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A N
ESSAY
ON SOME OF THE
PRINCIPLES OF MEDICAL DELUSION.
BY J. H. NUTTING, M.D.
       ,T» v—
Reprinted from the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal.
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           BOSTON:

David clapp, printer..........184 Washington street.

               1853. 
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   The subject of the following Essay was suggested by a venerated father
in the ministry, accompanied by an  invitation to lecture  upon it before a
Lyceum over which he presided.   The invitation and the subject were both
accepted.   The lecture thus prepared, was  subsequently delivered  before
another Lyceum ; and with some additions and necessary alterations, is now
submitted to the public, in accordance with the wishes of  several esteemed
friends of the author, members of both the clerical and  medical professions.
This must be his  apology for entering a field already ably occupied by men
of riper years and greater ability.   Nor would this have been deemed suffi-
cient reason for alluding to the essays already before the  public, had they not
thought it might conduce in some degree to open the eyes of the public in
regard to the true character of Medical Science,  and of the varied forms of
Quackery.
   The author has not aimed at originality, but  has freely used  whatever
came to hand.  In particular he would acknowledge his use of the valuable
essay on Homoeopathy? by Dr. Hooker, so far  as it seemed best adapted to
expressing the absurdities of that system ; while the standard homoeopathic
writers have been freely consulted in support of the views of it advanced by
him.                                            i
   Trusting to the candor of the public, this little  essay is  submitted to it,
with the sincere hope that it may  aid in the dissemination of Truth.
Stafford Spa, July 1, 1853. 
THE PRINCIPLES  OF MEDICAL DELUSION.
   Nothing, except Religion, has had so many delusions connected with it
as  Medicine.    Alike  remedial  in  their nature,  no sooner had  man
" brought death into the world and  all our woe,"  than they began their
mission of good to man.  Religion aimed at  healing the moral maladies
of man.  Nor could he, though in rebellion against his Maker, throw off
all religion.  Its elements were implanted in his nature ; and driven by a
sense of guilt  and  impending danger, he  has devised a thousand schemes
for the  redemption of  his soul.   Nothing has been too costly, nothing
too cruel, nothing too revolting,  nothing too senseless  and absurd, for
men to  rush into.  Witness the costly structures of Hindooism ; the horrid
orgies of the  Mexican priests ;  the  senseless mummeries of Buddhism ;
the penances  of the  Romish church, and the wild ravings of fanatical
sects!  Ignorance, wilful  blindness, and the corruption  of the heart,
have  all lent their  power to  delude.  " And as they did not like to re-
tain God in their knowledge,  He gave them over to believe a lie."   Nor
can one survey the religious history of the race, without doubting  whe-
ther man is possessed of reason, or whether he is not " more foolish than
the brutes that  perish."  But the  infinite  value  of the soul has not
been  jeopardized by being left to the vain imagination of man.   Infinite
Benevolence has not only left some  sparks of celestial wisdom glittering
amid  the rubbish  of the human  soul,  but has even condescended to
concentrate the full radiance  of that  wisdom on man's path; and  if he
be now  deluded, it will be through wilful perverseness and guilt.  There
is an unerring standard to which all religious theories may be brought, and
delusion stamped on each  that differs from that.   Nor with that stamp
upon  them, can their advocates  challenge for them  either the respect
or consideration  of any.
  Nor has the same Benevolence left the maladies  of the body uncared
for.   " The tree whose leaf  is for the healing of the nations," abounds 
4                  Essay on Medical Delusions.

in various  forms  throughout the globe.   " There is balm in Gilead, and
a physician there."  But the balm must  be sought with diligence, and
the  teachings of the  physician studied with the  greatest care.  There
are  the elements of the  true  medical  system, implanted in the physical
nature, as  are those  of the moral  in the soul.  But the former, unlike
the latter, have no concentration of divine  light thrown  upon them.   It
is left for human reason to  follow up the hints  of Nature ; to take the
oracular  responses of the Physician, scattered like those of  the Sybil,
and  combine them into one harmonious whole.
  The possibility of doing this, coupled with the strong desire to  ward
off  physical  suffering,  has  made physicians in  every age.   But  there
has been no  standard  of medical truth, except the ambiguous teachings
of Nature, and few have been able, even  to a  limited extent, to read
these aright.   Hence the best physicians have been constantly deluding
themselves and   their  patients.  While they elucidated much of truth,
they mingled with it much of error.  Hence the firmly-established medi-
cal  theories of one age, have in the next been neglected, or shown  to be
false.  The physician  for  whom  his  contemporaries have decreed an
apotheosis, has been  hurled from his preeminence by his successors.
  Medicine  must ever be  limited in  its powers.  It cannot raise the
dead, nor prevent entirely the accession  of  disease, nor  confer the  boon
of earthly  immortality.   But  these  are what men most desire.  " Skin
for skin,  yea, all that a man hath, will  he give for  his life," was declared
in regard to the man of Uz;  and  acting under this passionate desire for
life,  the  multitude have ever despised  the  modest pretensions of true
medical  science, while they have  been loud in  their applause of the
arrogant  assumptions of quackery.   " The elixir of life "  was  the great
desideratum,  and quackery  was ever ready to assert its possession of the
invaluable  boon.  Hippocrates,  and Galen,  and  Avicenna,  no  mean
names, labored hard, by patient research and observation, to lay firmly
the  foundations  of medical science.   Nor without success, for many  of
their principles still stand as  monuments of their labor, and the correct-
ness of their judgment.   But Paracelsus,  the prince of quacks, could
burn their works in the market  place, and  the multitude applauded the
act.   He, too, had the secret of immortality ; yet he died miserably  at
an early  age, with a  bottle of his elixir in his pocket.
  The history of medicine, I had  almost said, was a history of delusion.
The wrecks of systems lie  scattered all along its course,  and often  these
systems formed a part of what was then regarded as true medical science.
But while system after system has been wrecked, the truths which  form- 
Essay on  Medical Delusions.                   5
ed their nucleus have been increasing in number and  importance, from
age to age. False systems and theories have enveloped them in their mists ;
but when increasing light  has scattered these mists, the truths have re-
 mained.  Unlike the thousand systems of quackery, which, when de-
 stroyed, leave  no trace behind, this increasing centre of truth has come
 down from age to age, conferring blessings on all within its  influence.
 And now this stream  of truth has  become a mighty  river.   Anatomy
 has  shown the minute structure of nearly every tissue  ; and physiology,
 aided by the microscope, has unveiled the functions of almost every or-
 gan ; while hygiene has pointed  out the laws of health, and pathology
 the laws of disease, with the unnumbered changes  effected in the living
 body by its  invisible  but  potent  foes ; and  a  rational system  of  the-
 rapeutics has taken the place of the absurdities formerly practised.  Those
old-time men were men of no  mean powers, but they lacked  all  the ap-
 pliances of modern  ait.   Nor is it any disparagement to medical science
that there has  been so much of error mingled with it.   With what sci-
 ence has this not been the case ?   Yet with all its errors, there has been
truth enough mingled to preserve  it through a long series of ages.  Sys-
tem after system of quackery,  on  the other hand, has  arisen, and  even
 while boastingly predicting the  destruction of the old  system,  have
 themselves been forgotten  ; and though system  after system now make
 the  same boast, they are yet but  of a day, and, like their predecessors,
 will be remembered only with contempt.
   It is  true, Medicine is yet imperfect, nor are all its  professors perfect
 even in the knowledge which  it affords.   But if we compare the medi-
 cal science and practice of the present day,  with that of the time of our
 Saviour, or even with that of a century ago, we shall see that it has made
wonderful advances.   And its  progress will be still more wonderful; but
 it will be limited in  its powers, and will  still be, as it has been, an object
 of contempt to the unthinking.   The man writhing on the bed of pain
 will  give it  no  credit  unless it cause that pain at once to cease.  The
friends  of the   deceased will  upbraid it,  because  it kept him not back
from the grave, never reflecting that man has  " a time to die,"  Quack-
ery, with its brazen tongue, will  still  proclaim  its boasted powers, and
the  multitude will  fall down and  adore, while the modest voice of  true
science will be unheard. They would indulge each appetite and passion,
and  yet escape the penalty.  Science reiterates,  "  The soul that sinneth
it shall die."    Quackery asserts, " Ye shall not surely die ; indulge your
appetites and  passions,  here is a balm for  every evil that  indulgence
brings.   Have  your practices   brought sickness on you ?  I can restore 
6                  Essay on  Medical Delusions.

