mil m f m && i&tS THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS HOMEOPATHY. BY WILLIAM H. HOLCOMBE, M. D. Medicina leges natures legipus deblni.esselcl&nl.e^tsi^ejEl'^-^RNELiU! iSURGf'JN GENERAL'S OFFICE JUl 211899 L /6677<^. CINCINNATI: * / ____ H. W. DERBY & CO., PUBLISHERS. ~~ 1852. K VVB K H 725s l?S2 Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1852, by H. W. DERBY & CO., in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Ohio. CINCINNATI; Morgan <$• Overend, Printers. CONTENTS. Dedication,...........5 Preface,...........6 I. Reasons for the Investigation of Homoeopathy, . . .15 II. Method of Conducting the Investigation, .... 63 III. Undulatory Theory of the Nerve Force,. . . .87 IV. Neural Pathology,.....• . . . 150 V. Action of Homoeopathic Remedies,......179 VT. Theory of Cure t Based on the Laws of Undulatory In- terference, ....... - 228 APPENDIX. Review of Hooker on Homoeopathy,......266 Extracts,...........296 TO THE MEDICAL PROFESSION IN THE UNITED STATES, this humble endeavor TO POINT OUT SOME OF THE CORRELATIONS OF PHYSICAL AND MEDICAL SCIENCE, IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, BY THE AUTHOR. 4. It is interesting to trace the principles by which a man of cultivated mind is influenced in receiving, upon testimony, statements which are rejected by the vulgar as totally incredible. 1st. He is influenced by the recollection that at one time many things appeared to him marvelous, which he' now knows to be true: and he thence concludes that there may still be in nature many phenomena and many principles with which he is entirely unacquainted. In other words, he has learned from experience not to make his own knowledge the test of probability. 2d. He is greatly influenced by perceiving in the statement some element of probability, or any kind of sequence or relation by which the alleged fact may be connected with principles which are known to him. It is in this manner that the freezing of water, which was rejected by the king of Siam as an incredible falsehood, might have appeared credible to a philoso- pher who had attended to the properties of heat, because he would have perceived in the statement a chain of relations connecting it with facts which he knew to be true. 3d. He is much guided by his power of discriminating the credibility of testimony, or of distinguishing that species and that amount of it, which he feels to be unworthy of absolute credit, from that on which he relies with as implicit confidence as on the uniformity of the course of nature. The vulgar mind is often unable to make the necessary discrimination in this respect, and is, therefore, apt to fall into one of the extremes of cre- dulity and scepticism. Abercrombie on the Intellectual Powers. Article Testimony. PEEFACE. After a theoretical and practical examination of Homoeo- pathy, extending over a period of two years and a half, and marked by many fluctuations of opinion, I have enrolled myself as an humble advocate of what I consider to be the most comprehensive, and the least understood, of all the sys- tems of Medicine. I have, therefore, withdrawn from the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Cincinnati, not as from a scientific association, willing to debate fully and liberally a scientific question, but as from a private party of gentlemen to whom my opinions and practice had become obnoxious. Indifferent as I am to the sentiments of those who condemn without trial, and sneer without knowledge, and whose vitu- peration is proportioned to their ignorance, as some animals are said to be fiercest in the dark, I am duly solicitous for the approval of the wise, and the respect of the good. I have therefore embodied in a few essays, and in the shape of an appeal to candid and intelligent physicians, my own reasons for leaving the beaten track of the profession. I have given no statement of cases, for such have been often published before, and may be found in almost every number of the Homoeopathic journals. They have been the source of more caviling than conviction. Nothing is easier than to construct a medical report, except the facility with which the whole of it may be explained away. Besides, I have not kept that careful and faithful record which alone should be submitted to professional scrutiny. The impres- sions and convictions of my own mind could not be transferred X PEEFACE. to others by the mere statement of my limited experience. But to collect facts and to philosophize upon them are differ- ent processes, equally necessary to the establishment of truth. The facts already collected from indiscriminate sources, are, in my opinion, amply sufficient to substantiate all the claims of Homoeopathy. These I have endeavored to present in a novel and attractive light. Two things I have especially labored to show: Firstly, that Allopathists have hitherto made men of straw, generally rude effigies of Hahnemann, which they have mistaken for Homoeopathy, and demolished with apparent satisfaction, while the real points at issue have been left untouched and frequently undiscovered. Secondly, that the rationality of the Homoeopathic doctrines becomes more and more perceptible as we extend our survey of the facts and principles of modern science. Upon most of the members of the profession, this appeal, sharing the fate of its predecessors, will fall like the Scripture seed into stony ground. Many of them are bound to their present opinions by ties of interest, affection, and implicit faith, which it would be expecting almost too much of human nature to sever. Others have been long and publicly com- mitted to the exposition of their dogmas. Some are too indolent to investigate, and not a few are too timid to accept. But with all this, there are intelligent and conscien- tious men, who constitute the van-guard of science, and are as ready to welcome her friends as to give battle to her enemies. They are conscious that the bow of Medical phi- losophy has not been stretched to the farthest, and are too modest and cautious either to affirm or deny any proposition until it has been submitted to the touchstone of experimental criticism. They are not only willing, but anxious to hear, being aware that he who has never changed his opinions, has never corrected his errors. And above all, they are not to be deterred from the path of duty by the scowl of sus- PEEFACE. xi picion or the whisper of calumny. With such I would " fit audience find, thoug-h few." Their especial attention I would direct to the Undulatory Theories of Function, Disease, Medicinal Action and Cure here submitted. These titles are rather vague and inexpressive, but they are the best I could adopt, being derived from a theo- retic view of the nature and modifications of the Nerve Force. It is an attempt to establish Homoeopathy on the broadest possible physical basis. Impressed with the harmony and universality of natural laws, it has been my ambition to look at Medical Science with something of that spirit with which Humboldt delighted to survey the Cosmos. Accordingly I have indulged in some speculations of general physiological interest, but which have no direct bearing upon Homoeo- pathy, except to render the theory more stable by widening its foundation. I claim nothing as original but a peculiar synthesis of facts and ideas which are common property. Every action of the human mind at the present day, is but the turn of the kaleidescope, which only gives a new form to the same materials. Although dogmatically expressed, I would have it remembered that this theory is tendered as a sheer speculation. Homoeopathy is too securely based upon experience, from which there is no appeal, to be shaken by the downfall of any hypothesis. If the blast of criticism should blow the structure which I have reared to the ground, the fault will lie only in the unskillfulness of the builder. I am ready to concede that my theory of Homoeopathy will not stand the test of logical analysis. If it did, it would stand alone in the midst of ruins, in the midst of all the theories which have been ever contributed toward the phi- losophy of medicine. The materials of medicine are too imperfect for us to deduce from them the general principles and immutable laws which would place it securely among the positive sciences. Homoeopathy has to contend with the xii PEEFACE. obstacles which have impeded the progress of Allopathy, and indeed, of all the departments of human knowledge ; ambi- guity of terms, looseness of statement, hasty generalization, intermixture of deficient observation and inconclusive infer- ence, and innumerable sources of fallacy. The pretense of employing successfully the inductive method in the present state of Therapeutics, is a pedantic mockery. It was a golden axiom of Bacon, that "truth emerges sooner from error than from confusion," and the proper question is, not whether a theory be true or false, but to what extent will it harmonize and explain phenomena ? The gray streaks, however, which indicate the dawn of a better era, are already visible. The possibility of associating Medical and Physical Science by a nexus of common laws is becoming more apparent. Of all Allopathic Journals, the British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review has given the readiest welcome and most forcible expression both to new truths and to new modes of looking at old truths. Ho- moeopathy alone has never received justice at its hands. Much of the spirit and matter of this little work has been drawn from its pages. Notwithstanding its literary and scientific character, for which it is unrivalled in the English language, the liberality and comprehensiveness of its views have excited the suspicions and attacks of some of its bigoted and inferior coadjutors. One important department I have entirely omitted, viz., that which may be called the psychological phasis of Homoeo- pathy. This has been done from no inappreciation of its immense value, but from a sense of its uncertainty. The mental condition of a patient is always taken into considera- tion by the Homoeopathic practitioner. Abnormal states of the mind can be both produced and cured by drugs acting on the organic media of mind. But the laws which govern the connection of soul and body have never yet received any PEEFACE. xiii definite expression. Theory would be so entirely conjectural that it is better to wait patiently for a greater accumulation of facts. These facts lie in a field which is seldom worked by medical laborers. The British and Foreign Medico-Chi- rurgical Review in a long and brilliant article on Odyle, Mesmerism, Electro-Biology, etc., observes, "nevertheless, these books and the phenomena which they record, are equally interesting ; the books as pregnant warnings against an erroneous method of scientific inquiry ; the phenomena, as being destined to lay the foundation for a complete revo- lution in metaphysics and mental philosophy." This revo- lution will never be perfected until competent medical men take the median line of Physiology and Psychology out of the hands of charlatans and itinerant lecturers. A sounder metaphysics will be' the best forerunner of Homoeopathic truths, but until this has been constructed by ample observa- tion and experiment, our circle of exposition must have a smaller, although more positive area. Whilst I have not hesitated to expose error and to denounce injustice, I have contented myself with the defense of Rome, without carrying the war into Africa. It is not the object of this treatise to declaim against Allopathy as a system of practice. I have no disposition to trumpet its occasional abuses in order to make men oblivious of its innumerable benefits. I do not claim for Homoeopathy an exclusive value, but only a superiority which it is prepared to maintain. Those who are rich in resources can afford to be magnanimous. Allopathy is the old, time-worn, uneven, zig-zag road, which the unprogressive continue to travel in memory of their fathers. Homoeopathy is the recently constructed turnpike at its side, leading more directly, comfortably and expedi- tiously to the same point. If in handling my subject I have claimed too much for my own side, or infringed unwar- rantably upon the rights of others, demonstration of the fact xiv PEEFACE. will be the signal for immediate concession and apology. I have desired to write as I endeavored to act, with the im- partiality of a man, neither disposed to conciliate nor afraid of offending any party, but in search of the truth —the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Those who can look down from that disinterested position which all should occupy, upon the squabbles of medical men and medical schools, must be disgusted with the bitterness of spirit so frequently engendered by a difference of opinion. It is like religious intolerance, which damns the poor brother who reads the same Bible by the torch of a different interpretation. This narrowness of thought we should eschew as the spirit of evil, and aspire to adopt in all things the beautiful and catholic motto of the British Journal of Homoeopathy, echoed from one of the Fathers of the Church : " In certis unit as, in DIJBIIS LIBERT AS, IN OMNIBUS CARITAS." Cincinnati, January, 1852. THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. REASONS FOR THE INVESTIGATION OF HOMffiOPATHY. Aftee the great revolutions which permitted the seeds of civil and religious liberty to germinate in Europe, the mind of man began to display its innate activities as it had never been enabled to do before. Discontented with the feeble range of his unaided senses, the student of nature applied himself, with extraor- dinary success, to the construction of instruments, to enlarge the field, and render easy the acquisition of knowledge. The art of printing permitted the great principle of associated labor to be brought more advantageously to bear upon the investigation of truth. Every branch of physical inquiry received an impulse which has never been intermitted. Useful improve- ments, splendid discoveries, and the absolute creation of new arts and sciences, have not been the only fruits of this inspiriting progress. Errors have been cor- rected, prejudices uprooted, and the general mind, to a great degree, emancipated from that dogmatic slavery which is worse than the tyranny of rulers. The soil, to speak metaphorically, has been cleared of many of its rank weeds, to make way for the seeds of truth. These had been occasionally sown before, by brave and 16 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. superior spirits, but their evil neighbors sprung up in foul luxuriance, and choked them. Ancient philoso- phers, amid the very shrines of idolatry, taught to their select pupils the unity and invisibility of God. The great idea of human equality, still only partially recog- nized, is older than the Spartan republic. And the fundamental principle of all Medical Science is found enunciated in a book "on the relations of medicine to man"—attributed to Hippocrates, and at any rate the product of a remote period. A'<* ™ fa01* t","a'« yhtrtti, «*/ t:ojuiivtL tx. voo-iiivtuiv Cyiaivovrsu' SICK people are cured by remedies which produce analogous diseases. Not only are ideas, and facts, and things associated by certain affinities—but the discoveries and advances of a particular epoch bear to each other a definite re- semblance. Truth is never isolated. Home Tooke said, that from a single thought all philosophy might be deduced. Herschel supposed, that from bare ele- mentary conceptions of time and space, all mathematics might be constructed. The various departments of human knowledge stand to each other in strict and beautiful correlation. Homoeopathy is prominent in the midst of a noble group of congeners. Its fundamental axioms—the curing of disease by drugs which produce a similar pathological condition, and the efficacy of infinitesimal portions of medicine—are directly antago- nistic to the fallible experience of mankind. No sys- tem ever stood in such need of that whole cycle of scien- ces from which general principles are evolved, and by which alone experience can be corrected and rendered available to art. And no system could ever exhibit such an intimate affinity with that cycle of sciences. scientific basis OF HOMCEOPATHY. 17 The struggle of the medical mind is for a rational union of theory and fact—of principles and phenomena. The constructors of Homoeopathic science have endea- vored to pursue the Baconian process of induction. The foundation stones of the superstructure are facts—tho- roughly substantiated, carefully collected, and syste- matically arranged. These have been met only by theoretical objections, inadmissable in a question sol- vable only by experiment, or by the cheaper and more usual method of impugning our motives and impeaching our testimony. On our facts many theories have been reared, differing with the capacity of the mind survey- ing, and with the point of view from which the subject was surveyed. If the facts be facts indeed, there is a discoverable theory to harmonize and explain them, as certainly as there is a soul to animate the body. All theories are provisional—they are but relatively or approximately true. But we may safely pronounce that theory the most scientific, which has the strongest and broadest basis of experience, and the most exten- sive correlation with the known laws and phenomena of nature. For such a theory I have sought, and "I leave it to the medical profession, as the only compe- tent tribunal, to determine whether my returning vessel is laden with gold, or only with the sand that glitters like gold. Homoeopathy has a three-fold practical basis—the phenomena of disease, the phenomena of drugs, and the correlation of all Forces, Yital and Physical. Upon these it would rest immutably, were speculation a thing impossible to the human mind. Nothing is more com- mon than to hear the system of Hahnemann denounced 18 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF H0MG30PATHY. as a visionary hypothesis and a vagary of the imagina- tion. There are two species of imagination, the poetic and the scientific. The one impels men to seek for phi- losopher's stones, elixirs of Hie, and fountains of youth. The other is that sublime faculty which not only collects facts, but so arranges and classifies them as to deduce from their synthesis the laws of matter. To the former class of minds belong Plato, Paracelsus, Fourier, Shel- ley, and the like; to the latter, such men as Newton, La Place, Faraday, and Hahnemann. In a practical point of view, the New School has greatly the advantage of the Old. Notwithstanding all the disclaimers of the schools and journals, Allopa- thy is thoroughly tainted with false or questionable theories, so that her history is the history of funda- mental error and temporary systems. Three or more physicians may treat the same disease by three or more different methods, and as there can be but one series of facts, the difference of treatment is only referable to difference of theory. Such a thing could not possibly happen under Homoeopathic administration. The law of nature, which is our guide, insures great similarity, and a uniform principle of treatment. Not that Homoe- opathists do not theorize, for that is the natural ten- dency and necessity of the human mind. But a change of theory—the substitution of a better for a worse— does not involve a change of practice, as in the Old School. In this, Homoeopathy bears an analogy to the Physical Sciences. The student of electricity may adopt the theory of Franklin, or that of Dufay, the views of Davy, or those of Faraday, but the facts and applica- tions of electricty are the same. Whether he believes SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 19 light to be a corpuscular substance, or an ethereal undu- lation, the optician constructs his instruments in accord- ance with its ascertained laws of radiation, reflection, and refraction. Whatever theory of Magnetism pre- vails in the philosophical circle, the mariner never trusts in vain to the motion of his needle. Any new Abercrombie, Eush, Hall, Thompson, or Broussafs, may modify the whole scope of Allopathic practice. The advocates of Homoeopathy co-operate for one pur- pose, and in one direction—and Hydropathy is a legiti- mate ally, mainly on account of the simplicity and universality of its principles. It is the tendency of this age to raise to its natural dignity the study of the infinitesimal. The grosser features of nature are no longer sufficient to sate the curiosity of the human mind. Schleiden, the great botanist, aptly and truthfully observes—"It indicates a most barbarous age, or a very low state of refinement, when the value of a thing is measured by great and small—a standard, indeed, which finds no application in all that we know most essential and valuable. Phy- sical magnitude imposes only on our sensuous nature; cultivated man seeks to know the object of his contem- plation perfectly, in all its relations, and then only from the perfect knowledge does he permit himself to judge as to the essential and the non-essential. Yery frequently, this leads him to declare that most signifi- cant, which has least dimensions." Every thing has been subjected to minute analysis—space and time even have not escaped. By the aid of the sphasrometer, (an instrument which substitutes the sense of touch for that of sight in the measurement of minute objects,) an inch 20 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. may be readily subdivided into 20,000 perceptible parts. Contrivances have been made to enable the mind to appreciate distinctly the interval of the T?7Votn °f a single second. The precise length and number of the ethereal undulations which cause the different colors, have been estimated and stated in figures, which almost stupify the human imagination. Electrometers have been recently invented, which not only render sensible, but subject to precise measurement and subdivisions, degrees of force infinitely too feeble to affect the nicest balance of the usual construction. Scales have been made which turn with the thousandth part of a grain. There is a thermo-electric instrument so delicate that it measures accurately the comparative warmth, or animal heat of minute insects. But the use of the microscope, particularly, has poured a flood of light over every department of mole- cular philosophy. We have thereby passed from the threshold toward the penetralia of the temple of nature. We have discovered animated beings so minute, that a million of them congregated together would not exceed in bulk the head of a pin, and yet each of these crea- tures is supplied with distinct and intricate organs. The axis-cylinder of the nerves, which is the delicate conducting medium of the Nerve Force, is sometimes only „£„ th of an inch in diameter. Dr. Wollaston manufactured a wire of platinum so attenuated that 30,000 of them in juxtaposition could only have occu- pied a linear inch. Now there is every physiological reason for believing that Dr. Wollaston's platinum wire touching the axis-cylinder of a nerve in a living ani- mal, would produce muscular contraction, depraved SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMCEPATHY. 21 secretion, or any other phenomena indicative of dis- turbance in the nervous system. A great and imagina- tive wi'iter says, that, "in every material object, there is a punctum saliens so small, that the point of a pin covers it, as with a sky." But after all our astonishing success, can we flatter ourselves that we have reached the ultima ihule of discovery? Let the philosophic Herschel answer: " Microscopes have been constructed which magnify more than a thousand times in linear dimensions, so that the smallest visible grain of sand may be enlarged to the appearance of one a thousand million times more bulky ; yet the only impression we receive by viewing it through such a magnifier is, that it reminds us of some vast fragment of a rock, while the intimate structure on which depends its color, its hardness, and its chemical properties, remains still concealed. We do not seem to have made even an approach to a closer analysis of it by any such scrutiny." Our effort to reach the ultimate forms, and to dis- cover the ultimate forces of nature, is like the child's pursuit of the rainbow which continually recedes before him. One thing, however, we have certainly discov- ered—that those forms, forces, and the distances at which they act, are all infinitesimal. This sublime truth should inculcate a more respectful and candid consideration of the kindred doctrine of the efficacy of Homoeopathic attenuations. Nothing is more gene- rally acknowledged by the cultivators of natural sci- ence, than that the external and obvious phenomena of nature, are only the aggregates or last results of vast series of molecular actions and infinitesimal motions. 