WHAT IS BOMiOPATBI, 
rf its Practice ? 
•BY 
F. P. WELLS, M. D. 
REPUBLISHED FROM 
The North American Journal of Homceopathy, 
-BY- 
THE CENTRAL NEW YORK HOMOEOPATHIC MED- 
ICAL SOCIETY. 
SYRACUSE, N. Y.: 
MASTERS & STONE, PRINTERS AND BOOK BINDERS. 
1878. REPORT. 
Mr. President, and Members of the Central New York Homoeo- 
pathic Medical Society : Your committee, to whom was referred 
the matter of presenting to the public the real state of Homoeo- 
pathy, which its enemies suppose killed by the action of those 
professing to be its disciples and followers, beg leave to present 
the following report : 
In the early days of Homoeopathy, to be a follower of Hahne- 
mann, meant sincere devotion to his principles, and all who ac- 
cepted them sought everywhere and always to apply them. The 
result was a success in the healing art which has brought Homoeo- 
pathy into popular favor throughout almost the whole civilized 
world. Then, to be a Homoeopath meant ridicule and persecu- 
tion by almost all medical men. Now, to be a Homoeopath 
means popular favor and success. Consequently, men rush into 
its profession and practice for the sake of popular favor and suc- 
cess, rather than from conviction of its truth and devotion to its 
principles. They come with only a smattering knowledge of its 
materia medica, by their own confessions, too ignorant always to 
apply its law, presumably, too indolent to learn how to apply it, 
and of course fail of that success which has given Homoeopathy 
its glory. To cover up their failures they resort to the old-school 
methods of palliation, narcotism, stimulation, etc., while they de- 
ceive the people with the plea of liberality, and thus put dollars 
in their pockets. At the same time the whole medical profession, 
of every form of faith, recognizes them as pretenders, being neith- 
er one thing nor the other. These men have become so numerous 
as to be a controlling power in some of our societies, and have 
committed those societies to their position, till our old-school REPORT. 
brethren, seeing our disgrace, have informed the people that 
“ Homoeopathy has committed suicide in the open street.” But 
it is not true. Homoeopathists as a class have not forsaken their 
principles. They are only betrayed by doubtful allies in. their 
own ranks. That the people may know that it is not true, and 
■flTSfyTiave' a better knowledge of what Homoeopathy is, your com- 
mittee recommend that this society re-publish and scatter broad- 
cast, a paper-from the last number of the North American 
Journal of Homoeopathy, by P. P. Weils, M. D., of Brooklyn, 
entitled “ What is Homoeopathy, and what the possibilities and 
duties of its practice.” 
T. Dwight Stow, 
William A. Hawley, 
E. B. Nash. 
Committee. 
At a meeting of the Central New York Homoepathic Medical 
Society held at Syracuse, September ig, 1878, the following reso- 
lution was unanimously adopted: 
Resolved, That this Society endorses the paper of P. P. Wells, M. D., 
entitled “ What is Homoeopathy, and what are the possibilities and 
duties of its practice ?” published in the last number of the North 
American Journal of Homoeopathy and the report of its committee re- 
commending its republication and circulation among the people. Furth- 
er, that a committee of three be appointed, of which the president, Dr. 
Wm. A. Hawley, shall be chairman to secure the re-printing of the 
same for the use of this Association, and that the cost thereof shall be 
met by voluntary subscriptions. 
William A. Hawley, 
L. B. Wells, 
Stephen Seward. 
n m ... „ 
Committee on 
printing. 
° WHAT IS 1I0PATHY ? 
The object of this paper will be to answer these questions. 
