THE Scientific Basis of Medicine. BY I. W. HEYSINGER, M. A , M. D., Author of “The Source and Mode of Solar Energy Throughout the Universe,” “The Battle Against Prosperity,” etc., etc. PHILADELPHIA: BOERICKE & TAFEL. 1897. Copyrighted 1897, BY Boericke & Tafel. T. B. & H. B. COCHRAN, PRINTERS, LANCASTER, PA. ERRATA. Page 18, line n: read practiced. Page 67, line 18: read heterogeneous. Page 77, line 4: read menstruum. Page 105, line 9: read health. PREFACE. The purpose of this book is to briefly point out, both for the laity and the profession, in an interesting manner, the historical and scientific principles of modern physic, which were first demonstrated, sys- tematized, and presented in a complete but ever-ex- panding form by Hahnemann, and which are, in brief, to match the proved activities of drugs against the corresponding activities of disease, and so ex- tinguish or annul morbid processes and restore the normal rhythm of health again. , This principle of extinguishment by interference is now universally conceded to be as broad as all physics, and not limited to living organisms alone; but when Hahnemann first announced it the unscien- tific medical censors of that day received it, and rose in mass against it, as great reforms have always been received when first presented. But the revolt from ignorance, which is called the heresy of one age, becomes the reform of the next, and the established order of the third; and so it has been with this great reform in medicine, and will continue to be. 4 Preface. Another object is to point out that, while it is a very simple matter to prescribe, for example, Digitalis for a weak heart, or a bromide for an abnormally excited nervous system, such “crush prescriptions” are apt to be as dangerous in the long run as Colonel Hay’s “nigger squat on the safety valve;” it is far more difficult, but also much better, to adjust the valves, stop the foaming in the boiler and the knock- ing in the cylinders, and so restore the normal swing of the machinery to its highest efficiency. There are so many vaunted nostrums coming to the front, many of which are endorsed by well-known names, that there is always a temptation, and especi- ally among the younger members of the profession, to accept the practice of medicine as ready-made, to fall is with the current and substitute rough guess- work for carefully studied individualization. It has been said that Chinese prescriptions used to vary from simple pulverized toad bones for the im- pecunious, up to seven hundred and sixty-five different ingredients, including two sorts of “ devils’ eyes;” but, indeed, such prescriptions, laughable as they may now seem, were not very much out of the common run of ordinary medical practice before the days of Hahnemann. But when he announced his great discoveries he gave to mankind a rational system, and revolutionized Preface. 5 the whole practice of medicine. The benefits to man- kind were splendid, but they entailed hard and con- scientious study upon the physician. To emphasize the necessity of such study, and to guard against the dangers of following the broad and easy road of em- piricism is what it has been here sought to accom- plish. In these days of scientific precision, wre have, in our medical practice, substituted for the old blunderbuss, with its ounce of powrder and handful of slugs (which seldom exactly struck the object aimed at, but tore into pieces everything around it), the modern, small- bore rifle, with its magazine of steel-clad pointed pro- jectiles, which is a weapon much more difficult to accurately aim, but magnificent in its results when handled by a skilled marksman. May every homoeopathic student earnestly endeavor to “qualify” in this contest; for he has a splendid and thoroughly proved weapon at his hand, his am- munition has been weighed and tested grain by grain, the distances have been carefully measured and the sights accurately adjusted; and in full view, right before him, stand our mortal enemies, Disease, Suffer- ing and impending Death ! TABLE OF CONTENTS. I. The importance of investigating anew, from time to time, the basic principles of Medicine. The marvellous success of Homoeopathy. II. The universal skepticism of the old-school branch of the profession a half century ago. How Homoeopathy revolutionized the old- school practice. Change of attitude towards Homoeopathy within recent years. III. Extra-homoeopathic transcendentalism; how it has affected the profession. Necessity for basing every advance on strict scientific prin- ciples. IV. The truth of the principles of Homoeopathy now universally conceded. The unacknowledged trend of the old-school practice towards Ho- moeopathy. V. Hippocrates: His life and teachings. The direct precursor of Hahnemann. The homoeopathic principle among the ancient teachers. The advent of Galen and the substitution of fal- lacies for true principles. Twenty centuries of blood and carnage.. VI. Hahnemann: “In place of facts and laws he found only hypotheses and theories.” His revolt from and abandonment of the medical Table of Contents. 7 practice of his day. The laborious studies which resulted in the establishment of the true laws of therapeutics. Hahnemann a great master in science and languages. VII. The law of simitia established from the past record of crude drugs often given in admix- ture. The importance of potentization and the single remedy were subsequent discov- eries. Their value now acknowledged by all schools of medicine. VIII. Disease is the jangled rhythm of Nature. Its hypersensitiveness to stimuli corresponding thereto. Hahnemann’s endeavors to reduce drug action by trituration with a neutral sub- stance resulted in the discovery of new activ- ities of the dtug. This great fact has now become one of common knowledge; Professor Crookes’s experiments; the rationale. IX. The totalities of symptoms, of drug and disease, must match each other in order to secure a complete covering and annulment. Impor- tance of thoroughly learning the spheres of action of the medicines employed. Symp- toms are only important in their own spheres of action. X. Alternation of medicines in order to produce a complete single remedy. “No real homoe- opathy, in its broad sense, without it.” Medi- cines used either singly or in alternation, as the symptoms may demand. The multiplica- tion of new remedies. A few drugs, even, are very difficult to thoroughly learn. Nearly 8 Table of Contents. all drugs are composite in their structure and effects. XI. Diseased conditions often have diverse sources of origin. Environment, hereditary influ- ence, primary and secondary causes. We must consider these facts and cover the whole by corresponding remedies rationally used. XII. Isopathy. No accurate isopathy possible. The sole test lies in provings and clinical practice. Hahnemann’s Psora theory the basis of all the later developments in germ and ptomaine diseases. Hahnemann’s inductions verified by the microscope and proven by modern science. XIII. The triumphant vindication of Hahnemann. Most recent discoveries in the pathogenic action of infinitely attenuated solutions of metallic poisons. The relatively enormous doses often used by Hahnemann, as com- pared with these solutions. XIV. The homoeopathic practice is simply the appli- cation of the universal principles of molecular physics. It is concededly true in every other field of Nature, and it would be remarkable if an exception were made in living organisms. XV. Conclusion. The homoeopathic law of cure is destined to become the general rule in medi- cal practice everywhere. In the future Hahnemann will be universally honored as the great medical founder, teacher and re- former of all ages. The Scientific Basis of Medicine. I. It may appear altogether uncalled for, at this late day, to endeavor to re- view, for the benefit of our profession, the underlying principles and rational practice of true homoeopathic medicine, for we have constantly been hearing of Ptire Homoeopathy, Rational Homoe- opathy, and other sorts of Homoeopathy for many years past; but, in reality, there never was a time in its history when it was more necessary than it is at this day to take our correct bearings again, by the light of the undying stars; for popular success has brought, in nu- 10 Scientific Basis merous instances, tlie penalty of success, in our art as in all other arts, and this penalty is carelessness, faithlessness, transcendentalism, color-blindness, and loss of sane perceptions of solid fact in the mazes of mysticism and fancy; or else, the following after false gods, and in many cases the gods already forsaken by their formerworshipers,andthe seek- ing a new popularity at the expense of the old, or endeavoring to reach a factitious “originality,” by proclaiming contempt for the achievements of the past. In this pathway lies failure; not a failure of the art, or of the science, however, but, for such stiff-necked dis- ciples, of the practice. In like manner a nation or an age of history at some period achieves greatness in art or science—it is called the golden age, the Of Medicine. 11 whole plane of manhood has been im- measurably lifted up; and then conies the period of decline and fall. It is a law of progress, it would appear, that this danger shall arise along every line of advancement; “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” it has been said, for with the achievement of liberty comes the carelessness of self-content, and then follow the vagaries of the mystic, with the schemes of the in- dividual self-seeker—what is every- body’s business is nobody’s business, and finally the sacred cause is im- perilled, and all its glorious fruits are lost. Hence, it is necessary at frequent intervals to take anew our bearings, to take an account of our stock on hand, even in the very flood-tide of popular 12 Scientific Basis success, and to learn if we are not at such times, even, nourishing the seeds which will eventually ripen only to blight and wither much of what it has taken long years of faithful work to prepare. But it is not to be understood that the profession as a whole is at sea— the great mass is sound to the core in principle and practice, and upon this immutable rock has been established the triumphant success of homoeopathic medicine. No art, no science, no pro- fession contains more earnest workers, more careful students or more able men. Its advance has been that of a conquer- ing army, its field of conquest has been among the most intelligent of mankind ; ignorance and Homoeopathy illy accord together ; for proof see the clientele to Of Medicine. 13 which its practitioners administer. But in time of peace it is necessary to pre- pare for war; and a cause is often judged as much from the conduct of the bushrangers and guerillas which hang upon the flanks as from the achievements of the grand army itself. Let us avoid this reproach, and leave to “ our friends, the enemy,” a monopoly of that right royal independence which makes each soldier a freebooter, where every man fights 011 his own hook, and where principles and practice are alike scouted as weak inventions of the enemy; where the only test of practice is the fact that fewer die on their hands by a change than by some older method, and in which the sublime motto is borne proudly aloft— “ Never mind the why or wherefore!” 