to health.  Is youth fading ?   I have a panacea for your ills.  Is death
claiming you  as  his victim?  I can  unlock  his grasp, and send you
back toYfe.   Ye shall not surely die."  The unthinking  multitude will
receive these arrogant assumptions as the oracles of truth.
  In surveying the medical history  of  the past,  we hardly know which
to wonder at most, the effrontery and boldness of quackery, or the cre-
dulity and perseverance of patients.   It  matters  not  that, like the wo-
man in scripture, they have expended all their living and suffered many
things  of the physicians,  nor been healed  of any ;  they are just  as
ready to swallow  each new pill, and  drink  each new potion, which the
boldness of quackery may invent; till, however against  their wills, they
find  out the truth of the old  Greek epigram—" Death is  the physician
that cures," and sink into his  embrace.
  The  sources of  medical delusions  are  similar, however these may
differ in form.  To write the  history of all  medical delusions, would be
a task too great for  one man, and even if it were  done, one might say,
with the evangelist, " I suppose the world  could  not contain the books
that would be written."   It  will therefore  be  more to the purpose to
trace out the sources of medical delusions, giving  the history of such as
best illustrate  the mode in which they arise.  This will be  my object,
nor will  it grieve me to expose quackery,  whether under the garb of
ignorance,  or covering  its shame with the  fair  parchments  of medical
colleges.
  It is somewhat difficult to define clearly a medical delusion.   So easily
are truth and error mingled  on this subject, and so  difficult is it  for
even the best physician to determine what  is due to  his treatment, and
what is due  to  the  recuperative   powers  of nature, that many  things
have  been  admitted as legitimate  medical  knowledge, which the  re-
searches of after  times  have  shown to be false.   The discovery of the
circulation of the  blood, overturned a multitude of theories and  conclu-
sions which had before stood  as truths ; and so with  each succeeding
discovery.   Not  is it certain  that many things in our present medical
system, will  not  one day give  place  to more  correct views.   Not but
that many principles are established beyond  a doubt.    Thus the princi-
ples of inflammation had been established by the experience  and  obser-
vation of many physicians ; and of late the microscope has  shown, to the
eye, the truth of  the conclusions at which they had arrived.   So with
many other  principles.   These being  strictly conformable to the opera-
tions of Nature, may be considered  as established.   But there are many
others,  resting only on probable evidence, which future  investigation may
 show to be false. 
Essay on Medical Delusions.
7
   The sources of medical delusions are many, and each delusion usually
Springs from  several of them.  The first source I shall  notice, is in the
Nature of Medical Reasoning.
   This must, of course, rest  on observation, or,  as it is commonly term-
ed, experience.  But it  cannot  be  properly termed experience, since
this applies rather to  what  affects the subject  of it, than to what one
person observes in another.   One person may observe the effects of grief
in another, while he experiences nothing  of the kind.   Nor  will he by
any means have  as  clear an apprehension  of its nature and  effects, as
though he had  himself felt it.  The same difference exists between what
is usually  termed medical  experience, and  true  experience.   Medical
experience is,  then,  but  an observation  of the  visible effects of  the
disease or remedy  which the patient  experiences.  The uncultivated
mind  can  form little idea  of the  grief it  may behold in the person
of cultivation and  refinement.  A cultivated mind alone can properly
observe these effects.   The  value, then, of medical experience will de-
pend entirely on the  capacity of the observer.   It can have no value
above that of ordinary observation ; nor is it worthy of the credence given
to the observation of physical phenomena, since the  physician is obliged,
in a great measure, to depend on the sensations of the patient, as de-
scribed by him ; and any  one  at all  conversant with disease, knows
how often the sensations are perverted, and  how often effects are con-
sidered as having taken place, which a further  examination  shows  had
no existence  but  in  the  imagination  of the  patient.  A very extensive
experience may therefore afford  no correct  basis for medical  reasoning.
On the contrary, the more extensive an incorrect experience or observa-
tion in medicine  may be, the more  incorrect will be the reasoning  and
practice founded upon it.
   In addition to this, the connection between cause  and effect is for the
most part  concealed.   In ordinary phenomena,  although we cannot ex-
plain how or why one act stands  in  the relation of cause to  another,
yet we know, from the obvious results, that they are  thus related.  Why
the impulse of one body on another should  cause the latter to move, is
beyond our power to explain.  We know that the impulse is  the physi-
cal cause  of the motion, since it  is the uniform consequence of an im-
pulse,  and no other  known  cause  can possibly  come in to produce  this
effect.   But  in medical experience, or observation, it is not  so.   We ad-
minister a  drug, and  a certain result  follows ;  yet we can   only  say
"velpost  hoc,vcl propter hoc."   Either it  took place after it, or on
account of it.  We can effect no changes by merely therapeutic means, 
8                   Essay on Medical Delusions.
which Nature may not under favorable circumstances effect, alone.   And
we know that the same  changes are often effected  independently of
medical interference.   Hence we cannot, in any  given  case, say  with
certainty that a given change is the result of our interference.  Nor does
it render it certain, even if we  have  often administered  the same medi-
cine with the same result.   Nature, in one  case,  may have effected
the change, and in another it  may  have been the result of our inter-
ference.   Other causes, even, may have come in to effect the change, of
which  we know nothing.  Still, if the same results  follow upon a repe-
tition of the medicine  under similar  circumstances,  we are  at liberty to
consider the change as probably the  effect of  the  administration  of the
medicine.  In some cases it may even amount to a certainty ; as when,
in  an acute inflammation,  a  copious  depletion  reduces it at once.  But
this class of cases is comparatively small.   For the most  part, the results
of medical treatment  are spread over  a considerable  period  of time.
Nature, in these cases, has time to effect great  changes.   The medicine
is  given, and  may, it  is true, stand  as  the cause of the changes, or it
may, with the Peruvian  proverb, but have amused the patient, while
Nature has performed the cure.  The delusions arising from this source
will be considered  more at length hereafter.
   Another fruitful  source of medical  delusions, is found in the Difficulty
of determining the Exact Nature  of the  Disease.  This is- rather a
branch of the  difficulty arising  from- the  nature of  Medical Reasoning,
than a distinct source.
   There  are,  besides death,  many diseases  which no art  can cure.
When these have taken hold on man, his  days are numbered.  Science
and art may indeed  assuage the pang, and smooth the descent to the
grave, but the deadly arrow  has been fixed too deeply to be withdrawn.
When once Hercules had  put on the poisoned robe  of the faithless  De-
janira, the poison  went through the very bones, nor could his celestial
origin avert the fatal  result.   Nor is it  for the disgrace of the medical
art, that  these are  beyond her  skill.   Death  hath universal power over
mortals; and, though science  hath  disarmed  many of his  ministers of
their potency, he will  doubtless possess some over which art  will  have
no control, till  Death  shall  have yielded  up  his power to Him that is
mightier than he.
   The difficulty of determining these diseases, has been a fruitful source
of delusion.  In their external  character,  they for  the most  part  resem-
ble  affections readily amenable to  medical art.   The  skilful physician
perceives the difference; and while he loses his patient, feels that  he has 
                     Essay on Medical Delusions.                   9