The attempt can hardly be untimely, when we are told effort is 
being made in England, under the leading of one in high official 
position, to virtually abandon what this word represents, and 
when we have approval of this effort by some in this country, 
who claim to be “familiar with the Homoeopathic system of medi- 
cine.” It cannot be impertinent to inquire what it is these gen- 
tlemen would have us give up. It can hardly be uninteresting, 
if we can succeed in giving a clear and correct statement of what 
this is, which for more than half a century has been made an ob- 
ject of ridicule and misrepresentation, and faith in, and practice 
of which, has been deemed a sufficient reason for heaping on men, 
otherwise intelligent and upright, obloquy without stint. Then 
it cannot fail to be of interest to know definitely what this is, 
which, notwithstanding the combined opposition of the entire 
medical profession as it existed when Homoeopathy was first pro- 
claimed, and which has been continued to the present - time, has 
yet had steady growth in the numbers of its adherents, and in 
the confidence given to it by men educated in the sciences which 
belong especially to the medical profession, and also by the gen- 
eral public over the civilized world, who have witnessed and ex- 
perienced its benefits. That it still lives and flourishes is a fact. 
That it lives, is solely because the truth could not be killed by 
the weapons so freely and unscrupulously used against it. It is 
certain no lie could have withstood them. What is this which 
lives and flourishes to-day, after enduring for more than half a 
century so great opposition and abuse ? 
Homoeopathy is simply one of nature’s laws, enacted and made 
a part of the condition of man’s existence, when he was created 
subject to pain and sickness. It is the law of relationship be- 
tween man’s pains and sicknesses, and the agents by which these 
were to be relieved and cured. It being one of the natural laws, 
it must have had the same origin as other natural laws, and its 
operations must be as uniform and reliable as are those of other 2 
WHAT IS HOMOEOPATHY ? 
laws. The object of this law is, given a sick man, to enable him- 
self or another to find with certainty that agent which will cure 
him. That the finding of this boon may not be left in the dark- 
ness of guessing and blundering, but be guided by the clear light 
of law. So, then, this which doctors have opposed, skeptics re- 
jected, wits and fools have ridiculed, is nothing less or other than 
the law of specifics. That which Sydenham, more than a century 
ago, recognized as the great need of his profession, the knowledge 
of specifics, and its great duty, to find them out, this law stands 
the way to that knowledge, and the guide in the performance of 
this duty. There was in Sydenham’s idea of specific medicine a 
radical defect. He contemplated specifics for classes of diseases, 
as for pneumonia as a class, for dysentery, rheumatism, and the 
like, which, in the nature of things is impossible. The law does 
not lead to this, but to a knowledge of the specific for each indi- 
vidual case of these or other classes of diseases as it is present to 
be cured. So, then, the practice of Homoeopathy is ever and al- 
ways the finding of the specific for the case now to be cured. And 
this finding is to be repeated in every succeeding case, individu- 
ally, to the end of time, though the thousands of succeeding 
cases may be called by the same name. This is Homoeopathy, 
and this its practice. 
The law declares that the agent which produces in the living 
organism, phenomena most like those of the natural disease to be 
the specific curative of that disease. The finding and adminis- 
tering of that which is most similar, is the practicing of Homoeo- 
pathy, not the giving of pellets or pills, large or small, of high or 
low potence, or of no potence at all. A man may be a graduate 
of a Homoeopathic college, and put “ Homoeopathist” on his sign 
and business card, procure his medicines of Smith or Tafel, give 
them in high or low potence, or in the crude form, and never make 
a homoeopathic prescription, but by accident, in his life. This is 
not the finding of that most similar agent which alone constitutes 
the prescription homoeopathic. All short of this, claiming for 
itself to represent this law, is simply practical false pretense. 
If this be a true statement of what Homoeopathy is, it must be 
evident, that in order to practice it there must be such a knowl- 
edge of the effects of the agents employed, on the organism, as 
will enable the prescriber to know that which is most similar 
when he finds it. But this necessitates ascertaining beforehand, 
what are those effects of each agent to be employed in the treat- 
ment of the sick. The sum of the knowledge of these, as already 
ascertained by giving drug agents to persons in health, and ob- 
serving and recording the results which followed, constitutes the 
Homoeopathic Materia Medica. In this way, and in this only, 
could the requisite knowledge of them be obtained. 