22 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. This great fact, the basis of Homoeopathy, is scarcely recognized in Allopathic Physiology, Pathology, or Therapeutics. Our period of the world has abounded in those obser- vations and discoveries, which teach us to distrust our preconceived opinions to question the evidences of our senses, and on all occasions duly to consider the limited nature of our own faculties. Every branch of science is so full of such examples that their mere recapitula- tion would occupy pages. Whoever will study Dumas' Theory of Substitution, the facts upon which it is founded, and the sublime generalizations to which it leads, and whoever will trace the wonderful and nume- rous features of identity in all the Imponderable Agents, will stand astonished, both at our past ignorance, and at the prospect of our future discovery. Who would suppose that the various parts of a plant—the stem, the petal, the stamen, the pistil, the fruit, the seed— were all modifications of a single elementary form— the leaf? Who could believe, at a superficial glance, that the cranial bones were vertebras? And yet, al- though at first ridiculed as obscure and fantastical, no facts in natural science are better established than these. Keviewing Owen and Maclise on the Archetype Skele ton, a writer in the British and Foreign Med. Chir. Keview, July, 1848, throws out some suggestions very valuable in this connection. "It is impossible to con- ceive of any process of mental training better adapted to overcome that stupor et incovipetentia sensuum, which Bacon condemns, than the study of the typical formation of the skeleton in the animal series. Such an inquiry demands, as the first condition, the rigid SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 23 subordination of the senses; form, size, position, the most obvious circumstance that appeal to the eye, here have no signification. In determining what are homol- ogous parts, it is even necessary, in some cases, to reject the evidence of function, for organs may be homologues of each other, and yet have very different offices." Only the most comprehensive view, which while not neglecting the field of external appearance, yet soars far above it, can hope to penetrate into the more val- uable secrets of nature. Such a view has discovered that the properties of matter are dependant, not upon the matter itself, but upon the specific arrangement of its molecules. Such a view has revealed to us, that what we have hitherto called the Forces of nature are nothing but undulating motions of matter itself. These facts, and only those phenomena of Isomorphism, Catalysis, Electro-Magnetism, Homology, Neurology, and Mesmerism, to which all will concede, look more to the uninitiated eye like the phantoms of imagina- tion than the acquisitions of science. It is almost incredible, that the analogical doctrines of Homoeopa- thy, the only true scientific phasis which medicine has ever assumed, should be passed without notice, or assailed with contempt. When we see what anomalies have been made to disappear, what incongruities have been reconciled, what apparent impossibilities have taken the attitude of positive facts, how should the spirit of skepticism stand rebuked on the shore of the unexplored ocean of truth before us! There are many a priori considerations which should recommend Homoeopathy to the favor of the medical 24: SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. inquirer. The extreme care and nicety employed in the collection, preparation, and putting up of the medicines should excite the admiration of the practical pharma- ceutist. The abandonment of all intermixtures, con- gruous or incongruous, and the great facility of administration, certainly must be recognized as advan- tages by the practitioner. The experimental method of ascertaining the action of drugs, and the thorough examination of all the causes and symptoms of disease, both internal and external, should at least redeem it from ridicule in the eye of the philosophical physician. And finally, the promise of a new method or rather a natural law, based upon experiment alone and inde- pendent of all speculation, which will substitute order for anarchy and uniformity for great and sometimes ridiculous diversity, should excite the attention of all acquainted with the history, or interested in the results of scientific discovery. Six years ago, Dr. John Forbes, one of the most distinguished physicians of Great Britain, and at that time editor of the British and Foreign Medical Keview, in an article which on account of its liberality and candor, should be popular with the mass of the pro- fession, thus expressed himself in relation to Homoeop- athy: "No doctrine, however ingenious, not based on positive demonstrable facts, will any more be regarded but as a piece of poetical speculation, which may indeed amuse the fancy, but can never influence the conduct of scientific men, much less of practical phy- sicians. But Homoeopathy comes before us in a much more imposing aspect, and claims our attention on grounds which can not be gainsayed. It presents itself SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 25 as a new art of medicine, as a mode of practice utterly at variance with that long established in the world; and claims the notice of mankind on the irresistible ground of its superior power of curing diseases and preserving human life. And it comes before us now, not in the garb of a suppliant, unknown and helpless, but as a conqueror, powerful, famous, and triumphant. The disciples of Hahnemann are spread over the whole civilized world. There is not a town of any consider- able size in Germany, France, Italy, England, or America, that does not boast of possessing one or more Homoeopathic physicians, not a few of whom are men of high respectability and learning; many of them in large practice, and patronized especially by persons of high rank. New books on Homoeopathy issue in abundance from the press; and journals, exclusively devoted to its cause, are printed and widely circulated in Europe and America. Numerous hospitals and dis- pensaries for the treatment of the poor, on the new system, have been established, many of which publish reports blazoning its successes, not merely in warm phrases, but in the hard words, and harder figures of statistical tables." Since these concessions were made, the progress of Homoeopathy can only be compared to that of our Western cities. In that short space of time, the number of Hahnemann's disciples has been trebled or quad- rupled. Besides a number of monthlies, there are two Quarterly Homoeopathic Journals in our own language, which will vie, in scientific value and literary execu- tion, with any periodicals of the day. The sale of Homoeopathic books and medicines during the past 3 26 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. year, has been hitherto unprecedented. Schools are springing up, in which all the branches of medical education are taught. The one in Philadelphia, the very emporium of American Medicine, and therefore the fittest arena for Homoeopathic triumphs, is in a flourishing condition, with constantly increasing classes and a faculty of acknowledged professional ability, and the most honorable standing. But in exact pro- portion to the progress of the New School has the spirit of concession departed from its opponents. Hah- nemann, once acknowledged to have been a rare com- bination of genius and learning, is now the prince of quacks, if not of madmen, and all his disciples pro- fessional and lay, are classed in the same category. The triumphs of the system are no longer admitted and recorded by a generous opposition. If one went to Allopathic physicians and journals for information, he would learn that Homoeopathy had been weighed in an impartial balance and found wanting, that it had been thoroughly exposed as a Mammoth imposture, and driven entirely from the pale of respectable society. Editors and professors not only deceive themselves, but labor assiduously to communicate their mental obscu- ration to others. They are like the watchmen on the walls of Zion, who cry, "peace! peace!" when the enemy are even within the gates. There are many physicians who honestly believe that Homoeopathy has been fairly tested, and unequivocally condemned by some of the greatest medical authorities in Europe. This has been retailed from mouth to mouth, and from journal to journal, until the impres- sion is so general, that those who have enough natural SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 27 spirit of independence to inquire for themselves, are lulled into profound indifference by the idea, that a task, troublesome and difficult, has been ably and satis- factorily executed by others. It has been stated that Andral, the greatest clinical physician in Paris, made numerous experiments at his own hospital, and de- clared the medicine wholly inert. Broussais sensibly remarked, "I hold it as a principle always to suspect the experience of a man whose mind is pre-occupied." This sentiment, however true, would have been kept charitably in the back ground of our minds, had Andral himself gone through that thorough prelimi- nary study, and exhibited that candid spirit of open investigation, which we expect from men in pursuit of physical truth. But Dr. Curie, whom Allopathists state to be " an enlightened man, and perfectly sincere in his convictions," was told by Andral himself, a short time before commencing his experiments, that he (Andral) knew very little about the practice involved in the new doctrines. Experiments made by a preju- diced man, and one only superficially acquainted with a system of vast scope, should certainly be received with great caution. Those better acquainted with the practical phases of Homoeopathy than he, discovered from his own statements that he had made a wrong application of every medicine. This mockery of examination has been made in a similar manner throughout the country by private phy- sicians, by many of them no doubt in perfect sincerity, and as might have been anticipated, with a similar result. After a whole year of just such superficial investigation, I pronounced sentence against Homoe- 28 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. opathy, which was only reversed after six months more of real study and real experiment. An unforeseen ar- gument with an eminent Homoeopathist happily stimu- lated me to push my inquiries. But he who ventures to pronounce an opinion on the subject of Homoeopathy, before he has spent an entire year in the earnest study of the science of Pathogenesis, and before he has tested the medicines practically, both on himself and others, many times and in many different cases, does a great injustice to Homoeopathy, and a still greater injustice to his own professional character. But what if Andral did, after conducting his trials in the best spirit and manner, and with all the knowledge of the subject acquirable at the time, come to his unfa- vorable decision ? Does that prove that an investiga- tion instituted at this time would not be attended with different results ? The first committee appointed by the French Academy, in 1784, to examine the pretensions of Mesmerism, with the great Franklin in the number, made a most unfavorable report. A second committee called for in 1825, by the urgent and increasing claims of the subject, and which extended its thorough investi- gation over a period of six years, gave a far different account of the matter, and put the new science on its proper basis. Indeed a Daniel has come recently to judgment for the benefit of Homoeopathy, and M. Tes- sier—in the same city, and if I am not mistaken, in a ward of the same hospital—after two years experience, emphatically reverses the unrighteous decision of An- dral. He has given an account of his conversion, which was based upon his successful Homoeopathic treatment of pneumonia and cholera, two of the most SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 29 violent diseases to which the iuman frame is liable. With regard to this fact, and indeed to all the public tests and triumphs of Homoeopathy in Vienna, Leipsic, Na- ples, and other places, the Allopathic press is remarka- bly silent. One would suppose that its spyglass never scans the medical horizon. It reminds me of Nelson at the battle of the Baltic, looking with his blind eye, because he did not choose to see that the admiral had struck his colors. No amount, however, of conversational or editorial rhetoric can convince me, or any other tyro in Homoe- opathy, that our system has been fairly tested by the Allopathic profession, when that profession displays its ignorance in almost eveiy allusion to the subject. I wish to make this a strong reason for a most thorough investigation of Homoeopathy. I take it for granted that every rational man will gladly be corrected of his errors, and that every generous one will eagerly make atonement for unintentional injustice ne has commit- ted—when the reality of such injustice has been demon- strated. None but little minds take umbrage at the exposure of their deficiencies, and with such I do not care to hazard the fate of an appeal. Notwithstanding the numerous and repeated dis- claimers of the Homoeopathic school, Hahnemannism is still the principal target for Allopathic ridicule or rage. Much time and labor have been spent by enthu- siastic disciples in defending, not only the principles, but even the personal character of the great reformer. Now, as far as the merits of Homoeopathy are con- cerned, it matters not whether Hahnemann was as arrant a quack as the Indian medicine-man, or a witch- 30 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. doctor, or, as I believe him to have been, a sincere, capable and misrepresented man. And it astonishes me, to see men, who'profess to have been trained in the positive school of science, waging war against the dim shadows of theory, or declaiming grandiloquently against what they are pleased to term quackery, in- stead of meeting the subject on its true grounds, and abiding manfully by the logical issue. Dr. Hering, one of the oldest and most distinguished Homoeopathists in the United States, thus expressed him- self in 1836: " For myself, I am generally considered a disciple of Hahnemann, and I do indeed declare, that I am one among the most enthusiastic in doing homage to his^greatness; but nevertheless, I declare also, that since my first acquaintance with Homoeopathy (in 1821) down to the present day, I have never yet accepted a single theory in the Organon as there promulgated. I feel no aversion to acknowledge this, even to the venerable sage himself. It is the genuine Hahnemannean spirit to disregard all theories, even those of one's own fabrica- tion, when they are in opposition to the results of pure experience. All theories and hypotheses have no weight whatever, only so far as they lead to new experiments and afford a better survey of the results of those already made." Dr. Hering is by no means isolated in his opinions. Hahnemann's pscric theory of chronic diseases has par- ticularly excited the mirthfulness of our antagonists, and indeed some Homoeopathists have abandoned it altogether. But when it is recollected that by psora, Hahnemann does, mean the itch alone, but all the in- finite varieties of cutaneous eruptions, the theory SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 31 becomes more plausible, and is at least left open for amiable discussion. But I propose to go further than any Homoeopathist, I believe, has done before me, and call in question what is considered the fundamental theory of Homoeopathy. Hahnemann assumed, as the rationale of his cures, the existence of a law—substan- tially based on experience, and therefore independent of all theoretical explantion, that of two similar actions developed in the same part, the stronger destroys the weaker. With various but still unessential modifica- tions, this idea has been repeated by most of the Ho- moeopathic writers. To the force of all the objections ever adduced against this supposed law I cordially assent. Nevertheless, it is an appearance as strong and as plausible as that which would persuade our senses of the motion of the sun, or the littleness of the stars. Behind this appearance there is a beautiful natural law, intimately correlated with all the known laws of matter, which gives a consistent and philosophical explanation of all the phenomena. I confess that the production of even an infinitesimal artificial disease in a suffering organ, can only aggravate by so much the existing condition, and has no curative power whatever. And yet I contend that Homoeopathic attenuations, used according to the axiom similia similibus curan- tur, and in doses so regulated as to produce no aggra- vation, are more efficacious in the arrest of disease than any other known method of medication. Those who are curious to know how I would explain such a seeming anomaly, I invite to accompany my train of thought candidly and carefully throughout the follow- ing essays. 32 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. There is one most preposterous charge against Ho- moeopathy, the establishment of which would entirely nullify all its claims to being a scientific system. It is said that we rely entirely upon the external symptoms of disease, so that in our opinion, the study of Etiology and Pathological Anatomy is a vain dream. This is given by Professor Bartlett, in his Philosophy of Medi- cal Science, as a prominent objection. From the tenor of Prof. Bartlett's remarks on Homoeopathy, I strongly suspect that his whole knowledge of the subject, at the time he wrote, had been drawn from Hahnemann's Organon. How this erroneous impression ever origin- ated, I can not imagine; unless in a misinterpretation of Hahnemann's idea, that we know and can know nothing of disease in its essential nature, and only see its material manifestation, or, as we may say, its incar- nation. Acknowledge this to be true, and how does it show that there is a single fact, relative to health or disease, which is not as useful to the New as to the Old School physician ? The manifestation of the disease, is the entire pathological condition of the patient. A vomica in the lungs, an adhesion of the pleura, an ossific deposit in an artery, an effusion of serum into the pericardium, and all other anatomical lesions, are symp- toms of disease. What is the internal of man but a continuation and complicated involution of the external surface ? Is not an ulcer in the duodenum, or trachea, as much indicative of disease as one upon the skin ? And as our vision does not reach these organs, must we not resort scientifically to every method, rational or instrumental, of discovering their lesions ? Latent pneu- monia may pass undetected by all external observation, SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 33 but when auscultation and percussion reveal it, we treat it by substances which would have produced in the healthy man intense pulmonary congestion. We have based our use of tartar emetic in some forms of small pox, which has been remarkably successful, not only on its internal action, but on its definite anatomi- cal lesion. Let me refer to Pereira's great work on Materia Medica: "It causes an eruption of painful pustules, resembling those of variola or ecthyma. The smaller ones are semi-globulai; the larger ones when at their hight are flattened, are surrounded with an inflammatory border, contain a pseudo-membranous deposit and some purulent serum, and have a central dark point. When they have attained their greatest magnitude, the central brown spots become larger and darker, and in a few days the desiccation takes place, and the crusts are thrown off. I am acquainted with no agent which produces an eruption precisely similar. The facility with which this eruption is produced, varies considerably in different individuals, and in the same individual at different times. A similar pustular erup- tion has been met with in the mouth, oesophagus, and smaller intestines, from the internal use of tartar em- etic." It will be in vain contended that this is a resem- blance and not an identity. This resemblance is just what we seek—for I am prepared to show that while an identity aggravates, a similarity cures. On what do we predicate the application of Bromine to croup, which we have found so vastly superior to bleeding, blistering, calomel, or tartar emetic ? Upon the pathological anatomy of that drug, as shown by ex- periments upon pigeons and doves. It is well known 4 34 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. that the substances of the Chlorine group are irrespira- ble; and Turner states, that a single drop of Bromine placed only upon the beak of a bird proves fatal. The Bromine was, therefore, used in exceedingly minute dose, so as to pass into the stomach without producing spasm of the glottis. Noack and Trinks report upon dissec- tion—"severe inflammation of the larynx and trachea, with exudation of plastic lymph, almost; blocking up the tubes." It was for a long time supposed that arsenic produced inflammation of the stomach by its local action, but it has been found to excite the same gas- tritis whether injected into the blood or applied to an external wound. Indeed, Sir B. Brodie says, that its gastritic action in the latter case is more violent and immediate than when applied to the stomach itself. Just so the specific action of Bromine is to produce an artificial croup. These are mere brief examples, of which a vast number might be given. So that instead of discarding the Pathological Anatomy of natural diseases, we add to it and compare with it, the hitherto unexplored Pathological Anatomy of drug diseases. After such explicit statements, I trust that the un- founded objection will no more recur in the pages of honest opponents, and only for the opinion of such do I care. Another more palpable but equally prevailing misre- presentation of Homoeopathy, is that which represents it as relying exclusively on its own resources, and con- temning the accumulated experience of ages. Nothing but personal observation could ever have convinced me that this idea had been imposed for truth upon a single professional man. What is this " accumulated experi- SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 35 ence of ages," which seems to rank in authority next to the Bible, and which we have the rashness and vanity to despise ? The wonderful and fixed facts of General, Special, Surgical and Pathological Anatomy ? The discoveries and speculations of Physiology? The immutable truths of Chemistry and the almost equally certain anatomical and physiological features of Botany ? Do we disregard or abandon the principles and practice of those great sciences—Obstetrics and Surgery ? Do we despise the beautiful and accurate descriptions of disease which we find in a thousand volumes of British, Continental and American Medicine ? No ! —we answer most emphatically, no ! Every fact ever dis- covered in the physical universe is of as much interest and more use to the Homoeopathist than to his pseudo- superior opponent. But I would remind him that all these treasures, to which we lay an equal claim, have been accumulated within a very brief period. Chemistry has just emerged from the mysterious shadows of Alchemy. The know- ledge of the circulation of the blood is only two cen turies old, and Physiology had no proper existence before it obtained a correct anatomical basis. It has not been very((long since the stumps of amputated limbs were seared with hot irons and boiling tar poured into wounds. Obstetrics has just been raised from the most degrading position to fellowship with her sisters of the Medical Art. For all but the most recent phasis of the Materia Medica, the man of science must blush. But a few centuries ago the articles in the following dis- gusting catalogue were considered of great remedial value—the left foot of a tortoise, the urine of a lizard, 36 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. the dung of an elephant, the liver of a mole, the excre- ments of rats beaten to powder, blood drawn from under the wing of a white pigeon, the moss from a dead man's skull, and the ashes of a burnt witch. Some- times a hundred or a hundred and fifty of these sub- stances were compounded together into one terrific dose by the wiseacres of the profession, from whom the physicians of our enlightened day are so anxious to claim a legitimate descent. From such "accumulated experience" we pray to be delivered. Every thing valuable in science, and especially in medical science, (like American aristocracy,) has a very short pedigree. But there is one phasis of Allopathic experience con- stituting probably one-eighth of what purports to be the science of medicine—and three-fourths of what the practitioner generally recollects—to which we make our entire dissent. I mean the empirical method of ascer- taining the properties of drugs by experimenting upon sick people with them. This is the evil genius of medicine. It had its origin in the ignorance and neces- sities of a barbarous era, and to its unhappy continu- ance through a long series of ages does Allopathy owe its boast of antiquity. We contend that such expe- rience is so uncertain and fallible that it is not at all trustworthy in the treatment of disease. It is the grossest empiricism imaginable. One irrefutable proof of it, is the great diversity and constant contradiction of this experience. To this are to be traced all the variances of theory and practice, which have called forth the satirical definition of medicine as "the art of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease." We contend on the contrary, that only by experiment- SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 37 ing upon healthy persons, can we get at the true prop- erties of a drug, mark its definite individuality, learn where to class it, and know what to do with it. The unanimity of Homoeopathic experiments confirms the obvious rationality of the method. We accept then gladly, all the facts of medicine which can be logically proven to be facts. We reject the clinical experience of Allopathy, because no rela- tion between causes and effects is therein established; because in studying it we are conscious that we are committing to memory the inferences and opinions of fallible men, and not the facts of nature. Upon the real character of this medical experience, Abercrombie has a choice paragraph, in his Inquiries concerning the Intellectual Powers, page 299. " When, in the prac- tice of medicine, we apply to new cases the knowledge acquired from others which we believe to have been of the same nature, the difficulties are so great, that it is doubtful whether in any case we can properly be said to act upon experience, as we do in other departments of science. For we have not the means of determining with certainty, that the condition of the disease, the habits of the patient, and all the circumstances which enter into the character of the affection, are in any two cases precisely the same, and if they differ in any one particular, we can not be said to act from experience, ^ut from analogy. The difficulties and sources of uncertainties which meet us at every stage of such investigations are, in fact, so great and numerous, that those who have had the most extensive opportunities of observation will be the first to acknowledge that our pretended experience must, in general, sink into ana- logy, and even our analogy too often into conjecture." 