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CONCISE  VIEW
OF THE
PRINCIPLES  OF HOMCEOPATHIA,
BY THE BARON DE BRUNNOW,
OF DRESDEN.
WITH INTRODUCTORY REMARKS,
IN PRESENTING THIS EXPOSITION, IN ENGLISH,
TO THE NEW-YORK HOMCEOPATHIC SOCIETY.
BY JOHN L. SULLIVAN, A.M.
PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY.  l-E-  G£iVf}^-.
        NEW-YORK :

HENRY  LUDWIG, PRINTER,
        No. 72, Vesey-street.

            1835.
 
/ 
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS,
ADDRESSED TO THE NEW-YORK HOMCEOPATHIC SOCIETY, IN RELATION TO

                THE OBJECTS OF THE ASSOCIATION.
  Desirous of promoting the object of this Association, to which
I have just had  the honour of admission, and in the spirit which
all are understood to assume as members, considering opportunity
of doing good  as the invitation  of Providence, permit me to  offer
a translation of a compendium, calculated to afford those who  have
not read it in the original, a still stronger conviction that the pur-
pose  of this Society is  of importance to the community.  It is  a
concise view of the principles of the method of cure discovered by
Dr. Hahnemann, written by his friend the Baron de Brunnow, to
be a  precursor  of the Organon,  which he had undertaken to trans-
late into French.
  I  should, however,  mention, that my translation of  this  little
work was not made  for the express purpose of being offered to
your  acceptance.  But happening to have  been always fond of
medical reading,  my  impression of the value of  Hahnemann's
works had  led me to  think of translating  them  into English, at
leisure moments, and thus much had been accomplished when in-
formed of the existence of this Society for the purpose of collecting
and disseminating this  information.
  It  is not without utility to inquire at this moment on what motive
the Baron de Brunnow ten years ago circulated this concise  view
of the principles of Homceopathia  in  France?   And whether
there may not be some  similarity between the circumstances of the
French then, and the American people now, that justifies and en-
courages our exertions.
  The discoveries of Hahnemann had been then many years gra-
dually spreading through the centre of Europe ;  and gaining, by 
iv                 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
the force of simple truth, a triumph over prejudice and  privilege ;
but France had not yet received it.  Paris, the centre of science,
had not  yet,  amidst its conflicting  elements,  acknowledged  it.
The great body of the  physicians were in possession of their own
practice.  And, as yet, kw, if any, had paused long enough in
their career of profit, to examine  this product of foreign genius.
Baron de Brunnow saw, that, before his translation of the Organon
would be received by the faculty, its principles must be understood
by the people.  These  ten years have  produced almost a revolu-
tion.   The principles   of Homceopathia are now in extensive
practice  in every  principal  city in France.   Some of the most
distinguished physicians are now numbered  among the converts to
this new reformation.   You  have seen the  Count  des Guidi's
publication translated here into English and  eagerly read.   And
we have the translation of Hahnemann's works into  French by
Jourdan, a member  of the  Royal Academy  of Medicine.   The
French  language, as  well  as  the German,  now abounds  with
practical results of these principles.
   The American people are, at this time, about ten years behind
the French, in the progress of this knowledge, and this new art of
cure, which has thus made its way against all kinds of opposition.
But here it will make  more rapid progress : here there exists not,
as  in  Germany, the obstacle  of   privilege and immunity:  here
inquiry is as free as the  American mind; the press is untrammelled;
and the cause of health is the  cause of all.   It is a concern that
comes home to the bosom of every family.
   It is true, however, that the existing medical schools, which have
sent forth all the practitioners now on the stage of life, and whose
professors are among the  most mature and respectable members
of  the faculty, may not at once readily and willingly examine as
deeply as is, no doubt, requisite  to  conviction, nor extend their
views  so widely as to embrace this branch of instruction.  Baron
de Brunnow will  be found to touch very  delicately and respect-
fully on this topic.
   But there is evidently a shade of difference between the interest
of  medical colleges and the  interest of the community.  The one
is necessarily nearly stationary, the other progressive.  And, per-
haps, it may  be truly said, that this was never in  any country so
manifest as in ours.  The climate of our country vibrates  to ex- 
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
V
tremes,  originating dangerous disorders;  while  our commerce
with every other clime brings also those of other regions.   Our
circumstances demand a medical faculty more highly qualified than
are physicians presiding over the schools  of any other  country.
I do not know whether the same system  of instruction is adapted
alike to all  the Union—though probably the prevailing one is
taught  without discrimination.  Nor is  this of any great  conse-
quence, if a few remarks the subject leads me presently to  make
are  undeniable.   Homceopathia,  I  am  sure, is applicable  to all
parts.
   But,  allowing that a great discovery of principle has been made
in Europe, confirmed  by experiment and experience,  how is the
voice that brings these glad tidings to the people, to reach them in
their domestic circle ?   And how are the facts to be laid before
them as men, for  their consideration and examination ?   How is
the verdict of public opinion to be made up and brought in 1
   We answer,—in Germany societies were formed for the collec-
tion and dissemination of this information.   It  can only be  done
gradually—that it may be done authentically.  And what class of
men is to do  this 7  Who are to purchase  the books, and  make
the  translations from the German  and the French,  and publish
what the community is so much interested to learn ?
   Surely this cannot be left to the busy editors of the public jour-
nals—nor to the medical  journals whose editors and contributors
are  of  the opposite interest 1  Can the  community leave  the in-
quiry to the  colleges 1   Surely those who are liberally paid by
numerous classes  for stated and reiterated lectures, have no motive
to render this gratuitous service.
   The only answer, then, is, that the people must themselves take
 some pains independently, to acquire this intelligence for the sake
of themselves and their  families.  They must do in this  as on
 other occasions  of philanthropic effort, for there is no form of phi-
 lanthropy that has not  existence  in this city, among the opulent,
 the  charitable, the public-spirited, and religious men of every pro-
 fession,—they must form at  least one society for the  culture and
 spread of this information.   You have been the pioneers  in this
 good cause ;  and  I think you will be followed by hundreds,  whose
 liberality,  leisure, and love of sound philosophy, will  be attracted 
vi
INTRODUCTORY  REMARKS.
by the interesting  features of the object,  when understood and
shown in all the brightness of the simple truth.
   Every arrival brings some new testimonial to the importance of
that truth,—the archives of Homoeopathia are already rich  in the
most  astonishing cures.   Nor are they without parallel  in the
practice of the few physicians who already  belong to this Society.
And if men, as yet uninformed, were to  ask, What advantage  to
them  would result from sustaining  the progress of this curative art
in our country? it might be a plain and true answer to  say, You
are liable to various diseases ;  the disorder of which you complain
manifests its seat and character by certain signs called symptoms;
the Homoeopathic method applies  the remedy directly to the dis-
eased organ; but the common practice reaches it only by making
all the other organs sick, and, after all, may not effect a cure.
   Suppose the sick man to be the head of a family, engaged in
daily  business for their support, does it not make a great difference
to him whether he shall be  laid up  for weeks, or take a particle of
pure medicine, and be cured effectually, without making him sen-
sibly  more sick, and without laying him up at all?
   If we were now assembled  as a jury; and  you,  gentlemen of
the Faculty, in the  practice of the  Homoeopathic  method, were
summoned  here as witnesses on oath, no doubt  a few  questions
would elicit much interesting information. And among other facts,
you would bear testimony to the efficacy of the Homoeopathic art in
the cure of that most formidable disorder  to  the more delicate and
interesting  portion of the community, so often its victims—the con-
sumption: and many disorders besides might be named, where the
patient had exhausted the resources of the common practice; and
perhaps, too, you might answer, as to the cholera, as Dr. Q,uin
would, were he here,—(sent by Leopold, king of Belgium, to study
that disease, as it advanced  across Austria, and he, meeting it with
so much confidence, as the disciple of Hahnemann, that, being him-
self violently seized soon after his arrival in Vienna,  he prescribed
for himself,)—that, in a thousand bad cases,  the ratio of recoveries
was ten out of eleven ;  while, at the same time and place, the ratio
of recoveries by the old practice was, as usual, one in three.   And
as to your own practice here last summer, you might answer, that
the ratio of cures was, of bad cases, nineteen out of twenty.
   That disease, now naturalized in  our country,  can never be got 
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
Vli
rid of, though it may soften down in  a  few generations into some-
