. 
Nevertheless, Homoeopathy embraces scientific and practical 
truth of so much value, that were it known, it would interest 
alike the man of science and the man of practical utility. 
This truth, known only as men know other truths, imperfectly, 
may be mixed up with numerous errors, but it is wiser to en- 
deavor to separate what is true from what is false than to re- 
ject both. 
The jealousy of power may indeed attempt to crush the 
influence of new truth. A Galileo may by force be 
constrained to read a reluctant recantation, but “the earth 
moves notwithstanding.” Such is the vitality of truth, that INTRODUCTION'. 
5 
when once discovered, it seems never afterward to die. If, 
therefore, Homoeopathy he true, we may confidently expect 
that it will survive the opposition to which it is exposed. If 
it be false, let us have proof. It is not to be condemned as 
some people would condemn a suspected felon, without judge, 
jury or witness. 
We are censured by our medical brethen of the old school 
for bringing professional discussions before the tribunal of the 
public, because, it is said, the .public are incompetent judges 
of such matters. Some of our own party are disposed to join 
in this censure, and we are all ready to admit that, in the 
present condition of medicine, an appeal to the public is in it- 
self an evil. But it must be observed that this evil did not 
originate with the Homoeopath. Hahneman did not take 
this step; he published his first essay in Hufeland s Journal, a 
periodical strictly professional, and of the highest character 
and standing in the profession. The step was taken by the 
physicians of the old school, and at the very commencement 
of the discussion; for instead of meeting Hahneman on their 
common ground, with arguments and facts wherewith to refute 
his opinions, they appealed to the public authorities, and by 
the aid of this unprofessional force, drove him from city to 
city and from village to village... • And, moreover, this appeal 
to the public by the Allopathic portion of the profession has 
been continued to the present hour, and is still continued. 
What are the resolutions so frequently passed at public meet- 
ings of medical men, and published in the newspapers, de- 
claring that they will not recognize and cannot hold com- 
munion with 1 lomoeopathic practitipners, whom they stigmatize 
as quacks, knaves, and fools, but an appeal to the public to aid 
them in their endeavors to suppress the unwelcome novelty! 
Ridicule has been called the test of truth. If this be so. 
Homoeopathy must be true, for it has now stood exposure to 
every kind of banter and jest, whether witty or sarcastic, for 
more than half a century, and Homoeopathy not only exists— 6 
INTRODUCTION. 
it advances on every side, and through every grade of society. 
Ridicule, however, when boldly looked at as an argument 
against the statement of Jacts, is a mean “scare-crow.” That 
it should be brought to bear upon a subject so sacred as the 
sufferings of the human family, and the means of relieving 
them, is a great reflection upon the characters of those who 
thus venture to use it. 
They cannot be surprised if such conduct reminds others of 
the proverb, “as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the 
laughter of the fool.” LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 
To Samuel Hahneman, of Leipsic, a physician of high 
standing in the “regular" school, is due the credit of having 
fully discovered and developed the law of cure, Sim ilia, Sim- 
ilihus Curantur ; and to him, was then accorded the “honors' 
which scientific men of all professions receive, as reward for 
their arduous researches. He was considered by the leading 
members of the old school, to be the most accomplished and 
scientific physician of his age, and it was only when the fol- 
lowers of his doctrine increased in such alarming proportions 
that they—the self-styled regulars—finding that their own pet 
theories were in danger, united in one common effort to over- 
throw it. 
The principle governing Homoeopathy is, that 
SIMILARS CURE SIMILARS ; 
or, in other words, a drug which producea a certain aeriea of 
symptoms when taken in health, will cure similar agmptoma when 
produced by disease. 
As an illustration, it is well known to medical men, that 
mercury produces affections of the throat, bones, and skin, 
so like the diseases of those parts arising from other causes, 
that they often find it impossible to distinguish the one from 8 
LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 
the other, or to decide to which to attribute the symptoms. 
Let us consider two patients standing side by side, with ul- 
cerated throats, swellings on the bones, and eruptions on the 
skin, in the one caused by mercury, in the other not, and the 
most experienced surgeon shall be puzzled to say which is the 
mercurial case and which is not. 
Mercury given to these eases would aggravate the one whose 
symptoms were owing to mercury, while it would almost cer- 
tainly cure the other. 
That the law of the similars is the law of nature, no intel- 
ligent person can dispute; and the oldest writers mention the 
similarity between the effects of the drug used, and the dis- 
eases which they cured. 