Then, having this knowledge, and being about to use it for the 
cure of the sick, in accordance with this law, it is equally evident BY DR. P.;P/WELLS. 
that but one agent can be given at the same time. We do not for- 
get that this has recently been declared “ vague, valueless and 
unscientific.” Vague it certainly is not. Nothing can be more 
explicit. Unscientific it cannot be, if it be a necessity to obedi- 
ence of one of nature’s laws. So neither can it be valueless. Let 
us see how this is. The law requires that the agent be found and 
given which, in its effects on the organism, presents the greatest 
resemblance to the facts of the disease to be cured. Now, as 
there are no two agents in the record of the Materia Medica 
which have been found to produce identical effects on the healthy, 
it follows there cannot be two which are most like the disease in 
these effects. Therefore, giving two agents at the same time is 
giving at least one which is not most like, and therefore giving it 
is an infraction of the law, and is, therefore, unscientific. Now, 
in view of this law, and its administration as here presented, 
what is there that should call forth the opposition of the medical 
profession ? What that should attach to its adherents opprobrium 
and reproach ? 
But the opponent may say, perhaps, it is not the law to which 
we object, but the methods of its administration recommended 
by its promulgator, and, notably, his dose. Here it is. Now we 
have come to it, and it must be confessed that the a priori argu- 
ment here is in favor of the objector. It is no doubt true that 
when the dose recommended by Hahnemann is first suggested to 
any intelligent mind it will seem absurd in the extreme. This is 
quite natural; it is so at variance with all previous experience 
and education as to doses of medicines. Where one has been ac- 
customed to many grains of a drug as a dose, and to receive this 
from prescribers in whose wisdom and knowledge he has had 
confidence, the idea of the very small fraction of a grain of the 
same drug, as recommended by Hahnemann, being more curative 
than those grains, will hardly be received. The case is worse still 
with the doctor. He has given the many grains, and thinks he 
knows all about it. The small fraction disgusts him. The marvel 
is at the outset, how any reasonable man can have greater confi- 
dence in the fraction than in the whole. And then, of all things, 
in this very small fraction! It is impossible there can be any re- 
sult from it. So the writer of this paragraph has thought and 
talked. This being so, how could it come to pass that intelligent 
men should ever openly approve and practice this absurdity of 
Hahnemann’s dose ? How Hahnemann himself, for he was both 
intelligent and learned ? 
We reply: the dose in the case of the master was not the result 
of any theory imagined and elaborated in his study; it was not 
the child of theory at all, in any degree, in part or whole. The dose 
was imposed on him by the necessities of his practical experience. 
He began, after the discovery of the law of cure, with the same 
large doses he had been giving before, and he found that such 4 
WHAT IS HOMOEOPATHY ? 
doses of medicines, which in their effects were like the facts of the 
disease under treatment, were followed by an increase of suffering 
and danger to the patient. The necessity for the small dose then 
came from the patient, not from his doctor. The dose was dimin- 
ished and yet this undesirable result followed; and this was re- 
peated till that degree of reduction was reached which made the 
reception of the dose of the similar medicine no longer to be fol- 
lowed by an increase of the patient’s sufferings. When this point 
was gained, he found, and was astonished when he found, that the 
curative power of the dose so reduced was greater than that of 
of the larger which he had been compelled to abandon. The 
small dose was a necessity. Its greater curative power a discov- 
ery. Both facts, and not imaginations as some have supposed. 
