POPULAR FALLACIES 
CONCERNING HOMEOPATHY REFUTED. 
DY JOSEPH HOOPER, M. D. 
Late of 1'iiivc»".ity College, Loiidon, aiul Graduate of the Western 
Homeopathic College, Cleveland. 
DETROIT, MICHIGAN: 
FTJBLISIIED AT DR. LODGE’S IIOMCEOPATHIC PHARMACY, 
18GG. 
IHt. E. A. LODGE'S 
HOMOEOPATHIC PH1RM1GY, 
51 Wayne-St., Detroit, Michigan. 
Price-list of Books, Medicines, &c., sent free on application. POPULAR FALLACIES CONCERNING HOMCEOPATHY REFUTED. 
JOSEPH HOOPER, M. V.* 
It is recorded of several noted opponents to Christianity, that they 
confessed they had never devoted much time or attention to the study 
of the Sacred Writings. Yet their invectives were most violent, and 
their opposition to revealed religion most persistent. The dishonesty 
and folly of such a course have not prevented many from being influenced 
to their ruin by the sarcasms, cavils and misrepresentations of infidel 
writers. 
Much of the opposition to the benign, beautiful and rational system 
of medicine denominated homoeopathy, would vanish like mists before 
the rising sun, if people would honestly study, and fairly put to the 
test, the teachings of this New School of medical science. But as it is 
often with religious truth, so it is with medical truth. Ridicule rather 
than research is allowed to influence the mind, and sophistries are made 
to supply the place of logical arguments. Many of the notions held 
of, and the mis-statements made about homoeopathy, seem to those at all 
practically acquainted with the subject, to be so puerile and foolish as 
to be unworthy of a single line in refutation; yet, as they are often 
seriously put forth, and their very absurdity made the reason of dismiss- 
ing the subject altogether, it is not wise to leave them unmentioned. 
We propose to state somo of the popular fallacies concerning homoeo- 
pathy, and weigh them in the balances of common sense and clinical 
experience. A very common misapprehension of the homoeopathic law 
of cure, is, that the cause of sickness will produce its destruction, or 
in other words, that the same thing which makes a man ill will make 
him well again. We are represented as teaching, therefore, some such 
absurdities as the following: A man drinks until he is intoxicated ; a 
little more liquor will make him sober. Or a person take a portion of 
poison ; by taking a minute dose of the same drug, he will be saved 
from the consequences of his folly. Now this is isopathy ; this is not 
the teaching of homoeopathy. The law does not read, iidem iisdem 
curantur,t\\e same things by the same are cured, but our law is, Similia 
similibus curantur, similars by similars are cured—like cures like, 
The reader will at once perceive there is a vast difference between the 
two propositions ; and nothing less than the sheerest prejudice or the 
most malevolent impertinence, could cause any one so to misrepresent 
the law of cure announced by the-adherents of the new system. No 
homceopauiist is so silly as to believe that the cause of a disease can 
prove the cure of the same. The only practical illustration of an 
attempt to carry out such an absurdity that we can call to mind, is to be 
found in the effort of an allopathist, a £ew years ago, to prevent the 
fatal influence of small pox by inoculation with the virus produced 
during that disease; a course so destructive of human life that muni- 
cipal and legislative bodies wisely put a veto upon the barbarous 
practice. Vaccination, on the contrary, is simply and purely a homceo- 
* The second of a series of popular tractates for sale at the office of the American Homoeo- 
pathic Observer, at $4 per 100. pathic-prophylactic remedy, or preventive of small pox. In this etiso 
we introduce into the system a poison, similar in many respects to (but 
tiot the same as) the poison of small pox; and doubtless hundreds of 
thousands, by the introduction of this true homoeopathic course of 
treatment, have beeu preserved from disfigurement, deafness, blindness 
and death. To the question, “ IIow is it possible that the production 
of a similar disease in the human frame can drive out or destroy a like 
set Of symptoms ?” we can here only reply, that it is perhaps as impos- 
sible to account for the fact, as it is to explain why the magnetic needle 
points to the north pole. But experience every day in innumerable 
instances, confirm the immutability of the law that two similar diseases 
cannot co-exist in the same organism, and consequently a drug that will 
produce similar symptoms to those of a disease, will effectually and 
radically cure that disease. Are wo to deny the existence of every 
law, the operation of which we cannot fully comprehend? Then must 
we deny ten thousand things which we daily see and feel. We must 
deny the spirituality of our own being—the influence of mind on matter 
—and may ever more doubt the reality even of our own existence. 
