■■:■■■■  ■■.•::■:::■•:-#
 ■■yy^-'-y-f^MM.

 
IBM IV*
m I a » « S BM SO A SI W H S II 1WUOIAWN 3 N I D I 0 3 W JO A a V I B I 1 1VNOI
»»8I1 IVNOUVN  INOiaiW JO ABVBflll IVNOUVN 1NI3I0JW JO ABVBBM 1VN0
IVNOUVN  3NI3I0JW JO A II V 1 B II TV
NOUVN 1NI3IQ1W JO ABVBBI1 1VNC
s  v:s
                             ;  V
                             o
                             P

>.Y OF MED.C.NE  N A T I O N A I L I B R A R Y O F M E D I C I N E N A T I O N A L L I B R A R Y. O F M E D


                   a  /  x\ -.*■
fN^*7' J i
 
NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE  NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE   NATION*
3NI3IQ3W JO ABVB8I1 IVNOUVN  3NI3IQ3W JO A d V « B I 1 IVNOUVN  3 N I 3 I 0 3 V
3NI3IQ3W JO AaVIBII IVNOUVN  3NI3IQ3W JO A II V o i II IVNOUVN  3NI3IQ3I

i   /\
j   -: ^
NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE  NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE   NATIONA

3NI3I03W JO ABVB8I1 IVNOUVN  3 N I 3 I d 3 W JO UVIII1 IVNOUVN  3NI3I03I
/&]
&
\  \
NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE  NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE   NATION,
 
 
HYDRQEATHY  &^HOM(EOPATHY

     IMPARTIALLY APPRECIATED,

                WITH AS

    APPENDIX  OF  NOTES

             ILLUSTRATIVE OV

 THE INFLUENCE Of TH£ MIND ON THE BODY.

         BY EDWIN LEE, ESQ.,
FELLO'W OF THE BRITISH ROYAI. MEDIC>-CHIRUR«ICAL SOCIETY ; CORRES-
   PONDING AND HONORARY MEMBER OF THE IMPERIAL MEDICAL
      ACADEMY OK VIENNA, THE HOYAL ACADEMY OF
        MEDICINE OF NATLES, THE MEDI' AL AND
          CHIRURGICAL SOCIETIES OF FARIS,
             BERLIN, FLORENCE. ETC.
FIRST AMERICAN, FROM THE THIRD LONDON, EDITION.
            NEW  YORK;

   H. LONG & BROTHER, 46 ANN STREFT ;
W. H. GRAHAM, TRIBUNE BUILDINGS*, BURGESS, STRINGER *
   CO., 222 BROADWAY ; AND MARRINER, LOCK.WOOD
           & CO., 459 BROADWAY.
1848.
4 V30IZ. 
T-
  Extract from the Preface to the Third London Edition:—
  -♦ This book has been prepared for the advantage of those
interested in having an opinion as to the degree of estimation
to which these methods of treating disease are entitled, free
from the one-sided views which their partisans are desirous
of inculcating, but at the same  time, without  an undue de-
preciation  of  the  effects which,  when  considered  in their
more extensive bearings, their introduction is likely to have
on medical practice." 
THE  COLD WATER  CURE.
  Graefenberg, the head quarters  of the practice of
hydropathy, now consists of about thirty houses, scat-
tered on the acclivity of a wooded mountain which
rises above the small town of Freywaldau, containing
about three thousand inhabitants,  and  in which  an
establishment has  also been fozmed.  The country is
salubrious, the air  pure and  bracing, and the water  is
excellent.  "Among the  half-wild mountains in Sile-
sia," observes Dr. Scoutetten in his report,* " where the
mediciue of the schools is scarcely known, the inhabit-
ants still restrict themselves, in the treatment of the
diseases  and accidents to which they are exposed, to
the means which nature offers.  Of  these water neces-
sarily plays the most important part,  and, together
with "forced sweating, are  employed in  combating a
multitude of diseases."  These remedies, which, from
time immemorial, had been  popular in  the  district,
were, however, more methodically and  successfully
applied  by  Vincent Priessnitz,  originally  a  small
farmer, who, it is said, when young, had his attention'
 more particularly directed to the advantages of cold
 water from the circumstance of his speedy recovery, by
   * Rapport a M. le Ministre de la Guerre sur 1'Hydrotherapy.
 Park, 1844. 
4
HYDROPATHY.
this  means, from the consequences of a fall, attended
with two broken ribs, and also from the rapid healing
of a crushed finger.   He was thus led to treat patients
and animals on the same plan, and in 1826 had acquired
considerable  reputation  in the surrounding  country,
which he was  accustomed  to perambulate with a bag
of sponges on his back,  applying water  ablutions and
compresses, to which were afterwards added, sweating,
cold baths, and  douches.  The success  attending the
practice  induced many  patients from  other  parts to
resort to G raefenberg, and considerable opposition was
made on the part of the  local  authorities before whom
Priessnitz  was  cited  to  appear, and  was  prohibited
from practising; but on appealing to a higher tribunal,
and  proving that he  used no secret  remedy but only
pure spring water,  he was authorised  to receive pa-
tients ; a  physician was  sent  from Vienna to  report
upon the proceedings and the  advantages of the treat-
ment, and Graefenberg was ranked among the Austrian
baths.   In 1830 the number of palients amounted to
only fifty-five, but in 1838 to upwards of eight hundred,
which number has since  more than doubled, including
many medical  men.
  The governments of Bavaria, and other German ter-
ritories, likewise authorised hydropathy.  At Breslau
the professors of the university, and especially the cele-
brated anatomist Otto, greatly modified  their practice
by the more frequent  employment of water.   At Dres-
den hydropathy  was  favourably  received.  The dis-
tinguished  professors, Carus   and  Choulant,  regard
hydropathy as  a powerful means, calculated to render
great service in the treatment of disease,  after the pre- 
HYDROPATHY.
5
vailing enthusiasm should be succeeded by an enlight-
ened  appreciation of its effects deduced from experi-
ence.  Several of the first physicians  of  Munich, and
especially professor Ringseis, considered the cold water
treatment, properly applied, as a  powerful  resource
against certain diseases which  have resisted  the ordi-
nary methods, and at some of the restaurants  of the
latter city wine was so  little in request, that water
brought from Schoenbrunn was sold.  The Duke  of
Saxe Gotha gave up a chateau for  a hydropathic esta-
blishment, as  did  also the Prince  of Saxe Meiningen
(Liebenstein), and the Prince  of Reuss.*   A degree of
reaction has, however, taken place in the public mind
in Germany since Dr. Scoutetten published his report,
and the number of patients at most  of the establish-
ments has greatly decreased during the last two years.
   One of the largest of these  establishments, which I
have twice visited, is Marienberg,  (formerly a convent
of dames nobles ;)  standing on an eminence overlooking
the town of Boppart, in one  of the  most picturesque
parts of the  Rhine, and forming a conspicuous object
from the river.  In the court-yard is a fountain of clear
spring water with iron cups attached, for  drinking, and
an ascending  douche, by which a fine continued stream
 of water  may be directed against the eyes or other
 parts of the head.   A statue to the virgin, to whom the
 buildintr was formerly dedicated, stands as a memento
 of bygone times in a niche over the door.  The apart-
 ments (on either side of spacious corridors)  are neatly
 and conveniently  fitted up, the price varying according
 to the accommodation.  There is  a large and cheerful
* Rapport, &c. 
€                  HYDROPATHY.

reading-room, commanding a view of the Rhine,  and
supplied with newspapers and periodicals ;  adjoining
is  the refectory, where all the patients assemble at  din-
ner.  The  baths  are  on the  lower story, sunk in the
ground.  They contain  clear water, about  four  feet
deep, of the  natural temperature,  and are sufficiently
spacious to admit of the bathers  moving freely about.
About 150  persons could be accommodated at the same
time.  The dinner consists of soup, roast or boiled
meats, potatoes and other vegetables, cutlets,  and plain
puddings ;  the only beverage allowed being pure water,
of which there is  a plentiful supply of bottles upon the
table.  Bread and butter, and cold milk and water, are
allowed for breakfast; and the same for supper, with
the addition of stewed prunes, pears, or other fruit.
   Besides  the douches in the house, there are, in an
adjoining building, the Wellenbad, (wave-bath,) which
is  used in  certain cases of local  debility, and two or
three douches  in  the  environs;  one  being  at the
Hermitage, in a picturesque situation at the foot of the
Huuds-Drucken hills, about a mile and a half distant,
to  which the patients must walk, and, having been
douched, must  also return on foot.  The water of the
douches falls from a height of from ten  to twenty  feet,
through  tin tubes, the diameter of which varies from
two to three inches,  so that a  powerful  column of
water falls upon the part of the  body exposed to its
action.   On  the  back, abdomen, and chest, the stream
is  generally made to  fall  obliquely.  Marienberg is
now under the superintendance of  Dr. Hallmann,  who
was formerly commissioned by the  Russian govern-
ment to visit Graefenberg and report upon the practice. 
HYDROPATHY.                  7
A few minutes' walk from Marienberg, and close to the
river, is the more recent establishment, Muhlbad, which
can accommodate about fifty patients, and was, till last
year, under  the superintendence of  Dr.  H. Mayo, but
now of Dr. Burgess, in conjunction with  Dr. Heusner,
the proprietor.
  The mode of life and method of treatment, do not
materially vary at any of these places ;  but the  coarse
nature of the  diet at Graefenberg is a just  subject of
complaint,  the dinners  being generally composed of
beef done  to  rags, cucumbers in salt and water, acid
sauces, and heavy dough puddings.
  " It cannot be  doubted," observes  an author,* '• that
this  wretched  diet keeps  the  patients  much longer
under treatment than would otherwise be required, and
that in many instances it obstructs the cure altogether."
Priessnitz, however, is said  to be willing to prove that
his patients are able  to digest, without  inconvenience,
substances which at  other times would  disagree with
them, though doubtless the  true reason is assigned by
Dr.  Johnson,  that  bad food  is cheaper than  good.
Everything of a stimulating nature, as spirits,  wine,
coffee, tea, &c, is prohibited.
   Although the  external application of water  is the
most essential part  of the treatment,  the  drinking
copiously is equally enjoined.  Some persons drink as
many as twenty goblets a day, though it  is seldom that
more than twelve  are  prescribed.  In some instances
it is deemed advisable to recommend the preliminary
use  of a few cool or tepid baths, previous to  bathing in
the water at its natural temperature.  The usual mode
         * Hydropathy, by Edward Johnson,  M.^). 
8
HYDROPATHY.
 of procedure originally adopted was as follows : Each1
 patient is awakened at about five in the morning by an
 attendant,  by whom  the process of emaillottnge, or
 wrapping  up, is performed.  A blanket or  woollen
 covering is  first bound  round, so as  to  envelope the
 whole body, the face only being left free; over this a
 second blanket  is bound  round the body.  In a short
 time copious perspiration is  induced ; the window of
 the room is  then thrown  open  to  admit  fresh air, and
 cold water is given to the  patient at intervals, to supply
 the waste produced by the perspiration, and to prevent
 him  fiom being weakened by its quantity.  When the
 perspiration  has continued for the period that is deemed
 sufficient, the coverings are taken off, except the ori-ri-
   1111                                        °
 nal blanket, a cloak being thrown over the patient  and
 slippers  placed on his feet; he  descends  quickly from
 his room to the bath, and first dipping his hands  and
 face  for  a  second or two, throws off the blanket  and
 plunges  into  the water at a temperature from 9° to
 12° R., while the perspiration is  still  streaming from
 the pores of his skin.
   The duration  of the  bath is only a few seconds in
 most instances; some persons,  however, remain in for
 a longer  period, in brisk motion, and rubbing the sur-
 face  of the body.  On quitting the bath lhe°skin pre-
 sents the same appearance as  a boiled lobster   After
 having been dried by friction with a sheet, the  patient
 dresses, walks about for an hour, drinking  two or three
glasses of cold water, and  then goes "to breakfast with
 what appetite he  may."    The time between breakfast
 and «?.„„er<Ht twelve  or  one o'clock) is  occupied in
 walking, reading, drinking cold water, &c.  At Grae- 
HYDROPATHY*
9
fenberg many of the patients were formerly subjected
to a repetition of the sweating and bathing process in
the course  of the day; this is, however, not now the
case.
   It is well known that the impression of cold water or
cold air to the  surface of the body, throws the  blood
upon internal organs,  which  relieve themselves of the
excess under the consequent  reaction when the  appli-
cation of the cold is discontinued, and a glow, frequently
with  perspiration, is produced.   The  sudden passage
of the body, while its surface  is  heated or in a state of
perspiration, to  a  very cold medium, is  generally con-
sidered, and very justly so, as highly  dangerous;  but
in  the cold water treatment,  it is seldom found  to be
productive  of prejudicial consequences, when  under
proper superintendence.   On the contrary, a direct in-
crease of bodily  vigour and of the appetite is commonly
experienced on  leaving the bath.*   It must, however,
be borne in mind, that in  these cases the heat of surface
and perspiration are of a passive nature, and not pro-
duced by exercise, by  which  the whole body is heated
and the circulation accelerated, in which state a person
could not go into a cold bath  without great danger. In
fact, the  practice  is very  analogous  to  that which  was
adopted by the Romans, who  plunged into the baptiste-
   * " The cooling of the body," says Liebig, " by whatever cause
produced,  increases the amount of  food necessary. The mere ex-
posure to the open  air in a carriage, or on the deck of a ship, by
increasing radiation and vaporization, increases the loss of  heat,
and compels us to eat more than usual.  The same is true of those
who are accustomed to drinW large quantities of cold water, which
is given off'at the  temperature of the b( dy of 99-5.  It increases
the appetite, and persons of weak constitutions find it necessary,
by continued exercise, to supply to the system the oxygen required
to restore the heat  abstracted by the cold water.
               a2 
10
HYDROPATHY.
 rium or cold bath, after leaving the vapour or hot one :
 and also by the Russians and other  nations at the pre-
 sent day.  "The heat of the vapour," says an author
 who has treated of the subject, " to which the bather is
 exposed, is from 122° to 132° Fahrenheit.  Sometimes,
 when there are no  conveniences for a supply of cold
 water,  a Russian will rush  out from the bath, and
 plunge into  the nearest  stream, or even roll  in  the
 snow."  Acerbi states, " that  almost all the Finnish
 peasants have  a small house  built  on purpose for a
 bath; the  apartment is usually dark, with only a hole
 at the top.  They remain for half an hour or an hour
 in the  same room,  heated  to 167°  Fah.  The Fin-
 landers will sometimes come out naked and converse
 together, or with any one near them in the  open air.
 If travellers happen  to pass  by while the peasants of a
 hamlet  or little village are in the bath, and their assist-
 ance is  needed,  they will leave the bath, and  assist  in
 yoking  and unyoking, and fetching  provender for the
 horses,  or in anything else,  without  any sort of cover-
 ing, while the travellers sit shivering with cold, though
 wrapped  in  good wolf-skin.   The  Finnish  peasants
 pass thus instantaneously from an atmosphere of 167°
 Fah., to one in which the thermometer is as low as 24°
 below zero, which is the same thing as going out of
boiling into freezing water; and, what is more astonish-
ing, without the least  inconvenience, while other peo-
 ple are very sensibly affected by a variation of but five
degrees, and in danger of being affected by rheumatism
by the most trifling wind that blows."
  " The Indians of North  America,"  continues the
same  author, "have also  their fashion  of  bathing, 
HYDROPATHY.                  11
whichv is not very dissimilar from that of the Russians.
They construct a kind of stove, by fixing several small
poles into the  ground,  the  tops  of which they  fix
together, so  as to form a rotunda, and  then cover it
with skins  and blankets, so accurately, that the external
air is completely excluded.   The space left for the  in-
troduction  of the body of the person about to take the
bath, is closed  as soon as he gets in.   In  the  middle of
this small  apartment they  place  red-hot stones,  on
which water is poured  until  a stream arises that pro-
duces a high degree of heat.  The  effect on the person
"enclosed is a  speedy and profuse perspiration, which
may be prolonged at will.  Immediately after  coming
out, he hastens to the nearest stream,  into  which  he
plunges and bathes for  about half a minute  ; he then
puts on his clothes, sits down, and smokes with great
composure, and, what is of no little importance, with a
thorough persuasion that the process will prove effica-
cious.   The  sudatory is often resorted to for the pur-
pose of refreshment, or  to prepare for the transaction
of  any  business which  requires unusual deliberation
and sagacity."*
   In these  instances, the time the person remains in the
cold is  not sufficiently long for the production of its
depressing effects, which can be better resisted  in pro-
portion to the pi-eviously high temperature on the sur-
face of the  body.   Hence,  a person whose body is
moderately warm, or whose skin is  in a state of passive
perspiration, would experience less inconvenience and
danger  from going  into a  cold bath, than one whose
skin is  cool, or when its vital powers are depressed.
            * Bell on bathe, &c.  Philadelphia 
12
HYDROPATHY.
The advantage of cold affusion in fevers, when the heal!
of the body is steadily above  the natural temperature,
is well known, and is a further illustration of the same
principle.
  In Great  Britain, the  regulation of the functions of
the skin  by bathing, especially the use of the tepid bath,
has been more neglected than in perhaps any  other
country.   Of late years, however, a greater degree of
attention has  been directed to this  important circum-
stance, the number of  public baths having increased in
London within the  last few years.
  In fact, when we consider the extent of surface oc-
cupied by the skin, its varied uses,  both  as  the  chief
organ of sensation, in  which the ultimate ramifications
of the blood-vessels and  nerves terminate, and  also  as
that in which the important functions of absorption, pers-
piration, and the secretion of  the sebaceoas matter, by
which its surface is lubricated, are carried on ; its analo-
gous office to the lungs, in favouring thedecarbonization
of the blood, and itsextensive sympathies with other parts,
especially the mucous membranes of the air passages of
the alimentary canal and the kidneys, we  cannot fail
duly  to  estimate the  importance  of bathing, as the
means best adapted both for maintaining this°organ in
a healthy condition, and  also of rectifying many dis-
ordered states of the economy; and yet how seldom is
it that baths  are recommended in  chronic diseases !
Can .it excite surprise,  that  in individuals who pass
months together without taking a bath, or perhaps even
without washing the surface of their bodies (as is the
case especially with the  poorer classes of the commu-
nity)  the functions of tbe skin should become material- 
Hydropathy.                  13
ly impaired, its  circulation  torpid, its  secretions ob-
structed and vitiated, frequently  giving rise, by their
re-absorption,  to deranged  states  of the  health, of
which the cause  is seldom ascertained, and which- the
practitioner vainly endeavours to  femove by the inter-
nal administration of medicines.*
   Even in private practice,  where  there would be no
obstacle to the free  use of baths, how seldom do  they
form part of the treatment, unless there should  happen
to be  any existing disease  of the skin !  I am  con-
vinced, that in  many instances the digestive  powers
become deranged, and the general  health undermined,
from  a neglect to pay proper attention to the  state of
the skin ;  that  a large  proportion of the catarrhal,
rheumatic, and  nervous affections,  so prevalent in the
variable climate  of Great Britain, might be traced  to
the same source ; and that the  tendency to these com-
plaints, as well as to pulmonary consumption, would
be materially lessened, were persons, while in health,
accustomed to attend to the functions of the skin, by
the employment of bathing  and cold ablutions more
frequently than is generally  the ease.  Many people, it
is true, who perhaps never take a bath, yet enjoy good
health, for the influence of habit  will often  enable the
body to support  many things that are generally preju-
dicial.   But, on  the other hand, there is  no doubt that
many suffer from various unpleasant sensations and
disordered  states of health,  which  might be prevented
by the more frequent adoption of the practice.
   In the great majority of cases where hydropathy has
   * The baths for  the poor recently established in London and
some  other large towns, will have a material effect in the pre-
vention o£ disease.  [Will'New York follow ?—Am, Ed.-] 
u
HYDROPATHY.
  been employed of late, a coarse sheet dipped in cold
  water and wrung out is applied, and over this other
  coverings are bound round the body.   The application
  of the wet sheet causes a penetrating sensation of cold
  and shivering for a  period varying  in  different indi-
  viduals ; but the body soon becomes warm, and from
  evaporation being prevented  the  wet cloth acts as  a
 fomentation, and  the  subsequent perspiration  is much
 less  profuse  than when  the  blanket  is  employed.
 Where, however, the object is to reduce the heat of the
 surface, as  in cases of acute disease, the wet sheet re-
 quires to be frequently renewed, before this degree of
 reaction takes place.   In these  instances, the first im-
 pression is agreeable ; the application generally allays
 irritation, reduces the frequency of the pulse, produc-
 ing  a tendency to sleep, and is  thus a powerful anti-
 phlogistic.  As long as the. skin is hot and dry, the ap-
 plication  may be repeated,  at first at intervals of a
 quarter of an hour, and afterwards at  longer intervals,
 till a tendency to moisture  appears.  The  cold  water
 application has been strongly advocated by many prac-
 titioners in acute disease, and its  modified adoption
 cannot fail to be beneficial in  many instances—as
 affording the most efficient means of lowering the tem-
 perature of the body,  being,  in  fact, but a variation of
 the practice formerly advocated  and successfully prac-
 tised by Dr. Currie, of cold affusion in fevers, the rule
 to be  observed being  that the surface of the  body be
steadily above the natural temperature, and that the skin
be not in a state of perspiration, though as regards the
latter some exceptions might be  allowed.   Where
however, the feverish excitement depends upon  inflam- 
H.YDROPATKV.
15
mation of an important internal organ, there would in
many instances be-great danger from an increase of the
evil, in consequence  of the blood  being driven  upon
the internal organs at a time when the power of re*
action is weakened.   Hence  the cases  to  which this
treatment would  be most applicable would be simple
fevers, the more severe forms of scarlet fever, and other
exanthemata, angina  tonsillaris, rheumatism, and lum-
bago.  Hip or sitz baths—the patient being seated in
the water, with his legs over the  edge of the tub—are
also of very frequent  use, combined with the wet sheet
and other  means.  When  employed for a  short time
only,  and frequently  repeated, the  action of the sitz
bath is tonic and bracing, causing contraction  of the
blood-vessels,  and  is  consequently useful  in  various
states of relaxation.   When, used for a longer period,
a re-action succeeds  on quitting  the bath, more blood
is determined  to  the  parts ; it is then a powerful de-
rivative remedy, and is used to relieve congestion of the
brain, or of the  thoracic  and  abdominal viscera, and
piles, by causing  them to bleed, as well as constipation
and other consequences of this state.  In some cases of
nervous  excitement, head-baths are employed, the pa-
tient  lying with his occiput in a vessel of cold water.
Compresses of wet  linen  covered  with a  dry cloth,
(exciting compress,)  are also  very commonly recom-
mended  to be worn on the epigastrium or round the
body, as on other parts, for the removal of abdominal
disease,  fixed  rheumatic  pains,  &c.  This  is  also a
powerful derivative means, producing in most instances
an  eruption on the part.   When the wet cloth is fre-
quently renewed, and evaporation  freely allowed to 
 16                  HYDROPATHY.