14 Scientific Basis II. Thirty years or more ago the old- school branch of medicine was per- meated with skepticism from centre to circumference—its intelligent practi- tioners had lost all faith in the curative powers of drugs, and even professors taught from their chairs that the safest plan was to u keep away from the shops.” Nature was to be carefully watched and mechanically aided by nursing and hygiene, to be sustained by stimulants, or soothed by opiates, but not cured by medication. The only true principle of practice was to be known as the “ Expectant ”—to watch the horse, but not to take hold of his head and guide him ; the ass was to Of Medicine. 15 know the crib, but not the ox his master’s hand. All the schools and colleges of the elder branch, so-called, of medicine were pervaded by this false doctrine, and the art had been brought to this low state by a long period of barbarous, senseless, and destructive interference during past ages, and this was its natural and in- evitable revolt. Even the great Hahne- mann, before ,the day of his priceless discoveries, abandoned the whole prac- tice of medicine in disgust, and threw away a lucrative practice in his revolt, as we shall see. It was the pride and boast of the old-school hierarchy that medicine was entirely empirical ; that there was no such thing as a science of cure ; and for any intelligent physician to avow his faith in medicines would 16 Scientific Basis have provoked shouts of laughter among his fellows. Mechanical appliances, palliatives, opiates, stimulants, purga- tives, derivants, and, once in a while, rising dimly from the mists, an un- known and suspiciously-eyed interloper called an “ alterative,” (like Melchisi- dek, without father or mother, brother or sister, son or daughter, or any other blood relation, and without a tongue to proclaim its mission), appeared from time to time, to be prayed to by some, wrestled with by others, and inconti- nently kicked down the stairs by most of the profession ; these formed the sum total of the available armamentaria, and of all these only the last-named were claimed by any to be actual re- medial medicines or curatives. “ There are no such things as specifics,” was Of Medicine. 17 shouted forth from every mosque of this proscriptive Islam of medicine throughout the world. The prophet had not yet been heard among the nations. But notwithstanding this universal skepticism, the administration of green, blue, black and yellow draughts, boluses, pills and powders went on, for the pop- ular expectation demanded somethi?ig for its money and the eye of the people was keener than the eye of medical science, for it knew that somewhere there was a balm in Gilead. It is said that during the decadence of Rome the arts of divination persisted until two augurs could not come together to ex- amine the entrails of a victim without laughing in each other’s faces. So with the old-school physicians of those 18 Scientific Basis evil days. But a new religion was about to come to put an end to all these things. Just across the border line there was arising a bright, vigorous growing school of live men who did believe in medicine—they did more, they knew in their very bones the truth of medicinal curatives and specific cures, and in season and out of season they spoke it, they taught it, they practiced it; one by one the brightest and best from the elder branch dropped into this crowd of earnest disciples, gathered from the scoffing pagan ranks of the old school, marvellous successes attended them, till the scourged and reviled founder stood forth the institutor of a faith destined to illuminate the whole world; from a few obscure teachers the mighty armies of Of Medicine. 19 Homoeopathy grew and expanded, with their conquering banners, and we see to-day in our magnificent homoeopathic hospitals, colleges, and other institu- tions, and in the thousands of our earnest co -laborers spread all over every land, and, far more than even in these, in the entire and radical revolution in old school practice throughout the world, the triumph of the eternal law of cure. A very distinguished professor of one of our greatest old school medi- cal colleges has said that for this great work alone, the reform of the old school practice, by Homoeopathy, as a tri- umphant object lesson, the world owed Hahnemann a debt of gratitude which never could be repaid. The battle had thus been fought, the cause had been won, and old school 20 Scientific Basis medicine, drifting at random, on the waves of doubt, without a rudder, with- out a compass, without a sail, without a pilot, turned, in its extremity, to this new and swiftly sailing craft, and from it obtained latitude, longitude, new sail- ing directions and the very means them- selves which enabled them to trim ship, repair damages, set new sails and take a course not far, at all events, from the goal of safety. Except among those hoary headed patriarchs of the old school, like Job’s comforters, or the hollow-eyed bulls of Bashan, the self-appointed and half- blind leaders of the crowd, concealed in the dust of their own stamping, and soon destined to be abandoned by the herd, the old school sneers had died away; where there had been contempt Of Medicine. 21 was now inquiry; where there had been supercilious scorn was now interest and respect; there was found to be some- thing, after all, of value in Homoe- opathy which had not been discovered in the old school practice; and we were on the royal highway to a reunion of all the branches of medical science and art under a single standard, our own, in which our science should be the science, and our art the art. We should have lost something—that was in- evitable—it was being proven, for example, that Homoeopathy was far older than Hahnemann; that most of our medicines, in substance and in operation, had been really borrowed of old from the most ancient practice; that our law of cure was not an absolutely exclusive principle of administration 22 Scientific Basis for all remedial agents; that recent science had given us weapons of offense and defense against disease of which our older teachers were necessarily ignorant; that there is a limit to the effective potentization of drug sub- stances ; that the single remedy was for convenience and accuracy, and not from physiological or pathological re- quirements; and that, in becoming united, our distinctiveness as a branch was to be merged in a grander whole, but still there was to be lost a class dis- tinction. But the gain was still more vast—it was to have been that of hu- manity, of health, of life, and of all the glorious potentialities of the future. Of Medicine. 23 III. The older branch has been coming over to meet us—has been coming over to us, and is still coming, and will con- tinue to come, until it gets there; but the gallant Spartan band of medicine which once “faced a frowning world,” and resisted all the assaults of consoli- dated power, and all the envenomed shafts of malice, and all the wind-driven froth of ridicule, which stood inex- pugnable in war, now, in the hour of victory, was taking, in part, to the woods ; and we shall see, instead of a great meeting together, a great awaken- ing, confraternity, and immeasura- ble advancement, that there was to be a bloodless conquest, practically of our 24 Scientific Basis abandoned works, a swift running over of half-deserted lines of battle, and the old school flags flying from every flag- staff, undisputed masters of all our de- fenses, of all our war material, of our plan of campaign, our topographical maps, our appliances, and even of the hosts of those who had come to us for protection. Fear not, for they will use their victory ; they have learned the art of war from their enemies ; but, mean- time, where are we ? As they have approached, many of us have receded; as they have gained faith in drugs, many among ourselves have frittered it away; as they have found new light which never can be extin- guished, we have taken, in squads, to groping by the flicker of a thousand jack-’o-lanterns. One of our well-known Of Medicine. 25 homoeopathic pharmacists (and these men can feel the professional pulse as no others can do) said recently, in con- fidence, that a large part of those least grounded in the profession was going adrift—that sketicism in medicine was becoming the rule of belief with many of these, and that the already rejected nostrums of our one-time enemies were now in high repute with many among our less taught physicians. Anti-pyrine and its later kindred demons hold high revel in many a homoeopathic temple to-day. What is the malific origin of this strange revolution? Several very heavy blows have been struck at Homoeopathy within the past fifty years, and our ouce-enthusiastic brethren did not at any time rise up in their might to ward off these assaults, 26 Scientific Basis which, like all dangerous assaults against true scientific knowledge, came from within; and hence the whole organism has bled. The science of Homoeopathy is quite invulnerable against attack from without. The first of these deadly blows was that known as the “Keynote Theory.” It was so simple, so easy and so beautiful. Tak- ing three individual symptoms in any case presented, it was argued that like three points taken in geometry a thera- peutic circle could be drawn which should include the whole, and thus the curative remedy could be marched up, as it were, in charge of a corporal and a file of dragoons. It wasn’t necessary to know anything about anything. Very ingenious arguments were brought up to support these strange ideas, in Of Medicine. 27 which the ghosts of “ totality,” analogy, and other flitting figures of speech were made visible, like the flitting shades of a spiritual seance, but it was essentially death to Homoeopathy—it covered that totality, to kill it, every time. Drug symptoms and pathological manifesta- tion assuredly do not lie along the circumference of a circle, but within the confines of a sphere, and surely, by taking no three points within a sphere, and no thirty, can the sphere itself be determined or its contents coordi- nated with the disease. A new work on Materia Medica was published about the same time, much vaunted to the world, in which appeared, among bedbugs and lice, a new and elaborate proving of common white sugar, and the most dreadful 28 Scientific Basis and appalling symptoms were predica- ted of this substance, with perfect gravity and in wonderful detail. Professor Hering, who was then living, said that he knew of a physician, affected apparently with the same dis- tortion of mental vision, who had caused to be prepared and given to the world, a potentized remedy prepared from a certain sort of plum-pudding, which he had observed to inevitably produce cramps when inordinately eaten by an old dyspeptic patient of his. Some physicians, members of the county medical society about the year 1870, will recollect that a very eminent, but aged, homoeopathic physician of this city stated in an address before that body that, having been taken one night with a violent cholera morbus, he Of Medicine. 