Let every one who wishes honestly to understand or fairly to test the 
truth of the law of similia, experiment a little with two or three of our 
leading remedies, and he will never again bo led astray by such pitiful 
attempts to deceive as are found in the statement that homoeopathy 
proposes to cure drunkenness by whisky, burns by a little more fire, or 
a terrible cold by standing a few minutes out'in the rain. The inquirer 
might begin, when in perfect health, with a few drops of the mother 
tincture of Belladonna (obtaining this and other tinctures for the pur- 
poses of proving from some respectable homoeopathic pharmacy, to 
insure the purity of the drug and the production of their true patho- 
genetic symptoms). In a short space of time he would experience at 
least many of the following effects : The pulse becomes stronger and 
fuller ; face puffed, red and hot; bright scarlet appearance of the skin : 
patchy eruption, or the appearance of flea bites ; the pupils of the eyes 
dilated, or extremely contracted; dizziness; buzzing in the ears ; 
drowsiness, with frequent starting; restlessness; swelling of the veins 
of the head and neck ; violent raving delirium ; feeling as if the brain 
were expanded, or of weight, fullness and oppression in the head; 
disordered sight; double or inverted appearance of objects; irregular 
breathing ; deep, hollow cough ; tongue painful, swollen or inflamed ; 
fiery red, heavily furred, with red tip and margins ; throat dry, hot and 
red; swollen tonsils, frothy saliva, &c., See* (See Laurie.) The 
next time the experimentalist met with a sick friend whose symptoms 
strongly resembled those from which he had been suffering when under 
the action of Belladonna, he should administer live or six pellets of the 
third, or some higher potency of Bell., about every four hours, and lie 
would then get a pretty good idea of the law of homoeopathy. In the 
same way he might prove on himself any other drug, c. g., Aconite, 
Ipecacuanha or Mercury, writing down carefully every symptnm nro- 
* ShouM tho provcr become alarmed by any violent symptoms, ho will find very strong coffee 
the best antidoto to Belladonna. Lemon juice antidotes Aconite. Peruvian bark or Cliina 
antidotes Ipecacuanha. 4 
duced by the medicine ; and when meeting such a picture of symptoms 
as had appeared in his own frame, administering the same medicine, 
only in very minute doses. A very easy experiment would be to take 
enough of Agaricus musearius to.produce the syitptomsof intoxication, 
then administer a few drop doses to the next drunken man you meet 
with, and you will have a beautiful illustration of the action of a 
homoeopathic remedy, and will appreciate the motto of the New School, 
Similia similibus curantur. But it is objected, if it be really true 
that a homoeopathic medicine is capable of producing similar symptoms 
to those found in disease, will not the administration of such medica- 
ments be likely to increase the symptoms and aggravate rather than 
cure the trouble ? This is a sensible objection, and merits a careful 
reply. We believe that such a homoeopathic medicine does increase 
the symptoms when given in large or even in appreciable doses ; hence 
the necessity of diminishing the dose to the minimum amount, which 
experience teaches will have a curative effect upon the diseased organ- 
ism. But it is to be remembered, first,, that symptoms of disease 
consist in the manifestations of nature’s effort to relieve herself of 
some poison, obstruction or difficulty, and a slight increase of symptoms 
may prove the turning point in the malady. And second, every drug 
has two actions, the primary and the secondary, and if the primary 
action be to increase the symptoms, the secondary action will be to 
allay them and restore to health. Now the primary action of a minute 
homceopafhic dose does not perceptibly increase the difficulty exper- 
ienced by a patient, and is speedily followed by the secondary or 
curative reaction. 
