ADDRESS, BEFORE THE NEW YORK HOMEOPATHIC PHYSICIANS’ SOCIETY, DEC. 3, 1845, BY B. F. JOSL1N, M. D., PRESIDENT. (From the American Journal of Homoeopathy, No. 5.) Gentlemen :—Whilst I highly prize the un- expected honor which your vote has conferred it is with diffidence that I undertake to dis- charge the duties it has imposed. I rely, how ever, upon your kind co-operation for the pres- ervation of order, and upon your indulgence in regard to unintentional errors to which I may be liable in matters of form. Gentlemen, I congratulate you and myself, that the composition and objects of this Socie- ty—and I may almost say the essential charac- ter of a genuine Homoeopathic physician, are such as to promote a spontaneous tendency to- wards order, harmony and friendship. Even without the evidence of actual observation, I should consider it highly probable, that regu- laily and throroughly educated physicians, em- bracing Homoeopathy and associating for its advancement, would in general, in the present early stage of the reformation, resemble each other in many important particulars—would be men possessed of sound minds, and actuated by pure and lofty motives, men who prefer facts to hypotheses, and the interests of truth and humanity to their own temporary advancement. Though the Homoeopathic physician, before he can be admitted into this Society, is re quired to possess as thorough knowledge of every branch of medical science as the most respectable portion of his Allopathic brethren, and although every men ber of this Society has actually gone through a regular course of Al- lopathic study, under Allopathic professors, and has been by Allopathic boards of exam- iners, declared duly qualified to practice medi- cine, he is now proscribed for the knowledge which he has superadded. However highly the Homoeopathic physician may be respected for his probity, his learning, and the general strength and soundness of his intellect, yet as a Homceopathist he is regarded by the mass of the community as a kind of monomaniac, and is viewed with suspicion and jealousy, if not contempt, by a majority of those to whom the public look up as the leaders of medical fash- ion, and the expounders of medical doctrine. Under such circumstances, it is not to be ex- pected that the ranks of Homoeopathy are to be filled from among the timid, the ambitious, the avaricious, the devotees to medical fashion or the aspirants to medical honor. ADDRESS. The converts to the new doctrine are not to besought among undergraduates stilt depend- ent on the patronage of professors, nor among newly-fledged licentiates still fortified against new truth by undue reverence for the dogmas of the schools, and inexperienced in their prac- tical fallacy at the bed-side of the patient. This must be the general rule. If any have been exceptions, they are worthy of peculiar honor, as men whose intellectual powers and moral qualities have been such as to elevate them above the unfavorable influences by which they were surrounded. There is another class with whose counte- nance and presence our fraternity can rarely hope to be honored. They are those who have arrived at that age which thinks and acts from habit, and recoils from a new and laborious investigation, and a total revoluiion of their theories and practice. Upon the more aged specimens of this class I look with mingled feel- ings of respect, sympathy and regret. They have sincerely aimed to do their duty and pro- mote the welfare of man under the best lights formerly accessible. That they were born a few years too early for this glorious and bene- ficent reformation, is their misfortune, not their fault. It is now too late even for their friends and the friends of truth to desire their conver- sion, which might involve personal sacrifices transcending the amount of public good achieved by their future labors. Such individ- uals, however, are not numerous in our labo- rious and self-sacrificing profession, in which an unavoidable neglect of regimen, occasioned by imperative and unreasonable calls, induces disease, and cuts off a great majority of our fel- low laborers in the midst of their useful career. There is another class of unbelievers which, from the nature of the case, must embrace some of the foregoing class. It consists of those who are regarded as eminent in the medical pro- fession. They are rich in honors and emolu- ments. Their circumstances naturally give them a strong bias against innovation. They apprehend that a medical revolution would check their brilliant career, and from their tow- ering elevation, suddenly degrade them to the level of second-rate practioners. Some among them may not only have attained wealth and populaiity by practice, but honorable and influ- ential posts as teachers of medicine, and, what is still more unfavorable to conversion—should their love of truth be less active than their self- esteem and love of approbation—some of them may “have written a book,” and stereotyped their opinions. To this whole class, their ad- miring pupilsdirect our attention, and exulting- ly enquire, “Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him 1” Have the lead- ing and most learned men of the profession been converted by Hahnemann 1 Then turn- ing to his followers, they exclaim with con- tempt, “ But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed.” One object in alluding to these circumstan- ces has been to show, that one of their natural tendencies would be to promote homogeneity and fellowship in our association. The ten- dency, in the present stage of the reformation, is to the union of materials considerably