thing like an endemic. but it will  probably hover over the cities,
and manifest itself whenever a neglect  of rational precaution and
temperance shall predispose to and invite its ravages.   And when-
ever this occurs, surely it is no small satisfaction to know that it is
so much more under control.
  At an early period, so  important did they consider this method
of cure in some cities in Germany, that, at public expense, Homoeo-
pathic physicians were hired till those  settled in the place should
have time to learn its  principles.
  If, then, we  may adopt the motives of Baron de Brunnow, we per-
ceive that we have two objects to accomplish, that of  inducing  the
student  of medicine to consult his interest in qualifying himself for
this branch of practice, after his usual preparatory scientific studies,
and  of inducing the people to-examine into the  advantages of this
method,  that they may reward his  accomplishments with their
confidence.  We cannot, indeed, here, as in the  cities of Germany,
wait  their preparation very  long.   American physicians must
qualify  themselves and take possession  of the ground', or their
native field of profit  and honour will be reaped by foreign hands.
Neglect will leave an  opening, not for the thoroughly-instructed
physicians of Europe, too much in demand to emigrate, but for
pretenders to  medical education, who,  availing  themselves of the
opening, will  claim a fortuitous rank here, which was not enjoyed
at home.  It would be greatly to be deprecated and regretted, that
this  powerful and yet delicate instrument, should be held by un-
skilful  or clumsy hands.   It would fail to inspire half the con-
fidence  it deserves.
  The  voice of public opinion will call up native talent if it be not
suppressed or enchained by some rule  of  the profession  of which
I am not aware.  I can conceive of none which limits the mind of a
studious man to the  medical practice in which he was  bred.
Indeed  it is impossible but that the more high-minded and  liberally-
educated  will  be the first to  claim the liberty of independent
practice and co-operation with the great body of  the  people in
this  irresistible reformation.
  But we are aware that it will be said, a medical society should be
alone composed  of medical men.   Also,  that  the  community at
large is not  capable of judging of this matter. 
Vlll
INTRODUCTORY  REMARKS.
  The people can surely judge of facts.   If a man, afflicted almost to
death with the asthma, or chronic rheumatism, or pulmonary ulcers,
has in vain sought relief from Allopathic treatment, and finds him-
self cured by the Homoeopathic, here is a fact, of which he and his
friends can judge, without a knowledge of the considerations which
decided the physician to the choice of one out of two hundred me-
dicines.
  It is true, that medical men have  generally alone constituted
medical societies.  The reason, perhaps, has been, that their pur-
pose was merely to regulate the practice,  or to receive from  each
other reports of extraordinary cases in surgery, or of such phe-
nomena as  might be worthy  of  preservation in  the  archives of
science.
  But if  I am not in error the purpose of your society, especially
should it become popular, is to sustain the  labour  and expense of
introducing into our  country a full knowledge of the Homoeopathic
art of cure.  It is a philanthropic,  rather than a medical society, or
blended of both, that it may comprehend volunteer labourers from
all professions,  and become the medium of this desirable, and,  as
we believe, momentous information.   It seems to me, the commu-
nity has a natural right to look to  those who  have the power to do
this, just as they have to look to the opulent, generous, and  judi-
cious, for those disseminated arguments which check and cure the
ruinous vice of intemperance.
  We continually see men, and even ladies,  giving much time to
charitable societies ;  and many, in relation to our object, may say,
with the  Apostles, " Silver and gold we have none, but such as we
have give we unto you."   Many may help the lame  to walk and
the  almost blind to  recover sight, by  promoting the knowledge
which will establish among us new means of their cure, often when
no old methods succeed.   We claim  that there is now principle to
guide.
  It may, indeed, be premature and  misplaced to  apprehend the
like opposition  here,  that Homoeopathia met with in Germany.  It
was then in its infancy, and  in a manner unconfirmed by expe-
rience.   It  comes to us  sustained by  experience.  It comes de-
manding only that it be in skilful hands.  Empiricism, or quackery
in medicine, has been the offspring  of  its conjectural, vacillating,
groping  state. 
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
IX
   We should probably do great injustice to the profession by as-
suming, that, because some uninformed members of it prematurely
oppose what they have not had time, perhaps, to understand, that,
therefore, the whole faculty are opposed.  Probably many of the
older physicians here, as in France, will deem it  too late in the
day for them to learn anew, or change their system, and these will
not oppose what they do not take pains to comprehend, but will go
on and leave it to time to test.  And others will examine without
adopting it, though wishing it well from discernment and convic-
tion.  But few will risk  their reputation  for philosophy on the
common and only objection, that such excessively small doses cannot
be efficacious, because their great ones are not, for, this only be-
trays an  ignorance  of the difference in the principle of administra-
tion,—an unacquaintedness with the works  of the discoverer of the
means of the developement of medicinal virtues or powers, as used
in this practice.
   If, however, it were the ill-fortune of this  Society to  encounter
opposition from the faculty, as a body,  it could not lessen the re-
spect we  entertain for a profession which boasts of great and good
men, who, struggling with the immense difficulties of the inherent
uncertainties in their art, have always  been in the front rank of
danger, and have immensely mitigated human, suffering.   Indeed,
our feelings would  still be  as  friendly as our own  convictions are
strong.   And we believe we may congratulate them on this dawn of
a brighter day, which is to relieve the profession from the cloud of
doubt that has  hung over their  path ever since the dark ages fell
with  Gothic gloom  upon the temple of Grecian science.
   Yet should the utmost  opposition of interest arise, the scenes
which Brunnow describes as  having disgraced Germany, cannot
be acted over again in America, for there is one answer that cannot
be repelled, and is paramount,—the people are the  most  interested
party.  The physician, like  the  lawyer,  is  an  agent; the one
ministers  to the execution of the laws of our country, the other to
the laws of nature;  the former must know all the  laws, or  he is
not worthy of confidence,—the latter must know, as far as possible,
all that is known  of the phenomena of nature, or  he deserves no
confidence ; the former will not hazard his  reputation,  nor the life
of a fellow-being, without being thoroughly prepared in his case,—
the latter,  acting conscientiously will not hazard the  life of a patient,
                              2 
X
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
unless he is master of all the science proper to his profession.  This
is one of the distinctions between the unscrupulous quack and the
physician.
  The inherent difficulty of medicine had given opportunity for
the display of genius in a variety of hypotheses;  and all who could
not lead were compelled to follow;  till at length medical, like natu-
ral philosophy, demanded a Bacon, to bring its volatile materials
down to the crucible of experiment.
   The vacillations of theory and practice have been the reproach
of the profession, but without reason.  How could it ever be set-
tled till the true principle of cure was  discovered  ?
   Hahnemann,  after  extraordinary  opportunities of erudition,
threw up his practice, because of the distressing  uncertainties of
medicine.   The public  was not so much  surprised at this, as to
see him resume it  ten years afterwards, and draw the attention of
all Saxony to him by his extraordinary cures.   Was this the un-
certain system that  he had laid down  in  disgust ?   Far from it,
this was something in the certainty of which he exulted.  In his
retirement,  he had discovered  and verified the true  principle of
cure,  and he could now practise, as conscientiously as successfully.
   If  an apology were deemed necessary for the formation of a
medical  society from amongst  the  various professions, for  the
propagation of a knowledge of that  discovery, we need offer no
other, than the uncertainty which the common  practice of the
schools involved.  A medical  society  to  remedy that defect re-
quired to be  constituted of different  materials,  in part, from  any
other, because for a different purpose, not to concentrate—but dif-
fuse intelligence.
   Nor does the reproach, if it be one,  rest on the  single declaration
of Hahnemann, but is confirmed by the testimony of a very distin-
guished witness, in another country,  Dr. Abercrombie, Fellow of
the Royal Society, and first physician to his majesty, in  Scotland.
   In  his work (republished in  this city), entitled  "Inquiries  con-
cerning the Intellectual Powers and the Investigation of Truth,"
he has a chapter entitled "  The Uncertainties of Medicine," and he
admits, as the occasion for the aid he proposes to give the medical
student, in disciplining his mind to cope with it, that  " almost the
whole resource of medicine is the art of conjecturing."  He even
alludes, in illustration of this fact,  to  a  certain eminent physician, 
                    INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.                xi