38 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. Far be it from me to insinuate that the experiences, the inferences, and the opinions of Homoeopathic prac- titioners are a whit less fallible than those of the Allo- pathic school. Their practical superiority lies in the more scientific plan of their clinical procedure. They do not try to recollect what this, that, or the other man found useful in a similar case. Their intellect is not hampered, and their practice misdirected by pathologi- cal speculations which are the bane of all other systems. They note the facts of the case—and seek for a drug which will produce similar symptoms in a healthy man. The first series of facts—those of the disease—they ac- quire by observation; the second series—those of the drug—by experiment. In this last is a great deficiency, a breach in the Homoeopathic rampart which all its true friends must labor to fill. The science of drug-patho- gonesis is imperfect, although much more complete and imposing than Allopathic writers seem to be aware of. Empirical trials on sick men are worthless. Although a hundred physicians told me that colocynth cures a painful diarrhea, I have no more scientific reason for using colocynth in a similar case, than if only a hundred old women had told me the same thing. But if several competent witnesses assure me that colocynth produces a painful diarrhea, I have a fact worth remembering and worth using. And then when I find it to cure, I deduce from the sufficient number of such cures, not a pathological speculation, not an inference, but a law of nature—" like cures like." I must define, however, the sense in which I call this principle—"similia similibus curantur"—a law of nature. If I were called upon simply for my belief— and be it recollected, that "faith is the evidence of SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 39 things not seen"—I would say that there is a positive law of nature, by which a remedy bearing a certain definite relationship to a given pathological condition, will always remove it. But if I am asked for a truthful deduction from the facts as they now stand, I answer, that the law is an empirical one—'indeed a mere prin- ciple assumed to explain many otherwise inexplicable phenomena. The laws of gravitation, atmospheric pressure, atomic combination, composition and resolu- tion of forces, etc., are laws of nature, because there are no exceptions to their operation. Homoeopathic failures show conclusively, that we can not make our principle work infallibly, as a natural law necessarily does—hence I call it an empirical law—but have strong hopes that as we free it from incumbrances, it will break out in a clear and positive light. Homoeopathic practice now, is like the first rude efforts of steamboat- ing, before the scientific principles of that wonderful art were fully comprehended. But even that was a vast improvement upon the flatboat and batteau. Our empirical law is a better, safer, and more scientific therapeutical guide, than any which exists in Allopathic medicine. If the candid reader is disposed to look the ignorance and injustice of a profession, which should be enlight- ened, full in the face, so that he may contribute his quota to its amendment, I refer him to two brief com- munications in the London Lancet for October, 1851. One is headed "The humbug Homoeopathy." It gives an account of a child swallowing a number of the pellets of several different articles, all at once, with perfect impunity. The writer seemed to have sup- 40 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. posed, that in order to establish the pretensions of Homoeopathy, some deadly effect should have followed, And when no effect of any kind did follow, he thought himself justified in lifting his hands and eyes to heaven in righteous indignation, that so much sugar of milk should be palmed upon the world as medicinal. This is an old trick, and a very common one, for I have heard of it from many sources. An AUopathist, on his rounds, meets with a quondam patient, who has been deluded into putting himself under Homoeopathic care. He questions the truant, who trustingly and inquiringly shows him the little vial of medicated pellets which he is using. The doctor takes them, look at them like a magpie peeping cunningly into a marrow-bone, smells them, pours them all out into his hand, and swallows them at a gulp. The layman stares at him in apprehension, like the people of the island upon St. Paul, when he was snake-bitten. As he could not commit the mistake of the islanders and suppose the doctor was a god—he takes what appears to him the other horn of the dilemma, and is convinced of the perfect imposture of the new system. By this expres- sive pantomime, the stray sheep is brought back to the fold, and the doctor congratulates himself on his irresistible powers of argument. But, alas! there is no argument in the case, for one man has only riveted his own misconception upon the mind of another. I have never tried the experiment, but I think it highly probable that the ninety-six articles in my case, might be swallowed at once, with entire impunity. And yet, a single one of those articles taken in re- peated doses for a suitable time, will produce, on the SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 41 healthy man, its peculiar pathogenetic effects. But instead of testing this fact upon his own person, and seeking some physiological law for its explanation, the physician rests contented with the vulgar experiment above detailed, and panders mediately and immediately to popular prejudices. I shall hereafter give a reason why a medicine in a certain preparation, may be promptly curative, and produce no pathogenetic, and, indeed, no perceptible effect whatever. Lenient con- struction and an opportunity of explanation are the universal privileges of man. But if the style and spirit of a composition give any insight into mental character, the author of the article in question would not stay for this or any other explanation, but would run like a gossip to his nearest non-professional neigh- bor, and tell him that a Homceopathist had at last promulgated his own atrocity, by confessing that his case of medicine, minus the bottles, corks, labels, and leather, might be swallowed at a dose,' without injury! The other communication to which the London Lancet has given its seal of sanction, purports to give an account of the method by which Homoeopathists reduce dislocations. Dr. Epps of London, an eminent Homoe- opathic physician, was thrown, it appears, from his horse upon the curb stone, and had his shoulder dis- located. When picked up by an Allopathic surgeon, he first insisted that some Tincture of Arnica should be applied to the injured part. The surgeon says that he reduced the luxation secundem artem—no doubt commiserating the folly as well as the misfortune of Dr. Epps. The impression designed to be left upon 42 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. the reader, is, that Dr. Epps expected the head of the bone to be replaced, without any resort to surgical measures, by the use of a Homoeopathic medicine. Neither rhetoric nor logic is needed to expose the bare- faced meanness of the statement. And yet these articles are found in the London Lancet, the leading medical Monthly of Great Britain, which is sent to all parts of the civilized world, for the enlightenment of the profession! Every person who has ever tried it, knows the re- markable value of Arnica both to prevent and alleviate the inflammation arising from bruises, sprains, lacera- tions, and other mechanical injuries. But I will bring Mr. Liston, one of the greatest English surgeons of modern times, to bear witness to the efficacy, not only of Arnica, but of other Homoeopathic remedies. The gentlemanly liberality and candor of this distinguished man might be held up to his professional brethren, particularly some of his brother surgeons, as a becoming model. I quote from Dr. Quin's letter to the British Journal of Homoeopathy. " Encouraged by the success which had attended his administration ofaceniteand belladonna in erysipelas, Mr. Liston requested me to give him a few notes of other diseases treated successfully by Homoeopathy, with the names of the medicines usually prescribed by me for their cure. This I immediately complied with. He subsequently informed me that he had employed the following medicines with great success: Arnica mon- tana internally and externally in severe contusions, lacerations, and incised wounds; rhus toxicodendron in sprains, luxations, and swollen and painful joints ; SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 43 nux vomica in irritation of the bladder, obstinate con- stipation, and in some cases of partial paralysis: bry- onia alba in rheumatism, and in arthritic pains of the joints; chamomilla in diarrhea, and as a palliative for tooth-ache; Pulsatilla in retarded and suppressed catamenia; mercurius solubilis alternated with bella- donna in cynanche tonsillaris, and ulceration of the fauces ; and a variety of other medicine, unnecessary for me to occupy your pages with, as their effects are familiar to every Homoeopathic practitioner. Mr. Liston, however, was most struck with the action of aconite in subduing inflammation, and reducing vascular excitement, and he often expressed his regret to me that the power of aconite to abate vascular overaction, and supersede the necessity for abstraction of blood in many diseases, was not known to him earlier, because he was convinced that it would have prolonged the life of his father, whose death had been hastened, in his opinion, by ill-judged copious venesection." But let us consider further some of the objections against Homoeopathy as a system, which deter medical men from even investigating the subject. It is said to be a system of specifics, and therefore necessarily so unsci- entific as to deserve not even a passing notice from the profession. This depends entirely upon what is meant by specific. If it mean a drug or preparation which wiU infallibly cure a certain disease, Homoeopathy recog" nizes the existence of no such article. The fabulous history of such agents is found only in the advertising columns of newspapers. Those nostrums are indeed the illegitimate children of Allopathy—the monstrous progeny of a base alliance between false pathological 44 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. theories and popular notions. Orthodox medicine la- bors in vain to exterminate the troublesome race its errors have engendered. Not until their death-blow comes from Homoeopathy will the entire domain of disease be given up to positive science. But if by spe- cific is meant an article which exerts a definite action on the healthy body, and is thereby able to fill a defi- nite indication in a similar pathological condition, then I confess that Homoeopathy has already collected four hundred such articles. Many gifted medical men have cherished a belief in the existence of such specifics. Dr. Rush expressed a hope that there was some flower blooming in our valleys which would ultimately rob pulmonary consumption of all its terrors. And Prof. Alison, of Edinburgh, bases much of his hope of the future progress of medicine on the discovery of spe- cifics, which shall counteract the diseased actions to which our bodies are liable. That medicines have a definite action is thus expressed by Simon: " We know that causes choose their organs of manifestation with as decided and sometimes almost as exclusive a preference as governs the phenomena of inorganic chemical affi- nity. This we may make matter of experiment; if one introduce various noxious agents into the stream of circulating blood, all organs are equally exposed to their influence, but how differently are they af- fected? Inject opium and the brain suffers, arsenic and the stomach inflames, strychnia and the cord is acted on, cantharides and the kidneys are irritated, and all this so definitely, that the attraction evinced is equal to a chemical demonstration of the agent employed." SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 45 It has been the arduous and truly scientific labor of Homoeopathy, to obtain precisely the actions of drugs and compare it with the similarly uniform actions of disease. The pathogenesis of drugs upon the healthy body, when it is free from all disturbing causes, is the only rational basis of therapeutics. There is just as much and no more similarity in the action of different drugs as there is in the phenomena of different diseases. A great many drugs, as well as a great many diseases, may concur in having a particular symptom—diarrhea for example. But yet every drug has its specific differ- ences from all other drugs. So to a certain disease each of many medicines may be a simile; upon narrowing the circle we may have several articles each of which^is a similiuswhen compared with those left in the first group; and finally we may select from any number of articles a similimum. This selection requires a degree of phy- siological and pathological acumen, to which thorough professional education is the pre-requisite, and the exhi- bition of the article is followed by a recovery speedier and more thorough than would have resulted from the use of any of its congeners. There is no one thing in the whole creation exactly like another, so that each material substance maintains a specific position, and occupies a sphere that never can be occupied by any thing else. I pity the superficial philosophy of the man who sup- poses that he has explained the cures of Homoeopathy by proving the intercurrent play of the human imagi- nation. Whilst he thinks he has driven the mystery to its last corner, where subterfuge is no longer possible, he has only let it escape from the dungeon of physical 46 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. analysis into the boundless atmosphere of metaphysics A great number of facts prove that imagination may produce diseases, an equal number shows that it may cure them. But there are causes and cures of disease entirely independent of imagination. A man who proves that imagination has cured a certain disease, has not proved that Homoeopathy may not have cured the same disease a thousand times. The cures to which the finger of Homoeopathy is constantly pointed are very insusceptible to cure by any mental agency. Pleu- risy, pneumonia, cholera, dysentery, inflammation of the brain, erysipelas, are never left to imagination, or nature either, by Old School physicians. These occult potencies might or might not work for Allopathists; they always do work for Homoeopathists! But there is proof from three distinct sources, which should dissipate forever this puerile hypothesis. Homoe- opathists have repeatedly cured patients laboring under coma and apoplectic stupor, where there could have been no exercise of the mental faculties. Again, our treatment of infantile diseases has been eminently suc- cessful. Imagination here is obviously beyond the pale of probability. Thirdly—the diseases of the lower ani- mals—horses, cows, dogs, sheep, etc.—have been treated with the greatest'success upon the Homoeopathic prin- ciple. A number of books on Veterinary Homoeopathy have been published. Does any rational man suppose that there is no foundation whatever to these facts, accumulating now for fifty years in various and distant countries? Can such an immense superstructure be erected upon positively nothing? Can it be possible that so many thousands and hundreds of thousands of SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 47 people have been banded together to deceive them- selves and each other. uJudeus credat, non ego." But I am not disposed to make light of the power of imagination. The time is approaching when the con- nection of mind and body, and their mutual reactions will belong, not only to the speculative province of moral philosophy, but to the higher and more abstruse department of Physiology. But I insist that those who believe in the curative power of imagination, most especially in Homoeopathic patients, shall give us some more definite information as to the manner, rate and laws of its action. They are, no doubt, aware that we Homoeopathists have a great partiality for precise, connected, well-established facts, and a very great con- tempt for theoretical generalities. Whenever the the- rapeutic power of imagination is placed upon a positive scientific footing, I shall hail its introduction into the Materia Medica, where it will probably occupy quite an important niche. I am anxious for Allopathists to avail themselves of the magic properties of this Homoe- opathic panacea. Better let a whimsical conceit out of the mental circulation than the life blood out of the body. Better excite healthy aetion by playing gently on the fancy, than by scraping dolefully on the intes- tinal strings. Better act upon the liver by some spir- itual electricity than by the administration of calomel porridges. Homoeopathy, after a superficial trial, or, rather, no trial at all, has been classed with those impostures which find their auxiliaries in the vanity, credulity, superstition, or love of the marvelous inherent in human nature. This charge bears its refutation on its 48 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. face. No system of medicine ever presented such a bold, undisguised, and uncompromising front. It banishes imperatively from the sick chamber all the cherished and time-honored herbs, teas, liniments, and domestic notions. It demands as a preliminary requisite no interference with the proceedings of the physician, and implicit obedience to his regulations however ob- noxious to the preconceived opinions of the party. In trivial cases people may try it from curiosity, but faith in its real curative power, I venture to say, has been, in every instance, reluctantly yielded to accumulated evidence. On first inspection, people are as incredulous of its efficacy as the Indian philosopher of the rotundity of the earth and central position of the sun. The im- perceptible action of the medicines, and the recondite nature of their melhodus medendi, give no hold what- ever to the untutored imagination. The avenues of faith in the minds of the populace are through their senses. Tangible effects, vomiting, purging, sweating, pain, deep sleep, prompt physical changes, violent perturbations, indeed, are with them the criteria of the suitableness of the medicine and the skill of the attend- ant. In Homoeopathy they see nothing but sugar globules and hygienic directions. They will not trust their lives to means apparently so inadequate to meet the exigencies of the case. These facts afford the reason why Homoeopathy is comparatively limited to the more intelligent classes of society. Nothing but education enables man to disregard the veil of external appearance, and look for the hidden realities of nature. But Allopathists have a reserved key, which is the the "Open Sesame" to every Homoeopathic secret. It SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 49 has been found that by abandoning the use of drugs in large doses, the number of recoveries has been greatly augmented. To explain this, which must have seemed a very curious anamoly to the advocates of the heroic treatment, they have suggested the existence of a cura- tive force in the human body—a vis medicatrix na- tural. That many diseases pass away spontaneously is obviously true—but that any new force is created, or a latent one excited to resist abnormal processes, is entirely hypothetical. A certain uniform and con- nected play of the functions is observed in health, which although partially impeded goes on as well as it can in disease. A ship has no innate living power of resisting a storm, but its parts may be so constructed and held together, that many storms can not destroy it. "Nature cures diseases" is too positive a formula for our present state of knowledge. "Most diseases do not kill" appears to be a more cautious and truthful statement. In reading the usual accounts of the processes going on in wounds, fractures, etc., one would think some intelligent power had taken special notice of the damage, and delegated an eager and busy host of deputies to the part, like carpenters to the repair of an injured building. This leaves on the mind the erroneous impression, that there is at work during the process of recovery, some causative principle other than the usual operations of the economy. But the re-union of divided tissues is but a continuation of the common processes of nutri- tion, which create all those tissues and hold them in appropriate continuity. They moreover take place under disadvantages, and therefore the new tissues, 5 50 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. whether bones, ligament, or cutaneous cicatrix, are never as perfect and vitalized as the old ones had been. When a bullet which can not be extracted becomes encysted in the body, we say that nature has invested it with a fibro-cellular incrustation, to prevent it from irritating the surrounding parts. But although further irritation is no doubt prevented, the new tissue was not produced for that purpose, but was itself the result of inflammation, excited by the foreign body. The imagi- native Greeks attributed the electrical excitation of amber to the presence of some invisible animal. The vis medicatrix naturce of the present day is just such an invisible animal, invented to cloak our ignorance of the natural and physical laws, which regulate abnormal as well as normal states. Repeated parallels have been drawn between Ho- moeopathy and Allopathy, and I have still to learn when, where, or how, the new system suffered by the compari- son. But in order to silence forever the vis medicatrix hypothesis, we are particularly anxious that an exten- sive comparison should be instituted between Homoeop- athy and nature. Such a one as would overcome all objections, and answer all cavils, has never been and probably never will be made. So many are the sources of error in the statistical method, that nothing short of a comparison between hundreds and even thousands of cases would be entitled to any consideration. But whilst faith in some kind of medication is so deeply rooted in the human mind, we cannot reasonably expect such a full and fair experiment to be made. We are not, however, without data, wherefrom to derive a toler- able conception of the natural history of disease. Oc- SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 51 casional, although brief trials of Expectant Medicine have been made in both public and private hospitals. And a great number of cases are recorded in medical literature, in which, for various reasons, there was either no treatment, or one evidently inert. From these sources, and by the aid of recent Physiology, Etiology, and Pathology, we get some idea of the course disease generally pursues, when uninterupted. With this series of phenomena, Homoeopathists, by a similar course of education and observation, are as well acquainted as their opponents, and moreover as little likely to mistake an absolute nullity for a curative agency. They unani- mously declare, that the recoveries under Homoeopathic treatment are more frequent, speedy, certain, and per- fect, as a general rule, than they have seen, heard, read, or can conceive them to have been, under the expectant treatment. Allopathists have no counter testimony to bring against this, because they have never thoroughly and practically tested the system. And no matter what is the number of our witnesses, the purity of their character, and the extent of their learning, their evi- dence is considered inadmissible, at least upon this sub- ject, simply because they are Homoeopathists. The imperceptibility of the action of our medicines has given ground to the suspicion, that Homoeopathy and nature are synonymous. On the other hand, the obvious action of Allopathic drugs fixes the idea of cause in the mind, to which subsequent phenomena are very apt to be attached as the effects. Indeed, a heavier onus lies upon the Allopathic profession than upon ours, to prove that their recoveries are really caused by their medicines, and not merely coincident with 52 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. their administration. Patients frequently recover from diseases in spite of the physician, and cases of monstrous maltreatment have sometimes constituted the basis of great professional reputation. There are two causes for the imperceptibility of our medicines, which are seldom taken into account. The first is, that they act upon the nerve centers, modifying the Nerve Force just as it is generated. The unmodified force is the cause of the morbid symptoms. By changing it medicinally, we produce no other symptoms in the peripheries than the disappearance of the disease. This is evidently the beau ideal of Therapeutics, and to offer a theory of the physical laws by which it is accomplished, is the main object of this little treatise. The other reason why our medicines act imperceptibly, is, that they coincide with or act in the direct line of the disease. In the immense shadows of evening the smaller shadows of terrestrial objects are invisible. It is the antagonism of the medicine and the disease, which renders the action of Allopathic doses, good or bad so apparent. If an Allopath used a cathartic for diarrhea, he might find it very difficult to distinguish between the action of his remedy and the natural course of the disease. The results must, be the only test. The frequency of recovery is not the only positive reason for believing our medicines to be energetic. Every Homoeopathic practitioner has repeatedly pro- duced with his infinitesimals, aggravations of the dis- ease, at times and under circumstances when they could net possibly be enrolled as part of the natural history of the disease. Again, if all our substances be equally inert, how is it that we learn by experience SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 53 that a certain substance is more reliable than others in a particular case? And how exceedingly ridiculous must be the discussions of learned and respectable men in Homoeopathic Medical Societies on the relative value of different articles, and of different degrees of attenuation! What is the ad captandum motive in these private discussions, frequently conducted with that zeal, spirit, and capacity, required in the investi- gation of scientific questions ? Moreover, as Homoeo- pathic physicians all use the same agents, how does it happen that one physician is so much more successful than another ? The capable Homceopathist establishes a wide circle of friends and practice, which he retains just as long as he desires. The charlatan, who has taken it up for gain without proper qualification, uni- formly breaks down, blasting his own character, and deeply injuring a noble cause by his contemptible con- duct. But, perhaps, the most convincing evidence we have of the curative action of attenuations, is the promptness of amelioration, very often as surprising to the physician as to the patient. This relief is some- times almost instantaneous, for which a very plausible reason can be given. Some of these cases may be spontaneous, but these spontaneities are remarkably apt to follow the administration of a few Homoeopathic pellets. In Dr. Neidhard's "Homoeopathy in Germany and England, in 1849," I find a tabular view of all the cases treated in the Vienna Homoeopathic Hospital, from January 1st, 1835, to December 31st, 1843. It is a remarkable document, and well worth a candid inspec- tion. Upon a part of this statistical material, Dr. 54 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. Forbes based his liberal concessions to Homoeopathy, which have never been repeated or imitated in this country. As it can do no harm to refresh the medical mind with the memory of one great and independent man, I will transcribe a few of his opinions upon these Reports, before I draw my own deductions from their continuation during several succeeding years. " These tables substantiate this momentous fact, that all our ordinary curable diseases are cured, in a fair propor- tion, under the Homoeopathic method of treatment. Not merely do we see thus cured all the slighter dis- eases, whether acute or chronic, which most men of experience know to be readily susceptible of cure under every variety of treatment, and under no treatment at all; but even all the severer and more dangerous dis- eases, which most physicians, of whatever school, have been accustomed to consider as not only needing the interposition of art to bring them to a speedy and favor- able termination, but demanding the employment of prompt and strong measures to prevent a fatal issue in a considerable proportion of cases. And such is the nature of the premises, that there can hardly be any mistake as to the justness of the inference. Dr. Fleischmann is a regular, well-educated physician, as capable of forming a true diagonsis as other practitioners, and he is con- sidered by those who know him as a man of honor and respectability, and incapable of attesting a falsehood. ###### ]^0 can(Jid physician, looking to the original report, or at the small part of it which we have extracted, will hesitate to acknowledge that the results there set forth would have been considered by him as satisfactory, if they had occurred in his own practice. SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 55 The result presented to us in the severer internal inflammations, are certainly not such as most practical physicians would have expected to be obtained under the exclusive administration of a thousandth, a mil- lionth, or a billionth part of a grain of phosphorus, every two, three, or four hours. It would be very unreasonable to believe that, out of 300 cases of pneu- monia, 224 cases of pleurisy, and 105 cases of peri- tonitis, (in all 629 cases,) spread over a period of eight years, all the cases, except the fatal ones, 27 in number, were slight, and such as would have seemed to us hardly requiring treatment of any kind. In fact, according to all experience, such could not be the case. But inde- pendently of this a priori argument, we have sufficient evidence to prove that many of the cases of pneumonia, at least, were severe cases. A few of these cases were reported in detail by Dr. Fleischmann himself, and we have ourselves had the statement corroborated by the private testimony of a physician (not a Homoeopath) who attended Dr. Fleischmann's wards for three months. This gentleman watched the course of several cases of pneumonia and traced their progress, by the physical signs, through the different stages of congestion, hepa- tization, and resolution, up to a perfect cure, within a period of time which would have appeared short under the most energetic treatment of Allopathy." As Dr. Forbes could not bring himself to believe that our attenuations could possibly have any effect— his general inference was that Allopathy—as a cura- tive art, was greatly overrated by its adherents, and that nature after all was the great physician. It cer- tainly must be very humiliating to a bigoted Old School physician, to see our "moonshine medication" 56 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. favorably compared with "the accumulated experience of ages," and that too by one of the greatest Allo- pathic physicians of modern times. But let us look at the Hospital Reports: Firstly. There is a large class of cases, not one of which is reported as having been cured. For instance, abscess of the brain 3, aneurism of the heart 1, cancer 7, caries of bone 7, dropsy of the brain 9, hydro tho- rax 38, organic disease of the heart 33, inflammation of the veins 3, medulary sarcoma 8, tape worm 1, induration of the stomach 10, pulmonary consumption 207. If the most rabid AUopathist can detect any thing which savors of quackery and unfounded preten- tion in the above items, he has optics keener than mine. The gentlemen who treated the cases and reported them, have as little sympathy with Bran- dreth's Pills and Rogers' Liverwort and Tar, or quack- ery in any form, as any Editor or Professor, dead or living, in the Allopathic School. Dr. Forbes noticed the fact that these incurable diseases occupied the same black column in the tables both of the Old and New School. The Old school has no reason to give why some of these diseases are not as curable as others, but our philosophy of medicine points immediately to the true cause. We have never yet discovered drugs which produce pathological conditions