Among writings attributed to Hippocrates are found the fol- 
lowing remarkable Avords: “By similar things disease is pro- 
duced, and by similar things, administered to the sick, they 
are healed of their diseases. Thus the same thing Avliich will 
produce a strangury, when it does not exist, will remove it 
when it does.” 
The learned Dr. Francis Adams, in his translation of the 
works of Hippocrates, published in 184‘J, by the Sydenham 
Society, thus comments upon this passage: “The treatment 
of suicidal mania appears singular—‘give the patient a 
draught made from the root of mandrake, in a smaller dose 
than will induce mania.’ * * * He then insists, in strong 
terms, that under certain circumstances, purgatives will 
bind the bowels, and astringents loosen them. And he further 
remarks that, although the general rule of treatment be ‘con- 
traria contrariis curantur, the opposite rule also holds good in 
some cases, namely: ‘Similia similibus curantur.’ ” LECTl'RK ON HOMEOPATHY. 
9 
In confirmation of the Homoeopathic law, lie further re- 
marks “that the same substance which occasions strangury, 
will also sometimes cure it, and so also with cough.” 
And he further acutely remarks “that warm water, which 
when drunk, generally excites vomiting, will also sometimes 
put a stop to it by removing its cause.” 
Hahneman observes that “later physicians have also felt 
and expressed the truth of the homoeopathic method of cure, 
as for instance, Boulduc Bertholon, Thourv, Yon Storck, and 
especially Stahl; and all these during the eighteenth century. 
* * A 
But their observations were slightly made, and produced no 
permanent impression, either on their own minds or on those 
of others.” 
We are then indebted to Hahneman for the full discovery 
and development of the law, and for forcing it with sufficient 
perseverance upon the attention of the world. 
The physician who has investigated and embraced this 
principle feels conscious that his mind is cleared of useless and 
endless speculations, and filled with a truth applicable every 
moment and of the highest practical value. 
That the physician remaining in the old school is bewildered 
with opposing theories, and oppressed with an accumulation of 
heterogeneous and unarranged materials, is known and ac- 
knowledged: that the Homoeopathic physician is freed from 
these burdens is obvious; that this is a great advantage must 
he above suspicion. 
The theoretical method has always been extensively prac- 
ticed. Diseases were, in the days of Hippocrates, cold, moist 
or dry. Remedies, of course, the same—a hot remedy to a cold 
disease, a moist to a dry, and vice versa. Hence the favorite 
maxim of Galen, “diseases are to be treated hv contraries.” 10 
LECTURE ON HOAKEOPOTHY. 
v( 
Later we had excessive and diminished irritability to be treated 
respectively with calmers and stimulants. (Brown.) Spasms 
of the extreme vessels, to be cured by the so-called anti-spas- 
modic. ( Cullen.) All diseases-attributed to local inflammation 
—the universal remedy, local depletion. (Broussais.) Such, 
and numberless other hypotheses have been imagined by in- 
genious men in their closets; have been eloquently propound- 
ed in their lecture rooms; have been greedily embraced by 
numerous classes of admiring followers; and have each in 
succession been supplanted by the next invention and sunk 
into contempt and oblivion. 
Sensible of the futility and uselessness of hypotheses at the 
bedside of their patients, some have sought to be guided by 
experience only; though, in spite of this conviction and in- 
tention, they have continued to speculate upon the nature and 
causes of disease. These constitute the eminent physicians and 
surgeons of the present day. They reject all idea of a genera l 
principle for their guidance in the administration of remedies 
—they even deny its possibility. 
Now, the Homoeopathic pTiysician claims, that Homoeopathy 
is a general fact—a principle—a law of nature. He first 
discovers flic true properties of drugs by experiments on the 
healthy organism, and the symptoms thus produced, are the true 
guides to the administration of the remedy. 
These symptoms, or provings, when verified by experience, 
are arranged under their respective heads, and thus constitute 
the-“Materia Medica.” 
Medicine in the general, is poison to the healthy frame of 
man, and a remedy to that frame when sick ; this is admitted 
by all, and this is Homoeopathy in the general; why then not 
have Homoeopathy in detail? Why not first ascertain what LECTURE ON HOMCEOPOTIIY. 
11 
symptoms each poison produces, when taken in health ? and 
why not give it as a remedy for similar symptoms in natural 
diseases? Medical men have been experimenting in the 
treatment of disease for centuries, why not try this experiment? 