done what he could, but had met his superior  in  power.  Not so the
mass.   Undisciplined in mind, they perceive only the resemblance ; and
hence, when another case occurs resembling this, but differing in its es-
sential character, and which recovers, they are loud in their condemna-
tion  of  the first physician, and  vociferous in  their praises of him  who
has  cured a  patient " just like that."
   Cancer is  a disease of this kind.  It is what  physicians call a heterolo-
gous growth  ; that is, a series of cells, unlike those of the healthy tissue,
is produced" among the healthy tissues, and these multiply till the fright-
ful results of this terrible disease take place ; and these  cells are always
the same.  In  its early stages, especially, it resembles, in its external  cha-
racters, a simple non-malignant  tumor.   The microscope,  however,
shows the cancer  cells ; and the  experience of the world has thus far
shown, that when once these peculiar  cells are produced in a part, no-
thing but the entire abscision of the part will check them ; and that, even
then, in  a majority of cases, the germs of these  cells will  be found
so widely disseminated  in the blood, that they will speedily spring up,
and  form  new  growths  like the first.  The skilful physician  perceives
this  character  in a tumor, and pronounces  it  hopeless without  an  ope-
ration, and doubtful with it.   In another, resembling this in external ap-
pearance, he fails to find these cells, and it recovers.  No noise  is made
about  it,  for no great cure has been performed, nor is true science eithet
noisy or brazen tongued.   But the cancer doctor comes,  with loud boasts
of skill, and  finding a simple non-malignant tumor, he will not,  or  can-
not,  see it to be such, and if the tumor disappears while he is giving his
syrups, he has done what  the regular  physicians could not—cured a
cancer !   And  the multitude applaud  him for his skill.   There  was no
cancer in  the case, but  his  own  insufferable  ignorance  and arrogance,
surpassing in malignancy the fatal disease he pretends to have cured.
   Another source of delusion is found in the Impossibility of determining
accurately on the Results of Treatment.
   We have  thus, in addition to  the  difficulties in the way of correct
medical reasoning, no means by which we can  arrive at certain  conclu-
sions as to the treatment founded upon it.  Nor have we any means  of com-
paring the results of quack  treatment,  with that of the  scientific physi-
cian, so that the mass can see the difference.   In  law, if a pettifogger
venture into  court,  no sooner does he  commence his plea, than the bar
and  bench perceive his  ignorance.  But in medicine, no pleas are made.
There  is  no  public  exhibition  of   talents   or  learning.   Nor  are
there any statistics showing  the  relative mortality under  the different
                      3 
10
Essay on Medical Delusions.
treatment, or the relative number of cures :  and by these I mean, not
escapes, nor simple recoveries, for the latter will take  place in a majority
of all cases of disease if not interfered with ; but cases in which the power
of the  disease  has been broken,  and  convalescence hastened  by  the
treatment.   Could such statistics  be  secured,  they  would place  the
different systems  on their true merits.   But this is impossible  in  the
present state of things.
   Not only have we no  means of bringing  quackery  to  this  test, but, as
Dr. Rush  has  remarked,  "there are no greater  liars in the'world than
quacks, except their patients."  They will misrepresent, either from igno-
rance or on purpose, both the nature and  treatment of their cases.  No
dependence can be placed on their reports, as every physician can testify.
Every tumor or sore is a cancer.   The  last and  favorable stage of lung
fever is consumption, because the patients cough and  raise.   If they  can
fix on no other  disease,  the  liver  is full  of ulcers, or  more  than  half
wasted away*  If in any of these cases, the patient recovers, as often they
cannot well help  doing, then  they have  cured these several diseases,  and
the report of it  is trumpeted  abroad  by  the patient and  his friends ;  for
every patient  wishes it understood  that  he was the  sickest person that
ever survived.
   A fourth source of medical delusions  is found  in  the Influence of the
Imagination.
   The power of  this  faculty  over  certain  persons  is well known.  Its
perverted  influence in  highly nervous  persons,  is  especially evident in
respect to  disease and its treatment.   Reason,  judgment,  and  the  will
even, are often completely under its  control.  The  power of motion  is
lost, the voice gone, the  whole  system  prostrated, and  the  mind  appa-
rently ruined.   The loss of muscular power depends partly on  an  ina-
bility  to will, and  partly  on actual  debility induced by the perverted
influence of the imagination.  The former of these has, however,  the
greater power,  since if the exercise of the will can be secured, the mus-
  * The author was called, last year, to see a hypochondriacal woman, affected with prolapsus
uteri, and chronic irritation  of tbe liver.  She had been attended by two Thomsonians.  The fol-
lowing conversation ensued between us at one visit:—" Doctor, donj't you think my liver is terri-
bly affected 1" " No, indeed, why do you ask that 1"   " Why Dr. P. told me he thought it was
more than half wasted away, and Dr. C. said it was full of ulcers the year before." " Humph !"
" Could I live if it was rotted away so ?"  " Could you live, if your head were half rotted off?"
" Why no, but he said it was a common  thing for the liver  to rot away,  and that if there
 was a piece left as large as a hen's egg, it would grow again.  He said he had as lief his liver
would rot away so, as not." " So had I, that his would."  The woman finally  got as well as the
hypochondria would let her.  The same " Dr. P." used to give cod liver oil in the last stage of lung
fever, because, he said, they had the consumption. 
Essay on Medical Delusions.
11
cnlar power is  usually instantly regained.   It is in cases  of this kind
that quacks accomplish their wonderful cures, by which the lame  leap
and  walk, and those who have not spoken  aloud  for  weeks, regain all
at once the full  power of their voices.   Examples of this kind are, un-
fortunately, too numerous to need reciting.
   Another example of the power of this faculty, is found  in  the  pro-
duction of various sensations of pain, which are readily dissipated by
affecting the imagination.   To the patient, these pains are  for  the  time
real, but the manner in which they are  dissipated shows they could not
depend on  any physical  lesion.  It is  in  cases  of this kind, that the
bread-pill treatment becomes effectual ;  and if I mistake not, its  aristo-
cratic offspring,  Homoeopathy, reaps its fairest laurels among the same.
   Again, the imagination, aided  by a soothing effect on the nervous sys-
tem, has the power of removing some real pain.   These pains, which are
termed nervous,  are the ones  most  easily affected, and perhaps the  only
ones which can be removed  by this means.   The influence of simply
soothing  movements upon the  head,  in case of nervous headache, is
well known.    The effect is often heightened, if the imagination be
affected at the same time.   Thus Perkins persuaded  his patients that
thev were cured by electric currents excited  by the brass and  steel rods
with which his manipulations  were performed.  It  was at  length disco-
 vered, that pine rods could be substituted with equal effect, if the patient
did  not know it.  So popular did  this delusion become, that in this State,
clergymen, including Pres.  Dwight; lawyers, and judges, certified in
the  most confident manner to its efficacy.   In England it was still  more
 popular.   The  nobility embraced  it, an  infirmary was established in
which it alone was used,  and more than  five thousand cures were re-
 ported within a  short  time after it was opened.   And  among these, were
 the  whole list of acute diseases.   Its advocates  predicted, in the  most
confident manner, that within twenty years  the old drugging and bleed-
 ing  system of practice would  be entirely abandoned.   But a fifth of that
 period had hardly elapsed, before  the delusion was exposed, and Perkins,
 with his tractors and infirmary, ceased  to  be spoken of but with con-
 tempt.  Does not the early history  of this tractor treatment bear  some
 resemblance to  that  of the favorite pathies of the present  day ?   Nor
do I doubt that  the latter part of its history will have a still closer resem-
 blance to the latter part of theirs.
   Another source of delusion  is found in  the  Ignorance of the  mass
as to the proper Poivcr of Medicine and Physicians.
   In  the administration of medicine,  the  object  is to assist  nature to 
12
Essay on  Medical Delusions.
throw off disease.  Nor can it be otherwise than pernicious, when given
for any other purpose.  A  man's recovery, therefore, is  not  rendered
certain in proportion to the amount of drugs taken.   Yet this is the sen-
timent of many ; and  the physician is often obliged  to  give something,
when he knows nothing is  needed, in order to satisfy the patient's wish
to take.   Well  is it for the  patient if he gives only the  homoeopathic
globule, or its equivalent, the  bread .pill.    A  man gets up in the morn-
ing, and  feels languid  and dull.   He may have been living in constant
violation of the laws of health, and begins to feel the effects of it.   His
first  question is, what shall I take ? not, as it should be, what change in
my habits of life will remove the evil ?  It is  take, take.   As repent-
ance is most irksome to the moral transgressor; so  is physical  reforma-
tion to him who breaks the laws of health :  and as the one would give
" the fruit of his loins  for  the sin of his soul;" so to the other no drug
is too nauseous, no application too painful, if by their use he can avoid
the necessity of reforming  his habits.  But  as in  the- former  case, all
these devices  for the  redemption  of the  soul, but  add to  its  guilt, and
sink it deeper  in perdition  ; so this dosing with drugs but adds to the
physical  derangement, and sinks the  man deeper  in physical perdition.
And as it matters not  with the moral transgressor, that the experience of
thousands has  proved  the utter futility of such  devices; so  with  the
physical transgressor, it matters not that thousands have been filled to sur-
feiting with nauseous drugs, and  without  relief.  Such is the utter  folly
of both,  that  they pursue  the same  beaten  track,  rather than  reform
—dosing their eyes and ears to all the evidence against  them from with-
out—nay, smothering  the voice of reason and conscience within.
  Their error consists  in ascribing to drugs a power they do not possess.
They take it for granted that they  have not  only the power to renovate
the system, but to  counteract the influence of their pernicious  habits.
Yet any  one may see  that  nature is fully as much assisted in following
the hints she gives, in a change of habits, as  by filling  the system with
drugis, which at  best are but a necessary evil.  I say  an evil, for all drugs,
except iron  and  a  few others, which constitute important parts  of the
system, must act as poisons, if they act  at all.  Emetics, whether ipe-
cac,  or lobelia, act simply from their poisonous qualities.   The same is
true of the whole list of medicines.   But as, in  the moral world, one evil
is made to counteract the effects  of another;  so in medicine, the effects
of a poison are made to counteract the effects of a disease.   But whether
any  article  is a poison, depends wholly on  the relation which it bears
to the system.   Thus  any drug, which  in a  healthy state disturbs, in 
Essay on  Medical Delusions.
13
any degree, the  healthy performance of any function, is so far a poison.
But in an altered state of  the system, these very substances may contri-
bute to the restoration of  a healthy action, and thus lose their poisonous
qualities.   On  the other  hand, beef-steak,  by no means  a poison in a
healthy state, becomes, in  a diseased state, a poison of great power.
  In an acute disease, a prompt medical interference may  be demanded.
But in a majority  of cases, more dependence is to be placed on the re-
cuperative powers of nature, than on the direct influence of drugs.  In
such cases, if nature be not too much encumbered by wrong  habits, she
will  in time effect a  cure.   Nor will drugs alone suffice to accomplish
it.  A general derangement of the system has  taken  place, and conside-
rable  time  must elapse before it can become  regulated.   And we may
here see how quackery gains applause  in  these cases.  During the first
part of the  time, a regular physician  is  usually employed.   He  may
assist nature, but fails of a cure, as the time for that has not yet arrived.
He is  therefore dismissed, and some of the irregular practitioners are
employed—perhaps several of them, before the cure is complete.   The
patient gets a full supply  of pills, syrups, bitters, and promises in abun-
dance.  The latter  establish  the superiority of these  over the regular
physician, for he  never promised.   Faith  is strong, and  they wait pa-
tiently a great  while, and  at  length are  well.  It is "post  hoc," but
they and their doctor  reckon it "propter hoc "; and the  superiority of
the quack, or quack medicine they took last, is fully established.
   It is this idea which has emptied box after box of Brandreth's, and
Moffat's, and Morrison's,  and  a thousand others' pills, down the gaping
throats of  real or imaginary patients.  The cases in which the  promised
cures failed, are never inquired for; but the  single  cases of recovery
after taking these, like the  prizes  in a lottery,  fill every eye.
   1  have  dwelt thus fully  on  this source of delusion, because it seems
an important one.  And there is another which gives rise  to much delu-
sion in connection with this; and that is, The Inordinate Desire of Life.
                         " Ere hope, sensation fails."

Men dread the passage to  another world,  and shrink  from  it with alarm.
Nor  are they ever ready for it.   Hence, if attacked with  fatal  disease,
they snatch at straws.   In  their extremity they cherish the hope that a
medicine may be found, which shall  disarm the king of terrors, and  give
them back to  life.   It matters not  that science knows  no such drug ;
nor that thousands, like  themselves, have searched with anxious eye
through the whole list, and died without  it.   Such  a drug they know 
14
Essay on Medical Delusions.
must exist, and they pursue it  with the utmost pertinacity, taking box
after box, and bottle after bottle, of all  the thousands of nostrums which
the ingenuity  and cupidity of crafty men  can invent.  This may cure,
and  that  may cure,  and they try all.   So, too, doctor after doctor is
called, each time taking one more  ignorant than the one before.  The
regular  physician, finding no room for  hope, gives no promise of reco-
very, and is discarded for  one who will.  He,  failing to cure, is dismiss-
ed for one more ignorant  still  ; for each promises  more confidently, in
proportion to his ignorance, and they feed delusive hope  on these pro-
mises,  although  they know them  to be  " empty as the  wind."  At
length, having tried the  whole round of ignorance, death  lays them in
their resting place.   They have  expended  their means for that  which
could do  them no  good, and  have helped  feed the whole army of ra-
pacious quacks, ever ready to feed on the extremities of such as these.
   Another source of medical  delusion is found in  the Utter Ignorance
of even educated men, of the Nature and Extent of Medical Knowledge.
  It seems taken for granted, that there are no fixed principles in medi-
cine  ; that disease, and the action of remedies, are all hap-hazard—the
one  coming when it may chance to, or, when  God, by a  miraculous in-
tervention, sends it;  and that the action of remedies is equally without
law.   On such notions as these, they found their idea of medical sci-
ence.  This, also, they consider as a mixture of luck and  chance, hav-
ing in it no fixed principles, and being what one may acquire in a month,
as well as in a life time.  If  you  are  successful in practice, they will
say that you  are lucky or fortunate in not losing  your patients.   But
there is no luck nor fortune about it.  You  do not go to  your patients
and pour  down their throats whatever you  may  happen  to, and trust
fortune for  the result.   Having  made  yourself master of what know-
ledge is  to be attained, you investigate  your case, till you find the exact
nature  of the  disease,  and then you select that  remedial agent which
your own  observation,  or  that  of others, has shown best  adapted to re-
move the disease.   If you are successful, it is because you have done
this.   But here is  no luck.  The whole  matter  is as much the result
of fixed laws, as  any other result  of a physical  cause.   The  all-wise
Governor of the Universe has  not left disease out from his general plan.
Certain causes, acting  upon the  human system under certain circum-
stances, will invariably  produce disease.  Certain remedies,  under certain
conditions, will invariably assist nature to throw off disease.  There is no
luck  in  this.   The truly successful physician is he  who ascertains these
laws, and acts in accordance with  them.  The really w/jsuccessful phy- 
Essay on  Medical Delusions.
15
sician is  he, who  proceeds  in ignorance, or in disregard of these  laws.
A truly successful physician  is no more lucky  than  a successful  ma-
chinist.   Nor is an unsuccessful one any moreunlucky.  And by success,
I mean not the acquisition of noisy applause, or sudden  wealth.  These
follow the ignorant and knavish quack, more  readily than  the scientific
and honest physician.   The physician's knowledge  does not consist in
knowing that this drug is good for  this  symptom or disease, and that for
that.   He has  rules for his  art, but principles  for his science ; and  with^
out a fair knowledge of these, he  is no physician at all.   But  to know
these, he must  first  know the structure and functions of the system in
health.   Then  he  must know the nature of disease, and what abnormal
conditions it will produce in  the various organs ;  what effect it will  have
on the vital functions, and what  lesions will  give  rise  to  the  complex
and multiform manifestations of disease.   Then he must know the nature
and effect of his  remedial agents, and how to select that one, or That
course of medical  treatment or regimen, which  will best secure the re-
medial effect required.   Without  a good degree of this knowledge, no
man ought to presume to administer  as a physician,   Nor can one at-
tain it without time and labor.  A physician cannot spring up in a night,
like  Jonah's gourd.   A  quack may ;  but the fruit he will bear, will be
apples of Sodom  and  clusters of Gomorrah.    No man  needs careful
study more  than  the physician, and no  man  must more carefully em-
ploy his  judgment and reason than he.
  But the class to whom we refer, are wiser than all the  physicians of
learning—"yea, than  seven men that  can  render a reason."  Is a man
sick? they have  a remedy  for every  symptom, and these are generally
infallible : but  if they are not, then they  have  enough  in  number to
make up what  they lack in power, and  the patient must take the whole,
because  they may do him  good, at least  some of them.  But  of all
forms of quackery, deliver us  from  this luck-and-chance, hap-hazard
form.  Thomsonism, and  homoeopathy, and  hydropathy, and the whole
class like them, have a " method  in their madness."   They admit some
principles, and  their position may be   found.  But this  luck-and-chance
quackery has no method in  it, no  truth at its foundation, and no consist-
ency with itself.
  It is these Atlse notions, which  make medical  grannies of both sexes.
It is  this which  starts the benevolent lady with her pills, or her syrups,
or her homoeopathic globules, on her round of visits to the sick, often lead-
ing her to set aside  the prescription of the  regular physician and  foist
hers in its place,  to  the great detriment of the patient.   It is this which 
16                    Essay on Medical Delusions.