at all analogous to those diseases. This is the only scientific test of curability or incurability. Those diseases of the abdo- minal viscera, the lungs, the nervous system, and the skin, which are most readily and specifically simulated by drug action, are the precise ones in the treatment of which Homoeopathy exhibits an unapproachable supe- SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 57 riority. In the unexamined store house of nature's treasures, substances may yet be brought to light by the Homoeopathic method of proving, which shall be to cancer what quinine is to intermittent, and to epi- lepsy what lemon juice is to scurvy. Some future disciple of Hahnemann may discover Dr. Rush's hy- pothetical flower, and render Phthisis Pulmonalis as insignificant as a head-ache, or the chicken-pox. But he must be animated by a self-sacrificing enthusiasm for science, which is rarely to be met with at the present era of the medical profession. Secondly. There is a class, of which all the cases were cured. Examples—apthse 5, burns 40, chloro- 128, spasmodic cough 18, rheumatic fever 930, gastric diseases 196, chronic hoarseness 13, lead colic 49, 49, scrofulous inflammation of the eyes 21, pericar- ditis 8, hepatitis 7, cystitis 4, ovaritis 3, abnormal menstruation 36, convulsions 128. These diseases are sometimes very severe, but all are curable under any or no system. But the table shows that Allopathists have given an immense amount of medicine very use- lessly—if the same diseases in such large numbers recover spontaneously on Homoeopathic nothings. But a third class of cases, of which a portion was fatal, is well calculated to astonish the candid practi- tioner, and convince him that he must either impeach the whole testimony, or acknowledge the propriety of a better investigation of Homoeopathy than any that has ever yet been made. Professor Paine, of the New York University, confesses to have found l-16th of a grain of quinine quite as efficacious as one or two hundred times the quantity is said to have been by 6 58 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. other physicians in intermittent and remittent dis- eases. By what process of ratiocination can it be inferred that the second or third attenuation of Cin- chona is entirely inert, when 653 cases of ague and fever out of 658 are cured by its use ? Again, out of 140 cases of gout, 134 are dismissed as cured, 2 as incurable, and 4 die. Of 52 cases of influenza only 1 dies. Of 49 cases of scarlet fever, 3 are fatal; of 312 of erysipelas, 2 are fatal; of 165 of small pox, 15 are fatal—1 in 11—better luck, I venture to say, than hospitals can often exhibit. Of 486 cases of inflam- mation of the joints, only 6 arc fatal; and of 655 cases of inflammation of the throat, only 1 is fatal; of 73 cases of colic, all are cured; of 48 of cholera morbus, 43 are cured; of 199 of diarrhea, 196 are cured; of 72 of dysentery, 69 are cured. After these specific statements of the congeneric dis- eases, we may believe that the 732 cases reported as Asiatic cholera, were really that disease, well-marked and distinguished from both diarrhea and cholera morbus. Of these 488 were cured, and 244 — exactly one-third — died. This is a very interesting point, because it was a test question between the two schools in Vienna. The practice of Homoeopathy was prohibited in Austria, at the time of the opening of this hospital, which was allowed only by special favor, and the influ- ence of a powerful nobleman. During the cholera epidemic, a Government commission was appointed to examine into the treatment of the ^different hospitals, and to make accurate reports twice a day. When the reports were laid before Government, it turned out that, while two-thirds of those attacked had died of the dis- SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 59 ease in the other hospitals, under every or no kind of treatment, two-thirds of those treated in the Homoeo- pathic hospital recovered. From that time, not only were the laws against Homoeopathy repealed, but means were provided by Government for the instruction of students in its principles and practice. And there are, at this day, more than forty practitioners of Homoeo- pathic medicine in the very city where it underwent its severest trial, under the surveillance of watchful and suspicious rivals. Comparisons are invidious—but the public practice of physicians is public property, and it is only thus that we can get at any valuable result which may be elicited from the numerical method. The mortality from inflammation of the lungs, in the Hotel Dieu, under the care of Chomel, during nine years, was about one in eight, while, during the same length of time, in Dr. Fleischmann's hospital, the mortality from the same disease was only one in sixteen — or one-half as great as the other. In the Duchy of Brunswick practitioners are obliged, under pain of heavy penalties, to keep a faithful register of cases treated and deaths occurring. Duke William, of Brunswick, appointed a committee of inquiry, to examine the books of all the physicians of both schools. The accounts had been kept for periods varying from four to,, ten years. The highest Homoeopathic proportion of mortality was three in the hundred, the lowest, less than one, whilst the Allo- pathic proportion ranged from eight to ten. But if these contests on the continental theater, from their remoteness, excite but little interest, let the reader analyze the reports of public and private practice in the 60 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. British Journal of Homoeopathy, and in the North American Homoeopathic Journal. I am perfectly aware of the many sources of fallacy, which may cor- rupt and invalidate this statistical method. But the objections apply to Allopathic as well as Homoeopathic reports, and we adduce only just such evidence as we are expected to believe when it come from Allopathic authorities. Medical men, like all others, profess to be willing to believe what is demonstrated. But with a strange inconsistency, the majority of them will neither examine this subject for themselves, nor trust the reports of others, except when those reports are unfavorable. So morbid is the tone of the profession upon this point, that the mere fact of a physician's investigating the obnoxious theme, subjects him to the most illiberal sus- picions. I am confident that their incredulity is not to be attributed to lack of evidence, but to cherished theo- retical principles, which antidote the truth at the thres- hold of the mind. Until these are removed, " neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." The real force of a projectile can not be distinguished from its apparent force until we have estimated the degree of resistance it has had to overcome. Homoeo- pathy has passed and is still passing through a violently resisting medium, but from its accelerating speed, and accumulating strength, we can not doubt of the ulti- mate success of its transit. It claims our admiration for what it has done, and our brightest anticipations for what it promises to do. An appeal to the intelli- gent and liberal portion of the medical profession, in behalf of Homoeopathy, may be safely based upon five distinct grounds. SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 61 1. A closer scrutiny will show that the principles of Homoeopathy are nearly related to those of the physical sciences—indeed almost as much so as one book of Geometry to another. 2. The mass of legitimate evidence accumulated in favor of its practical superiority to all other methods, must sooner or later enforce the attention of honest and capable men, and a strict analysis of that evidence is cordially solicited. 3. The trials it has received from the unconverted portion of the profession have been partial, premature, and unsatisfactory. 4. The objections to it as a System of Medicine are unfounded, and all attempts to classify it with or com- pare it to quackery in any form, are not only illiberal but absurd. They have always arisen from that narrow- mindedness which can not separate the conduct of cer- tain men from the principles they profess to advocate, and can not distinguish between the good and the bad in any field beyond their own finite circle of perception. 5. The detected ignorance and misrepresentation of the Allopathic press with respect to the real scope and claims of Homoeopathy, are not only astonishing and humiliating, but render all expressions of opinion on the subject from that source, comparatively worthless. From these considerations I urge, that every profes- sional man who is imbued with love of truth or mag- nanimity of spirit, should feel under personal obligation to search and see whether justice or injustice has been meted out to the principles and advocates of Homoeo- pathy. In the words of the Brit, and For. Med. Chir. Review, with respect to Mesmerism—" It will doubt- 62 SCIENTF1C BASIS OF HOMOCEOPATHY. less require the exercise of some moral courage to touch a subject so defiled with empiricism ; but the merit of the investigator will only be the greater, and success the sweeter. He should be undeterred, on the one hand, by the blind zeal which condemns without dis- crimination, and on the other, by the blind credulity which asserts and defends with fanaticism." METHOD OF CONDUCTING THE INVESTIGATION. Sie John Heeschel, in his admirable "Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy," describes the scien- tific process of investigation, which I wish had been always pursued by those who have endeavored to test the merits of Homoeopathy. As I propose, in this chapter, besides incidentally meeting some minor ob- jections, to sketch the only course of inquiry, which the friends of Homoeopathy will acknowledge as an experi- mentum crucis, I will take the liberty of extracting, for the benefit of my Allopathic readers, some salutary advice from the pages of that eminent philosopher. " Experience once recognized as the fountain of all our knowledge of nature, it follows that in the study of nature and its laws, we ought at once to make up our minds to dismiss, as idle prejudice, or at least suspend as premature, any preconceived notion of what might or what ought to be the order of nature in any proposed case, and content ourselves with observing, as a plain matter of fact, what is. To experience we refer, as the only ground of all physical inquiry. But before expe- rience itself can be used with advantage, there is one preliminary step to make, which depends wholly on ourselves; it is the absolute dismissal and clearing the mind of all prejudice, from whatever source arising, and the determination to stand or fall by the result of a direct appeal to facts in the first instance, and of strict logical deduction from them afterward." 64 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. After stating that there are two classes of prejudices, those of opinion, and those of sense or our uncorrected sensation, he continues in the following manner: " By prejudices of opinion, we mean opinions hastily taken up, either from the assertions of others, from our own superficial views, or from vulgar observation, and which, from being constantly admitted without dispute, have obtained the strong hold of habit on our minds. * * * * * It is unfortunately the nature of prejudices of opinion to adhere, in a certain degree, to every mind, and to some with pertinacious obstinacy, pigris radi- cibus, after all ground for their reasonable entertain- ment is destroyed. Against such a disposition the student of natural science must contend with all his fervor. Not that we are so unreasonable as to demand of him an instant and peremptory dismission of all his former opinions and judgments; all we require is, that he will hold them without bigotry, retain till he sees reason to question them, and be ready to resign them when fairly proved untenable, and to doubt them when the weight of probability is shown to be against them. If he refuse this, he is incapable of science." From these sentences the conscientious physician may judge for himself, whether or not he comes to the study of Homoeopathy in the right spirit; and I would respect- fully tender him some hints as to conducting it in the right manner. Some physicians begin by reading, or trying to read a little Homoeopathic literature. They soon meet with errors of statement, fallacious arguments, hasty gener- alizations, and probably unjust and denunciatory criti- cisms on Allopathy. In the practical phasis of the SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 65 subject every thing appears uncouth, and a great deal absolutely incredible. Forgetful that it is always long before the chaff is separated from the wheat of a new philosophy, they hastily conclude, that a system which contains so much that is unauthenticated, erroneous, and speculative, must be fundamentally false. This premature decision unfortunately is seldom reversed, because having once laid the question on the shelf, they are with great difficulty persuaded to resume its consideration. They seem to have supposed that Ho- moeopathy sprang in perfect form from the brains of its early advocates, and when they see how imperfect it is, pronounce it a monstrous birth which can not live, or which ought to be destroyed. They forget, that in its present condition it is like the rude outline of a great painting, which is to be filled up with living forms and modified by the touch of successive masters into beauty and power. Others of a more practical turn, provide themselves with a "Domestic Physician" and a case of medicines, with which they proceed to give the system a clinical test. They know that facts may be discovered long before the appearance of any theory to harmonize them. The needle has been known to point to the north for cen- turies, but it is only through recent discoveries in terres- trial magnetism, that we have found even a plausible explanation of the phenomenon. They know, moreover, that facts of immense practical value are often possessed by people who can give no rational explanation of them. Prompted, therefore, by a laudable curiosity, they are disposed to give the subject an experimental test. They have caught the true spirit of inductive 6Q SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. philosophy, and are unfortunate only in its application. They do not suspect that any preliminary knowledge, not obtained by the common medical education, is requisite to the trial, and proceed by a kind of book routine to apply the medicine to the disease. Now observe, that the physician is not called into that very class of cases, which can be managed so readily, with little professional knowledge, by the aid of a "Domestic Physician." The "Domestic Physi- cian" of Homoeopathy is but a rational, beautiful, and useful substitute for the vulgar empiricism which always haunts and sometimes depopulates the domestic hearth. By its light, the father or mother speedily and surely relieves the fretfulness and wakefulness of teething chil- dren, the head-ache, the ear-ache, the tooth-ache, the colic, the catarrh, the diarrhea, the ephemeral fever, and other diseases, which receive a good deal of family medication, before it is considered necessary to sum- mon the doctor. Our inquirer arrives at the bed-side and begins the use of his "Domestic Physician," just where a Homoeopathic family, distrustful of their ca- pacity, would have abandoned it and called their medi- cal attendant. Now he will scarcely credit me when I assure him, that he is very little more capable of conducting the case Homoeopathically than any intelli- gent layman. He may make the most accurate and scientific diagnosis of the disease, but if he does not possess an intimate knowledge of drug-pathogenesis, he will find it very difficult to select the appropriate remedy. He may possibly stumble upon some clear cases and become a convert, but he will be more indebted to SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 67 accident than to inductive reason for his good fortune. Most probably after a few trials he will become dis- gusted with his want of success, and pronounce the whole system false and absurd. But although he may congratulate himself on his liberality of spirit in exam- ining it all, and do Homoeopathy a vast injury by pro- mulgating the unfavorable result of his trial, he can not convince me that his method of investigation was fairly adapted to the demands of the subject. I experi- mented in a similar manner for a long time, and although occasionally puzzled by striking successes, came to the general conclusions of Dr. Forbes. At last, however, the truth loomed slowly up before my mind, that the pathogenesis of drugs was, indeed, a vast and distinct science, the true key to Homoeopathic practice, and quite as necessary to it as a dictionary to the study of a foreign language. It is the main object of this chapter, to show what we mean by the pathoge- nesis of drugs, how a knowledge of it is to be acquired, and what use is to be made of it. Here, and here mainly, lies the difference between the two schools of medicine. Pathogenesis means the production of a morbid con- dition, and is equally applicable, as a definition, to the effects of disease and of drugs. The Allopathic systems of classification and study have hitherto pre- vented the development of this science. This has arisen from looking at the human body as a segmen- tary fabric, and not as a connected whole, the parts of which are co-ordinated and mutually dependent. The tissues of the living organism are so anatomically and sympathetically woven together, that no matter what 68 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. be the seat or nature of an impression some changes must and will be propagated by it to the remotest parts of the system. This is the law of physical nature, and instead of abandoning it we should make it our guide in the analysis of vital and pathological phenomena. A cause which increases the heart's impulse by a single stroke in the minute, affects thereby all the organic capillaries of the body. The failure of a solitary hepatic cell to discharge its functions involves a greater or less modification of every other function in the appa- ratus of life. There can be no such thing as persistent local perturbation in the human form. Disease becomes ever and necessarily a general condition. True, there is always a central group of symptoms, around which the others cluster and on which they depend. These prominent features form the basis of classification, and to these alone is Allopathic medication generally ad- dressed. Not contented with this partial view, we take into consideration every remote and apparently insignificant symptom. To illustrate by example—I had a case of measles which seemed stationary under the use of Bel- ladonna. The fever, the head-ache, the rash, the ca- tarrhal symptoms, all indicated its employment. On examining more minutely I found there was considera- ble pain and stiffness of the knee joints. Now Bryonia not only covered many of the Belladonna symptoms of the case, but superadded a new power—because our pro vers have repeatedly found it to produce "tensive, painful stiffness of the knees." Belladonna and Bry- onia were given in alternation. The case commenced improving almost immediately, that symptom disappear- / SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 69 ing first. In every case of Homoeopathic treatment the thorough application of all the points of a remedy to all the points of the disease, is the one desideratum. In the vague, revulsive, and perturbating treatment of Allopathy, it is never thought of. The occurrence of a symptom like the above would not modify the course of the practitioner, who looks to purgation and diaphoresis as established processes of cure. But it is more particularly in the knowledge of the entire range of drug action, that Allopathists are defi- cient. Here, too, they seize the central and prominent symptoms, and make no use whatever of the drug as an article capable of producing an exact and extended pathological condition. Colocynth is classed as a ca- thartic, and probably nine-tenths of the Old School profession never heard of its power to produce and to cure some forms of neuralgia. Ipecac is so well marked as an emetic, that its power of producing asthmatic symptoms, although commonly recognized, is never taken into consideration in its prescription. It is sur- prising to notice how many articles are set down in Pereira's Materia Medica, as occasioning cutaneous eruptions. Why is it, that Allopathic men of science have never studied more accurately the physiological significance, and, indeed, the pathological anatomy of these eruptions? Simply because they have never looked at the capacity of an article to produce a symp- tom—as the expression of its power to cure it—the mute pantomime of nature pointing us toward the Homoeopathic law. It is acknowledged, that by the prolonged or exces- sive use of a drug the whole system becomes impli- 70 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. cated. The use of Mercury, Quinine, Arsenic, Iodine, Digitalis, and many of the acro-narcotics, furnish ex- amples. In proportion as the local action of a drug is merged into its general action, the resemblance between natural and drug diseases becomes apparent. The diagnosis between drug diseases is quite as difficult as the diagnosis between natural diseases, and the Homoe- opathic practitioner must be as skillful in the one as in the other. Drugs used upon healthy people have a specific and uniform effect, leaving out those cases of idiosyncrasy which no system can explain. Upon sick people their action is entirely relative, so that observations based upon their use in such cases can have only an empirical, and no positive and scientific value. We know of no medicines, however, which produce the exact diseases described in the book. We have nothing to produce measles, or syphilis, or erysipelas, or intermittent fever. I think the remarks of Magendie to his class, before which he made his experiments on animals, are too strong. "You saw me," says he, "give rise at my pleasure to pneumonia, scurvy, yellow fever, typhoid fever, not to mention a number of other affections, which, so to speak, I called into being before you." We only claim to produce with drugs a patho- logical condition, similar to that existing in disease, at the time the medicine is given. True, all of this minute and thorough knowledge is useless to those who prescribe on the principle " contraria contrariis cu- rantur." When a man thinks he can relieve a fever by scouring out the intestines, he needs only to know that colocynth or calomel, in certain doses, will effect SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMCEPATHY. 71 his purpose. But, before trying Homoeopathy, he must make himself acquainted with the use and nature of Homoeopathic weapons. From my own experience, the pathogenesis of drugs demands more mental labor than any other department of medical science. And I would here ask the candid physician, what is there in these views to degrade the scientific character, and limit the usefulness of the profession? Upon what page of the annals of quackery are their analogues to be found ? Do they not indicate a wish to strengthen, widen, and render positive the basis of our knowledge ? Do they not point to new fields of investigation, and arouse the ambition of the genuine lovers of science to tread them ? Her children may not have caught her spirit, but the motto of Homoeopathy is " Excelsior." Toxicology, a science chiefly used by the AUopathist to diagnose and remedy the effect of poisons—a merely occasional duty of the healing art, not only subserves us the same end, but is also the basis of much which is significant and durable in our Therapeutics. It is as necessary for us to study the ravages of a poison from its first inception till the extinction of life, and then the anatomical lesions it has produced, as it is to note the rise, progress, and termination of diseases. Accord- ingly, the Homoeopathic Journals collect eagerly and from all sources, every authentic item of information bearing upon this great subject. From these gleanings, and from Christison on Poisons, and the chapters in Pereira's Materia Medica, on the physiological action of each article, may be derived a fundamental idea of drug pathogenesis. But however useful this method of research as estab- 72 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. lishing in our minds a general basis, there are circum- stances which obviously impair its value, in giving us correct and specific impressions. In a case of virulent poisoning we see only the last and worst features of the pathogenesis. The system succumbs too speedily under the malignant shock. The beginning and the end are crowded too near together. As when we see a fiery circle produced by the rapid revolution of an ignited stick, so, in this case, a series of successive and con- nected phenomena is imposed on our senses almost as a unity. It is like a panorama which passes too quickly for us to recognize the distinct pieces and figures of the scenes. From such violent impressions and rapid ac- tion, we can scarcely elicit that connected chain of pathological phenomena for which we are seeking. It is desirable, therefore, to make our panorama move more slowly. A gradual and persistent action of the medicine must reveal more clearly its distinctive features. The action of the drug must be made, if possible, to resemble the incubation, development, and declination of disease itself. Only thus can drug action be brought into its accordant parallel with disease. Here experi- ment must be substituted for observation. Observation is noticing facts as they occur, without any attempt to influence the frequency of their occurrence, or to vary the circumstances under which they occur. Experi- ment is putting in action causes or agents over which we have control, and purposely varying their combina- tions, and noticing what effects take place. Such are Herschel's definitions of the two processes which are the fountains of all natural science. The first suggestson is, of course, to experiment upon SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 73 animals, and it has been done to a very great extent. Much valuable information has been thus obtained, and the future Magendie of Homoeopathy, instead of mutilating animals with the knife, will poison them with all possible precaution and 'accuracy, and then seek for the post-mortem appearances as for buried treasure. But there are objections also, which will show that this stream of knowledge is liable to be tainted with inaccuracies. The effects frequently vary with the animal upon which we operate. Sometimes the effect produced upon the animal are not at all analogous to those known to be produced upon man. This is a serious objection, and must have its cause hidden deeply in the philosophy of animated nature. Moreover, by this method, we only get at the objective symptoms. Indeed, the subjective phenomena, which are sometimes of vast importance, are vaguely and inadequately described, even by non-professional per- sons of intelligence. From these united considerations, Hahnemann and his coadjutors instituted upon their own persons those curious and extended experiments, which have been the ridicule of this, and which will be the wonder of every future age. The records of their generous labors have been given to the world. I will suppose that embodiment of them, known as Jahr's New Manual, Vol. 1st, to be in the hands of our candid investigator, not that it is the best, but because it is more readily procured, and more generally used. Here is a ponderous volume, professing to contain the pathogenesis of a great many drugs. As a literary curiosity it should attract attention, as the careful pro- duction of scientific men, it demands the most careful 7 74 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. scrutiny. It is indeed a wonderful book, and not to be dismissed with a cursory examination. None but those who linger long over it will derive any instruction from its enigmatical face. Many physicians, indeed, on the first inspection throw it indignantly down and denounce it as a tissue of absurdities. Others look on it as a kind of medical Don Quixote or Gulliver's Travels, contain- ing very choice bits for laughter and ridicule. These would-be Alexanders of the profession cut instead of unraveling the Gordian knot. Impostors, who batten upon the credulity of their fellow-creatures, and whose ignorance and baseness are sheltered by the secrecy of their manoeuvres, could scarcely hope to further their sinister designs by writing, publishing, and recom- mending such a volume as this, which does not bear upon its front a" single plausibility to catch the public or the professional eye. Its progress is made against the combined opposition of all our prejudices of opinion and of sense. Nevertheless it has run through several editions in the three great languages of the world, and is constantly receiving revisions and addenda. The day of justice may be deferred, but the profession will be at last compelled to take up this book of Pathogenesis, and give it a fair and thorough criticism. Pathogenesis is a natural fact, or a series of facts; this book is an attempted picture of it. It is not a daguer- reotype—-it is indeed very imperfect. There is a chaotic appearance about it which is quite repulsive. It is an aggregation of all the symptoms produced by drugs upon a number of individuals. These are collo- cated without any explanation or distinction of the circumstances under which the symptoms were produced. SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 75 There is no statement as to the age, sex, habits, or con- stitution of the prover, and none as to the dose of the medicine, or the time and frequency of its repetition. A great many phenomena of disease, not produced by the medicine, are blended with the pathogenesis, and although accompanied by explanatory signs, confuse the mind. Many symptoms are so trivial in their char- acter, that they appear more like the imaginations of a healthy man expectantly watching his own organism, than the positive and uniform operations of a drug. Many of them were probably accidental. The various stages of drug action are not prominently distinguished. The subjective phenomena can be but obscurely grasped, for every man describes his own feelings and pains in his own way, and the same explanatory adjective may convey a very different impression to two minds. And there appears to me something unnatural in the grouping of the symptoms, according to their occurrence in dif- ferent parts of the body. A true pathogenesis should be like a perfect history of the rise, progress, and decline of an empire. This resembles a book in which the integral pieces of the history are taken apart; the for- eign wars given here, the domestic revolutions there; the negotiations in one place, the statistics in another, etc. But it would be difficult to suggest, and still more so to make a better arrangement. It is always much easier to mark than to remedy the defects of a great work. Notwithstanding all these disadvantages, and many others not pointed out, but which I am willing to con- cede, I repeat it that Jahr's Manual is a wonderful book, and more useful than half the volumes in our libraries. 