29 had traced the cause back to a drink of water which he had taken in the early part of the evening, from a tin cup which hung in the bath room of his residence, and in which, some weeks before, there had been made a slippery elm poultice for a sore toe; he was poisoned by Ulmns in some frightful potency, he couldn’t tell how high, be- cause he didn’t know whether the whole family had oeen accustomed to use the tin cup or only the servants. Do not such things indicate a certain sort of locomotor-ataxia of the intel- lectual faculties ? What must be the inevitable result of the enunciation of such vagaries before a class of rising young physicians ? The weak-kneed, the doubting, and even men of intellect will feel like casting about for some- 30 Scientific Basis. thing having a fixity of some sort to which they can tie, and they will often do this surreptitiously instead of openly, and thus vitiate their whole practice. There is many a “ life-preserver” con- cealed beneath the jacket of those who boast of being strong swimmers, but such a life-preserver will paralyze the efforts of any swimmer. In the meantime, our old-school brethren, sick of infidelity, sham and quackery, were themselves casting about to find something to which they too could tie, but just as surreptitiously as our own doubting Thomases, and, as a consequence, nearly every newly- adopted remedy in their pharmacopoeia (except the most recently produced chemical substances) is homoeopathic from the peak of its skull to the tip of Of Medicine. 31 its largest toe, in derivation, applica- tion and administration; while, in contrast, some of onr most recent works give less and less place to symptoms and specific remedies, and drop over to palliatives, mechanical appliances, and u expectancy,” while a part of the pro- fession, seeking a weak but easy solu- tion of a difficult but splendid problem, appears to be casting a sidelong glance now and then towards the rear—a very dangerous symptom in time of battle. If we are to-day suffering from want of fixed principles, from want of knowl- edge, from vacillation, let us go back to the ever-flowing fountain and learn once more the basic principles on which our science of cure rests, eliminate the ephemeral and the visionary, and plant our feet on a platform which never can 32 Scientific Basis be shaken because it never has been shaken, and the storm, if we are only- faithful, will soon be over. There is no room for doubt, but there is a sad lack of positive knowledge. When an army- degenerates into groups of bush-whack- ers, swamp-rangers and guerillas, with- out common leadership, or breadth of view, no matter how brave these swash-bucklers may individually be, the most sacred cause ever fought for may be irretrievably lost. There are certain historic facts which cannot be disputed, and upon which Homoeopathy is based; there are cer- tain scientific principles which have been immutably established; there are masses of impregnable testimony which cannot be overthrown; and there is a rational basis broader even than human- Of Medicine. 33 ity, as broad as physics, and upon this we can feel sure of every step we take. Let us stand here together, and let all abandon the vague, the untenable, the unnecessary, the secret and the vicious ; let us be true to ourselves and to our science, and we will soon find ourselves in the midst of a mighty company, and sustained, even among our opponents, by great clouds of witnesses. What are these basic facts ? Among empirics, however skilled they may be, no principles are violated whatever vagaries may at times be de- veloped. A practical miner can dig where he pleases, he has his own reasons, and, if successful, it is his good luck, and if he fail, it is his bad luck, and no one is bound by his failures or his suc- cesses, not even himself. But with a 34 Scientific Basis. scientific mining engineer it is quite different, and false theories, or the false application of true theories, will affect his whole profession and the art which he professes to practise in the minds of those who may witness his efforts, and even among his co-workers and in his own mind itself. The injury will be permanent and may be incalculably great. If such a mining engineer should see an empiric in the neighbor- hood “ strike it rich,” he might be so demoralized as to yield to the tempta- tion, abandon his instruments of pre- cision and research, cast aside the re- sults of a lifetime’s scientific study, and take to pecking and hacking himself. But if, at the same time, he professes to do his hacking and gouging under the guise of science, he will inevitably Of Medicine. 35 do far more injury than the common mining laborer, while, if successful, he will himself become a skeptic to his own teachings and convictions, and, if un- successful, will prejudice a whole com- munity against what they erroneously believe to be results of “ science,” but which, in fact, is but the basest sort of conscious or unconscious, but neverthe- less ignorant, empiricism. This was not the method among the great teach- ers and practitioners of the past, among those who founded systems, established basic principles, and, finally, led forth the whole world into a newer light of truth and success. 36 Scientific Basis IV. Homoeopathy dates, in the popular conception, only from the days of Hah- nemann, but this is an error which that great man himself most strenuously repudiated. The science goes back to the earliest dawn of the history of medicine. What Hahnemann did was to systematize and restore the past truths, to make them a perfected science capable of illimitable advancement along definite lines, demonstratable to all intelligent students, and teachable to and practicable for all to undertake and practise, and to provide the sys- tematic means for its own extension and progressive development into Of Medicine. 37 higher and higher triumphs in future ages. Not one of Hahnemann’s basic principles has ever been successfully assailed, and they are now universally acknowledged to be true by every branch and school of medicine in the world. Not only this, his labors have pointed out the way, and his discoveries first blazed the blind paths through those dense forests of ignorance and super- stition, before his day almost universal, along which the newest medical science of every school now advances, convert- ing them in broad highways for all the future ages of mankind. But these great discoveries and the opening of these blind paths has opened the way for many a half-taught groper, with his own untempered and blunt- edged hatchet, to himself blaze new 38 Scientific Basis blind-paths in all directions, and these lead only deeper and deeper into the darkness, or end in deep morasses in which many who have borne the standard of Homoeopathy flounder, with much noise and splashing, until finally submerged; and they along the high- ways who have heard the noise and dimly beheld the struggles have cried out, “ Alas, poor incubus-laden Homoe- opathy!” All this has been in the name of our profession, but it is only in name, it is not the profession—and what has been taken by many, and most of all by themselves, for movement, progress and advancement, is nothing but the dis-coordinated jerkings of a St. Vitus’s dance. None know this better than our old school brethren, who are very wise in this day and genera- Of Medicine. 39 tion, and so, for many years, they have been diligently traveling along our trails, marking out our encampments, raking over our richly-stocked corn- heaps, and selecting out the best and fullest-grained ears for seed, and in- corporating them into their own garden plats. We complain that they give us no credit; why should they? When they come to look for the real owners they often find them down in the swamps, waist-deep in mud, endeavor- ing to substitute some new weed for the full-eared golden grain, or toiling, amid filth, like Dean Swift’s philosopher, to extract the beneficent sunshine out of cucumbers, or wash back again the filth of mankind into food. Where is the solid front, the deter- mined aspect, the intrenched position ? 40 Scientific Basis Is the old-time aggression a thing of the past? Is our power of defence, even, weakened until, like the Chinese, we are ready to retire at the first ad- vance of the enemy ? In a recent homoeopathic work on tuberculosis, and which has gone through a number of editions, having for its basis the old- time treatment of this disease by potentized tuberculin, the author, in the last edition, has abandoned the very name consecrated of old to this class of homoeopathic remedies, and instead of Tuberculinum has now substituted the worse than meaningless term, Bacillin. Why ? He has been driven off by the differently prepared and far more dan- gerous Tuberculm of Koch. Why bacillin ? Every comminuted substance prepared, unless sterilized, is a Bacillin\ Of Medicine. 41 the specific bacillus here supposed to be caught is that of tuberculosis, and’ it has been surrendered at first sight. It is said that when Daniel Boone left Kentucky and emigrated to Missouri it was because he had been crowded out—a Pennsylvania Dutchman had settled on the next river twenty-seven miles away, and so he pulled up stakes and left. And to this day the Boone family own little heritage either in Kentucky or Missouri. But the Dutch do. Scientific Basis 42 V. The true historic founder of Homoe- opathy was Hippocrates, and there is evidence that his medical science was derived from the rich stores of Egypt- ian lore, through the sacred and secret school of the Asclepiadse, to which his father belonged. His practice was far more nearly in conformity with that of Homoeopathy than any of the recog- nized modes of old-school practice down from the time of Galen, until within a few years past, when our own branch of the profession revolutionized the prevalent one by its splendid object- lessons, visible in the sight of all men, and by the subsequent advances of modern science in the fullest confirma- Of Medicine. 43 tion of Hahnemann’s almost miracu- lous prescience. Hippocrates lived 2,500 years ago, and died when nearly a hundred years old. He believed and taught that diseases were principally due to climate and diet, and regulated his practice to suit the requirements and effects of these conditions. He did not recognize diseases by name or title—they were to him conditions, not entities; and from disregard of these great truths in after ages arose twenty centuries of human carnage. Hippocrates taught that diseases consisted in the manifes- tation of perverted function or altered structure in four fluids of the body, the blood, the lymph, the true bile, and the black bile. He sought to restore these fluids to their normal condition, 44 Scientific Basis and, like his successor, Hahnemann, “drew his principles,” it is stated, “ from careful observation, and was little given to theorizing.” He relied for the most part on the healing powers of nature assisted by remedies mostly of a simple character. He was skilled particularly in symptomatology and diagnosis, and divided acute diseases into their well-known three-fold stages of progression, to wit: incubation, development and recession. He an- nounced that medicines sometimes acted according to the rule of “ similia similibus curantur,” and at other times according to the law of con- traries, and thus first enunciated a positive law of cure. Had he lived in an age where the data for a complete judgment were at hand, we may be Of Medicine. 