Our opponents admit, in general, what they ridicule and op- 
pose when carried out in particulars. Allow me to say here, 
however, that Homoeopathy relates only to the administration of 
remedies, and detracts nothingfrom the value of the collateral 
branches of the science of medicine. It leaves Anatomy, 
Physiology, Chemistry, Ac., unaffected. 
'flic Homoeopathic physician ought to be accomplished in 
these, and other departments of knowledge, as his fellow 
practitioner of the old school; and he is more likely than the 
other to turn all such knowledge to the beneficial account of 
his patient. 
L)r. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in an address on the Currents 
and Counter-currents in Medical Science, delivered before the 
Massachusetts Medical Society, refers to the past condition 
of the Medical profession—the abuses it has clung to, and the 
absurdities it has fostered ; and, considering the injury it has 
done in the past, and the little good it accomplishes in the 
present, he said, “Throw out opium * * * throw out a 
few specifics, which our art did not discover, * * * throw 
out wine, which is a food, and the vapors which produce the 
miracle of anaesthesia, and I firmly believe that the whole 
materia mediea as nont used (the italics are his) could be sunk 
to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for man- 
kind; and all the worse for the fishes.” 
Dr. Benj amin Rush, of Philadelphia, a distinguished phy- 
sician, said: “upon these points, and bearing in mind that we 
have now in medicine the recorded practice of more than two 12 
LECTURE OX HOMEOPATHY. 
thousand years, let the reader refer to the proceedings 
of the medical profession during the prevalence of the 
so called “Asiatic Cholera,” and he will find their history 
everywhere exhibiting an extraordinary picture of prefatory 
panic, vulgar wonder, doubt, ignorance, obtrusive vanity, 
plans of profit and popularity, fatal blunders, distracting con- 
tradictions, and egregious empiricisms. 
ALL SUCCESS IN MEDICAL TREATMENT IS COMPARATIVE. 
In London about fifteen hundred persons die every week ; 
for the most part these have died under Allopathic treatment. 
Now, if any mode of medical relief can be devised which shall 
diminish, however slightly, this rate of mortality, it deserves to 
be substituted for the older methods. The amount of general 
sickness greatly exceeds the amount of mortality; whatever 
treatment diminishes, however little, the number of deaths, 
will diminish very much the quantity of sickness. 
We claim for Homoeopathy, that it is a mode of treatment, 
capable of being universally adopted, and should it be found 
on trial, only to equal in efficiency former methods, for the 
reason given under the last head, if for no other, it is much 
to be preferred. Should a trial prove it to possess superior 
efficacy, how greatly is that preference enhanced. 
These comparative results are easily obtained either by 
hospital reports, or in private practice. 
Having endeavored to show what Homoeopathy is, we now 
desire to show what it is not. 
FIRST. HOMCEOPATHY IS NOT A NOVELTY 
Th is is proven by referring to ancient writings on medical 
subjects, and the steady progress it has made in the last cen- 
tury. LECTURE ON HOM<EOPATHY. 
13 
SECOND. HOM(E()PATHY IS NOT QUACKERY. 
'I'lie essence of quackery is secrecy. The individual prac- 
ticing it pretends to the possession of some valuable remedy 
—a nostrum—which he sells for his own private gain, hut 
which he will not disclose for the public good. Homoeopathy 
has no secrets—no nostrum; it courts inquiry; it entreats 
medical men to investigate it. This is not quackery. 
THIRD. HOMOEOPATHY IS NOT GLOBULISM. 
Globules are a particular mode of preparing medicinal 
doses, invented by Hahneman and recommended by him; but 
Homoeopathy is in no way dependent upon their reception fol- 
ks successful practice. The association is accidental, and is 
simply a matter of convenience : a vehicle to conveg medicines 
into the system. 
FOURTH. HOMEOPATHY TS NOT AN UNCERTAINTY. 
It is surprising how the opponents of Homoeopathy, and even 
some of its friends, bewilder both themselves and others, when 
they endeavor to explain what Homoeopathy is. The impression 
is thus produced that the new doctrine is nothing more than a 
wild theory; very vague, and very worthless. The most com- 
mon mistake is thus stated: “A medicine or poison which 
will produce a disease, will cure it." “The hair of the dog 
cures the bite," “If I am fatigued with a long walk, T must 
take a short one !” This is the same curing the same, not 
like curing like. Similis is not idem. 
FIFTH. HOMEOPATHY IS NOT AN INFINITESIMAL DOSE. 