of that country, who in renouncing  the practice, which he had
exercised for thirty years, says, as a reason for  it, " I am wearied
of guessing."
   That author, whose testimony no one will impeach, then goes
on to show how the mind of the medical student is to weigh and
analyze all the considerations and  circumstances that will enable
him, with the most probability, to  guess nearly  right, in the  dubi-
ous practice incident to the conjectural state of medicine, and con-
cludes  in these words,  " with these complicated sources of uncer-
tainty,  which meet us at every step in our medical inquiries, it is
almost unnecessary to  contrast the perfect uniformity of phenom-
ena, on a confidence in which  we proceed in other departments of
science."
   Now,  I believe, and  I presume, gentlemen, you all believe, from
what you already know, and see,  of  the principles and effects of
Homoeopathia,  that  it  will supply the  desideratum which  Dr.
Abercrombie regrets.   The phenomena  of disease being uniform
in its  signs, the application of the  remedy indicated by  those
signs,  duly attended to, will be exact and Homoeopathic ; so that,
were a hundred Homoeopathic  physicians in  consultation,  they
would  not  differ.   Thus,  Hahnemann will have had the glory
of raising medicine to the rank of the exact sciences.
   Medicine, as a profession, is now divested of its greatest objec-
tions, it has become one which a feeling, and  conscientious man,
may rejoice to follow.  It is now founded and practised on princi-
ples as immutable as the laws of nature.  I will not  say, that a
Homoeopathic physician cannot  err, for, even the mathematician
mav miscalculate,  from inattention,  or incapacity, but  neither
will guess.   There  is  now,  to  the accomplished and attentive,
as clear  a relation to be discerned between  the disease and  the
remedy, as  if the suffering  organ were endued with a voice.   But
the disorder will not be cured unless the physician understands
every tone  of that voice: and the more exactly and fully the patient
describes his sufferings the more adapted will be the remedy.
   And,  what other method of cure, than the Homoeopathic, has
been able to relieve that most  interesting, and often most unhappy
class of sufferers, the insane,  whose  delicacy and  susceptibility,
expose them,  more  than  others,  to  the causes  of this  malady.
And who does not tremble to think  that themselves, as well as 
xii
INTRODUCTORY  REMARKS.
those who are more dear to them than self, are liable, from physi-
cal causes alone, to derangements,  which the resources of the
predominant medical school can never remedy.
   For, here permit  me to remind you of one of the principles of
the Homoeopathic art, that  its remedial  materials are alone such
as  with  precision to reach and change those sufferings which
have these deplorable consequences.
   Hahnemann says, in  the  Organon,  (Jourdan's Translation,
page 282,) " I can even affirm, after long experience, that the supe-
riority of Homoeopathia, over all the other methods of cure, shows
itself no  where with more eclat than in mental maladies, even of
long standing, which owe their origin to corporeal affections, or
that have developed  themselves at the same time writh them."   He
expatiates on this subject through a number of pages, proving the
connection of  a  disordered mind, most generally, with disordered
organs.
   He does not, however, say, that there  are not also moral causes
that so affect the mental organs as to produce insanity.  Indeed,
he himself made one of the most remarkable cures  on record, that
of one of the  literati of Germany, who was driven  mad by an un-
just criticism,  or satire, of Kotzebue.
   But amongst the  prominent causes of insanity, Hahnemann re-
cognizes the habitual use of alcoholic liquors.  This fact is well
known to those  who consider intemperance as at once the source
of moral, intellectual,  and physical  degradation, demanding the
most persevering and liberal exertions of the philanthrophic, and
the religious,—the  intelligent, and the  humane,  throughout the
union.   Could the people of New-York, for one hour of a Sunday
morning, be transported  to the  streets of London,  and see the de-
 gradation of domestic life to which dram-shops lead, there would
be but one voice in this  community,—appealing to that authority
which is necessary  to guard this London of the western continent
from the like  impending evil.
    It is one of the recommendations of the Homoeopathic treatment,
that it demands of every patient a total abstinence from spirituous
 drinks,—indeed, it  goes  very far to convince the understanding of
 the patient, that he can and will, always afterwards, feel better
 without  them.  As  this  treatment requires  pure medicines in ex-
 tremely small doses, (because they act on a different principle from 
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
xiii
the large doses given by the common method,) as they go directly
to the organ diseased, and  being  Homoeopathic to the disease, or
capable of producing like effects on the healthy, operate as an aid-
ing energy to the efforts of nature to shake off or expel the morbid
cause of the  disturbance;  and as these medicines are so powerful
as to prolong their effect sometimes to  twenty or even forty days,
the patient meanwhile feeling daily more and more relieved, and
faithfully observing the prescribed simple diet, drinking only pure
water, finds as his disorder  lessens, his  strength, animation, and
capacity of mind return, and thus he has been taught the salutary
lesson that temperance is in accord with perfect health.
   In conclusion, apologizing for  occupying your  time so long,
permit  me, before I proceed  to read the translation, and on taking
my place as a fellow-labourer among you, that I do it under  the
strongest conviction, not only from the inherent excellence of this,
to our country, new art of cure, but from the prognosis of the times,
that the object of this association will be early attained,—that  an
intelligent community, like  this, cannot be insensible to the value
of the astonishing arcana  of nature that has been revealed to the
persevering  genius  and integrity of the illustrious Hahnemann.
And we are encouraged  in  this faith  in our fellow-citizens, by
knowing that talent of the highest  order in the medical profession
 has in Europe, volunteered in this cause, protected by rank and
 learning.  And  we may,  moreover, have confidence in the youth-
ful energy of the fairest minds in the study of the profession, of all
 others  the most essential, confidential, and laborious ; for we may
be sure, that the occasion to learn one or two modern languages to
 embrace the whole  range  of this interesting study,  will be  no
 obstacle to those, who will  hardly brook the imputation of otherwise
 groping in the darkness of  "conjecture,"—the remnant of barbar-
 ous times, when there exists at command, a lamp so bright, so pure. 
XIV
INTRODUCTORY  REMARKS.
   The publications in English, in this country, have been Dr.
Gram's translation  of a small tract,  by Dr. Hahnemann,  about
ten years ago.
   Dr. Hering's admirable address to the Hahnemannean Society of
Philadelphia, a physician of whom the most respectful mention is
made in the German works on Homoeopathia, and whose daring
experiments in his own person, while  resident in South America,
has evinced his devotion to the cause of this great reform.
   In this city, we have Dr. Channing's translation of the enthusi-
astic Letter of the Count  des  Guidi,  a testimonial that has been
very generally read in this city, with deep interest.
   And the first number of the American Journal of Homoeopathia,
edited by Dr. Gray and Dr. Hull, is in press, in which there will
often be seen other  testimonials, translated from the  publications
of Europe, in German,  and French, and much  original matter,
tending to  bear further testimony,  and to enrich the archives of
this science from the progress of undeniable experience. 
          EXPOSITION