45 sure that he would have anticipated the universal law of cure by nearly twenty-five hundred years. His prac- tice was not violent, but benign. He aided the diseased organism to assume its rhythm of health again, and was the direct precursor of modern Homoe- opathy. He was not alone, however ; Antiphanes, who lived at the same time, wrote a poem which, it is said, “contains the earliest known announce- ment of the homoeopathic theory.” On this ancient school of medicine was founded the recognized practice of more than three hundred years. Then arose Galen, the iconoclast, who cast aside the benignant treatment of the Hippocratic school, and announced the great basic principle of contraries, that disease was a malignant devil to be ex- 46 Scientific Basis pelled from the system of which it had taken possession and over which it tyrannized. Medicines were required which could expel or destroy this malignant agency, and if, haply, the patient survived, it was so much the better. Perhaps it could be purged out; if half the patient’s surum was thus evacuated, surely half the poison must have gone out too. Perhaps it could be bled out; if a large portion of the blood was let, a large part of the “disease"’ must have been let also. Perhaps it could be blistered out, for there is no comfort, even to a devil, in a good old-fashioned blister. And if all these failed, it surely could be poisoned, or salivated, or asphyxiated. So the atrocious butchery began and was continued through a long line of Of Medicine. 47 Doctor Sangrados down to the begin- ning of the present century, when, coincident with the celebrity of Hahne- mann and the publication of his works to the world, the doctrines and prac- tices of this long, sanguinary epoch gradually ceased to exist, especially among intelligent physicians. So late even as the year 1790 eminent authori- ties advised bleeding for Asiatic cholera, once to recumbency, once to syncope, and the last time to whatever might happen to remain of the wretched victim. Take any published work whatever, of the regular school of practice of the last century, and it will be found to be one record of butchery and ignorant crime against humanity. An os innominatum, dis- interred from an old abandoned grave- 48 Scientific Basis yard at Fifth and Cherry streets, in this city, on its removal was found to be speckled all through with brilliant points and even large globules of re- duced metallic mercury. Shaken over a table, the whole surface ran with a multitude of silvery globules. For every man slain in battle the practice of medicine could claim a hundred victims. And into this den of lions Hahnemann, single-handed, first threw his mailed glove, and then sprang, full- armed for the fray. He emerged the victor, and the perpetual benefactor of his race. But between the days of Galen and Hahnemann the world of medicine was not all in darkness. There arose even then, from time to time, a few thinkers who proclaimed with trumpet tones the Of Medicine. 49 grand truths of medicine. Paracelsus, Stahl, Haller and others, it is said, “ in- sisted upon the truth of the law Similia, and pushed their investigations with more or less success in that direction.” And during these long ages there was being created a vast literature which, false and vicious as in general it was, unconsciously embodied, here and there, some basic fact, which, laboriously ex- tracted, was afterwards triumphantly employed by the great coming teacher to establish the law and gospel of cura- tive medicine for all future ages. It was natural, when Hahnemann had fully developed the law of cure so persistently pursued by Hippocrates and his fellows, and proven by ocular demonstration that the bloody and cruel practices of past ages were not only 50 Scientific Basis unnecessary, but ineffective, compared with a more rational treatment, that the old school profession should fall from their faith in these barbarous modes of treatment to the simple aiding of nature inculcated by Hippocrates; and hence arose the treatment by “expectancy,” in which the sick man was merely watched, and the belief that nature, left alone, would be quite sufficient. In fact their avowed belief, and it was a genuine belief, was that Homoeopathy owed its marvellous successes to the simple ab- sence of all medicine whatever. The logical effect was that they should also follow with no medicine at all, and hence arose that universal skepticism of a half century or less ago, to which reference has already been made. But later researches and comparisons, and Of Medicine. 51 the demonstrations of drug action so overwhelming on all sides, and after the use of even the smallest doses, gradually changed this skepticism into a truer realization of the fact that the “ ex- pectant” treatment by the school of Hippocrates was quite different from the let-alone treatment of their modern imitators, and at this point the move- ment of the old school practice toward Homoeopathy began, and still continues with ever increasing momentum. 52 Scientific Basis VI. Hahnemann was born in Saxony in the year 1755, and like his illustrious prototype, Hippocrates, lived to be nearly a hundred years old. At the age of twenty he began the study of medicine and the translation of foreign medical works into the German lan- guage, for he was already highly skilled in the natural sciences, and thoroughly versed in many languages; indeed, he • was far in advance of his day, for, -after years of medical practice and teaching, and when acquiring great reputation as a physician and author, he grew to dis- trust the received principles and prac- tice of medicine, and abandoned it, from a sense of duty, while in the very Of Medicine. 53 flood-tide of success. “ In place of facts and laws, lie complained that he found only hypotheses and theories.” He returned to Leipsic in 1789 and re- newed his studies of chemistry, and en- deavored to support his family by teach- ing and translating English and French medical authors, and suffered the dire pangs of poverty. How many of our new practitioners would do this to-day —sacrifice a paying practice from a loss of faith in the efficacy of drugs ? But such was Hahnemann, who for years, in the deep pursuit of knowledge, was accustomed to sleep only every alternate night, devoting the remainder of his time to unremitting intellectual toil. There are thousands of medical men to-day, homoeopathic physicians, who believe that Hahnemann’s great laws of 54 Scientific Basis cure were a sort of a happy inspiration. So the people used to believe that gen- eralship in the great commander was a mere matter of earnestness and luck. Kepler, toiling for thirty years among countless masses of accumulated figures—Hahnemann wearing out his days and nights in almost un- remitting labor, the great military commanders of all past history (who together can be numbered on the fingers of one’s two hands), may be the answer. In 1796 he made his first an- nouncement of the principle of Similia, which he was the first to declare to be the leading principle in therapeutics. He was ridiculed, like Newton and Copernicus and Charles Darwin, was bitterly assailed, like Confucius and Socrates and Galileo, but like these Of Medicine. 55 heroic men, like the martyrs of old, with unfaltering eye and untroubled mind, he “ faced a frowning world,” for he had grasped and given utterance to great truths which can never die; he had, like Prometheus, brought down the sacred fire from heaven to bless suffering mankind. During this period of incubation he studied, (as perhaps he alone at that time could have done), the records of the past, buried in many foreign tongues, and he selected therefrom thirty drug substances which had been in continuous pharmaceutical use for many ages, and collected, from an im- mense variety of sources, all that had been written concerning the patho- genetic and therapeutic action of these thirty medicinal substances. 56 Scientific Basis In every case he found that one set of authorities proved the power of these drugs to produce certain well-defined symptoms; and the same, or other equally reliable authorities, showed by their clinical experience that the same drugs had corrected these same morbid or morbific symptoms and the subse- quent conditions induced by the diseased organism. It is a well-recognized axiom of science that we shall not seek for two diverse causes to produce an effect which can be fully accounted for by one. If the law of Homoeopathy is true for these thirty selected drug substances, and if there is any controlling law in existence, the demonstration which covers the thirty must cover all analo- gous drug substances—it must be true for all; if, on the contrary, there is no Of Medicine. 57 law of relationship between morbid action excited by disease and curative action exerted by remedies, then physi- ology and pathology are both meaning- less, and this we then must find to be the only physical field which acknowl- edges no rule, no law, no sequence, and this the highest and proudest field of all nature’s operations. What Hahnemann discovered from these abstruse and difficult researches is now a matter of common knowledge in all books of medicine. Dr. Boudin, an authority on intermittents, narrates a case of an intermittent which followed the use of arsenic for Ichthyosis, and which he was obliged to cure by quinine. Sir John Forbes, in his writings, says: “Practitioners of experience, without 58 Scientific Basis subscribing to the doctrine of Homoe- opathy, will certainly think more favor- ably of ipecac on account of its peculiar tendency to induce fits of asthma in the predisposed.” Colocynth, a well-known producer of colicky diarrhoeas, is the sovereign remedy for similar diarrhoeic colic; Corrosive-sublimate is the king of certain forms of dysentery, both as a producer and a remedy. And so on of the whole catalogue. Of Medicine. 59 VII. But we must pause here and take an observation on that new star which had just risen above the horizon, for it is for these occasional star-gazings, and thereby fixing our latitude and longi- tude, that this little work has been written. The old records which Hahnemann so laboriously searched were not records of the uses of “ potentized” drugs—the remedies were, of course, given in full drug doses, many of them heroic, and yet the law of Homoeopathy was based upon these homologies. That is to say, if it had not been for good homoeo- pathic cures, performed in all ages by means of these crude drugs and crude 60 Scientific Basis doses, there never would have been any science or art of Homoeopathy at all; nor any potentizing of drugs, for the latter came afterwards and as a conse- quence. If these cures were not gen- uine, then Hahnemann was deceived in the whole basis of his system, and the entire structure must come down with its fallen foundation. If, on the con- trary, Hahnemann was not deceived, then these cures were good cures, and if they were good cures then they are good cures now. Potentizing, as we shall see, was a decided improvement, but the experimentation as to how far it can be carried with advantage is a new question and is no part of primi- tive or essential Homoeopathy per se} and it must be subject to other condi- tions and quite different limitations. Of Medicine. 