 take place, it is one of the most efficient means in the
 reduction of inflammatory action, especially in the skin,
joints, and other parts, and has from time immemorial
 been employed  both  in private practice  and in public
 institutions.   The  dressing ulcers and wounds with a
 bit of linen or lint  steeped in  cold Water, (as formerly
 recommended by  Dr.  Macartney,) has also been long
 employed in some  of the London hospitals.
   Shallow and  half baths, frictions with  the wet  hand
 while  in  the water, or with a dripping sheet, are like-
 wise employed  in  some instances, often  as a prepara-
 tory means for  the sweating process  and cold baths ;
 sometimes  tepid baths, or water  with the  chill off, is
 previously used.*   It is not my intention to enter upon
 the consideration of the theories of disease which have
 been promulgated  to  some of the exclusive advocates
 of the cold water  plan, nor  to attempt to  refute their
 one-sided assertions as to the inefficiency of other reme-
 dial means, which have stood the test of the experience
 of ages ;  but it may be admitted that the treatment em-
 ployed in proper cases of chronic  disorder, strengthens
   * Dr. Gully, in his recent woik on the cold-water cure, advo-
 cates hot fomentations to the abdomen (which are commonly used
 in ordinary practice) as a means of allaying visceral irritation, of
 procuring  sleep, relaxing  the  kidneys and  bowels, of anestin-*
 bilious and nervous headaches, fits of asthma, tic, sciatica, spasm^
 infantile convulsions, continued vomiting, and of relieving acidity
 and flatulence, and also as a preparatory measure to tbe° applica-
 tions of cold water, in " old persons, delicate females,  bloodless
 and  greatly debilitated patients,  especially those  affected with
 bronchial and asthmatic disorder of the lungs," thereby " enablin"
 the skin to react upon the cold wet sheet, when it would other"
 wise not have done so.  Extreme congestion and  extreme general
 weakness,  may be thus coaxed as it were into commencing the
 attempt at self-restoration."  A person must i.-deed  be stron<*ly
 prejudiced in favour of cold water  to think of applying it in similar 
HYDROPATHY.
17
the nervous and  muscular  systems, gives tone to the
body generally, and to the skin in particular; there  is
consequently a greater inclination and ability for exer-
cise, a diminution of the undue susceptibility to atmo-
spheric changes,  and to morbid  impressions  on the
nerves, which in  a high state of civilization are so fre-
quently productive of disordered states of health.  The
pure air, bodily exercise, plain diet, the drinking freely
of water, and consequent copious excretion of fluid, by
means of the skin and kidneys, must tend powerfully to
renew the mass of blood, and to eliminate noxious mat-
ters which sometimes remain long in the circulation
and give rise to  intractable diseases.  A vitiated state
of the blood, as the cause of disease, has  in  fact  been
more overlooked  by English  than  by continental prac-
titioners, though  even abroad it  is only of late years
that due attention has been sufficiently directed to this
point.
   The extent to which the employment of active medi-
cines in chronic disease has been and is still carried in the
British dominions, is made  a subject  of just reproach
by foreign  practitioners.   The  public, however, is,  in
great measure, to blame for the practice, by encourag-
ing the custom of remunerating  the great  body  of
practitioners, not  according to  the attendance, but  in
proportion to the quantity of medicine sent.  To this
custom may be ascribed that habit which many have
acquired, of dosing themselves and their families with
active  drugs on every slight  deviation from  a  state  of
health.   It  is  gratifying, however, to observe that  of
late considerable alteratii n has been effected, both as re-
gards the doses of medicine  and the mode of remunerat- 
18
HYDROPATHY.
ing professional services; though there is reason to ap-
prehend that a long period must  still elapse before the
generality of the public and  medical men will become
aware that their  true interest consists in the abolition
of this system.   The  manner in  which mercury is fre-
quently used, or rather abused, (though not so much at
the present day as a few years ago,) occasions the pro-
duction and  continuance of many.nervous, dyspeptic,
hypochondriacal, and other complaints, which are gene-
rally relieved for a time  by the medicine, (in the same
way that the dram of spirits  or the  dose of opium ex-
cites for  a period those  accustomed to their  use,) and
this temporary relief often tends to keep the practitioner
and patient ignorant of the principal cause of the in-
tractableness of the complaint, either till  recovery takes
place in  some instances  from the medicine being dis-
continued, or, what amounts to  the same thing,  from
the homoeopathic regimen,—or from some  accidental
circumstance, as change of  air,  scene,  &c,  or till, in
other cases, the general health is seriously  impaired,
and not unfrequently a foundation is laid for the super-
vention of organic disease of important parts.
  Eruptions, boils, or abscesses, are not unfrequently
induced during the water cure, and these are generally
considered by patients as critical and evacuating  mor-
bid humours, though  in the majority of  instances  they
are but a consequence of the excitation  of the skin by
the process.  In some patients, however, the perspira-
tion eliminated has a strong fetid odour, and the cloths
and compresses are not unfrequently stained,  and retain
a bad smell.  Dr.  Schmitz  mentioned  to me a case
which fell under his observation of  a patient who bad 
HYDROPATHY.
19
taken sulphur-baths seven years previously, but who
had not used sulphur since that period.  After she had
been  pursuing the cold water cure for some time, her
room smelt of sulphur, a bracelet  she wore  became
tarnished, and her linen was stained a yellowish colour.
Other- foreign matters have also been detected  by
analysis in the perspiration and  urine of these patients.
  A system which acts so energetically upon  the con-
stitution may well be enumerated  among the heroic
remedies, and as such requires much discrimination in
the selection  of cases.  As with Cadet de Vaux's me-
thod :of treating diseases by hot-water, as well  as with
many other methods  and remedies which have been
adopted for a time and  have subsequently fallen into
neglect,  so also the too general  application of the cold
water cure has been followed by accidents, and an  ag-
gravation of the  diseases it was intended  to  remedy.
With respect to this point, the author whom I have
•already  quoted, observes, " But no rational man  can
doubt that the possession of scientific knowledge would
enable Priessnitz to be much oftener successful than he
is, and would lessen the  number of his failures.  Cer-
tainly it would  prevent his taking in, and submitting to
 a tedious treatment, many cases which such knowledge
 would have taught him at first were perfectly hopeless.
 There are many such cases in the establishment at  this
 moment."*
   " And I foresee," further observes this author, " that
 much evil will  at first result, and many a life be sacri-
 ficed, from the  apparent simplicity and innocence of the
   * Priessnitz now employs much milder means, which is a taqit
 acknowledgment  of the impropriety in many instances of those
 formerly used. 
20
HYDROPATHY.
remedy, inducing persons to practise, both  on them-
selves and others, (to the injury of both,) without the
knowledge necessary to do so with success."*
   It is generally acknowledged  by  the profession in
Germany, that this mode of treatment is calculated to
be of service in some diseases.  I  shall content myself
with  briefly  alluding  to the principal  complaints  in
which it has been found advantageous, as it is my in'
tention in this place merely to give  an apercu of the
method.  A  great  number of works have been pub-
lished of late years in Germany and France, as also in
this  country, by medical and non-medical persons, in
which its advantages and disadvantages are fully con-
sidered ; and  as  some among these  authors are  not
prejudiced in  favour of or  against the  treatment,  a
tolerably accurate  idea  may be  formed from  their
perusal of its results.
   Good air, exercise, plain diet, abstinence from stimu-
lating food  and drinks, and tranquillity of mind, have
been repeatedly  insisted upon  by medical men and
others, as being the most essential means of preventing
and  obtaining  the removal  of the  majority of diseases
which a high state of civilization and luxury induces ;
and  the former of these are more influential with  the
human  race than with  others of the animal creation ;
for though a  man be an omnivorous animal, and  re-
quires a variety in his food, yet by the  too free indul-
gence of highly-seasoned viands and  stimulating pota-
tions, (the habit of which  generally becomes  more
strong at a period of life when there is  a less  disposi-
tion  for muscular exertion ;)t not only is  the appetite
  * Dr. E. Johnson.
  t "An excess of food  is incompatible with deficiency of inspired
oxygen, that is, with deficient exercise."—Liebig, Organic Chemutry. 
HYDROPATHY.
21
excited and a larger quantity of food taken than is re-
quired by the wants of the system, but there  is also  a
greater demand upon the nervous energies ; the quality
of the  blood itself, and  consequently of the various
secretions, becomes altered, which state of matters can-
not long exist without derangement of the health mani-
festing itself in one way or another.  This state of pre-
disposition to disease, and several of the disorders to
which it gives rise,  might often be remedied by the
exercise, early hours, and temperance enjoined as part
of the water cure : but it is seldom that persons, so
long as they feel themselves tolerably well,  have the
resolution to break through  the chains of habit so far
as to adopt, even partially, these precautionary means,
by which the future assistance of the physician might
be obviated; but they go on  in their accustomed man-
ner, dosing themselves at intervals with medicines  to
relieve their most urgent inconveniences ;  and it is not
until the germs of disease become rooted in the system,
 and the symptoms are so strongly manifested as to in-
 dicate material interruption in the performance of im-
 portant functions, that they are awakened to  the neces-
 sity of sacrificing some of their accustomed enjoyments,
 and are forced to resort to other than merely palliative
 means for a restoration to health, which cannot at this
 period  be effected solely by hygienic  measures, and
 which is more effectually accomplished  by a combina-
 tion of these measures with  remedies which  alter and
 improve the quality of the blood, and impart tone* to
 the nerves, by their general and gradual operation, than
 by  others which have a more  directly  exciting effect
 upon  particular organs.   Hence the reason why so 
22
HYDROPATHY.
 many have recourse to mineral waters, and lately to
 the cold water plan, which, though more disagreeable
 in  its immediate  action than  mineral waters* may yet
 be applied to  several of the  diseases of which 1 have
 spoken when treating of these remedial agents:  espe-
 cially to some forms of long  standing disorder of the
 digestive organs,  particularly  when arising from  the
 causes which have been already referred to, viz., reple-
 tion,  and a too luxurious and  sedentary mode of life;
 some gouty and calculous disorders, which are so often
 dependent  upon  the  same  causes,  especially  when
 occurring in the young or middle-aged of full habit and
 otherwise  healthy ;  inactivity  of the skin ;  complaints
 arising from exposure  to cold and suppressed perspi-
 ration,—such as fixed and shifting rheumatic pains and
 stiffness, which  are sometimes so intractable as to re-
 sist mineral waters and other  means, are likewise not
 unfrequently cured by this treatment ;*  and the undue
 susceptibility to  atmospherical vicissitudes by Which
 they were, perhaps, originally caused, is often removed,
 as is also morbid excitability of the nerves, and its con-
 sequences,  hysterical   and spasmodic  attacks; long
 Btanding intermittent complaints, either  in the form of
 ague, neuralgia,  or  irregular muscular  movements,
 after  having resisted other measures, have  sometimes
 yielded to this  treatment, than which few things could
be more  calculated to counteract the influence of habit
by  which similar complaints  are  so  often kept  up ;
syphilitic cases, particularly when of long duration, and
  • M Bonnet, chief surgeon of the hospital at  Lyons, says:
 The diseases m winch the most   complete cures  are effected
are chronic rheumatism, with or without swelling of the jointi
 and chrome engorgements of uw womb."               J"""-". 
HYDROPATHY.
23
when much mercury has been taken ;*  as also relaxa-
tion of the system, and otber derangements of the gene-
ral health, may often  be removed or mitigated by this
plan of treatment.
   Notwithstanding, however, the advantage which the
water cure may be calculated to produce in some dis-
ordered states of the economy, it must not be supposed
that it is either so generally applicable or so successful
as some of its advocates would have it considered; and
the exaggerated accounts of its  efficacy which have
been given to the world  by interested or enthusiastic **
parties, are likely to  do much harm by leading to its
indiscriminate adoption in cases to which it is but ill-
suited.  Thus, one  non-medical author, after extolling
Priessnitz as  " one of the greatest benefactors of man-
kind—one of the most astounding geniuses of this or
any other age—a second  Hippocrates—the founder of
a system by  which all curable diseases, and many de-
claimed by the faculty to be beyond the power of their
art, are to be cured by the  sole agency of cold spring-
water, air, and exercise,"t fills his book with cases of
 cure of acute  and chronic disorders, chiefly from the
publications  of practitioners of this  method, who, like
others interested in  crying up  any particular mode of
treatment, would generally abstain from bringing for-
 ward instances which would cause  the  success  to be
 questioned.   What, in fact, are the  majority of publi-
 cations written by  watering-place  practitioners, but
   * " The patients are most likely to derive advantage if young,
 and if the complaints have been induced by chills or cold.  If they
 are of a feeble constitution, hydropathy is powerless.  The study
 of general treatment,  among which hydropathy must rank, is
 worthy ofall the attention ofpractitioners."—Comptt Rendu, <j-c.
   t cfaridga on Hydropathy.  • 
24
HYDROPATHY.
 one-sided accounts of the virtues of the waters of their
 particular locality, without any reference toother reme-
 dies or other places where the waters may be of equal
 if not superior efficacy, in the very complaints of which
 the account is given ]  The same may be said of many
 remedies which have at times  been trumpeted forth to
 the world, and though perhaps efficient in many cases,
 have nevertheless been subsequently laid aside,  in con-
 sequence of their not answering the exaggerated ex-
 pectations raised by their too enthusiastic  advocates.
 It must also be borne in mind, in estimating the value
 of remedies, that  it is not because a  person  gets well
 while pursuing a particular mode of treatment, that his
 recovery is a necessary consequence of the treatment,
 as the same result would very often  occur under a dif-
 ferent mode,  or even where  no treatment at all was
 adopted.   The post hoc is, especially in medicine, very
 often mistaken for the propter hoc.  On the other hand,
 some less partial obseivers, who likewise followed the
 practice  at Graefenberg, and whose works are favour-
 able to the cold water treatment, state that many pa-
 tients go away without any amelioration in their condi-
 tion ; and that  a  large proportion  labour  under no
 more serious  ailments than might be remedied by a
 residence in pure air, by exercise and plain diet.
   Nor can the accuracy of the diagnosis  of  cold water
•practitioners always be depended upon.  " In a great
 many cases," observes a recent author, who passed a
 long period at Graefenberg, and whose work is on the
 whole favourable  to the cold water  treatment, " the
 names of apoplexy, pneumonia, and serious fevers, have
 been applied to some symptoms,  which a few applica- 
HYDROPATHY.
25
tions of the wet sheet or frictions caused to disappear,
and of which the cure resounded through the colony as
a convincing proof of the omnipotence of the method."*
   The ability and  tact of Priessnitz is frequently in-
sufficient  to  counterbalance the  absence of  medical
knowledge, as  regards  the discrimination of cases to
which  the method is applicable.   1 have already ad-
duced  the testimony of Dr. E. Johnson, that many of
the cases  at Graefenberg  are such as are not likely to
be relieved, and the attempt  is necessarily a failure.
Another medical author  who  resided at Graefenberg
says, " Chance furnished me with several opportunities
of meeting, a month or  two after  their departure from
Graefenberg, with  persons whom I had  seen  give
themselves up to all the exaltation of their enthusiasm,
and  I  was quite surprised at  the  change  which  had
taken place in their sentiments.  A short  time ago I
met  a young Russian officer, with whom I had dined
several times at the table of Priessnitz.  'And  how are^
your headaches V said I after  the usual salutation, re-
collecting his bragging, of which I had been a witness
more  than once ;  he  replied, with some confusion,
' My pains are  the same as before ; and I  should have
done  much better  had I  gone to pass six weeks at
Teplitz, instead of  losing  six months at Graefenberg.'
Another patient told me, that far  from being  satisfied
with his journey, he believed he could date from  that
period the sufferings which now tormented him much
more than those for which he liad  gone to Graefen-
berg.  A lady  who  had'taken care to avoid the ordina-