ana- logous in their nature and habitudes. This is an agreeable feature, and relieves me from much that might, in a corresponding position, be disagreeable and embarrassing in a society composed of materials as heterogeneous and discordant as some which were constituted by the laws of the State of New York, and in which all classesof licensed practitioners—our. selves included—were promiscuously and com- pulsorily assembled. I have illustrated somewhat negatively the character of Homoeopathic believers, so far as it depends on a few external circumstances un- favorable to the reception of the new truth. Conversion requires either the absence of these circumstances, or else an intellectual and moral character capable of resisting their in- fluence. There are other influences arising from the inherent nature of the doctrine and of the evi- dence adduced in its support. These favor or oppose its reception according to the mental character, and the previous training in obser- vation and induction. I shall allude only to the inductive character of Homoeopathy, and its analogy in this respect to the physical sciences as now cultivated, and to Christianity as first promulgated. Since the time of Bacon, the inductive method, which founds science on facts instead of assumptions, has won Lhe respect of the scientific world, and been adopted as the paramount guide in physical investigations. Since philosophers have agreed to exercise first the perceptive and then the reasoning powers,—first to collect fact<, then and thence to frame theories—there has been a harmony in their co-operation, and a fruitful harvest resulting from their labors, both comparatively unknown to the persons ADDRESS, and times of the sophists and schoolmen, en- gaged in rearing specious structures on the basis of imagined data. In regard to method of cultivation and cer- tainty of conclusions, the new system of medi- cine approaches the most exact of those scien- ces which relate to inorganic nature. A class of facts obtained from healthy persons expres- ses the morbific properties of each article of our Materia Medica; anotherclass of facts ob- tained from the sick expresses the therapeutic properties of the same agents; a comparison of the two classes establishes as a universal law, “Like are cured by like,” “ similia similibus curantur.” Again, the facts of each individ- ual case of disease determine the remedy to be selected in accordance with this law. Let not the student of inorganic nature pre- sume that our alleged facts are shadowy and unreal, because they frequently relate to what is immaterial—to mere sensations. There is nothing of which our knowledge is more direct and certain, than our knowledge of our own sensations. There is no such thing as an ima- ginary pain, or any imaginary sensation in the strict and elementary senseof the word. If a man believes that he has a certain pain, he has it; if he believes himself bilious, it may be a mi take. The reality of the sensation he knows; the hy pothesis respecting his pathological condition he merely believes. The Homoeopathic physi- cian generally asks for no clinical facts but those to which the patient could testify in a court of justice. If a man commences the statement of his present condition with “ I be- lieve,” you are almost sure that he is about to state an hypothesis, not a fact. Of all the physical sciences, that of therapeu- tics has been slowest in adopting the inductive method. Hahnemann was the first who made well-ascertained facts the essential basis of the whole therapeutic fabric; the first indeed to discover a law which renders all the phenom- ena of abnormal action available in practice. His is the only known law which makes every morbid phenomenon observable in the living body subservient to the restoration ofhealth. It is this availableness of the facts which stim- ulates the true physician to examine so minute- ly the active and living physiognomy of dis- ease, the symptoms. The medical profession is divided into two parties which have not joined issue on the main point. One party asserts, as the result of ob- servation and experience, that the Homceopa- thic agents are efficient. Does ihe other assert that they are not 1 No such thing. It merely asserts that they ovght not to be efficient. The one reasons from observed facts, the other from the supposed nature of things. Here is no issue. What must be the opinion of an impartial jury, when all the witnesses on one side testify that the remedies are efficient, whilst all on the other side testify that they have not tested their efficacy 1 The obstacles to belief which I formerly enumerated, operate on certain classes. But it is not selfishness, nor habit, nor blind and obstinate prejudice in its grosser form, which chiefly prevents the general adoption of the new method. In view of the seeming a priori improbabilities of Homoeopathy, and their own want of the knowledge requisite to make any safe and satisfactory trials of the system on the sick—a circumstance which vitiates the testimony of those few who profess to have tried the sytem without success—the majority of physicians either resolve to reject it forever, or else procrastinate its ti ial from year'oyear,for want of leisure to attain the preliminary know- ledge requisite lor its practical examination. In the mean time, they have more confidence in their own reason than in other people’s ob- servations, on a subject in relation to which there appears to be so many sources of illu- sion. Most of these difficulties might be obviated by a method of experimentation, different from that ordinarily pursued. I am