In the case of the followers of Hahnemann who employ the 
smallest doses known to homoeopathic practice, so far as I know, 
they have come to their use in spite of strong prejudices against 
them. They believed it was impossible these could have any in- 
fluence on the organism for good or evil. It was only by actual 
experiment made by themselves, or by witnessing experiments of 
others that this judgment was corrected. They tried the small 
doses and found they did act, and with better curative results than 
those larger. Years of continued experience has confirmed their 
confidence in this fact more and more. It has not been with 
them more than with the master a matter of speculation. It was 
first a matter of inquiry prosecuted against prejudice. Then it 
became to them knowledge. And now it is submitted that these 
are the men who are alone witnesses as to the power of these 
doses. These men who have tried them and know. And as 
against those who have not tried them and do not knojv, their tes- 
timony must be received. Those who do not know may talk 
“ moonshine” and “ impossibility” as much as they please, and 
when they have done the talk will be only—moonshine. The fact 
of the action of these doses is one which must rest on the testimo- 
mony of those who have used them in accordance with the re- 
quirements of the law of similars, and not in any degree on the 
speculations or skepticisms of those who have not. But it has 
lately been said the homoeopathists in England are abandoning 
the small doses, and that many have done so in this country. 
This may be true, but it is a little difficult to understand how a 
man abandons that with which he had nothing to do. It is a fact 
that the majority of English homoeopathists never accepted the 
small dose as taught by the master. The same is true of very many 
of those of our own country. They are therefore excluded as wit- 
nesses in the case. I do not know of one in either country, who, 
with a sufficient knowledge of the Materia Medica to conduct an 
intelligent practice, according to the law as we have presented it, 
having once adopted the high and highest potencies in his 
practice, has afterwards given them up. They have 
won the increasing confidence of all such, so far as I am informed. BY DR. P. P. WELLS. 
5 
We have said Homoeopathy is one of Nature’s laws. In this as- 
sertion we intend an uncompromising antagonism to the recent 
legislation, which reduces it to a mere “ rule of practice.” We 
distinguish between law and a mere rule thus: natural law is uni- 
vesal in its authority, extent and application. It admits no suspen- 
sion or substitute. This law, then, in its extent, is equal to the 
whole domain of disease, as met in the human organism. Being a 
law of nature, there must be, and is, in it, provision for the wants 
and cure of all curable maladies, from whatever source or however 
called.* Like other natural laws it must be equal to all the de- 
mands of the facts which called for its existence. Like the laws 
of gravitation and light, it must be equal at all times to the attain- 
ment of the ends for which it was created, and like these it neith- 
er needs nor admits assistance from other rules or associate laws 
for the most perfect attainment of these ends. Like other natural 
laws, then, this is exclusive in its nature.f 
It is another important element in the nature of law, that it is 
wholly mandatory. It commands. It neither solicits nor permits. 
A rule is partial in extent, authority and application. In practi- 
cal duty a rule may be set aside in favor of another rule, or the 
circumstances of a case may warrant its entire disregard, however 
* It has been objected to practice founded exclusively on this law, that 
it is narrow in its philosophical basis; that it is confined to a single 
groove, or “ dogma,” and, more than all, that it deprives the practition- 
er of a valuable liberty to do whatever he pleases for the benefit of his 
patient, i. e., to give him the advantage of whatever he thinks will do 
him good. The true statement of the scope of the law is a sufficient an- 
swer to these and all similar objections which have been raised against 
it. Of that which is in its nature as broad as the domain of the disease, 
and contains in its record the sum of all that is positively known of the 
action of curative drug agents on the organism, can hardly be limited in 
its basis, and if a “groove” in any sense, is certainly not a narrow one. 
As to the liberty contended for, a practice strictly in accord with this 
law, will leave few occasions for its exercise. 
t The exclusiveness here asserted is as to other natural lawn for the 
control of practical therapeuti.es, and also as to means which do not 
come within the domain of this law, that is, which have not been prov- 
ed, and their action on the organism ascertained. It is exclusive as to 
other laws for the reason that no other is known which fulfills the re- 
quirements of a natural law. Homoeopathy is not exclusive as to “medi- 
cal science” in general, or as to any branch of it. Neither is there, nor 
can there be, any possible antagonism between them. “Homoeopathy, 
the Science of Therapeutics,” is in itself, in perfect harmony with every 
branch of medical science, and with all other natural sciences, and the 
more perfect these are, the more welcome to its fellowship, and to be- 
come aids in its administration. A late attempt of a professed believer 
in Homoeopathy to represent this exclusiveness as antagonistic in any 
degree to its sister medical sciences, is wholly gratuitous and difficult 
to excuse. Neither has any branch of science, medical or other, any an- 
tagonism to this natural law, the controller of the science of therapeu- 
tics. 6 
WHAT IS HOMOEOPATHY ? 
valuable it may have been in other cases. Or it may be only 
partially applied in any case, without dereliction of duty. Law 
demands obedience now and always. It neither provides for nor 
tolerates any neglect or infraction of its provisions or commands. 