makes natural-born  doctors, and root doctors, and  seventh-son doctors,
" et id omne genus"   It  is this which makes the  weaker of our clergy
interfere with the  prescriptions  of the physicians, that makes them elo-
quent  in praise  of the  absurdities of homoeopathy, or ready, like Behe-
moth,  " to draw up  a river into their mouth "  in  their  zeal for hydropa-
thy ; or affixes their names to  the thousands of quack  medicines, certi-
fying to their efficacy in  statements which  a  school boy in  physiology
would laugh at for  the  utter ignorance  they displayed,  and involving
medical  theories too  absurd for  any man to conceive, except him, who
having a  smattering  of theology, therefore  concludes  himself a  master
of all  the  intricacies  of medical science.*   To the  clergyman in his sa-
cred capacity, I look with the most  profound respect;  but to  the cler-
gyman as  a medical quack, with  the most unmixed  contempt.   Such
men are ready to prescribe at  once,  when  a  skilful  physician  would hesi*
tate long.
                   "  Fools madly rush, where angels  fear to tread."
But it by  no means  follows, that because they know  spmething of the*
ology, they know anything of medicine ;  nor because  they have a box
of  pills, or can make a syrup, that they are  competent to treat disease ;
nor even  if they  have  heard of a medicine which is reputed to have
cured a given  disease, that they are under  obligation to force it into the
throat of every sick  man they may see.  These seem driven  by a sortf
of  necessity to interfere with the treatment of the sick,  and not a few pa-
tients have lost the> lives by this  foolish interference.
   Another source of quackery and  delusion  is  fqimd in the  Mystery,  in
which regular physicians, even, have chosen  to enshroud  the whole sub?
ject of medicine.   The time is hardly past,  when  the  doctor could tell
his' patient, as Meg Merrilies told  the honest Domine Sampson, when
she offered him her devil's broth, and  he hesitated to drink it,  " Gape,
 sinner!  and swallow."    He gave no reasons,  and  explained  none of the

  * The value of certificates to the efficacy of patent medicines,  even when  honestly given, may
 be estimated from a circumstance which occurred while the author was in the  office of the late  Dr,
 A. G. Welch, of Lee, Mass.  A  farmer, of general intelligence and acknowledged probity, came
 to the office, from the town of Tyringham, where Dr. W. had formerly practised, and asked if he
 could give him some more of the pills, such as he gave  him in 1814.  Dr. W. had no recollection
 of giving him any, but remembered being in attendance on his  family for the spotted fever.
 " Well," said the man, " I was sick then, and you gave me some pills which cured me right  up,
 and have kept me well ever since!"  This was in 1848.  The  man would have sworn to that
 statement of the efficacy of some common cathartic pills !
  In 1850, f saw a published certificate, by a young lady, of a complete cure of consumption by
 a Dr. Fitch,  of New York. Four months after  it was given, I acted as a pall-bearer to assist in
 laying her in the grave—a victim to that fell destroyer.  She was the last of eight of his patients
 whom he had cured, or promised to cure, that I had seen laid in the grave within a year ! 
Essay on  Medical Delusions.
17
 phenomena of  disease.   The  whole  process  of cure  was, both to
 the patient and  his friends, buried in darkness.   That  pertained to the
 physician alone.   As  in necromancy  and the  black  art, with  which
 medicine is always associated among  savage  and half-civilized  tribes,
 none but the initiated  could know  its secrets.  A grave look  of  pro-
 found wisdom, with full wig and  cane, and barbarous Latin prescriptions,
 completed the doctor.   By  this  means he often  doubtless gained a re-
 putation for almost superhuman  skill,  but it was  quack reputation,  and
 quacks  were not slow to avail themselves  of it.
   The common people, however, would have their  theories.   Having
 no knowledge on which to base them, they were often of the most fanci-
 ful character.   They were ready to believe anything, which promised to
 give, them an  insight into the mysteries of medicine, of life, disease  and
 death.   Crafty men were ready  to take  advantage of this, anil  though
 ignorant as  the mass,  contrived, by loud-sounding  words, to  involve
 them in greater darkness  than   before,  and yet  persuade  them they
 knew it all.   In consequence, quackery flourished, while the regular phy-
 sician was neglected.   But  a change  has taken  place for the better.
 The  Young Physic, as Dr. Forbes styles it, discards the cloak of mys^
 tery.   Anatomy and physiology are  now popular studies.   In some
 States,  even, free provision is made for  dissection, and the student is no
 longer obliged to steal away in the darkness to his work ; nor as he goes
 to the bedside of his patient, does he feel that his stolen knowledge must
 be kept locked in the recesses of his own bosom.   It is now deemed the
 business of the  physician to enlighten the mass, on the laws  of  health,
 and the structure and  functions  of their physical system.   It is to  this
 change, that  I look with strongest hope for the overthrow  of quackery,
 whether in or out of the regular profession;  and  for  the  establishment
 of correct views among the mass  of people.


              DELUSIONS ARISING FROM THESE SOURCES.

   I have thus pointed out some  of the sources of delusion.  There  are
 many more which might be mentioned, but space  forbids.   I shall there-
 fore pass to consider some of the delusions arising  from  them.
   We  have, as  a result of false medical reasoning, a thousand inert or
 positively injurious drugs, each of which  is deemed a panacea, because
in a few cases  they  have been given  and the patient has recovered.   It
was so in the famous cure for hydrophobia, which the State of New York
purchased of one Couch for a large sum.  The remedy was a compound
              3 
18                 Essay on Medical  Delusions.