This is another popular mistake, diligently though perhaps 
ignorantly, fostered by the opponents of Homoeopathy. Like 14 
LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 
curing like—similia similibus Curantur—says nothing about the 
dose. All that is essential to the carrying out of this principle 
—all that the general fact or law of nature requires for its ful- 
fillment is announced by Hippocrates; “give the poison in a 
smaller dose as a remedy in the natural disease, than would be 
sufficient to produce similar symptoms in a healthy person.” A 
smaller dose—how much smaller is a matter of experience. 
If twenty grains of ipecacuanha will make a healthy person 
sick, the twentieth part of a grain may be required to cure a 
similar sickness, that has been produced from natural causes. 
It should not be forgotten that Homoeopathy, as a principle, 
was discovered by experiments made with ordinary doses, and 
<t man may be a true Homoeopathist though he never prescribe 
any other. 
It has been sometimes said that the infinitesimal size of the 
Homoeopathic dose carried with it so much of absurdity that 
any one believing in it must be either a fool or a knave. 
Pause ere you act upon such an assertion, or suffer your 
mind to be prejudiced thereby. The size of the dose has nothing 
■whatever to do with Homoeopathg. The proper dose is to be 
found only by experiments; and every Homoeopathist has a 
perfect liberty and right to make these experiments, and use 
doses of any size which he chooses. But so many times have 
these experiments been repeated, that it has come to be an 
accepted fact that they cure best in such quantities as shall 
not produce any toxic or poisonous effects, or aggravation of 
the symptoms already existing. 
It the millionth part of a grain will cure better than a hun- 
dred grains, is not the physician bound to use the smaller 
dose ? LECTTHE ON llOMtEOPATllY. 
15 
Iii onler to demonstrate that the minutest quantity is not 
inert, let me refer the reader to the recent experiments and de- 
monstrations of M. Davaine, before the French Academy, on 
the subject of Septicaemia. 
From these experiments, which have since been verified, it 
is seen that the ten trillionth part of a drop, actually destroyed 
life when injected into the veins of a guinea pig. Now, a 
tank to hold ten trillion drops must have, according to Simp- 
son, an area of 2500 square miles, and a uniform depth of 300 
feet. 
With this testimony, who can longer dispute the power of 
infinitesimals? And the demonstration of its power to kill, 
if it does not show its curative power, at least relieves from the 
opprobrium of inertness. 
Homoeopathy is founded on a certain fixed principle or law. 
The precise explanation of the manner in which its remedies 
act, whether by the so-called Substitutive Method of Trous- 
seau or that of Eletric Affinity is unimportant, and all the- 
ories in regard to the origin and nature of disease are foreign 
to it, and belong only to individual opinion. 
In accordance with this law, medicines must be given for 
precisely such symptoms as they are capable of producing. 
Thus in disease of the head, a medicine is required which ef- 
fects the head, not the stomach; if the stomach is disordered, 
one acting on that organ rather than on the skin. And the 
medicine must act, not in a general manner upon that organ, 
hut upon that particular portion of it which is diseased. It is 
useless to administer a medicine w hich effects only the mucous 
membrane of the stomach, when either the muscular coat, or 
the nervous filaments of that organ are the seat of the disease. 16 
LECTURE OX HOMOEOPATHY. 
So far we have a theory merely, but fortunately one that 
can easily be put to a test. Let me ask the five thousand 
Homoepathic practitioners in the United States, if they have 
not frequently seen a decided and marked curative effect from 
a minute dose of Aconite in fever, Ipecacuanha in vomiting, 
Mercury in diarrhoea, Coffee in sleeplessness, Belladona and 
Glonoine in headache, Hepar sulphuris in croup, Arnica in 
injuries and Chamomilla in many diseases of infancy. 
I know well their answer will be “most assuredly we have,” 
and proof of this character might be obtained in thousands 
upon thousands of cases. Even the most bitter opponents of 
Homoeopathy are finding this out slowly, and are giving 
medicine homoeopathically—but “on physiological principles." 
They have lately learned that minute doses of ipecacuanha 
will cure nausea and vomiting, while they have given large 
doses of that drug for a century; first increasing vomiting and 
thereby curing it—on the Homoeopathic principle to be sure ; 
but so “ignorantly and wickedly” applied, that great mischief 
is often done thereby. But some wise observer among them 
has discovered that very minute doses of ipecacuanha will 
cure nausea and vomiting in a more prompt and satis- 
factory manner. This astonishing discovery is explained, they 
think, by the bold statement that ipecacuanha is a tonic! 