Law is expressed by—thou shalt—or thou shalt not. Rule is lim- 
ited to—it may be well to do, or not to do, this or that, and this 
because of supposed analogy of the case in hand to other previ- 
ous cases, in which the applied rule had been beneficial or other- 
wise. Law demands exact compliance with its requirements, ad- 
mits no deviation in favor of ignorance, indolence, prejudice 
or personal preference—yielding to either of these, and the law 
violated, the fruits of practical obedience (practical successes), are 
of course, wanting. 
Another element in the nature of natural law is permanency. It 
does not exist to-day and cease to-morrow. It neither changes 
nor becomes obsolete. That which was law in the relationship 
of curative agencies and diseases in the beginning of the nine- 
teenth century, is law now, and will continue to be to the end of 
time.* This law can no more change than can the law of right 
and wrong, or that of gravitation. Is there, then, to be no pro- 
gressive improvement in practical medicine ? It may well be 
hoped there is to be much. But this is certainly not to be sought 
nor gained outside of law, nor by its transgression. Not cer- 
tainly by amendments or supplements to natural law, emanating 
from human imagination, however bright and active, or from 
whatever of ex cathedra utterances of human ambitions or imper- 
tinences. If this be a law of nature governing practical medicine, 
then improvement in this most important of practical sciences is 
only to be realized by a more perfect understanding of the law, a 
more strict compliance with its requirements, and a more perfect 
knowledge of the agencies which it employs in giving health to 
the sick and relief from pain. Improvement in therapeutics was 
sought outside of law for three thousand years. The result was 
certainly not such as to warrant a longer search in that direction. 
It follows, then, that to seek it by practically repealing the law, 
is worse than folly and madness combined. To reduce the law 
to the low level of a rule, as to its control of practical thought 
and duty, is a crime for which our language fails to give a des- 
signation sufficiently condemnatory. It is a self murder of sci- 
ence, so far as the body so resolving may be regarded as repre- 
*It does not, therefore, follow that remedies which cured diseases, 
called by a given name, a century or half a century ago, will tor that 
reason cure them now. The elements of the disease may have changed 
in this time to an extent that the former similarity, by virtue of which 
they were cured no longer exists. Still the law remains unchanged, and 
now, by reason of this change in disease, calls for the discovery of other 
more similar remedies for its cure. This is illustrated by the history of 
the relations of Belladonna to Scarlet Fever. BY DR. P. P. WELLS. 
7 
senting the science of therapeutics, and out and out murder of 
human beings, so far as this resolving may have control over the 
practice of others, who may by it be tempted to give up law for 
rule. Of this hereafter. 
If proofs be demanded of the justice of the claim which we 
set up for the law of similars, that it is one of nature’s laws, they 
are many, convincing and sufficient. They abound in the con- 
tinuous history of its practice by those who have strictly followed 
its instructions, and complied with its requirements, during more 
than half a century. It can Jmrdly be necessary to give, to a 
candid mind, more than a few of the many facts of which these 
proofs consist, and this rather as evincive of the nature of these 
facts, than as an assumed sufficiency of these few alone to sustain 
the claim. To go farther would exceed the limits of the plan in 
view in the preparation of this paper. 
