K2jG<ZajQ>GQ.CQ0ZGCGG,0CGQ®QG£GQOQGG}G°%
Surgeon  General's Office

-:

NLM001341747 

 
I 
 
 
 
^^.C0/l^t/i  ^^% .^Uy/Z^P^  irjr^
r~t eJ
</~*&^   /tL^^ 
■>e orzWes'fer7i3",-src
 
 
o
/
SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION
INTRODUCTION* OF*
        West of the Allegheny Mountains,
                 -HELD AT-
    PITTSBURGH, PENN'A,

         September aoth, 1687,

Under the auspices of the Homoeopathic Medical
       Society of Allegheny County, Pa.
PUIiLISHED P.Y THE SOCIETY.
Edited by J. C. Burgher, M.D.
          PITTSBURGH :
From the Press of Stovenson & Foster, 529 Wood Street.
             1H88.
�43269 
Wbk 
^)Gii)i=vLer)fcr)r)iaJ  tLclebpctfiar).
Pommittee of  Arrangements
Appointed by the Homceopathic Medical Society of Allegheny
                 County, Penn'a.
j. h. McClelland, mo,
l. h. willard, m.d.,
j. c. burgher, m.d. 
                   PROGRAMME
                             of the
         Celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary
                             of the

INTRODUCTION  OF HOMCEOPATHY

                 WEST OF THE ALLEGHENIES,
                         IN the person of
          GUSTAVUS  REICHHELM, M.  D.

             GRAND OPERA HOUSE, PITTSBURGH,
                       Sept. 20, 1887, 3. P. M.

Overture—Martha,      ....      Toerge's Orchestra.
Invocation,       .       .      By Rev. Samuel Maxwell, Pittsburgh, Pa.
Historic Address,   .            By J. P. Dake,  M.  D., Nashville, Tenn.
Music—Idyl—The Shepherd Boy,       .       .      Toerge's Orchestra.
Address,       .       .      By A. R. Thomas, M. D., Philadelphia, Pa.
Music—L'Esprit—Francaise,    .      .      .      Toerge's Orchestra.
Address,    ...      By. J. C. Burgher, M. D., Pittsburgh, Pa.
Music—Treasure from Gypsy Baron,    .      .      Toerge's Orchestra.
Address,       ...       By D. S. Smith, M. D., Chicago, 111.
Music—Gavotte—Solitude,      .      .      .      Toerge's Orchestra.
Address,      .      .      .       By J. "VY. Dowling, M. D., New York.
Music—Valse,    .....      Toerge's Orchestra.
Pokm—"Dogmatic Doctors;'     .      By YVm. Tod Helmuth, M. D., N.  Y.
Music—March—Silver Lake,    .      .      .      Toerge's Orchestra. 
 
l^-C^C*^*^,/^ 
err)i=v5cr)fcr)r)ial  ^dicoraiior),
    The celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Crossing
of Homoeopathy  West  of the  Alleghenies,  in  the  person  of
Gustavus  Reichhelm,  M.D., was  held  in  the "Grand Opera
House," Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pa., at 3.00 o'clock, P. M.,
Tuesday, September 20th,  1887.   Some one hundred  prominent
Homoeopathic physicians from different parts of the State and
several from  other States  were present,  the chairs and  private
boxes were filled  by a  select audience  in response  to  special
invitations issued by the Committee of Arrangements.
    Toerge's Celebrated Orchestra furnished suitable music for
the occasion.
    J. H. McClelland, M.D., Director of ceremonies, called the
assembly to  order, and  requested the  Rev.  Samuel Maxwell,
Rector of Trinity Episcopal Church, to open  the exercises with
prayer, after which he introduced to the audience J. P. Dake, M.D.,
of Nashville,  Tenn., as the historian of  the occasion. 
 
 
^w 
The  Passage of Homoeopathy West oe the Alleghenies,
Ax Address Delivered at the Opening of the Celebration
  of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Passage of Homceo-
       pathy West of the  Allegheny Mountains,
             Pittsburgh,  Pa., Sept. 2oth, 1887.
By Jabez P. Dake, A.M., M.D., Nashville, Tenn.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen :
  In the course of time there come anniversary days and seasons
to mark the lapse of years and the progress gained from  the
birth of honored leaders, the founding of cherished institutions,
and the announcement  of new ideas, destined  to work great
changes in the  conditions of men.
  We are assembled, to-day, to celebrate the fiftieth  year since
the passage of  a new and  most beneficent mode of healing west
of the Allegheny Mountains.
  The sound of the  voice of the orator, the booming of cannon,
and the strains of  pleasing music  are just dying away at the
other extremity of this great commonwealth, brought forth in
commemoration  of  the  adoption  of the Constitution  of  the
American  Republic  just one hundred years ago.
  On  this ground, where we are now assembled, we might cele-
brate  the  displacement  of savage rule by the coming  of  the
French and the planting of Fort Duquesne  at the confluence of
the Allegheny and Monongahela  rivers.  And, later,  we might
gladly celebrate the  establishment and extension of Anglo-Saxon
civilization from this point. 
SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
  It was here that our young Washington came when it was nec-
essary to gain a position commanding the great territory west of
the Alleghenies.
  While the extension of civilization, the triumph of arms taken
up in a good cause, and the adoption of a constitution,  rightly
termed  the  maxima carta  of a  free people,  are  events  always
worthy of commemoration, we hold that a move that leads to the
banishment from the practice of  the healing art of measures in
the main useless and injurious, cruel and revolting, and the in-
troduction of those that are more curative, while  in  every way
agreeable, is an event calling for a joyful remembrance by all the
people.
  The fruits of conquest, the possession of country,  home and
kindred are of little worth to those who are prostrated by disease
and racked with pain, in the absence of some efficient ministry
of cure  to bring relief.
  Scarcely a single decade had gone  by since the  advent  of
Homoeopathy in America, and it was practically known only in
a few of the cities on the Atlantic sea-board,  when  a  call came
to the little band of medical reformers, at work in and near  the
city of Philadelphia, for a disciple of Hahnemann to be sent  to
the relief of the sick and  drug-burdened people  of Pittsburgh.

                   THE  FIRST  CALL.

  Rev. Father Byer, a Catholic clergyman, stationed in this city,
having witnessed among the sick and, doubtless, experienced  in
his own   person,  the advantages of the new mode of healing,
wrote a  letter to Dr.  Constantine Hering, asking for  one of. its
practitioners.  The request was laid before some of the younger
men, who had been in attendance at the first post-graduate med-
ical  school  planted in America,  the  Allentown Academy  of
Homoeopathy. 
DR. DARE'S ORATION.
9
  Among those asked to consider the  call to Pittsburgh, was a
young Prussian, educated at the  University of Halle, and  made
acquainted with the new  therapeutic principles by Wesselhceft,
Hering and others of the Allentown faculty.   After a brief pause
he decided to accept the call.
  That educated and elegant physician, destined to be  the pio-
neer of the new therapeutics in the grand empire of states  lying
west of the Alleghenies was Gustavus Reichhelm.

                    THE  PIONEER,

  Early in the autumn of  1837 he  was  slowly making  his way
over the mountains westward.
  On a bright October day, when the fields of living green were
becoming bronzed, and the woodland decorated with tints  of
purple and gold, he approached the scene of his future  toil and
combat with medical ignorance and opposition  as  well as  with
human ailments.
  As the softening haze on hill side and  valley, peculiar  to the
season, hid from view the rugged and  forbidding features of the
distant landscape and cast a charm over all, so did the influences
of youthful vigor and buoyancy, and the enthusiasm  of a free
and expanded son of the old Fatherland hide from anticipation
all thought of the frowning prejudice  and  many annoyances that
were awaiting him.  Gladly received by Father Kyer and a few
others, who had been induced to seek relief and length of days
by the novel method, Reichhelm began  his  work here on the
10th day of October,  1837.   Known at  first, as the  "Dutch
Doctor," and  then the  "Sugar-powder Doctor," he  moved
quietly on, provoking only smiles of derision from  the medical
men around him.   He was employed  as  attending physician at
the Catholic Orphan Asylum, where the cures  effected  attracted
much attention  and inspired confidence in the new  practice. 
io                   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
During a period of nearly twelve years, under his medical admin-
istration, and with several epidemic> jf measles, whooping-cough
and scarlet fever,  there were but two deaths among the inmates
of the institution.   And it should be remarked that one of the
fatal cases was that of a child, taken  from a  mother  prostrated
with consumption, itself dying  from  inanition a  few  days after
admission.
  I had a statement from one of the old visitors of the  Asylum,
that more children died during the first year, after an allopathic
attendant was employed, than during Reichhelm's whole term  of
a dozen years.  And it should be said, the change in medical at-
tendants and modes of practice was owing  to the fact  that, the
control of  the institution had passed into the hands  of another
order of  Catholic Sisters, who knew nothing of Homoeopathy  or
preferred a medical attendant of their  own religious faith in place
of a Lutheran.
  When  it was discovered that smiles  of derision and belittling
epithets failed to check the new practice and that those adopting it
were not of the poorer and more illiterate classes, nor among those
careless of the demands of health, the old  physicians  became
fearful of the competition and adopted new tactics to  check its
progress.   Among other things resorted to  was defamation  of
personal  character.  On one occasion a slanderous  report was
circulated  by two prominent  allopathic  physicians,  well calcu-
lated to utterly ruin  the new comer.   A respectful but  prompt
and firm demand for retraction or explanation was made.  One
of the parties offered a satisfactory explanation and denial,  while
the other treated the note with contempt.   A suit for  damages
was entered and would have resulted seriously to the traducerbut
for the interference of his friends who effected a compromise.
  So complete  was the triumph of our pioneer that the tongue
of slander, ever after, touched him lightly and seldom  troubled
those who came here later as his associates and successors. 
DR. DAKE'S ORATION.
u
   For eight years Reichhelm worked on alone, no  fellow practi-
 tioner coming to his aid till Dr. Charles Bayer located across the
 river in Allegheny City.
   Two years later he had an  able and  aggressive helper in the
 person of Dr. 1). M. Dake, in this City.   Then  came Dr.  Cote,
 Dr. Hofmann, Dr. Penniman, and your present orator.
   The epidemic of Asiatic cholera, in the year 1849, an<^ its suc-
 cessful treatment  by the homoeopathic  physicians  on this field
 swept away the last great barriers to the acceptance and spread
 of Homoeopathy.
   Time would fail me to speak of the subsequent visits of that
 dread disease, the successes gained in its treatment by our practi-
 tioners, the occasional attacks and rejoinders in  the public  press,
 the coming of new and able advocates and practitioners,  and the
 rapid increase of friends among the people.   The early pioneers
 have nearly all gone from the field, some to labor in other parts
 of the county, some to the shades of retirement required by ad-
 vancing age, and some  to the  rest, provided in  the world now
 unseen by us, provided  for faithful healers of the sick.
   Only two or three are left  to join  with us  in celebrating this
 anniversary.
   But, by a wise provision, younger  and equally able men are
 raised up to occupy the field.
   It is said to be a fancy peculiar to those grown old in  any im-
 portant line  of service, that they imagine when they are  gone
 vacancies  will  be  left  that none can fill—that the cause  must
 suffer and the world get wrong.  But the faithful historian  must
 record the fact that, in  this  medical field, the  workers  of each
 generation has seemed to have  a special fitness for the duties de-
volving upon them.
   Fifty years ago a man of iron mould, cultivated and quick  to
defend his honor, was demanded. 
12
SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
   Reichhelm  was finely  eductated, of  commanding  presence,
self-reliant, of few words and always cheerful and  kind.   Those
coming after him were better prepared for the polemics of their
time, meeting the literary and logical assults of the  enemy with
the weapons of literature  and logic.  And those coming later
have been more  highly endowed with faculties for organizing and
building so as to extend professional information through socie-
ties, and professional blessings through  the dispensary and  the
hospital.
   There are some  present, to-day,  qualified by a personal  ac-
quaintance, to bear witness to the truthfulness of what I have
said of  Reichhelm and his immediate successors.
          EXTENSION OF H O M CF. O P A TH Y.
   The spread of the new  art of healing, following  the lines of
what  was then  the  " rapid transit"  of  the country,  extended
down the Ohio river.
   In  1838  Pulte  was in  Cincinnati  and, the year following,
Rosenstein in  Louisville.
   In 1840 Homoeopathy was first known  in Indiana;  in 1841
in Michigan ;  in 1842 in Wisconsin;  and in 1843  m Illinois, at
the "village"  of Chicago.
   And it  affords us great pleasure to have  with  us, upon  this
platform to-day, the noble Chicago  pioneer and veteran,  Dr.
David S. Smith, who, besides being the pioneer in  our cause, has
the distinction of having been longer than  any other living man,
a practitioner  of medicine in the great metropolis of the west.
   You will shortly have the privilege of listening to him, as the
representative of the city having two flourishing colleges devoted
to the therapeutic teachings of  Hahnemann,  a  city so  favorably
acquainted with  Homoeopathy that more than half of her taxes
are said to be paid by those who depend upon its ministry in times
of sickness. 
DR. DARE'S ORATION.
13
   The light of simi/ia was seen, the following year, on the Missis-
 sippi, at St.  Louis, and  likewise on  the  Cumberland, at  Nash-
 ville. .  And,  so, the work of medical reform, beginning at Pitts-
 burgh, in 1837, spread westward and southward and northward,
 appearing in  Texas and on the Pacific coast just  a dozen years
 after its passage of  the Alleghenies.
   Its foothold, however, was not so strong, nor its  immediate
 progress so great, at many points, as  at Pittsburgh.  And  it  is
 not strange that it was so ; for the pioneers in reformatory move-
 ments of any kind, are not all endowed  with tact  and skill to
 win  success,  nor  with the necessary steadiness of  purpose  and
 perseverance to hold the ground once occupied.
   Years elapsed, in some places, before practitioners  came who
 had  the requisite endowments.
   As already intimated, the greatest help  to the spread  and en-
 trenchment of Homoeopathy in the confidence of the people, in
 the west (as in most other parts of the civilized world at one time
 or another) was the prevalence of Asiatic cholera  in the years
 1849, 1850, 1854, 1866 and 1873.
   In a form  of disease so well  marked,  and so  destructive of
 human life, when allowed to take its own way unchecked by ther-
apeutic measures, an opportunity  was given for the trial  of cura-
 tive  and preventive means, and a comparison of the results.
  In this city, in Cincinnati, and in all  the cities where cases
received  homoeopathic treatment,  the  superiority  of the new
method was most plainly demonstrated.
  At no point was this fact disputed except at Cincinnati, where
a partisan editor  questioned  the  truthfulness of the  reports of
cases treated and cured by Drs. Pulte  and  Ehrmann.
  Taking the lists furnished by those  gentlemen, an inquiry was
instituted from house to house, by a non-medical committee
which fully confirmed the homoeopathic claims and  caused them 
 14                   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.