of not only inert substances, but of some whose use was absurd.   Thus,  •
as the disease was caused by the bite of a  dog, the bones of a dog were
added to the compound, probably on the maxim, that " the hair of the dog
would cure the bite."   The only active ingredient in it was  the  acetate
of copper, which, now  that it is known, is reckoned by no means as  in-
fallible, either as  a preventive or cure.  It  has been " post hoc," but
they have concluded  it "propter  hoc."  We have seen the  end of a
thousand cures  for consumption.   The  physician prescribes phosphate
of lime now, on  the same ground his fathers did Berkeley's  Tar Water,
and  hardly with better  effect.  The homoeopath gives his globules, and
with  them a correct regimen, and the  patient  recovers.  The  patient
concludes, and  perhaps  the doctor also, that the globules  effected the
cure ;  while, in fact, they only amused the patient and nature performed
the cure.  The globules, of course, had no other effect, as we shall see.
  Another evil resulting from this, is found in the undue value set upon
experience, and  by this  is commonly  understood the length  of time a
man has been in  the profession, rather than his thorough and successful
acquaintance with disease.   But  individual experience,  unless corrected
by a candid and thorough comparison with the experience of others, can
be of little value.   Besides, individual experience may be wrong, and then
the longer it has been continued the worse it becomes.  Hence it is, that
routinist practitioners bring the profession  so much  into contempt with
the thinking portion  of the  community.  Nor  is a small share of the
blame  for the prevalence of  quackery, justly  due  to  those members
of the profession  who trust so much to their experience, and neglect a
thorough study of the principles of medical science and  practice.
   But while an extensive  experimental  knowledge  of disease is not to
be undervalued, I can readily conceive  that a man of limited observation
of disease, shall yet, by a thorough acquaintance with  the  observations
and practice of others, have  really  a better and wider experience  of
disease, than one who has spent a whole lifetime in practice.   He makes
the experience of others his own ;  and when  this is  based on a thorough
acquaintance with the  sciences that lie at  the foundation of the  medical
art, he becomes far less liable to make  errors  in diagnosis, or  practice
even, than  many whose  heads  have grown grey in the use of their in-
dividual experience.
   The difficulty of determining the exact nature of a disease, is a pro-
lific source of error.   It is like such a disease, say the  mass, and there-
fore it is such a disease.   But the  educated physician  judges of a  dis-
 ease,, rather  by its differences, than its resemblances, and his superiority 
Essay on  Medical Delusions.
19
consists largely in this.  Hysteria assumes the form of almost every dis-
ease, and  the mass pronounce  it these in turn.   But  if it  assumes the
form of pleurisy, as it often  does, and the use of ether or assafoetida
cause  it to pass off, it by no  means  follows that these  drugs  will cure
pleurisy.   Yet thousands of our popular remedies, and  some even in the
profession, rest on no better evidence than this.   The popularity of the
" tractors," and  homoeopathy, and hydropathy, and a thousand others
whose names are found only on  the  list  of past delusions, arose in part
at least from this source.
   A well-educated physician knows the extreme difficulty of determining
the disease, in many cases.   He knows the close resemblance of one
disease to another, and that none but a well-disciplined mind can distin-
guish between them.  When, therefore, men ignorant of the distinctive
characters of disease, and of undisciplined rninds, as those termed quacks
usually are, give reports of cases,  and  wonderful  cures, the  educated
physician  cannot  rationally receive  their testimony, nor ought he to be
judged unfair or prejudiced  if he do  not.  In the judgment of the lat-
ter lies the safety of the common people, and it would be well for them
to heed it.
   The errors arising from the difficulty  of determining on the  results of
treatment, have already been alluded to,  in connection with those arising
from  the  nature  of medical reasoning.  But these errors are greatly in-
creased by a disregard of the fact, that few of our diseases tend to death.
This  is true of a large portion of them, not excepting  even consump-
tion.   Many cases of this, even,  recover,  'though few are  cured.   Hence,
it by no means follows, if a patient does not die, that therefore he is cured.
Mos( °f our acute diseases tend ultimately to recovery, though  the sys-
tem often succumbs to  the violence of the attack ; or if  it survives that,
may be worn out by the irritation  excited by it.   Still  more  do fevers
tend to recovery  ; so much so, that  a  medical  writer  quaintly  remarks,
" I don't like fever curers."   They will  get well, and the accidents ac-
companying them  may be cured, but the fever itself is not often cured.
In such cases the honest doctor will  say, with one of old, " I cured him,
but God healed him " ; or, what is equivalent,  I  took care of  him, and
Nature effected the cure. 
20
Essay on  Medical Delusions.
   THE  MODE  OF REASONING RESPECTING THE SUCCESS OF  QUACKS.
   It may be proper here  to  consider  the mode of reasoning commonly
employed respecting the success of quacks.
   If a  scientific  man  proposes to perform any wonderful experiment on
acknowledged scientific principles, the  process is carefully watched, and
any failure is at once noticed.  It is assumed he has no right to fail; and
if he  does so, it is  marked as  the  exception.   But if a quack proposes
to accomplish any similar result by means of some mysterious or unknown
power, there is so  far a  tacit  admission of an  expectation that  he will
fail, that if he do not, it is marked as the  uncommon exception.   Hence
in the former case, the successful experiments are forgotten as things of
course, while the failure  is long remembered.   In the latter case, the
failures  are forgotten  as things expected, while  the  single instance of
real or  apparent  success is the theme of every tongue.  A regular phy-
sician may treat a hundred cases of dysentery with success, and  it will
be hardly noticed.  But if he  lose a few, the whole quackish class are
in an excitement.   Yet if a  quack fail  to  lose< a few, though he  may
have lost scores, no one  knows that he ever had any cases but those
that recovered.  Let a juggler  announce that he will perform wonderful
feats by sleight of hand, and  all  will judge  accurately enough of his
performance.   Were he to fail,  he would hardly possess craft enough to
save his  reputation.  But let it be announced that he will  perform his
tricks through  some supernatural  agency, or  some  new  and wonderful
operations  of magnetism, and  few  will be in  a condition to judge  cor-
rectly of his performance.  So intent are they on seeing something won-
derful, that they will not see  the common-place failures ; and hence  if he
fail, all  he has to do is to ascribe it to some  freak of  the spirit, or some
disturbance of the magnetic currents.  No  one will detect the fraud, for
every mind is filled with  the idea  of witnessing some marvellous thing,
and  to  gratify  this desire  they are content to be  humbugged.   This
species  of reasoning  is common to quackery in medicine, science, re-
ligion, and in short  in everything.
   There is one point further, connected with this part of the subject, on
which a few words may not  be improper;  and that is, the practical es-
timation  in which physicians  and medicine are held.
   Let a physician oppose a  quack or quackery, and the reply from a
large class is,  " Your craft is  in  danger, and therefore, like  Demetrius
of old,  you cry, ' Great is Diana.' "   This reply contains a  barefaced
imputation  of baseness in the  physician.  He is  charged with  having 
Essay on Medical Delusions.
21
no regard but for his own selfish interests.  But the character of the pro-
fession has not been such as to expose them to such  a charge.  Next to
the accredited messengers of the gospel, have they contributed  to the
good of the race, exclusively  of their professional labors.   Nowhere are
more  eminent examples of piety to be found, than among them.   In no
other  profession have so many sacrificed  their lives and health for the
good of the race.  Others might  preach on  the duty of ministering to
the sick, poor, degraded and destitute; but for them has it been  reserved,
in a preeminent degree, to practise that divine  command.  Further, as
a  class,  the regular physicians have  ever been in  advance of public
sentiment on all questions of health and  medical reform.
   But this  reply involves another principle, which  quite as nearly con-
cerns the honor of the profession.   On a question of law, a lawyer's
opinion is the ultimatum, and it  is  conclusive in proportion as he has
thoroughly studied law.   The same is true in every other profession and
business.   It  is supposed, in  these  cases, that  those who have made a
particular branch of knowledge their study,  are the  only competent
judges in what pertains to that.  But in respect to medicine, this princi-
ple is denied.  The fact that a physician has  spent years in patient
study, with  a large class gives his opinion no claim to consideration.   The
opinion of any quack, who but yesterday left the care of his stables and
his horses,  is esteemed above  it.   Any man,  even, of this class, holds
himself fully competent  to decide a  question  of this kind, in opposition
to  the opinion of the physician.   But scientific physicians are the only
men competent to decide on medical  theories  and practice, and ques-
tions of health and  disease.   And the  experience of the world thus far
has fully proved it.   Few improvements  have  been made by quacks ;
and those innovations which have been  claimed as  such, and been op-
posed by   the regular  physicians,  have in  the end proved  not only
worthless,  but  merely  schemes  for defrauding the  sick and  ignorant.
Quackery, unless  for a display, has  no ear  for the cry  of suffering, till
it has first been  awakened by the ringing  of the precious metals.  To
the regular physician, the poor are  ever present, and their cry is heard.
But it matters not that these things  are so ;  that thousands of lives are
sacrificed to the ignorance of quackery, and millions of money squander-
ed for medicines which are productive only of injury ;  nor that men of
the highest character for  intellectual and  moral worth, have  not only
found abundant  evidence of the truth  of the  principles of the regular
system, but have devoted a  lifetime  of earnest labor to the elucidation
and confirmation of them : an  ignorant peasant, and an idle dreamer of 
22
Essay on  Medical Delusions.
Germany, a visionary  of Sweden, and an  illiterate quack of our own
country, have  brought out systems, not only physiologically absurd, but
contrary to  the  commonest dictates of ordinary intelligence, which have
been received  as, of infinitely more value  than  this.  That Thomsonism
should have become  popular, is  not  strange, for  it exactly  suited the
pride  of ignorance found in the lower  classes of society.  But it was
not to be expected, that a system of medicine,  resting on  such a basis of
observation, experiment and reasoning, by a series of men  in  successive
ages, preeminent alike  for their honesty of purpose, and superior mental
endowments, should be rejected, and  that, too, by liberally-educated men,
for  such fantastic dreams as those of Hahnemann and Preissnitz,  which
rest on the observation of but few men, if even they have  so much of foun-
dation, and those not such as  would be trusted in the ordinary affairs of
life.   With  the  same  propriety  with which a  clergyman sneers  at the
regular system of medicine and  defends  any of the mushroom systems
of the present  day, may the physician sneer at orthodox  theology, and
defend  spiritual communications, and Mormonism, or  the  foolish rant-
ings of Jack  Davis.     He who denies  the  evidence on  which the
regular system of medicine rests, denies the  evidence on which all truth
must rest.   He  who  adopts homoeopathy, adopts it on the  same  evi-
dence on which another adopts Mormonism, and he  adopts it  with the
same evidence against  him.   Medical science rests on a broad induction
of facts, so varied in  their mode,  and  the persons and circumstances
of the  observers,   as  almost  to  prevent  the possibility of error.   The
system has grown up  from  the  facts, and not  before the  facts were ob-
served.   In natural religion, the  moral facts of the universe are first ob-
served, and  the  system  deduced from them.   It differs in this from all
false systems of religion, for in these the system is first  formed, and the
facts warped to  suit it.  The regular system differs  from quackery in
the same respect.   For  what  facts did Hahnemann observe   before he
formed his system ? or  Priessnitz, or Thomson, or Perkins ?  Each form-
ed his system first, and then tried to warp facts to match it.   But each
has failed to  accomplish this, and  hence the  advocates of the several
systems have modified  their theories, while they have retained  the name.
What Thomsonian  follows the principles  of Thomson ; or homoeopath,
of Hahnemann ?    All  these have stolen from the regular system all
that gives  stability to theirs ; just as the  false systems  of religion of the
present day, steal from  the Bible all  the  truth they contain.   A know-
ledge  of the origin of the  quack systems, would be  sufficient to con-
vince  any  rational  person of their falsity, without  a particular know- 
                     Essay on Medical Delusions.                  23