How cunningly they avoid the Homoeopathic law—“Similia 
Similibus Curantur.” 
There are many other instances of the same nature, which 
might be stated, showing how the “old school physicians” have 
for years blundered along the road towards Homoeopathy, but 
if told of it, the learned reply is, “Homoeopathy is a humbug" 
and that is the end of it. LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 
17 
SIXTH. HOMOEOPATHY IS NOT A HUMBUG. 
Were the matter a piece of deceit, it is not likely to have 
had the steady success which its opponents are constrained 
to acknowledge attends its practice. 
A short time, at any rate, would expose its fallacy. An in- 
genious and plausible advocate might make an hypothesis 
popular, but he could never obtain extensive belief in the 
statement of a supposed fact which every day’s observation 
proved to be untrue. 
The old system has had possession of the Commonwealth for 
two centuries. 
Our system has been known here not quite forty years. 
Making fair allowance for time, we have as many families 
entrusted to our care as they have. And our patients are not 
the careless, the ignorant, the needy, who must take what they 
can get, or the reckless, carried away by every new whim. 
No; we count among our patients the rich, who have tried 
every clime for health, every city for medical skill, every the- 
ory for efficient help ; we have the foremost men at the bar, 
in the pulpit, on the exchange. In intelligence, social 
position, and world-wide culture, the men and women who 
trust their lives to our system, may be fairly measured with 
any who consult theirs. 
Have we failed to help these friends? Have we been found 
wanting in severe disease? Forty years is sufficient for 
trial. The evidence that they have found us efficient helpers 
is that they continue to trust us. Who then can pronounce a 
“humbug” what two generations of the best educated men in 
this country and in Europe continue to trust; which the fore- 
most governments in Europe recognize: which has its hospitals, 18 
LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 
both city and national, all over the world; and who dares 
to compare its success in curing disease with the best of them? 
If world-wide recognition, unequaled success in curing dis- 
ease, and the confidence of the most enlightened classes here 
and in Europe do not lift a system into sufficient character to 
prevent the term “humbug” being applied, then please describe 
to us what can ? * 
Homoeopathy has been recognized as medicine by the highest 
public authorities. 
There are incorporated Homoeopathic Medical State Societies 
in the following States: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, 
Massachusetts, Connecticut, New' York, New Jersey, Penn- 
sylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, also in the follow- 
ing, the State Societies are probably incorporated: Wisconsin, 
Minnesota, Iowa, California, Kansas. Our own State has also 
“wheeled into line” and organized during the present year a 
State Society. Besides these nineteen State Societies there 
are more than sixty local or county societies in active 
operation, many of which are incorporated. 
HOMOEOPATHIC MEDICAL COLLEGES. 
There exists also the following incorporated Homoeopathic 
Medical Colleges: Pennsylvania, 1; New York, 2; Ohio, 2; 
Illinois, 1; Missouri, 2; Michigan, 1. In addition, the 
Michigan Legislature has passed a law ordering the appoint- 
ment of two Professors of Homoeopathy in the Michigan 
University at Ann Harbor. The Boston University has just 
established its Medical Department under Homoeopathic 
auspices. LECTURE ON 1I0M<E0PATHV. 
19 
INCORPORATED HOMOEOPATHIC HOSPITALS. 
The following Homoeopathic hospitals have been chartered 
by State legislatures and have been established : Massachu- 
setts, 1 ; New York, 7 ; Pennsylvania, 2; Ohio, 2; Illinois, 3; 
Missouri, 1. Besides these there are upwards of twenty other 
hospitals or asylums under homoeopathic care in the United 
States, in which homoeopathy is permitted or required by law. 
INCORPORATED HOMOEOPATHIC DISPENSARIES. 
There are twenty of these of considerable size, in active 
operation, and a large number of smaller ones which do not 
assume a corporate organization. 
In one of the Homoeopathic dispensaries in New York city 
41,714 patients were treated last year, (1872.) 7,384 visits 
were made, and 84,648 prescriptions were given, making it 
one of the largest, if not the largest, dispensary in the country. 
THE EXTENT OF THE PRACTICE OF HOMOEOPATHY. 
In 1825 Dr. Gram introduced Homoeopathy into America, 
lie met with so much opposition and ridicule that in 1840, or 
fifteen years after its introduction there were scarcely one 
hundred physicians believing in it in the United States. 