 to be more  widely published and  to  become  more  convincing
 than they could otherwise have been.
   In the lower Valley of the Mississippi the successes achieved
 by the practitioners  of Homoeopathy, in the  treatment of the
 yellow fever, the dreaded scourge of the tropics, have gained the
 confidence of observing people for the new school and opened
 every door for its admission.  It is generally conceded that cases
 of Asiatic cholera and yellow fever call for remedies possessed of
 power rightly to impress  the  human organism ; and hence  our
 increased number of recoveries must be allowed to  mean some-
 thing.

 THE  STATE  OF MEDICINE FITFY  YEARS AGO.

   The event we are here to celebrate must take  our minds in re-
 trospection to the state of medical art as  it  appeared  fifty years
 ago in our part of the world.   So far as the practice was in pur-
 suance of college teaching—so far as it was not in the  hands of
 our good grandmothers and those accounted as quacks, it was de-
 cidedly heroic.  The era of calomel, antimony,  the blister and the
 lancet was not gone.
   Preventive medicine was  little thought of, and  the regulation
 of the air,  water, and the  food supply  for the restoration of
 health was regarded as quite unbecoming  the scientific physician.
   The fever patient was kept in a close room,  on  a  feather-bed
 with few if any  changes of linen, and without the  refreshing
draught of cool water, except where salivation was desired.
   Disease, regarded  as some mysterious entity, some morbific
matter in the blood or stomach or bowels, was to be removed by
copious bleedings or  by vigorous emetics  and cathartics.
   With such a crude patholgy and such heroic  therapeutics pre-
valent among our medical men it is little wonder that the reform-
ers, who  came denouncing  the lancet and the  massive and  de- 
DR. DAKE'S ORATION.
15
 structive doses of drugs, should be regarded with contempt and
 met with ridicule.  Nor should it be  surprising that  they were
 characterized as " fools or knaves."
   Gradually the negative good, the fact that  more patients with
 pneumonia,  pleurisy,  scarlet  fever,  Asiatic cholera and  yellow
 fever, recovered without bleeding, salivation, blistering or purg-
 ing, under the mild measures  of Homoeopathy, led the people
 to  doubt  the efficacy and then the  safety of the old  practice.
 And the suggestion  was not lost on  the medical profession.
 Those who had not arrived at a stage where  they are said  to
 " learn nothing and forget nothing," began to take the hint and
 abandon the heroic measures.   And  the change among them was
 hastened by the discovery, that the most enlightened and observ-
 ing of  the people would no  longer bear such  treatment and
 were, more and more,  resorting to the new practice.
   The irreconcilables,  those who could "learn nothing and forget
 nothing,"  would have  been something  more than human had
 they not become alarmed in view of the changes taking  place
 among  progressive medical men,  as well  as  among  thinking
 people.   They appealed to the coroner, to courts of law and  to
 legislators for the protection of their craft by the repressive force
 of the civil arm.
  In this city, a coroner's inquest and a suit for  damages  insti-
gated by them, about thirty years ago, against two of our  prac-
titioners, did more to demonstrate the learning and skill on our
side of the profession,  and  the envy and malice on theirs, than
years of ordinary controversy and  display  of clinical proofs
could have done.   In spite of  the learning of a Shaler and the
eloquence of a Stanton the result was in our favor.
  Though the recollection of such experiences yet  lingers with
those of us who were on the stage of action  here, a third of a
century ago, all feelings of resentment and bitterness have passed 
i6
SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
away.  Sustained by public opinion as well as by courts of law,
and especially favored  by the myriad-tongued  press, the great
enemy of bigotry and  friend  of  fair dealing and progress, we
have held on our way successfully and, to-day, stand in a position
to view with composure as well as candor the efforts of all who
would place obstacles in our path.
   Driven, years  ago, to the necessity of organizing societies and
schools and establishing journals of our own, we have  found in
them the way and the power to make ourselves understood  and
to protect our  interests  throughout  the country ;  and wisdom
admonishes us to adhere to them,  till the  undoubted  right to
think on all medical topics and freely to express our thoughts in
any society and  any medical journal  devoted to progress, is con-
ceded on all  hands.
   It becomes us, however, carefully to guard our own  societies,
lest the disposition, natural to some orders  of  mind, to repress
new ideas and to place  a Chinese wall around doctrines  we may
cherish to guard them against all change, be allowed to exercise
its baneful  influence.   Any society,  devoted  to experimental
science, which assumes an orthodoxy  and directs its energies to
the detection and punishment of heterodoxy among its members,
has outlived its usefulness and  should speedily pass away.   Our
societies and journals are yet open to the expression of any views,
couched in proper terms, from any thinker and any practitioner,
be he allopath or homoepath ;  and when the same freedom and
courtesy shall characterize the societies and journals of the old
school, then  it will  do  to talk about the dropping of all distinc-
tive titles and all appearances of a separate school.  The "trades-
union "  and  "boycotting"  methods of our old school friends
are not  entirely consistent  with  the  claim  of  being "non-sec-
tarian "  and " regular  " 
DR. DARE'S ORATION.
17
  THE PRESENT AND  FUTURE  OF MEDICINE.
  Such thoughts bring us to consider the medical field  now, as
compared with fifty years ago, and to cast our minds forward to
fancy the changes yet to come.
  In 1837 Reichhelm was the only representative practitioner of
the new school west of the Alleghenies, while the year 1887 finds
more than five thousand of such practitioners.  In  every city
and town of any importance they are seen to-day, surrounded by
clients in all the higher walks of life.  A goodly number of col-
eges have come into  existence,  and are annually sending out
scores of well  qualified homoeopathic physicians on the western
field.  State and local societies are numerous and active.   Hos-
pitals and dispensaries have been opened to extend the beneficent
ministry of similia to  the suffering poor of the land.
  With feelings of pride we must contemplate the progress of
homoeopathy in this old city, which now, with its  sister city
across the river and their environs, boasts no less than seventy-five
educated medical men devoted to  its practice.  The  Pittsburgh
Homoeopathic Hospital stands without a superior in  this or any
other country.  It has been my privilege to visit the  finest hos-
pitals on both sides of the Atlantic,  and I do  not hesitate to say
that I  have nowhere seen one that, in  structure, appointment
and management,  excels that established by the successors of
Gustavus Reichhelm and their friends in this city.  It will stand,
I trust, to commemorate their devotion to truth and humanity
long after they, themselves,  shall have  passed  forever from the
walks of life.
  I must be excused, on this occasion, for  some personal refer-
ences and some expressions of local pride, for it was here I spent
years with Reichhelm, first as pupil and  then as partner, and
finally as successor; and here  that I had around me, as students,
many bright  young  men, some  of  whom have been  leading 
18                  SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
 spirits and chief factors in founding and managing the hospital
 of which I have so proudly spoken.  Some of those young men
 I  now see around me—but how  changed!   The labors of  two
 and three decades, exposure to summer's heat and winter's cold,
 loss of sleep and harrowing cares have thinned their locks  and
 turned them gray, and laid many a  line, of earnest thought on
 brow and cheek.
   I am happy, successors, associates and students mine, again to
 join with you in celebrating the event that has given occupation
 and field and fortune to  you and me,  and  a most  beneficient
 mode of healing to the great regions of  our  country lying  west
 of the Allegheny mountains.

        THE CENTENNIAL  OFTHLS  EVENT.

   When  the exercises of  this day  are closed and we look forward
 in imagination to an assemblage here to celebrate the hundredth
 anniversary  of the coming of  Reichhelm to this city, what is
 the scene presented ?  All in this  assembly will be gone,  save a
 few of the younger people whose lives may  be extended to  the
 " Three score and ten."
   The institutions,  now comparatively young, will then be looked
 upon as old;  and many will be the changes  in  the  methods and
 means of the art of healing. I venture to predict the disappear-
 ance of hundreds of agents from the materia medica, which  are
 now regarded as useful, sifted out by careful tests  and a  more
critical clinical  experience;  a  better knowledge of  the patho-
genic and therapeutic  influences  of the common articles  and
agencies  of life,  such as  air, water, mclion,  electricity, food,
clothing, occupation and  habits;   the disappearance of  creeds
and-the  distinctions of "orthodoxy"  and "heterodoxy"  in
medicine; and the reign  of freedom to think, speak and write
 in behalf of what each may consider true and best. 
DR. DARE'S ORATION.
19
   The enlightenment brought by the new physiology will make
men afraid to cast into  the  delicate human organism  the drugs
and doses now regarded as necessary and safe.
   So  far as internal  medication  shall be  resorted to  for  the
removal of disease, the cure of the sick, aside from gerimicides
and palliatives, it will be more or  less  in obedience to  the
homoeopathic law.
   The changes  we have seen, during  the  last fifty years,  the
abandonment of  bleeding, blistering,  salivating and   endless
purging for the cure of the  sick, warrants the belief that it will
hardly take fifty  years to  ensure  the  gentle reign of  similia
throughout our country so far as scientific  medicine shall  be
known. 
 