A second misapprehension concerning homoeopathy, is, that it 
consists in administering infinitesimal doses of medicine, a few pellets 
no bigger than spider’s eggs, hence the appellation with which some of 
us are honored,—“spider egg doctors ”—and as the popular creed is 
that “ seeing is believing and feeling is the naked truth,” it is consid- 
ered absurd to expect anything but disappointment from relying upon 
medicines that are tasteless and invisible.. The size of the dose has 
really nothing whatever to do directly with the principles of homoeo- 
pathy. A medicine may be truly homoeopathic to a disease, and the 
prescfiber a true homceopathician, though the dose be filthy to the 
taste, disgusting to the eye, and weigh five, ten or twenty grains. The 
great question is, Will the medicine to be administered produce upon 
a healthy person similar symptoms to those you wish to cure ? If so, 
it is homoeopathic in whatever dose, and every practitioner-is at full 
liberty to administer as much or as little as lie finds most beneficial. 
Homoeopathic practitioners differ greatly amongst themselves as to the 
best potency or attenuation to be used in a given case. Some prefer 
the high, some the low dilutions or triturations/ All, however, find 
that a very minute dose is safer, more reliable, and more speedy in 
producing curative effects, than a massive dose, even though it be truly 
indicated as the agent under the new therapeutic law. In the Old 
School, the quantity of medicine administered is being rapidly dimin- 
ished year by year, and some practitioners almost rival the New School 
in the small amount of medicine they employ. That minute doses can 5 
and do Lave a magnificent elTcct, none doubt who take the trouble to 
experiment; and why should one nauseate himself with bulky drugs, 
if a sufficient dynamic influence to cure can be concentrated in the 
space of a little sugar globule, or a sweet and pleasant powder, that 
can lie on the point of a penknife. A volume might be filled with 
proofs in nature, every day illustrations of the fact that the eye, the 
ear, the nose, the mouth and some of the more internal organs, are 
influenced by infinitesimal particles of matter. We propose *o occupy 
the space of one tractate with such a collection of facts, and, therefore, 
dismiss the subject for the present, reminding you that homoeopathy 
does not consist in infinitesimal doses of medicine, and that minute 
doses are more rational than grosser, undynamatized, masses of drugs. 
A third fallacy is, that the medicines of the homoeopaths are really 
inert, and their cures arc effected through the power of imagination. 
The homocopathists must be the most wonderful people under the sun. 
Physicians and laymen alike must be endowed with powers surpassing 
far those possessed by other mortals ; and strange to say, this peculiar- 
ity is possessed by all living creatures owned by them. They have 
most wonderfully imaginative babies, imaginative horses, cows and 
dogs, for all these, when afflicted with disease, receive a fcw( inert 
pellets or powders, when their troublesome symptoms pass away and 
they get well. Let us give you a few cases. A nursing infant screams 
out with pain, rolls and tosses about in evident distress ; the little 
pulse is running very high ; the skin, dry and parched, quite burns one 
when you touch it; the bowels feel hard and intensely hot; the little 
knees are drawn up nearly to its chin, and the breath is so short and 
labored, that tears roll down the mother’s cheeks, expecting her little 
one very speedily to pass away. The father hurries off to the nearest 
physician, who, on his arrival, gives two small pellets of Aconite. In 
fifteen minutes there is a gentle moisture on the forehead, then the 
chest is wet with perspiration, the limbs arc straightened out, and the 
moaning ceases. Is the child dead ? Oh no ! that wonderful power 
of imagination wrought by the cunning doctor on the mind of a six 
months’ old babe, made her feel better, and she went to sleep. The 
next morning she was crowing and tugging at papa’s whiskers, as 
though no trouble had ever happened. A full grown man is seized 
with an epileptic spasm. He has often suffered from them before, but 
this time a homoeopathic physician is called in, and with a few pellets 
administered occasionally every day for a week or two, and by the force 
of imagination, the sufferer escapes the return of the malady Tor years. 