                  OF THE


REFORMATION IN THE MEDICAL ART

        UNDERTAKEN IN GERMANY

  By the Doctor and Counsellor SAMUEL HAHNEMANN.


SERVING AS AN INTRODUCTION TO A WORK OF THIS PHYSICIAN OF WHICH
  THE TRANSLATION HAS JUST BEEN PUBLISHED UNDER THE TITLE OF

      ORGANON OF THE ART OF CURE.


            BY E. G. de BRUNNOW.

                 DRESDEN—1824. 
 
COUNT  BRUNNOW'S
PREFACE TO  THE ORGANON OF THE ART OF CURE.
  Of all the blessings of this life, health is the most precious,
for it constitutes the basis of our physical and moral well-being.
Man has been created to enjoy of the fulness of his  corporeal
and  physical powers, in order that  he may contribute by his
activity and energy, as much as possible, to his own happiness
and  that of others; in effect,  that he may always direct his
faculties  towards a higher  degree of perfection; and that  he
may thus advance himself nearer and nearer to the Supreme
Being: eternal source  of good and of  happiness.  But it  is
only by the happy harmony of all parts of the body; it is alone
with the easy play of all his organs,  that he derives that sense
of vigour and of courage, necessary  to excite  man to fulfil his
high destiny, and to render  him susceptible, at the same time,
of all the pleasures and all the charms of life.
  It is nevertheless, health, this inestimable gift from Heaven,
that is exposed to the most frequent  and most violent attacks.
The influence of the seasons—contagious epedemics—immode-
rate  labour of body and of mind, the vexations, the passions;
in short, a  crowd of unforeseen and  inevitable accidents, are so
many enemies, who incessantly threaten us with its loss.
  In all ages,  from  the earliest times,  men have, therefore,
sought to invent an art,  that  might  place them in a condition
to counteract  those  pernicious alterations of their organism,
denominated disorders, and to  re-establish their troubled health.
Such was the origin of  medicine, and such  the reason for its
having been held in veneration  by all  people.  It has been,
especially in the later ages, that the different parts of the medical
art, as well as  its  auxiliary sciences, were cultivated with very 
18
CONCISE VIEW  OF THE
great zeal;  and that many men of fine genius, among almost
all the nations of Europe, have distinguished themselves in it.
Natural History—Physiology, and Anatomy—Chemistry, and
Botany, were enriched with  the most interesting discoveries,
and  the most astonishing progress, made in these sciences.
  But, whilst these sciences,  auxiliary, or secondary, to  medi-
cine, shot forward, from one degree of perfection to another, the
doctrines properly called medical: pathology, or the knowledge
of diseases—\hemateria medica, or the knowledge of the virtues
of medicines—and  the therapeutic  art, or the knowledge of
the principles according to which it is requisite to apply  medi-
cines to the sick; these three constituent  doctrines of the  art of
curing diseases, did not  attain that  certainty and precision,
necessary to become, in effect, what they promised to be.
  It is true, nevertheless, that there  have rarely been wanting
celebrated writers, who have distinguished themselves in the
one or the other of these branches of medicine.  The literature
of France, Germany,  England, and Italy, are full of works
containing systems of disorders in general, or valuable observa-
tions upon one and  the other kind of disease in particular.   It
is true, also, that they have  collected in systematic  order the
experiments made  at various times upon the  effects of  medi-
cines, and that they have succeeded in finding specific remedies
against certain diseases.  It is true, in fact, that physicians
have, at all times, happily cured a great many maladies, which
without their succour, would have caused death, or much longer
and more grievous sufferings.
  But, on the other side, it cannot be denied, that in every age,
commencing with the  times  of Hippocrates down to our  days,
the said sciences have offered a vast field  to  hypothesis and
conjecture.  We have  only to read the works which treat  of the
history of medicine, to be convinced of the truth of this assertion.
The most various and heterogeneous theories upon the nature
of disorders,  and on the manner of curing them, have  succeeded
each  other  by turns,  or  have reigned simultaneously; and
almost every one of them has  had its partizans, wliich  form-
ed particular medical sects, and launched anathemas  against 
PRINCIPLES  OF H0MO30PATHIA.
19
 the  dissenting school.  But where is, then,  the  truth  in this
 multiplicity, and this contradiction of views, and of principles 1
 It will be difficult to find four physicians, who will be in accord-
 ance in the treatment of the same serious malady;  each one
 will attribute to it a different cause ; each one will draw from it
 different prognostics;  each one will choose a particular method
 of treatment,  and the dissection of the body will undeceive
 them, perhaps, all at the same time !
   All these  theories  are  founded on  the opinion, that the
 human mind may penetrate by means of speculation into the
 interior of the organization of the human body, and discover
 there the  cause, and the nature of different  maladies:—But
 where is the  mortal  eye  that has ever pierced the veil which
 covers the mysterious work of the vital economy?  Add, to all
 this, the complicated mode of the employment of medicines: the
 custom of never administering against a disorder a single reme-
 dy at once ; but always to order several of them together, under
 the artificial formularies  called  receipts—a practice  that for-
 bids  or prevents pure experience upon the effects of the differ-
 ent ingredients  in particular, and you will not be astonished,
 that  men of the best understandings, in every age, and that
 physicians  of frank and ingenuous minds  among them, have
 called medicine a conjectural art.  But, alas!  what is more
 sorrowful, than that conjecture should be established as a sove-
 reign, in a  science which decides  of health or of sickness,
 of felicity or  misfortune—of life  and of death, among men 1
 From hence it comes, that  all reasonable men who have been
 once convinced of this  afflictive truth, fear to submit themselves
 to medical treatment, and  give  themselves up to it with regret
 when a hard necessity obliges them to  do it.  They respect
 the individuals who have devoted their labours to the solacing
 of suffering humanity, but they  cannot deceive themselves as
 regards the nature of things.  They acknowledge, and admire
 many important discoveries, and special medical knowledge,
but they cannot conceive,  that there already exists an art  of
cure,  as a science founded upon true, simple, firm, and gene-
ral principles.  They believe in  the reality of many medical 
20
CONCISE VIEW  OF THE
 cures, but they are not ignorant that millions of unfortunates,
 have been the victims of error, and of false hypotheses—and
 are  still so.   They know, in short, that nature, abandoned to
 herself, is, in many  cases, too weak to conquer the morbific
 power; but it is necessary to choose between the natural pains
 and the possible death, with which the disease menaces him,
 and the artificial torments and the methodical death, equally
 possible, which the School, perhaps, prepares for him.   Will it
 be found strange, if,  in this cruel alternative, he recollects the
 counsels of a celebrated author ?  Put nothing into this lottery,
 where all the chances are  against you.
   Now, such a  state of things being, without contradiction, a
 great misfortune, every man who takes to heart the  safety, and
 welfare of mankind, ought ardently to desire the reform of this
 important art, depository of the most precious treasure of mor-
 tals ;  a reformation which  leads back to the path of Nature and
 of experience, sole and true sources of all science.
   Contemporaries!—The  day of this great reform is come.  It
 is the object of the immortal work, of which I offer you a  trans-
 lation.  It is not a system among the systems, that is presented
 you; it is not a young Esculapius, recently decorated with the doc-
 toraZ bonnet, who rushes boldly, and rashly, towards the temple of
 Hygeia, to add the thousandth theory to  the nine hundred and
 ninety-ninth already existing. No, it is a venerable old man who
 has grown grey in the service of mankind, it is a writer of acknow-
 ledged merit in  the republic of letters, it is  a man profoundly
 versed in the science of nature, whose name will live forever in
 the annals of chemistry, enriched by his valuable discoveries ; it
 is a physician who in  forty years of practice saved the lives, and
 restored health, to a vast number of  unfortunate fellow-beings,
 destitute of all other succour; it is he who now comes to deposit
in your hands a code of nature resulting from his experience
 and his long labours.
   This distinguished  man,  after having exercised  during a
long series of years,  the  ordinary curative  process,  acknow-
ledged the insufficiency of all these different methods, adopted
by the school  of medicine;  and saw that the promises of the 
PRINCIPLES OF HOMCEOPATHIA.
21
theory, were disavowed by the degree of success of the practice.
Penetrated  with this  conviction, it appeared to him impossible
any longer to exercise his vocation as a physician, before having
found  the true principle of the art of cure, and he firmly re-
solved, sooner to renounce it forever than to act contrary to the
dictates of his  conscience.   Armed with an indefatigable zeal,
he  ran through the vast labyrinth of medical  literature,  and
came out of it without having attained his end,  but, after hav-
ing, however,  enriched  himself with  much  knowledge,  and
many  important remarks—a luminous idea suddenly enlighten-
ed his  mind, and a new  career  opened  itself to  his researches:
Nature  and experiment should be his only guides.   Innu-
merable obstacles  and difficulties  dispute every step which he
took alone on this  solitary route; but his manly courage never
recedes.   The  most astonishing  phenomena manifest  them-
selves  to his astonished sight; he rises  from one degree  of cer-
tainty to another, pierces the night of mist and mysticism,
and sees the star of truth, at length, shine forth, that is to  spread
its beneficent rays  over suffering humanity.
   Nevertheless, he guarded  himself  against  publishing  his
discovery, before being sufficiently convinced of its reality, by
long success.   But, when the new curative method, practised
by him  during several years, showed  itself to  be wonderfully
salutary, and that  all his trials and all his cures offered  to him
always the same result,  he hesitated no longer to publish his
doctrine, in the first edition of his Organon of the Art of Cure,
which appeared in 1810, at Dresden, under the title of  Orga-
non der rationalen Heilkunde*  The  second  edition revised,