 
ELLS & HOPE 00.
A. R. THOMAS,  M. D. 
ADDRESS,
By A. R. Thomas, M.D., of Philadelphia, Pa.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen :
   We assemble on this occasion under circumstances of peculiar
interest.   We celebrate the semi-centennial  of the introduction
of  homoeopathy  west of the Allegheny  Mountains,  an  event
marking an epoch in the history of homoeopathy in this country,
and one worthy of appropriate commemoration.
  As  we contemplate  the rapid growth and progress made by
our school during the past fifty years, noting the increase of the
number of practitioners  of homoeopathy  from scarcely ioo  in
1837, to probably over 10,000 at the present time ; and when we
note the rise and progress  of  our medical colleges, the multipli-
cation of hospitals, dispensaries and of homes and various insti-
tutions  under  our charge, observe the  rapid  growth of  our
literature, and  remember that while we may not have  converted
the dominant school, as a body, to our system, we have so modified
their  methods of practice that blood-letting and salivation, the
sheet  anchors of the physician fifty years  ago, have  become
quite  obsolete,  and in their place a  mild expectancy  generally
employed, vastly  to the advantage  of the poor patients: I say
when  we remember all this, we may  well  feel like congratulating
ourselves  upon what the half century just  closed has brought
forth.
  And when we further reflect upon  the world's wonderful pro-
gress during the past fifty years; when we consider the marvellous 
SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
discoveries and inventions; the rapid advance in all the arts and
sciences ;  a progress that has never before been approximated in
the same period of time, we  are led to realize that our lot has
been cast  in the most interesting and the most eventful  period of
the world's history.
   Fifty years ago the population of the  United  States was in
round numbers but 15,000,000 ; to-day it reaches over 60,000,000.
Within that period our States  and Territories have nearly doubled
in  number.   Cities  almost without number  have sprung into
existence  and acquired populations of tens  and hundreds  of
thousands.   Commerce, manufactures, trade and wealth  have
increased  as by the magic of  an  Aladdin's lamp.   In 1830 there
were but 23 miles of railroad in  the United States; now we find
them  forming a  vast network  over the  country, uniting the
Atlantic with the  Pacific, the  North and the  South, and giving,
in the United States alone over 127,000 miles of track.
   Fifty years ago  the  Mississippi  river may be  said to  have
formed  the  western  boundary  to  the settled portion  of our
country.  The restless tide of emigration has since swept over
the great  West, and to-day the population west of the Mississippi
numbers  over 12,000,000, a  number four-fifths as great as the
population of the whole country in 1837.
   But  it is not our own country alone that  has  seen marvellous
change in  the past fifty years.   The old world has passed through
revolutions political, social and scientific, scarcely less wonderful.
The general  employment of steam and electricity has changed
the occupations of men, influenced every industry, revolutionized
the methods of trade and commerce, and so annihilated time and
space as to have made all Europe our next-door neighbors.
   While the  world has made these rapid advances in material
prosperity during the past half century, how has it been with
general science and medicine ? 
DR. THOMAS' ADDRESS.
23
    Fifty years ago general science was in its merest infancy when
 compared with its present state.   A  foundation existed for some
 sciences, it is true, while others were quite unknown.   To quote
 from a  recent author :  "In the pride of our hearts we forget
 how very young science is.   We forget how new a power it is in
 the world, and how feeble and timid was its tender babyhood in
 the first  two decades of the present century.  Among the con-
 crete sciences, astronomy, the eldest born, had advanced furthest
 when our age was still young.   But geology had only just begun
 to emerge from  the earliest plane of puerile hypothesis into  the
 period of collection  and  collocation of facts.  Biology, hardly
 yet known by  any better or truer name than natural history,
 consisted mainly of a jumble of half-classified details.   Psychol-
 ogy still  wandered  disconsolate in the misty domain of  the
 abstract  metaphysician.   The sciences of man, of language, of
 society, of religion, had not even begun to  exist.  The antiquity
 of our race, the  natural genesis of arts and knowledge, and  the
 origin of articulate speech or of religious ideas were scarcely so
 much as debatable questions.  Among  sciences of the abstract-
 concrete class, physics, unilluminated by the clear light of correla-
 tion and conservation of energy, embraced a wide and ill-digested
 mass of  separate and wholly unconnected  departments.   Light
 had little enough to do with heat, and nothing at all to do in any
 way with electricity, or sound, or motion, or magnetism.  Chem.
 istry still remained very  much in the condition of Mrs. Jellaby's
 cupboard.  Everywhere  science was tentative and invertebrate,
 feeling its way on earth with hesitating  steps,  trying its wings in
air with tremulous fear, in preparation for the  broader excursions
and wider flights of the last three adventurous decades."
   Within the period of the present half century, science has ex-
tended our knowledge upwards and outwards  into the illimitable
distances of the universe, as well as downwards  in the direction 
24
SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
of the infinitesimals of matter and life.   New instruments of in-
vestigation have  been invented, and old ones  perfected.  The
spectroscope,  an invention of  the  recent  past,  and with  the
powers of detecting so  small  a fragment of  matter  as  the
2<nr5&7nnnr part of a grain of sodium,  has revealed to us the chem-
ical  nature,  not only of the  sun  and fixed stars, but  to some
extent of  comets and nebular masses.
  The doctrine of the conservation of force, or the convertibility
of all forms of energy interchangeably one into the other, is an
outgrowth of the present century,  a doctrine that has vastly
widened and extended our knowledge of the operations of nature
and their adaptation to the wants of man.
  Not the least of  the  discoveries of the present age  has been
that of the potentiality of the infinitesimal.   Although, perhaps,
not yet generally willing to admit this principle in the action of
remedies on the animal organism, yet the scientist recognizes its
influence  in  many operations  of nature.  He sees it in the up-
building of reefs, islands  and mountains  by the  almost  micro-
scopic coral  polyp.   The influences that have resulted  in  the
formation of our continents, and given the present conformation
to their surfaces,  he looks for rather  in the action of infinitesimal
forces, than in the mighty convulsions  of nature  to which they
were at one time generally attributed.  He sees it  in the theory,
now  well established, of the molecular  nature and action  of
matter, while with  microscope and  spectroscope,  his studies are
directed as much to the infinitesimals of nature,  as to her grosser
developments.   The etiologist and  pathologist of the  present
day find, associated with many diseases,  certain minute  organ-
isms,  vegetable or animal,  the microbes or bacilli  of the present
time, and  which, whether bearing the relation to disease of cause
or effect,  become interesting illustrations of  the infinitesimal in
the pathological  processes of the  body.   The influence of all 
DR. THOMAS' ADDRESS.                  25
this is directly calculated to prepare the way for the more ready
and general acceptance of an essential doctrine of homoeopathy
—the action of remedies in  infinitesimal doses.
  Then  the advance  made  in  electrical science during the past
half century has  been something  truly wonderful.  Fifty  years
ago electricity  was seldom  referred to except  as  an  interesting
scientific curiosity.  Of its relation to galvanism and magnetism,
little  or nothing was known, while of its wonderful physical and
therapeutic  powers we  were  wholly ignorant.  The only attempt
at the useful control of the power  was in the employment of the
lightning rod.  Since, in addition  to the telegraph with its vast
influence upon the world,  electrical  science has given us the
wonderful  telephone and microphone.   Electric lights are  seen
everywhere, and electricity  has become a motor power threaten-
ing to supplant all others.
  In  the beginning of the  present half century (1839)  the da-
guerrotype  appeared.  Later came the photograph, followed by
numerous improvements, and  by various processes for the repro-
duction of pictures, until to-day, this branch of art has reached
a degree of perfection never dreamed of fifty years ago.
  Of  the many scientific developments of the  past fifty  years,
that  which has  perhaps attracted the widest attention,  and
given rise to the  most heated  controversies, that  has more than
any other  tended to  revolutionize all our views of the  great
questions of nature and man, is the doctrine of evolution.   Al-
though foreshadowed by some of the writers of the latter part of
the past, and the  beginning of the present century, it has been
within the past thirty years that  the doctrine has been clearly
formulated and presented to the world.
  Embodying,  as it does, vastly  more than  the  theory of the
origin of species  and  the descent of man  as  given  by Darwin,
evolution,  as taught  by the latter, with Huxley,  Spencer, Lub- 
26
SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
bock and others, deals with universal nature.   Looking far back-
ward, it sees the whole physical universe as starting in the re-
mote past from a diffuse and probably nebulous condition, in
which all  matter, reduced to a state of extreme tenuity, occupied
an incomprehensibly wide area of space.
  Of our own solar system, evolution  teaches us to regard  the
sun with  its  attendant planets and their several satellites, all in
their several orbits, as owing their shape,  size,  relations and
movements, not to external design and deliberate creation,  but
to the slow and  regular working out of physical laws, in accord-
ance with which, each has assumed its existing weight and bulk
and path and position.
  In  the  organic  world,  without  attempting to account for the
origin or source of life, evolution seeks to trace the  gradual  de-
velopment of higher from lower forms, through the vegetable to
the animal, and from lower animal forms, slowly up to man;  the
influence  of  environment, heredity, the struggle for existence,
with the survival of the fittest, being the great factors  operating
to gradually  bring about  the present  condition of  the  organic
world.  Whatever  missing links  there  may be in the  chain
of evidences  for the support of this doctrine,  however repugnant
it may be to our sense  of the dignity of man,  however the theory
may conflict with our earlier teachings upon this subject, evolu-
tion, nevertheless,  has been received with such a degree of favor
by the scientific world, that there can be no question  as to  the
permanency of its endurance.
  While the world has been making such vast strides in  general
progress;  while  discovery, invention,  the arts and sciences, and
all knowledge have been making such wonderful advance, how has
it been with medicine ?  What was the  condition of general med-
icine in 1837 when Gustavus Reichhelm entered this  city as a
pioneer  of the new system of therapeutics ?  The late Professor 
DR. THOMAS' ADDRESS.
27
Gross,* in his recently published autobiography, says:  "When I
entered the profession fifty years ago, it was covered with a man-
tle  of darkness.  Theories, conjectures and  uncertainties were
the characteristics of the day.  Hardly anything was  definitely
settled.  Physiology and pathology were conjectural branches of
the healing art.   Chemistry was  in  a  rudimentary transitional
state.   Hygiene and state medicine had no  existence.   Toxicol-
ogy and  medical jurisprudence were occult  arts.  Surgery and
medicine were the merest arts, without any scientific associations
or  connections.  Midwifery and  gynecology were in  a most
crude  condition.   Disease  was by  many regarded,  not as an
aberration of function, or perversion  of health, but a sort of un-
defined  entity engrafted upon the system, from which it  was
necessary to expel it, often with violent remedies more injurious
to  the patient than  the malady itself.   Therapeutics  had been
more labored than advanced.  Very little  was certainly known
respecting the action of remedies upon  the  system.  The text
books were of an inferior order, and medical literature had made
little progress."
  The above  is no  doubt a fair statement of the condition  of
general medicine fifty years ago.   But  now how changed !   In-
deed the past half century has seen more advance in the progress
of general medical science than in any  previous equal period  in
the world's history.   The discovery of  the power and use of the
several anaesthetics, the greatest  boon to suffering  humanity
which the age has produced, has  not only saved a vast amount
of suffering, but has rendered possible the performance of opera-
tions never before attempted, and has thus led to  an advance  in
operative surgery which could never have been otherwise at-
tained.
  *Samuel D. Gross, M.D., Professor of Surgery in the  Jefferson Medical Col-
lege, Philadelphia, Pa. 
28                  SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
  The employment of antisepsis in both medicine and surgery,
so much in vogue within a few years, has already given wonderful
results.   In the great lying-in hospitals of Vienna, Dresden and
other large cities of Europe, through the strict antiseptic precau-
tions employed, the mortality has been reduced  from 18  to  20
per cent,  to almost nothing.  Fifty years  ago  the  average  of
human life in Great Britain was thirty years, while according  to
recent statistics it is at the present time forty-nine years.   With-
in the same period of time the population of Great Britain has
increased  8,000,000, and of this number 2,000,000 are claimed
as the direct result of better  sanitary conditions, and of victory
over  preventable diseases.   With  his antiseptic  methods, the
surgeon performs his most extensive operations—amputates limbs
and breasts, removes  tumors, opens the  abdominal  cavity, and
applies his dressings with the  greatest assurance of finding, upon
their  removal at  the end of six to  ten  days, a perfect healing
with perhaps not a drop of pus.  When we remember with what
hesitation and dread  the abdominal cavity was opened  but a
few years ago, wounding of the peritoneum  being  looked upon
as attended in every case with the utmost danger; and that the
healing  of the parts after nearly every operation was attended
by extensive  suppuration and a slow process of granulation, I
say when we remember this  and compare it with the results  at-
tained to-day, we may begin  to realize the vast  progress of the
but recent past, and to appreciate something of the possibilities
of the future.
  Medical education  has also made great advancement during
the past half century.  Less than fifty years ago,  five to  seven
professors, with  a single  demonstrator,  constituted  the  whole
teaching body in the best schools in the country.  Anatomy and
Physiology, or Surgery and Obstetrics, or perhaps Anatomy and
Surgery, were frequently taught from the same chair.  Pathology, 
DR. THOMAS' ADDRESS.
29
 Morbid Anatomy, Histology and Sanitary Science had no place
 in  the medical curriculum.  The student got no  practical work
 whatever, except in the  dissecting room,  saw but little clinical
 medicine or surgery, and after two short courses of three or four
 months of annually repeated lectures, was  deemed competent to
 assume the great responsibilities of the healing art.  How differ-
 ent  is it  to-day !   We  find in the  best schools the curriculum
 greatly widened, the course prolonged  to  six or  more months,
 the  teaching  body  increased to twenty,  twenty-five  and even
 thirty or more; and instead of  the old and illogical method, in
 which the student on his first day in  college, listened not only to
 lectures on the rudimentary branches, as anatomy, physiology
 and chemistry, but  at the  same time upon  obstetrics, practice
 and surgery, subjects that he was totally unprepared to compre-
 hend, we now have  the  graded course of  three  years, in which
 the  student first takes up the fundamental  branches, followed by
 the practical and special.
  In view of the great progress of medicine during the more re-
 cent past, what may we expect of the future ?  That the develop-
 ment of our art is to continue, and  that improvements  no less
 important than  those of the past are certain  to be developed,
 none can doubt.  Dark points in physiology are to be cleared
up.   Etiology and  pathology are to be  better  understood.  New
operations and new methods in surgery are to  give better results.
But it is without doubt, in the direction of preventive medicine
and therapeutics, that we are to look for the great developments
of the future.   Our  increasing knowledge of  zymotic diseases,
with a better acquaintance with the origin,  methods of propaga-
tion, and  means of distribution  of  the microscopic germs  in-
ducing them, must ultimately lead to the discovery of the means
for  the control,  if not for the complete prevention of  these sev-
eral diseases. 
30
SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
  The great  aim and ultimate  object of the medical sciences
being that of relieving human  suffering and prolonging  life,
therapeutics,  which  has directly to  do with  the  cure of disease
and  for  which all  other  branches  of the science but form  a
foundation, becomes the very cap-stone of the temple of medicine.
Anatomy has made us thoroughly familiar with the structure of
the human body ; physiology has taught us the use of the various
parts and  organs;  etiology has  given us a  vast amount of in-
formation as  to the  cause and source of the majority of our dis-
eases, while pathology and morbid  anatomy have acquainted us
with the  progress  and structural  changes resulting from morbid
processes.  But without a system of therapeutics, without power
to successfully  combat and control disease,  all  this knowledge
becomes  of little practical value.   Hence, the importance of this
subject in the medical curriculum.   While therapeutics may not
have kept pace with  other branches of medicine in the past, it
has  nevertheless  made  great advance within the  past century.
The doctrine of Hahnemann has not only resulted in the forma-
tion of a new school of medicine, but its influence has admit-
tedly vastly modified the practice of the old.   Seeing our success
with small doses,  they have been led to halt in their career  of
heroic medication, and in its place we find either a mild expec-
tancy, or so  little faith in  any medication, that  we are told by
Dr.  Holmes  that, "with the exception of opium, quinine and per-
haps a few other remedies, it would be better for the sick  if all
the medicine in the world were thrown into the sea, and so  much
the worse for the fishes.''   The complicated polypharmacy of the
past has  been  wonderfully modified.   Of the multitude of sam-
ples with which the office table of the physician of the present
day will be  found  covered, it  is a notable  fact, that in nearly
every case, the article is a simple one; rarely  will a compound  be
seen. 
DR. THOMAS' ADDRESS.
31
   In  the  law of similars as developed by Hahnemann we claim
 to possess  a  key to the  solution of the great question of thera-
 peutics, a guide for the treatment of all curable diseases, by follow-
 ing which, we may cure our cases more safely, more rapidly and
 more scientifically.
   But we are led to inquire, are there no other means or methods
 or aids, that  may be  employed in  the  treatment of disease?
 Does homoeopathy constitute the whole of therapeutical science ?
 Is the physician best prepared to cope with disease  in its varied
 forms,  whose  knowledge and use of drugs is always and  only
 confined to  their homoeopathic use?  Has  the  physician dis-
 charged his full duty to his patient in all  cases, when he has
 made  the most careful selection and administration of the closest
 similimum of the symptoms of the' case?  May  the medical
 school, in  view of its responsibility in  the education  of physi-
 cians,  confine its therapeutical teachings  to  the  homoeopathic
 medication  alone ?   These  are important questions,  and the
 future  of homoeopathy to no small degree will  depend upon their
 solution.   Therapeutics, being the science of healing, embraces
 everything  that may in any way aid in the restoration  of health
 to the  sick  or injured.   Thus, mechanical measures constitute
 the  principal  therapeutical means employed by the surgeon.
 Without his  knife and numerous instruments  and apparatus, he
 would  be  almost powerless  in  the treatment of surgical cases.
 Antidotal therapeutics will be required in the treatment of  cases
 of poisoning.  Hydro and electro-therapeutics may be made great
 aids in the  treatment  of many diseases, while the employment of
palliative therapeutics often becomes  an  important duty.   But
 we are sometimes told  that  the  true and loyal  homoeopathic
 physician will, and should, have nothing  to  do with  palliative
 medication.   The inconsistency of such  a  position  is easily
 established.  What would  we think of the surgeon  who, under 
32
SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
such a claim, should refuse to employ anaesthetics in his opera-
tions, subjecting his patients to the needless agony of the cruel
knife ?  We would designate him a monstrous  fanatic.  If the
employment of anaesthetics is justifiable on the part of the sur-
geon, no less so is the use of anodynes  or other palliatives  on
the part of the physician, in  the  management of many cases of
incurable  or  other  diseases  attended with great  pain and suffer-
ing.
  It is admitted that the employment of such measures  may be
attended in  some cases,  with a degree  of risk, and always with
some danger of abuse.   So much  7nore important does it beqome
therefore, that the  student  should  be  thoroughly and carefully
instructed in everything  relating to this subject.  Fully informed
as to the action of palliative medicines, carefully instructed as to
their indications or  contra-indications, cautioned  as to  their
danger and watchful of their effects, he is in a far better position
for discharging the duties of the  honest physician,  than  he who
repudiates all such measures,  or ignorantly resorts to their use.
   But you  may tell me that students  so instructed will be in
danger of becoming eclectics, or of going over to the old school,
and abandoning homoeopathy entirely.  I reply that if the suc-
cess of homoeopathy is depending upon keeping  her students
ignorant upon all of these important subjects, if to give them a
broad and liberal  education is at the risk of their deserting our
ranks, then  is our hold upon them  weak indeed, and the days of
homoeopathy  are nearly numbered.   On the contrary, if  our
system of practice is ever to acquire that power  and influence in
the medical world that has so long  been predicted for it, it must
and can be accomplished only  by our medical schools imparting
to  their students  the  most  thorough  and complete  instruction
in  every branch of  medical science.  Upon the medical schools
of  the present and future there rests, therefore, a heavy respon- 
DR. THOMAS- ADDRESS.                33
sibility.  They must keep step with  the  rapid  march of every
department of science.  The curriculum of study must be fre-
quently widened.  The requirements for matriculation must be
made more exacting and the  final  examinations  more  rigid.
The didactic lectures must be supplemented by practical labora-
tory work in all the practical branches.   They must be supplied
with apparatus, both physical, chemical and  surgical, and with
a museum of anatomy, both normal and pathological, ample for
the  illustration and demonstration of  every subject.  A fully
equipped hospital must be under  their management and control,
that the student may enjoy abundant opportunity for clinical in-
struction in every branch or specialty of medicine and surgery.
In short, the medical colleges must be prepared to supply the con-
stantly increasing demand for thoroughly and liberally educated
physicians, in the widest acceptance of those terms.
  But  the  responsibility in  this matter does not rest alone with
the faculties of the  medical colleges.   The profession at  large,
and the general public, have duties in this direction as well. The
profession  should be ready to second every movement of the
colleges  for advancement, and should stand  ready to assist in
their accomplishment.  They  should  encourage only  the best
talent to engage in  the study.  They should see  to it that their
students shall not, with the view of saving a few dollars, or of
securing their diploma in a  shorter period, wander off to the
shorter  term and poorly  equipped institutions.  If the profes-
sion of the  country, really and earnestly desire  a higher grade
of general and scientific education for their students, they have
only to  encourage and support those already struggling for the
attainment of  that end, and they will  soon accomplish their
purpose.
  It is the  duty of the public at large, for the benefit of which
medical schools are directly laboring, to  encourage and support 
34
SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
by a liberal contribution of their abundance for the endowment
of medical colleges, and for the erection and support of hospitals,
the  two  at  the  present day being inseparably connected.  To
what  nobler purpose can the surplus means  of the wealthy be
appropriated ?  Not only is the present generation benefited, but
the  beneficent results may be made to extend through all coming
time.
  I have referred to the marvelous discoveries  and inventions,
and to the wonderful advance in  general  and medical  sciences
made during the past half century.   What will the next fifty
years bring forth?   The most active imagination would probably
fall  far short of the truth in an attempt  to picture the reality.
Without further venturing  into the  field  of prophecy, we  will
                                                    i
leave the facts to be recorded by the historian of the centetuiial
of the event we this day celebrate. 
 