In 1846 a medical school was established in Philadelphia for 
the teaching of its principles, since that time its growth 
has been rapid, and as you have seen, it has become a power 
in the land. 
Already more than five thousand physicians, including 
many from the old school of practice, have adopted its prin- 
ciples, and practice in accordance therewith. 20 
LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 
LITERATURE OF HOMOEOPATHY. 
There are of Homoeopathic journals published and well- 
supported in the United States alone, three quarterlies, seven 
monthlies, and one bi-monthly. Not less than one thousand 
volumes have been published relating to Homoeopathic medi- 
cine ; and more have been issued during the past year than 
ever before in the same time. 
ACTION OF THE GOVERNMENT REGARDING HOMOEOPATHY. 
I might call to mind the dismissal by our national govern- 
ment of Dr. Van Aernam, a commissioner of pensions, for the 
sole reason that he removed subordinates on account of 
Homoeopathic belief; and also the subsequent reinstatement, 
by the government, of the men removed by him. 
So also, within the past year the State government of Mas- 
sachusetts, has had under commission, as militia surgeon and 
assistant surgeons, three men who were well known to be 
Homocopathists. 
The time therefore is past when men are to be ostracized 
for adopting the Homoeopathic belief and practice of medicine. 
CONDITION OF HOMOEOPATHY IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 
In Europe, where, thirty years ago, we were told that it was 
dying out, Homoeopathy was never so extensively practiced as 
now. More than thirty hospitals and asylums have adopted 
this practice. There are upwards of two hundred practitioners 
of it in Paris alone. It is taught in several universities by a 
distinct chair. In Saxony, for several years, every pharmacy 
has been compelled to maintain a separate Homoeopathic de- 
partment. In the German army are many Homcepathists. LECTURE OX H0M<E0PATI1 V. 
21 
Among them the philosophic Grauvogel, noted for his work on 
the science of Homoeopathy, occupies a high position. 
In Leipsic, where Hahneman first announced his valuable 
discovery, and from which place he was afterwards driven by 
the bitter persecutions of his medical enemies, stands on the 
public highway a monument with life size statue of this great 
genius, erected at the public expense. In every court in 
Europe Homoeopathy has been introduced, and is used by a 
fair proportion of the nobility and gentry, as well as by men 
of letters, and families of the largest influence and intelligence. 
In England alone there are forty-four public, and seventy- 
one private dispensaries, and nine Homoeopathic societies. 
In Brazil and some portions of South America, it has al- 
ready become the prevailing or “orthodox” practice. 
It has been favorably introduced among the nations of China 
and Ilindostan, and a handsome monthly Homoeopathic journal 
is issued in Calcutta. 
In Australia a Homoeopathic hospital has just been es- 
tablished, and in New Zealand a Homoeopathic medical jour- 
nal is published. Whether unprejudiced people will see it or 
not, the world dors more. 22 
LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 
THE ADVANTAGES HOMOEOPATHY PRESENTS TO THE PATIENT ARE . 
The banishment of nauseous drugs and painful and debilita- 
ting applications. 
It is gentle and agreeable in its effects. 
It economises the vital powers, and the convalescence is much 
shorter. 
The deliverance from medicinal diseases, and other destructive 
consequences of former methods, of treatment. 
How often do we hear the remark: “I cannot take such 
strong medicines;” “it makes me sick to take it?” How often 
do we see the patient ejecting every thing, like medicine, 
from his stomach, gather his enfeebled energies, raise his 
emaciated form and greet with a ghastly smile his physician 
who, having failed to reach the disease in the usual manner, 
comes armed with an assortment of blisters and a huge 
syringe, determined to reach the disease and “assist nature” 
either by fair means or foul ? 
Where the mother who does not shrink with all the mater- 
nal instinct from giving her delicate offspring such nauseous 
doses—first persuading, then threatening and finally holding 
the little sufferer’s nose, thus compelling it to swallow the dose ? 
With Homoeopathic remedies this is avoided. Its medicines 
only act upon the diseased organ. If the head be sick, it does 
not add to this sickness a complaint in the intestines, which 
strong purgatives must do; if the lungs be inflamed it does not 
also bring on an inflammation of the skin, which a blister does. 
The beneficial consequences of this method is conspicuous in 
the speedy return of the patient to his accustomed health and LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 
23 
occupation. When the acute disease is removed, which is 
often in an unusually short space of time, the patient is well; 
he has no medicinal disease, no tedious convalescence, requires 
no wine or bark. 