confident that, should every physician make suitable trial of the Homoeopathic attenuations on himself when in his usual health, the rapid and general conversion of the profession would be inevita- ble. Let him carefully observe and minutely record the new symptoms experienced after each dose, and then after some days have elapsed, compare this list with the symptoms of the same remedy as recorded in the Materia Medica, or in the first volume of Jahr’s Man- ual, and he will probably observe such a coin- cidence as will induce him to pursue the inves- tigation. Ifhemakesa similar examination of the same minute doses of other Homoeopa- thic remedies after suitable intervals, he will, alter the trial of a few remedies, find the cor- respondence between his own and the printed records so striking, as to convince him of the truth of the latter. The effects will be more striking in proportion to the adaptation of the medicine to the particular susceptibilities of ADDRESS. the individual. Hence some previous study or the advice of a scientific Homceopathist, will be useful in making the selection. Experiments made in the above manner, prove not only the truth of our Materia Medi- ca, but the power of the small doses and atten- uations, that most obnoxious portion of the Homoe >pathic creed. This doctrine,like other parts of Homoeopathy, is simply a matter of induction. It may, as I have illustrated, be proved by our own sensations. Hahnemann was led to it by pure experience, and not by any speculative views. The disciplesof Hah- nemann have been anathematized for their con- fidence in facts. Similar treatment had been long since ex- perienced by the disciples of One whom we may reverently call a physician, inasmuch as the record of his cures forms no inconsiderable portion of his history. Whilst one of his ob- jects was the restoration of health—man’s high- est physical interest—another was to generate belief in truth, by means of facts cognizable by the senses. Christianity was presented to the world in the shape of facts. It was a grand exhibition of the inductive method of philosophy. Now we may also claim for Homoeopathy an induc- tive character, and for its believers a rational regard for the evidence of their senses. Gentlemen, in making this comparison, I apprehend from you no unfair criticism. The comparison has no reference to the reladve importance of the two subjects, and makes no irreverent use of sacred things. When Arch- bishop Whateley, in order to confound the sceptics of his day, institutes a tacit but elabo- rate comparison between the life of Napoleon and that of Christ, and between the disbelievers of the two biographies, or when the great Teacher himself compares the kingdom of heaven to “ leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal,” no intelligent and candid reader considers the more sacred subject degraded, or suspects any design to compare the two in regard to their importance, dig .ity or sanctity. A miraculous cure re- quires supernatural agency, and in this respect is unlike all others. But the spectator of this phenomenon, in order that he may be convinced of its reality, requires only the honest exercise of his perceptive and reflective powers. In this respect, a miracle agrees with every other phenomenon; it is addressed to man’s natural powers. The case of secor d-hand evidence is similar. If any phenomenon is recorded by persons who observed, or any sensation by per- sons who expeiienced it, I may endeavor to wHgh the characters and circumstances of the witnesses, and may admit or reject their testi- mony according to the evidence thus obtained. If the phenomenon is strange and wonderful, if it is even miraculous, I still use my natural powers in examining the testimony. In pursuing the inductive method, by which the physical sciences are built up, the philoso- pher no longer inquires what the facts should be, but what they are. He collects them by his own observations and experiments, or ob- tains them from competent and credible ob- servers, and emplo* s facts as the only proper basis of his generalizations. If any facts, however new and strange, be reported by cred- ible witnesses, he endeavors to place himself in a situation to observe them. If this be im- practicable, he will not array his preconceived opinions against unexceptionable testimony. Such has been the course pursued by the disciples of Bacon, and also by the disciples of a still greater Master. These appealed to facts as the basis of belief, and warned their brethren against the prevalent “ philosophy,” which was far from being inductive. The Greeks sought “ after wisdom,” after plau- sible hypotheses, and therefore rejected the facts, and the true wisdom. The sophists, the self styled philosophers, held the same position as those medical scept:cs of our day who array a priori argument, barely plau- sible, against faets'well attested. A flippant speaker or writer may make the Homoeopathic doctrine appear ridiculous to minds as super- ficial as his own; a thorough examination, by men really scientific and profound, will demon- strate its consistency with true reason. This gieatest of all medical truths shrinks not from the ordeal of speculative investigation; yet this was not its origin in the mind of its im- mortal discoverer, nor has this been the prin- cipal instrument in its propagation. It ap- peals to the test of experiment—to results sus- ceptible of verification by every physician and philosopher, who is anxious to arrive at a cor- rect estimate of a discovery, the most impor- tant ever made in the whole range of the med- ical and physical sciences.