The first fact, and one which goes far in the proof we are at- 
tempting, is, that in the prevalence of the fatal typhus which 
followed the disasters of Napoleon’s Russian campaign, in 1812, 
and was so general throughout Europe, Hahnemann was able, 
from a knowledge of the facts of the epidemic, to name, in his 
study, the curatives of the disease according to this law, with 
a certainty which was confirmed by their successful use in the 
treatment of this historical fever.* It was this success which 
first gave to homoeopathy its European reputation. The cases 
treated by those remedies, as directed by Hahnemann, recovered 
with marvelous uniformity, and in a very short time, and this to 
such an extent as to force the recognition of a relationship of 
law between the remedies and the disease, on all intelligent 
minds who witnessed the facts. They saw and acknowledged 
that this uniformity of result could not be accident. 
The second historical fact which I shall notice, is still more 
remarkable. On the approach of the first epidemic of Asiatic 
Cholera, to Northern and Western Europe, in 1829, while it was 
yet far off, and Hahnemann had never seen a case of it, he was 
able to name the remedies, which, in its presence, would be found 
both curative and prophylactic, and this from the descriptions of 
those who had been observers of the dread malady.f Experi- 
ence with these remedies in the presence of the disease, abund- 
antly confirmed the accuracy of his predictions, and this to an 
extent that all subsequent opportunities for observing and treat- 
ing cholera, have given us no improvement in the course recom- 
mended, under these unfavorable circumstances, by this truly 
great philosopher and observer. Even in subsequent epidemics 
this course has grven successful results, which, in comparison 
with any and all other methods of treatment, go far, very far, 
* Algemeine Anzeig. der Deutschen, No. 6, 1814. 
t Dudgeon’s Lectures, p. 29. 8 
WHAT JS HOMOEOPATHY? 
towards demonstrating the principle on which this selection of 
remedies was made to be a natural law, and not in any part a 
mere hypothesis or accident. The mortality of this plague has 
been reduced, on the average, by this course of treatment, about 
fifty per cent. In many localities the reduction has been much 
greater. And even this result, remarkable as it is, was surpassed 
by the success which followed the use of the recommended 
prophylactics. The protection was so great as to completely 
demonstrate the existence of law in the preservation realized, 
and in the process by which the prophylactics were discovered. 
In some epidemics, and in some localities the protection has been 
uniform and* complete. In others, where attacks followed the 
use of the prophylactics, they were uniformly of a mild charac- 
ter. Can this have been accident ? And now wherein was the 
man, or the law which he thus proclaimed and demonstrated, 
proper objects of ridicule or reproach ? It is not necessary to 
this argument to repeat in detail the comparative statistics of 
mortality by cholera, in its successive epidemics, which so tri- 
umphantly prove the superiority of the homoeopathic treatment 
over all other methods, and so assuredly affirm Homoeopathy to 
be one of Nature’s laws. These have been often published, and 
now it can only be needful to allude to them to bring them fresh 
to every memory. 
The third fact which we shall present differs from the two 
preceeding in that it pertains to diseases in general, while they 
each have to do with only one individual form of epidemic. 
Kurtz, medical and civil counsellor to the Duke of Anhalt Des- 
sau, gathered the results of Allopathic treatment of diseases, for 
ten consecutive years, in hospitals in England, Scotland, France 
Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Bohemia, 
Bavaria, Austria, Hungary, Silesia, Russia and Italy, and found 
the published reports of these hospitals disclosed a mortality of 
between ten and eleven per cent, of all cases treated. During 
the same years there were hospitals where diseases were treated 
exclusively by the Homoeopathic method, in Germany, Austria, Ba- 
varia, Silesia and Hungary, in the same cities where the Allopathic 
hospitals were located, whose reports made a part of the mate- 
rials from which the above average mortality was ascertained. 
These Homoeopathic institutions had to do with the same epi- 
demic influences as their old school neighbors, and in the general, 
with the same class of population and diseases. The reports of 
these institutions disclose a mortality of between four and five 
per cent, of all diseases therein treated during these same ten 
years,| the difference being something more than 50 per cent, in 
favor of Homoeopathic treatment. Can so great a difference 
\ British Journal of Homoeopathy Vol., I, No. 7. BY DR. P. P. WELLS. 