76 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. I may even go further, and say, that the conception, concoction, and publication of such a work, constitutes an era of vast importance in the history of the world. We have at last extracted the pure marble from the bosom of the mountain. Under the hands of busy laborers it is assuming a definite outline. Other artists, more capable and zealous than ourselves, will pare and polish and sculpture it down, until it is wrought into a statue of perfect beauty and grace. If, notwithstanding the number, respectability and capacity of the pro vers, the Homoeopathic statement of pathogenesis be received with incredulity, the conscien- tious inquirer has another task to perform, before he can be permitted to give that incredulity a positive and trust-worthy expression. He has impeached the testi- mony of others on theoretical, or at most, very question- able grounds, and he ■ should bring his own personal experience to substantiate his assertions. This is no trivial undertaking, and very few men have either the abstinence or the patience to do full justice to the sub- ject. Tea, coffee, tobacco, alcohol, and all excitant occupations and circumstances must be strictly avoided. Two considerations must also be borne in mind ; firstly, that many anomalous symptoms occur almost every day in ordinary health, which might be mistaken for the action of the drug; and, secondly, that the concentra- tion of the mind upon particular organs, has been known to have a remarkable effect in exciting them in an unusual manner. If a faithful experiment with any one of our articles be thus persisted in, and only those effects noted which are enforced on the attention by their prominence and peculiarity, the prover will become SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 77 convinced of the general reliability of the pathogenesis given in Jahr. The first experiments were made with appreciable doses, repeated and increased at regular intervals, until the whole body was in a morbid condition, every organ being more or less affected. This is certainly the most reliable and efficient method of obtaining the patho- genesis of drugs. The doses must be small, because the general and true action is always obscured, and ren- dered less valuable by the great intensity of the primary and local action. The substance also should be tritu- rated awhile with some inert material—as the sugar of milk—on the old principle, corpora non agunt nisi soluta. I have experimented in this manner with two substances, Aconite and Nux Vomica, both obtained from an Allopathic drug store. The results with Aconite, although in some respects resembling those detailed in Jahr, were unsatisfactory, owing to the impurity of the article. This was evident, because I took one hundred and eighty drops of the tincture in a day, with little effect, whereas the maximum dose is fixed by the U. S. Dispensatory at thirty drops. I used the powdered seeds of Nux Vomica in the dose of l-20th of a grain. Dr. Wood says, "Nux Vomica may be given in powder in the dose of five grains, repeated three or four times a day, and gradually increased until its effects are experienced. In this form, however, it is very uncertain, and fifty grains have been given with little or no effect." My prepara- tion was made with twenty parts of sugar of milk to one of Nux Vomica. I took it half a dozen times a day, for five or six days, adhering closely to the Ho- 78 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. moeopathic regimen. I was then compelled to leave it off, by the accumulation of its morbid effects. These corresponded very nearly to those given by Homoeo- pathic authorities, and I am certain that I obtained a more precise and useful knowledge of the drug, than I could have done in any other manner. But it will be said that nobody doubts the patho- genetic effects of drugs used for a long time in apprecia- ble doses, and that the objections lie only against the power of Homoeopathic attenuations either to cause or cure disease. The answer to this, as to all other ques- tions not solvable by philosophical speculation, must be deduced from actual experiment. But I must main- tain that there is a sophism—a deep fallacy—in the argument that, because a drug in a certain quantity exerts no action on a healthy man, therefore it can exert none in the same quantity on a sick man. Paris, in his Pharmacologia, says: " Physicians, in my opinion, have very unphilosophically advanced to conclusions respecting the inefficiency of certain agents. They have administered particular preparations in large doses, and not having observed any visible effects, have at once denounced them as inert. I might allude, for instance, to the tris-nitrate of bismuth, a substance which, however powerless in health, I am well satisfied from ample experience, is highly efficacious in con- trolling certain morbid states of the stomach." But the fallacy of the argument is best discovered by considering what we expect to do with our medicines. Upon this subject I will be more explicit in another chapter. But here I may state, that we do not use our medicines to purge, sweat, narcotize, or to do anything SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 79 else which Allopathic physicians expect to accom- plish by their drugs. We do not even aim to produce a similar disease which shall excite the reactions of the economy. With such vague and uncertain specula- tions I am totally dissatisfied. I do not hold that attenuation, beyond a certain point, increases the activity of medicines—but quite the contrary. I say that we attenuate in order to get the specific action of the drug in as infinitesimal quantity as possible. I shall endeavor to show, that the Nerve Force, like Heat, Light, and the correlated agents is propagated by undulatory motions in a given medium ; that an abnor- mal state of this motion is the essential element of disease; that by exciting a similar state in the same medium we expect to modify this abnormal motion, and thus prevent or arrest the progress of disease in the peripheral structures ; and that we expect to do this on physical principles and by physical laws. Now, a drug in a certain quantity may modify this abnormal motion, without being able to produce it in the same quantity. A degree of force may keep up a motion which it could never have produced. All have noticed the ease with which horses drag a load, the inertia of which it was very difficult to overcome. A drug may not be able to overcome what may be called the inertia of health; but yet, when that inertia has been over- come by some efficient cause of disease, it may modify the newly existing condition, to aggravate or to cure it. Such is the state of uncertainties, probabilities and pos- sibilities in this unexplored question — that no positive argument would be made out against Homoeopathy, even if not a single experimenter had ever discovered the slightest effect from our attenuations. 80 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. Fortunately, however, for those who can not admit the force of any ratiocination, not confirmed by the evidence of the senses, our attenuations even do pro- duce pathogenetic effects. Men who swallow a hundred of the pellets at a dose, half-a-dozen or more times in succession without a particle of effect, are very in- credulous on this score. But if there is any weight or value in human testimony, that weight and value is in favour of this proposition. The experiment, however, is tedious, and few will persist in it long enough to test the articles properly. I recollect taking one sub- stance for eight days—six times a day, before any symptoms occurred which belonged to the drug. I had despaired of any effect, so that when I felt myself sick, I was about to take medicine to relieve my unpleasant feelings, when it occurred to me that I might be under the influence of the drug, and so, upon consulting Jahr, I found that I was. The skeptic will smile when I tell him that this article was our preparation of Natrum Muriaticum, or common salt. An intelligent physi- cian, who used the same substance, experienced the symptoms within twenty-four hours. After using the 3rd trituration of Platina for a week, I felt symptoms which I had never had before, and which are ascribed to the metal by Jahr, but the pathogenesis was very imperfect and unsatisfactory. But experiments with the 2nd of Podophyllum Peltatum and the 3rd of Bromine, which I pushed, until the diarrhea and nausea produced by one, and the head-ache, hoarseness, cough, and thoracic oppression produced by the other, compelled me to desist from their use, were sufficient to convince my own mind of the real power of attenua- SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 81 tions. From Digitalis and some other substances, I procured no observable action. The continual dropping of water on a stone will wear a groove into its surface, and so it is rational that the constant application of a morbid stimulus, however minute, should finally derange' the economy. From my observations, which I confess, however, have been limited, I infer that the susceptibilities of different in- dividuals to the same drug, and of the same individual to different drugs, vary indefinitely. Indeed, it is pro- bable, that there are many individuals who can be affected by nothing but the crude article. A thousand such negative cases would establish nothing against the Homoeopathic principle. The more obvious facts of Animal Magnetism, although subjective rather than objective phenomena, are quite well known and estab- lished. Although I have submitted myself to powerful magnetisers, none of them ever produced on me any effect, which was not clearly referable to the silence, the monotony, and the gentle friction of the passes. But I believe, upon rational grounds and the evidence of others, what my physical or mental idiosyncrasies do not permit me to make a matter of personal ex- perience. The fundamental truth, however, remains intact, that whenever effects are produced, by whatever dose, or in whatever individual, provided he be healthy, the same series of effects arises from the same dose with remark- able uniformity. This is a law which can not properly be deduced from the current mode of experimenting on sick people. Mercury will sometimes salivate with great facility, at other times it seems to be entirely 8 82 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. inefficient for that purpose. Opium, in one case, must be used with extreme caution, in another, it may be given almost by the drachm. Nor is it any more ap- plicable to the causes of disease. The same cause may produce its effect only on one man in ten or a hundred. Ten persons may eat green apples, and only one be attacked with diarrhea. The same cause may produce different diseases,—wet feet may occasion dysentery in one person, pneumonia in another, fever in a third, and idiopathic tetanus in a fourth. Therefore, drugs used Allopathically, and all the known causes of dis- ease, (except the purely specific, which are material substances like our medicines,) have only a relative sig- nificance. On the contrary, every drug has a specific action with regard to the healthy body, and there is no satisfactory evidence that this specific action can be uniformly and curatively exerted, except on a body im- pressed by disease with a similar pathogenesis. For his own satisfaction, then, let our inquirer test upon himself some attenuated medicine procured fresh from a reliable Homoeopathic pharmaceutist. I sup- pose him to be intellectually above making the stale jest about the number of shakes which have been em- ployed in what is called the potentization. He will follow all the dietetical and other directions, and as he can not be afraid of a few grains of sugar of milk, or a lew drops of alcohol, and as we can never foretell indi- vidual peculiarities, he should allow the trial a liberal margin of two or three weeks. Some of our writers seem willing to stake the truth of Homoeopathy on the result of this experiment. For reasons already stated, I am not, but I confess that I should be disappointed, SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 83 \ if three out of four such experimenters did not make a report of symptoms strikingly analogous to those recorded in Jahr's Manual. If he does not choose to experiment on himself, and is willing to take the Homoeopathic statement as provi- sionally true, let him study diligently the Polychrests, or our most useful articles in our Materia Medica. Be- fore beginning their clinical use, it will be proper for him to familiarize himself with the outlines of Homoe- opathic practice, by the study of Hahnemann, Hart- mann, Laurie, Marcy, and others. A still more judi- cious measure, would be to obtain the advice of some capable practitioner in the use of the remedies in par- ticular cases, if his professional prejudices have not sundered his social relations with all the gentlemen of the New School. He would derive much benefit from analyzing the cases reported in the Homoeopathic Jour- nals. Andral excused himself from this duty on the plea of ignorance of the German language. But al- though the German is still the great repository of Ho- moeopathic literature, quite enough for his purpose. may now be found in his native tongue. When he comes to the bed-side, it is his first duty to get as thorough a knowledge of the disease as the utmost reach of Allopathic or other education will give him. The condition of his patient must be as clear to him as the pathogenesis of his drugs. The neglect of a single inquiry, the misappreciation of a single symptom, from want of physiological or pathological knowledge, may mar the mental impression, and diminish the chances of successful treatment. Superficial investigation and hasty conclusions are suicidal to the Homoeopathic practitioner. 84 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. Marenzellar, the great Austrian, occupies an hour and a half with each patient, regardless of the time which might be spent in making money, and with a scientific spirit and lofty conscientiousness, which should put his scoffing opponents to the blush. Animated by this spirit, our investigator, from a vast storehouse of simi- lar and yet dissimilar articles, must select his remedy, in the administration of which he is to observe all the niceties and precautions enjoined by the best authori- ties. He may think many of them empirical, and even ridiculous; but in testing the claims of a new system, based on experience, he has no right even to neglect its empirical formulae. Let him pursue this course care- fully and impartially, until he satisfies himself of the truth or falsity of Homoeopathy. I need scarcely re- mind a medical man, that no trial can be trustworthy which has not embraced a number and variety of cases, and extended over a considerable period of time. If the proper preliminary measures have been taken, I can have no apprehension as to the result of the practice. There is a point of practical importance which the young practitioner will do well to remember. He will, of course, endeavor to choose a drug which covers more of the symptoms of the disease, and covers them more accurately than any other. But he must not reject an article because it has many more symptoms than the disease. Diseases and drugs may be considered as indi- viduals, with specific differences just as trees are indi- viduals all belonging to the vegetable kingdom. By the leaves alone we may distinguish the oak from the walnut, the maple, the beech, the cherry, the locust, etc., etc. Indeed, so true is the correlation of parts, SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 85 that Cuvier from a fragmentary fossil could re-construct in idea the whole pre-Adamite animal to which it belonged. When we have a patient with a sore throat, for instance, we must look on this as a protruded seg- ment of a general disease, which is undeveloped. As the vegetable physiologist infers the nature of the wood, or the roots, or the secretions of a plant from its leaf, so from the given symptoms we infer what the case would be, if all the correlated parts made their appear- ance. Accordingly there is a Belladonna sore throat, a Causticum sore throat, a Nux Vomica sore throat, etc., and these articles will be curative to the throat, al- though none of the other symptoms of Belladonna, Causticum, or Nux Vomica, be present in the body. The action of the medicines on the unaffected parts is so slight as to be unnoticed and harmless, while on the diseased tissues it is specific and curative. This is one of the great advantages of attenuation. Such is the course of inquiry best adapted to get a just and thorough knowledge of the subject. Nothing less will enable any man to pronounce an opinion for or against Homoeopathy. He who has not followed this course, although age and experience may give his dicta a nominal value, and genius and learning may have made him renowned, pronounces an opinion which is worthless, and his approval and his censure are alike insignificant. A trace of the old mortality will still linger in the practice of our proselyte, and he will be sometimes called upon to lament the inefficiency of art to resist the last demand of nature. As a morsel of comfort, I will give him an extract from James John Wilkinson, a member of the Royal College of Surgeons 86 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. of England, and a gentleman of rare literary and sci- entific ability. " There is something unfair in the manner in which the public criticises cases that do not recover under Homoeopathic treatment. None of our systems will cure every disorder. Nor is it to be expected that an art which is in its infancy can do more than greatly surpass in safety and virtue the Hippocratic method of two thousand years' standing. Yet, whenever a death occurs under Homoeopathy, the neighborhood acts as though Homoeopathy had invented death, which was a phenomenon unknown until Hahnemann brought it from the infernal regions! Why! the bills of mortality since Hippocrates, are the bills of Allopathy. And in most cases, let the worst that can occur, it is no more than happens daily under that practice. But if the patient dies under Allopathy, he dies by precedent, and there is no responsibility ; if Homoeopathy is at the bed side, he departs unsanctioned, and the survivors have to answer for him to public opinion. This must be borne until the battle is further fought, and those who are not prepared to endure it, had better not dabble in Homoeopathy." UNDULATORY THEORY OF THE NERVE FORCE. "It is very important," says Dr. Carpenter, "that Physiological Science should be considered under the same dynamic aspect, as that under which the Physical Sciences are now viewed by the most enlightened phi- losophers." At the first glance, there appear to be in every department of nature, three distinct subjects of consideration—the forces acting, the material acted upon, and the phenomena produced. Although for practical purposes the ideal separation may be still necessary, our knowledge of their mutual relations has been greatly modified. * The old conception of the material universe as being made up of matter and forces has given way to the more abstruse but philo- sophical definition, that the universe is matter in motion. It was for a long time supposed that Light and Heat were rays of infinitesimal molecules, emanating in straight lines from centers, and impinging upon sur- faces. Electricity was considered to be a current of invisible, intangible, imponderable fluid. Subsequent discoveries revealed that an undulatory theory would obviate the difficulties of the old hypothesis, without losing any of its advantages. It has accordingly been adopted by all the best scientific authorities, and pro- 88 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. pounded and illustrated with a mathematical precision truly astonishing. These undulations are supposed to be communicated through an ethereal medium which pervades all space, and penetrates through the recesses of all bodies. But Professor Grove has shown that this hypothetical ether may be very well dispensed with, for the undulations may be safely assumed to take place in the molecules of the various kinds of matter. Heat, Light, Electricity, etc., therefore are not things, but states of matter. When a bar of iron is heated, the molecules of iron are thrown into undulation which is propagated with definite form and character to the conti- guous molecules of atmospheric air, andTrom them to the hand or thermometer. Thus the phenomena of radia- tion and conduction are truly transferences of motion. The undulations of Light, Electricity, Sound, etc., are entirely analogous to those of Heat, and the manifes- tations which they all present, are dependent upon the form of the substance from which they are evolved. These causative motions must not be supposed to involve any transference of particles from point to point, which is the kind of motion most commonly recognized by our senses. There is a wide difference between the motion of a wave and the motion of the particles among which it is passing. When we disturb the middle of a watery surface, circular waves are pro- pagated from the center to the peripheries of the sur- face. A feather or other light body placed upon the waves is not drifted forward with them, but remains motionless. The undulatory theory of motion includes also the supposition, which indeed is naturally irresisti- ble, that there is no such thing or state in nature as a SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 89 vacuum^our use of that word having only a relative significance. We know nothing of matter itself: how- ever paradoxical it may appear, it is true, that all our knowledge of matter is confined to its motions. A substance is heavy or light, hot or cold, red or green, sweet or sour, hard or soft, and fragrant or the reverse, according to the form of the undulations which ema- nate from it and impress our senses. The laws and phenomena of motion are therefore the fundamental elements of all inquiry and must constitute the most satisfactory data from which any species of deduction can be made. Passing by for the present the astonishing analogies between the various undulations of matter, let us con- sider the curious but all-important question of their mutual convertibility. If they indeed are objects rather of mathematical than physical analysis, we may readily conceive them by change of form to be converted into each other—as a triangle may be stretched into a circle, or a circle into an ellipse, or a cube into a sphere. The idea may be illustrated in the simplest form by the experiment of exposing cloths of the same texture but of different colors, on a surface of snow to the action of sunlight. The amount of Heat absorbed is the same for all the pieces, since Prof. A. D. Bache has conclu- sively shown, that color alone does not modify the radiating power of a surface. The quantity of Light absorbed by the black cloth is evidently the greatest, because none is reflected, and it is the black cloth, we find, which always sinks the deepest into the snow. More Heat, then, has gone from the under surface of that cloth into the snow, than from any of the others, 90 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. although no more Heat was received by it, as Heat. Two questions simultaneously arise—what has become of the Light, and where did the surplus Heat come from ? The Light can not be said to be latent, because by no possible means can it ever be re-produced from the cloth. But it is very easy to suppose, on the undu- latory theory, that the undulations of Light passing into the cloth became modified by the organic texture of the cloth, and came out at its under surface as undulations of Heat. The original Heat from the sun received increments from each cloth, but most of all from that which reflected no Light—for all the Light passing through that one was converted into Heat. Again—Friction, which is only impeded motion, is productive, without limit, of all the physical forces. When two smooth, homogenous surfaces are rubbed together Heat is evolved; if there be any inequality, Electricity is also developed ; and if the motion appa- rently lost in resistance be very considerable, Light is also generated. Now this motion, or Force, is not lost or annihilated by the Friction, but has passed into the forms of Heat, Light, and Electricity—for the quantity of these produced depends exactly upon the degree of motive force expended in the Friction. This theory applied to the facts of Caloric, rids us most happily of that obscure and unphilosophical doctrine of latency. Boiling water and steam are always of the same tem- perature—212° F. But steam in being condensed into water gives out 950° of Heat, which are supposed by the old theory to have existed in the steam in a latent condition. What conception however can we form of a latent force, a latent molecule, or a latent undulation ? SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 91 It is better to abide by the ultimate fact, and confess ignorance, than to propose a lame and impotent theory. On the hypothesis of mutual convertibility, the Heat supposed to be lost or rendered latent, is re-produced to our senses and for our use, in the form of Mechanical Power. By condensation, the Mechanical Force is again returned to its equivalent condition as 950° of Heat. Heat also produces Electricity and Chemical Action, and both may be increased or diminished by the in- crease or diminution of the Caloric—which is under- going the metamorphosis into these new forms of Force. Chemical Affinity produces Heat, Light, Electricity, Magnetism, and Mechanical Power. This last is strongly exemplified in the explosion of gunpowder. And in all these cases, the amount of new Force gene- rated is exactly proportional to the rapidity and extent of the Chemical Action. Professor Grove adduces the following experiment, to show the character of the motion impressed on the molecules of a magnetic metal during the period of magnetisation, and the convertible relation which Light bears to Electricity and Magnetism: "A tube filled with the liquid in which magnetic oxide of iron had been prepared, and terminated at each end by plates of glass, was surrounded by a coil of coated wire. To a spec- tator looking through this tube, a flash of light was perceptible whenever the coil was electrized, and less light was transmitted when the electrical current ceased. showing a symmetrical arrangement of the minute particles of magnetic oxide when under the magnetic influence." 