D. S. SMITH, M. D. 
ADDRESS,
By D. S. Smith, M.D., of Chicago, III.
Mr. Chair/nan, Ladies and Gentlemen :
   Although  I  appear before  you without notes, manuscript or
preparation, I  most gladly  join with you in this semi-centennial
celebration of  the  advent  of  Homoeopathy west  of the pictur-
esque Allegheny Mountains, whose summits I crossed fifty years
ago a full fledged Allopath.
   Early in the spring of 1836 I left my home in Camden, N. J.,
with  my diploma  from  the Jefferson Medical College of Phila-
delphia.  My objective point  being Chicago, I  stopped on my
way in  this city, which, even at that remote time, gave evidence
of the future greatness, which is  now being so fully realized as
the great manufacturing city  of  iron and glass, and at this time
the development of  natural  gas, is  changing its complexion,
making its atmosphere clean  and the city itself more desirable
for residence.   After  some delay and many regrets at leaving
this enterprising city, I continued my way to Chicago, reaching
there in May, where I at once opened an office for  the  practice
of my profession.   There  I found few  physicians, in fact, few
were needed, as Chicago  then counted its population at about
three  thousand.  Their practice in the treatment of disease was
heroic to the extreme, as illustrated  by  their administration of
calomel from twenty to eighty grains at one dose, and their free
use of drastic pills and emeto-cathartics,  to meet the demands of
a restless, active people, who would not wait for  the vis  medica- 
36
SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
 trix naturoz, but who wanted a prompt, effective medicine to
 "kill  or cure," and  unfortunately it  was not  always  a cure.
 Esthetics were not as much considered in the arrangement of our
 offices in those early days, neither were  our libraries as extensive
 as we find them in this decade.
   Being in Philadelphia in  the winter of  1837-38, I had occa-
 sion during the serious illness of my child to call in my  precep-
 tor, a  distinguished physician of those days.   He gave as his
 opinion  that the  disease was  constitutional and recovery very
 doubtful.   The child failing to improve, I consulted another
 professor famed for his successful treatment of  children,  and he
 expressed an opinion similar  to that of my preceptor.  At the
 solicitations of friends who were firm believers in the Homoeo-
 pathic school of medicine, I was induced to get such medicines
 and books as I could then procure,  Hahnemann's  Organon and
 Jahr's Manual as translated by Dr. Hering.   Under the Homoeo-
 pathic medication which I then gave, the child  soon recovered.
   I  returned to Illinois in the spring of 1838 and commenced
 prescribing Homoeopathic remedies, and continued to do so, but
 without  especial publicity.   In the spring  of  1843 I went to
 New York, where I gave  attention to this school of practice, and
 procured all the works on the subject I could there  find printed
 in English ; also, a more extensive supply of medicines.  Among
 the books that I then obtained were the  first edition of " Hull's
 Jahr,"   "Jahr's Manual  of  Homoeopathic  Practice,"   and
 these works were very serviceable  to me, and to this day I would
by no means be satisfied if my library did  not contain  Jahr's
Manual.
  Thus  armed  I commenced  work  in earnest.   The  success
which  then followed  aroused  much criticism  and opposition
among my Allopathic friends, who  thus aided me in bringing
 before the public this new science of therapeutics, and having  a 
DR. SMITH'S ADDRESS.
37
 great truth to  demonstrate, the victory was ours as is evidenced
 to-day by the growth of Homoeopathic practice in Chicago and
 throughout the great Northwest.   It even extended to the Pacific
 coast, and even the Pacific did not stay its progress.   At that
 time to my certain knowledge, I was the only practicing Homoeop-
 athist west of the great lakes.  We then had  some very distin-
 guished laymen in our city—the  late Hon. Wm. B. Ogden, the
 late Hon. Thomas Hoyne and the Hon. P. Y. Scammon.  These
 gentlemen were active friends of our cau^c and the latter is to-
 day one of the Trustees of the Hahnemann Medical College and
 Hospital,  of Chicago.    In those early  days  of Homoeopath)
 the editors of the daily  papers rendered us efficient service in
 permitting us  the  use of their columns, and I take pleasure in
 acknowledging the kindly aid of the  public press,  which  is
 always ready to advance any good or noble cause.
   The oration of Wm.  Cullen Bryant,  delivered in 1841 before
 the New York  State Homoeopathic Society, was published in one
 of our papers,  and subsequently in pamphlet form, and circulat-
 ed extensively in the city and throughout that region of coun-
 try.   The circulation of this pamphlet I consider rendered our
 cause good service.  Then, as now, there were some high minded
 honorable gentlemen among the Allopathists, who, while differ-
 ing from us, were willing to accord to  others what they claimed
 for themselves, namely,  a right  to think and act according to
 their convictions.
   The  '' Northwestern  Journal of Homoeopathy"   appeared
 about  this  time,  followed  later  by  a bi-monthly  for  the
 general  reader,  with   a  two-fold   mission.   One  was  to
 popularize  the  new  system,  and  the  other  to bring  before
 the community and the profession a  couple  of young physi-
 cians  who  had  recently  arrived  in our city.  One  of these
soon  crossed  the  dark river,  and  the other  has  gained  a 
38
SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
reputation which has extended over two continents.  He would
have been here to-day had not his duties as Dean of the Hahne-
mann College detained him there at the opening exercises for the
winter.   This monthly having accomplished its mission ceased in
1856.   Next  "The  Investigator"  was published.   Following
that came "The United States  Medical and Surgical  Journal,"
edited by several medical gentlemen of our city.  It was an able
exponent of the principles and  practice of Homoeopathy. Since
then  other similar journals  have from time to time made their
appearance doing good service in the cause of Homoeopathy.
  The American Institute of  Homoeopathy was  organized in
1844, and local societies  have been  extending  throughout the
several States.   Our  own city is keeping step in the  march  of
progress.  The Northwest, making Chicago its central point,
leads with two colleges.  There is one in  Missouri, one in Jowa,
one in  Minnesota, one in California, and  there may even  be
others which my memory fails to note.  These several colle ges,
I have reason to believe, are doing a good work, all contributing
to meet the  great  demand  made by the  cities  and  villages
throughout the great Northwest for good in educating Homoeo-
pathic physicians.
  In conclusion we have the demonstration of the superiority  of
the grand truths and  principles  of Homoeopathy in the fact that
within the  professional life of one  man, from less  than a  half
dozen  physicians west of the  Alleghenies,  we now have them
numbering many thousands,  their  locations extending  even  to
the  "Golden Gates" and the islands of the  great Pacific Ocean. 
 