  * As to the word Organon.  "Whoever shall have read this work with atten-
tion will agree, that it was impossible for the author to adopt the word system,
which would  have ranked his  book in the same category with the subtle and
speculative theories, of which the simplicity of his principles and method, offers
exactly the contrary.  He preferred, therefore, to use the Greek word Organon,
which implies, an instrument proper to work out or effect any :hing.  The Orga-
non of the Art of Cure, is, for the medical artist, an instrument, by the aid of
which he will be in a condition to exert his art in a sure and perfect manner.
The same word was adopted into the English language by  Lord Bacon, in the
title of his work, which commenced the reform of philosophy. 
22
CONCISE VIEW OF THE
corrected, augmented,  and reduced to a new, and more perfect
form, appeared in 1819,  under the title of  Organon der Heil-
kunst, and it is this last, which I have just translated.
   In the interval of the first and second editions of the Orga-
non, the author published the first five volumes of another work,
essential to whoever would practise the new curative method.  It
has for a title, Matierc Medicale Pure, and consists of a collec-
tion of treatises upon  diverse simple medicines,  containing the
manner of preparing them, and the series of their specific effects,
found by trials upon healthy persons.   A sixth volume has ap-
peared in 1821, and in  1822 a second  edition, revised and
augmented, of the second volume.
   But, it will be said, "how is it possible that so interesting a dis-
covery, which has already manifested itself in Germany, since
the year 1810,  should not have become known  in the space of
twelve years throughout  all civilized Europe?   Why, if the
method  of which you speak is so excellent, and preferable to
all others, why is it not generally practised in all  countries, and
especially in Germany?   Has not truth  an irresistible force
which compels all  minds to submit to her sceptre, and  the
object in question,  is it not of such high importance that all
reasonable  men ought to  take part in it?  A  real discovery
demonstrates itself by facts, fantastic dreams  alone dissolve
and vanish."
   Such are the objections that I  have to expect, and it is  my
duty to answer them with all frankness and equity.  But before
entering into  the detail of causes,  which retard the  progress of
the new doctrine, it is necessary to give a sketch of its funda-
mental piinciples, for it will be  only thus that you  will be  put
in possession  of the  means of an exact judgment on the value
of my arguments.
   I.  To cure a disease, is to re-establish health in the most cer-
tain, the most expeditious, the  most gentle, the most perfect,
and the most durable manner.
   II. The curative  process consists of three essential functions.
   (a) To  investigate the object  of  the cure—i.  e. the dis-
order. 
             PRINCIPLES OF HOMCEOPATHIA.            23