In Naples, Dr. Itubini and other homoeopaths treated five hundred cholera patients -with drop 
doses of the homoeopathic remedy. Camphor, (give n, cf course, ns a pretence and a basis for the 
mind to work upon), l'our hundred and ninety-nine out of the live hundred (by the power of 
imagination) convalesced. In Cincinnati, in 1819, Drs. Tulto and Ehrman treated one thousand 
one hundred and sixteen eases of Asiatic Cholera. So powerfully did 1hcse gentlemen act on tho 
imagination of their patients (though many of them were insensible) that one thouEand and 
eighty got well. Ulessed imagination ! What a pity it is the Old School cannot get up sumo 
such a state of mind on tho part of their patientE, to help the Calomel and Cantharidos, tho 
Jalap and tho lancet, and snve n few more out of their per centagc of mortality. It would bo 
worth while for them to attend a homoeopathic class of psychology, and try and learn the secret, 
liut ridicule apart, arc not those persons more credulous who believe that hundreds of thousands 
of the sick are cured through the power of imagination, based en inert sugar pills, than those 
who attribute theso cures to the efficacy of the diviuc law, appointed by a beneficent Creator, 
and brought to light by tho learned anil philosophic l)r. Samuel Ilahnemann—“ Similia simile 
bus curanturt” 6 
Agaiu, it is asserted—Homoeopathic patients recover, not by any 
virtue in the medicine, but by the influence of the excellent dietary 
system always enforced. So true is it that nature, unimpeded in her 
restorative efforts by improprieties in diet,often proves alone sufficient 
to raise to health again those who seemed almost beyond hope, that 
we should not be surprised at this objection, coming from thoughtful, 
unprofessional men, but we confess it is a little astonishing that this 
statement should originate in the ranks of our professional opponents. 
Is it true, then, gentlemen, we would ask of them, that it would bo 
better, safter and easier—a saving of time, money and pain—if your 
patients were to leave Blue mass. Opium and Quinine alone, and trust 
themselves to the care of Dame Nature and Dr. Common Sense ? We 
heartily agree with you, that the expectant system, or the do-nothing 
system, is far preferable to the heroic treatment of the Old School. 
But statistics show, that while nature will effect many cures, homoeo- 
pathy will effect still more, by gently, yet efficiently, assisting nature. 
Our medicines are not inert, although it is true that in some instances 
a person in health might take a handful of medicated pellets, without 
suffering inconvenience. The writer has in numerous instances 
observed that drop doses of Aconite, the third decimal attenuation, 
will, iu case of fever, reduce the pulse from two hundred beats per 
minute to eighty, in less than an hour’s time. Many a time half a dozen 
pellets of Colocynth, sixth potency, removed violent colic in the abdo- 
men in fifteen minutes, and we might, from personal experience, 
multiply illustrations by hundreds. It is rational to suppose that a 
very minute particle of medicine, acting on an inflamed or diseased 
surface, will produce powerful results, even though no perceptible 
influence could be observed upon the healthy organism. 
Let a man put a drop of alcohol on his sound skin, and the nerves are scarcely 
conscious of its presence; but if the epidermis be removed and the surface irritated 
and inflamed, that drop of spirit will almost drive him to distraction. Even if it 
could be proved that homoeopathic medicines were inert, still, in accordance with 
the statements of the most honest and observing allopathic authorities, our patients 
would be no losers, and the belief they would cherish in the efficacy of the remedies 
employed would be in favor of the new practice. 