61 The added power of potentization is now freely and universally recognized by all schools of medicine, but whether it shall end for one drug-substance at the 3d and for another at the 12th is a different matter entirely. Without a positive guide it was natural to push potentization to its utmost limit, and past its true limit; and from this ut- most limit it is the law of nature that there shall be recoil, and the further the limit be advanced the swifter and the greater must the recoil be. Confu- cius was right—the only true path, the only safe path, is the middle way— and the “ Doctrine of the Mean ” points to nature’s own highway, which all must follow if true success is to be at- tained. The second bearing which we can take 62 Scientific Basis is that these old records did not em- brace the use of their homoeopathic remedies unmixed with other drug-sub- stances—that the so-called “single remedy,” (which, strictly, by the way, is an impossible thing), is not of the essence of homoeopathy, and was also a sub- sequent improvement. That it was a very great improvement is undeniable, but principally because this is the only means which enables us to coordinate our drug provings and therapeutics with pathology, in the antagonism of symptoms of the one to those of the other. But this is not because the single remedy is in itself so important, but in order that these conditions shall be sharply defined and always uniform. If a single plant having in itself the combined pathogenetic properties of Of Medicine. 63 Belladonna and Aconite, for example, were known, this would be used as a single remedy; and conversely the alkaloids of either Belladonna or Acon- ite, separated from the other alkaloids of the same plant, become separate drugs, and are used each as a single remedy. Arsenious acid and Sulphur are quite different from each other, therapeutically, and yet Arsenic Sulph- ide is quite different from either of its constituents, and what is predicated or proven of any one of the three sub- stances is quite different from that of either of the others. So if Dover's powders grew, in their complete form, on trees, as a nut or a flower, they would be a single remedy, and so of every compound or nostrum in the whole materia medica. We thus per- 64 Scientific Basis ceive the reason for holding to the single remedy—it is principally for working purposes. For this reason all separate and individualized drug-sub- stances are incompatible with each other, except alcohol and sugar, which form a common part of all our combina- tions and so are, as it were, discounted. As we cannot tell what new combina- tions may chemically or physiologically be produced, from diverse drug-sub- stances administered commingled with each other, we hold them separate, so that our lines of attack may be clearly coordinated with the lines of the enemy. We do not fight in mobs, but by bat- talions. But we can easily exaggerate the importance of this single remedy theory, and instead of a faithful servant make it a tyrant or a god. We find Of Medicine. 65 our punishment, however, when we see advancing along these indefinite old allo-paths, and these crooked hetero- paths, the hosts of our old-time foes swiftly closing their ranks along the scattered hoinceo-paths, as they are now threatening to. When we find our lares andpenates lying broken to pieces, and hear the terrific shouts of the icono- clastic invaders, we sometimes take to our heels, or hear some demoralized skirmisher shout out, in accents of despair, “We have always used anti- pyrine in heroic doses for the last three hundred years—don’t you hear us?” Alas, it won’t do; they will make torches of our richly saturated and oleaginous bodies, which they will affix to tall poles, as Nero did of old, to light their next advances through our illy- defended encampments. 66 Scientific Basis VIII. And thus Hahnemann founded Ho- moeopathy. But in its first crude form it was ofttimes a dangerous homoe- opathy ; for it sometimes did as much harm as good, and for this reason. While in a state of health, the rhythmic molecular movements are perfect, as in all normally-acting bodies, and in har- mony with each other, when disar- ranged, or thrown out of rhythm by morbid action, the strings are out of tune, and the whole organism responds in discords to the disturbance. Now when a carriage horse, usually sedate and well-behaved, gets himself into a state like this, disturbed by a flying Of Medicine. 67 newspaper, or back-pressure from a trolley-car, perhaps, we can either knock him down with a fence-rail or can lead him off with a gentle “ so-now, so-now,” by his bridle. Either plan will answer, as the coal-heavers and the horse-tamers show us, even in the worst cases, but if we ever intend to use the horse again, or if we are employed by his owner to set the horse to rights with the least cost and damage, we had better try persuasion and the bridle. When the rhythm of Nature, which is normally as even and regular as the sweetest sounds of the violin in the hands of its most accomplished master, more so indeed, is thus jangled, the heterogenous strings respond far more quickly and violently to a powerful blow than when in a state of health. 68 Scientific Basis The sound which will not disturb a normal auditory apparatus, or the light a normal eye, will produce acute suffer- ing in an inflamed one. So we cover the street with tan bark when the nerves of a sick person near by are all alive to stimuli acting with abnormal effect along their own lines of force. Prof. Jorg, one of the most distinguished opponents of Homoeopathy, says: ‘‘Medicines oper- ate most powerfully on the sick when their symptoms correspond to the dis- ease. When there is inflammation of the intestines, a very minute dose of mercury will produce pain and other symptoms. It is in the very nature of things that a medicine must have a much greater effect when administered to a person already suffering under an affection similar to that which the med- Of Medicine. 69 icine is capable of producing.” Hahne- mann very early perceived and sought to regulate this difficulty by reducing the strength of his drug medicines ; but he found that in proportion as he re- duced their “ strength ” by molecular subdivision and attenuation, he corre- spondingly increased their activity, in diseases corresponding thereto, and sometimes rendered powerfully active, (by prolonged trituration with a hard, granular neutral substance, so-called), substances hitherto inert. This is 'all well-known now, and sounds like an- cient history to-day, for the old-school literature and drug stores are full of potentized remedies now-a-days; but when Hahnemann first announced it it was quite new—so new that it provoked shouts of laughter first, then the finger 70 Scientific Basis of scorn, then much head scratching, and in about a hundred years a very careful transplanting—soul, body and breeches, into the hortus siccus of the gradually reviving “regular” prac- tice. These molecular effects of poten- tized drugs are due to the unlocking of tensions between the constituent molecules, whereby greater freedom and amplitude are given to their oscil- lations. For every physical quality whatever is due to molecular oscillation, or to its conversion into kinetic energy —that is to say, energy of movement of mass. This increase of potential by the unlocking of molecular tensions was beautifully shown in the experi- ments of Professor Crookes with the molecules of atmospheric air. He em- ployed a long glass cylinder, filled with Of Medicine. 71 ordinary air at atmospheric pressure, into the opposite ends of which he had sealed metallic conductors terminated by plates, and connected with the poles of an electrical generator, and the cyl- inder connected with the exhaust of an air-pump. At ordinary atmospheric pressure no effect was manifested, the current simply passing through the contained atmosphere; but as soon as this became rarified, under the action of the air-pump, the mutually impacted atmospheric molecules gained more elbow-room, and began to show their authority, somewhat as a man does when his better-half goes off visiting. The positive electric plate began to shoot off these molecules like little bul- lets, which struck, in the manner of bird-shot, all around the negative plate 72 Scientific Basis at the opposite end of the cylinder. As the atmospheric tension diminished, the impact of these molecules increased un- til they first made the cylinder at their points of contact red-hot, and finally melted the glass, when the outside air rushed in through the opening, and closed the experiment. The progressive activity of the molecules increased in in- tensity up to about the one-millionth of an atmosphere, when, if continued, the activity gradually diminished, and finally ceased altogether. The point of maximum energy was thus near the twelfth homoeopathic attenuation, tak- ing a solid drug, weight for weight, in lieu of the atmosphere. This tells us why crude drugs are less effective, in general, than when the same have had their molecules partially sepa- Of Medicine. 73 rated, with their resulting potentization, through this so-called attenuation ; and also that there is a limit in the scale at which attenuations must either become inert, or else act by the residual mole- cules left behind unchanged from one potency to another, as must always be the case. This dynamic potentization of drugs by trituration, or succussion, against the molecules of extraneous menstrua, was Hahnemann’s own discovery; but he was led to it, as we have already seen, by his attempts to weaken, instead of strengthen, the energy of the drug activity, so as to adapt it to the hyper- aesthetic molecular energy of the dis- eased organism. The discovery has led, however, to great results in medi- cine, and its importance is now conceded 74 Scientific Basis. by all the schools of practice. That Hahnemann finally carried it, in some cases, beyond the points of greatest efficiency, may be well acknowledged, for that is in entire accordance with the natural law of all reforms. But after his enthusiasm there came, iti spots, at a later day, all the phases of the madness of insanity, and the one thousand millionth became a moderate potency, and ordinary bottle work be- came too slow, so that potencies were run up, like the praying machines of Thibet, by fluxion, water running through troughs and with the flow registered to slide up potencies, from a drop of the one-thousandth, at the head of the hydraulic system, to any point desired. After some hours of flow the spigot was turned, and a drop was taken; Of Medicine. 