  (6) To find the instruments  which are to effect the cure—
i. e. the suitable medicines.
  (c)  And to employ these instruments in such a way, as, that
health will follow.
  III. The object of the cure which the physician is to have
before his eyes,  and upon which  he is to  direct  his medical
treatment, does not consist in the imperceptible changes which
the disorder has produced in the occult interior of the organi-
zation ; for mortal eye can never be able to trace or know them,
and  the speculative mind looses itself here  in vain  conjec-
tures.
  The true object of cure for the medical artist is found alone
in the perceptible changes produced by the  disease; i. e. in
the sufferings and signs, and in  the whole of the symptoms,
whether visible  or invisible, whether manifested to the patient
alone, or to the physician, or other  persons.
  IV. The occult changes in the  interior of the body, and the
perceptible changes which appear  in the symptoms, are the two
constituent parts, intimately bound together, of the same altera-
tion of the organization, which  we  denominate disease.  The
one cannot  exist without the other, and  the one vanishes with
the other.   Now, the curative treatment having caused all the
symptoms to disappear, the imperceptible disorder in the interior
of the organization has been annihilated in the  same time.
   V.  It is impossible to search into the essence of medicines by
metaphysical speculations;  or, by the consideration of their
exterior, or by the taste, or smell; or  by chemical analysis.
The relations which have place between them and the  disease,
 cannot be  recognized, but by the  effects which they manifest-
 ly have in acting upon the body  of man.
   VI.  In employing medicines against diseases,  we see result
 the re-establishment of health in  a manner so evident, that
 one  cannot help attributing the effect to these remedies alone.
   It is then, in the first place, natural to abstract the curative
 virtues of medicines, according to the salutary effects, which
 he sees result from their use in disorders; and to wish to em-
 ploy them according to these results.  But this  source of the 
24
CONCISE VIEW OF THE
knowledge of their  medicinal  virtue,  is very uncertain;  for,
excepting some diseases of fixed or established miasma—every
disease is an individual and particular case, which is to be con-
sidered as new, and regarded  according to the totality of the
symptoms.  A remedy found salutary in one disease cannot
then be employed against another, which resembles it in some
symptoms only.
  VII. Now, such a method of trying medicines offers us but a
multitude of cases, and of individual cures, which, with few ex-
ceptions,  permit no analogous application; and present us with
no general curative principle ; there must be another and more
certain way of attaining our object.  But there remains to us
but one alone, the examination of the  effects of medicines
upon the healthy.
  VIII. Observation  on these  trials presents us the most sur-
prising spectacle.  Every medicinal substance produces particu-
lar changes in the organization  of the person making the trial
of them; it modifies, it alters his health, and  excites sufferings,
accidents, or phenomena; in short, we see  various  states of
artificial disorder produced.
  IX. We remark, then, two  different kinds of effect of these
same powers, which we name remedies:  first, the cures which
they affect in disorders;  and, in the second place, the alterations
of health which they induce in the sound and healthy body.
The same  medicinal force, which re-establishes the  troubled
health of the sick man,  deranges the regular health of the
healthy.  Right  reason is, then, obliged to  conclude that the
medicines become remedies by means of their  faculty of produc-
ing of themselves alterations  upon the  healthy borly; or, in
other words, that the same which operates as a morbific power
in the healthy body, manifests itself as of curative virtue in the
disorders to which it is suitable.
  X. As  the  Creator of maladies and of remedies  makes
us observe, in the first their symptoms, and in the  others,
only their  power of  modifying the health of men;  and  that
these last, do not manifest themselves in a clear manner, but by
their pure effects upon healthy men, it must  be in the relation 
PRINCIPLES OF HOMCEOPATHIA.
25
between the symptoms of disorders, and the effects, pure and
specific, of medicines, that we should seek the general princi-
ple of the treatment of diseases.
   XI. Now, there are but three possible relations between the
symptoms of diseases, and the specific effects of remedies,—viz.,
first,  opposition; second,  resemblance; third,  difference of
nature.   It follows that there are but three methods, imagina-
ble, of treating disorders, (excepting those which are the object
of the surgical art.)
   1.  The  Antipathic method,  or  that which employs medi-
cines producing specific effects, opposed to the  symptoms of the
natural malady.
   2.  The Homoeopathic, or that which employs remedies ex-
citing specific effects, similar to those of the disorder in question.
   3.  The  Allopathic method, or  that which uses  medicines
producing specific effects foreign to the symptoms of the natu-
ral malady,—i. e. neither similar, nor opposed.
   Experience will decide on the value of each of these three
methods.  Let us see the results  which they offer us.
   XII.  As to the Allopathic process, it presents three possible
chances.
   (a) If the artificial ills,  produced by the remedy, are less
than the natural  sufferings, the malady remains the same.
   (b) If the morbific effects of the  medicine are equally force-
able, or stronger than those of the disorder, the last is suspend-
ed  as long as the allopathic cure  lasts ;  but,  it returns as  soon
as  we cease to administer the remedies, at least, that if en at-
tendant, it should not have finished its natural course.
   (c) In fine, if  they continue a long time to employ violent
allopathic remedies against a chronic disease,  there may result
from it a complication of disorders,  composed of the specific
symptoms  of the medicine and natural sufferings, so that each
of  these two  maladies will  occupy  different places  in  the
organization.
   The  Allopathic method does  not then effect, in any case, a
true and real cure.  The reason  of this ill  success is founded
on  the  fact, that the  pure  effects  of an allopathic  medicine,
                           4 
26
CONCISE VIEW  OF THE
 being neither similar, nor opposed to the symptoms of the dis-
 ease, do not touch  the part affected by the natural sufferings,
 and cannot then really combat and conquer these last.  Such
 a remedy may  silence them for some time, by the heterogene-
 ous sufferings which  they excite, but cannot  annihilate them.
   XIII. From what has preceded of the  Antipathic method,
 it appears that the influence of the opposite remedy, may have
 operated at the commencement as a neutralization of the natu-
 ral  ailments,  and that it may have seemed  perfectly to cure
 them.  But as soon as this medicine has ceased to act upon the
 body, not  only does the  natural evil, or disorder, re-appear, but
 there supervenes an evident aggravation, which augments in
 proportion  to the greatness of  the doses.   The cause of it is,
 that the organism of man has a tendency to re-act against, or
 resist all foreign influence, and to oppose to it a state exactly
 contrary to that which it excites in him.
   Now, when the remedy employed against a malady, produ-
 ces  specific  effects  opposed  to the effects of  this  malady,  it
 follows  that the re-acting effect of the organs, which always suc-
 ceeds to the primitive effect of the  remedy, can be nothing else
 than a state  similar to  the  natural  malady, which this last
 aggravated.
   The  Antipathic treatment is only then a palliative process
 which will never  be capable  of curing any disorder of conse-
 quence, and especially a  chronical disease.*
   XIV. It is alone the  Homoeopathic method  which shows
 itself by experience always salutary.   The reasons  are: as the
 specific  effects of a Homoeopathic remedy are altogether similar
 to the natural sufferings in question, they touch or affect pre-
 cisely the parts,  and the organs already affected, and struggle
 with the natural malady.  But as the medicinal maladies, are
 in their nature more energetic than the natural sufferings they
 are intended  to  countervail  and cure; these  last give place,
 provided, the  artificial symptoms surpass them a little in force,
for  two disorders  alike cannot exist  together  in the same