   * Dr. Schedel.   Ex a men Cliniqne de l'Hydrotherapie.  Paris,
1845.
             a 
26
HYDROPATHY.
ry excesses of Priessnitz's guests, could not find terms
sufficiently strong to express to me, how disagreeable
is  the time which follows an  hydropathic  treatment;
the continual use of cold water had become to her  a
condition of her well-being, and when she was obliged
to limit it in some  degree, she experienced the same
inconveniences, as those which occur when one is sud-
denly deprived of a stimulant of which one has  con-
tracted a habit."
  These instances would be found to be multiplied,  if
the truth could always be known.  Many persons who
feel themselves in  better health at the time  of the
treatment, or for some time afterwards while still under
the influence of the  stimulation, and  have  consequent-
ly spoken highly of it, would, after  a period, and on
attempting to return to their ordinary mode of life, find
the amelioration not to be of so permanent a character
as they had expected, though comparatively few would,
like the Russian  officer, be disposed to recant what
they had previously said, and to acknowledge that  their
expectations had been too highly raised.  This remark
is  equally applicable to the  results  of other methods
which have been unduly lauded by particular individuals,
but which an impartial experience in time reduces to
their proper level.  " De tout chose ilfaut voir la fin"
  " It is evident;*" observes the same author, " that the
laws of prudence are violated  each hour of the day at
Graefenberg;  and this truth is  beginning to make its
way in the world, for, dining  one day at  Neisse  with
several Prussian officers, I heard one of them say, that
they were greatly indebted to  Priessnitz, whose treat-
ment had contributed to render promotion more rapid, 
HYDROPATHY.                 27
by hastening the end of some of them, whose names he
mentioned; which, however, did not prevent  one of
the guests from maintaining that Priessnitz cured every
kind of intermitting fever in three days.  I then recol-
lected the only two patients  attacked with fever whom .
I had known at Graefenberg,  and who were not yet
cured at the end  of  a month or six weeks.   One of
them had given up the water, and had recourse  to ordi-
nary  medicine.   This assertion  of the guest whom I
have  mentioned  confirmed me   in  the opinion  that
Priessnitz is a favourite of  fortune, such as is  seldom
seen ; for, at the moment when  at Graefenberg an in-
termitting fever was braving him by its obstinacy, a few
leagues off a panegyrist was found of his sagacity and
the infallibility of his method.   After  my  departure
from  Graefenberg a lady died there; it was then the
custom to ascribe the occurrence of death  to the burst-
ing of an abscess internally, but on  this occasion also,
the opening of the body gave the lie to the favourite
explanation.  When  the  relatives inquired what had
been the cause of the fatal termination of  the case, the
answer which they received was, that the patient's neck
was too short to allow her to live !  Where could there
be found another man who would dare thus to  express
himself?   In what other place than Graefenberg would
there exist  a public who, instead of perceiving in such
an answer the  proof  of the grossest ignorance, and of
an unblushing effrontery, would, on the contrary, dis-
cover that  of  a profound wisdom 1   What, then, will
be the end of this direction of people's minds 1   What
will become of hydropathy,  when it shall no longer be
in fashion, and wheh  time has torn off  the  tinsel with 
28
HYDROPATHY.
 which it has been covered 1   These questions present
 themselves spontaneously, when on casting an  eye over
 the history of medicine, we see that so many systems
 which have enjoyed  so  great a  degree of fame, are
 fallen into complete  oblivion.   It  is a bad  sign for
 hydropathy, that it counts at the present time among its
 most  zealous advocates, people who but  lately spoke
 with enthusiasm in favour of homoeopathy.  Precisely,
 because its value has  been exaggerated, it will not be
 able to avoid a reverse of fortune."*
   Dr. Schedel also mentions cases of intermittent fever
 which had been long (two months) under treatment by
 the cold water, and one case where the patient became
 tired of the treatment and had  recourse to  quinine,
 which soon effected a cure.  He  likewise refers to
 cases of chronic  rheumatism and analogous affections,
 where the  treatment  was not attended with  success,
 though, according to the hydropathists, these complaints
 are always cured.  One patient had been under treat-
 ment for chronic lumbago for several months in the
 establishment,  and was not cured ; and  Dr.  Schedel
 says that similar instances are not uncommon.
   The Italians (as well as the English) have a proverb,
 "Ogni medaglio ha il suo riverso ;" and on viewing the
 reverse side, as regards the cold water cure, from what
 has preceded, it will be easy to perceive  that  the me-
 thod is not so generally successful, and that some  of
 the cases have a fatal termination, even while under the
treatment, or within  a short time afterwards.   Some of
the exclusive advocates of the method boast of the small
  * .Exposition des Methodes Hydriatrkiues,  par  Ehrciiber-- et
Heidenbain, Docteurs en Medecine, Paris.        ^"iciiDeig et 
HYDROPATHY.
29
number of deaths which have occurred in the establish-
ments where  it is  practised,  as  compared with those
which take place where  a purely medicinal treatment
is pursued; but the comparison is not a fair one, inas-
much  as the  number of those who would leave their
homes, when in a state of health  attended with danger,
to resort to a water cure establishment, must  be ex-
tremely limited.  The great bulk of the cases met with
in these establishments is composed of persons  labour-
ing under various derangements of the health unattend-
ed with danger, which is most to be apprehended from
the imprudent use  of the remedy from which they seek
restoration.   " Of the patients who resort to Malvern,"
says Dr. Wilson in his work,* " for the  treatment by
water, air, exercise, and  diet, seven out  of ten lahour
under the interruption of more or fewer of the organs
which minister to  the digestion of food ;"t and in fact
the same may be said of a large proportion of those fre-
quenting the  different  baths in the summer  season,
where, out of a large proportion of invalids, the mor-
tality is extremely  small on the spot, though many may
subsequently  find their  sufferings aggravated, or have
their lives shortened, by an improper use of the waters,
   Hence it will be perceived that much discrimination
is required as to the cases in which the water cure is
likely to produce benefit, or to merit a preference over

   " The Dangers of the Cold Water Cure.
   t " Let me relieve your mind," says  the writer of a letter to Dr.
Busbnan, " of the idea that a water establishment looks like an
infirmary, and presents at every turn disagreeable pictures of ill
health.  The fact is just the reverse ; the patients generally seem
in good health, and are so for all social purposes ; the majority have
only some trivial dilapidation of the system, indigestion, nerves,
gout." 
I
30                  HYDROPATHY.

other means of treatment.  An unbiassed opinion can
only be formed on this point after  minute inquiry into
all  the  circumstances  and peculiarities  of individual
cases; and  those persons would often find themselves
grievously mistaken, who, from hearing the account of
cases of gout, rheumatism, or any other disease being
cured by this or any other exclusive  method, were to
infer that it is necessarily suited to all or even to the
majority of  cases of those diseases, which cannot thus
be  considered in the abstract, but each  case  must be
examined separately in order  to modify and adapt the
treatment to it according to the varying circumstances
and peculiarities.   It  is  true, that as there  may  be
several roads leading to one place, so also in medicine,
the same disease may frequently be cured by or sub-
side under different modes of treatment,  and it conse-
quently behoves both the practitioner and the patient
to select the one which is attended with the  smallest
amount of positive  inconvenience, and which requires
the least time.  Now the cold water  treatment is not
only a very unpleasant process, but a long course is in
most instances insisted on by those who practise it, and
a patient would not have much reason to congratulate
himself upon his relief from an ailment, by a four, six,
or eight months' residence at a water cure establish-
ment, when by  medical treatment, or by a  properly
directed course of mineral waters, he  might have been
cured in a much more agreeable manner and in half
the time.*  I do not say that this is generally the case,
Jh2' S?hede;.says: "Four or five months i. considered by the
enthusiasts partizans of hydropathy as a short time of treatment,"
to I?1""  t"y Bl8° 83y8'  f constantly have patients applying to me
to whom I say, you would  recover by retiring to a flm-hou™ 
HYDROPATHY.
31
"but it is not unfrequently so ; and what I am desirous
of advocating is, the necessity of a proper discrimina-
tion by unprejudiced  practitioners, in the selection of
the cases to which different means of treatment may be
applicable with the greatest  amount of benefit to  pa-
tients.  I have, in the volume to which this  account
formed the appendix,  endeavoured to show that mine-
ral waters, which have no ephemeral reputation,  but
which have  been used in  all ages,  and appear to be
specially  bestowed upon man  as  a means of  relief
from a large proportion of the diseases to which he is
subject, present the most natural, efficient, and agree-
able mode of treating the majority of chronic diseases.
A foreign author  observes upon  this point: " The  evi-
dence of antiquity with regard to the efficacy of mine-
ral waters, the experience of centuries which confirms
this efficacy,  the  universal favour in which  they  are
held  among  all civilized  people notwithstanding  the
difference of  medical  theories, sufficiently demonstrate
that  they are of  all remedies those  of  which the
reputation  is the  most  justly established.  Nature
bestows these  remedies liberally  upon  us in order
to invite  us  to have   recourse  to   them in  our  dis-
eases ; she has consulted, as much  as  possible,  our
delicacy, our taste; she  has tempered the  virtues  and
the power of the  waters, and has adapted them to dif-
ferent temperaments. We  obtain  from plants   and
minerals many medicaments, but they almost all require
bavin-* care of your diet, rising early, taking appropriate exercise,
hreathin<* pure air, &c.;  and this would be required to be con-
tinued for eighteen or twenty-four months.  What the water treat-
ment can do for you is to curtail that period by one half or two-
thirds, and so it is in  these -slighter cases," 
32
HYDROPATHY.
 certain pharmaceutical preparations ;  whereas mineral
 waters are always naturally at our disposal ;  they con-
 tain sulphur, carbonic acid, and neutral salts, which are
 frequently  employed in  the  practice  of medicine.
 Why, when found in nature's laboratory, should these
 substances not have an equal  degree of power as when
 taken from that  of the apothecary 1  Most mineral
 waters are not harmless; they cannot be used with im-
 punity in cases where they are counter-indicated, and
 every year there  are  persons who become the victims
 of their imprudence."*
   These  statements  are further corroborated by the
 progress  of chemistry,  which  has demonstrated the
 direct action of solutions of salts and  other substances
 contained in mineral waters, in altering and modifying
 the condition of the blood, in which similar substances
 are also contained, and of the secretions, as well as upon
 the  nervous system,  which point  I  have  more fully
 treated of in my  works on the German  and English
 mineral springs; but as  it may perhaps  be considered
 that,-  having directed  much of my attention  to  these
 remedial  means I might be  prejudiced on this point,
 I will quote the author  of the work  to  which I have
 already referred.  " The medical  treatment which ap-
 proaches  nearest  to  hydropathy  is doubtless that  of
 mineral waters.  The  analogy can, however,  only be
 established  between  these  means and  a  moderated
hydropathic treatment, when the cutaneous stimulation
is maintained within just limits, and that of the differ-
ent secreting organs is not too active, though sufficient
to eliminate from the economy and  by the natural
       * Patissier, Manuel des Eaux Minerales, Paris. 
HYDROPATHY.
33
means, the nescio quid, the presence of which interrupts
the harmony of the functions.  That an actual elimina-
tion is sometimes established there can be no  doubt,
8i»ce I  have  seen in  gouty patients  very  abundant
chalky matter come out of the abscess.  But between
an  elimination of this nature, obtained by means of a
very  painful suppurative inflammation, and the  mild
and,  so  to say, physiological elimination directed to-
wards the natural emunctories by the use of  certain
mineral  waters, my choice would not be  doubtful.
   " The duration of the cold water treatment often re-
quires several years in order to procure a result which
would be obtained by mineral waters in a much shorter
time, and certainly in a much more agreeable manner
for  the  patient.   But, besides the length of treatment
which tires out  the  patience, there exists a very posi-
tive cause of disgust, which leads  many to  renounce
hydropathy, viz., that they often  find  their complaints
 become aggravated during a tolerably  long period.
   " Most  of  the chronic affections which  hydropathy
 professes to cure may be treated by appropriate mine-
 ral water, and others by sea-baths.   Not only can cold
 water not  be made  to  supersede the  use of all other
 remedies, but its employment must often be superseded
 by warm water."
 -  Again—" This identity  of  the  action  of  mineral
 waters  and  of  hydropathy, is  only apparent, for  the
 effect of mineral waters is generally less violent, milder,
 and less  disagreeable.  They act more especially by
  exciting the functional  activity of the  secreting organs,
  and not, like hydropathy, by  irritating and inflaming
  the skin and cellular texture-, so as sympathetically to
               b2 
34
HYDROPATHY.
 provoke the action of the abdominal viscera.  Hydro-
 pathy should be the less preferred to mineral waters,
 inasmuch as there are numerous well ascertained facts
 where water employed at an elevated temperature has
 been followed by much more advantageous effects than
 are obtainable from cold or tepid water."
   M. Anglada says, " It is  known that the continued
 use of alkalis weakens, in  a remarkable  manner, the
 plastic force of  the blood, lessens the tendency to co-
 agulation, and forms a less consistent clot.  Must not
 this induce relaxation of the system, allay irritation, and
 have  a sedative action upon certain organs, when over-
 stimulated,—and ought they  not consequently to be
 employed in numerous cases 1   The free use of alkalis
 is said to produce too great  a thinness of the  blood and
 disorder of  digestion.   This may be the case in some
 instances, but not generally, especially when they are
 required by disordered  conditions,  as  when an  acid
 diathesis prevails.  At Vichy, large quantities of alka-
 line water are taken daily in cases of gout and stone."
   A German author observes, upon the same point:
 " The neutral salts soluble in water which are found in
 the body, cause expansion to a considerable extent of
 certain organic substances, and on the other hand, con-
 tract or draw others together.  They have the property
 of dissolving some, of maintaining them fluid, and of
 modifying the combinations of  others  among  them-
 selves.  The  salts of  the blood  are the  only  active
 constitutents which  maintain  the   albumen—which
of itself  is  insoluble  in  water—in a state  of  solu-
tion, and this two-fold combination  is again the only
 medium  of  dissolving  fatty  and  other insoluble  sub- 
HYDROPATHY.                  35
Btances, and of carrying them along with it into the cir-
culation."
  " If we apply these  facts to  therapeutical and phar-
maceutical principles, the conclusion is readily deduci-
ble, that the quantity and  quality of saline combina-
tions, especially as they occur in mineral waters, exert
the most  marked  influence upon  the qualities and
fluidity of the blood, its physical  and chemical nature,
as well as upon its circulating,  secreting, and excreting
powers."   (Schwartze.  Heilguellenlehre.)
  This is  a fact which common sense would lead any
one to expect, and is daily evidenced by experience in
pathological states.  In cases of long-standing gout and
rheumatism,  for instance, I have had numerous oppor-
tunities of witnessing the  effects of baths of thermal
waters, in producing a  cure  in  some instances,—in
others, a long cessation from the attacks, after the em-
ployment of them for a  few weeks.  Having already
referred to these instances  in  my work on the " Baths
of Germany," I need not do more than allude to them
here  as  contrasting with the time required under the
cold water treatment, respecting which part of the sub-
ject I will again  adduce the  opinion  of  an impartial
observer:—" The ordinary period of the hydropathic
treatment  of chronic  gout  is  very often more  than a
year.  Patients subjected  to  the treatment are by no
means to  be considered freed from  the  disease—the
cases of relapse in  patients who had  resided long  at
 Graefenberg are numerous, and are fully verified. The
 enthusiastic  partisans  of hydropathy endeavour to ex-
 plain  this fact, which  they  cannot  deny, by saying
 that the treatment was too  short, and thus prolong their
 delusions." 
36
HYDROPATHY.
  " Experience  proves that, on  the contrary, water at
an elevated temperature  succeeds in  cases where cold
water has completely failed.   Besides,  the numerous
cures of chronic rheumatism which we see effected by
the thermal waters of Neris, Mont D'or, Baden, Wis-
baden, Carlsbad, and the sulphurous springs of the Py-
rennees, sufficiently attest the efficacy of these means
under similar circumstances."
  " It must  not be  forgotten  that  these waters  are
remedies composed by the mysterious hand of nature,
in which are often combined the advantages of hydro-
pathy and the power of medicaments  of which the com-
binations escape us."*
  Dr. Schedel mentions the case of  one youngish pa-
tient who was two years and two months at Graefen-
berg.  Indeed, it is scarcely to be expected that in the
great majority of instances, the excitation of the surface
by sweating and the drinking of cold water eould pro-
duce those  alterations which tend to cure and to pre-
vent the recurrence of the disease, so speedily or effi-
ciently as the  absorption  in a mineralised  thermal
water.  , . . Baths of mineral water have  a twofold
action.   In  the first  place, from the prolonged  and
repeated contact  of  warm  water impregnated  with
saline and gaseous substances, the texture of  the  skin
is softened, the activity of its capillary circulation is in-
creased, as well as that  of its secretions, perspiration
being not unfrequently produced ; and, consequently,
the blood is drawn in greater quantity from  internal
parts, thus  relieving states  of visceral  congestion.
When  tepid they, have also a sedative  action  on  the
                   De L'Hydrotherapie. 
HYDROPATHY.                  37
nervous system, the pulse becomes slower while the
person is in the bath, and a tendency to sleep frequent-
ly supervenes.  These effects, though in a less degree,
are also produced  by bathing  in warm  water,  but a
prolonged  course  of  bathing  in  warm water  would
greatly relax and  debilitate, whereas when baths  of
mineral  waters  agree,  persons feel  refreshed  and
strengthened by their use.   The second and more im-
portant operation of baths of mineral water takes place
by means of the absorption of a portion of the water
which becomes mixed with the blood, and thus has a
material effect  in  altering  the  quality of this fluid and
of the secretions.   It  has been proved by the experi-
ments of M. d'Arcy and others, that a single  bath of
the Vichy water  suffices to render the urine alkaline.
The tonic effects which result from baths of chalybeate
water are manifested  in many  instances where persons
are unable  to take the water.
   "Mineral waters," says Dr. Kreysig, "become mixed
 with the mass of humours, produce in them a specific
action, and leave  the body in a modified  condition :
they often produce effects independently of any increase
 of secretion.  Such are chalybeate waters, but in gene-
 ral an increase  in the intestinal  canal  or cutaneous
 secretions  accompanies their  action.  We  should be,
 however, greatly in error,  if these  secretions  were to
 be considered  critical in all cases, and as the sole and
 even the principal effect of the waters, for they are fre-
 quently of very subordinate importance; they constitute
 the most  superficial, though  the  most apparent  and
 quickest effect.   The Carlsbad waters very frequently
 cure the most obstinate  swellings of the glands and of
 the viscera, without any notable evacuations. 
33
HYDROPATHY.
   Mineral waters, however, like other remedies, are
liable to failure, and in some cases it would be advisa-
ble to recommend the cold water cure  in-preference;
though  these cases must always form the exceptions to
the general rule.  A frequent reason of the non-succesa
of a course of mineral waters is, that patients either do
not follow the regimen which is so powerful an acces-
sory to  their efficacy, or, that  on finding  a  degree of
amelioration, they discontinue  their employment too
soon; or else, after the course is  terminated,  resume
those habits of life which, perhaps, tended to induce the
complaint.  To the same causes are doubtless attribut-
able many of the relapses under the-cold water  cure.
  That  hydropathy has been in many instances prac-
tised by incompetent persons,  by whom  abuses were
perpetrated, is  apparent from numerous failures,  and
the fatal results which have  been  brought before the
public  in  the  form  of  judicial inquiry.  The chief
dangers consist in the too perturbatory action, as in the
forced sweating, and douches—in the undue excitation
of the skin producing numerous and painful boils—and
in the treatment being too prolonged, a degree of col-
lapse sometimes succeeding the stimulation.
  In some persons,  especially  those of advanced life
and of feeble re-active powers, the blood becomes im-
poverished from this cause ; and Dr.  Schedel observes,
that " livid eruptions often show themselves in persons
of a certain age, presenting  evidently the character of
local scurvy."   These results are, however, it is to be
hoped, less frequent at the present day, when  milder
measures have in great measure superseded the more
energetic treatment. 
HYDROPATHY.
39
  Another source of danger which has been ascribed
to hydropathy  is the  occurrence of  insanity.  Dr.
Schedel states, that in the spring preceding his arrival
two  females  had  become  insane  at Graefenberg.  A
Mr. S. and his wife, both great partisans of hydropathy,
informed  him that they had visited an asylum some
leagues distant from the establishment, the director of
which told them that he had several patients  in conse-
quence of the hydropathic  treatment.  He also men-
tions the  case of  Baron S., attached  to the person of
the King  of Hanover, who solicited leave of absence to
undergo a course of the cold water system,  on which
the  king  cautioned him, as several persons  who had
undergone this  treatment  had  become insane.  The
baron, however, went;  during the course he  had seve-
ral times an eruption of boils, and some time after his
return actually became insane.
   This result, however, like some  of those above men-
tioned, would only be likely to arise from the abuse of
the  system, and not  from  its moderate use, in cases
where it is indicated, according to the opinion of prac-
titioners not too prejudiced in its favour.
   The position of a water cure establishment  is a mat-
ter of great  importance as regards the results of the
treatment. It should be in an undulating or hilly coun-
try, and an agreeable locality,  well wooded and sup-
plied with shade, so as  to present inducements to its
inmates for walking exercise,  without the monotony of
a plain and uninteresting country; the water should be
of the purest kind, and the supply abundant.   As there
are  now several  of these establishments in  England,
those persons to whom the water cure is recommended, 
40
NOTES.
or who may be  disposed to make trial of it  on their
own responsibility, need not undertake a long  journey
to Silesia or other parts of the continent.  Malvern is,
oerhaps, the best position  in  England for an establish-
ment of this kind; and there  are now two, under Drs.
Wilson and Gully, who have had extensive experience
of treatment.  Dr. Johnstone has also an establishment
near Leamington.  The great error, however,  to  be
guarded against, as respects the practitioners of this or
any other exclusive method, is the too  indiscriminate
applicability to which they are disposed, and the con-
sequent  depreciation of  other modes  of treatment,
which  must end, as indeed  it has done to a certain ex-
tent in Germany, in causing hydropathy to fall alto-
gether into discredit, unless the practice be restricted
within just limits.
                 NOTES
                        OF

  GERMAN ESTABLISHMENTS  MOST ACCESSIBLE TO
                ENGLISH INVALIDS.