Our remedies are not designed to tear down or to destroy tissue, 
but to build up and replace that already destroyed. It is this 
fact that enables a healthy individual to take an ordinary dose 
of Homoeopathic medicine “without its making him sick.” 
We frequently hear it said, “if your medicines act on dis- 
ease, why is it that they can be taken in large doses by children 
without making them sick ?” With the same propriety might 
you ask why a man, who in health can eat his daily rations 
of pork and beans, can not do so when sick ; or, why the eye, 
which in health bears the strongest glare of light from the 
noon-day sun, when inflamed,,suffers the most excruciating 
pain from the slightest ray of light from a candle, even 
through several folds of linen. 
The Homoeopathic physician gives but one medicine at a time. 
A small dose is generally administered, and time allowred for 
its effects to be produced before either another dose is given, 
or another medicine is tried. We do not think it necessary 
to produce such violent effects from medicine, what we desire 
is the specific action of the drug, the effect which is really of 
value in the treatment of disease. This is best obtained by a 
very small dose. 
All drugs being poisons, not only is “more in vain” but 
more is positively injurious “when less will serve.” 
The Allopathic physician prescribes his remedies in com- 
bination, and it is impossible to diminish the dose, without 
diminishing very materially its effect. 24 
LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 
An injury to the patient is also by no means an unfrequent 
evil from the prevailing practice of mixing drugs together, 
and thus complicating, often beyond their control, their opera- 
tion on the living body—sometimes until it lives no longer. 
“The mildest remedy,” says Dr. Paris, “may thus (by in- 
judicious combination) be converted into an instrument of 
tort ure, and even of death A 
He also says: “I was once told by a practitioner that the 
quantity, or rather the complexity of the medicine which he 
gave his patients, for there never was any deficiency in the 
former, was always increased in a ratio with the obscurity of 
their cases: ‘if,' said he, ‘I fire a great profusion of shot, it is 
very extraordinary if some do not hit the mark.’ ” 
A patient in the hands of such a practitioner has not a 
much better chance than a Chinese mandarin, who when at- 
taked with any disorders, calls in twelve or more physicians, 
and swallows in one mixture all the potions which each sep- 
arately prescribes ! 
It is not unusual now, when a patient has been cured under 
Homoeopathic treatment, for physicians to attempt to turn the 
force of such evidence in favor of Homoeopathy by remarking 
that “the patient has got well by leaving off medicine! But what 
a satire upon themselves is such an admission as this! Are 
they really conscious then that the medicines they are so eager 
to prescribe from day to day, and Ipr the continuance of 
which they contend so earnestly—are they conscious that these 
medicines prevent the recovery of their patients ? Are they 
content that the matter should be thus viewed by the public? 
That the effect of taking their prescriptions is to lengthen out 
disease—to prolong the patients sufferings? LECTURE ON II0M<E0PATI1Y. 
25 
Are they so driven into a corner by the evidence in favor of 
Homoeopathy, that they have no better weapon to defend them- 
selves than such an argument as this? 
IT IS AN ASSERTION MADE IN IGNORANCE. 
What do those who make it know of the matter? Nothing. 
Where are their experimental investigations? Nowhere. 
What time and pain have they bestowed upon the inquiry? 
None at all. They do not even profess to have studied the 
subject; they would not condescend to study it; “they have too 
much sense.” Would you have them study “quackery,” and 
listen to “humbug?” 
Alas ! we are all far too ignorant of the operation of natural 
causes, and the production of natural effects, to be justified 
in using such language as this. 
IT IS AN ASSERTION MADE IN INDOLENCE. 
I say this because of the facility with which the matter may 
be tested, and ignorance respecting it removed. 
Every medical man engaged in actual practice has oppor- 
tunities of putting the principle and the dose of Homoeopathy 
upon trial every day. Let any practitioner resolve to look at 
the question with his own eyes, and he can immediately do 
so. Let him begin with those drugs with whose poisonous 
action he is already well acquainted, and in fairness, till he 
has more skill, give them in the lower dilutions, (the first and 
second) and afterwards, when he has become more familiar 
with their use, in the higher or infinitesimal ones. 
Such indolence as leads a man to pronounce an off-hand 
sentence of condemnation against any statement largely 
affecting the interest of the human family, because it is novel 26 
LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 
and startling, admits of no apology, when it is within his 
power to put the statement to a practical test. “We are to 
strive,” says William Harvey, “after personal experience, not 
to rely on the experience of others, without which indeed no 
one can properly become a student of any branch of natural 
science.” 