  * Only little sufferings of recent origin yield to this process.  The only cases
 in which the Antipathic method is applicable are found in the Organon. 
PRINCIPLES  OF HOMCEOPATHIA.
27
part.   The medicinal disorder being of a certain limit, the
artificial sufferings then vanish,  or  cease of themselves,  and
leave the body in perfect health.
   As to the re-action of the organization, so unfavourable in the
Antipathic practice,  it becomes  salutary in the Homoeopathic
method; for the influence of the Homoeopathic medicine, being
similar  to  that  of the natural malady,  the  re-action of the
organization, (or natural power of the human system,) produ-
ces an effect opposed to the ailment in question, and contributes
consequently, to the re-establishment of health.
   XV.  Now,  as  reason and  experience impress on  us the
conviction, that the Homoeopathic method is  alone preferable,
we have found in it the fundamental law of  the curative pro-
cess,—that is to say, you cure diseases by the remedies capa-
ble  of producing in healthy  men  affections as similar as
possible to the whole of the symptoms of the ailment in ques-
tion.
   XVI. The Homoeopathic remedies are to be administered in
doses very much smaller than it is customary in  ordinary prac-
tice to give—yes,  even in  doses as small as possible.   For, as
such a medicine affects directly the parts of the body which
are  already extremely affected by the natural disease, it has
need but of little force to surpass the  last;  while, on the con-
trary, a large dose would injure the patient, and might put him
in danger.
   XVII. We must never employ more than one simple remedy
at a  time; for  it  is  only thus,  that we can combine the rela-
tions of the specific symptoms of the medicine with the symp-
toms of the disorder in question.  All mixtures of several medi-
cines are inadmissible; for, in this  way, we can never define,
or know, in what manner these diverse ingredients reciprocally
modify each other.
   XVIII.  The Homoeopathic  remedies,  ought  to  be drawn
from the  purest  medicinal substances, possessed of all their
native strength.
   XIX. As it is an affair of conscience with the physician, that
the sick receive their  medicines in just quality and quantity, it
is indispensable that he prepare arid  administer  them himself. 
28
CONCISE VIEW  OF THE
  After having presented to my readers, in a concentrated
sketch, the principal elements of the Homoeopathic doctrine, it
is time that I perform my promise, and  speak of the obstacles
which have  retarded  the propagation  of the  new curative
method.   I will distinguish them into general obstacles, which
it has in common with all great discoveries, and into particular
obstacles, which are peculiar to it.

  As to the obstacles of the first kind,  I will comprehend in
them,  the prejudice against all that  is entirely contrary to
established opinions,—indolence, and  the want of interest and
curiosity,  in regard to new discoveries,—malice  and jealousy
towards merit, and finally, the disposition, or penchant, among
the idle, to turn every thing into ridicule that they do  not un-
derstand,—and we add, even where good nature, and disposi-
tion to acquire information exists, the pre-occupation with ordi-
nary habits and concerns,  and repugnance to effort and inquiry,
until motives of interest, or of moral responsibility, awaken the
gifted and cultivated  mind to examination.
  In regard to the first obstacles, I maintain, that men in  gene-
ral, are not such great amateurs of novelty, as we are accus-
tomed to think them.  On the contrary, they have a profound
esteem for all that  is covered with the rust of ages, and to
awaken and turn them from this habit, violent shocks,  or an
extreme necessity, or impulses given by a higher  authority,
appear requisite.
  The thing being once consecrated by fashion, it is true, that
it will make astonishing  progress, but,  the difficulty is for it to
reach that point.  What! cried they, when the new  medical
doctrine was communicated to the public,—What! a single
man pretend to have found what thousands of physicians, the
most wise, and the most learned,  have not found before him ?
A single man pretends to knock down, with one magic  stroke
of his wand, the majestic edifice of a system which has subsist-
ed  for so many ages ?  This is unheard of! this is impossible!
   I ask of these  admirers of antiquity, and devotees to  received
opinion, if this is the first time that an individual has made a
discovery of which they had no idea before, and which over- 
PRINCIPLES  OF HOMCEOPATHIA.
29
turned the superb scaffolding  of a whole science 1  Was it not
believed during five thousand five hundred years, that our world
was composed only of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and was it not
Columbus alone, who conceived the first luminous idea of a fourth
part of the globe, and who proved the reality of it, notwithstand-
ing the derision of his contemporaries ?  Has not the world be-
lieved for more than five thousand five hundred years, that the sun
wheeled  around the earth, and was it  not Copernicus alone,
who first demonstrated the contrary, and announced that beau-
tiful system which will  transmit his name to the most remote
posterity ?   Nevertheless, how many  enemies has  not this
system had to encounter.  It  is but a few years since the Holy
See has admitted it, even provisionally.  Such,  in a great pro-
portion, are  men ;  you in vain speak reason to  them, prejudice
overpowers it.
    Another class of persons is too indolent to care about new
discoveries.   Too much occupied  with their pleasures,—with
their gains, and  private affairs, they trouble themselves little
with the common good, or with events  which have relation to
it.  The  Homoeopathic doctrine, is a thing which demands
serious meditation  and ripe reflection,  in order to convince
one's self of its truth and of its excellence.   But  these good
people love not to reflect themselves, and are content that others
make things go forward as they please.
   Homoeopathia wounds the indolent again in another manner.
This method, which has for its  object and  end to lead men
back to the  path  of  nature, prescribes to  all those who would
preserve their health, and especially to those affected by chronic
disorders, who wish to recover it, a simple and natural regi-
men, which exacts  a severe  abstinence from numerous indul-
gences or enjoyments,  introduced  and  generally received  by
luxury, but pernicious to the welfare of the body  and of the
soul; but the weak and the indolent like better to suffer, from
time' to time, the torments of sickness and violent remedies,
than  to deny themselves,  constantly, the  pleasures of sen-
suality ;  for a momentary patience is  more easy to practice,
than continual resignation.
   A third sort of people, who thwart all great  discoveries, and 
30
CONCISE VIEW  OF THE
all new important doctrines, is the wicked.   There are persons
of so malevolent a character, that they feel themselves wounded
by every thing  that appears sublime  and excellent,  and who
can never bring themselves to  acknowledge the superiority of
an  eminent genius,—governed  by envy and jealousy, they set
on foot all the intrigues and cabals possible to prepossess "the
public against the author of a great discovery, and to extinguish
in its birth the light of truth.  Certainly, this sort of folks have
not been wanting  to the opportunity of the new  curative
method.  The  most calumnious reports were circulated against
it, and they  spared  not even the morals and  character of its
venerable founder;  one might  fill  a  volume  with the fables
which they have fabricated, and which they fabricate still, upon
Homoeopathia.  I will mention one only as a curiosity,—it is,
that Mr. Hahnemann and his followers treat almost all diseases
with arsenic,—a gross and absurd falsehood, to the eyes of  all
who know the works and the treatment of the author.
  This sort of adversary found convenient support in another
numerous part of the public, these were the railers at the credu-
lous people who listened to them.  The latter believed fully all
that the former chose to make them imagine.   The former,
without any true  interest in any thing,  sought only to amuse
themselves, and to amuse others.   Let the object in  question
be sublime or low,  good or bad, admirable or despicable,  no
matter, provided it furnished materials  for their bon mots.
  We  have, it is true, seen  Socrates  turned into derision,  by
Aristophanes: the poor Athenians laughed  without  knowing
that they were themselves the dupes.  The author of the
Homoeopathic method has also encountered his Aristophanes,
and his Athenians,  and it is impossible to  say, what damage
may not have resulted from it.
  But enough on the general obstacles that have retarded the
propagation of the new doctrine: let us come, at present, to the
special obstacles.  They originate from two sources,—the pre-
vailing medical school,—and the Institute of the Apothecaries.
  I protest, in advance, that I have no intention whatever to give
offence to honourable physicians or honourable druggists.  But
in abstaining from every personality I  cannot forbear reporting 
PRINCIPLES OF HOMCEOPATHIA.
31
facts.  It concerns the honour of the  new doctrine,  and  I
believe myself responsible to the public for it.  The fear of dis-
pleasing will not enchain my frankness, yet the interest I bear
to this cause  will not render me unjust towards its adversaries.
   It is profoundly engraven in the  nature of man,  that he
should fear to see ravished from him what has cost him much
pains to  acquire.   Now, the knowledge and the conviction, in
matters of science, being the intellectual  property of men of
letters, it is natural that all  new discoveries or doctrines, which
threaten to change the face of an entire science, should be called
in question  and combatted  by many of those who profess the
old principles.  Let us be just, and we shall find that this con-
duct has nothing in itself blameable.  As there is a diversity of
faith in religion and in politics, so there are, likewise, differences
of opinion in every science.  Let every One defend his own by
all the legitimate means, which the sagacity of his  mind and
the extent of his knowledge permit.   But let him be also dis-
posed to examine with impartiality, and, if it be  necessary, by
his own experiments, the reality of the principles of his adver-
saries, and let him  embrace  them in good faith, from the mo-
ment that he shall find them preferable to his own.  Such a
contest  of opinions will be exceedingly laudable ; for an object
being examined in different lights will be better elucidated;  and
truth will, at last, come out of this combat in all her splendour.
Happy ! if it might be always thus.   But nothing is more diffi-
cult for men, than to separate their own interest from that of the
thing itself,—both, the one  and the other, insensibly blend in
their minds.   Hatred, envy,  and jealousy,  mingle with literary
zeal.  Feelings are inflamed and soured, and a candid research
after the truth, becomes but too often a war of parties.
  Whoever shall have read with attention  the sketch,  which I
have given above, of the Homoeopathic doctrine, will not  have
failed to perceive the striking  difference which exists between its
principles and the dominant school.  Scarcely, then, had it  been
announced by the author, in  the first edition of the Organon, in
1810, than it encountered on  all sides the most lively resistance.
  There would have, no doubt, been  injustice in pretending
that all the physicians ought to have abandoned, on the instant, 
32
CONCISE VIEW OF THE
 the method which they had adopted as true  and salutary, and
 which they had  followed through a long course of practice,—
 there would even have been frivolity in so sudden an abandon-
 ment.  A blind belief is unworthy of man—it was to be serious
 reflection and conscientious trials,  that  should decide the
 merit of the  new doctrine.   It is thus, I am  persuaded, that
 very many intelligent  physicians now examine the Homoeo-
 pathic method; but unfortunately it was not thus with it from
 its first appearance; at least, no one openly avowed the neces-
 sity of such a process.  A sectarian spirit seemed to rule in a
 great majority of minds.  It was more  especially observable
 with  several  of those who  had brilliantly shown forth,  up to
 that time, in works written  in the sense of the prevailing sys-
 tem, who feared  to see their glory and literary  authority
 borne away;  and who, therefore, made use of all their ascend-
 ancy over the medical public to prejudice it  against  the  new
 doctrine.   Without examining by pure experiments the reality
 of its principles, they limited themselves to an  attack on them
 with the  arms of theory, and to launching  against  the  new
 science an imperious anathema.
  Another  large proportion  of  the physicians  was too much
 occupied  with their practice to give an exact and critical exami-
 nation of the new works, and accustomed to see appear and
 disappear every successive lustre, another system of medicine,
 willingly adhered to the judgment  of these  distinguished
writers, sustaining them with their authority;  and continued
quietly to exercise  the  customary method, without interesting
themselves in the important discovery which had just been made.
  There  was, in fine, a number of good old physicians, other-
wise very estimable, who could not enter into the plan  of a
method so original, although they had a good  disposition to
do it.   The ideas with  which the mind of man has been once
imbued in his youth, and according to which he has governed
himself during forty or fifty years of practice, exert upon him
an ascendancy so  powerful that a total change  is almost im-
possible to him.
  It was thus that Mr. Hahnemann remained during some
years, the only one to exercise the Homoeopathic method, and 
PRINCIPLES OF  HOMCEOPATHIA.
33
 that, except the Journals of Medicine, they spoke of it in Germany
 only in Saxony, and especially at Leipsic, where this ingenious
 man resided.   Nevertheless, the force belonging to truth did not
 fail to  manifest its effects.  The happy cures  by the author,
 drew upon him the attention of the people.  His practice aug-
 mented from  day to day,—the reputation of the marvellous
 efficaciousness of his curative process, spread not only beyond
 the frontiers of Saxony, but penetrated  even into Austria, into
 Prussia,  into  Russia,  and  other foreign countries.  Persons
 afflicted with chronic diseases, abandoned of all other succour,
 resorted from all quarters to submit themselves to his treatment,
 and they recovered health.
   There was also formed around him a circle of young stu-
 dents in medicine who assisted at his public lectures on the
 Organon.   These young men, still free from the prejudices of
 the school,  easily convinced themselves of the truth of the new
 doctrine, and  seconded its founder in his trials of the specific
 virtues of the medicines.  It was thus,  that was planted the
 first nursery of the reformed medical school, and there came
 out of it men full of talent, who spread themselves through the
 provincial villages  of Saxony,  and there  exercised the  new
 method with the most happy success.   There were even  here
 and there physicians, brought up in the principles of the domi-
 nant school, and versed  a long time in the practice, who pub-
 licly embraced the reform, and gave thereby noble and admir-
 able examples of courage and of resignation.*