9 
have been an accident? Does it not rather affirm tire treatment 
to have been an offspring of law ? 
In private practice the facility for obtaining correct and reli- 
able information is less than that afforded by hospital records. 
Private practitioners are not accustomed, as a rule, to keep a 
written record of all cases they treat, for a series of years, yet 
in one instance at least this has been done through a long life.* 
This honored physician practiced Allopathy thirty-three years, 
treated in this time 75,360 patients, with a loss of 6.7 per cent. 
He practiced Homoeopathy seventeen years, treated 27,078 pa- 
tients, with a loss of one in or less than one per cent. 
The loss of three other homoeopathic physicians in the same city, 
at the same time, was nearly the same as Muhlenbein’s. The 
general Allopathic practice in Brunswick for the years 1835, 36 
and 37, resulted in a loss of nine and a half per cent., or some- 
thing more than eight times as great as that of Homoeopathic 
practice in the same years, in the same city. A difference alto- 
gether too great to be accounted for by any plea of accident. It 
sustains with emphasis the claim we urge for Homoeopathy, that 
it is indeed one of nature’s laws. We have no doubt there are 
in this and other countries practitioners of this method whose 
record, if it could be had, would show an equally favorable re- 
sult.! 
But it may be asked, are there not other natural laws of heal- 
ing than that of similars, by which we may be guided to the selec- 
tion of specific curatives in treating the sick ? I cannot say 
there are none. I can truly say I know no other. Does the in- 
quirer ? If there be another or others, which can show me a 
better practical record than that which has come to us from a 
strict obedience to the law of similars, I should like to know it 
or them. I am ready to abandon this law any day when I can 
be shown a better with a better record. In the absence of any 
knowledge of any other law, I am bound to obedience to that 
which I do know, and especially when I remember its hospital 
* Miihlenbein. Physician and Privy Couucellor to the Duke of 
Brunswick. 
t Dr. George August Heinrich Miihlenbein died on the 8th or Janua- 
ry, 1845, at the age of 81 years in Schoningen, in the duchy of Bruns- 
wick. It will enhance our estimate of the remarkable record of the first 
seventeen years of his Homoeopathic practice, if we remember the pov- 
erty of the resources of the Homoeopathic physician, of that time, as 
compared with ours of the present. There were then no more than sixty 
or seventy remedies satisfactorily proved, on which he could draw for 
his cures. We have added to these some six or seven hundred, more or 
less successfully proved, which are now available to us in our daily 
practice. It would be truly grateful to us if we could believe our prac- 
tical record to have been an improvement on Muhlenbein’s in the ratio 
of our greater number of proved remedies to which we have access. 10 
WHAT IS HOMOEOPATHY ? 
record shows a possible saving of 52 lives of every 100 lost in 
allopathic practice, and in private practice a possible reduction of 
loss to less than one per cent. 
We do not forget that the resolution by which the New York 
State Homoepathic Medical society perpetrated its suicide, appeals 
to “ experience ” in its plea for the right to disregard this law, and 
to substitute for it whatever of means may be imagined to be 
sustained by this well-sounding word. We accept this appeal. 
We give the above records of hospital and private experience, 
under the guidance of this law, and challenge a better from 
whatever other guidance, or from the use of whatever other means 
not sanctioned by the requirements of this law. Till a better 
law with a better record is shown, the advocate for abandoning 
this, occupies no enviable ground. 
It is not forgotten than a claim has been set up for contrarai 
contrariis as one of nature’s laws of healing. A moment’s reflec- 
tion suffices to show the claim to be absurd and false. What is 
the contrary of typhoid fever, pneumonia, pleurisy, peritonitis, 
rheumatism, neuralgia, whooping cough and a multitude of other 
maladies which afflict our race ? There is none. Then this 
claim fails in one of the essentials of natural law—universality of 
application. 