  Rolandseck, one of the most agreeable positions on
the Rhine, a short drive from Bonn, near the ruins of
Godesberg and  the  Drachenfels,  and  opposite  the
island  of Nonnenwerth. « The house, which  is sur-
rounded by a large garden laid out  in parterres, exten-
sive walks, leading through luxuriant  meadows and
wooded dells, is well sheltered on the north of the rock 
NOTES.                    41
of Rolandseck, which towers above it.  The establish-
ment consists of three houses, and will at  present  ac-
commodate about fifty patients." . The accommodation
is  good—a well-selected library, music-room, bowling
green, &c.  There is a full  complement of baths of
every description, one four and a-half feet  deep and
eighty feet in  circumference;  one of the springs by
which  it is supplied, Rolandsquelle, has for centuries
been  celebrated for its salubrity.  The diet is said to
be good.   The resident physician speaks English*
   Laubach, also on the Rhine, within half an hour's
walk from Coblentz, amidst very pleasing scenery, and
near the restored Castle of Stolzenfels and the ruins of
Lahnstein, on  the opposite bank, and overlooking  the
mouth of the fcahn.   Ems may be reached in about an
hour  and  a half.   " The accommodation consists of
three large buildings, containing upwards of sixty apart-
ments, and a  spacious apartment on  the  ground-floor
for exercise in hot  weather,  billiard-room,  bowling-
green, gymnastic  apparatus,  and reading-room.  The
stream termed Fons Carus has  long  been celebrated.
The physician  speaks English."
   Weilbach, about equi-distant from Wiesbaden, May-
ence, and   Frankfort, possessing a  cold  sulphurous
spring, described in the " Baths of Germany."   Its po-
sition for a water  cure establishment  is good ; the air
in summer light and bracing.  The baths  are well ap-
pointed, and  there  is the addition of steam-sweating
baths.  Dr. H. Mayo now resides at Weilbach, and last
year published a brochure on the cold water cure.
   Liebenstein, one of the most frequented cold water
                * Dr. Bushnan's account. 
42
NOTTS.
establishments,  is  considered one of  the  healthiest
places in Germany; protected from north and easterly
winds, while its well-wooded mountains and rich grassy
valleys make it second to none in pleasing scenes, and
associations. The establishment (formerly appropriated
to visitors to the mineral springs, which have of late
fallen into disrepute,) contains, besides the saloon  and
lesser public rooms, seventy bed-rooms in the central
portion, and thirty in each wing.   The  baths  are well
arranged, and attendance good.  " No bath  in  Ger-
many is  so  agreeably situate, in  the midst of a  park
twelve miles in  circumference,  commanding fine  and
varied views of  the Thuringian  forest, and stretching
over hill,  and dale, and mountain."
   The Queen Dowager occasionally visits' Liebenstein,
which is  also an  agreeable summer residence,  possess-
ing resources for the recreation of persons in health. 
HOMOEOPATHY.
    " Quand l'absurde est outr£, on lui fait trop d'honneur,
     De vouloir, per raison, combattre son erreur."
                                         La Fontaine.