   But Divine Providence, protector of goodness and of truth,
 did not allow to perish in its birth so laudable an enterprise.   A
 generous prince, the Duke of Anhalt, Coethen,  offered an asy-
 lum to the  venerable author of the Organon;  permitted  him
the free  exercise of his curative method,  and surrounded him

  * The translator does not here follow the author  through the particular
obstacles to the progress of this reformation,  these being peculiar to the early
institutions of  monopoly in Germany, which do not exist in the United States.
The physicians were not there allowed to dispense even their own medicines;
 and Dr. Hahnemann was compelled to give up his practice.
                            5 
34
CONCISE VIEW, &C.
with that apparel of external honour, which shines only when
it is applied to true merit.*
  Whilst the new  doctrine obtained,  in  this manner, an un-
expected refuge, from whence it might spread its  salutary
effects, it maintained itself also in Saxony, and in several of the
neighbouring states.  In spite of all the obstacles which oppos-
ed themselves to its being put in practice,  several disciples  of
Mr. Hahnemann, as well as several other physicians of merit,
who had adopted from conviction the reformed method, con-
tinued to exercise it with zeal, and had full success.
  In  1822,  an event happened  of  the  greatest interest for
Homoeopathia;  there was formed a society of learned and able
physicians, for the  purpose of publishing a periodical journal
under the title of Archives of the Homoeopathic Medical Art.
  The members of this society, therein, make the recital of the
remarkable  cures  which  they have  made according to the
principles of  the new doctrine.   They there expose their  dis-
coveries on the  specific effects of the medicines, found by pure
trials  on themselves, and upon  other healthy persons;  they
treat divers objects concerning the theory as  well as the practice
of the new art of cure, and refute the writings of its adversaries.
  After all this, it  does  not appear to me  doubtful that the
Homoeopathic doctrine has taken root in  Germany.  But  a
discovery which touches thus deeply the  happiness  of men,
ought  not  to be the exclusive patrimony  of a single nation
alone,—it belongs to the universe.
  It is in  this  intention that I have undertaken the present
translation, as the  French language  is the most expanded  in
all civilized countries.
  You!  enlightened readers, of whatsoever  nation, if this book
falls into your hands, read it without prejudice, and I am per-
suaded that the truth will unveil itself to your mind  in all  its
splendour.  Retain it then as  a precious treasure,—labour for
its glory, and a grateful posterity will bless your efforts.
   Dresden, April 20, 1824.
* He named him, in 1821, unsolicited, his Counsellor of State.