92 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY- The transmutation of Electricity into Heat, Light, Magnetism, Chemical Affinity, and Mechanical Power, is so common and obvious, that many philosophers regard that agent as the fundamental element in nature. A single example, however, will suffice to illustrate our principle. Suppose a current of Electricity, or, in other words, successive waves of molecular polariza- tion, to be traversing a wire of which one portion is more slender than the other. Now, the thick part of that wire will allow the free transmission of a current which ignites the thinner portion. The force retarded, as it were, by the narrowness of the channel, does not accumulate beyond it, but is converted into Heat. An apparatus may be contrived to present to us at the same time the same Force under several different forms. Suppose the terminals of a Voltaic battery to be con- nected by a platinum wire, which is itself immersed in water. Chemical Action goes on in the battery between the zinc and the water which is being decomposed. The Force liberated or generated by the decomposition, traverses the connecting wires as a Galvanic current. The platinum wire exhibits it under the form of Heat. The water boils, and the original force is still continued in the form of Mechanical Power. Between all these Forces there is such an exact ratio, that we can not resist the inference that we are only tracing the pro- gression of the same Force through different media. This is but a picture on a very small scale of what is perpetually occurring and recurring in the material universe. It is well known, that while the forms of matter are continually changing, the matter itself is persistent. None is ever created, and none is ever lost. SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 'J3 A higher and more philosophic mode of stating this proposition would be, that the motions of matter are in a state of incessant mutual transmutation. Every organized being, vegetable or animal, gives back to inorganic nature not only the material but the Forces which it received from it. And in the burning of coal, we are giving back to the atmosphere, not only the material molecules, but the Heat and Light of the car- boniferous period. The vast and important bearings of the principles here involved are not visible on the first inspection, and many minds, without going farther, will be tempted to reject the whole theory as a crude and fanciful specula- tion. Nothing of it is original with myself; and I have received it principally because it bears the sanction of the great names of Carpenter, Grove, Paget, Faraday, and Matteucci. For all the facts I have detailed, and others of similar value, see an article on the Correla- tion of Forces, Physical and Vital, in the Brit, and For. Med. Chir. Review, for July, 1851. The author signficantly remarks: " To the minds who have been led, by their exclusive devotion to some one branch of scientific inquiry, to look rather at the distinctions than at the points of accordance between these Forces, to study them in their isolated manifestations, rather than in their reciprocal bearings, it may be difficult to conceive of such a conversion or metamorphosis. But the difficulty is far less to those who have been accustomed to look deeper than the phenomenal surface, and to con- sider the nature of Force in the abstract." The fact being conceded, that the so-called Forces of nature, are motions of matter, capable of being sub- 94 . SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. mitted to mathematical analysis, and, moreover, mutually convertible, we might a priori expect to dis- cover the most remarkable analogies between them. And the researches of modern philosophers have been so successful upon this point, and their discoveries so numerous, that nothing but a bare statement of the results, can be admitted into a treatise of this kind. The mathematical principles which govern the moveable elements of air and water, applicable alike to the explanations of whirlwinds, water-spouts, undulations of fields of grains, and to all the phenomena of sound, have been transposed to the more subtle, but in reality more powerful, motions of matter. Moreover, the laws by which Heat and Light are radiated, reflected, ab- sorbed, refracted, and polarized, are perfectly identical. Mrs. Somerville calls Heat invisible Light, and Light luminous Caloric. The five species of Electricity, the common, the voltaic, the magnetic, the thermal, and the animal, have been demonstrated by Faraday to be identical. Differences in intensity and quantity are quite sufficient to account for what was supposed to be their distinctive qualities. That great electrician has also demonstrated the identity of Electricity and Mag- netism to the entire satisfaction of all philosophers. And, finally, the influence of Heat on magnetic bodies, and of Light on the vibrations of the compass, complete the links of the occult chain which bind all these Forces or motions together. These discoveries have generated the great idea of Unity of Force. The inferior and subordinate motions of matter, which we are at present permitted to analyze, are but the fragments into which the One Universal SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 95 Agent has been, as it were, prismatically broken. Molecular organization is the material substratum through which this wonderful subdivision is effected. When we are tracing this same wonderful force through its different manifestations, we are reminded of the mythical story of Proteus, who was constantly eluding his pursuers by changing his shape. Faraday, as early as 1845, in his Bakerian lecture, gave a decisive opinion in favor of these speculations: "I have long held an opinion, almost amounting to conviction, in common, I believe, with many other lovers of natural knowledge, that the various forms under which the Forces of matter are made manifest, have one common origin; or, in other words, are so directly related, and mutually dependant, that they are convertible, as it were, one into another, and possess equivalents of power in their action." The objects of future inquiry will therefore be, to define with the greatest accuracy, the mechanical and mathematical properties of each motion, and to ascertain the modes and laws of the conversion of each into the others. The suggestion has not failed to occur to many reasoning men, that in the course of our researches, we may discover new motions of matter, and coincidently new and astounding phenomena. Pro- fessor Grove remarks, " that other Forces may be dis- covered, differing as much from these as these differ from each other, is highly probable; and that when discovered, and their modes of action fully traced out, they will .be found to be related inter se, and to these, just as these are to each other, I believe to be as far certain as certainty can be predicted of any future event." 96 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. The nature of the solar emanations, the position of the sun in the center of the planetary system, and its evident but mysterious connection with the sidereal heavens, warrant us in looking for some common center to all the undulatory forces of nature. The German language has appropriately given the feminine gender to the word "sun;" for, truly, it is the mother of all things, having created them of her substance, borne them in her bosom, and invested them with her properties. The nebular hypothesis, generally ascribed to La Place, but really proposed thirty years earlier by Swedenborg, plausibly maintains, that each planet was stricken off from the sun by a centrifugal force, at the period when the solar mass extended to or a little beyond the present orbit of that planet. Our globe is a miniature sun, as a nucleus is a miniature cell, a seed a miniature plant, or a foetus a miniature man. Not that our earth will grow or develope into a sun, but it retains the motions and potentialities which existedin the circumference of the sun's disk, when that circumference was ruptured, conglomerated into a minor sphere, and commenced an independent motion. Accordingly, it has thrown off its own satellite, and a miniature earth revolves around it, and illumines its night. Accordingly, its central heat is so great, that most of our metals are liquid at the depth of five miles, only one eight hundreth of the distance to its center. It is in the mutual re- lations existing between the earth and the sun, that we are to look for the causes of all terrestrial pheno- mena. The solar emanations have been subjected to pris- matic analysis, by which we have discovered the lu- SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 97 minous, calorific, and tithonic or chemical rays. By the action of these upon the earth's crust, currents of Electricity and Magnetism are generated. Indeed, Sir John Herschel, in his Astronomy, Page 201, refers to the sun's ray as the ultimate source of Heat, Light, Electricity, Magnetism, geological changes, volcanic activity, chemical compositions and decompositions, and vegetable vivification. Thus, however generated or perpetuated, the solar force may be considered the aggregate expression for all the motions of matter; in fact, the motion, which by its descent, subdivision, or resolution into lower forms, generates all the manifes- tations of nature. Passing now from physical to vital phenomena, we are not to hypothecate any new agent, until we have satisfactory evidence that we are not dealing with some modification of a known one. Such being the relation of forces on the grandest arenas of nature, we have no right a priori to anticipate any exceptions or special provisions in the sphere of Organic Life. The plant or animal, like the world itself, is an aggregate of molecules and motions, composed of the same material, and necessarily subject to the same laws. We should bring, therefore, to General Physiology, the principles and modes of reasoning, which we have adopted in the study of Natural and Chemical Philosophy. We are to see how far the Forces of organized bodies are mutually convertible, and ascertain, if possible, what relations they bear to the Forces around us, which are susceptible of more thorough and definite analysis. Those Physiologists who have hitherto failed to re- cognize the convertibility of forces, have been obliged 9 98 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. to affirm that Vital Force exists in a dormant condition in all matter capable of becoming organized. Dr. Car- penter remarks, that there appears nothing illogical in this proposition, to those who have believed that a dormant magnetic power might be attributed to iron. But it is entirely unsatisfactory to those who not only deny the existence of any such thing as latent force, but denounce its supposition as an absurdity. When, therefore, organizable materials are converted into liv- ing structures, we are to endeavor, if possible, to trace the whole series of operations from some external agency. We find that in the lowest form of the vegetable germ-cell, Heat and Light are required as specific sti- muli, prior to the commencement of developement. Moreover, we find that the rate and extent of the de- velopement is exactly proportioned to the amount of the luminous and calorific forces appropriated. "Ac- cording to Boussingault," says Carpenter, "the same annual plant, in arriving at its period of development, and going through all the processes of flowering and maturation of its seed, every where receives the same amount of Solar Light and Heat, whether it be grown at the equator, or in the temperate zone; its whole period of growth being in a precisely inverse ratio to the amount it receives in any given time, and its rate of growth consequently in a direct ratio. Hence, it appears, that the organizing force of plants bears a relation of equivalence to the Heat and Light which act upon them." The agency of Light is particularly directed to the fixation of carbon in the vegetable structure, which is one reason why animals are com- SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 99 paratively independent of it. But the amount of carbon fixed is always in accordance with the degree of illu- mination they receive. The maturation of the seeds of plants, and of the eggs of insects, may be at plea- sure retarded or accelerated by the mere regulation of temperature. And each individual of the same species receives the same amount of Heat, whether the intensity of its action be greater or less. Dr. Edwards made some experiments upon the tad- pole, which showed the dynamic agency of Light in organization. When excluded carefully from sunlight, and well supplied with aerated water and food, they grew to twice and even thrice their size as tad-poles, but underwent no metamorphosis into frogs. Mr. Hig- ginbotham has recently made some experiments which seem at first sight to set aside Dr. Edwards' conclu- sions. He found that tad-poles were converted into frogs in the dark, when they were supplied with grass, and ate the chlorophyl adhering to the cells of the plant. Now the green part of vegetables are never repre- sented in Daguerreotype images, evidently because some kind of undulations falling on them are not re- flected. The formation of these images is well known to be due to the chemical rays of the sun. From these facts Matteucci draws the inference, that chlorophyl is only produced by the Tithonic or chemical rays. It may, therefore, be said to embody the dynamic power of that ray. Add to this the fact stated by Draper, that the chemical ray or undulation (for he shows its trans- mission to be identical with that of Light and Heat) excites or determines the arrangement of molcules into particular groups, so as to produce development. And 100 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. we now see, on the hypothesis of convertibility, that the frog in eating the chlorophyl appropriated the iden- tical Force, which in the open air would have produced and secured his metamorphosis without the chlorophyl. This deduction, so apparently extravagant, is logically drawn from the premises. The inference from these and a vast mass of similar facts, is that the external forces of nature, particularly Heat and Light, passing into organized structures, be- come converted into new manifestations of force, which we provisionally call assimilative, organizing, repro- ductive, etc. Chemical action and mechanical motion constitute the fundamental basis of all these"processes. By the former, an extensive range of new compounds is generated, such as have never been imitated in the laboratory of man. Light and Heat are the forces which acting through the vegetable or animal cell, as their instrument or material substratum, produce those new chemical attractions which determine the formation of the new compound. In other words, a portion of the force known as Heat or Light ceases to exist as such, and is manifested in a modified form as chemical affi- nity, which again during the act of decomposition is reconverted into Heat or Light. These are elementary facts necessary to the conception of animal as well as vegetable heat. Dr. Carpenter suggests in common with other distin- guished physiologists, that all the phenomena of cell- growth are explicable on the hypothesis of converti- bility of forces. The more obvious motions of animals are evidently dependent upon the nervous system. We shall hereafter see that voluntary muscular contraction SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 101 is a continuation of Nerve Force, but movements of plants and the analogous movements of some animal tissues, appear to be modifications of the Organic Force, a provisional name for a definite modification of Heat and Light. The simplest and most universal of these motions, are endosmose, a species of capillary attrac- tion, and ciliary motion. Endosmose plays such an important part in the changes of all organic beings, that Matteucci, and other great philosophers, have made it the subject of special experiment. The motion is finally resolved into chemical attraction. But both the motion and chemical affinity can be shown to be remote modifications of Heat. Matteucci discovered that the rate of the imbibition can be always accelera- ted or retarded by increasing or diminishing the tem- perature. Prof. Grove instances a beautiful experiment which has a bearing upon the point. He put hydro- chloric and nitric acid respectively into the two com- partments of a trough, separated by unglazed porcelain, asbestos, or some other porous material through which an endosmotic current might pass. No spontaneous current occurred. Into each part he thrust a gold wire, but still no action was produced. He then brought the free ends of the two wires together; a current of Elec- tricity was immediately detected in the metals by the galvanometer, the endosmotic exchange between the two acids began, and the gold commenced to be dis- solved by the liberated chlorine. The correlation be- tween Electricity and Heat has been already pointed out, and Becquerel asserts, that Electricity is a constant attendant upon the phenomena of imbibition. Ciliary motion, although seldom discoverable except 102 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. with the microscope, is common to plants and animals. The cilia which are minute hair-like filaments, varying from l-1000th to l-1200th of an inch in length, are found upon almost all the free surfaces of the human body. During life and for a variable period after death they are in a state of continual vibration, which strongly resembles the undulations of a field of corn. It has been fully demonstrated that they have no nervous or muscular connection with the rest of the body. Nothing seems absolutely indispensable to their activity, but the integrity and moisture of the epithelial cell to which they are attached. Dr. Carpenter thinks that this cil- iary motion may be a partial expenditure of the Organic Force, derived by convertibility from the solar emana- tions. He considers this view to be remarkably con- firmed by the fact, "that in the history of the zoospores of the Algae we have two distinct periods, one of ciliary action, and the other of growth and multiplica- tion. So long as the ciliary action continues, no further vital change takes place in them: but so soon as this ceases and they become stationary, they begin to exercise chemico-vital transformations, and to grow and multiply as cells." The mechanical force thus passes into a chemical one, and in the higher orders of living beings, ciliary motion may still be the expression of the excess of chemical or organic force in the subja- cent tissues. From this point, we pass, by natural transition, to the contraction of involuntary muscles, which has been shown to be quite independant of any connection with the central nervous system. The inherent irritability of muscular fiber was taught by Haller, and although SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 103 keenly questioned by some great observers, may still be said to be the prevalent doctrine of the schools. But if the mutual convertibility of forces has any foundation in nature, this inherent or latent irrita- bility is as unphilosophical as latent Heat or Light, or latent force of any kind. We must endeavor to show that the force which produces this contraction is not educed from the muscle—but transferred to it. In one of Tiedemann's experiments, the heart of a frog taken entirely out of the body and suspended by itself in the air, continued in uninterrupted motion for more than an hour. Now it is contended by some that the peripheral nerve fibers distributed throughout the heart had not lost their excitability, and that they pro- duced the contraction. But Bowman has caused a single muscular fiber separated from all other tissues, to contract under a stimulus—and even under such a stimulus as would not have excited its nerve at all. Therefore the Nerve Force is not necessary to muscular contraction. This is no more than every body admits, and does not prove that there must be no external force at all or that the contraction is spontaneous. When Tiedemann put a fresh heart under the exhausted re- ceiver of an air pump, the pulsations became instantane- ously weaker and slower, and ceased entirely in thirty seconds. He attributed this cessation to the with- drawal of oxygen. It is evident from this experiment alone, that if our process for isolating the muscular fiber from all extraneous sources of power could be rendered perfect, no contraction could possibly ensue. Under the pressure of three atmospheres the action is greatly exalted, and prolonged. The Heat and Elec- 104 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. tricity, developed by that operation pass into the mus- cular fiber and escape from it again as mechanical power during the contraction. The force which occa- sions the contraction is therefore always transferred to the fiber. Contraction is the only mode in which that force can act, for the cells which constitute muscular fibrillas can undergo no modification but that of shape. They exercise no power of chemical transformation, undergo no histological changes, and appear to be entirely destitute of the power of self-multiplication. The expenditure of their vital force in the single act of contraction involves their death and disintegration. Their renewal is accomplished by the production of new cells from the myolemma, which itself possesses no contractibility. Every form of undulation or species of force passing into that medium must be given out again as mechanical power. In the living animal the Nerve Force is the one specially provided for conversion into this and all other manifestations of vital activity. Having thus pointed out the essential identity of the Inorganic and Organic forces of nature, we are to take a step higher in the generalization, and show that the forces of Animal Life are but the more complex, and successive continuations of the causative powers we hate just been considering. A living, actively moving spermatozoon comes into contact with an organic molecule, elaborated from the maternal blood, and de- posited in an appropriate nidus. Immediately com- mences a most miraculous series of appropriations and compositions, so that, very soon, the amorphous ma- terial exhibits the definite outlines of bones, muscles, nerves, glands, and other tissues, all mysteriously but SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 105 symmetrically and beautifully woven together. The preparation of these organizing and organizable ma- terials is attended with loss of Force to the parent; for in many of the lowest species of animated nature, re- production is accomplished at the expense of the vitality of the individual, and in all, even man himself, it is attended with remarkable exhaustion. This force, together with the heat and forces of the blood derived from the mother, is broken up, or subdivided into all the vital affinities and molecular motions which occur in the parenchyma of the embryo. At birth, all the tissues are formed and the blood in circulation, and as soon as the lungs admit the atmospheric air, the nervous force, vis nervosa, becomes the single, universal and predominant power in the living economy. We may safely venture to affirm that no system of Pathology or Therapeutics can be of real or permanent value, unless it has a broad and deep basis in a correct Physiology of the nervous system. It is upon this ground principally, that I claim for Homoeopathy a theoretical as well as a practical superiority. I con- tend that the nerve-centers are the sources of all vital power—that their modification is the essential element in all disease—and that their re-adjustment as it were, is the rational end of all medication. I purpose to in- quire whence this great Force is generated, what are its properties, and under what modified forms it is dis- tributed among the various organs and tissues of the body. But for fear it may be supposed that I am in- dulging in some unwarranted speculations, without the high sanction of authority, I will make one or two quotations to show, that however my conclusions may 10 106 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. differ from theirs, my premises are approved by some of the first medical men of the age. Professor Meigs, of the Jefferson College, in speak- ing of the nervous system, says, " Whether it be anne- lide or insect, a radiate, vertebrate, reptile, fish, bird^ or mammal, the Ens, the living creature, that which can do, be, or suffer, is composed of the nervous mass of the creature, which is noble, and all the rest is vile, common, and of less account. It is for the conserva- tion of this nervous Ens, as Oken denominates it, that its ministers and 'servants, the anatomical organs and histological tissues, are added to it as its endowments and properties. It is the seat and source of their vitality. They are regulated and maintained in a co- ordinate life, by its biotic force." And again, "the nervous mass makes the animal; of course the nervous mass makes the organs of the animal. In this sense the optic nerve makes the eye, another nerve makes the lungs, another nerve develops the liver and is the bile nerve, and so forth, to the entire edification and composition of the living, sentient animal. Is such an animal sick? Is any one of its organs sick? The nerve that composed and dominates that organ is sick. It is impossible to suppose that the organ can be sick through any other way; for the life of the organ is in the nervous mass of it, and it can not vary but with the varying forces or crasis of the same nervous mass." The idea couched in the last sentence will be appropriately expanded in the next chapter. Again, Mr. Paget, in his admirable Lectures on In- flamation, gives a clue, which, for the benefit of Ho- moeopathy I shall trace to its logical issue. " Now, SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMCEOPATY. 