A wise man said, “He that answereth a matter before he 
heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.” 
When a medical man tells his patient that Homoeopathy is 
“humbug,” let it be said to him : “xVs you express yourself 
so decidedly, of course, you have studied the subject ex- 
perimentally * may I ask you how many months you have 
spent in the practical investigation ?” 
A child in such a situation would have red cheeks; whether 
an adult would feel ashamed or not, I cannot tell; I think h"e 
would look somewhat awkward and foolish. 
When a non-professional person gives utterance to similar 
language, let him be told that it is unwise to condemn with- 
out knowledge ; that when he comes to suffer from disease and 
to experience the happy results of the new treatment in his 
own person, his opinion will be altered. 
IT IS AN ASSERTION MADE IN FOLLY. 
IT IS AN ASSERTION MADE IN ENMITY, 
The question is not viewed simply with reference to its 
truth or falsehood. 
It is an “obnoxious” subject, looked upon with repugnance 
and contempt. 
There exists, instead of a desire to investigate it, a desire to 
banish it, to crush it, to do anything to get rid of it. 
And yet it is the medicine of mercy ; it proposes to email - LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 
27 
cipate the suffering invalid from every disagreeable, harsh, 
and cruel proceeding to which he has been long exposed; it 
professes to be able to cure more quickly, safely, and pleasant- 
ly, uCito Tuto et Jucunde,” than is possible by any other 
means ; it promises to the physician himself the satisfaction of 
a scientific method in place of vague experiments. 
But it is an “obnoxious system ; false and bad,” and as 
such it is hated and opposed, and that to such a degree as to 
prevent the majority of medical men from testing it ex- 
perimentally, even with a view of proving the errors which 
they so vehemently assert it to contain. 
And what shall be allowed to be the weight of an assertion 
made so ignorantly, so indolently, so foolishly, and with such 
hostile feeling? 
Is it of force to dissipate the convictions produced in the 
mind by an honest trial of the new method, and a careful ob- 
servation of the actual results? Can they be relinquished at 
such a bidding? That would indeed be opposed to reason and 
“contrary to common sense.” 
Did 1 not speak truly when I said: “This assertion is 
groundless, devoid of proof, and worthless ?” Entertaining 
enough in the mouth of a child, but unbecoming in persons 
who have attained “years of discretion,” 
ON TIIE CONTRARY, 
Homoeopathy is true, and I now include in that word the 
principle, the moderately small dose, and also the infinitesimal 
dose. 
Such is a brief exposition of the leading features of Homoe- 
opathy. They would admit of being much more copiously 28 
LECTURE ON HOMOEOPATHY. 
enlarged upon, but the aim lias been to make a few points so 
clear that it may not be doubtful what we are contending for. 
We should be glad to be fairly met with facts and arguments, 
but in the place of these we have ridicule and abuse. But 
certainly the evidence in favor of Homoeopathy deserves 
something more than ridicule. Those who reject it, or who 
cast it out of the way, as unworthy of inquiry, must do so on 
their own responsibility. 
THE END. COMPARATIVE MORTALITY 
—IN— 
New York, Boston apd Philadelphia, 
City. 
Year. 
No. OF 
Physicians 
No. OF 
Deaths 
Ratio. 
New York 
1870 
044 
14.860 
15.75 
1871 
084 
15.526 
15.78 
Boston 
1870 
218 
3.872 
17.76 
1871 
233 
3.360 
14.46 
“ 
1872 
233 
4.575 
10.63 
Philadelphia 
1872 
055 
12.468 
10.03 
Total. 
3.267 
54.670 
16.73 
IIOMCEOPATIIIC. 
City. 
Y EAR. 
No. of 
Physicians 
No. OF 
Deaths, 
Katio. 
New York 
1870 
143 
1287 
9.00 
1871 
156 
1243 
7.97 
Boston 
1870 
40 
402 
10.05 
U 
1871 
44 
363 
8.25 
i 
1872 
54 
446 
8.26 
Philadelphia 
1872 
168 
2162 
12.87 
Total. 
605 
5.903 
9.75 
Where Homoeopathy loses ten patients, Allopathy loses seventeen. 
These are statistics of private practice, compiled from official 
records, and clearly show why The Homceopatiiic Mutual 
Life Insurance Co., of 231 Broadway, New York, can afford 
to insure Homoeopaths at less than the usual rates. 
rite to the Company for further information, which will 
be furnished free of cost.