   This doctrine was first promulgated about forty years
ago, though it did not attract much attention till of late
years.   It originated with Dr.  Hahnemann, a native of
Saxony, who, after  having resided in various parts  of
Germany, failing, it would appear, to succeed in prac-
tice, at length took  up his abode in Leipsic, and insti-
tuted experiments on the action of medicinal substances
upon himself and  others*   Having, in 1790,  taken
some bark, which produced, as he  states, paroxysms of
intermittent fever, he was struck with the circumstance
that the  substance  employed for the cure of intermit-
tents, should occasion a similar disease in a healthy per-
son.  This led to the inference that substances which
produce certain symptoms in  healthy individuals,  can
remove those symptoms when induced by other causes;
  * " About the year 1800, Hahnemann advertised a new salt, of
which he claimed the discovery, and which he sold at the modest
price of a louis oVor per ounce.  The Society for the  Promotion of
Natural Sciences, desirous of becoming acquainted with this new
substance, had it analysed by some  of the most experienced che-
mists, who pronounced it to be nothing but common borax.  He
shortly afterwards advertised ' an infallible preventive of scarlet le-
ver:' but being disappointed by its sale, he afterwards confessed it
to be nothing but a few grains of extract of Belladonna dissolved in
water."—Remarks on the Abracadebra of the nineteenth  century,
by Dr. Leo Wolf. 
44
HOMOEOPATHY.
 hence a fundamental point of the doctrine, that diseases
 are cured only by medicines which have the power of
 causing similar diseases  in  healthy persons :  Similia
 similibus curenter.
   Homceopathists consequently do not consider a know-
 ledge of anatomy, physiology, or pathology,  as contri-
 buting to the cure of disease, but restrict themselves to
 noting the different symptoms,  and to ascertaining  the
 appropriate  remedy,  without regard  to  the  organic
 changes, or other circumstances, by which the symp-
 toms are caused, or whether they affect the nervous,
 vascular, or other systems.  For example, in strictly fol-
 lowing the rules of homoeopathy, if a person have head-
 ache, whether arising from exhaustion, inflammation, or
 stomach derangement, the same remedy should be had
 recourse to, and that remedy must be a substance  ca-
 pable of causing headache in a healthy individual.
   Medical doctrines are  divided by Hahnemann into
 the allopathic, or method in general use, of curing  di-
 seases by  remedies of an opposite  nature—contraria
 contrariis*—the  antipathic,  or palliative method, and
 the homoeopathic, the only true method ; the principles
 of which are contained in his  Organon, ou Exposition
 de la Doctrine Medicate  Homoeopathique.   This work
 contains an abundance of absurd reasoning,  of extra-
vagant and unfounded assertions; of some truisms, from
 which erroneous conclusions are drawn ; of exceptions
to general principles, and isolated examples, extracted
from various works, and adduced as the principles them-
  * This was the doctrine of Galen, and is the only true doctrine
It is scriptural also; the Lord declares to the Pharisees that "  Sa-
tan cannot cast  out Satan;" i. e. like does not cure like, but that
he cast out devils by their opposite, viz. the "finger of God."—An 
HOMOEOPATHY.
45
selves, in order to corroborate the  positions laid down
by the author.  Thus, to prove that many of the cures
hitherto effected, have been so by  the chance employ-
ment of homoeopathic  means,  several instances are
brought forward, among which are, that rose-water cures
opthalmy, only because it has the power of causing a
kind of opthalmy.  In like manner bark  cures inter-
mittents, because it occasions these diseases ; ipecacu-
anha arrests fluxions of blood, only because it possesses
the faculty of exciting haemorrhage ; generous wines,
in small doses, cure homoeopathically inflammatory fe-
ver ;  hyoscyamus could not  cure spasms resembling
epilepsy, if it had  not the  power of exciting convul-
sions ; the same  remedy could not have cured a case of
mania from jealousy, if it did not occasion  mania and
jealousy in healthy individuals.
   Again, the popular customs  of using snow to frost-
bitten parts, of putting a scalded band near the fire,
 are adduced to  prove the  homoeopathic nature of the
 remedies to these accidents ; vaccine is considered to
 act  homoeopathically in  preventing  small-pox,  &c.
 These examples will suffice to  show, that the style of
 argument adopted is opposed to established truths ; for
 who ever heard  of  rose-water causing  opthalmy, of
 bark causing intermittents, of ipecacuanha exciting he-
 morrhage, or being employed to arrest it, of generous
 wines curing inflammatory fever, of hyoscyamus deter-
 mining convulsions, mania, and jealousy'?  If snow  is '
 used to frost-bitten parts, it is used with friction, in or-
 der, as is well known, to bring the parts  gradually to
 their natural state ; whereas, if used on  homoeopathic
 principles, it would  be  kept constantly  applied; and, 
46
HOMOEOPATHY.
as may be imagined, with a certainty of aggravating
the evil. So also with respect to the application of heat
to scalded parts ; and to prove  vaccine a homoeopathic
agent, it should be shown that it has the power to cure
small-pox when  already  existing; which indeed it is
asserted it would  do, were  it  not surpassed  by  the
small-pox in intensity.
   Medicines, then, are not considered by the homoeo-
pathists as direct remedies, but to act  by giving rise to
morbid symptoms,  surpassing in intensity those of  the
disease against which they are employed, on the prin-
ciple that two similar  diseases  cannot co-exist in  the
same  individual:   the original disease consequently
yields, being overpowered by the artificial disease caus-
ed by the remedies: and this, on the discontinuance of
the medicines, is in its turn speedily  overcome by  the
powers of the constitution.
   This proposition also contradicts itself,  for, as Dr.
Wolf observes, " How can it be reconciled with com-
mon sense, that the vital powers are too weak and  in-
sufficient to remove any natural disease or its symptoms,
be they ever so triflng, without  the aid of a homoeopa-
thic drug, but are nevertheless powerful enough to  re-
move the drug-sickness which is left  after the natural
disease is extinguished 1  Can any one comprehend that
a power should be capable of overcoming a large ob-
stacle,  and should be incapable of removing at the same
time a similar and  comparatively much  smaller one 1"
  The particular symptoms to which each  medicinal
substance gives rise, and against which it is to be em-
ployed, are ascertained by experiments made by the ho-
moeopathist upon himself or other healthy persons. 
HOMOEOPATHY.
47
  But it must not be supposed that these surprising ef-
fects are produced by the drachm, or grain doses em-
ployed by ordinary practitioners.   According to Hah-
nemann, the effects of medicinal  substances are  two-
fold, viz. primitive, as  the violent action  produced by
large quantities of certain  drugs, purgation, sweating,
&c.;  and secondary, or homoeopathic, in which  the ac-
tion is determined towards the  diseased part; the ac-
tive properties becoming more developed in proportion
to the minuteness of the dose :  in  fact, homoeopathists
are cautioned  against too minute a .subdivision of the
medicine, lest  it  should become so energetic as to give
rise to  dangerous  symptoms.   I  cannot,  however,  do
better than extract one or two passages from the " Ex-
position," in order to illustrate  this position.
   " Besides, the homoeopathic medicament acquires, at
each division or  dilution,  an extraordinary degree  of
 power  by the  friction or the shock imparted to it, as a
means  of developing the,inherent virtues of medicines
unknown before me, and which is so energetic, that  of
 late, experience has obliged me  to shake  the mixture
 only twice, whereas formerly  I prescribed ten shakes
 to each dilution."
    " Gold, silver, platina, charcoal, are without action on
 man in their ordinary state,,but from the  continued tri-
 turation of a grain of gold with  a hundred grains of
 powdered sugar, there  results a preparation which  has
 already great medicinal virtues.  If a grain of this mix-
 ture be  taken  and triturated with  another hundred
 grains of sugar, and if this process be continued until
 each grain of the ultimate preparation contains a qua-
 drillionth part of the grain of gold, we shall then have 
48
HOMOEOPATHY.
a medicament in which the medicinal virtue of the gold
is so much developed, that it will  be sufficient to take
a grain, place it in a phial, and cause the^ air from it to
be  breathed for a few instants by a melancholy indi-
vidual, in whom the disgust of life is carried so far as
to incline to suicide, in order that, an hour afterwards,
this person be delivered from  his evil  demon, and  re-
stored to his taste for life."*
  Hahnemann  also  says, speaking of silex  or flint,
" This earth being reduced to a millionth  degree of at-
tenuation, a grain of the powder is to be reduced to the
decillionth dilution.   In fact, dilutions to the billionth or
trillionth  degree produce effects much too violent; that
of the sextillionth degree may be commenced with, but
this only  suits robust persons;  in irritable subjects it is
prudent to use only the decillionth dilution."
  Of kitchen salt, he says, " A grain of salt is reduced
to the millionth degree of attenuation ; this powder is
to be dissolved  in diluted alcohol, and the  division ex-
tended to the decillionth  degree : carried to this degree
of dilution,  sea-salt is a powerfnl and heroical medica-
ment, which can only be  administered to patients with
the greatest caution."   These  instances will, perhaps,
suffice to  exemplify the doctrine.
  "We find homoeopathy," says Dr. Forbes, "main-
taining that substances utterly powerless in a state  of
sensible bulk, can acquire  astonishing  power by mere
subdivision.  Can any proposition be submitted to hu-
man apprehension that seems more  utterly improbable,
  *  Dr. Balfour, in his report of homcEopathy in Vienna,  (in  the
British and Foreign Medical Review, October,  1846,) says, ■' One
practitioner often  contents himself with allowing tiie patient to
smell the remedy,  waiting patiently for some weeks or so for the
completion of the cure, not even permiting a second smell!" 
HOMOEOPATHY.
49
more ludicrously absurd ]   To be called on to believe
that the decillionth of a grain of charcoal or oyster-shell
is capable of producing hundreds of the most formida-
ble symptoms—of curing,  as by magic, the most invete-
rate diseases, while we might take ounces of the very
same substance with  no other inconvenience than from
its bulk, seems so gratuitous an outrage to human rea-
son, that the mind instinctively revolts from the propo-
sition."— Homoeopathy, Allopathy, and  Young Physic.
   The action of  imponderable agents,  as light, electri-
city, &c, has been adduced by some homceopathists to
prove the action of infinitesimal-doses of medicines ;
but it is evident  that no similar comparison can be insti-
tuted ;  and in order  for the analogy to be maintained,
it should have been proved by the homceopathists, that
persons can see better in proportion to the smaller quan-
tity of light, and that they are more affected by heat or
electricity  in proportion to the smallness of the quantity
of these agents applied.
   Hahnemann says,  " Let mathematicians explain to
them how true it is, that if a substance be divided into
any number of parts, its  smallest particle  will always
contain something of this substance,  and therefore  it
can never become a nonentity."  On  which Dr. Wolf
remarks, " If  this be admitted in a strict sense, does it
follow, therefore, that the effect of these  substances on
the human body in any imaginable small quantity, must
not only be perceptible, but still greater  than when in
quantities many million times larger '?   The thick fibres
of a piece of meat are divisible into those which are so
small as to be perceptible only by the  best microscope.
 Does it follow from  this,  that the decoction of such a
               c 
50
HOMOEOPATHY.
 microscopic fibre will afford the patient as much or even
 more nourishment after a  homoeopathic manipulation,
 than a strong broth  made allopathically from some
 pounds of meat ]
   Homoeopathic remedies  may therefore be considered
 analogous with the medecine expectante,  with this differ-
 ence, that in the latter the patients know that the phy-
 sician employs no remedies, but trusts entirely to the
 efforts of nature for their cure ; whereas the imagination
 of patients treated homoeopathically is acted upon,  from
 their being led to consider  the remedies employed to
 be of an energetic nature, as will be seen in the sequel.
 The cures so pompously announced by the homceopa-
 thists, will in almost all cases be found to be simple re-
 coveries by the efforts of nature after a longer or short-
 er period,  as in the following, published by a homoeopa-
 thic  physician.
   " Madame C. V., aged thirty-six, affected with chronic
 gastro-enteritis, produced by grief and abuse of coffee:
 she  had been treated by several physicians,  and had
 been kept  for three months on  a  milk diet; she had
 headaches, and menstruation had been suppressed se-
 ven months ; she was prescribed pulsatilla, nux vomica,
 &c.;  menstruation appeared in twenty-seven days, and
 in three months she was cured."
  " Mademoiselle R. did not menstruate at her accus-
tomed period, and was affected with a catarrh ; she was
prescribed pulsatilla;  menstruation  occurred in the fol-
lowing month, and the catarrh was cured without  any
other medicament.
   On looking over  the history of several of the cases
treated  at the London Homoeopathic Institution, which 
HOMOEOPATHY.
51
were published in numbers, I find what might be anti-
cipated, that they are very analogous to the above, viz.
the ordinary slighter ailments generally met with in
dispensary practice, which seldom require a long treat-
ment, though most of these cases reported  in the Ho-
moeopathic Annals required two, three, or four months'
attendance, before the patients  were  dismissed ; and
though the  different globules prescribed are  minutely
stated, no mention is made of the attention to diet and
regimen, the necessity of which is doubtless inculcated
upon the patients, thus leaving it to be inferred that the
recoveries take place from the globules—post hoc ergo
propter hoc.   The publication of these brochures, how-
ever, probably answered the  purpose of an  advertise-
ment, for which it  was intended.  The great influence
of the diet is, however, acknowledged  in the  most re-
cent  work on Homoeopathy as follows :—" If the ho-
moeopathic physician possesses even an ordinary amount
of penetration, he will soon perceive that the remedies
which are chcsen, nevertheless fail to effect a  cure, un-
less great care be paid to the hygienic regimen and ex-
ternal means.  The homceopathist must therefore, after
a few years, have his attention almost exclusively directed
to hygiene."—Madden on Homoeopathy, 1846.
   The only division of diseases by Hahnemann is into
 acute and chronic ; of the former,  but little  is said in
the Exposition ;  although they may  arise from exterior
causes, as cold, excesses, &c, yet in many cases they
depend upon a psoric affection, and almost all chronic
diseases originate from sycosis, syphilis, or psora {vulgo,
itch).  This latter, especially, is the cause of innume-
 rable diseases, which great truth it took Hahnemann 
52
HOMOEOPATHY.
 twelve years  to find out.  In mentioning some of the
 evils produced by this miasm, I quote his own  words :
 " This is the only fundamental and exciting cause of all
 the morbid forms, which, under  the names of nervous
 weakness, hysteria, hypochondriasis, mania,  melancho-
 lia, epilepsy, spasms of all kinds, rickets, caries, cancer,
 gout, haemorrhoids, jaundice, dropsy,  amenorrhcea, he-
 moptysis, asthma, and suppuration of  the lungs, sterili-
 ty, deafness,  cataract,  and amaurosis, gravel, palsy,
 pains of all kinds, &C, figure in  pathology as so many
 separate diseases, distinct and independent one from the
 other."
   " The modifications this miasm has  undergone in its
 passage through  millions of human constitutions,  dur-
 ing several hundred generations, explain how it can as-
 sume so many forms."*
   Abstinence from everything of a stimulating nature,
 as condiments, coffee,  &c, is recommended;  even  the
 smelling of delicate perfumes is prohibited, although
 the smoking of tobacco is allowed ; which, considering
 Germany is the country  where homoeopathy originated,
 was an extremely politic measure.
   The absurdity  of a doctrine equally opposed to rea-
 son and every-day experience,  could not fail to be  im-
 mediately  apparent to the medical profession, as  well
 as the injurious effects that might arise from its professors
 being allowed to  practise on the  credulity of the pub-
 lic, a large proportion  of whom is always to be attract-
 ed by novelty, especially if it be  clothed in the garb of
  * It is scarcely necessary to recal to mind, that many  persons
while actually labouring under the itch,  are in robust bodily health'
The homoeopaths of the present day  (particularly the Scotch) do
not, however, adopt this absurd dogma. 
H0MO30PATHY.
53
uintelligibility and mystery.   In order, therefore, to
show the value of the pretensions of homoeopathy, the
experiment was made in Germany, Russia, France, and
Italy, of treating a certain number of patients in public
institutions by homoeopathic means, and an equal num-
ber by the usual methods :  the results are such as might
have been anticipated.
  A German homoeopathist, practising in Russia,  was
invested by the Grand Duke Michael with full powers
to prove, if possible, by a comparison of facts, the ad-
vantages  of homoeopathic  measures over the ordinary
modes of treatment;  and a certain number of patients
in the wards of a military  hospital were entrusted to
his care.  At the expiration of two  months, however,
he was  not permitted to proceed  further; for, on com-
paring results, it was seen that within this period-,""out
of four hundred and fifty-seven patients treated by the
ordinary means, three hundred and sixty-four, or three-
fourths, were cured, and none  died ; whereas, by the
homoeopathic method, tried on one hundred and twenty-
eight patients,  one-half only  were cured, and five had
died.
   In order to  ascertain  and give publicity to the re-
sults, the Russian government caused a certain number
of patients to be treated homoeopathically in  one  hos-
pital, while in another an equal number of patients
were merely  subjected to regulated diet and appro-
priate regimen, without the exhibition of any medicine.
The results were very similar  in both instances, and
the medical council appointed to  superintend the expe-
riments thus  gives its official opinion :
   " The medical council, after having attentively weigh- 
54
HOMOEOPATHY.
 ed the results of the experiments made according to the
 principles  of the medecine expectante, finds  that they
 greatly resemble the latter, and are probably based on-
 ly on the vis medicatrix natures; for the infinitely mi-
 nute doses can produce no effect  on the human body.
 The medical council is therefore of opinion, that the
 homoeopathic practice should be prohibited in sanatory
 establishments  dependent on government, for the fol-
 lowing reasons:
   " 1.  Acute diseases require energetic means of treat-
 ment, which are not to be expected from homoeopathy.
   " 2.  The homoeopathic treatment of external lesions
 and surgical diseases is altogether out of the question.
   " 3.  Some  slight affections get well while under ho-
 moeopathic treatment, but similar  affections disappear
 equally well, without  any medical treatment, by the
 adoption of an appropriate regimen, good air, and  clean-
 liness."
   The homoeopathist who  introduced  the practice at
 Naples, was,  as stated by Dr. Wolf, "an ignorant  Bo-
hemian barber ! who enjoyed the patronage of an Aus-
trian general, to whom he was particularly recommend-
ed by Hahnemann.  The public, as well as some talent-
ed young physicians who adopted homoeopathy, awoke
from their illusive credulity, but not until  the general,
with many other persons of distinguished rank, had
died or were injured by this all-curing art."
  At the time homoeopathy was in vogue  at Naples,  a
commission was appointed, by royal order, to superin-
tend the treatment of a certain number of patients dur-
ing forty days;  the patients were selected  by  the phy-
sicians,  and a separate  ward in the hospital was appro-
priated to them. 
HOMOEOPATHY.
55
  It was first determined by  the  commissioners to as-
certain whether some  of the patients would not get
well  without  the  employment  of any remedy;  ten
were consequently set  apart,  and all  recovered.  One
of them  had a gastric  fever ; the homoeopathic  physi-
cian wished to give him a drop of the tincture of St.
Ignatius's bean, at the twelfth dilution, representing a
quadrillionth part of the original drop.   He protested
against waiting, saying, that the delay might compro-
mise the life of the patient.  The physicians reassured
him ; they reckoned upon a crisis occurring, which ac-
cordingly did  take place in the  night, and the patient
was well in two days.  Had the homoeopathic dose been
taken, the cure would most  assuredly have been attri-
buted to it.
   Several slight affections were treated  homoeopathi-
 cally and recovered, without the commissioners being
 able to ascribe any of the recoveries to  homoeopathy,
 as they would in all probability have recovered as soon
 by simple attention to diet.   A third set of cases of a
 more serious  nature, and requiring the assistance of me-
 dicine, were  also treated by the homoeopathic method,
 which was found altogether powerless,  none  of  them
 obtaining any advantage ; the cases were longer under
 treatment than usual, and several of the patients be-
 came worse, requiring the employment  of ordinary
 measures for their cure.
    In a fourth series of experiments of homoeopathic re-
 medies on healthy persons, no effects resulted from their
  administration.  From these facts,  the  commissioners
  deduced  the following  inferences :  1st, That the  ho-
  moeopathic  treatment produced on  effect; and 2ndly, 
56
HOMOEOPATHY-.
that it had the serious  inconvenience, in several of the
patients, of preventing the employment of remedies by
which they might be cured.
   On account of the statement  of a Dr. Luz, a veteri-
nary surgeon at Leipsic, that he had performed several
surprising cures by tho homoeopathic method on horses
and dogs, trials were instituted on these in the  veteri-
nary school and hospital at Berlin.   The experiments
were conducted with the utmost exactitude, and in the
presence of  many students  and  homceopathists;  and
though the cases  were similar to those  described  by
Dr. Luz, not one was cured, not one confirmed his state-
ments even in the slightest degree.
   The experiments made in Paris to  show how far ho-
moeopathy  had  claims to  public confidence, also  tend
to prove that where any effects  are produced, they are
to be ascribed to the influence of the  imagination.
   First.  Several medical students of thj Hotel Dieu,
chosen by a homoeopathic physician, were subjected to
the homoeopathic regimen, and took at first one,  then
two, then ten, and  at last eighty globules at a dose, of
the most active medicines prepared by the only homoeo-
pathic chemist in Paris.  In not one  instance was the
slightest effect produced.
   Secondly.  A number of pills made with inert  sub-
stances, as flour, gum arabic, and starch, were given to
patients who believed them to be  homoeopathic reme-
dies.   I subjoin two or three of the results obtained.
   Aphonia, of six weeks' duration, cured in a few hours
by starch  pills given  homoeopathically.   A girl, aged
twenty, was admitted  on the  14th January with com-
plete loss of voice, which had existed since the middle 
HOMOEOPATHY.                 5t
of November.  She  had experienced a similar attack
in the preceding year, but had recovered in fifteen days.
Menstruation was  regularly performed.  A few days'
rest, and the usual hospital regimen, produced no effect;
she was consequently placed in the department where
the homoeopathic experiments were made, and was or-
dered two starch pills; the first to  be taken in the pre-
sence of the physician, the next when four hours had
elapsed.  A few minutes after the first  pill  had been
swallowed, the following symptoms manifested them-
selves^-anxiety, pain, and  uneasiness in the region of
the heart and thorax, perspiration,  with heat and erup-
tion on the skin.   The second pill appeared to aggra-
vate these  symptoms,  with the addition of hiccough.
She afterwards fell asleep,  and on awaking,  was  asto-
nished to find she  could talk in a loud tone.   The com-
plaint did not recur,  and she  soon  quitted the hospital.
   A  man,  aged forty, was admitted about  the same
time as the preceding  patient, complaining of sense of
oppression on the chest.  He had experienced an at-
tack of hemoptysis a year before,  and was exceedingly
hypochondriacal.  During the first few days no treat-
ment was adopted, and he  continued in the same state.
Four starch pills, which  he  supposed to  be homoeo-
pathic  remedies,  were  then  prescribed; one to  be
taken regularly every six  hours.   Half an hour after
swallowing each pill, the patient  experienced anxiety,
sense of oppression, spitting of blood.  The pills were
discontinued, and resumed on alternate days during  a
fortnight.  Each time they were taken,  they were fol-
lowed by oppression, headache, acceleration of pulse,
 diuresis, and pains in all the limbs.
              c2 
58
HOMOEOPATHY.
  A girl, aged  twenty-three, labouring under  cough
with hectic  fever, and sleeplessness, was also treated
by these inert pills, which she imagined to be homoeo-
pathic.   Each time after taking a pill, the fever dimi-
nished, the cough was less  fatiguing, and she slept bet-
ter ;  she suffered more when she did not take  it, and
always requested to have her " calming pill."
  The following case occurred to  a physician  at St.
Petersburgh : "  A lady, aged forty-eight, phthisical, had
been treated by  the homoeopathic method during two
years, when I became her physician ; and as my efforts
were unsuccessful, she  requested  me  to treat her
homoeopathically.   I  consented, and gave  her  two
grains of sugar,  assuring her she would experience the
effects  of this powerful  medicine for six days.  The
following day she received me with  an ironical smile,
saying, ' One may easily see, doctor, that .you are not
accustomed  to  handle homoeopathic remedies :  that
which you gave me  was  too energetic; it caused so
much disturbance, that I did not expect to outlive the
night;  however, its action is in the end salutary, for I
have not felt myself so well for a long time as I have
felt to-day.' "
  Thirdly, Two  physicians attached to an hospital ex-
perimented upon the wfrmiers, or male attendants in
their wards.   One  physician desired his infirmiers to
note down every hour the sensations they experienced,
after taking  what they supposed to be a homoeopathic
agent.   They all  experienced various  sensations, of
which the following is a specimen :
  A  young man  in  perfect health took eight pills, con-
taining a minute portion of charcoal, and at the expira- 
HOMOEOPATHY.                 59
 tion of half an hour had noted the following symptoms :
 headache,  confusion, imperfect  vision,  flushing of the
 face.  On repeating the same dose, the symptoms re-
 curred, with violent perspiration.
   Fourthly, The other physician conducted his experi-
 ments differently : he took every morning six homoeo-
 pathic pills, and at the end of  a certain period asked
 his ivfirmiers if they were willing to do  the same ; they
 consented, and did not experience the slightest effect.
   Thus, in the former experiment, the  individuals  ex-
 pecting to experience extraordinary sensations, from
 being required to note them  down, do not fail to feel
 some, as would  be the  case with most persons under
 similar circumstances.  On the  other hand, those who
 saw  no effect  produced on  their superior by the pills,
also take them, and, not expecting any particular sensa-
tions, do not experience any.
   I  might adduce various other examples,  but being
 desirous not to extend this account, I shall content my-
 self with briefly alluding to the experiments of Profes-
sor Andral at the hospital La  Pitie.
   A  hundred and thirty individuals were treated  by
homoeopathic  remedies in the presence of numerous
witnesses,  The  regimen recommended by Hahnemann
was strictly adhered to, and the  prescriptions prepared
by a homoeopathic chemist.  The experiments were of
two kinds ; first, to ascertain whether symptoms can be
produced in  healthy persons by medicines which cure
similar symptoms when   arising from  other  cause
 Bark was one of  the first substances  chosen,  and i
various preparations were taken  by  M. Andral, and  tt
other persons,  at  first  in homoeopathic doses, whic 
GO
HOMOEOPATHY.
produced no effect;  then  in  ordinary  doses,  which
were gradually increased up to from six to twenty-four
grains of sulphate of quinine per day.  None of these
persons experienced the least symptom of an attack of
intermittent  fever \  the only effects  produced by  the
large doses were slight indisposition and headache, in
some whose  stomachs were not so strong as the rest.
  Aconitum, which, according to the homceopathists, is
of superior efficacy to blood-letting  in  febrile diseases,
was tried, and produced no effect.   Sulphur was also
tried by  several persons, without  any eruption  being
produced on the skin.
  Thus the statement that remedies cause diseases resemb-
ling those which they cure, is an assertion utterly ground-
»#
   The second kind of experiments was made to ascer-
tain whether homoeopathic remedies would in any case
affect the progress of disease.
   Several cases  of   intermittent fever  were treated
homoeopathically.  Same got well at the end of a cer-
tain period, which would in  all probability have been
the  case, had no remedies been employed : in  othei>
cases no effect was produced, and, on the usual method
of treatment  being adopted, the patients  got rapidly
well.  Similar results were obtained in treating febrile
diseases and several  chronic complaints, except that in
  * The Israelites, Exodus xii., 8, were commanded to eat their
passover with bitters.  The word Iterbs in the common version of
the Bible, is an interpolation;   The practice of eating these bitters
on such occasions is continued to this  day, affording  an experience
of three thousand and three hundred years.  It is notfovnd that the
healthy Jews are at all made sick at these times, as they should in-
evitably be, were Hahnemann right in his assumption.  Besides
bitters (barks, &c.) have been used time out of mind, as appetizers'
all over the world, with perfect impunity.—Am. Ed. 
HOMOEOPATHY.
61
some cases the patients  got  worse while  under the
homoeopathic system.
  The homceopathists in  Paris having petitioned the
Minister of the Interior to permit  the establishment  of
dispensaries for the treatment of patients by the homoeo-
pathic method, the minister requested the opinion  of
the Academie de Medecine on the subject.  The reply
of that body is made in the following terms :—
     " Monsieur le Ministre,
  " Homoeopathy, which  presents itself to  you at the
present  time  as a novelty, is not a new thing.  For
more than twenty-five years this doctrine has wandered
here  and there ;—first in Germany, then in Prussia,
afterwards in Italy, and now in France; seeking every-
where, though in vain, to introduce itself as a branch
of medicine.
   " The  time  of the Academie has been repeatedly
taken up with the subject, and, moreover, there are but
few of its members who have not sought to ascertain
its basis, and its effects.                     <
   " With us, as elsewhere, homoeopathy has been sub-
jected, in the first place, to logical examination, which
has exhibited in it a formal opposition to the best-esta-
blished truths, a great number of striking contradictions,
and many of those palpable absurdities which inevitably
ruin  all false systems in the opinion of enlightened per-
sons, but which  are not always a sufficient obstacle to
the credulity  of the multitude.
   " With us, as elsewhere, homoeopathy has also been
subjected to the trial of facts, and put to the test of ex-
perience.  Observation,  faithfully  interrogated,   has
furnished the most categorical answers; for if it be  ad- 
62
HOMOEOPATHY.
 mitted that  some examples of recovery have  occurred
 while under the homoeopathic treatment, it has been as-
 certained that  the success is justly attributable to the
 bias of a weak  imagination on the one hand, and to the
 remedial powers of the constitution on the other.  Ob-
 servation has also shown the great danger of homoeo-
 pathy in frequent and serious cases of diseases, where
 the physician may do as much harm, and  cause no less
 injury, by inactive  measures, as  by those  which are
 directly prejudicial.
   " Reason and experience are consequently united to
 repel  a similar doctrine, and counsel that it should be
 left to itself and to its own resources."
   Having heard of  the  existence of a  homoeopathic
 hospital at Leipsic, the head-quarters of the doctrine, I
 had the curiosity to visit it  when in that city, some
 years ago, and was directed to a small house in one of
 the suburbs, with  an  inscription  on the outside denot-
 ing its destination.  I had no difficulty in obtaining ad-
 mission, and was accompanied through the  house by
 the  assistant homceopathist, the principal being in the
 country.
   From what I had  previously heard, I expected to
 see  at least from thirty to forty beds occupied by pa-
 tients,  and was  somewhat surprised to find that  the
 house only contained eight, of which but  one  was oc-
 cupied by a phthisical patient, who had been for  seve-
ral months  without  any  amelioration.  There were,
however, five other patients able  to get about, viz., a
case of chronic swelling"in  the foot;  one  of delirium
tremens, which had also been a long time under treat-
ment by arnica and hyoscyamus, in doses of the deci!- 
HOMOEOPATHY.                63
lionth  part  of a grain, which I  was gravely assured
produced sound sleep;  a young girl, with  no other
complaint than  deranged menstruation, who had also
been some months in the house; a case of necrosis of
the tibia treated by the internal exhibition of homoeo-
pathic remedies ; and a woman with a cutaneous  dis-
ease, of a syphilitic nature, who had been treated with
sulphur, carbon, gold, and other homoeopathic remedies,
since the month of February, but  with little advantage,
as the disease appeared to me likely to be interminable
under a similar  system.
   During my visit two or three out-patients  presented
themselves.  One of these was  a healthy boy, with
tinea capitis,  for which  he had  been taking homoeo-
pathic globules  since February,  the hair having been
allowed  to  grow, and no external application having
been used.   The appearance  of the patient's head did
not afford  any favourable evidence of the good effects
of the treatment, and I should imagine the disease was
much in the same state as when he first applied for re-
lief.
   The house-physician to this  institution having become
 convinced,  after a residence  of several months, of the
 nullity and danger of homoeopathy, gave up the  ap-
 pointment, and  published an exposition of the system
 pursued, with an account of the cases, which clearly
 show  what had long been evident to the bulk of the
 profession and  the public, viz., that the so-called cures
 were  recoveries from ordina/y ailments  by the efforts
 of nature; the cases being frequently a long time under
 treatment, whereas by a  proper  medication  and atten-
 tion  at  the  outset,  they would  probably  have been 
64
HOMOEOPATHY.
cured in a few days ; and that many of the more serious
cases got worse for the want  of efficient treatment.*
When last at Leipsic, I heard that matters were  going
on indifferently with homoeopathy, the hospital having
been turned into a dispensary.
  Most of the homceopathists of the present day have
abandoned some  of the more  absurd  propositions of
Hahnemann as untenable, and it must not be supposed
that they always  adhere in practice  to  the avowed
principles of  their doctrine.  It has not unfrequently
happened, that persons who attributed their recovery
to homoeopathy  were  treated  allopathically without
their being aware of it.  The case of the late Duke di
Cannizaro, shows how little trust is to be placed  in the
practice of homoeopathy.   He  was slightly indisposed,
and  was ordered  some globules, one to be taken at
stated intervals.  Considering,  however, that he  would
not be at home when the time for taking the third dose
arrived, he took three doses at once and did not survive
many hours, the substance being an active poison in a
concentrated state.   In fact, one practitioner in  Leip-
sic, a professed homoeopathist, candidly acknowledged
that he pursued both  plans of treatment, and was ac-
customed to  ask  his patients  by which  method they
would be treated.t  The principles,  however, are the
same, viz., expectation, and the  influencing the patient's
imagination by leading them to suppose that  they are
taking  some  extraordinary  remedies.  In  the  cases
  * Ueber die  Nichtigkeit dec Homceopathie. On the nullity of
Homoeopathy.   Leipsic, 1840.
  t " Many," says Dr. Balfour, in his recent report of homoeopathy
at Vienna, "continued to practise both methods, not eclectically,
but according to the wish of the patient, leaving enquiry to others'
and stumbling blindly on."                                ' 
HOMOEOPATHY.
65
which are noised about and published as recoveries  by
the homoeopathic method, the advantages derived may
be ascribed to the above causes, assisted by a more
strict attention to modes  of living and regimen ; and in
many instances is  only temporary, as in  the  case of a
noble individual labouring under tic, who has been  re-
peatedly said in  the papers  to be cured or greatly  re-
lieved by different methods of treatment, and who, it
appears, subsequently had recourse to the water cure.
It is  in the nature of several complaints,  especially
those of a nervous character, to be better or worse at
different times or seasons, and to offer complete inter-
missions during a longer or  shorter period, especially
when patients can be induced to adopt a regulated diet,
and mode of living; and in these cases the amelioration
is generally ascribed to the remedy which happens to
be employed at the time.  Homoeopathy in fact is now
comparatively little heard of  in most parts of northern
Germany and  in  France, to what it was some years
ago, and only required to be inquired into by the more
enlightened portion of the public, for  the absurdity of
its propositions to  be apparent.  During its whole pro-
gress it was  never sanctioned by  any individual of
scientific eminence, or even who was held in estimation
by the profession ; but has been principally taken  up
as a means of acquiring wealth, or a livelihood, by per-
sons who had never been previously heard of, or who
had  failed to acquire practice  in the usual way,  by
whom every means have been  taken to puff it into
notice, and keep public attention directed to it, such as
the  establishment of dispensaries, the publication of
books,  and of  histories  of  alleged  cures,  addressed 
66
HOMOEOPATHY.
ostensibly to the profession, but which in fact are but a
means of advertising.
  " All  the  results," says a German author, " which
have been obtained by the employment of medicines in
homoeopathic doses, were  founded, without exception,
upon  delusion, and were not in  consequence of these
means.  If any one wishes to convince himself of the
truth  of this, he need only so administer  these doses,
that the persons are not  aware that they have taken
anything, and every physician would then  see as little
effect  from them as I have seen after innumerable ex-
periments.   These  infinitesimal powders, drops,  and
globules, are  in fact nothing more than the modernised
moonstone of the  ancient Phoenicians and  Carthagi-
nians.  At that time, as  at the present  day, faith in
them  must produce a blind confidence, and  if this be
effected, it would  not matter whether they were swal-
lowed, or hung about the neck, or carried in the pocket
as  an amulet,  the effect would  be the  same.   The
worthy  Stieglitz  very  justly observes,  that it does
honour to the condition  of German medicine, that not-
withstanding all the noise and puffing, but very  few
medical men adopted  this system ; and  that many of
the younger  physicians  rather chose to support priva-
tions, than give themselves up to its absurdities;  and
even  some of the  homoeopathic physicians themselves
can scarcely  conceal a feeling of shame, when they find
themselves in the  presence of others who understand
the matter."
   When  homoeopathic  physicians and patients  assert
that they have seen on  themselves and others the most
evident effects from these means, we must  draw our in 
HOMOEOPATHY.
67
ferences from the consideration of the particular pro-
ceeding which is  accustomed to be followed.   Every
change which occurs in the organism after having taken
an homoeopathic dose, would  be considered as the ne-
cessary consequence of it.   Hence, minute attention is
always more or less directed to the  functions of the
body, but this would give rise to a variety of symptoms
even in very healthy persons, who would otherwise
have experienced nothing.  Any one who has a tolera-
bly lively imagination, may make the experiment on
himself.  If I were to tell an excitable patient, he must
attentively observe the pulsation of his heart and arte-
ries, I may reckon to a certainty, that at my next visit
I shall have  to hear an account of the surprising symp-
toms which have been observed, respecting the heart's
action."*
   Alluding  to the different medical theories which at
various times have had their day, and after a longer or
shorter period have sank into oblivion, the same author
 observes : " Each system found its believers and  ad-
 herents, the number  of whom at first greatly increased,
 and then gradually diminished.  The  falling off usually
 took place when the charm of novelty  had subsided.
 In proportion as the system ceased to be new, was the
 belief lessened in its infallibility,  which was generally
 at first loudly cried up by the proposers, and the num-
 ber of fortunate cures decreased in the same  propor-
 tion, until  the whole fabric of the  system was carried
 away in the stream of time, and frequently left behind
 scarcely a trace of it in the history of medicine."
   I will also subjoin  a few apposite remarks made by a
         * Fsychiche Heilmittelehre, von Dr. Braunlich. 
68
HOMOEOPATHY.
correspondent in the Medical Gazette, upon the subject.
  '- The  importance of any pretended remedy for di-
sease, exerts its influence on that great majority of the
public who are necessarily  incapable of judging of me-
dical evidence, because they are ignorant of the extra-
ordinary  workings of the  human mind, which exhibit
themselves to medical men only, not in unhealthy indi-
viduals alone, but often in those who are apparently free
from disease.  Experienced medical men are alone ca-
pable of  ascertaining the existence or non-existence of
disease amongst the variety and complexity  of symp-
toms which distinguish particular affections ;  and  they
alone can say with certainty, whether disease has actu-
ally existed, or if so, whether it is  or is not actually
cured by the remedy alleged to have removed it.   For
there is a strong  inclination in mankind generally, to
assist in propagating an imposition to which they have
themselves yielded, both because it makes them objects
of interest to the public, and because it appears to jus-
tify them in having given it their confidence.
  " Again, there are many cases where  the complaint
has existed only in the imagination of the patient, and
in these it will be no matter of wonder if the homoeo-
pathic globule in aid of said imagination should effect a
cure.  In chronic stomach disorders, also, many patients
have recovered under an homoeopathic doctor, and thus
been the  means of exalting his fame, whereas, it would
be easy to show, that such patients needed only cautious
diet, time, the abandonment of taking too much aperient
medicine, and the observance  of regular rules, to effect
a cure—all of which even an oW-fashioned doctor would,
of course, have directed. 
HOMOEOPATHY.
69
  " A  gentleman  who  had been  out of health some
time, and had paid but little attention to  the direction
of his medical attendant, was advised to consult an ho-
moeopathic physician ;  he did  so, and remained under
his care six weeks, the doctor making his visit as  often
as he pleased: he improved in  health—in  short, was
cured.  ' Now,' exclaimed his friend, ' you  henceforth
stand up in defence of homoeopathy.'  ' Not  at all; I
am more than ever convinced of its fallacy and humbug.
I have followed the  plan of diet, &c, which plan was
often urged upon me by my former medical friend, but
not one of the billionth powders or globules have I ta-
ken.'
  "A  gentleman  had been for some time subject  to
acute inflammation of  the membrana conjunctiva, and
had been attended by a surgeon of great  eminence  in
the metropolis, who  on every occasion  had succeeded
in subduing it.   On  a recurrence of the complaint, by
the judicious advice of friends, he was placed under the
care of an homoeopathic practitioner, when, after being
for six weeks shut up in a dark room, great attention be-
ing paid to his diet and manner  of living,  he was cured
again by the wonderful effects of the homeopathic reme-
dies ! ! !   This, of course, stamped the faith of the fa-
mily, and all became  disciples of Hahnemann.   Some
time after, one of its members was  found in  a fit, and
the doctor was sent for.  What  plan  did  he adopt 1
He belonging to a school which professes to repudiate
blood-letting as pernicious, and  almost certainly fatal,
himself immediately bled her,  and that  not  in an ho-
moeopathic quantity, but largely.  She  continued un-
der his care for a few  days, but  not recovering, she was 
70
HOMOEOPATHY.
by the doctor's own desire sent into the country in this
state, and handed over to her original medical attendant,
who discovered, and was confirmed in his opinion by an
eminent physician, that she had been suffering from epi-
lepsy, arising from the overloaded state of her stomach
and bowels.  The results, of course, effected the moral
cure of the whole family.
   " I give  you now  a  case of the  mischief that may
arise from  adopting  this harmless system.  A lady of
rank had occasional headaches, for which she was ad-
vised to consult an homoeopathic physician.   She had
for many years taken daily aperient medicine, but ne-
vertheless enjoyed a very good state of health.   Her
old medical attendants were summoned to her assis-
tance after about the expiration of twelve  months of
homoeopathic treatment.  They found her labouring un-
der congestion of the liver to an enormous extent,  con-
stipated bowels, and active peritoneal  inflammation, all
of which had existed for some days, and had not - yield-
ed to the means employed' by the homoeopathist; he by
whose treatment these formidable symptoms had been
induced, willingly sneaked out  of the  responsibility  ;
true, her life was saved, but she has never enjoyed her
former good health.
  " I have often been amused at the contradictory tales
which I have heard on the subject of homoeopathic cures.
For instance, I have  been told that a noble duke  has
been, by these remedies, cured  of his  gout; and then
I am compelled to hear, that the noble duke  is laid up
with gout at his country seat.   A distinguished baro-
net, also, is cured of the gout, but I  hear again that the
senate-house has lost the valuable services of the wor- 
HOMOEOPATHY.
71
thy member, because—he is confined with the gout.  A
noble earl is cured of his most painful malady, tic dou-
loreux, by homoeopathic treatment; but by his friends,
1 am assured that his sufferings  are still very great.
Another sufferer from this most dreadful  disease,  the
Marquis of A—, first stamped the fame of this system
as  a  certain remedy for tic-douloreux, but it is well
known that the noble marquis is still desirous of trying
every remedy which can be suggested  for the  allevia-
tion of  his sufferings, and it is a remarkable fact that
he has heaped honours and distinctions  on many per-
sons who have cured him of  his malady.   It is often
dinned in my ears, that a certain noble earl swears by
homoeopathy, yet that noble earl flies to Malvern  with
all avidity, to follow the most dangerous system of hy-
 dropathy for his relief.   These are  curious contradic-
 tions, but not more curious than true, and it is not won-
 derful that the fact of any person abandoning a system
 by which he has sworn, to adopt another  diametrically
 opposed to it, should not open the eyes of his friends,
 as to the extent of his faith in it %  The fact is, the pub-
 lic have not yet learned  the necessity of inquiring what
 opportunities those persons have had, who profess  to
 practice medicine or surgery, of perfecting themselves,
 not merely in the knowledge of remedies, but what is
 of infinitely greater importance, in distinguishing the
 character of diseases.   How many are  there in the
 ranks of the profession,  men of  honour and talent, who
 have not thought it beneath  them to spend often half
 their lives in the drudgery of public practice in hospi-
 tals and similar institutions,  that they  might  obtain a
 competent knowledge of diseases, as distinguished  from 
72
HOMOEOPATHY.
each other, and of applying remedies to each individual
case!  for, after all, each case is  a particular  disease,
and cannot be treated in a wholesale manner, as these
systems would induce us to suppose.
  " How often do we  hear these men, after they have
obtained all the information in their power, and attained
to stations of eminence, expressing their regret, that
they have been  prevented from devoting a still larger
portion of their time in learning an art which is infinite
in its  extent  and complexity ]  I mean the art of de-
tecting and distinguishing diseases under  innumerable
phases.  This, in fact, is the foundation of the art of
medicine, for when a disease is at once surely ascertained
and detected, it is comparatively easy to find its proper
remedy, and to  cure it, if it  is in its  nature  curable.
The public, 1 repeat, make no such inquiries, but hear-
ing that a case has been cured by  an unusual remedy
—brandy and salt, or mustard-seed, for instance—they
immediately infer that these remedies, if  applied by a
certain individual, will cure every disease, and there-
fore this individual, whether young  or  old,  male or
female, learned or unlearned, is  the person to be con-
sulted,  and is preferred to those who have devoted the
best portion of their lives to the study  of  their profes-
sion."
   It is unnecessary for  me to make much allusion to
the works  published by homceopathists, as the degree
of estimation to which they are entitled, and  the value
of the cases which they contain, will have been pretty
effectually shown in the preceding account, as far as
the public is concerned.
,   Is  there, then, nothing good in  homoeopathy 1  Un- 
HOMOEOPATHY.
73
questionably—though the good  resulting from homoeo-
pathy is more of a negative than  a positive character,
and one advantage of its introduction into England  is
that it has tended to limit the too active medication  in
chronic disease, which has so long prevailed to the pre-
judice of a large portion of the community; and the
suspension of this active medication, during the homoeo-
pathic treatment, has not unfrequently been a cause of
the benefit which has followed : consequently, homoeo-
pathy  is not Unlikely to be longer in fashion in England
than it has been in  the continental countries, where a
different  system  of medical practice obtains.  It has
likewise led to more minute inquiry into the action of
several remedies, and has thus  tended  to make the cir-
cumstance more frequently known, that much smaller
doses  of active substances (especially  sedatives and
other remedies having a specific action) than had been
previously supposed, are not unfrequently highly influ-
ential in the alleviation of certain disordered conditions
of the system, when  large doses have failed to benefit.
It does  not,  however, follow from  this,  that the
infinitesimal doses of the homceopathists have a positive
action ; for it would be absurd to argue, that because
an effect is produced in some exceptional cases by two,
three, or four drops of a tincture, of which the ordinary
dose  is from fifteen to thirty, that  a positive  result
 should also ensue from the administration of the bil-
 lionth part of a  single  drop.   It is true, however, that
 in a few rare cases where there  exists  a high degree
 of sensibility, or a particular  idiosyncrasy, that effects
 will result from inconceivably small quantities of active
 substances ;  every practitioner must  have experienced
 the unpleasant  consequences which have followed  the 
74
HOMOEOPATHY.
 inadvertent addition to a medicine of a minute quantity
 of ipecacuanha or opium, when this peculiarity has ex-
 isted.   In like manner some persons  are  disagreeably
 affected by flowers or perfumes, or experience unplea-
 sant sensations when a cat, a butterfly, or other animal,
 against which they have an  antipathy, is  in  the same
 room, even though they may not have seen it.*  These,
 however, are exceptions, from which no general con-
 clusions can be drawn, and these exceptions have been
 adduced in  proof of the general action of homoeopathic
 doses, to which, as I have shown, not only reason, but
 experience from trials conducted on a large scale is op-
 posed.  The only physician whose opinion is entitled
 to consideration, from his not being interested in sup-
 porting the practice of homoeopathy, who appears to
 have been convinced from some  trials that he made of
 the special  action of homoeopathic doses, is  Dr. Mil-
 lingen, who, in his " Curiosities of Medical Experience,"
 has adduced half a dozen cases, which he conceives go
 to prove the fact.   These cases, however, with one ex-
 ception, merely corroborate, in  my opinion, what  has
 been advanced, viz., that because some slight ailments
 and  symptoms subside after an homoeopathic  dose,
 which the patients for the most part know to be some-
 thing unusual, it is not to be inferred that it is in con-
 sequence of, a particular virtue in the drop or globule
 which has been administered to them, as we have seen
 that analogous effects often occur after a pill or liquid
 composed of an inert substance, but which the patient
imagines to possess some extraordinary power   The
fourth  case  is that of  a  young woman,  to  whom a
homoeopathic dose of a preparation of nux vomica was