75 99 drops of alcohol were added, and presto! it was done. See? But the method, after all, was stale, for the first whiff of old Adam’s sinful breath must have been potentizing the whole atmos- phere, from that day down to this, with Carbo, Sulphur and Natrum, besides many vegetable medicines, among which doubtless figured Allium Cepci. It is easy to get a pharmacopoeia in that way—the trouble is how not to get it. No doubt Hahnemann’s venerable bones rolled over twice while these great discoveries were being made. Of course all this was rejected at once by the Homoeopathic Profession; but we all know how eagerly such nug- gets, like the “ gold-bricks ” we hear about, were seized upon for genuine metal by “ our friends the enemy.” They always^are. 76 Scientific Basis IX. So far, then, we have the law of sim- ilarly acting remedies, which is a posi- tive law of nature, just like gravity or chemical affinity; secondly, the single remedy, which is always convenient and sometimes absolutely essential; thirdly, the minimum dose, which is received as a coordinate of the homoeo- pathic law, on account of the hypersensi- tiveness of the similarly rhythmic or- ganism ; and fourthly, the properly po- tentized drug, which gives the remedy its highest specific activity with the minimum of mass-energy, or what we call “aggravation from drug-action.” We may add that every liquid solu- tion of any substance is itself an obvious Of Medicine. 77 potentization of the drug—the strong- est acid in solid form, and undissolved, is inert, and trituration merely does for solids what the liquid menstrum does for solutions. Consider Calcium Carbonate, Calcium Sulphide, Arsenic, Calomel, Charcoal, the Metals, and the multitude of insoluble and originally inert sub- stances which now form the very crown of the homoeopathic repertory, and in- deed of all the schools of medicine. But not all drugs work best in the same potency, nor does the same drug for the different rhythmic conditions of disease. The molecular oscillations in any substance are so numerous and varying that they require to be coordi- nated to diseased conditions only by the light of experience, the infallible test of truth. This requires time, labor, study. 78 Scientific Basis We have still left the “ totality ” of symptoms, the “ alternation ” of reme- dies, and the “provings” and spheres of activity of drugs. About these ques- tions what is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth ? In any therapeutic action of a drug based upon homceopathicity, it is ob- vious that the pathogenetic action of the remedy must cover the entire path- ological field, or rather sphere of mor- bid action ; that is to say, it must match totality by totality. For if it may include less and still be homoeopathic, it may be homoeopathic if it include but a single manifestation, and there is scarcely any drug known, having any positive action, which will not h-ave some one or few symptoms, primary or secondary, common to many or perhaps Of Medicine. 79 to nearly all others. Some of the indi- vidual symptoms from Belladonna, or Aconite, or Nux vomica are to be found in nearly every complete proving of all our best-tried medicines. Hence it is an axiom that to neutralize a perturba- tion marked by a series of specific manifestations, the new perturbation produced by medicine must cover the old one ; to cover it is to hide it space by space, point by point, symptom by symptom, and so annul it finally. By whatever measure this fails, the homce- opatliicity of the remedy fails—it may be a very good remedy and still fail at many points, but it is not a complete homoeopathic remedy ; a more complete covering would make it a more perfect remedy. It is true that we cannot trace out all these recondite symptoms 80 Scientific Basis in every case, this endless category of suffering nature’s inarticulate cries, nor can we ever perfectly learn the full list of words spoken by every drug; but we can readily catch their meaning, and very soon determine the true “ sphere of action ” of each drug with which we familiarize ourselves, and which is quite different from the so- called Keynote system, in which a few isolated morbid effects are selected and the rest are predicated. By actual in- termingling with all kinds of New York life, an intelligent stranger would soon learn to classify, with considerable ac- curacy, its various nationalities and their proportions; but by interrogating three or four different persons who might chance to be standing on a pier, while the observer stood on the end of Of Medicine. 81 a ferry-boat, be could never learn any thing at all about the subject. To quote the homely saying of the Confederate General Forrest, it is necessary to “Mix in with them, boys, mix in with them!” To learn the sphere of action of .a drug is the same as to learn the capac- ity of a workman whom one employs, or a complicated machine which he uses. It can only be done by practice, but when once done it is done for all time. We can hold this knowledge in reserve for the emergency, and, when it comes, at once apply it to the problem at hand, coordinating the spheres of ac- tion of drug and disease, the mere de- tailed list of symptoms, as a catalogue- series, not even in many cases con- sidered ; we match the potential of the drug against the kinetic energy 82 Scientific Basis of the disease, and the one extinguishes the other. We are thus armed at all points, so far as such par- ticular drugs go, for instant attack or defence. The symptoms have their value only in their own spheres of ac- tion, and a single symptom, perhaps even a glance, sometimes, may deter- mine the entire sphere of disturbance, and over this we at once apply the cor- responding remedial agency and ex- tinguish the morbid action by neutral- izing it. So Hahnemann was able, at a distance, to strike at a new disease, Asiatic Cholera, which he had never seen, or heard of before, and the sound of his blow (for he struck with Cam- phor and Arsenic) is still heard throughout the world. This is the true and grand field of the Homoeopathic Of Medicine. 83 Physician, and it always has been, and still is, all his own. 84 Scientific Basis X. But how shall we match these totali- ties to get our spheres of action? When Hahnemann lived, the materia medica of our school was far less rich in variety of material than it now is; where he had a hundred remedies we now have nearly a thousand, and every year is adding to their number. How did Hahnemann get along with his few if these many are now imperatively re- quired? This question brings us to the only point of weakness in the homoeopathic practice of medicine, and one which no one would believe possi- ble, if it were not so fearlessly announced and so boldly boasted. It is the cardinal doctrine of a considerable body of our Of Medicine. 85 professional brethren (only relieved by the side-light of the practitioner’s dark lantern, sometimes,) that it is high treason, to say the least, for us to use more than a single remedy at the same time, that is to say, to use two or more medicines at the same time, but admin- istered at proper intervals, alternately. Now it can be shown and proven with- out difficulty, and to the satisfaction of any intelligent and unprejudiced per- son, that not only is tbe habitual alternation of medicines true Homoe- opathy, but that there can be no real Homoeopathy, in its broad sense, with- out it. Unless we superpose limited remedial spheres of action by the use of drug mixtures, to make a perfect whole, (which is impossible, since expected re- sults will not appear), we must do so, to 86 Scientific Basis cover the pathognomonic field, by alter- nation. Let ns consider the case of Hahne- mann. He had a very large practice, paying him millions of francs, in Paris, in a few years, and he un- doubtedly practised medicine in accord- ance with the homoeopathic law of cure. The diseased conditions he met with habitually were unquestionably the same, generally speaking, as those with which physicians are now called upon to deal, as we know from medical history, and also because we still use the remedies which he employed. Now, if Hahnemann’s repertory included drugs which covered, singly, the totality of morbid symptoms in all the cases which he encountered, why do they not do so at the present day ? And if so, why Of Medicine. 87 should the materia medica have ever been enlarged ? Nay, more, if these facts are true, it was a positive crime against humanity to do so, or even to use a single drug as a remedy which was not used by him. The multiplica- tion of drugs, like the multiplica- tion of tools, renders the physician’s work more complicated and difficult, harder to learn and harder to practise, with fatal mistakes far more liable to occur, and, unless there is a reason for it, it is a dead loss, and a palpable in- jury to science and to mankind. The physician must always be the worse physician for it, for with totality it is totality or nothing; there is no such thing as the half of a totality; unless the whole is covered no part is covered, for that is the Median and Persian law of Homoeopathy. 88 Scientific Basis. If Hahnemann covered all with a single remedy in each case, the science and art were then complete and per- fect—the globe had been circumnavi- gated, and all else was “ vanity and vexation of spirit.” No new remedy had any place, any more than a new gravitation. On the contrary, if our new remedies are found to cover totalities singly which the older remedies could not have covered at all, then Hahne- mann must be classed as a self-confessed charletan, for he knowingly allowed his patients to die in his hands without- treatment and without warning, which is preposterous. Is there any record that he ever said to a suffering client, “ My friend, I have not the totality of your symptoms in any single remedy in my pocket-case, it has not Of Medicine. 89 yet been discovered, but if you will kindly drop in in about ten years I will keep my eye on the medical journals and perhaps we then can fix you up; if not, and you are still alive, and not disgusted, you can drop in again and again until we find the single remedy.” But if we have a totality of manifes- tations to meet, which are completely covered, one-half by one medicine and the other half by another, it is obvious that if we will administer these two remedies in alternation, at such inter- vals as will permit each to manifest its own individual power undisturbed by the other, that these two medicines, like successive waves, together will constitute but one remedy. By this means a very few medicines carefully studied, and their effects intelligently 90 Scientific Basis observed, can be made to do far better work than a multitude used singly and without a thorough knowledge of their properties and effects, as must neces- sarily be the case; for it is no easy matter, it is a very difficult matter, to fully learn the scope and power of even a single drug. The best results in former days were always secured in this way, and without it Homoeopathy cannot claim to be an exact or a real science at all. What would be thought of a mathematician who disdained to work with anything except whole num- bers? As the Scotch say, “Mony a mickle makes a muckle.” Our medical science is advancing, and will continue to advance, and it is only for obtaining better tools that this advance is possible or useful. Once understood, Of Medicine. 