107 that the nervous force has some other influence in normal nutrition than can be explained by referring to it only the government of the size of the blood-vessels, we have, I think, ample evidence; and I can not but wonder at the steadfastness with which some maintain or imply that the nervous force can manifest itself in nothing but impressions on the mind, and muscular contractile force. So limited a view of the converti- bility of nervous force, is such a one as the older elec- tricians would have held, had they maintained that the only possible manifestations of electricity were the at- tractions and repulsions of light bodies, or that the electric force could never be made to appear in the form of magnetism, of chemical action, or of heat. We are too much shackled with these narrow dogmas of negation. The evidence of the correlation and mutual convertibility of the physical forces might lead us to anticipate a like variety of modes of manifestation for the nervous and other forces exercised in the living body. We might anticipate, too, that as the nervous force has its origin in the act of nutrition by which the nerve-substance is formed, so, by reciprocal action, its exercise might affect the nutritive acts. As (for illus- tration sake) the completed blood affects all the pro- cesses by which itself was formed, so, we might suppose, would the nervous force be able to affect all the acts of which itself is the highest product." With the substi- tution of the more positive word effect for affect, this paragraph might form the text for my theory of func- tion. How is the Nerve Force generated? Absorption, nutrition, secretion, aeration, muscular motion, and in- 108 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. nervation—all the most complicated dynamic actions of living beings—are performed through a common instrumentality, the simple organic cell. The more vital the functions of a part, the less is the deviation from the original cellular constitution of animal matter. Bone, serous and cellular tissue, skin, and aponeurosis, have all very greatly departed from their elementary forms. But the cells of the glands, of the muscles, and of the nervous mass, retain their isolated state, and terminate their individual lives by executing a special function. This remarkable uniformity of cell-action has been cited by some physiologists as one link in the chain of evidence—"that all the truly vital phenomena, however diversified, are but results of the operation of one and the same Force, wThose particular manifesta- tions are determined by the nature of the material sub- stratum through which it acts; the same fundamental agency producing simple growth in one case, transfor- mation in another, multiplication in the third, mechani- cal movement in a fourth, whilst in a fifth it develops nervous power, which may itself operate in a variety of different modes." Neurine, which is the technical term for nervous matter, is of two kinds, the vesicular and the tubular. The first is of a gray or ash color and pulpy texture, and has been found by the microscope to consist of nucleated cells or vesicles. The latter is of a pearly white color and fibrous texture. It is now universally conceded that the peculiar power of the nervous system lies in the vesicular or cineritious portion. It is posi- tive, while the tubular portion is merely negative; the one is a generator, the other only a conductor of what SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 109 we call the Nerve Force Solly and others have aptly compared the vesicular neurine to the secreting cells of a gland. It eliminates, in some manner to us inscru- tible, a Force from the blood, just as the nucleated cells of the liver or testicle eliminate new and different or- ganic materials from the same substance. Vesicular neurine is entirely useless without the blood, and the tubular is equally so without the vesicular. The tubu- lar has been compared to the efferent ducts of the glan- dular structures, being evidently designed to convey something from one point to another. It is connected with the vesicular immediately, as the heart is with its vessels; although there is no evidence that the vesicles are hollow like the heart, and have like it a systole and diastole, by which a subtile fluid is circulated, as was extensively believed in the last century. The neurilem ma, a membranous sheath, insulates the nerve proper, even to its finest filaments. This still further consists of an opaque cylindrical thread, called the white sub- stance of Schwann, within which is a fine central rod or line of transparent matter, the axis-cylinder, and prob- ably the true conducting material. The vesicles or nerve centers are frequently connected together by tubular threads, which are called commissures. Such is an outline of the structures, whose functions we are to investigate. The Nerve Force is generated by the reactions which occur between the vesicular neurine, and arterial blood. In other words, it is eliminated from the blood by a structure designed for that specific office. All the inferior phases of organization, are but preparatory measures to collect and elaborate a material for the 110 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. conveyance of Force to the nerve-centers. The vege- table has the mineral kingdom for its basis—the animal has the vegetable. The blood is a mixture of mineral and vegetable matter, and the prime cause and basis of all the operations of the nevous system. Dr. Todd has compared that system to a galvanic battery, of which the blood is the exciting acid. But it must not be for- gotten that the battery itself is made out of the material which excites it. The blood may be imaginatively, but nevertheless truthfully called a solution of Organic Force. It is moreover a carrier of iron and oxygen, the two most remarkable of all the elementary substances. The mode of its operation on the nerve-centers is the most complex, and probably the sublimest question which can be submitted to the analytic powers of man. We have seen what a vast amount of Force as well as material is embodied in the tissues of plants. This is liberated from the prison-house of organic texture by the subtile and solvent powers of saliva, gastric juice, and bile—substances requiring for their own elabora- tion from the blood, considerable transformation of the Nerve Force. The Force which binds the molecules of a substance chemically together must be rendered up when that substance is decomposed. When a dimor- phous crystal changes, spontaneously to all appear- ance, from one form to another, a flash of light is frequently perceptible. There can be no molecular motion without the development or evolution of Force. The processes of haematosis may be said metaphorically, to divide the food of an animal into a soul and a body; the soul is the liberated Force which the vesicular neurine appropriates and transmutes into the Nerve SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. Ill Force by transmission through its organic media; the body is the organizable material of the blood, which goes to the constant reconstruction of the tissues. The iron of the blood exists in combination with haematin as an integral constituent, as iodine occurs in sponge. This connection is so intimate that Mulder denies that iron is at all concerned in the chemical changes of respiration. He is mereover inclined to think that it exists in a permanently metallic state. The idea is strongly supported by the evolution of hy- drogen from haematin, which has been treated with sul- phuric acid and water—the sulphate of the protoxide of iron being formed. When we reflect on the magnetic properties of iron, and its simultaneous subjection in the blood to heat, moisture, electricity, and chemical excitation, we may get an idea of the vast field of re- search and discovery, which we must explore, before we can understand its physiological use and its modus operandi. Oxygen, under the hypothesis of converti- bility, becomes the most energetic medium of trans- ference in nature. I can not but think that its office in the animal economy has been too closely limited to its chemical reactions with the elements of the blood. It is mysteriously connected with Electricity, and Fara- day has succeeded in rendering it highly magnetic. The blood is a carrier of oxygen to all the tissues equally, but the reactions which occur depend upon the forms of the tissue. " Nothing lives," says Dr. Meigs, "save in the presence of oxygen. It is even true, that the spiritual soul being present, all life is the result of a process of oxygenation. Hydrogen, azote, chlorine, carbonic acid, neither evolve nor sustain life. Oxygen 112 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. is the vitalizing, not the vital principle. It is the cos- mie agent for producing vitality out of nervous mass." The fact, that a powerful Force originates in the nerve-centers, and passes towards the peripheries like Electricity along a wire, is as well established as any fact in physical science. That it pre-existed in some form in the blood, is to me an irresistible inference. And if it pre-existed in the blood, it pre-existed in the food—of which the blood is only a modification. And if it .pre-existed in the food it pre-existed in the inani- mate kingdoms of nature. It is therefore, like all Force, nothing but matter in motion ; but it is animal matter, and consequently the results of its motion are new and surprising. And according to the great doctrine of the essential unity of Force, we expect to find it intimately connected with the better known and simpler Forces of the inorganic world. The questions, how is it gene- rated from the blood, and how is it modified by the spiritual or psychical element of our being, we may never be able to answer. We need not be detained where speculation would be almost useless, but may pass on to the consideration of the Nerve Force itself, its analogies, and its different manifestations. The Nerve Force is more intimately correlated with Electricity than with any other motion of matter. Electricity made to traverse a motory nerve is con- verted into Mechanical Power in the muscles to which it is distributed. Applied to a sensory nerve it pro- duces the special sensation of the nerve, Light in the optic, sound in the auditory, taste in the gustatory, and smell in the olfactory. Conversely, the Nerve Force can excite or be transformed into Electricity. The SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 113 operation of the electric organs of the Gymnotus and Torpedo has been fully proved to depend upon their connection with the nervous centers, and to vary in intensity with the degree of that connection. More- over, Matteucci, after many experiments, has arrived at the conclusion, that muscular contraction is attended by an evolution of Electricity, or, as he expresses it, "by an electric disequilibrium." But although thus remarkably correlated, they are not identical. Elec- , tricity, indeed, may be made to simulate the Nerve Force to a wonderful extent. By the aid of the blood it may carry on nutrition or secretion in a paralyzed limb or a separated organ. But Matteucci positively decides that the electric current does not exist natu- rally in the nerve of a living animal. The laws of its propagation require conditions, which are not found fulfilled in the nervous system. The propagation of the Nerve Force is interrupted by causes which would not produce a similar effect upon the electric current. But Heat also when applied to motor nerves will pro- duce motion, and to sensory nerves, sensations of all kinds. On the other hand, the Nerve Force may be converted into Heat, as we shall presently see. Light produces Nerve Force, and correlatively Nerve Force may assume the form of Light. This is seen in the curious luminosity of some marine worms, which seems to bear a closer analogy to the discharge of the electric organs of fishes than to common phosphorescence, which is apparently a slow combustion. Quatrefage, who has studied closely the phosporescence of the Annelides and Ophiurae, describes it as being produced during the con- traction of muscular fiber, and as entirely dependent on 114 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. the nervous system. Mechanical irritation is known to call the endowments of any particular nerve into ac- tivity. But this mechanical irritation, as Dr. Carpenter observes, is nothing but a motion of the particles or molecules of the nerve-trunk. That admirable Phys- iologist thus continues the discussion of the subject: "It may be said, however, that the nervous force does not produce motion, since it merely acts as a stimulus upon the muscular substance, ind which the motor power really exists in the dormant state. And this objection, plausible enough at first sight, might lead us still further to consider, whether the vis musculosa is not as nearly related as the vis nervosa to the agencies in question. For we find that muscular contraction may be excited, not only by the nervous force, but also by Electricity, Heat, chemical agents, or mechanical irritation, applied to the muscle itself. All these influences are said to stimulate the muscle to contraction, but are they any- thing else than the forces which, in a changed condition, become the contractile force of the muscle ? —just as, in Professor Good's view, impeded motion becomes Heat or Electricity, according as the friction takes place between similar or dissimilar substances." The Nerve Force is apparently of a much higher and more complicated character than any of the Physical Forces with which we have been comparing it. It may be called analogically, the solar force vitalized. It is the subtlest and most powerful form under which the One Universal Force manifests itself. But after all, it is to be remembered, that it is only the force of inorganic nature raised, like an algebraic expression, to a higher power. It is matter in motion, and as such, susceptible SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 115 of conversion into other and more familiar forms of motion. It is resolvable into Heatr Light, Electricity, Magnetism, Chemical Action, and Mechanical Power. Upon its modes and manifestations, therefore, all the phenomena of living bodies,' in health or disease, depend. It being conceded, that vesicular neurine extracts or secretes Force from the blood, the question arises, is there no other organic tissue which executes a similar office? The physiological answer is, none. All the tissues draw their structural elements from the blood, but their Force or vitality can be demonstrated to come from their incident nerves. The use of the blood may be succinctly defined to be, to convey Force to the nerve centers, and [to furnish material to the organic peri- pheries. If the blood was the carrier of Force to the various organs of the body, the functions of the ner- vous system, which may be said to constitute the en- tire animal, could be reduced to zero. As Electricity, Heat, or Magnetism, are transferred to some substances in preference to others, so the organic substance neu- rine, is the only conductor of the Force which is trans- ferred from the blood. And further, this Force can not be transferred as such from the nerves to any tissue, (with perhaps a single exception) but must be broken as it were into fragments, which, if reunited, would always be dynamically equivalent to the original Force. An objection to this theory of the passivity of the blood, in contradistinction to the common one of its inherent chemical life, might be apparently supported by the following fact. When a ligature is applied to a large arterial trunk in the human body, there is not 116 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. only a deficiency of sensibility in the surface, but also a partial or complete suspension of muscular power, until the collateral circulation is freely established. Thus the interruption of arterial blood is almost equi- valent in effect to an interruption of the nervous cur- rent. And in the case under consideration, there is a real interruption of the nervous current, almost as posi- tive as if the ligature had been applied to the nerve instead of to the artery. For the axis-cylinder, or cen- tral portion of the nerve filament, is the conducting medium of the Nerve Force, and is deposited like every other tissue from the accompanying arteries. Its integ- rity is just as essential to nervous action as the iron track is to the motion of the locomotive. The arrest of its nutrition or constant renewal, accounts for all the phenomena. And this view is confirmed by the fact, that when the collateral circulation is established and the nutrition of the nerve trunk thereby rendered regu- lar and normal, both sensibility and the power of motion return. "The nervous force," says Dr. Radclyffe Hall, "can stimulate every living molecule endowed with a certain function, to the more active discharge of that function. It can consequently excite, variously modify, and greatly derange all vital actions. Muscular contraction, cell- metamorphosis, the evolution of animal heat, are influ- enced by the nerves in precisely the same manner, the difference in result being due to inherent differences of vital endowment in the molecule subjected to the ner- vous influence." When will the medical profession get rid of these vague and incomprehensible "vital endowments" and forces to stimulate them? What SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 117 conception can a mind, accustomed to consider Force as matter in motion, form of " the inherent vital endow- ment" of a living molecule? For what reason and in what manner is it dormant ? And is the Nerve Force, so wonderfully and elaborately prepared by organs which are the chef-d'ceuvres of anatomical structure, the mere prick of a needle to rouse the sleeping organic poten- tiality into action ? How much more simple and philo- sophical it is, to suppose that physiological differences depend on differences of molecular arrangement or organization of parts; and that the function of a mole- cule is the form which the Nerve Force assumes in passing through that molecule, whether it be a change of constitution or a change of place, a chemical or a mechanical action. It is very difficult for us to divest ourselves of the mere verbality of the text books, and look upon the Force which we call Chemical Affinity, as an undula- tory condition of molecular matter. Until this is done, however, we can not comprehend how the Nerve Force is converted into chemical action. There are two great facts in physical nature, which will aid our conception of the subject. What we call the chemical properties of even an elementary substance, depend upon, or are the results of a definite arrangement of the molecules which constitute the substance. Chemical Force is no property which belongs inherently to the substance, but comes and goes, is apparent or quiescent, with the change of atomic juxtaposition. It was once supposed, that pure and dry oxygen gas had certain fixed and inalienable properties, which could only be modified by combination with some other element. But when a 118 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. series of electric sparks are passed through it, by which a vibratory motion is communicated to its molecules, the oxygen assumes unexpected properties, acquiring a penetrating and nauseous odor, and a power of libera- ting iodine from iodide of potassium, becoming at the same time the most powerfully bleaching, deodorising, and disinfecting agent in nature; indeed it is no longer oxygen. Berzelius, Dumas, Faraday, Schbnbein, and Draper, have shown that almost all the elementary sub- stances may be made to assume these allotropic states in which their properties are completely altered. For a thorough survey of this, interesting subject, see a critique on the Present State of Chemical Philosophy, in the British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, April, 1848. The other fact, equally demonstrable and more sig- nificant, is, that the prismatic analysis of the solar ray gives a series of undulations, which have been called Tithonic, Chemical, or Actinic. These are not Heat, nor Light, nor Electricity, but undulations which pass into substances, modify their molecular arrangement, and produce the phenomena which we call chemical actions. The evidence that chemical action is an un- dulation of molecular matter, is just the same as that which defines Heat and Light to be such undulations. And if the Force was aught but matter in motion, it could not be so readily converted into the other forms of molecular motion, more susceptible of mathematical analysis. The undulations of Heat, Light, or Electri- city, passing into a material substratum or medium, are modified or converted into the undulations of Tithonism or Actinism, and we have chemical instead of calorific, SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 119 luminous, or electric phenomena. This fundamental principle pervades all the kingdoms of nature, mineral, vegetable, and animal. The Oxygen, Hydrogen, Car- bon, and Nitrogen, which form the plastic material of the blood, have no inherent chemical affinities, by which gastric juice, bile, muscle, and nerve-tissue are pro- duced. The molecular motions, which cause or produce such affinities, are communicated from the Nerve Force. Some writers, bringing the facts of vegetable Physi- ology to interpret phenomena in which all the circum- stances of vegetable life are not present, and in which other and novel circumstances are present, contend that although the nervous system may exercise a modifying influence over the several tissues, their formative acti- vity is not derived from it. The independent vitality of the elementary cells is the basis of this opinion. These cells are distinct individuals, having their birth, growth, function, reproduction of species, and death. They are oommcn to both plants and animals. But as in all other cases, their so called vitality must be derived. If they could be shut out from all undulations impinging upon their surfaces, they would be dormant forever like the seeds in an Egyptian mummy. The chemical changes of vegetable cells are known to be due to the action of the sun. Put a fresh green leaf into water exposed to sunlight, and oxygen gas will escape from its surface in bubbles. Shade it and the disengage- ment of gas immediately ceases. The greater the force of the sun's ray, the greater the speed at which the vegetable machinery is driven. The sap and epi- thelial cells of the plant correspond to the blood and the epithelial cells of the animal. But the tissues of 120 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. the animal are involuted, and turned from the sunlight instead of being expanded towards it. There is no evidence that in Animal Physiology, there is any direct conversion of Heat and Light into Organic Force, as in the vegetable world. In the strictest sense, indeed, Organic Force is a provisional name. Organic phenomena, produced by solar undulations in vegetable tissues, are the real objects of our study. If the Physiologist would transfer the idea of Organic Force derived from vegetable phenomena unmodified to animal bodies, he must concomitantly prove that the chemical actions of the lungs, the skin, or the liver, are directly caused by sunlight. The great similarity of the organic process in the two cases has led him to assign to both, the same vague and undefinable cause. This similarity only proves the intimate correlation of the Nerve Force with the undulatory Forces of the physical world. The Organic force of animals is a modification of the Nerve Force, just as the Organic Force of plants is a modification of the Solar Force. Having premised thus much with respect to the true nature of chemical action, it will be sufficient to cite, by way of illustration, a few examples of the relation which the Nerve Force bears to the chemical process of nutrition. Mental operations are known to be con- nected with and based upon molecular changes in the vesicular neurine. By the impressions made upon these centers through mental media, and which belong to the province of Psychology, not only the motions of the heart, lungs, and intestines, but the secretion of tears, saliva, milk, bile, sweat, semen, and urine, may be augmented or diminished and otherwise rendered SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 121 abnormal. A mother's milk even, through the nervous system alone, without adding to or abstracting a single element from the blood, may be made as poisonous as hemlock or corrosive sublimate. Defective nutrition often follows injuries of the spinal cord and general atrophy is a frequent consequence of a disease of the brain. Mr. Paget cites a case which shows beautifully the action of the Nerve Force, in the nutritive process. A man presented himself at Guy's Hospital, who in con- sequence of a fracture at the lower end of the radius, repaired by an excessive quantity of new bone, suffered from compression of the median nerve. There was an ulceration of the thumb and fore and middle fingers, only the parts supplied by that particular nerve, which resisted every method of treatment. The wrist was bound forward in such a manner as to remove the pres- sure from the nerve, and permit the regular supply of Nerve Force. The ulcers speedily healed, and perfect nutrition went on in the fingers so long as the nerve was kept free, but afterwards whenever the man was allowed to use his hand, the ulcerations returned. A remarkable example of the nervous government of secretion may be found in the Archives Generates for May, 1849. M. Bernard discovered that the urine may be modified and made to contain sugar by punc- turing a certain part of the floor of the fourth ventricle of the brain. The change takes place in less than two hours after the operation. Repetitions of this experi- ment have demonstrated, that the portion which it is necessary to wound, to produce this curious result, is a point corresponding with the origin of the pneumo- 11 122 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. gastric nerves. It would thus appear to act by modify- ing the course of the chemical processes going on in the chylopoietic viscera. This example moreover shows how inextricably the tissues of the body are woven together, so that the chemical actions of one part depend immediately tfpon the due innervation of another. The secretion of urine was constantly and entirely arrested by section of the renal nerves, in repeated experiments made by Muller and Peipers, although the normal supply of blood was distributed to the kidney. The former distinguished authority gives an opinion in favor of the old doctrine of chemical organic action, but with a qualification which is a virtual surrender of his own position. "I am far from believing," says he, "that the power of chemical action, which the glandu- lar substance owes to its vital condition, (?) has not as equally important a share as the nervous influence in the process of secretion, but it is probable that the influence of the nerves is necessary for the support of this chemical action, which in each gland is different." The Nerve Force is therefore the power which con- structs the animal body out of the amorphous materials present in the blood. Much of its potentiality is expended in these chemical combinations. But it does not stop there. A Force at rest is no force at all. There is a continual waste which makes way for a con- tinual supply. Disintegration is the attendant upon all acts of composition. The Force which binds molecules together in a certain form is liberated when that form is broken up. The new form which the same Force then assumes, is, in the circumstances we are SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 123 now considering called Animal Heat. Nerve Force therefore, having passed through the intermediate stage of Chemical Power, reappears and is radiated into the external world under the form of Heat. Ani- mal Heat is just as surely a modification of the Nerve Force, as a gland or a muscle is a modification of the blood. With a due supply of food and oxygen an animal can resist the most astonishing reduction of external temperature, a feat of which no vegetable tissue is capable. Animal Heat is increased by the exciting and diminished by the depressing passions. It is lessened also in sleep. A paralyzed limb is colder than one not paralyzed. On electrifying such a part, which is but giving it a tolerable substitute for the Nerve Force, its temperature rises. When the nerve centers are removed the body cools rapidly, notwith- standing the artificial maintainance of respiration and circulation. This view of Animal Heat as Nerve Force reproduced in another form, does not undervalue or gainsay a single fact discovered by Liebig and other Physiologists of the Chemical School. Chemical Ac- tion is still the connecting link. There is a constant ratio between the quantity of material consumed and the degree of Heat liberated. Animal Heat is still the