I9r.
'OW&ccp/
U.&.
3438 
                      ADDRESS,

         By J. W. Dowlixg, M.D., of New York City, N. V.

 Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen :
   In the invitation extended to me to be present and participate
 in the  exercises—the  festivities of this day—I am requested by
 your committee to  say a few words on medicine in this  country
 as compared with that of fifty years ago.   Before entering upon my
 subject, which I shall consider  briefly, I must congratulate  you,
 members of  the  Homoeopathic Medical Society of Allegheny
 County, and the  friends of our school in  this section, on  the
 position which Homoeopathy occupies right here—on the com-
 pletion of your magnificent hospital, and on the fact that  your
 society has  solved  the  vexed question  of qualification for the
practice of medicine, by  resolving to admit no  young men or
 women as students in your offices till they have passed a satis-
factory examination by a committee from your body, as to their
preliminary education and fitness for the study of the now many
and intricate  branches—sciences—connected  with  the healing
art.
  If the various  medical societies of the country would adopt,
and carry out, as  you have done, a similar  course,  there would
be no  occasion for preliminary  examinations  at our medical
colleges, and  legislation on  the subject  of medicine by  our
various State Assemblies would  be unnecessary. 
 40                  SEMI-CENTENNIAL.

   Not long  since, in a conversation  which I had with a dis-
 tinguished physician of our school, he  remarked:  "Look at
 Pittsburgh;  seethe strides they are  making there."  I replied :
 " Do you refer to their iron furnaces? "   He answered, " No."
 " To the coal production in that section ? "   " No."   " To the
 introduction  and   utilization  of   their  natural  gas?"    He
 answered, "No ;  I  refer to the  strides  which Homoeopathy has
 made,—to the honest labors of the  Homoeopathic physicians of
 Pittsburgh.   This  semi-centennial celebration  is an evidence of
 all this, and my firm  belief is that at  your  centennial  anni-
 versary Homoeopathy will be the universal method of practice,
 not only in  your own city,  but throughout the civilized  world.
 Some of us older ones will long before that time have been laid to
 rest, but many within the sound of my voice will  live to see our
 law of cure acknowledged as  the only  law by which curable
 diseases  may be cured,  and incurable  diseases made  compara-
 tively easy for sufferers to bear.
   I took it for granted, when I learned that the Grand Opera
 House had been selected as your  meeting place to-day, that the
 audience would be made up partially,  perhaps  largely, of lay-
 men and women.   I propose addressing my remarks  to  them.
 I can say nothing on the subject of  ancient and modern medi-
 cine which is not already known to the  members of  the medical
 profession present  to-day,  but the  laity  know  little  about
 medicine.  They often  think they do, but they do  not.   Some
 may have a little knowledge of the art,  but a little knowledge of
 medicine is worse than no knowledge at all, and unless  you pro-
 pose  to devote your lives to the unceasing study of the healing
 art,  do not  try  to  unravel  its  mysteries.  "For that  arc  we
doctors.'"  But  it will do you no harm  for me to tell you briefly
what medicine once was, and then compare with what  it now is.
  The  late Wendel Philips,  in his lecture  on "The  Lost Arts," 
DR. DOWLING'S ADDRESS.
4>
 contended  that in nearly every science  the  ancients were the
 equals of the present  generation, and from his conclusive argu-
 ments you would be led to believe that all recent discoveries are,
 in reality, merely  revivals of sciences and arts long since  tem-
 porarily lost to the world.  On  the  subject of medicine he was
 silent.   Perhaps  in those days there was  such an advanced state
 of civilization that no such science was required,—that doctors,
 men and women,  were not needed.   For it is contended at the
 present day by many  intelligent men, that health depends upon
 conditions which,  if observed, will render medicine unnecessary.
 In  the language  of one  distinguished writer,  health  depends
 upon diet, exercise, sleep, the state of the mind, and the state of
 the atmosphere, and upon nothing else.   The ancients may have
 been  able to regulate all of these   to  their  own  satisfaction.
 Where I live we can not do it, and even here, almost in the shadow
 of those glorious  old  mountains, you sometimes have, if the
 papers tell the truth, financial and other disturbances which take
 away your appetites, perhaps render  you  unable to gratify them,
 render you unable to take exercise, disturb your minds, keep you
 from sleeping nights,  and make the  atmosphere  of your town
 more smoky than  it was when I  hurriedly passed through a few
 years ago,  prior  to the  substitution of your  natural  gas  for
 bituminous coal.   With the revival of civilization, and  the lost
 arts,  people did  want doctoring;   perhaps  they required  it.
 Many, even in these days, want  it who do not require it, and they
 get it, too.   If they did not, the doctors  would starve.
  The oldest work on  medicine  which I have had the pleasure of
 perusing, was published in the  year 1598, nearly  three hundred
 years ago.   I have been much amused and interested in perusing
 its pages.  It is evidently one of the earliest  books on this sub-
ject published in the English language, for in its introduction it
 reads: " Until within  a recent period the sick were placed in the 
42
SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
 streets and highways that all passing and repassing  might behold
 them, and seeing that poor, afflicted soul in such a miserable and
 lamentable state, themselves having had  the  same disease  at
 divers and sundry times, might the better and easier participate
 unto the patient the means whereby they recovered and attained
 unto their pristinate  and accustomed  health; and  because  in
 their  times, also in the  self-same way,  all  sick  and diseased
 persons might, through the mercy and will of God, be of their
 maladies cured.  And that all  might be cured of their .maladies,
 these  rules for the cure of the sick  have been, through many
 excilent  and  God-inspired  men,  compacted  and  compiled
 together in this perfection and excellency."  And then as a pre-
 lude to the work, the author  says, very  sensibly, too :  " A true
 physician must first of all  know, before he may employ himself
 to the practice of physic, to wit: that he not only must properly
 and very well know the  complexions of the  sick,  his strength,
 age, his affairs and manner of living,  but also the sickness itself,
 with all the circumstances thereof."  And without giving the
 slightest information as to how this knowledge is to be acquired,
 he commences  his prescriptions for certain troubles, the first  of
 which,  in  the  index,  is,  "A  capital corroboration, which  is
 very excilent."   The next, which must have been very valuable,
 is "A good confection for an  imbecile head," then "A  most
 excilent  water for the head, calied  the Emperor  Charles, his
 water, which will certainly fortify and corroborate the memory."
 We have needed some of that water in  New York lately.   This
 decoction consists of some twenty or thirty different ingredients
 which  must be  mixed and prepared  at certain seasons of the
 year, and then_ to  accomplish  the  wonderful  result must  be
snuffed through the nostrils.
  " We have excilent remedies for the sudden striking of God's
hand," by which I suppose the  author means modern apoplexy. 
DR. BOWLING'S ABDRESS.
43
  " One of the best remedies recommended for this is asses blood,
  especially  blood of a miller's ass,  which  must be taken out of
  the ear of  the animal;  dose, three drops three  times daily, and
  with God's aid he will recover the use of his members."  And
  then we have an excellent water for the naughty scabies, and an
  unguent for the  same, consisting  of pulverized brimstone and
  fresh  butter, which  is used at the  present  day  for  the  same
  condition.
    We  have a precious remedy for the restoration of  the sight,
  composed  of pulverized crickets, with which the eye is  to be
  annointed.  This remedy is said to have  restored the sight of
  the Archduke Frederick after a total blindness of seven  years
 duration.   Next is an excellent, most true and tried  remedy for
 sterility.  Also a purgative  powder, consisting of young nettles
 and the buds of elder.  We have also the balm of  the poor little
 unborn infants.
   This  author  was certainly more  considerate in his  prescrip-
 tions to the poor than physicians of the  present day.   For he
 ha^ remedies for the poor and others for the  rich, suffering from
 the same disease.
   In one instance, the refuse or the barn-yard in a decoction of
 cinnamon  water is prescribed for a poor woman suffering  from
 certain conditions.  Following  this  is another for rich folks, the
 component  parts of which  are white amber, coral, white and
 blue  sapphires,  pickerels  eyes and  teeth, harts   bones,  and
 filings of gold, which  must be pulverized together and admin-
 istered  in drachm doses.   This work is made up of just  such
 prescriptions, many of them inert in their character, possessing
 the quality which has been attributed to our Homoeopathic reme-
dies, of  being, to say the least, harmless.   Patients recovered
then, as they do now, under  the mind cure and  other innocent
measures, and the  doctor  received  the  credit.  If they died, 
44
SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
 everything had been done within the power of man,—it was by
 the  will of God.
   We will skip over the period of time intervening between this
 and the beginning of the present century, and  give you in a few
 words examples of the treatment of the sick a few decades ago
 by the so-called regular  physicians,  before the introduction of
 Homoeopathy, and compare this treatment with that of the so-
 called regular school of the present day, and then simply ask the
 question, " Has Homoeopathy had anything to  do with this won-
 derful change ? "  I never hear this word regular applied to the
 old school of medicine without a mental or an audible protest.
 It does  not properly  apply.   Nothing  could be more  irregular
 than  the regular practice of fifty years ago,—yes, of to-day.
 They have no regular guide,  no  law,  it  is medicine of experi-
 ment, then  of experience.   Even at  the recent International
 Congress, held at Washington, the chairman  of the section in
 therapeutics advanced a new theory as to the action of remedial
 agents.   When  the practitioners of the old school  learn that
 when their remedies cure  disease—radically cure it, they  do so
 by the law of similars—the so-called Homoeopathic law—and en-
 deavor to practice in accordance with that law, they will  become
 regular  practitioners of medicine.  Until  then their practice is
 uncertain and largely experimental, and they are irregular prac-
 titioners.
  We have learned  something of ancient  medicine, at  least so
 far  back  as we  are able  to trace  it.   Let us  see what  regular
medicine was fifty years ago.   A  physician is called to a case of
pneumonia or pleurisy.   He  refers to his  authorities ;  he finds
the following advice laid down:  "Begin with a large and free
bleeding,  not deterred by the obscure pulse sometimes found in
peri-pneumonia, carrying this evacuation  to faintness ;  repeat-
ing these bleedings  as  the strength  of the  patient  will  bear. 
DR. DOYVLINGS ADDRESS.
45
Application of a blister to the chest.   Antimony combined with
mercury, must be administered.  Opium  to allay the cough and
to procure sleep.   Squills in nauseating, even  emetic doses, to
relieve the patient  from  the viscid matter collected  in the air
passages.''
   Carditis and pericarditis,  treatment the same as that of pneu-
monia :   " Free bleeding, a blister over the heart, purging to a
greater extent than  in pneumonia, opium to procure sleep."
   Meningitis:   " Begin  on  the first  attack  of the  disease by
bleeding the patient as largely as his strength  will permit.  In
some  instances it  may  be  productive  of more  relief if the
temporal artery or jugular vein be opened.   Cupping and leeches
in the progress of the complaint; active cathartics given directly
after taking blood; calomel with jalap, antimonial and mercu-
rial preparations ;  blisters to the back of  the neck, behind the
ears, and  to the temples;  mustard poultice to the feet."
   Croup:   "Blood  from the  arm  or jugular  vein;  several
leeches along  the  fore  part  of the neck;  a nauseating  emetic;