^^i^^^^S^^^t gr£ con- 
HOMOEOPATHY.                75
given, in whom the peculiar symptoms that usually fol-
low a large  dose of strychnine were  produced, though
she had been led to believe the remedy prescribed was
merely  a dose of calomel.  Now, when  we consider
that an ordinary dose of strychnine is  only one-six-
teenth or one-twelfth of a grain, it would  not occasion
much surprise, even admitting that an homoeopathic in-
finitesimal dose was actually given, (the quantity is not
stated,) that the peculiar symptoms of this  energetic
medicament should be  produced in an  isolated case.
The only fair test is to make experiments with this or
any other homoeopathic dose on a number of individ-
uals ; this has been done by impartial persons, and also
by homceopathists themselves, subject to the supervi-
sion of others ; and, as has been seen from some of the
instances adduced  in the preceding pages, the result
has been always a failure.  Homoeopathy has further
tended to make more  generally known what may be
effected in many disordered conditions of the economy,
by a due attention to regimen, by the imagination, and
the unaided powers of the constitution, and in this way
likewise has rendered some service.
   A good deal has been said by the homceopathists in
England  about the  homoeopathic  hospitals  abroad.
 The only ones of which I know are the one at Leipsic,
 of which I have spoken, and the one at Vienna, of the
 practice of which the following report is  given  by Dr.
 Balfour (in the British and Foreign  Medical Review for
 October, 1846).  The homoeopathic hospital is a private
 one in the convent of the sisters of charity in one of the
 suburbs, and contains  fifty beds ; and since 1845, has
 been under the care of Dr. Fleischmann.   Hahnemann's
 empirical rules as to rubbings and  shakings are disre- 
76                 HOMOEOPATHY.
garded—the diet is light and simple—no coffee, tea, or
wine is  allowed.
   " In taking into  consideration the adjuvants to  the
treatment, the religious character of the establishment
must not be forgotten.   The patients  find themselves
surrounded by all the consolations of religion, by every-
thing which, in  their opinion, tends to ensure, in  the
event of death, a speedy passage  of  the  soul  to  the
realms of bliss—their minds thus set at  rest with respect
to futurity, they are less gloomy and  desponding, and
consequently react more favourably upon the  body than
under the opposite circumstances.  The severer their
disease, the more closely do they grasp their rosaries
and  crucifixes.   The superiority of the attendance is
also  one great advantage in favour  of  this hospital, in-
dependently of the important fact just stated, that  the
nurses are spiritual as well as  temporal comforters.
The  comparative youth of the patients in this hospital
must also be  taken into consideration ;  out of three
hundred and twenty patients, two hundred and forty-
five were under thirty years of age, and only four above
sixty.  The circumstance of comparative youth under
all kinds of treatment has an immense influence upon
the ultimate result."
  "Again—the  patients  are admitted and discharged
by the physicians without any control; so that, to say
the least, it requires a man to be very conscientious  to
decide  impartially  between temporary improvement
and perfect cure, especially when he recollects that the
fate of his creed, and of his  institution, depends upon
the nature^of his returns  to government, which are
made monthly.  Cases discharged, apparently  cured,
may  apply for readmission, and be under some pretext
or other refused, while, to disarm suspicion,  a few, 
HOMOEOPATHY.
77
whose relapses are more manageable, may be readmit-
ted.   I have seen at  least one patient refused admit-
tance, and that; too, the very day after  his discharge,
without any good obvious reason; it was that of a boy
with effusion into the right pleura, following scarlatina.
There was also a general anasarcous state of the body,
which speedily disappeared, but the chief complaints
remained obstinate, and after  thirty-three days' treat-
ment with bryonia, (second dilution,) he was dismissed,
slightly improved.  This is not the only case of  effu-
sion into the chest which has been dismissed unim-
proved during  the period of my observation, yet this
scarcely agrees with Dr. Fleischmann's returns, as out
of  twelve with exudation in  the  pleura during ten
years, he says  he has cured all but three, who died ;
and a physician of the general  hospital assured me that
many such cases, after having been dismissed by Dr.
F., and subsequently refused admission, have applied
to him for relief, which they have obtained by the use
of purgatives and baths.  Then, again, I may  say, there
are  hundreds  of  trifling cases  admitted here which
would not have been admitted into any hospital  in
England, and even of these comparatively trifling cases
many remain for weeks,  nay, months, in the hospital,
while more acute or more interesting cases are hurried
out too often with the cure incomplete.  When the pa-
tient  recovers, the  case is  published as one of the
triumphs  of homoeopathy,  whilst  the many similar
cases, where even homoeopathic treatment has proved
unavailing, are silently passed over, or are recorded as
instances of the imperfection of the human intellect."
   " The whole process of the admissions and,  discharge
of patients is mysterious; still so much is certain, that
most of those admitted have been previously visited at 
78
HOMOEOPATHY.
their homes by the assistant.   I feel convinced that the
great secret of Dr. F.'s great seeming success lies in
the fact of the  admissions and  dismissals being uncon-
trolled, and there being  no check  on the diagnosis;
rarely   other  than   well-marked  cases  have  the
diagnosis  written on the board at their bed-head, the
others  being left blank, and entered in his  book, of
course, as he pleases.
  " Homoeopathic remedies are not exclusively trusted
to, for  Dr. F. uses cold applications  to the head in de-
lirium, and sometimes  in headache; cold washings of
the body in fevers, and in arthritis cloths dipped in cold
water,  surrounded by  oil-silk,  applied  to the affected
parts.  He  also has for constipation clysters of warm
water,  or water mixed with a little  salt; and in diar-
rhoea rice clysters.   He told me that neither he nor
nor  any other homceopathists ever gave  emetics  or
purgatives, and yet  I heard his assistant once order a
woman a  spoonful of oil."
  Dr. F. does not adopt the similia similibus,  one drug
serving for a great many diseases.
  " Two or three fatal cases are given  in  the report,
and fifteen per cent; three out of nineteen having died,"
whereas  Skoda's cases of pneumonia in the general
hospital during the  same time amounted to forty-five,
the deaths three, being an average of 6.6 per cent., no
blood-letting employed.
  " I think you will see," concludes Dr. Balfour, " by
what I have stated, that the strength of the  homceo-
pathists lies not in the  greater rationality or superiority
of their practice, but is  founded on the weakness of
allopathy; that they do not  help their patients, but, if
they are strict homceopathists, are  for ever  shut out
from helping them ; that in their  treatment of acute
disease, their success depends  entirely on the hitherto
unrecognised powers of nature.   All the magic influ-
ence of their  infinitesimal doses of phosphorus, &c,
being  emulated, if not excelled,  by the heroic virtues
of  the extractum  graminis"  [Extract  of grass—an
inert substance.]*
  *  In the  United States, Homoeopathy, while retaining its name, 
NOTES
ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE
INFLUENCE  OF THE  MIND ON  THE BODY.