product of an interstitial combustion. Mechanical Power is the name which we give to the impetus or force with which a molecule or molecules move in space, whether the resultant of that motion be as magnificent as that of the earth rolling in its orbit, or as infinitesimal as that of a muscular cell. This force overcomes what is called the inertia of bodies, the 124 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. influence of gravitation, or the attraction of masses, atmospheric pressure, etc. In the animal body this is effected by the contraction of muscular fiber, which is only a certain change of place in its component mole- cules. This is always the last result of an analysis of those complicated motions by which the blood is cii- culated, the thorax expanded, and the bones moved one upon another, so as to cause all the varieties of locomotion. Nor do we here desert our fundamental idea of Force as matter in motion. The old doctrine, that muscular fiber possesses an inherent contractibility which is stimulated to action by the Nerve Force, is a mere circumlocution which only states without ex- plaining the facts of the case. Of inherent properties we can form no conception, and therefore abandon the phrase as unphilosophical. Molecules have no spon- taneous motions, and every change of structure must be caused by undulations emanating from some source. We have described an organic medium to the best of our ability, when we have described the manner in which it receives, transmits, or modifies the various undulatory Forces of Nature. Muscular fiber is an organic medium for the reception and conversion of the Nerve Force into mechanical power. When a nerve is divided, the muscles to which it was distributed no longer contract, are gradually atro- phied, or become subject to fatty degeneration, while there is a marked diminution of interstitial heat, even although the part be plentifully supplied with arterial blood. On the other hand, the amount of heat, che- mical action, and mechanical force is exactly propor- tioned to and regulated by the degree of innervation. SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 125 Liebig long ago suggested that the disintegration of muscular tissue, resulting from the action of Oxygen upon its chemical elements, was the real source of mechanical power, by setting at liberty the Vital Force, as he terms it, which was previously employed in hold- ing together the components of the structure. This is the origin, which, with a little modification, I have as- cribed to Animal Heat. But if chemical action be con- verted into muscular motion, it seems to me that the motion must be as constant as the chemical action, which is by no means the case in the voluntary muscles. It is not enough to reply that the liberated Force ac- cumulates until an explosive discharge of it is produced by the action of the will. Where, how, or under what form does or can it accumulate ? Our doctrine of con- vertibility gives a much more rational explanation. In a muscle at rest, it may be supposed that the ordinary nutrition proceeds as in other structures, the Nerve Force being converted into Chemical Affinity, and then into Animal Heat. But when a voluntary movement occurs, there is a new accession of Force from the brain. It is certain that the Will, whether it be conscious or automatic, can, within very wide limits, determine the amount of Force taken from the blood for the voluntary muscles. This accession is resolved into the mechanical force of contraction, probably through the medium of Electricity, just as Animal Heat is produced from the Nerve Force, through the medium of Chemical Action. The amount of Force thus expended is sometimes enormous. Violent ex- ercise, by taking more than the allotted share for voluntary life, enfeebles the action of the heart, and 126 SCIENTF1C BASIS OF HOMOCEOPATHY. of the organs which are concerned in what are called the organic processes. Sleep and food are the great restoratives. The involuntary apparatus of life must work without intermission. A supply of Nerve Force must be ensured to it by anatomical and physiological provisions. And it is probable that sleep is enforced upon us by the fatigue, diminished action, and malaise produced, when the voluntary begins to encroach upon the reserve forces of the involuntary system. In the infantile form, so much Force is required for the nutri- tive processes during growth, that but little is left for voluntary actions, and, therefore, very small children are almost continually asleep. This vital condition becomes gradually modified until it is the very reverse in old age. This, of course, applies only to physio- logical sleep, for other elements are brought into the question, when we consider the sleep produced by in- juries, by diseases, by drugs, or by magnetism. It would be deeply interesting to survey minutely and analytically the motions of the heart and lungs from this new stand-point, to adduce confirmatory facts, and explain apparent anomalies; but it would lead into a difficult and extensive field of inquiry, which has but little bearing upon the main subject of the present treatise. A definite amount of Nerve Force, according to the principles already enunciated, is converted into°the mechanical powers of respiration and circulation. The Force of all the molecular muscular motions produced is dynamically equal to the Nerve Force employed. And the sum of all the forms of Force into which the Nerve Force is resolved in its passage through the prganic peripheries, is equivalent to the entire Force SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 127 eliminated from the blood by the vesicular neurine. This is the analogue in a higher field of the fact, that the waste is equal to the supply, or that the ingesta and egesta are chemically or materially equivalent. Thus there is a perpetual circulation, not only of matter, but of Forces from the inorganic through the vegetable and animal back again- into the inorganic kingdom. One of the most curious and important deductions from this doctrine of the priority, superiority, and convertibility of the Nerve Force, is a neural theory of animal reproduction. Its truth or falsity can not, indeed, materially affect the stability of the main theorem. The whole science of Embryology is too imperfect for us to make any positive and logical in- duction upon its assumed principles and phenomena. But it promises to be such an important arm of General Physiology, that every systematic attempt to penetrate its arcana is laudable, and may be valuable, if not by discovery, at least by suggestion. It appears to me that something useful may be elicited by transferring to this field of investigation, the general principles of the essential unity, correlation, and convertibility of Forces. But, as this is rather an episode than an es- sential part of my subject, I will limit my inquiry to the reactions which take place between the spermato- zoon and the ovule in the higher animals, leaving to my readers, or to my own future opportunities, the comparison of the hypothesis with the principles which are to be deduced from a more general survey of the phenomena of reproduction, both in the animal and vegetable kingdom. 128 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. The last and highest act of vitality in any individual, plant or animal, is the production of an organic sub- stance, capable of beginning in a new individual, the wonderful circle of phenomena which characterized the life of the parent. To secure this effect, there are two coincident actions—the elaboration of an ovule or organic cell by the female, and the impinging upon that cell of another cell, the spermatozoon, secreted by the male. The presence of this latter is as indispensible as the presence of Light for the chemical changes of a leaf. The modus operandi of the spermatozoon is shrouded in almost impenetrable mystery, so that a very wide range is given for plausible speculation. The common doctrine with respect to its action is, that it gives the initiatory stimulus to the organic processes of the ovule. But we ha^ve already established the prin- ciple, based broadly and deeply on the facts of natural science, that stimulus means really a transference of Force. The spermatozoon is therefore the positive and the ovule the negative element of embryonic develop- ment, just as the Nerve Force is the positive and the blood the negative element of the adult body. The one is organizing, the other is organizable ; the material structure is the result of their co-operation. The female furnishes the negative initiatory material, the male furnishes the positive initiatory Force of the new being. But Force is not an ideality. It is definite motion in a material medium, capable of passing by radiation or conduction into other and particularly into similar media. Now, what kind of undulatory motion can the male transfer to his offspring ? Not Heat, Light, Ac- tinism, or Electricity. When they pass out of him SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 129 into the external world, they are just as truly excretions as the sweat, the faeces and the urine. But the sper- matozoon is a secretion, it is vitalized matter in motion. As the pollen is the specific form for the embodiment and transference of Organic Force from plant to plant, so, I would suggest, is the spermatozoon an organic embodiment of the Nerve Force of the animal. We have thus a sufficient cause for the organization of the ovule. I need not dwell upon the influence of the cerebellum over the generative functions, which the pathological researches of Gall, Vimont, Broussais, and others, have sufficiently established. If the secre- tions, as I have endeavored to show, be' but modifica- tions of the Nerve Force, then is the secretion of semen the most remarkable of all. It is rather a division of the Nerve Force—a kind of fissiparous reproduction of the nerve-animal itself. The spermatozoon, indeed, presents the anatomical appearance of a nerve-vesicle and its filamentary appendage. And it is not improbable that the infini- tesimal motions going on in its globular portion, have the precise mathematical character of those which occur in the vesicular neurine, so that by it not only physical peculiarities, but hereditary diseases, are transferred materially from parent to offspring. It will be in vain objected that Count Zuminski has discovered in the antheridia of various tribes of Cryptogamia, bodies bearing the most extraordinary analogy to the sperma- tozoa of animals. This no more proves that these bodies are carriers of Nerve Force, or that spermatozoa are not carriers of Nerve Force, than the fact, that a comet is composed of a nucleus and a caudal appendage, 12 130 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. proves it to be related in any manner to either of the organic forms in question. As we approach the starting point of all organization, the traces of individuality are successively obliterated. At their first appearance in the embryo, the testes of the male and the ovaria of the female are precisely similar. Moreover, the cellular constitution, the growth by nuclei and nucleoli, and the division of cell-walls into laminae, are common to the initial stages of all organic matter. But these elementary forms, physically identical, vary indefinitely in their subsequent development, and the diversity of developmeut depends upon the diversity of the Forces, of which they 'become the media. Let us then suppose the spermatozoon to be an off- shoot from the nervous system planted in an ovule pre- pared by the female. Its cells may possibly be multiplied like those of the simplest vegetable structures, the Pro- tococcus Nivalis, for instance, by simple sub-division and in countless numbers, the material of increase being furnished by the maternal apparatus. We know that at a later period, the myriads of nerve-vesicles in the cranial mass are developed by continued subdivisions from a few elementary nerve-cells. And there is no difficulty in conceiving all the vesicular neurine of an embryo to be thus developed from our hypothetical nerve-cell, embedded probably beyond the reach of the microscope in the body of the spermatozoon. Prevost and Dumas supposed that the spermatozoon was received by a fissure into the substance of the ovum or egg. But Mr. Newport, in some recent researches into the impregnation of the ovum in amphibia, has discovered that it never penetrates beyond the outer lamina. Du- SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 131 ration of contact, diftluence of the spermatozoon, and endosmosis of its contents into that lamina, are requi- site for fruitful impregnation. Now, according to our hypothesis, what tissues ought to begin to be con- structed in this external lamina prior to any other? Evidently, the nervous system and its appendages. I translate verbatim from Marchessaux's Nouveau Manuel D'Anatomie Generale, page 11—a treatise of much value. "At this stage of development we notice a fact, which confirms with irresistible power the doc- trine of the centripetal succession of organs. Each one of these germinating sacs consist of three layers or laminas, differing in nature. Of these the external or serous always begins to organize first, and from it arise successively the spinal cord, brain, vertebrae, cranium, the organs of sense and their dependencies. When the external lamina has thus sketched out the forms of the organs of animal life, the middle or vascular lamina commences in its turn, and in a similar manner marks the outlines of the peripheral vessels, the venae cavae, the aorta, and the heart. Up to this period the internal or mucous lamina has been inactive, but now its move- ment begins, and we see it successively delineate the alimentary canal, the lungs, the liver, the spleen, the pancreas, etc. This order is invariable: not only upon one occasion, but universally does nature proceed in this manner." This is given as part of a resume of the vast embryological researches of Serres and St. Hilaire. A perfectly accordant sketch of these phenomena has been more recently made by Professor Agassiz in his Lectures on Comparative Embryology, p. 98-101. What is there then to prevent us from believing, that 132 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. the creation of organs in the embryo is precisely iden- tical with the nutrition of organs in the adult, by the transmutation of the Nerve Force into its correlated forces ? The unquestionable fact, that many foetuses have been born, with the thoracic and abdominal vis- cera properly developed, while the nerve-centers, are either wholly or partially absent. This has been sup- posed to prove beyond a doubt that the viscera are de- veloped independently of the nervous system. And nothing has contributed more than this idea to the forcible separation of vital phenomena into Animal and Organic. For if the development of an organ from an amorphous material takes place without nervous agency, its subsequent nutrition may certainly be carried on in- dependently of it. But the objection apparently so for- midable seems to disappear on a nearer scrutiny. I will not dwell upon some anomalies which might be gathered from medical literature, because they are greatly out- numbered by cases which prove that the peripheral always precedes the central formation. That one, how- ever, of a foetus, possessing a perfect brain and no spinal marrow, published by Mr. Grabb, and commented on by Dr. Tyler Smith, in the London Lancet, October, 1848, certainly does offer no slight embarrassment to the accepted laws of development. But I am entirely willing to concede, that the peripheral always precede the central formations in the serous, vascular, and mu- cous laminae respectively. This does not still prove to us conclusively tbat the Nerve Force was not the sole creative agent. I can not be legitimately driven from my hypothesis, until a heart, liver, or other viscus is discovered normally developed, and yet without a trace SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 133 of nerve substance of any kind in its parenchyma, de- tectable by the highest powers of the microscope. Such evidence alone will prove that embryonic development is a synthesis and not a prismatic analysis of the Nerve Force. The process may be supposed to take place in the following manner: The original spermatozootic cell reproduces, by assimilation from the surrounding amor- phous material, a vast number of similar cells with their caudal or filamentary appendages of tubular neu- rine. These occupy the points which will afterwards be occupied by the various peripheric organs. The cells are provisional centers and act independently like the segmentary centers in the Hetero-Gangliata. They eliminate* Nerve Force irom the maternal blood, and construct the tissue at the terminus of their tubes or nerve trunks just as in the adult body. The growth or extension towards the central axis is effected by the successive addition of cells, like beads attached to beads, the last bead or cell formed being the provisional center of that thread, and the remaining cells running toge- gether by coalescence into tubes as in the case of arte- ries. Thus each nerve is separately constructed, and they all converge simultaneously towards the cerebro- spinal axis. They do not however reach that axis simultaneously, fer the spinal centers appear before the cranial. A total arrest of development would give us no centers at all on the median line: a partial arrest might give us a spinal cord and no brain, or as in the anomalous case, a brain and no spinal cord. The de- velopment of the vascular and mucous laminae would go along pari passu with that of the nervous system, 134 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. and be caused and maintained by it. The action of provisional media, which disappear entirely when their use is fulfilled, is well recognized in General and Special Physiology. This theory is corroborated by many facts in Embry- ogeny. The motion of the blood begins in the vascular area of the middle lamina, some time before the forma ■ tion of the heart. This motion is from the periphery towards the center, afterwards occupied by the heart. Nothing so fully and consistently accounts for this motion, as the transmutation of Nerve Force from a provisional center. These provisional centers are to the capillaries what the cardiac centers are subse- quently to the heart itself. For another interesting fact, I am indebted to Marchessaux. The three laminee of the embryo display successively an exaggerated state of formative activity. This does not begin in the lowest on the vital scale and proceed to the highest, as would be anticipated in a transformation of organic into animal force, but the order is exactly the reverse. The spinal cord is at first disproportionately developed, protruding far beyond the bony canal which can not close upon it. Subsequently, the formative excess, if I may so speak, is transferred from the spinal cord to the vascular lamina, and the heart grows so inordinately as to fill up almost the whole thoracic cavity. Just in the same proportion does the spinal cord decrease, thus furnishing another instance of the transference and convertibility of Force. After a little time the heart diminishes and the liver becomes enormously over- grown, so that the relative excess of the Nerve Force is still further transferred to the mucous lamina. Much SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 135 of this Force is diverted to make the other chylopoietic viscera, the lungs, etc.; but although the liver is thereby greatly reduced, it is still remarkably large at the period of birth. On an analogous principle, the Great Sympathetic Nerve is considerably developed in the thorax, before it can be scarcely said to exist at all in the abdomen, in which after death the greatest mass of it is found. The perfect dual symmetry of the nervous system, and all its direct appendages, the bones, muscles and organs of sense is well known. And the equally per- fect dual symmetry of all the organs of the body, in their primitive condition, has been fully established by the microscope. The heart, lungs, liver, spleen, stom- ach, pancreas, bladder, uterus and intestines, were at first as beautifully symmetrical as the brain itself, con- sisting of two similar halves meeting on the median line. The structure of all these parts becomes after- ward more or less modified by mutual interference and for special functions. But in their earliest states they betray the workmanship of a great Force, organizing amorphous material in a symmetrical manner. Solly, in his masterly work on the Human Brain, gives a fact in point, on the authority of M. Serres. Until the third month, the spinal cord of the human foetus extends to the extremity of the coccyx, and appears as if it would elongate indefinitely as in serpents. The coccyx then consists of seven pieces like elementary spinal vertebrae. Curiously enough, at that period the cord suddenly shrinks up to the point at which it is found after birth, namely, opposite the second lumbar vertebra. Very soon after, the osseous structures of the coccyx, not only 136 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. cease developing, but the pieces coalesce, are reduced to four, and continue always in a rudimental state. Now, I conceive it to be impossible to account for this change, except by admitting, that the development of the coccyx was caused by and dependent upon the Nerve Force, a principle which we claim to be of uni- versal application in the animal body. This digression, which is but the rude outline of a vast and intricate subject, could be indefinitely ex- tended, but Homoeopathy might be entirely forgotten in the enthusiasm of physiological investigation. The theory has much, I believe, to hope from continued researches into embryonic neurology. Nerve Force is certainly derived from the blood, and there is no known substance which can eliminate it, but vesicular neurine. I can not conceive how a law can be universal, or indeed a law at all, which is not as applicable to the embryo as to the adult. Uniformity and simplicity are the great tests of natural truth. The blood, or the material basis of the embryo, is indubitably furnished by the mother; and my conjecture, that the Nerve Force, or constructive agent is imparted by the father, may prove in the hands of capable analysts, to be something more than a fanciful speculation. We need only briefly consider the offices of that class of nerves called afferent, which convey impressions from the peripheries to the nerve-centers. Here, also, the old idea of stimulation must be superseded by that of transference of Force. This Force is never generated irvthe peripheries, but is transferred ab extra through the peripheries to the centers. The medium in all cases is very probably mechanical or chemical action. Thus SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 137 the luminous undulations, as suggested by Dr. Draper, excite in the delicate structures of the retina, specific che- mical changes. Through these, as an intermediate link, the dynamic power of Light, ceasing to exist as such in the physical world, is propagated to the brain as a vibration of the optic nerves. How much of this Force is expended in making the mental impression, and in what manner, we can not imagine. But it is probable that much of the Force is returned by reflex action to the muscles of the eye. So that the delicate motions of the iris, and of all the adjusting agents in the occular apparatus, may be only modified manifestations of the Light which entered the pupil. " There can be no rea- sonable doubt," says Dr. Carpenter, " that the produc- tion of Nerve Force in the central organs, is dependent upon the development of the peculiar cells constituting the ganglionic or vesicular neurine; and, as already remarked, the progress of physiological inquiry seems to justify the belief, (long since entertained and ex- pressed by the author), that either cells or cell-nuclei are the agents in the origination of Nerve Force, at the peripheral extremities of the nerve-fibers." The afferent nerves may be very properly divided into two classes. The first class, the nerves of the spe- cial senses, keeps the nerve-animal in relation with the external world, to which it is contiguous but not con- tinuous. The second keeps the nerve-animal apprised, as it were, of the organic condition of its own material basis. We have no consciousness of even the existence of the viscera, until they are abnormally modified. Even the cartilages become painful when inflamed, showing the presence of afferent nerves, although they 138 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. can not be detected by our microscopes. That they are created during inflammation is utterly improbable, since inflammation is not a state of exalted nutrition, but quite the reverse. It would not be at all fanciful, to suppose that the afferent nerves keep the gangli- onic centers informed, as it were, of the organic condi- tion of their respective tissues, just as the optic nerve apprizes the mind of the form, color and position of out- ward objects. They are intimately connected with the efferent nerves, and partly reflections of their Force. The vibration of an afferent nerve passing from the stomach to the brain, bears the same relation to the vibration which came down the efferent nerve from the brain, which a reflected green, red, or blue undulation from a natural object bears to the undecomposed solar ray, which was incident upon that object. The nerves of special sense have no efferent nerves in the body to which they are thus correlated. The undulations of the external world, by a bold but significant metaphor, may be called the efferent nerves of the organs of spe- cial sense. In other words, they are Forces, which are modified in organic media, and thence propagated to the brain. The physiological phasis of my subject would be sadly incomplete, were I to omit a brief consideration of the question—what is the Nerve Force—a fluid or a vibration ? The older Anatomists and the theoretical Physiologists of the last century looked upon the nerve centers as glandular structures secreting a subtile, invisible fluid, which they called the animal spirit. They supposed the motion of the cranial mass like the systole and diastole of the heart, to circulate this SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. 139 liquid life, infusing it first into the blood and thence into the tissues. Since the use of improved micro- scopes has made us more thoroughly acquainted with the structure of the nervous system, this theory has been abandoned. But nothing has been substituted in its stead, and the most extensive works on Human Physiology are provokingly silent upon what appears to me the most important question of both vital and medical science. Muller, who has given us the largest and most thorough treatise, thus dismisses the subject: " Of the nature of the nervous principle we are as ignorant as of the nature of light and electricity, while with its properties we are nearly as well acquainted as with those of light and other imponderable agents. However much these various principles differ from each other, the same questions apply to all; namely, are their effects produced by currents of imponderable matter traveling through space or by undulations of a fluid ? The decision as to which theory is correct in the case of the nervous principle, is at present a matter not affecting the study of its laws of action: just as the laws of Optics must remain the same, which ever theory of the nature of light be adopted." Since this was written, wonderful discoveries have been made of the laws and modes of the so-called im- ponderables, but no corresponding advance has occur- red in the kindred department of nervous Physiology. Great observers spend months and years in making chemical analyses of blood and urine, to procure a few meagre and uncertain data, of comparatively insig- nificant value, while little curiosity is shown as to the molecular changes going on in the nerve fibers. But 140 SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF HOMOEOPATHY. this is exactly characteristic of the existing schools of medicine. In the words