ipecacuaha with tartarized antimony, cathartics,  diaphoretics,
digitalis  to control the  heart's  action; large  blisters  near the
affected part;  mercury to speedy salivation ; opium," etc.
  This is what  was called  the antiphlogistic treatment, those
medicines, plans of diet, etc.,  which tend to  oppose  inflam-
mation, or which, in  other words, weaken the system by dimin-
ishing the activity  of the vital power.  And so I could go on
and enumerate  every inflammatory disease, and would find by
consulting the authors of  fifty,—yes,  thirty years ago, this same
debilitating  system  of torture was recommended.
  Is it any wonder, with  this universal treatment,  together with
the starving process called the antiphlogistic diet,  that these in-
flammatory diseases were  dreaded; that  patients feared placing
themselves in the hands of the physician,  and  that they should 
46
SEMICENTENNIAL.
expect a three weeks' or a month's sickness,  dating  from  the
first visit made by their medical attendant?
   Is it to be wondered at that sensible men should have looked
with distrust, with suspicion, upon the so-called science of medi-
cine, and that they should have advised  the throwing of physic
to the  dogs ?  Was this an  improvement on the system of three
hundred years  ago, when the mind of the patient was the prin-
cipal medium  through which the  physician  worked  his  cure,
sensible enough to leave the disease to the tender care of nature ?
Is it surprising that  physicians should  have   been  accused  of
destroying valuable lives, which, had it not been for their treat-
ment, would have recovered from their ailments?   Is it a wonder
that Addison should have laid it down as a maxim, " That when
a nation abounds in physicians it grows thin of people."
   Napoleon I. was not a believer in the practice of physic then
in vogue, and  once  said to his  chief physician:   "Believe me,
we had better  leave off all these remedies; life is a fortress that
you and I know nothing about.  Why throw obstacles in  the
way of  its defense ?   Its own means are superior  to all the appa-
ratus of your laboratory.  Medicine is a collection of  uncertain
prescriptions, the  results of which,  taken collectively,  are more
fatal than useful  to  mankind."   The  celebrated Zimmerman
went from  Hanover to attend Frederick the Great in his last ill-
ness.   One  day the  King said to  him, " You have, I  presume,
sir, helped many a man into another world."   The doctor re-
plied, " Not so  many as your majesty, nor with  such honor to
myself."
   Medical practice was defined in those days to be, for the most
part, guessing  at nature's intentions and  wishes, and  then  en-
deavoring to  substitute  man's.  Nature, says a  French philo-
sophical writer, is " fighting  with  disease—a blind man armed
with a  club, that is the physician, steps in to settle the difficulty. 
DR. DOWLING'S ADDRESS.
47
 He first, to his credit, tries to make  peace.   When he cannot
 accomplish this, he lifts his club and strikes  at random.   If he
 strikes the disease,  he  kills  the disease;  if he  strikes nature, he
 kills the patient."
   A celebrated physician, after conducting a prominent practice
 for thirty years, retired from the profession, giving as his  reason
 that he was weary of guessing.
   The death of Pope  Adrian occasioned such joy in Rome that
 the night after his  decease  they adorned the door  of his chief
 physician's house with garlands, adding this inscription : " To
 the deliverer of his country."
   No  man seems to have  had a better knowledge of the work-
 ings of this so-called  regular system  of  medicine than Charles
 Reade, who, in one of his works, gives the opinion  of Dr.
 Sampson, a character original for the  period, who was evidently
 opposed to the antiphlogistic method  of treatment, and  who
 contended  that he  could tell,  beforehand,  every  prescription
 which would be given  by the different prominent physicians of
 his time.   In his conversation with a patient, who had been con-
 sulting the most celebrated physicians she could  reach, he says:
 " Good heavens ! madam, what a gauntlet of gabies for a woman
 to run and come  out  alive.  These four physicians you have
 been  to  see are specialists,  that means—monomaniacs.   They
 have advised the antiphlogistic regimen, have  they?  Antiphlo-
 gistic, my dear madam, that one long fragment of asses jaw has
 slain a million.  The antophlogistic theory is  this, that disease is
 fiery, and that any exhaustion of the  vital force  must cool the
 system and  reduce the morbid fire,  called, in their donkey latin,
 flamma, and in their  compound  donkey latin,  inflammation;
 and, accordingly, the  antiphlogistic practice  is to cool the sick
 man  by bleeding  him, and when bled,  either to re-bleed  him
with a change of instrument—bites and stabs, instead of  gashes 
48
SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
or blisters, and push mercury till the teeth of the bled man rake
and shake in their sockets, and to salivate from first to last.   As
for blood-letting, it is inflammatory, for the thumping heart and
bounding pulse of  patients, bled  by  butchers in black,  and
bullocks bled by butchers in blue, prove it.
   I  wonder they didn't  inventory satan and his brimstone lake
among their refrigerators."
   "What is the cause of that rare  event which occurs  only to
patients who can't afford doctoring, death from  old  age?  His
bodily expenses go on.   His bodily income falls off, by failure
of the reparative and reproductive forces."
   "Whatever the disease, its form and essence, expenditure goes
on and income lessens."  But to  the sick, and  therefore weak
man, comes a  doctor, who  pronounces him an  invalid, gashes
him with a lancet, spills out the great liquid material of all repair
by the gallon, and  fells this weak man, wounded now, pale  and
fainting, with death stamped on his face,  to the earth like a
bayoneted soldier or a slaughtered ox.
   If the weak man, wounded thus and weakened, survives, then
the chartered  thugs, who have drained him by  the  bung hole,
turned to and drain him by the spigot.
   They blister him and then calomel him, and lest nature should
have the ghost of a chance to counterbalance these frightful out-
goings,  they  keep strong  meat and drink  out of his  system,
emptied by their stabs, bites, purges, mercury and blisters.
   Antiphlogistic  is  but  a  modern name  for  ass—assinating,
which has never varied  a hair since  scholastic medicine. The
silliest and deadliest  of all the hundred forms of quackery  first
rose—unlike science,  art, religion,  and all true suns in the west,
to wound the sick, to weaken the weak, to mutilate the hurt, and
thin  mankind."
   This was the method of treatment  adopted by the  old school 
DR. DOWLING'S ADDRESSS.
49
physicians in Pittsburghat the time yourpioneer, Dr. Reichhelm,
crossed yonder range of mountains to establish a rational method
of treatment in  your city.  Since  that time, how  things have
changed!
  The lancet has  been discarded,  mercury has been laid upon
the shelf, emetics and violent cathartics have been thrown to the
dogs.   What has worked this wonderful change?
  It is conceded by  prominent old school authors thai it  was
from the Homoeopaths  that they learned that all this barbarous,
murderous treatment was unnecessary.
  Niemeyer  said,  on examining the bodies of persons dying of
pneumonia  treated according to  the method formerly so uni-
versal : " We find so very little blood  in the heart  and arteries
that we are tempted to ascribe death to the treatment rather than
the disease."
  Yes,  old school  medicine has undergone a change,—a decided
change, and  for the better.   But this, from  the  Medical Recora
of September 3d, of this year,  the old  school  journal having
the  largest  circulation of any medical journal  in the United
States, proves that with all  this modification  it has not as yet
diminished  its death rate  to that of the  Homoeopathic school.
I quote from the journal named:
  " The annual reports of the Cook County  Hospital (located in
Chicago) reveal  some facts in which the profession  should  feel
some interest.  On the opening pages we find a list of the mem-
bers  of  the regular medical board, and below of  the  Homoeopa-
thic  medical board.  Such juxtaposition seems a little at variance
with conventional  ethics, but in this we may be mistaken.
  "The point  that  is of real  importance, is that both in  its
totals and in the medical and surgical departments, the mortality
of patients treated by the Homoeopathic medical board is  less
than that of the  regular medical  board, and  this is true, not for
one year, but apparently for a series of years." 
5°
SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
  This statement alone, appearing, as it does, in the leading old
school medical journal of America, speaks  volumes for the ad-
vances which homoeopathy has made in the United States.
  Formerly it was  persecution,  ridicule, participated in by the
people, too.  Just fifty years ago our method of treatment was
first  introduced in  the city of Pittsburgh.   In  that compara-
tively  short time  the  eyes  of the people have been  opened,
and they have learned that' disease can be  cured without resort-
ing to the nauseous doses, the tortures  and depletion considered
necessary then  to save life, and,  as  a  result, instead  of having
one solitary physician west of the Alleghenies practicing accord-
ing to the homoeopathic law  of cure, they  can be numbered by
the thousand ; well educated, too, both as physicians and  sur-
geons, whose  patrons are among -the best educated  and  most
prominent of  our citizens.
  Not long since  a leading New York physician  said to   me
" Doctor, you homceopathists have entirely too large a share of
the wealth and intellect of New York among your patrons.   The
fact is, doctor, an  ignorant  man cannot realize that he is deriv-
ing any benefit from medicine unless he  sees its effect; he must
be purged, vomited, blistered or bled, or he thinks  nothing is
being done.   These patients we  retain."
  How common it was in  old  times to hear a patient say, "  I
did  not send for you, doctor, because I could not afford to be
sick."  It was  the  rule, and they  knew it, for a patient to be
made worse before he recovered  from his malady.
  But all this  has been done away with, never  again to be re-
vived.  The success of our school, and all here are familiar  with
it, has far surpassed the  expectations of our honored  pioneers.
Scarcely a city, town or village in  the  United States where
homoeopathy  is not successfully  practiced; and so it  is through-
out the civilized world. 
DR. DOWLING'S ADDRESS.
51
   They say the two schools are converging.  I  trust ours will
 remain  a straight line,—the other will  reach us  and unite in
 time.   Angry dispute will  be  done  away with, and  it will  be
 conceded that honest convictions should be respected.
   No  discord will arise to  mar our labors,  for our  calling is a
 noble one.  In the  language of a distinguished  medical orator,
 " Our profession is  inferior to  none,  as noble an art as any that
 taxes the intellect of man.   At all  times, in  all seasons,  under
 every variety of circumstances  are our ministrations sought; the
 summer's heat and winter's  cold, storm and  sunshine, night and
 day alike witness our labors and attest our fidelity.   Among the
 vehicles which throng your city's crowded streets at mid-day you
 may mark  the roll  of the physician's wheels; and in the still,
 small hours of night you may  hear the sound of his footstep as
 he  traverses the deserted pavements  on some errand of mercy.
 The navy !  Is there a blood-stained deck on which he is not
 found?  The army!   Is there a battle-field without him ?   Nay,
 is he not often the last to leave the  scene of slaughter, remaining
 a voluntary prisoner to the enemy, whose persevering columns
 find him at his  post, ministering to friend  and foe alike.   The
pulpit!   Our duties  to the human race begin with the first feeble
breath of the new born infant, and we are the watchful sentries to
the  building until its due expansion shall  enable it to receive
those treasures  with  which  the minister  is prepared  to store it.
Henceforth our duties lie side by side; body and soul within our
united keeping until  a greater and mightier minister  than  either
shall dismiss the guard."
  I  have detained  you longer  than I ought, but I  will  have
traveled nearly a thousand miles to be with you to-day.   I will
now close, and with  your  permission  will  continue with the con-
sideration of  the  progress  of  homoeopathic  medicine at  your
centennial celebration—fifty years from this day. 
 