ledge of their  doctrines or results.   Besides,  the principles of medical
science  have the  accumulated  testimony of ages in their  favor; while
not  one of the quack systems of the present  day, has even existed for
half a century, much less  received any great amount of testimony in its
favor.   The history  of  the  present quack systems  is  so far the history
of a host of others,  which are now known  only as things that were.
Resting  on the same basis  as these,  claiming the same  powers,  and
having  the same early history, it needs no prophet's ken  to foresee for
them a  similar  end.
   Another  favorite idea with many, is, that medicine is wholly unneces-
sary, if not poisonous.   " Doctors kill  about  as many as they cure," is
a common remark with them.   It will be found that those making this
remark have usually  a much better acquaintance with the practice of ig-
norant quacks,  or of the  least educated  in the profession, than with that of
those thoroughly educated, and that they and their families are usually
healthy. Sickly people too often place an undue dependence on medicine,
and these, even, when sickness and death menace are  ready enough to use
the physician's skill and  resources.
   Of this  class there are several  species.  There  are those who  have
never been sick, and who, by  virtue of a good constitution, are  able to
indulge their appetites to a considerable  degree, and are yet  free  from
disease.  These are  the free-thinkers of medicine.  They have an equal
contempt  for physicians, medicine,  and the laws of health.  But  it is
evident that few can  belong to this species;  and that their  independence
of  doctors  and  medicine is  due  solely  to  the  accident  of a  good
constitution.
   Another species are great  theorists.  They believe in the perfectibility
of man's physical system, just as a corresponding class in morals believe
in the perfectibility of his moral nature.   They lose sight  of the  grand
facts, that  man's body contains in it the seeds  of disease and death, even
from the earliest development of the germ ; that the  powers of life are
enfeebled by this  hereditary taint, and that  often  they will succumb to
the  onset  of disease, long before   the three  score  years  and  ten are
reached; and  that, although correct habits of  life may much better ena-
ble  the  system to bear up against the  combined influences of hereditary
predisposition  to  disease within,  and  noxious  elements  without, yet
these onsets are often so sudden and severe, that, unassisted, the  powers
of nature  give way,  and the  body  sinks into the grave.  That a strict
adherence  to  the laws of health is of the utmost importance, none will
deny.  But what are  the laws of health ?  Are they a code of  laws, 
24                  Essay on Medical Delusions.
drawn up by the hand of Infinite Wisdom ? or are they the imperfect re-
sults of human mquiry ?  Hence what are now  denominated the laws of
health, by further research may be greatly  modified.  Nor is  there such
an  invariable condition  of our  physical systems, that any  fixed  laws
could  be applied to all.  That the  Italian Cornaro attained a great age
as the consequence of his abstemious life, proves  nothing for anodier;
for thousands have been equally abstemious, without  the same result.
The same abstemiousness may  even shorten the life of one whose con-
stitution, from its  native weakness,  needed stimulants.  Many may be
found who have passed the four  score years, and even  reached the fifth,
who have no more  thought of the  laws of health than of those which
bind  the planets in  their  order.  The  general laws of health must be
modified  to suit individual  cases.   Much  less  can  a  special code  be
formed which shall suit every one.   Those laws of health of which we
hear  so  much, are usually  the whims of  individuals, who adopt them,
and before they have  stood the test of  a  half score of years proclairq
their  boasted success  to the  world, and  ensure  long  life  to all who foU
low them.   Were they to wait till they  had celebrated their  hundredth
birth  day in consequence  of following  their theories, we should lose
all this sage council upon the  laws  of health,  and  the perfectibility of
man's  physical nature.   Not but that sickness might often be avoided
by a strict compliance with the laws of our physical systems ;  but while
man remains a  tenant  of the flesh, some  remedy for  sickness will  be
demanded.  Medicine has fully sustained  itself  as  an agent capable of
lessening  human  suffering  and  preventing  the fatal  effects  of disease.
While, therefore, a compliance with  the  laws of health, not  the whims
of theorists, should be enjoined, a  careful and proper dependence  on
remedial  means ought not to be disregarded.
  Another class, closely allied to the preceding,  adopt the notion  that
every  man  may  be  his own  doctor.  Of these, some  have  seldom, if
ever, been sick.   The slight disturbances of health which  have occurred
to them,  have been readily relieved by simple domestic remedies, or by
abstinence, or by the  unaided efforts of nature.  Hence, adopting the
common  fallacy, that  a  man's experience  furnishes him not  only  with
the best  information, but with nearly all that can be obtained,  they con-
clude they have felt nearly  all the sickness men  usually feel, and that
as they have recovered without help, all others can.   But we may apply
the verse of Dr. Young, on the power  of sickness to convince atheists
of their error, with equal propriety to these.   " A fever  reasons better
than a Clarke " to the  atheist, or a Galen to one holding this idea. 
Essay on Medical Delusions.
25
   Others of this class  have  an innate quackery.   They aspire to be
 Universal geniuses, and are ready for anything. Law, politics and religion,
 the workshop or the sickroom, are equally the fields in which to display
 their prowess.  It is a great thing to treat disease successfully, but they
 can do it  as  Well without study and training,  as  the  physician with.
 Hence they are the greater men.   Such are sometimes sick, and wo to
 the luckless physician who  attends  them.   They soon discover that the
 physician knows nothing about their case, and  dismiss him, or set aside
 his  medicine and prescribe for themselves.  Then the field is open to
 exhibit their own skill.   The doctor can do  no good, and they set about
 effecting their  own  cure.   At length  they  recover, and  are then fully
 competent to treat their own sickness, and  unfortunately think they are
 prepared to treat that of  others.
   Another portion  of this  class,  and these  are  the  most  reprehensible,
 are  physicians,  either in the regular profession, or in some of the outside
 systems.   They have entered on  the profession  either for gain, or dis-
 tinction, and find that in the regular course, neither can be secured with-
 out a patient and faithful  performance of the duties of the  profession.
 But they have neither the  ability  nor  the  patience to acquire it in this
 way.   A shorter passage must be found, and none more convenient offers
 than that common  resort of quacks, to persuade the mass that they can
 initiate them at once into all the secrets of medicine, and give them all
 the  skill and power the physician has acquired by years of toil.   They
 ride into popularity on  this, but are always careful to secure good fees
 for the information thus communicated.
   Of  this idea, no  further refutation is necessary than to  call attention
 to the remarks already made on the difficulties in the way of a  correct
 treatment of disease, and the wide field of knowledge necessary to be ex-
 plored before one can meet these successfully.

              POPULAR SYSTEMS OF  MEDICAL O.UACKERY.

   In quackery, as in philosophy, we have Materialism, and Immaterialism.
 The former of these belongs  to a class of men, who have a smattering
 of knowledge, yet little discipline of mind.   They are above the lowest
 class in society—for  these  usually employ the regular physician, asking
 few questions about  theories and systems.   They do not, however,  rise
 to the  formation of abstract  ideas.  Sensations are their  chief ground of
credence, nor can they comprehend the relation of cause and effect, unless
they can see the physical cause standing in close relation to  the  effect.
                4 
  26                  Essay on Medical Delusions.

  For this class of minds, we have two systems, Thomsonism  and  1 ly-
  dropathy.   In each of these a visible and  efficient agent is made to stand
  as the antecedent of  the effect required.   Little account  is made of the
  " vis medicatrix natures " in either system.
    Of these, Thomsonism claims the  prior  notice.  I shall  not enter on its
  history further than  to  remark, that it has  always found  its  advocates
  chiefly among the less educated.   A thorough Thomsonian must have
  qualities something like these: superficial  knowledge and real ignorance,
  self-conceit  and credulity, a faculty for jumping at conclusions,  and
  strong prejudices.  Thomson himself possessed  these qualities in a mark-
  ed degree.   His ignorance may  be inferred, from  his placing opium as
  a mineral,  and salt as  a vegetable, in his list of drugs;  as well  as from
  his  attempt to reduce the science  of therapeutics to a system of rules.
  In common with other quacks, symptoms  were to him the  whole of dis-
  ease.   Hence a knowledge of anatomy, physiology and pathology was
  of no  use.   Any one could learn  the symptoms in a few weeks, so as to
  apply  his  rules,  and  thus  the pride of ignorance was  flattered.    Had
  Thomson been a more learned man, he could  not have formed so popu-
  lar a system.   For, having in his own mind the  same elements composing
  the mind of this lower class, and influenced by the same prejudices, he
  could  enter into their feelings  and flatter their pride, while he secured
  his own praise.
     His prejudices are seen in  his  constant denunciations of opium and
•  mineral medicines.   His want of  mental  discipline is seen in his dissatis-
  factioia with any effects not tangible.  Hence, lobelia became his  favorite
  emetic, and  cayenne and hot-drops  his  favorite stimulants,  while the
  steam-box  was  ever ready  to  produce  sensible  external effects.  And
  each of these had its place by  rule.  But the glory of  Thomson is de-
  parted.  The steam-box  is obsolete; and  though cayenne and  lobelia
  hold their  place, it is with divided sway.   His name, even, is in disuse,
  and his motley  offspring  are now  Eclectics or Botanies, and almost re-
  sent the appellation  of Thomsonian as an insult.
     Thomson's system,  having been found utterly worthless, is laid aside.
  Minerals find their way into their practice, and in short they try, like all
  other quacks, so far  as  their ignorance will allow,  to secure the  advan-
  tages which flow from  the regular system, while they  retain die influ-
   ence  their quackery  confers.   It  need not be considered a libel, if it be
   said, that   as a class  they  are uneducated ; for it was a principle  of their
   system that  education was  not needed, and many an  ambitious  youth
   has vaulted  from the stable to his gig, and from  beside his bench to the 
Essay on Medical Delusions.
27
bedside  of  the patient, with hardly a  passing  compliment  to books
or study.  There is, with them, as with others, no professional honesty;
for while they flatter  the  popular prejudices  against mineral medicines,
the fact of their using them is notorious.
   Hydropathy belongs to the same  class as Thomsonism.  Like that, it
lays no claim to mysterious or supernatural forces.   Its causes and effects
are physical.   Like those  of the other  system, its advocates  condemn
the regular profession, and, like each of the others, claim that the true
system of medicine  was concealed till Priessnitz brought it to light; and
that they alone  pursue  the  true method.   Their system, like Thomson-
ism, consists of a  central dogma and specific rules.   Their fundamental
dogma is, that water can cure all cases of disease  that are curable; and
that it can  do no harm.   But this rests on no better evidence than that
of Thomson, that " heat is life."   Nor are its claims any better support-
ed than  were those of the followers of  Perkins  or  Hahnemann.   The
origin  of the system is liable to the same objection, which I have shown
to lie against all such systems, that it is formed from no induction of facts.
   Priessnitz  claims, and I  believe  receives from his ardent  supporters,
a  degree of reverence  which can hardly be  accorded to any common
man.  And, indeed, if  he  has discovered  the only true medical system,
with only the education  of  a common peasant, and with no induction of
facts, he is worthy of all the reverence which  can  be  given to humanity.
But what evidence  have  we that  he has  discovered such  a system ?
Not that it prolonged his  life, for  he died, like Paracelsus, and  Wessel-
hoeft has lately gone.   Nor does their  success in  curing those diseases
which tend to death, furnish it.  In the disorders incident to a sedentary
life, or want  of attention to  the  skin, or luxurious habits, a  term  at a
" water-cure" is  of great use.   Fifteen  or twenty  dollars  a week for
board  and  treatment, is pretty sure to secure attention to directions  ; and
free  exercise in the air, with thorough cleansing of the skin, a moderate
diet, with  freedom  from ordinary care,  are sufficient for  a cure.  But,
except the expense and the name of it, one could better have secured it
with a gun or fishing-rod among our mountains.
   From a personal acquaintance with a  very popular cure, I am free to
say that few physicians have  healthier or  more comfortable-looking pa-
tients than are to be seen there.  In acute diseases, so far as that  cure
is  concerned, the  treatment has not been successful.   Nor could it be
rationally expected otherwise, when  the  physicians could  in a post-mor-
tem  report, published over  their own  names,  claim that the patient's
heart was diseased,  because " there was  some fat about the base of it, 
28                  Essay on Medical Delusions.