91 the true rationale of treatment opens wide the gates to illimitable progress, but we can never firmly advance if every forward step suggests or demands that those who trod the older paths of Homoeopathy were empirics. Some may object that these alterna- ted medicines must intermingle their effects, do what we will. So be it, every drug we have is composite and consists of quite differently acting constituents. In a drop of Belladonna Tincture there are more than a dozen differently act- ing drugs, no two of which will act on any diseased system alike; they are as diverse as though they grew on different sorts of trees, or came from different kingdoms of nature. Besides, the whole atmosphere is an ocean of potentized drugs. Professor Tyndall 92 Scientific Basis says, “The air of our London rooms is loaded with this organic dust, nor is the country air free from its pollution. However ordinary daylight may per- mit it to disguise itself, a sufficiently powerful beam [of light] causes the air in which the dust is suspended to ap- pear as a semi-solid rather than a gas. Nobody could, in the first instance, without repugnance place the mouth at the illuminated focus of the electric beam and inhale the dirt revealed there. Nor is the disgust abolished by the re- flection that, although we do not see the nastiness, we are churning it in our lungs every hour and minute of our lives. There is no respite to this con- tact with dirt, and the wonder is, not that we should from time to time suffer from its presence, but that so small a Of Medicine. 93 portion of it would appear to be deadly to man.”* In this ocean of organic remains, drifting through surges of filth, we float our ships of healing. Dr. Jeanes once said, “ I believe that homoeopathic medicines are a power, and a little filth won’t hurt them.” He was right; to quote the words of Emerson, each quiv- ering molecule seeks, through all the realm of curative medicine, to find, in the diseased organism alone, “ its accu- rate mate.” *In the air of a public meeting room, Professor Aitkin states, near a Bunsen gas burner, there were micro-organisms in the quantity of 489,000,000 to each cubic inch of space. A cigarette smoker sends 4,000,000,000 particles, more or less, into the air with every puff he makes. 94 Scientific Basis XI. But tliis is not all. In prescribing a single medicine for a totality of symp- toms we are always, of necessity, pre- scribing two at least. For example, suppose there are five hundred morbid manifestations at which to strike, and, conceding everything claimed by any- body, we find that a single drug has these identical five hundred symptoms, we are satisfied that we will cover the totality, and have the proper reme- dy. But they forget Shylock’s pound of flesh, without a drop of blood—there are here two totalities of the drug itself instead of one. There is a totality of the diseased organism, and a corre- sponding totality of five hundred symp- Of Medicine. 95 toms in the remedial drug, but what of those drug-symptoms which lie beyond? If the drug can lay claim to a single pathogenetic symptom besides those of the live hundred required, and every drug can do this, it is obvious that by the law of homoeopathic “ purism ” it is not homoeopathic at all; we have, in fact, two drugs administered in admix- ture, one of which is homoeopathic to the case and the other heteropathic. And every time a change of medicine is made, during clinical practice, the dreaded alternation must necessarily oc- cur, only to be avoided by starting in with a drug and sticking to it, hit or miss, through change or permanence, good or bad, till the patient gets on his feet again, more by luck, perhaps, than management, or the doctor is invited 96 Scientific Basis to the funeral. These very purists, by the way, as they call themselves, are al- ways those most likely to fly from one drug to another, while the old lumber- ing Conestoga wagons of alternation roll along the highway, steady and sure, and a welcome sight to all. They are the ones who get there. How many diverse sources of de- rangement are there in a diseased or- ganism? Is there just one, or may there be more than one ? Are there primary and secondary causes? Is environment to be forgotten in looking at hereditary influence ? Shall we antidote one mor- bid action, or as many as there happen to be ? We must “ fit the punishment to the crime,” the antidote to the poison, and if we cover the whole by two medi- cines constituting one remedy we will Of Medicine. 97 correct the diseased action, eradicate both primary and secondary effects, avoid a thousand chances of failure, and cure the patient. With this under- standing of rational Homoeopathy will fall off the craze for new remedies, un- less of especial importance, or specifi- cally required to meet new conditions, and the potentizing of bed-bugs, lice, plum-pudding, white sugar and all that wretched tomfoolery which has often caused the earnest homoeopathic physi- cian to blush and the judicious to grieve. It is not necessary to know, or even to ask, if these substances can cure or not—the answer is the same as to those who inquire about the millionth potency—it doesn’t matter whether it cures or not, it is superfluous, and ir- relevant to the case. The whole world 98 Scientific Basis is filled with powerful curative agencies —a million years will never make a visible gap in the supply—why shall we waste our time on moonshine or the restoration of sewage as a food supply ? Of Medicine. 99 XII. Another battle royal has been waged among homoeopathic teachers over the question of Isopathy—whether it was a derivative of the homoeopathic law, a part of it, or altogether heterodox. One asks another, with much concern ex- pressed on his countenance, “ but is not this Isopathy?” Well, Hahnemann’s whole Psora theory is based on a sort of isopathy if it is based on anything, so that this great dispute might remind one of the mighty conflict which centuries ago rent the Christian world in twain over the question of whether the Almighty Him- self, being single, indivisible, omnipo- 100 Scientific Basis tent and eternal, one part of this God- head was derived from two other parts, or only from one through the other. In aftertimes another great war raged for ages over the disputed question as to how many angels could stand, (angels being supposed to be immaterial spirits), at the same moment, on the point of a needle. And we all know the mighty battle which tore Laputa up by the roots, as it were, as to whether pies and cakes should be cut up in squares or triangles. This is human nature un- limbered for action, with blood in its eye, with its skirts tucked up, and its loins girded for the fray. In such cases the fray is sure to come. If a remedy, unknown in origin or name, but presenting a well-defined sphere of pathogenetic symptoms, be Of Medicine. 101 brought, like Curare, for example, from the wilds of South America, we use it homceopathically and it makes a name for itself. Would it be less useful if isopathic? Would the symptoms mean one thing in the one case and quite another thing in the other? If an- thracinum be brought to act against anthrax, psorinum against psora, anti- toxine against diphtheria, tuberculinum against tuberculosis, the isopath of rabies against that fell disease, or the other isopathic remedies now in use, if these cover the totality, what else is there to cover? If the medicine is not self-obscuring, and produces no aggra- vation of pathognomonic symptoms, is it not a good remedy, and is there any mode of determining whether it be good or bad except by trial? It is doubtful, 102 Scientific Basis however, whether there be any such thing as an accurate isopathy, for every system which responds to one dose of medicine is itself changed before the next dose. A dog will trail his master’s footsteps, or those of another upon whose scent he may be placed, for days and days. He knows that there is a dif- ference between the molecules cast off by these two persons, or by any two, or any hundred, and there must be such difference of exuvia in every case, and to a very considerable degree, profound enough to cover a whole neighborhood with its traces. These substances are similar in type, but clearly not identi- cal. In this field of self-energizing organic poisons, the long ridiculed psora theory of Hahnemann at first stood all alone. Inductively, based on his own Of Medicine. 103 investigations, when not a bacillus had ever been detected or a ptomaine even suspected, he saw them both with marvellous clearness in his mental vision; and with the same precision as enabled astronomers, from the perturba- tions in the orbit of one planet, to de- termine and point out the position, magnitude and orbit of another, before a human eye had ever beheld it. When the telescope was presented to this part of the heavens, lo! there was the pre- dicted planet; and when the microscope had been directed to the pathogenetic serum, lo! there was the bacillus, and with it its morbific products. We all know the fine scorn which the discovery of the itch-mite enabled the old-school to pour over the devoted head of Hahnemann—but like the old Roman 104 Scientific Basis emperor, they now vainly ask of each other to-day, “O Varus, where now are our bacteriological legions? ” To para- phrase the words of the old commander, “ they have met Hahnemann, and they are his’n.” For the whole medical and scientific world to-day acknowledges the controlling influence of bacteria and their pathogenetic products in the very classes of diseases, and they are very numerous, in which that old investi- gator saw their destructive progress, “red in tooth and claw with ravin.” But Hahnemann himself soon passed beyond even the less recent stages of the bacteriology of our own day, in which the bacillus itself was believed to be the sole pathogenetic virus, and into the still newer field where immunity and cure were to come, not from the living germs Of Medicine. 105 themselves, but from the debris of the field of battle where they had fought each other for the mastery. But a few days since, death followed the administration of anti-toxine for diphtheria; an analysis was made of the same lot of antitoxine in the bacteri- ological laboratory of the New York City Board of Healh, the report con- cludes “ specimens from both vials were also submitted to bacteriological tests, and were found to be absolutely free from living germs of any kind.” 106 Scientific Basis XIII. Did ever the vindication of a man go further than the vindication of Hahne- mann by the universal testimony of modern science? But not alone are his theories of organic self-propagated poisons without living germs thus vin- dicated; the potency of almost infinitely attenuated matter as a powerful patho- logical and physiological agency is equally established. We quote the fol- lowing from a recent article entitled, “ Biological Investigation on the Toxic Effects of Infinitesimal Quantities of Metallic Salts,” in one of the old school reviews of the day, which in fact is ful- Of Medicine. 