 
&RJVGO0N Wtts.

^^^^^:' 
ADDRESS,
By J. C. Burgher, M.D., of Pittsburgh, Pa.
 Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen :
   As President of the Homoeopathic  Medical Society of Alle-
 gheny County, under whose patronage this celebration is held,
 I have been called upon to say something in commemoration of
 the event.   The  honor accorded to me to offer a tribute com-
 memorative  of the pioneers  of  Homoeopathy   West of  the
 Alleghenies, I  most thankfully accept and cheerfully embrace.
 And  yet, it places me in  a  position  peculiarly embarrassing,
 from the fact that my eloquent and distinguished confreres who
 have preceded  me have anticipated my speech.  They seem to
 have made a division among themselves of what I  had intended
 to say  and "cast lots " for it.  The best, therefore, that I can
 possibly do  will be to re-vamp it  and offer it as second-hand
 matter.
  The  successful introduction  of Homoeopathy in this city, fifty
 years ago, by its  able,  accomplished  and conscientious cham-
 pion, Gustavus  Reichhelm,  M.D., marks an epoch in  the history
 of medicine, the most remarkable  in the records of  time.  Re-
 markable alike  for the persistent opposition, prejudice, ridicule
 and  misstatements with which it  had  to  contend and the tri-
umphs it has achieved.
  Fifty  years ago the practice of medicine was a monopoly that
exerted  all its power and influence  to repel and crush  everything
new in the "healing art; "  to  reject, without  trial or investiga- 
54
SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
tion, every innovation from that which was taught in the schools
of the day.  Fifty years ago the medical profession constituted
a close corporation that made  every effort in its power to con-
fine  the  practice of medicine to its individual  members, who
persistently  adhered  to that  practice  in its stereotyped  and
orthodox form.  With these  indisputable facts before  us, need
we wonder  that  Dr. Reichhelm  was denounced by his Allo-
pathic contemporaries as a charlatan and humbug, ostracised by
the clergy, boycotted by the druggists, and looked upon  with sus-
picion by the community?  Dr. Reichhelm's natural ability was
above that of the average  physician  of his time; his scholastic
attainments were broad and  comprehensive, and  his  degree in
medicine was conferred by one of the leading universities of his
day.   And  yet he  did not, in his  own  estimation, know  too'
much to search for more light  and investigate anything  that gave
promise of  more satisfactory  results.  After a long  and critical
investigation of Homoeopathy under the  guidance of  Drs. Her-
ing, Wesselhoeft, Detwiler and other members of the  faculty of
the Allentown  Academy of Medicine,  he was firmly convinced
of its  superiority in the treatment of disease, and had  the cour-
 age to discard  the  practice and teachings of Allopathy and the
 boldness to dispute the sovereignty of antimony, opium,  calo-
 mel and jalap, as  well as their Ajax Telemon  and  ubiquitous
 accomplice, the lancet.  He came here  as an exponent of a new
science and art of healing, based upon an immutable  law.  Its
 methods and teachings were utterly at variance with everything
 at that time considered orthodox in medicine.   He  came here
 with the firm conviction  of the  truth  and  ultimate triumph  of
 the Heaven-ordained law of cure that guided him in his practice.
 He came here to stay, and he introduced Homoeopathy here to
 abide as an enduring legacy to the sick and  suffering until time
 shall have been succeeded by eternity. 
DR. BURGHER'S ADDRESS.                55
   From this small  beginning how rapid  the  progress and im-
mense  the extension of the therapeutic  principles introduced
here by  Dr.  Reichhelm,  within  the  memory  of many  present
to-day !
   Some of the noble fruits of the extension  of Homoeopathy
are, that it has taken the old school  with it, so far as  to very
greatly modify and improve its teachings and practice by forcing
it to abandon  the lancet, and to  substitute small doses for the
large ones formerly prescribed.   It has emancipated the minds
of the  practitioners of the dominant school of to-day from the
degrading bondage of many  long-cherished errors and  deeply-
rooted prejudices of their predecessors;  while the  intolerance,
discourtesy,  ridicule and contempt  to which  the  disciples  of
Hahnemann were  treated by  their  Allopathic  contemporaries
have rapidly passed into inglorious desuetude.   While the auxili-
ary sciences, Anatomy, Physiology, Biology, Pathology, Surgery,
etc., have kept pace with other branches of scientific knowledge
the past half century, the materia medica  and therapeutics  of the
dominant school, by its own admission, are  as empirical and
uncertain now as they were in the past.
   The International Medical Congress, (to which  Dr. Dowling
has referred),  met  in Washington,  D. C, the second week of
this present month, and  continued in session for  several days.
Its delegates were  composed  of  the most eminent physicians
from every civilized nation on the earth.  The transactions of
this great international  gathering of learned  physicians furnish
 us with the results of many interesting  experiments  and  dis-
 coveries, of more or less practical value in the various collateral
. sciences of medicine, while the present state of medicine proper
 {materia medica and therapeutics), was  submitted in  an essay
 read before the section of therapeutics,  Sept.  8th, 1887, by Dr.
Samuel S. Wallian, in which he says :  " The  contradictory and 
56
SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
opposite qualities and powers ascribed to drugs used as remedies
are a constant stumbling block to students of medicine.   The
properties ascribed to many of them to-day are opposite of those
with which  the same substances stood accredited twenty years
ago.    The old   cardiac depressants are  now  cardiac c tonics,"
and  vice  versa.   All this proves their unreliability.   To the
thoughtful  reasoner it suggests, if it does not  prove,  far  more;
and that is that  the whole theory  of  their alleged ' action'  is
based on questionable premises."
   This is an honest  confession of the  empiricism of the  Allo-
pathic school of medicine at the present time,  by one occupy-
ing a prominent  position in the profession.  This is the inevita-
ble result of any  therapeutic method based on  a  materia  medica
made up of empirical  knowledge, limited  to a narrow range of
loose and inexact observations.
   In  1842  Dr.  C. Bayer  located  in  Allegheny  City, and  in
1846 Dr. D. M.  Dake settled in this  city; soon after Drs.  M.
C6te, H. H. Hofmann, Wm. Penniman and F. Taudte, all edu-
cated in old  school medicine, located  here as Homoeopathic
physicians, followed by Drs. J.  F. Cooper,  J. P. Dake  and  others
present with us  to-day.  At this  date there  are  over seventy
Homoeopathic physicians in active practice in Allegheny county.
Fifty years ago there was but one West of  the Allegheny moun-
tains.  Now there are more than five thousand.  Fifty years ago
there was not a   single  book on the principles and  practice  of
Homoeopathy in  the English language ; now the medical litera-
ture of Homoeopathy in the English language alone  constitutes
a large  medical  library.  Fifty years ago  there was not a single
medical journal  published in the interest of Homoeopathy ;  now
there are twenty-eight in the United States regularly issued and
liberally patronized.  When  Dr. Reichhelm introduced Homoe-
opathy as a new  and better method  of  healing than  any that had 
                  DR. BURGHER'S ADDRESS.                57

preceded it, there was not a Homoeopathic medical college  in
the  world; now there  are thirteen  in the United States, whose
facilities for  medical instruction  in all its branches are not ex-
celled by any medical college in the country, and are equaled by
very few, if any.  Fifty years ago there was not a Homoeopathic
hospital,  dispensary, or  medical society  in  the world;   now
there are fifty-seven Homoeopathic   hospitals in  this  country
alone, three  insane asylums, forty-eight public dispensaries, one
hundred  and fifty  medical  societies, and  over  ten  thousand
Homoeopathic  physicians.   The  past year  has  furnished  more
accessions to the professional ranks of Homoeopathy than in any
other equal period of time in its important and eventful history.
             If  this be the lustre of its dawning name,
                Who can paint it in its noonday fame ? 
 