and  the walls of the  left ventricle were fully twice as thick as those of
the right" ;  confounding a perfectly natural condition  with fatty defene-
ration  in the first case, and  with hypertrophy in  the last.  Nor ought it"
to excite  surprise that  such an  ignorance of anatomy  and physiology
should have appeared in the report; for Priessnitz claimed no knowledge
of these, and Wesselhoeft could not surpass his master.
  The following statistics,  taken  from the  Glen-Haven  Cure, by  Dr.
Jas. C. Jackson, is  not  altogether without  significance.   The  character
of the patients, as given in that, exactly coincides with the results of my
own observation.
  Five hundred and eighty-nine patients reported; of these, five hundred
and forty-four have been accustomed to dose  themselves with patent
medicines.   216  have been treated homoeopathically ;  226  by the Bo-
tanies  and Eclectics; previously  by water-cure,  97; by galvanism, 19;
and  by spiritual communicationists, 2.  Of these, one bad taken one hun-
dred and four  bottles  of  Townsend's Sarsaparilla,  and  33  bottles of
Vaughn's Lithontriptic Mixture.   The others had taken, some of them,
25  boxes of Brandreth's Pills ; Moffat's, &c, in proportion.   How many
were cured was not specified, though it is  to  be inferred  all were.   Hy-
pertrophy of the  heart, curvature of the spine, and  tumors of the uterus,
are  reported as cured!   Although Dr. J. informs  us in the report that he
is somebody, most persons, understanding the nature of these complaints,
would quite as willingly credit  him with an error in diagnosis, as with hav-
ing  cured such  complaints.   If  the proportion of those  accustomed to
quack treatment  at this  Cure, be not greater than  at  others,  it  shows
pretty conclusively to what class  in the community hydropathy  belongs.
   Nor is it any argument in favor of this  system, that converts  are made
to it from the regular profession.  Few possessed  of good judgment, a
thorough knowledge of  the principles of medicine, and a fair amount of
practice in the  regular way, can be found among these.   The fact that
clergymen go over to the Romish church,  proves  just as  conclusively the
superior excellence of that  church, as  these changes do that of hydropa-
thy !  Nor  is the oft-repeated argument  from the cures  of any value,
for  Perkins's  Tractors  cured  5000 cases of every form of disease, in a
few months.  Nor was there ever a quack by whom cures were not
claimed to be performed, and, as  his advocates affirmed, proved to have
been done.   The regular profession can  show more real cures, than all
 others can of both real  and imaginary.
   The free use of water in health, does not belong to hydropathy ; and
 the use of it  as a remedial agent had been long  in  use  when  Priessnitz 
Essay on  Medical Delusions.
29
 was bom.   All that  can be  claimed as the  discovery of the  sage  of
 Graefenburg—for his  principles and practice are hardly more regarded by
 his  followers now, than are those of Galen by the regular profession—is
 the  dogma, which  even the limited experience of  hydropathists has failed
 to establish, that water  is sufficient  for the cure of all diseases,  and the
 assertion that  all other remedies  are  worthless or pernicious, which the
 experience of ages expressly contradicts.
   Of the  immaterial  class, Homoeopathy is the system chiefly in vogue,
 and will  therefore claim the  chief attention.  This,  in  common  with
 Kinisipathy and Tractorpathy, claims to  exert its power through a cer-
 tain mysterious force ; but whether this is of a spiritual nature, as Hah-
 nemann stated, or of an electric character, as some of his followers con-
 tend, is not decided, for " who shall  decide  when  [such] doctors  disa-
 gree ?"  It is not my  design to give a history of Homoeopathy, or an ex-
 position of all its absurdities.  Any one curious to take an allopathic dose
 of these, is referred to  an excellent Essay on Homoeopathy by Dr.  Worth-
 ington Hooker, of Yale College.   It  is  a fair exposition of the  system,
 and  if a candid reading of that does not cure one of homoeopathic ten-
 dencies, nothing but the globules will.
   To make a  thorough  homoeopath, a man needs considerable informa-
 tion, and  great power of theorizing.  His habits of observation,  and his
 practical judgment, must be  inferior ;  he must be  credulous, easily
 prejudiced, and self-conceited,  having implicit faith in his experience and
 reasoning,  and a total  ignorance of the power  and influence of the ima-
 gination.   Such were  the qualities of Hahnemann's mind, and  his fol-
 lowers have nearly resembled him.
   He  was a  man of learning, so far as extensive reading could make
 him  one ; and he was  the prince of theorizers, as his works abundantly
 show.   He observed no facts, and his want of correct practical judgment
 is seen through all  his life.   His credulity is evident, from  the ridiculous
 absurdities   adopted in his  system, as  well as from his  implicit belief in
 mesmerism and clairvoyance.   His self-conceit is clearly manifest, from his
 arrogant assumption of having discovered the only true system of medi-
 cine.  His  implicit faith in his own experience  and reasoning,  as well as
his entire ignorance of the power and influence of his own imagination,
and  that of others, is clearly evident from  a  perusal of his writings, to
any  one not  possessed of the same mental character.   His innate dis-
position to  cheat, will  be further  evident  from his selling common borax
at a  Louis d'or an ounce, under pretence  of its  being a salt possessed of
valuable properties, and lately discovered by himself. 
30
Essay on Medical Delusions.
  It is  enough for a rational man, to know the character of a founder
of a system, and  its mode of origin, to  enable him to judge whether it
be  a  true and  valuable one.   If a system of mathematics, claiming to
differ from  the one in use, and to be superior to it, be presented to me,
and 1  know that the author of it was a man destitute of all mathematical
habits, that he formed his system without studying the relations of quan-
tities,  and I find, on his  first  page, two and two make five, or  that the
sum of the parts  exceeds the whole, I should only demonstrate  my folly
by a serious examination of the system.   Nor if he  should claim  that
he had solved  the most  abstruse mathematical problems by his system,
would it impose any  obligation to examine it.   Yet he might demand it,
with the same propriety with which homoeopaths demand of us a thorough
examination of their  system, and even that we  should test it by expe-
rience.   But as successful  experience even would  not prove  the  truth
of a system of mathematics based on errors, so will not this test avail for
homoeopathy, even if apparently successful.
  Some  clergymen, and  many others  also, seem fond of  demanding  for
homoeopathy such a test; and in return, the physician may with equal
propriety demand of them a  thorough examination of Mormonism, and
even that they shall put it to the test of experience, with its spiritual
ivifedom, and all its other absurdities.   But the clergyman replies,  I  am
acquainted  with the rules of theological  reasoning, the laws of evidence,
and the  standard  of truth ;  and if the character of the  founder of the sys-
tem, and its plan  and basis, do not come up to these,  I am  competent to
condemn  it without that  trouble.   Sir,  the  physician retorts,  I  am
acquainted with the laws of medical  reasoning  and evidence,  and if  a
system contradict these  on  its face, I am competent to condemn  it at
once.   And if  I  am bound to take your decision, you are bound to take
mine.
  But physicians have put this system fully and impartially to the test,
though of course  not in  full homoeopathic faith.   But to require  of  a
marufaith in that  of which  he sees no evidence, is asking  too much of
rational  men.   Yet this is  what the  homoeopaths demand, and  it is in
accordance with the course pursued by those who become  homoeopaths.
First, they  have  implicit faith in it, and then have  no difficulty in seeing
evidence where nothing is to  be seen.   With  such  rational lack of faith
in it, Bonnet and Andral, and other eminent physicians of  France, have
fully tested the homoeopathic system  and globules, paying the strictest
attention to the rules of Hahnemann and  others for their administration,
and in no case > was  there the slightest  effect produced.   Homoeopaths 
Essay on  Medical Delusions.
31
themselves have fully tested it, and proved clearly, to all but themselves,
that the system was false and the medicines powerless.
  That great  benefit results in many cases from the  adoption of this
system, no one doubts.   A man under the influence  of the delusion be-
fore mentioned, that, let him transgress the  laws of health as he will,
medicine has yet the power  to  counteract the bad results of his errors,
will find homoeopathy an advantage.   For he will put his trust in  medi-
cine ; but if his faith in drugs  is coupled  with  a  willingness to fulfil the
conditions  under  which  success is  promised in  homoeopathy, while  he
will not obey the laws of health  as dictated by  science; by taking glo-
bules, he will be humbugged into an obedience to the laws of health, and
will take the shadow of  the  name  of a drug, powerless alike for  good
or ill.   Here the man, making a fool of himself,  is cured by being made
a fool of—a good illustration of " similia similibus curantur " .'
   But in what does Hahnemann's theory consist ?  Like other  founders
of  systems, he has a central dogma, " similia similibus curantur," and
he  affirms that this  is the sole law of cure.   His reasoning is, that those
causes which in a state of health will produce given symptoms of sick-
ness, will cure those symptoms  if given when  they have  arisen sponta-
neously.  This  is  the  foundation  of his system.  But he adduces  no
facts in attestation of it, except the limited  number  which he  pretends
to have observed, and  these no subsequent experimenter has been able
to verify,  unless he had beforehand adopted his system.   He also affirms
that no cure was  ever effected, but under this  law.    Here he has the
experience of the world against him,  for no one would expose a  severe
burn to the fire to cure  it, and every one knows that  cures have  been
performed  by  counter-irritation.    The mode of cure in the first case
would be what is called  antipathic,  or by remedies of a soothing nature;
and in the other,  by allopathy, or by curing  one  disease by exciting an-
other of more manageable character, and in a less dangerous place.   The
basis of his theory has, thus, not only no foundation in facts, but  the facts
are all against it.
   He  makes  a great display of accuracy in the details of the " prov-
ings"  of the various drugs; but it is in details which have no import-
ance or bearing on the subject, and the  recording of them proves only
that the person so  doing, was  destitute  of that  discrimination of mind,
and accurate judgment, without which  no  one  is competent to record
facts for others.   The most trivial  circumstances are recorded  with all
the care of the most important.
   But how shall  ih«> effects of drugs on  the healthy system be ascertain- 
32                  Essay on Medical Delusions.