Once move. It is asserted <by some that there is something in 
homoeopathy. The system is suited for children, perhaps, and chronic 
cases, but ivould be utterly useless in acute diseases, especially when the 
patients xcere adults. That homoeopathy is pre-eminently adapted to 
children is a fact. The absence of occult, complicated drug diseases, 
of long standing, leaves a fair field for the operation of specific rem- 
edies ; and most beautifully do the delicate organisms of children yield 
to medicaments exhibited even in the two hundredth potencies. But 
amongst the multitudes who have sought the aid of homoeopathy in 
their distress; tens of thousands have been men and women of full 
growth, and they have not been disappointed. The untenable nature 
of this objection may be proved any day, by a visit to any one of the 
four thousand offices of homoeopathic physicians at present practicing 
in the United States, where you will find, calling, persons of every age 
and rank, and of either sex. It is a grand mistake, and the fruitful 7 
source of many an error, that medicinal power consists in bulk, whereas 
it consists, first, in natural adaptation, and then in separation from all 
gross admixture or incrustation. The essence, the virtue, of a drug, 
is often not reached until the material particles arc so broken up as to 
become invisible to the naked eye. By trituration, carbonate of lime, 
sulphur, flint, animal and vegetable charcoal—(all naturally almost 
inert)—become very powerful and unspeakably important remedial 
agents. In reference to the statement that homoeopathy is only adapted 
to chronic diseases, we would ask the enquirer to look at the statistics 
of our cures of Asiatic Cholera, Cholera Morbus, Dysentery, Pneumo- 
nia, Enteritis, (Inflammation of the bowels,) Phrenitis (Inflammation 
of tho brain,) Inflammatory fevers, &c., &c. They not only compare 
well with the statistics furnished by any other practice, but our losses 
by death are many per cent, fewer. All medical men with whom we 
have ever conversed, consider chronic diseases more difficult to cure, 
as a rule, than acute attacks, and if a medicine will cure a disease 
when it has assumed a chronic form, the acute manifestation is gene- 
rally quite controllable. The homoeopaths find this great advantage in 
treating chronic cases. They can continue administering the same 
remedy for weeks, and even months, without detriment to the general 
health, whilst remedies given in a crude state, and in large doses, often 
repeated, would soon find no organs to work upon at all. 
And lastly. We have known persons who, when disposed to test honueopathy 
in their families in time of sickness, were warned by some sapient M. 1)., (who had 
a little before treated homoeopathic sugar pills as worthless playthings,) that they 
would all most assuredly get poisoned with their Arsenic, Aconite, Belladonna, Ac., 
all of them fatal drugs, which none but authorized, thoroughly educated, and reg- 
ular medical men, should be permitted to haudle. This poor attempt to frighten 
the timid and the credulous needs no serious reply. We would ask of such a med- 
ical objector,—Pray, Doctor, where did you learn the true pathogenetic symptoms 
of unadulterated, unmixed, uncompoundcd drugs \ Were provings of poisons on 
healthy subjects ever instituted before Hahnemann set the example 1 Who is most 
likely to administer medicines safely—the hoinceopathist, who takes his medicines 
himself, before giving them to the sick, or the man who merely gives a certain dose 
because it is according to authority 1 Which is more likely to prove poisonous, the 
ten thousandth part of a grain of a single medicine, the properties of which have 
been fully tested in health or disease, or a conglomeration of drugs in mass, about 
which no man can tell whether it has formed a chemical combination or a mechan- 
ical mixture 1 Let common sense and common honesty decide the question. 
We Iiavo seen that the ordinary objections urged against homoeopathy cannot 
stand the test of reason and experience. The spirit that prompts them is like tho 
animus contained in the lines— 
“ I do not like thee, Doctor Fell; > ~ 
The reason why, / cannot tell; t 
But this I surely know full well, 
I do not like thee, Dr. Fell.” _ 
Again we say, prove Homoeopathy by the fair test of experiment, and if the 
system should bo found weak, or even false, you will have suffered no harm. If 
you provo it and find it true and beneficent, you will be saved the condemnation of 
having thoughtlessly and recklessly trodden under foot a boon from heaven. HOMOEOPATHIC BOOKS&. MEDICINES 
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HOJdCEOP A T II Y , 
WHAT ARE ITS CLAIMS ON PUBLIC CONFIDENCE ? 
Popular Fallacies Concerning’ Homoeopathy Refuted. 
SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF HAHNEMANN. 
BY JOSEPH IIOOPER, M. D. 
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