107 ly in accordance with all -the latest recognized authorities. “Loew and Rokony's researches upon the reaction of living protoplasm in the presence of nitrate of silver were the starting point of these studies. Raullin succeeded in showing that nitrate of silver in the proportion of one part in 1,600,000 parts of water would inhibit the growth of Asper- gillus Niger, and, still further, dis- covered that this organism would not live in water placed in a silver vessel, although no silver can be de- tected in the fluid with the most sensi- tive reagents. Carl Von Naegeli, the late distinguished botanist, was led to pursue these clues still further, and, after his death, a paper was found among his effects which reveals the 108 Scientific Basis most astounding facts. These are an- alyzed at length by de Varigny in the Revue Scientifique. Naegeli’s pupils have gone over these experiments again and ascertained their accuracy. They have been published at length by Schwardener of Zurich. * * With infinitely diluted solutions the chloro- phyl spirals separate from the plasma, which remains in place, they become shorter, agglomerate, and the cells maintain their turgescence. Naegeli decided that in the first instance death was due to a chemical action, while in the second it occurred through the action of some hitherto unknown force, which he termed oligodynamia. His results are well described as stupefying. He found that death occurred in three or four minutes in a solution of Of Medicine. 109 ijw^oo,ooo,dbo.ooo* In such a solution there could not be more than two or three molecules of the salt to each litre. Corrosive sublimate gave even more pronounced results ; the organism died in a solution of 000,000,000,000,000,000* This could contain but a trillionth of a mole- cule in a litre. * * He discovered that many substances, hitherto con- sidered insoluble in water, such as the metals gold, silver, copper, iron, mer- cury, lead and zinc, by their mere presence in water possessed this prop- erty. He was able, by employing gold coins placed in vessels of water, to vary the amount of toxic force ac- cording to the number of coins placed in the water, and to the time during which they remained there. * * Further still, he discovered that 110 Scientific Basis toxic water became neutral if a suffi- cient number of the organisms were placed in it. The first ones died rapidly, while it took longer to kill the others, and finally a point was reached at which they began to thrive.” Some forms of organic life, it is stated, were quite resistant, whereas others were very feeble; one was weaker in the morning than in the evening The article concludes, regarding this dis- covery, “It may also lead to the dis- covery of living reagents for metallic and other substances, which would prove far more powerful than the chemical ones which we are now compelled to employ for lack of something better.” No homoeopathic physician need be told that we have been employing liv- ing reagents for this very purpose for a Of Medicine. 111 hundred years past, and that the re- actions are what are called provings. It may be added that the infinitesimal fractions above indicated correspond to the 9th centesimal potency in the case of nitrate of silver, and the 12th in the case of corrosive sublimate. Contrast with these figures the use of metallic gold as employed by Hahne- mann (see 3d edition of his “ Materia Medica Pura,” page 103): “I delivered several persons who suffered of melan- choly like that caused by gold, while they were thinking of suicide, by small doses of gold which, during the whole cure did not contain more than Tf0 to Hhr of a grain of gold.” Compared with the quantities nar- rated in the above experiments these quantities, as used by Hahnemann, 112 Scientific Basis were prodigious. The rational rule is to administer as much of any medicine as will do the work, and no more of it than will produce the proper effect; and in all cases this can only be de- termined by previous trial upon the living organism. The recent researches of Tesla in the field of higher electricity, the new de- velopments in the realm of light, heat and the other natural forces, and the vast enlargement of our knowledge of molecular physics, together with the resplendent results of spectroscopic an- alysis, are pushing the old, gross, ma- terialized, brute ideas of force and matter out of sight, and replacing them with entirely new knowledge, in the light of which the law of Homoeopathy is destined to blaze with unexampled Of Medicine. 113 splendor—for it was the forerunner, with its girdle of camel’s hair, and its meat of locusts and wild honey, of the great new era now shedding its morn- ing radiance over an awakening world. 114 Scientific Basis XIV. In the laws of nature we find its principles immutably established. Let us take the phenomena of light. This mode of undulatory action is rhythmic, definite, and its laws are well under- stood. White light is composed of all shades and colors, the spectrum of which we divide, for convenience, into seven colors, but there are not seven, but a multitude insensibly shading into each other from one end of the visible spec- trum to the other. And below the red we hear vibrating the slower tones, like the deep and deeper bases of the scale of sound, but quite invisible as light, though not as heat, and above the visi- Of Medicine. 115 ble scale, beyond the violet and laven- der, we find a new series of vibrations extending, like those sounds which pass, in shrillness of pitch, beyond onr hear- ing, and these ultra-visible vibrations manifest themselves clearly on the pho- tographic plate, but not on the retina. The answering rhythm of the eye fails at these limits of vision, but the vibra- tions continue, and extend the scale far beyond. When an Irishman strikes his best friend on the nose, the friend may see some of these missing numbers, and even manifest considerable heat, perhaps, in return. Across this colored spectrum of the solar light lie thousands of dark, vertical lines, some single, some double, some in bands, but each at a definite, fixed and determined distance, so that the light of the sun is pinched 116 Scientific Basis out, or destroyed, all along the colored spectrum, at a multitude of intervals. These Fraunhofer lines were long known, but their significance was not understood. It was, more recently, dis- covered that any volatilized substance producing a colored flame when burned (as copper produces green, strontium red, sodium yellow, potassium violet, and so on) would give, in a prismatic spectrum, only those parts of the spec- trum corresponding to its own color of flame, the remaining space, which should have been occupied by the other colors, remaining dark. But when one of these substances was burned at a high temperature, and in front of it was interposed the same substance in a vaporous form, and made luminous at a lower temperature, the interposed Of Medicine. 117 luminous vapor served as an opaque screen, and, as it was said, absorbed the original rays, and left only a dark line instead. But they were not absorbed, for in that case the luminous vapor itself would have projected its own spec- trum. What occurred was that the substance burned at a lower tempera- ture in vapor, and the same substance burned in solid or liquid or condensed gaseous form at a higher temperature behind it, gave out the ethereal undu- lations which constitute light at so nearly an equal interval but not quite, that one caught the other by interfer- ence, and the mutual rhythmical inter- ference from the vapor destroyed the oscillatory motion absolutely. This mutual destruction by mutual interfer- ence is a lawr of nature in all her fields 118 Scientific Basis of action. By the spectroscope we were thus enabled to sift the light of the sun and stars by placing, beside the solar spectrum, in the same spectroscope, the spectra of known terrestrial substan- ces, and measuring one on a scale against the other. The colored lines of the spectrum of the terrestrial substance in many cases (for nearly every substance has a spectrum not of one line only, but of many) were all found to correspond in position to a graduated and coincident series of dark lines in the solar spectrum, and we have thus learned that most of our terrestrial elements exist in a highly incandescent state in the sun itself, and that, sur- rounding this incandescent orb, is a gaseous envelope at a lower tempera- ture, but still glowing with intense Of Medicine. 119 heat, and in this gaseous envelope are suspended the volatilized vapors of the same substances as make up the bod}' of the sun. The sun is thus seen to be a genuine gigantic homoeopathic estab- lishment in full and successful oper- ation, in which successful provings and clinical cures are going on, and have been, long before the older school of medicine first hung out its crimson banner, inscribed: “ Bleed, Blister, Salivate, Purge! ” So, also, Herz, the eminent German physicist, in his lecture on the identity of light and electricity, before the sixty-second congress of German natur- alists and physicians at Heidelberg, says, referring to the interference of waves of sound, “Having set the dia- pason in vibration, he goes with his 120 Scientific Basis resonator to different parts of the room and observes the intensity of sound. He perceives that it becomes weak in some places, and infers from this that each vibration is annulled by another of later origin which has reached the spot by a shorter route" That is precisely the way in which we annul the vibra- tions of a diseased organism with our resonator, the properly attuned homoeo- pathic remedy. Of Medicine. 121 XV. These laws prevail, not only among the phenomena of light, heat, sound and electricity, but among all the forms and forces of molecular activity—they are the expression of a law of nature universal, unceasing and eternal. Shall we not, then, unite to ‘‘hitch our wagon to a star,” as Emerson says ? Shall not this stone, rejected so long of the builders, become the chief corner-stone of the new temple of therapy? Shall we barter our birthright for a mess of synthetic coal tar products ? Or, on the contrary, remembering that “all things come to him who waits,” shall we not rest in the arms of scientific Scientific Basis of Medicine. 122 truth, and hold fast to a faith so grand, so simple, so pure, so scientific, and yet so flexible and reasonable, that all the world can come over to our side and say, “Whither thou goest I will go, thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God?” And then in the distant future, now happily sweeping forward on the wings of life and light, when brave old Hahn- emann shall have his monuments and statues erected in every land, (and they shall not be statues with bowed head and bent figure, but erect, with flashing eye, a veritable god of war), amid the universal acclaim of mankind, our suc- cessors will carve on every shaft and pediment the immortal words of the be- trayed, despised, condemned and im- prisoned Galileo— “And yet the world moves.”