ed ?  These must of course be determined, before the drugs can be used
in sickness.   A man, as  nearly healthy as possible, is  selected as the
subject  of the  " provings."   He abstains from  spices, fat meat, coffee,
tea, beer, tooth  preparations, perfumery of all  kinds, old  cheese, pork,
geese, duck and young veal,  a  passion for gaming, reading of obscene
books, &c, which are deemed by him medicinal, while tobacco and alco-
hol are  not  excluded.   He now takes the decillionth of a  grain of sul-
phur, for instance, and  begins  to note the effects.   Every  symptom,
mental, moral and physical, for the  next  fifty days, is  included under
the effects of the sulphur.  1 shall give about a fifteenth part of the effects,
as given in Jahr's Manual.   Any one wishing for the " totality " of the
symptoms, can find it by consulting that.
  " Itching in  the  skin, worst  at night, or  in the  morning in bed, fre-
quently with a  sense of soreness,  or  heat, or bleeding of the  scratched
part.   Eruptions after vaccination ; chronic eruptions with a burning itch-
ing ;  miliary eruptions,  with a  burning  itching ;  scabies, with rash;
yellow  or liver-colored  spots on the  skin, moles,  herpes, erysipelatous
inflammation, with throbbing and stinging, tingling  in the limbs, disposi-
tion to numbness ;  easily injured  in  lifting ; twitching of the muscles,
fainting  fits  and spasms, also hysterics ; single  jerks in  the limbs when
sitting or lying, epileptic  paroxysms, with sensations as  if a mouse were
running over them ; tremors of the limbs.  The most complaints origi-
nate only when at rest, and disappear by motion of the part  affected or
by  walking.   Sadness  and dejection ; melancholy, with  doubts about
his soul's welfare ;  great inclination to weep, frequently alternating with
laughing ; inconsolableness,  and  reproaches  of  conscience  about every
action ;  attacks of anxiety in the evening ; nocturnal fear of spectres,
fearfulness and  liability  to be  frightened ;  ill  humor, restlessness  and
hastiness, caprice, moroseness, irritability and fretfulness, disinclination to
labor."
   I have thus  given  perhaps  the  fifteenth  part of the " totality "  of
symptoms produced by the decillionth of a grain of sulphur.  The rest in-
cludes caries of the  bones, five  fevers, and in short  about all the diseases
flesh is heir  to.   Doubts of one's soul's  welfare, a disinclination to la-
bor, five fevers, together with moroseness  and ill humor enough  to de-
stroy all domestic comfort!  Adieu to brimstone matches !   The prov-
ings of nux vomica  have  given twelve hundred symptoms, and all the
others in proportion.  What a  beautiful and concise system !   No won-
der a  homoeopathic doctor of my acquaintance  was obliged to take his
book to the  bedside of his patient, and read off the symptoms, and ask 
Essay on  Medical Delusions.
33
him if he didn't feel so and so.   But he had just got into it, and had not
learned it all.
   I have only to add respecting Hahnemann's theory, that he states full
seven-eighths of all chronic disease is the result  of psora, vulgarly the
itch.   This, he affirms, it  cost him twelve years' research  to  establish,
and I  presume twelve  years labor more will be required to convince ra-
tional people of its truth.
   Another grand feature of this system, is, the infinitesimal doses in which
medicines are administered, and  their  mode  of preparation.  This is no
where formally laid down by Hahnemann, nor the  time of adopting it
given, for his first provings were with allopathic  doses.  Nor does he
specify in his  provings, when he  uses  the  infinitesimal or the allopathic
dose.   This, alone, would vitiate his results ; for bark, or opium, in a
full dose, would  give results vastly different from  the same  in a dose
of the  decillionth of a grain.   He has, however, introduced this part of
his system into the notes, and what was thus incidentally dropped, as it
were, now  constitutes the distinctive part of the  system.   His mode of
preparing vegetable medicines  I shall quote  after Hooker.  He  offers
no facts in support of this wonderful discovery, but seems, as elsewhere,
to have dreamed  it,  adopted it, and then reasoned of its accuracy from
the imaginary effect produced.   We have  in this another  proof of the
total want of philosophical acumen and correct judgment of Hahnemann.
   The description of his mode  of preparing.vegetable medicines, which
is found in his Materia Medica Pura, vol. 1st, p. 96, is as follows :
   " To attain  the hundredth  degree  of potency,  mix two  drops of
alcohol with two drops  of the juice of the plant, and then  mix this with
99 or 100* drops of alcohol by means  of two strokes of the arm from
above descending.  By  mixing in the same way one  drop from this,
with  100 drops of alcohol, you attain the ten thousandth degree of  po-
tency ; and by mixing one  drop of this  dilution with another 100 drops
of alcohol,  you attain  the millionth degree.  This  process of dynami-
zation, or spiritualization, is continued  through a series of thirty vials, up
to the thirtieth solution.   This thirtieth degree should always be used for
homoeopathic purposes."
   Now let  us look at the arithmetic of this  " spiritualization or dynami-
zation," and by  these  terms Hahnemann  and his followers mean  the
communication of an immaterial or mysterious power to substances before
inert or powerless in such quantities, by trituration and shaking, " so that
silex, which from  its insolubility is entirely  inert, can  by  this  process
be so potentized, that a single  grain of it would  suffice to  cure of cer-
                5 
34                  Essay on Medical Delusions.
tain forms of disease, not  merely a world of human beings, but millions
upon  millions of worlds  as thickly  peopled as our own."   Remember
this  "potency" is communicated by shaking, and  H;ihnemann  is very
explicit on this point.   He cautions, again  and again, against too many
shakes, and adds that " he had latterly been obliged to reduce the num-
ber of shakes to two for each dilution, and that these must be  made with
a powerful stroke of the arm descending " !   He had formerly used ten,
but he found the medicine became so powerful in a dose of a decillionth
of a grain,  that there was danger  in  its  use.   Nor is  this   ridiculous
idea of  " potentizing " medicine by shaking it  obsolete; for " Joeni-
chen's high  potencies" are recommended by the New  York Homoeo-
pathic Journal, on the ground of " having  received one and a half  mil-
lions of the most powerful shakings, counting only those which produced
a metallic ringing sound of the glass bottle " ; and  these all good ortho-
dox  shakes,  with  a " powerful stroke of the  arm descending " !  Who
would not pity poor Joenichen's arm ?    Yet these  medicines are  per-
fectly mild and harmless, while the same medicines having received only
600 shakes in Hahnemann's hands,  "put  in jeopardy the life of an in-
fant to whom it was  administered."  So says Hahnemann, and you may
judge of the consistency of the statements, as well as of their probability.
  But to return to the arithmetic of these infinitesimal  doses.  The final
" potence,"  or thirtieth  dilution, contains  one decillionth of a  drop of
the original juice of the plant.   But how much is a decillionth ?   We
can form little idea of it, for we are beyond our depth in such vast num-
bers.   To express it in characters, we should  have  1 for  a  numerator,
and  1  with a string of sixty cyphers  for a denominator—thus—
                                  i                         •
 T0"(T0 0 0 OTSTUTTO 0 0 <nFO"7n7TnT(nn5'<TOT>0 0 0 tf 0TSWTnr5TSTr$TJT>TT1ST>UTJTrUTnjTJT5TF<JTJVVTIVT5
But this gives us no idea of it.  Let us take  Dr. Post's computation as
given by Dr. Hooker, of the amount of alcohol that would be used were
none thrown away.
   " The  first would require a hundred drops ; the 2d, about a pint;  3d,
 100 pints ;  4th, 10,000 pints; 9th, ten  billion of gallons, which equals,
according to Dr. Parroni,  the  water  of the Lake Aquaro, two miles in
circumference.  For the fifteenth dilution, a quantity greater in bulk than
this earth would be  required.   For the 18th,  greater than the  sun ; and
for the 30th, greater than a quadrillion of suns."
   Let us vary this a little.  Take one drop  from the pint produced by
the 2d dilution, and mix  it  in the  waters of Lake  Chainplain.  Take
one drop from this, and put  it  in Lake Superior.   Let  the  winds mix
 and shake  it well, and then  dip up one  drop and  cany it  over to the 
Essay on Medical Delusions.                  35
head waters of the Mississippi, and let its  currents and circling eddies
diffuse it through all that noble stream.  Let it  flow  down and mingle
with the waters of the Gulf; then, taken by the Gulf-stream, and carried
up to the coast of Labrador, and thence across to the coast of Norway,
let it get a good orthodox shaking in the  Maelstrom, and thence  be  dif-
fused through all the  waters of the globe.  Will a single drop of this di-
lution do for a dose ?   Hahnemann says it is  too strong!
  Imagine, then, a hollow globe 8000 miles in diameter; fill it with al-
cohol, and add one drop of laudanum, which will produce no perceptible
effect  on an  adult.  Then make it revolve on  its axis, as the earth
does, till it is properly mixed and  shaken,  and a drop from this is  too
great a dose.  Imagine, then,  a  globe so vast, that our  earth, with  the
moon at its present distance from  it, could  be taken in  and yet have
room to perform its  revolutions.   Fill  up this vast globe with alcohol,
and  add one drop of laudanum, and let it be diffused through all this
mass, and  a  drop from it is  still an overdose.  Imagine, then, a globe
whose  diameter shall extend beyond the fixed  stars, so that were one
of these to be now placed on its further side  it would be  full three years
before its light  would  strike  our  eyes.  Fill this with alcohol, and add
the laudanum as before ; then take one drop, and " with it moisten 1000
globules, and  give  one of these  for a dose; or if the patient be very-
susceptible, put one of these in a vial and let him smell of it."   Such,
says  Hahnemann, are the doses  he employs.  I have not exaggerated,
and any one may test the truth of my illustration by actual calculation.
  But  homoeopaths do produce effects with their medicine !   Certainly.
More than one homoeopathic case of medicine has been found to contain,
in addition to the  " high potencies," all the  undiluted powerful prepara-
tions  of the allopaths—strychnine and veratrine and morphine, and such
like  drugs, of which  the allopathic dose is scarcely larger than a globule.
They are there, and they are in  the offices of the homoeopaths, and when
hard  pressed they will acknowledge that in  some cases they  are obliged
to use them, as is well known they have done camphor in cholera.
   But do they tell their patients that they  are dosing them  with these
most powerful drugs ; or do they persuade them they are taking the  mild
homoeopathic globules?  Are they, then, honest, or are they not  both
quacks and knaves?   This may appear harsh language, but it becomes
the duty of the regular physicians, as conservators of the public health,
not only to cure disease, but to expose the practices of those who would
tamper with  the  public health.   Nor  should they hesitate to claim for
themselves the competency to judge of every system and mode  of practice. 
36                 Essay on  Medical Delusions.«
   But if the globulists confess the truth when they admit that in severe
cases they are obliged to resort to allopathic  remedies, and modes of
practice, what becomes of  the  boasted  superiority of  their  system ?
Good enough when nothing need be  done, but  good for nothing when
danger is near!
   Enough has been said on this  system of quackery.   Take the books
of its founder, and  of its  advocates, and judge for yourselves.   Weigh
calmly the system,  its  origin, and its  progress, without  reference to the
pretended cures it has wrought, and there will be little danger of  error.

                            CONCLUSION.

   But, finally, what are to be the  effects of  all these different " pathies"
on the regular system ?  I answer, confidently, that they will benefit it.
The system of medical  science has come down  through a long  series of
ages.  Unnumbered systems  have risen against it, but they have pe-
rished, and it  has come forth from the contest with increased strength.
So will these popular systems of to-day serve to purge out the quackery
from it, to lop off its ill-defined and misty  borders, and when they shall
have  passed away,  it will stand firmer, and with more  noble proportions
than before.   Already  has hydropathy done much to break up a popular
hydrophobia,  which the  influence of the  regular profession  could but
slowly accomplish.   Taking hold on the  native quackery of the mind,
it enforces  the value of water as  a hygienic application, which science
unaided has labored almost  in vain to accomplish.   True, it goes to ex-
tremes ; but the healthy reaction  will take place, and truth will be em-
braced  in  its purity.   So,  too, homoeopathy has  taught,  by the  same
means, what the regular physician could not enforce, that a man's reco-
very depended not  alone  on drugs.  These systems,  appealing to the
innate quackery of  men, have enforced  truths  which science  had long
taught, but which was rejected till gilded by quackery's  cunning  hand.
But the truth will  remain  when the  gilding shall have perished ;  and
thus even these, its  bitterest enemies, shall conduce to the  up-building of
the temple of truth. 
AN
                ESSAY

                  ON SOME OF THE

PRINCIPLES OP MEDICAL DELUSION.


            BY J. H. NUTTING, M.D.
Be-printed from the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal.
            BOSTON:
DAVID CLAPP, PRINTER..........184 WASHINGTON STREET.
               1853. 

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