   The great influence exerted  by the imagination and
other mental faculties on the  exercise  of the  bodily
functions, and in the production and removal of disease,
has not received from medical practitioners the degree
of consideration to which its importance entitles it, not-
withstanding the effects of this influence are daily seen
in the practice of medicine, and the subject  has occu-
pied  the  pens of several eminent individuals, both in

is  boldly poaching  upon  the domain of Young Physic, itself a
plagiarism upon the Chrono-Thermal practice.  In New York, the
oldest Homceopathist, in his disgust at his numerous failures, a few
years  ago, resorted to blood-letting to assist him, (though this was
before the advent of Young Physic), declaring that  he had made
the notable discovery that the lancet was  a Homaopathic remedy.
Mother (strong) tinctures  and appreciable  doses of medicine are
rapidly taking the place of infinitesimals, triturations, and dilutions.
The honesty of such proceedings who can doubt?—Am. Ed.

   Homoeopathic   Honesty.—Dr. Bennet communicated to  the
Medical Society of London, the  following  prescriptions, one writ-
ten on the  6th, the other on the 9th of  the month, by a homceo-
pathist :—
   " On the 6th, she was ordered to put one grain of ipecacuanha
powder in one ounce of water; and of this mixture, a single drop
was to be  taken with syrup and water directly, and  repeated, if
necessary, in  four hours.  The patient was also ordered a mixture
containing one drop of tincture of opium,  half an ounce of burnt
su<*ar, and six ounces of water; of this she-was to take two table
spoonfuls every four hours.
   •'On  the 9th,  she was ordered a mixture, consisting of five
ounces of infusion of senna, half an ounce of tincture of jalap, half
an ounce  of  manna, half  an ounce of tincture of cardamoms, and
two ounces of sulphate of magnesia ; and of this she was to take a
sixth part every three hours !"
   Surely these facts require no comment,—London  Medical Gaz. 
80
NOTES.
 ancient and more recent times.   It is not my intentio-n
 to enter at any length into the consideration of this
 subject, which would suffice to fill several volumes, but
 I purpose  adding as a pendant  to the remarks already
 made, a few illustrations, by which it will be seen that
 this influence has not been over-estimated  in  the pre-
 ceding pages.
   The faculty which so frequently enhances enjoyment
 by anticipation,
                       " Whose might
             Can make the desert heavenly fair,
             And fill with forms divinely bright,
             The dreary vacancy of air,"
 and to which, when under proper control, the  civilized
 world owes so large a share of its happiness, is also un-
fortunately instrumental in the production of  much of
the misery that exists, by  the gloomy foreboding of ex-
pected evils, or by  the ideal  aggravation  of present
misfortunes.  While on the one hand, the happy effects
of a well-grounded confidence are daily brought under
the observation of the medical practitioner in the  reco-
very of patients under  the  most unfavourable circum-
stances;  on the other, the  direful consequences of this
instrumentality are strongly exhibited during the preva-
lence of some epidemic diseases, which are known to
affect individuals in proportion to the degree of appre-
hension that prevails; whereas medical men and others,
who under these  circumstances are not so liable to be
influenced by the terrors of an excited imagination, are
much less  likely to  be affected  by the disease, or, if
they are  attacked, the  termination is  favourable in  a
large proportion  of cases.  In  many  instances, again,
and especially  after accidents and operations, though
the circumstances appear  to be most favourable for re-
covery, yet if the moral of the patients be so influenced
as to  make them  apprehend an unfavourable  termina-
tion, how frequently does it not occur that these prog-
nostications are verified by the result!  In  like  man-
ner, predictions of the  occurrence of  disease  or death
at a certain period, by the  hold they obtain on the pa-
tient's imagination, occasionally bring  about their own 
NOTES.
81
fulfilment.   It is said,  that in the  Sandwich  Islands
there is a sect who assume the power of praying peo-
ple to death :  " Whoever incurs  their displeasure, re-
ceives notice that the homicide litany is about to com-
mence,  and such are the effects of the imagination, that
the very notice is  sufficient with  these people  to  pro-
duce  the effect."  It is mentioned  by Hearne in his
Journey, that " Such is the  confidence  of the North
American Indians in professors of the magic art, that
they appear capable of curing the most serious diseases
without  resorting to any physical means; and the feats
of  their malignity  plunge individuals  into diseases
which often terminate fatally.  One of these Indians,
Matonabbi  by name, conceiving that Hearne was in
possession  of supernatural powers,  requested  him to
kill, by magic, a man  against whom he  entertained a
deadly hatred. To oblige him, Hearne, without dread-
ing any bad consequences, drew  some figures  upon a
piece of paper, and gave it to Matonabbi, advising him
to make it as public as possible.  Matonabbi's  enemy,
who enjoyed perfectly good health, had scarcely heard
of the paper, when he became melancholy, drooped, re-
fused food, and died in  a few days."
   The  two  following  cases  are stated in a recent
work.*   " A weak-minded man, a clergyman, drinking
wine in company, swallowed a bit of sealing-wax, when
one of his companions seeing him alarmed, to increase
his terror, jocularly  called out, ' It  will  seal up your
bowels.'  From that instant  he became melancholy,
and in a day or two refused all nourishment.  On being
pressed  to give a reason for  this  refusal, he  said he
knew that nothing would go through him.  He was,
however, induced  to take a  cathartic, which operated
freely;  nevertheless, he  could not be convinced  but that
his body was  hermetically sealed, and with the excep-
tion of  a  little broth,  which  he was frightened  into
taking, he refused to swallow anything, and  died in
consequence."
   " A young farmer,  who detected  an old  woman
  * Preservation of Health of Body and Mind, by Forbes  Winslow.
            D.2 
82
NOTES.
 breaking sticks from his hedge for fire-wood, seized hef
 and threatened her with the terrors of the law.  After
 some struggling she released herself from his grasp, and
 kneeling on the fagot in the bright moonlight, stretch-
 ing her withered arms  out to heaven, addressed him,
 already shivering with  cold,  in  the following words—
 ' Heaven grant that thou never mayest know again" the
 blessing to be warm.'   He complained of cold all the
 next day, wore  an  upper  coat, and in a few days an-
 other.  In a fortnight he took  to his bed, saying nothing
 could  make him warm, covered himself  with many
 blankets, placed a  sieve over his face,  and from  this
 single hallucination from fear of  the cold air, he kept
 his bed upwards of twenty years,  when he died."
   The author of the " Anatomy  of Melancholy" thus
 expresses himself on the subject:  " Sometimes a strong
 conceit or apprehension will take away diseases ; in
 both kinds it will produce real effects.   Men, if they see,
 but another man tremble, giddy, or sick of some disease,
 their apprehension and fear  is so strong  in this kind,
 that they will have the same disease ; or if by some
 soothsayer, wise man, fortune-teller, or physician, they
 be  told  they will have  such a disease, they  will  so
 seriously apprehend it,  that they  will instantly labour
 of it.  If it be told them they shall be sick on such a day,
 when that day comes they  will surely be sick, and will
 be so terribly afflicted, that  sometimes they die upon it."
  Again, " As  some are so molested  by phantasie, so
 some again by  fancy  alone,  and  a good  conceit, are
 as easily cured.  We  see commonly the  tooth-ache,
 gout, falling-sickness, and many  such  diseases, cur-
 ed  by spells,  words,   characters,  and  charms.   All
 the world knows there is no virtue in  such charms, but
 a strong  conceit and opinion alone."
  I need scarcely allude to  the more common effects of
 the imagination and  of moral impressions  known  to
 every one, as illustrated  by the production of blushing
paleness, fainting, privation of appetite, disturbance  of
digestion  and other functions ;*  but it is  too often over-
looked, that similar impressions are very frequently in-
     * " Unquiet meals make ill digestions."—Shakspeare. 
NOTES,
83
"strumental in the production and keeping up of a large
proportion of chronic diseases ;  hence,  a cause of the
intractableness of many of them under a treatment ex-
clusively medicinal.
  A great many of the disorders  of the digestive appa-
ratus met with in  a metropolis like London, are induc-
ed *nd kept up by anxiety, the worry of particular avo-
cations, and the annoyances and  perplexities  to which
the professional, mercantile, and  trading classes of the
community are especially subjected.   Such complaints
may persist,  or be constantly recurring for an indefinite
period, deriving but temporary  alleviation from medi-
cine ; but they not unfrequently cease spontaneously, if
any circumstance  occur to counteract the  influence of
the above-mentioned'causes;  as partial change of ha-
bits, a short residence in the country, the undertaking
of a journey of pleasure, &c.  The same may be said
of the class of nervous disorders, many of which are
occasioned and kept up solely by causes of a moral na-
ture, as seen in the occurrence of some convulsive  af-
fections, viz. hysteria from mental emotion or antipathy,
epilepsy from fright, &c. Deep sorrow, disappointment,
and other analogous causes,' are but too often the latent
occasion of  complaints which long resist the  efforts  of
medicine, for the  intractableness of  which no obvious
reasons can  be assigned,  and by  their depressing in-
fluence on the vital powers, are  frequently productive
of some of  the most  distressing  organic diseases  to
which humanity is subject.
  A large proportion of cancerous diseases originate in
grief, disappointment,  and similar depressing causes
which interfere with the free  capillary circulation,  and
alter the innervation of parts.  Consumption is not un-
frequently induced by the same influence, or by a  com-
bination of mental and physical causes, the operation of
which being  necessarily very slow and gradual, mostly
escapes observation  till the germs of  disease are firmly
eno-rafted in the system, and only await the action  of
an°exciting cause  to bring them into activity.   1 he com-
plaint termed nostalgia, or home-sickness, is  likewise a
striking example.  In these cases the individual, torn 
NOTES.
 away from his country  to  fight or labour in foreign
 lands, droops and pines away without exhibiting the
 symptoms of disease of any particular organ, until a
 hope be held  out of his speedy return,  when the  cure
 will sometimes be effected as if by enchantment.*   Dr.
 Carrick, who  had many opportunities of witnessing this
 disease, says of the  Scotch labouring under it, " They
 get dull, will  not eat, cannot sleep, or if they  do, dr«am
 but of friends and home ; the disease is daily on the in-
 crease.  There is but one cure ;  put them into a home-
 ward-bound vessel, and let them tread  once more  their
 native shore.   The same effect is also produced by dis-
 appointment in love ; the female form  cannot endure
 the worm that feeds upon the damask cheek.   The con-
 cealment of her passion brooding among the ruins of
 her peace, produces a mental anguish, under which the
 body soon  sinks."
   With how much greater  ease  and lightness are  all
 the bodily  functions performed, when the mind is free
 from  care,  and we are  in good spirits!   How languid,
 ou the contrary, is the  flow  of the  " nimble  spirits in
 the arteries,"  when  we are i' besieged with  sable-co-
 loured melancholy !" and how much more liable are we
 under these circumstances, to be  affected by deleterious
 agencies of a physical nature !  In an advancing army,
 flushed  with conquest, disease rarely appears ; if how-
 ever,  the same body of men be  dispirited  by defeat,
 and on  a retreat, disease to a great extent will not fail
 to manifest itself, should tbey be  exposed to  any of its
 more common causes.   The British troops  in Walche-
 ren continued tolerably  healthy, notwithstanding the de-
leterious influence of the climate, till circumstances oc-
curred to depress their  moral.  The same effects were
seen on a larger scale on the retreat of the French from
Moscow, and there is no doubt, that had the army been
 advancing, with a prospect of good quarters,  instead of
   One of our most esteemed poets has thus alluded to this malady :
      The intrepid Swiss who guards a foreign shore         *
      Condemned to climb the mountain cliffs no more
      it  chance  he hear the song so sweetly wild
      Which on those cliffs his infant boursbepnrled,
      Melts at the long-lost scenes which round him rise
      And sinks a martyr to repentant «gh.."-P/«tt7W, 'of Memory 
notes.                     85
being in retreat, and undisciplined, it would have  sup-
ported the privations consequent on  the rigour of the
season and scantiness of food,  with the loss of a com-
paratively small number of men.
  Patients who entertain an idea that they  require  a
course of mercury, will often derive great benefit, and
will actually feel a soreness of the mouth, accompanied
with an increased flow of saliva, on taking pills compos-
ed of bread  or other inert substances, provided  they
believe themselves to be taking mercury.   It  is stated
in the " Dictionnaire des Sciences Medicales," that  a
physician gave a peasant a prescription for a purgative,
saying, " Take this."   The man, on his  return home,
actually swallowed the paper, which produced a similar
effect to what would have resulted, had  he taken the
remedy prescribed.  He returned in a day or two  to
the physician, to say that the purgative had quite cured
him.  At the period  of Corvisart's lecturing on the di-
 seases of the heart, many of  the  students became af-
fected with  palpitation and other symptoms of  these
 diseases ; and it is well known, that  when medical stu-
 dents  and non-professional  persons  read descriptions
 of  diseases,  they often become  affected  with some  of
 the symptoms; or, if they had  previously any of the
 symptoms about which they had been  reading,  these
 are almost constantly aggravated from their attention
 beino- more  strongly  directed  towards  them.   The
 power of the imagination and  mental impressions  in
 producing hysteria is  well  known.   Analogous  influ-
 ences, and au exertion of the  will, also frequently pre-
 vent the recurrence of attacks of this disease.  On the
 same principle are easily explicable the cures which
 have been performed from persons being placed on the
 tombs of saints;  by touching holy relics;  by pilgri-
 mages to particular  places; as  in those  affected  with
 St. Vitus's dance, who were cured in the sixteenth cen-
 tury by a pilgrimage to a chapel dedicated to this saint,
 near Ulm.   I have given, in another work, some  cases
 of partial or total paralysis, in which the  persons  have
 continued helpless for years, and have ultimately reco-
 vered, either spontaneously, or after some strong  moral
 impression; but as it would be somewhat out of place 
86
NOTES.
 to cite here detailed medical cases,  I prefer illustrating
 the remarks which have been made, by a quotation or
 two from a work in general circulation :—" A large bo-
 dy  of sailors  resorted to  Sadler's  Wells theatre  one
 night, and  amongst  them  a  man  who  was deaf and
 dumb, and had been  so for many  years.  This  man
 was placed by his shipmates in the front row in the gal-
 lery.  Grimaldi was in great force  that  night,  and al-
 though the  audience were in one  roar of laughter, no-
 body appeared to enjoy the fun and humour more than
 this poor fellow.  As the scene progressed, Grimaldi's
 tricks and jokes became  still more irresistible, and at
 length, after a violent  peal of laughter  and applause,
 which quite shook the theatre, in which the  dumb man
 joined  most heartily,  he suddenly  turned to his mate
 who  sat next  him,  and  cried out  with  much glee—
 * What a damned funny fellow !'—•  Why, Jack,' shout-
 ed the other,  starting back with surprise,  ' can you
 speak V—' Speak,' returned the other, ' ay, that I can,
 and hear, too.'   The man, who appeared an intelligent
 and well-behaved fellow, said, that in the earlier part of
 his life he could both speak and  hear  very well,  and
 that he attributed his deprivation  of the two  senses to
 the intense  heat of the  sun in the  quarter of the world
 from which  he had recently returned.  He  added, that
 he had for a long time  felt  a powerful anxiety to  ex-
 press his delight at what was passing on the stage, and
 that after some feat of Grimaldi's, which struck him as
 particularly amusing, he had made a strong effort to de-
liver his thoughts, in which, to his great  astonishment,
 no less than that of his  comrades,  he succeeded."
   " When Grimaldi, worn  out by premature old age,
 was almost deprived of the  use of* his limbs, so as°to
 be scarcely able to stand or walk,  he was' visited by a
friend, and when, with much difficulty, he  had descend-
 ed from his  bedroom to the parlor, his  friend informed
 him, with great care and delicacy, that his son was dead.
   " In one instant, every feeling of decrepitude and bo-
dily weakness left him,  his limbs recovered their origi-
nal vigour, all his lassitude and debility vanished, a dif-
ficulty of breathing, under which he  had long laboured
disappeared, and starting from his seat, he  rushed to his 
NOTES\
8?
wife's chamber, tearing, without the smallest difficulty,
up a flight of stairs, which, a quarter of an hour before,
it had taken him ten minutes to climb.  He hurried to
her bedside, told her that her son was  dead, heard  her
first exclamation of grief,  and, falling into a chair,
was once again an enfeebled and crippled old man."*
   The following cases will  likewise serve  to illustrate
the beneficial effects of moral impressions in certain di-
seased states of the system.
   " At the siege of Buda, that city  had suffered from
the effects of a long conflict, and the inhabitants had ex-
perienced the miseries of fatigue, bad provisions,  and
anxiety of mind.  The scurvy had also made great pro-^
gress among the besieged ;  the place was on the eve of
being surrendered to the enemy, when the Prince of
Orange introduced letters to the men, promising them
speedy assistance ; a medicine which  was represented
to possess wonderful efficacy, and to be almost beyond
price, was forwarded for the use of the garrison.  1 hree
small vials containg this  precious panacea were given to
each physician ; this stratagem was completely success-
ful.  It was stated that  three or four  drops were suffi-
 cient to impart a healing virtue to a gallon of liquor.
 Invalids flocked in crowds to the physicians; many  who
 had not  moved their limbs for a month before, were
 seen walking the streets perfectly well."t
   At  the time when Sir  H. Davy was assisting Dr.
 Beddoes in his experiments on the inhalation of nitrous
 oxide, Dr. B. having inferred that the oxide must  be a
 specific for palsy, a patient was selected for trial,  and
 placed under the care of Davy.  Previous to adminis-
 tering the gas,  Davy inserted a small  thermometer un-
 der the tongue of the patient to ascertain  the tempera-
 ture.   The paralytic man, wholly ignorant  of the  pro-
 cess to which he  was to be subjected, but deeply im-
 pressed  by Dr. Beddoes with  the certainly of its  suc-
 cess, no  sooner felt the  thermometer between his teeth,
 than he concluded the  talisman was in  operation, and
 in a burst of enthusiasm,  declared  that he already ex-
 perienced the effects of its benign influence throughout
 his whole body.  The opportunity was too tempting to
   • Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi.        t  Winslow, op. cit. 
88
NOTES.
be lost.  Davy did nothing  more, but desired his  pa-
tient to return the following day.  The same ceremony
was repeated, and the same result followed, and at the
end of a fortnight he was dismissed  cured, no remedy
of any kind, except the thermometer, having been used.
   When the metallic  tractors were  in  vogue for the
cure  of several complaints, by being applied to  the
parts  affected, Dr. Haygarth  tried the experiment of
preparing tractors composed of other than metallic sub-
stances,  but which were made to resemble the original
ones, and equally advantageous results ensued from their
application.
   1 will  subjoin three other cases which appeared in
the papers, and were considered as evidencing the spe-
cial interpositiorrof a supernatural agency, having been
cried up as miracles in the localities where they occurred.
   " Miracle, in the river  Ouse.—Charlette Beeby, late
of Elstow, aged twenty-five, an  inhabitant of Bidden-
ham, has for the last five years been a cripple, with an
affection of the back, the lower  limbs being perfectly
paralysed.   The affection had  resisted the treatment of
many practitioners.  Being acquainted with the Epis-
copalian church doctrines taught by the Rev. Mr. Mat-
thews of this town, she conceived that if she were bap-
tized by that gentleman,  she would recover.  Accord-
ingly, the reverend gentleman, at half-past ten at night,
in the presence o** a hundred spectators, converts to his
doctrines, proceeded to the  river Biddenham, whither
the diseased  person  was removed in a cart, as usual
when  moved about.  Mr. Matthews, going into the river
to support her, immersed.her in the  water, when she
immediately said, ' Leave me go, I can walk,' and walk-
ed out of the water, and ran some little distance  up a
hill till she was exhausted, but she has retained the use
of her limbs ever since."
   Similar cases, occurring for the most part in females
are recorded from time to time, and are not unfrequent-
ly considered as miraculous  cures by those who are ig-
norant of their nature,  which depend upon a debilitv of
the faculty  of volition.   These cases  not unfrequently
continue for months or years,  being  often  kept up by
habit, unless circumstances occur which forcibly im- 
NOTES.
89
press the mind, and excite this faculty to activity, as in
the above instance, as well as that of the thermometer
placed  under the tongue by Sir H. Davy.  The  case
of the voice being restored in consequence of the  im-
pression  produced by Grimaldi's antics,  as also  that
which I have related  under the head of homoeopathy, of
loss  of  voice being cured by  starch pills, which the  pa-
tient supposed to be  homoeopathic remedies, are  of a
similar  nature, the affection being restricted to the mus-
cles  concerned in the formation of the voice in these in-
stances.  The paralytic patients formerly  cured by be-
ing placed on the tomb of the  Abbe Paris,  laboured
under a similar affection, in which I have given several
examples in the work above  referred to, but which  be-
ing frequently mistaken by the patient's friends as  well
as by members of the profession, for a consequence of
structural disease, is too often intractable under a pure-
ly medical treatment, and the sufferings of the patients
are indefinitely prolonged, when they might often be
removed by  a  proper employment  of psychical mea-
sures.   In the following case, which is of an analogous
nature,  the limb was contracted, and  could not be  ex-
tended  from the same cause, and there was besides a
normal sensibility of the skin, which is a very ordinary
concomitant of these  complaints, but which frequently
leads practitioners into the error of supposing the di-
sease to be of an inflammatory nature.  Though to ap-
pearance alarming, these  cases almost always recover *
sooner or later, unless, from bad management, or from
long oonfinement, disease of some internal organ be in-
duced.
  Extraordinary  Miracle.—The  Union  Catholique of
Monday last, contains a letter dated Nice,  the 9th  Oc-
tober, 1842, which relates a most extraordinary miracle,
that  had just happened in that town, and of which  the
writer  was an eye-witness!   The circumstances  are
briefly as follow :—" The young  Countess  de Maistre,
twenty-one  years old,  daughter of the Governor  of
Nice, had for four months lived in  almost continual
sufferings, contractions, and spasms.   The  labours she
had undergone in the  convent of the Sacred Heart  at 
90                    NOTES.
  Turin, where she was a novice, had caused a swelling
  in her feet.  Leeches, unseasonably applied, had injur-
  ed the nerves, and this, which was at first only a slight
  inconvenience, became at  last a  distemper of a very
*■ frightful character.   One of her legs became contract-
  ed, bent back, and fixed in a strained and unnatural po-
  sition, (dans un etat de flexion exagerec,)  so  that the
  knee became twisted, and the foot rested firmly and im-
  movably  on the hip.  All this was  accompanied  by
  frightful suffering.'   Being unable to fulfil the duties of
  the monastery, her mother brought her  home  early  in
  last July, - her life already despaired of, neither eating
  or sleeping, always in pain, able neither to walk nor
  sit, nor remain in bed.'   She got worse every day,  in
  spite of the attentions  of three  excellent  physicians.
  She had besides crises  of convulsion ;  she would fall
  down on the ground, be  covered  with black marks, her
  eyes turned round in her head, and her  arms grew be-
  numbed.   The day of her cure, four hours before the
  miracle, she was visited by two of  the physicians, who
  examined the limb.   The same  evening the surgeon
  came to the house, and seeing her could not help say-
  ing, ' There is no hope,  1  cannot work miracles.' "
  Such was the state of the patient, which we have de-
  scribed pretty fully from the  letter.  In the rest of the
  case we must be more brief.  A daughter of the Coun-
  tess de Komar had a great devotion for a canon, Dom
  Gaspard del Bufalo, who  died in December, 1838,  in
  the odour of sanctity, after having founded an order of
  Missionaries of the Precious Blood, and worked'mira-
  cles of  all kinds during a laborious  course of evangeli-
  cal labours in Piedmont  and Italy.  Mdlle. de Komar
  had, for some days past, persuaded Mdlle. de Miastre
  to join her in a Novena,  and in certain other devotions,
  towards this holy man.   On  the 8th October,  at noon,
  in the midst of these devotions, Mdlle. Komar, " urged
  to do so by a secret and irresistible  power, commanded
  Mdlle. de  Maistre, in a loud voice, in the name of God,
  and by the merits of his  servant, to do her utmost  to
  stretch  out her leg.  ' Frances,' said she to her, ' stretch
  out your leg, try, try.'   The patient did so move her 
NOTES.
91
leg, and leaping from her  bed, threw herself into  her
friend's arms, and cried out, ' Nathalie, I am  cured.'
The physicians were at once sent for,  and, on  exami-
nation, they  found that the knee, lately ossified,  was
now sound and flexible. It was straight, smooth, white, **
and perfectly sound ; on being repeatedly squeezed,  it
was  perfectly free from pain, though the moment before
she had not been able to endure the slightest contact of
the linen.  The cure occurred at  half-past three, p. m.,
and all  the rest of the day Mdlle. Maistre continued
on foot, receiving  visits from the chief people of the
place.  The  next morning she  heard three masses,
kneeling, and received the blessed Sacrament  with all
her family.  Afterwards she went to the hospital,  and
when the letter was written, she was going  from  bed
to bed, visiting and consoling the sick.  The  particu-
lars of this occurrence, with the depositions of the phy-
sicians, have  been sent to Rome.  The rumour of it
has spread to Genoa,  Turin, and through Piedmont,
where it has caused the most lively emotion."—Morning
Herald, Dec. 1842.
   In the next case the cure was produced by the same
means, being in consequence of the report of the former
 one.  It was likewise  headed—
   " A Modern Miracle,"—said to have been wrought at
 Plombieres, was also recorded in the Union Catholique:
 __" A young girl, who for some years had been confin-
 ed to her bed by a  disease which  baffled the skill  of
 several eminent physicians, was deemed to be incura-
 ble.  For the last four  months, her body appeared to be
 dead ; she was incapable of moving either of her limbs,
 or even of raising her hand to take the light nourish-
 ment presented to her; she, nevertheless, preserved her
 intellectual faculties,  For some time lately, she be-
 came still more  debilitated, and was believed to be
 dying, and prayers were put up  to God that he wouM
 put an end to her agony.  At this period, the cure of
 the parish read  an  account of the miracle which had
 been performed at Nice, and commenced a ncuvaine, in
 the hope  that the Deity might have the same benevo-
 lence towards his suffering parishioner.  Nine congre- 
92
NOTES.
 gationisls communicated on Thursday the 10th ult., and
 on the 18th, mass was performed at the  altar of the
 holy Virgin; the young girls of the parish communi-
 cating in the  name of the sick person.   At the same
 time a pious woman repeated the mass to the poor girl,
 who was placed on her knees  at the foot of the bed.
 At seven o'clock she communicated ; at eight o'clock,
 and between the two elevations of the host, the long-
 suffering woman got up and seated herself on the bed,
 exclaiming, * Oh, I no longer feel ill ; and if I continue
 thus, I am cured.'  She had not spoken for a long time
 before, and she could bear no light in her eyes without
 enduring great pain.  After the mass, she remained for
 some time perfectly tranquil, and then getting up, sud-
 denly spoke with all the force of a person in full health,
 saying, ' I  am cured—Oh, a miracle ! leave me alone,
 and I will get up  and walk.'  Astonishment filled the
 minds of all present.   As no others were at hand, they
 put a pair of wooden shoes on her feet, and she walked
 in them with  all the  steadiness of any  other person.
 In a few minutes the room was filled with people, and
 all  present, with tears of joy in  their eyes, joined  in
 chanting the Te Deum.   A mass of thanksgiving was
 performed in the church ; the bells were rung, and the
 whole place was full of emotion.  Those who  were
 without faith became believers, and all joined in prayer's
 to God."—Times, Dec. 15, 1842.*
  Dr. Warren, of  Boston, relates the  case of a lady
 who had a tumour  of the glands of the neck, of the size
 of an egg, which had lasted two years, and had resisted
 all the efforts for its removal, so that  an operation was
 proposed.  To this the patient objected,  but  asked
 whether it would be safe to make an application which
 had been recommended to her,  viz., touching the part
 three times with a  dead man's hand.  Dr. W  assured
 her that she might  make the trial without apprehend-
  *  In many cases time efiects a  cure after  the failure of every
other means.   Several years ago, I saw a young man who had sud-
deny lost h,s voice about five years previously, and wko bad no hope
of its restoration.  I stated my opinion that it was not nnlikelv  to
be restored at some time or other.  This has since occured anlnW
% al oi twelve years having elapsed between the attack and recovery 
NOTES.
93
ing any serious consequences.   After a lime, she again
presented herself, and, smiling, informing him that she
had used  this remedy and no other, and on examining
the part, he found the tumour had disappeared.  The
cure of scrofulous swellings  and sores  in former days,
by the royal touch, is also attributable to the power of
the imagination, on the absorption of parts.
   Imitation and habit influence in a remarkable manner
the actions of the economy in health and disease. How
frequently do we not see one person imitating the ges-
tures of another, without being aware of the circum-
stance 1*  Children,  in whom the imitative faculty is
most strong, readily adopt the gestures and even the
tone of voice  of their  parents, or other persons with
whom  they are  associated.   The  action of yawning,
when we see others yawn, is a familiar example of the
power of  imitation.  Muscular twitching  of  parts,
squinting, and stammering,  are  not unfrequently ac-
quired by imitation, and  are subsequently kept up by
habit for an indefinite period. St. Vitus's dance  occurs
in some children  in  consequence of their  associating
with others affected  with this complaint,  which is in
many cases  kept up for  a long time  by habit alone.
The same may be said  of epilepsy, and other nervous
effections.  It is a matter of common observation, that
if one female have an hysterical attack, in a place where
several are congregated, as in the ward of an  hospital,
or in any public assembly,  others  frequently become
similarly affected.   The  mode  adopted  by Boerhaave,
of arresting  an epidemic of a  convulsive nature, has
been repeatedly quoted by medical writers, as illustrat-
ing the power  of imitation and of moral  impression
over these disorders.  A  girl labouring under attacks
of an epileptic nature was placed in the ward of a pub-
lic institution, with other girls, who all became affected
in a similar  manner, and  the complaint continued  to
prevail epidemically,  till Boerhaave assembled  all the
patients together, and heating before their eyes a num-
  * " It is certain that wise bearing or ignorant carriage is caught,
as men take diseases one of another; therefore  let men take heed
of their company."—Henrt IV., Part 2. 
94
NOTI.3.
ber of iron rods, expressed his determination to apply
a red-hot rod  on the face of the first who should have
an attack.   None of them had any recurrence,  and the
epidemic ceased as  if by magic.  Epidemics of a some-
what similar kind have  at different times been propa-
gated by imitation over a  considerable extent of coun-
try ; as in the case of the dancing mania, which  extend-
ed so widely  in the  sixteenth  century.    Laughter  is
also  frequently  excited  by imitation,  and  sometimes
under circumstances but little likely to occasion merri-
ment.   Wesley relates,  that paroxysms of uncontrolla-
ble laughter occurred at some of his prayer-meetings.
He  himself, and some of  his  most zealous followers,
could  not  resist  the infection, but laughed  as loudly
as  the  rest.   He accounts for  the circumstance  by
ascribing it to the influence of Satan.
  The power of habit is further seen in the facility with which per-
sons, under  certain  circumstances, accustom  themselves to bear
with but little inconvenience, extremes of temperature ; to  digest
with facility articles of food which would cause an attack of illness
to those less accustomed to their use ;  or  to require  but a small
quantity of sleep.  By this power the eye becomes enabled to dis-
cern minute objects in comparative obscurity.   The ear of a North
American Indian applied to the ground, can hear  advancing foot-
steps at a distance that appears incredible to Europeans.   After the
loss of one sense the other senses become, by the habit of cultiva-
tion, extremely susceptible to impressions made  on their organs.
\\ lien a person is deprived of his hands, the sense of touch may be-"
come surprisingly developed in other parts of the body, as the feet.
Many diseases are greatly under the influence  of habit, especially
epilepsy, hysteria, and others, which occur at periodical intervals
I he paroxysms of an intermittent fever are sometimes kept up by
habit.  Abortion is liable to recur at a similar period of pregnancy
trorn this influence.   In these cases the disorders are often kept up
until some circumstance  occurs which tends to  break the .chain  of
habitual recurrence.   Moral impressions have frequently this effect
as seen in the cases  related in the  preceding  pages.  Change  of
scene and mode of living also have a beneficial effect in many in-
stances.  Some remedies, which have an energetic action, and other
means m which the patient is led to place great confidence, produce
an advantageous result in some cases, while, in  others which have
resisted a variety of remedial  measures, time alone effects the cure
  It is unnecessary to lengthen this work by any further examples
of the influence exerted by the mind  on the body, enough havin"
been said to enable  those who have perused it  to form an estimato