But liberty is claimed to do for his patient whatever in the 
judgment of the physician will do him good. We go as far as 
the farthest in our advocacy of the largest liberty to do what is 
right. There is, or ought to be, no liberty to the physician to do 
wrong. If there be a law of nature which is an adequate guide 
to the doing of that which is right, he has no liberty to set this 
aside, and proceed without law, or other guidance than his own 
impressions, in favor of this or that. But “ experience and ob- 
servation ”—these must be sufficient guides—sometimes. Must 
they ? Whose “ experience and observation ?” What is the “ex- 
perience and observation ” which claims the right to set aside a 
natural law, and decide issues which properly belong to it alone ? 
Whose is this “ experience and observation ” for which this au- 
thority is claimed, and on what foundation does this asserted su- 
periority rest? Was not the appeal to the “experience and 
observation ” of 3,000 years, when men attempted the defence of 
blood-letting in the treatment of inflammatory diseases ? And 
have not the “ experience and observation ” of Dietl proved that 
of every twenty-two deaths from pneumonia so treated, fourteen 
were killed by this treatment. Has the appellant a longer expe- 
rience or one more confidently trusted than was this of blood- 
letting ? If he forsakes law for the guidance of any so-called 
experience, let him remember this history of blood-letting, and 
look well to the foundation of any which tempts him to this 
course, which, however plausible, may end in a crime as great as BY DR. P. P. WELLS. 
11 
that detected and exposed by the experiments of Dietl.* We 
have accepted the appeal to “experience and observation,” and 
confidently rest in the assurance that the records of both hospi- 
tal and private practice sustain before it the superior results of 
practice founded on law. Allopathic practice has for its founda- 
tion this “ experience and observation,” or it has none. We have 
shown its short-comings in comparison with a practice guided 
and controlled by law. 
But shall I not be at liberty to do any thing for my patient 
which will cure him best ? Certainly. And it is because true 
experience and observation have proved that diseases are best 
and most certainly cured by a strict conformity to the require- 
ments of this law, that we insist earnestly on its authority, and 
on the duty of all to whom a knowledge of it has come to give 
their patients the benefits which authentic records prove to be 
most certainly realized by strict obedience to its requirements. 
It is because diseases are more safely and surely cured by homoe- 
opathic methods and means that we protest against its law being 
supplanted by any rule less authoritive, and its means by any 
less potent for cure. 
We protest against endeavors to discredit this law by its pro- 
fessed friends, either by adverse legislation or neglect of its au- 
thority in their practice, and we claim that our protest is fully 
sustained by the records of practice which it has wholly guided 
and controlled. 
We protest against the claim set up for liberality by those who 
proclaim their readiness to substitute for this law, in their practice, 
other means and methods which the records prove to be less 
efficacious in curing the sick than those sanctioned by this law, 
affirming that by this substitution they deprive their patients of 
fifty-two per cent, of their chance of recovery, as proved by the 
record. 
Finally, we protest in the name of this law, against the pre- 
tense to the community of its practice, by physicians who habit- 
ually disregard it and all its methods and requirements, and 
resort to means wholly outside its domain, thus depriving their 
* Of all practical fallacies, this which sounds so plausible, and even 
reasonable, is one of the greatest. Take the history of medical theories 
in all the past centuries, all or nearly all of which are now abandoned 
as absurd, but few of which survived the lives of their promulgators, 
and yet each of these, for the support of his theory and the recommended 
practice founded on it, appealed to experience. When theories were 
opposites, the appeal was still to experience. When Bouillard would 
have pneumonia treated by repeated bleedings (“ Saignez, coup sur 
coup he appealed to experience as sustaining this course, which Dietl 
has since demonstrated to have killed about 70 per cent, of those who 
died under its administration. And so the appeal has ever been to 
experience, and experience has ever, or too often, been a cheat. WHAT IS HOMOEOPATHY? 
12 
patients of the benefits which the record proves them to be en- 
titled to, and which a truly homoeopathic practice assures to 
them, and demand in the name of humanity that such physicians 
cease their deceiving, and no longer use the name they dishonor 
by this course, and that they stand and be recognized by that 
which truly characterizes them—Eclectics.