mo3opea?l7er               ! M alS° thC VaIUe t0 b6 S6t UP°U ^ 
        H.  LONG  AND  BROTHER

Will issue, on or before the First of August, 1848, the
Second American (stereotyped) from the Fifth London
Edition of
                       THE

FALLACIES  OF  THE  FACULTY

                     WITH THE

CHRONO-THERMAL  SYSTEM  OF MEDICINE;

        BY S.  DICKSON, M.D.,  of London,

EDITED BY WILLIAM TURNER, M.D., of N. Y.


   Contents :—Physiology of Healthy Life shown to be
a  Periodic or Tidal Alternation of Attractive and Repul-
sive Movement in the various Organs of the Body.—Disease
consists in a greater or less  Error in one or more of the Cor-
poreal Periods with a corresponding error of Temperature.—
All disorders, fitful or intermittent—Intermittent Fever, the
Type of all Disease.—Elements of Cause and Cure identi-
cal.—Poison and Medicine act by Attraction and Repulsion.
—The Agency of both Electrical.—Blood-letting the inven-
tion of an age of barbarism.—The successful application of
Medicine  depends on its proper adjustment  to  the Tem-
perature of the patient and the Period of attack of the Di-
sease.-r-What is right in the cold fit of a disease is wrong  in
the hot.—The Treatment  during the Periodic Remission,
which  happens in all diseases, must be different from that
practised in either stage of  the paroxysm.—Time and Tem-
perature the basis of the Chrono-Thermal System of Medicine.
   " How grateful should we be to the illustrious author  of
the Chrono-Thermal System of Medicine, for showing up the
 monstrous outrages of the miscalled Science of Medicine !"—
 N. Y. Tribune.
                                     [See next page. 
Opinions of tlie British Press.
  " Almost as entertaining as a novel."—Westminster Review.
  " This is a bold book, a very bold book ; and we recommend persons who have
 been dosing themselves with drug's, to kick out the  apothecary, and buy it."—
 Sunday Times.
  '■ We cannot too highly compliment the author of this volume on his fearless-
 ness and firmness of purpose."—Metropolitan Magazine.
  " A medical work with the vigorous and original character of which,  in spite
of its bold heresies and reckless innovations, we were much struck."—Tait's
 Edinburgh Magazine.
  " By the discontinuing of  blood-letting alone, to which the faculty must tome,
 thousands and tens of thousands of human creatures will be yearly withheld from
 the grave; and here Dr. Dickson will have the honor of standing in frout of the
 battle.  His volume cannot be too extensively read,  either by the  profession or
 the public."—JSaval and Military Gazette.
  "The doctor's arguments in favour of the Unity of Disease, are very convinc-
 ing."— United Service Gazette.
  " We have no hesitation in saying that much strong  evidence is addressed, as
 lo the probability of the Unity of all  Chronic diseases'; and what is of more im-
 port to the patient part of the community, still stronger, is  brought forward, as
 to the more than fallacy—the  fatality ok  the present system of prac-
 tice.  We cannot abstain from earnestly recommeiiding  the work  to the atten-
tion of our readers;  for this  especial reason,  that we  have every cause  to fear
 that none but non-professional critics will dare to do  so!  It is a book  aga'nst
 which  the  profession may naturally be expected to set their  faces and their
 wits, and   which consequently, it behoves the  rest of the world  to examine
 with more than usual interest and curiosity."—Colburn's Neu> Monthly Magazine.
  " Great  powers of collecting and associating together facts and  cases appa-
 rently remote, and a happy talent for elucidating his doctrines, by vigorous sen-
 tences  aad powerful images."—Medical Times.


   Single copies mailed on the receipt of $1,  (post-paid,) ad-
 dressed  to

                        H. LONG &  BROTHER,
                              46 (late 32) Ann street,  New  York. 

       PLEA3L NOTICE.


  HYDROPATHY
            AND

HOMCEOPATHY

   IMPARTIALLY APPRECIATED.
        FIRST AMERICAN,
  FROM THE THIRD LONDON EDITION.

        Price 25 Cotts. 
EDICINE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE NATIONAL IIBRARY OF MEDICINE
NOUVN  JNOIdJW JO A1VI1I1 IVNOUVN iNOIOSW JO A * V « 9 I 1 IVNOUVN
>  !'  !M
\IJ^/  i
EDICINE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE NATIONAL IIBRARY OF MEDICINI
EDICINE  NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE



























NOUVN  1NI3IQ1W JO itYllll IVNOUVN 3NI3KUW JO k aV a B II IVNOUVN
V/r*fc  I
 
V  W«K-tWi  «.  ,v7y^7  X  ™ X
?  V
C/i\
^*
Y OF MEDICINE   NATIONAl LIBRARY OF MEDICINE  NATIONAL IIBRARY OF MEDIC
an ivnouvn  iNnioaw jo uvmii ivnouvn JNiaiosw jo Aavaan ivnoi
. an ivnouvn   inoioiw jo ;iyjiinvN//vN in i a i a sw jo *«yh n 1 vnc
I   < ^£  • 
NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE
NLM D3E75Dlb D
NLM032750160