 
Eng^GeoE.Ferine.NYork 
    DOGMATIC DOCTORS.

                    A SATIRE.

  By Wm. Tod Helmuth, M.D., New York, N. Y.

The great Apollo, radiant and strong,
Was God of Physic, e'en while God of Song,
Disdaining neither mortar nor scalpel,
While from his lyre impassioned love strains fell.
So may a Doctor, humble though he be,
Aspire awhile to flights of minstrelsy;
Forget his powders and his pills discard;
Become at once a medicated bard,
Whose numbers, flowing smoothly as they will,
Exhale both Nux and Belladonna still.
The winged horse sprang from Medusa's blood,
Which well'd from wounds by Perseus made a flood;
Therefore a Surgeon, by this right divine,
May deal with dactyls in heroic line,
And, whispering up the glades of Phocis, may
Ask aid for his hexameters to-day.
And if the Muse in one short hour should tell
Of  occult truths, professional,  which dwell
Within the sacred precincts of the craft,
Restrain your judgment;—think the poet daft.

Doctors resemble very jealous lovers,
One sneers at that the other one discovers;
One may declare that he the truth descries,
The other flatly tells you that he lies.
The one announces that a new bacillus 
6o
SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
Will breed a pestilence and surely kill us;
The other, laughing, says this mundane  sphere,
Minus the microbe, soon would disappear.
One swears malaria will ever be
The fountain head of each infirmity ;
The other proves diseases  to be fewer,
'Mongst those who daily labor in the sewer.
And so dogmatic doctors dodge the blow
Which brother doctors on  their heads bestow.

So when a principle, which, if believed,
Would overturn  all notions preconceived,
Would sadly sully ^Esculapian fame,
And cast discredit on "old Physics' " name,
f.'ame like the spark, which little power displays,
Till winds propitious fan it to blaze—
The doctors, still dogmatic, rose en masse,
Called the progenitor of truth an ass;
Sneer'd at his knowledge, and his name reviled,
Sland'rous reproach on misconstruction piled,
Bound him at once on persecution's rack,
Term'd nature's  greatest benefactor, " Quack; "
Lampooned the  scholar with a ribald wit,
With arguments  at once unjust, unfit;
Including, in their universal ban,
The life, the works, the  friends of Hahnemann.

When Pyrrhus, so the ancient  fable goes,
Was eager marching on Beni'an foes,
A spirit from immortal Mars was sent
To  summon him to Alexander's tent.
There, spent with wounds, the Macedonian lay,
But promised succor in the coming fray.
" How can this be? " th'  indignant Pyrrhus cries,
" The light of life is failing  in thine eyes,
Thy marshal spirit can inspire no more,
To-morrow thou shalt touch the Stygian shore." 
DR. HELMUTH'S POEM.
61
The mighty chieftain raised his mailed hand,
And thus to Pyrrhus, in most stern command :
" Yet shalt thou triumph both by land and sea,
Still shall  thy gonfalon victorious be,
Still shall  the prean echo with thy fame,
For I will lead thine armies by my name.'"
And so the name of Hahnemann shall be
The watch-word  for diseased humanity,
When  that vast army of the body's foes,
Of aches and pains and  agonies composed,
That ever  watchful in our earthly span
Descend rapaciously on erring man,
(>bstruct his life-work with their baleful breath,
Ofttimes the avant couriers of death.
Yet spite of all reproach the system grew,
Extending from the old world to the new;
Sweeping  away objections in its flight,
Gathering, in its  momentum, might;
Each fact  established tending to create
An increased spirit to investigate.
Then Gram and  Hering from the  master came,
And still,  like Pyrrhus, trusting in  a name,
With faith implicit in the cause did rear
Its banner on the Western Hemisphere.
Here was  the soil in which to plant the seed,
Here toleration greeted every creed,
Here new philosophy new truths displayed,
And day by day were new discoveries made.
Here the profession liberal would be
And gladly welcome homoeopathy.
Vain was  the surmise and the hope forlorn,
The doctors, still dogmatic, laughed in scorn,
Smelt at their canes and prophesying swore
In half a  decade 't would be known no more.
"What," cried these dignified and learned  M.D.'s,
" If like cures like, disease must cure disease. 
62
SEMI-CENTENNIAL
This is paradox, a child may see,
To all established teaching contrary.
The  ^Esculapian temple stands disgraced
Till this unfounded tenet is displaced,
No mortal since Hippocrates was born,
Save Paracelsus, drunken and forlorn,
Has  dared our precincts sacred to invade,
And shake foundations centuries have laid.
Make Mother Goose the text book of this school,
In rhymes she tells the  children of a fool,
Whose eyes scratched out, with all his might and main
With sharper briars scratched them in again."

So against the master and his law of  cure,
His name reviled, his system's downfall sure,
The  critics judgment gave, in language  gross,
But grew more  rabid when they came to dose.
" Put but a drop of aconite,"  say they,
" In  winter months on rocks in  Baffin's Bay,
In spring-tide let the homoeopathist go
Rejoicing to the Gulf of Mexico,
Drop there a vial in the waves so bright,
And draw from thence the potent aconite.
Immediate cork it, shake the bottle well,
Give fever'd patients every hour a smell,
And see disease, ere that olfaction's done,
Yanish like mist before  the morning  sun."
Thus ridicule its sharpest arrow sent
As substitute for solid argument.
But  ridicule can offer slight defense
'Gainst facts established by our common sense.

As yet, beyond the Alleghenies blue,
Adherents to the system were but few,
Till sent  by Hering, Gustave Reichhelm came,
 Like Gram and Pyrrhus, trusting in  a name.
 Remember this was fifty years  ago, 
DR. HELMUTH'S POEM.
Travel to westward then was wondrous slow,
No rushing trains by hundreds every day
Like light'ning speeded over the iron way,
No tunneled mountains echoed with the scream
Of iron horses with their breath of steam;
No velvet-cushioned, ventilated  car;
No Pullman patent trains vestibular;
To rails of steel, no Westinghouse's brake,
Which now the journey so luxurious make,
Were known to man.  Conveyance then was rude,
The journey hither one of magnitude;
The cumbrous stage coach climb'd the  steep ascent,
While dang'rous passes to the journey  lent
Increasing peril to the traveler, who
By force of circumstance  came  through.
Yet all undaunted came the pioneer
To Pittsburgh, then considered a frontier.
Alone, this solitary German youth,
Simple in mind, relying on the truth,
Without a partisan, without a friend
On whom in times of trial to depend,
Unknown but patient, steadfast  and sincere,
Uufurled his banner, which he planted here.
Behold ! what half a century has done;
To-day we thank him for the battle won.
Friends, can you dream how fast the pulses be
Of this great age, the last half century ?
Add skill to force and see ten thousand powers
Shake the great earth in these fast times of ours ;
See, in five decades what  our race has  done,
Grand in the past, but grander yet to come.
Thousands of slaves from galling chains set free,
And man of man demanding liberty
Of speech, of action  and of wholesome thought,
Which widening science in our times has wrought,
Behold where woman, better undentood, 
»4
SEMICENTENNIAL.
Stands in the glory of her womanhood,
Freed from that prejudice, where long confined,
Her body was acknowledged, not her mind;
See where the microscope has opened  wide
The gates of science where we petrified ;
Behold new fields, revealing though untrod,
The increased wisdom of Almighty God.
But here in Pittsburgh, fifty years ago,
These  mighty changes had not stirred  men so.
The horizon, 'tis true, was fair and bright,
Glowing and beautiful with coming light,
But doctors, still dogmatic in their pride,
Though waking slowly to the rising tide
Of views enlarging and of newer thought,
Still held the doctrines that their fathers taught,
Mistrusted every innovation bold,
Despised the new, but reverenced the old.
These were the times when, daily, " ten and ten "
Relieved the livers of our fellow men,
When blisters set the epidermis free,
When stabbing pains foretold a pleurisy ;
When blood in streamlets was allowed to run
In every case there  was a doubt  upon;
When seton's, moxa's and the issue peas,
Combined or singly frightened off disease,
Which often with rapidity withdrew,
Relieved the pain, but killed the patient too.
Then, as before to Gram—now Reichhelm's  foes,
Dogmatic Doctors instantly arose,
Who like their brothers,  centuries before
Great  Harvey villified, at Jenner swore,
In old examples satisfaction found,
And made with ridicule  the air resound,
" Humbug !  most arrant  humbug! "  was the cry ;
" Give it a decade and the thing will die."
Thus did dogmatic  doctors prophesy. 
DR. HELMUTH'S POEM.
Men rent with pain care not for science,
'Tis then the doctor is their chief reliance.
Migrating microbes are forgot in spasm,
And all the varied forms of bioplasm
Drop from the convolutions of the brain
E'en of the scientist when racked with pain.
That man who quickest cures them of their ills,
Reducing to a minimum their bills,
With nauseating drugs disgusts them least,
Of yEsculapius is the true high priest.
To him successful—sure as shines the sun—
Afflicted mortals will determined run,
One cure effected here produced another,
Each man made whole informed his suf'ring brother
That a new system, how, he could not tell,
But minus opium or calomel,
Had cured his ills, his biting pangs relieved,
That cures were facts and must be believed.
So with a force unknown by Heaven blest,
The system of spreading fill'd the distant west.
When Reichhelm came, now fifty years ago,
Pittsburgh herself could scarce her future know.
Behold her now, her forces still unspent,
The greatest factor on this continent.
See, where her hills the untold iron hold,
Which rules the world more certainly than gold;
See, in her mines the everlasting coal;
Here in her streets the hum, the whirr, the roll,
A million wheels develop and command
The skill'd attention of the workman's hand.
Nature's great forces now are said  to be
Pure light, great heat  and electricity.
Pittsburghians have caught and chain'd the three,
Made them obedient to inventive will,
While untold wonders are predicted still. 
SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
What heat for regulation can surpass
Caloric furnished by your natural gas ?
 Where is illumination half so bright
As here where shines the incandescent light
Which through a wire-electric instant flies ?
A touch ignites it—by a touch it dies.
Here flames the furnace, there the forge by night
Reddens the firmament with lurid light.
And yonder factories, 'mid fire and smoke,
Produce ten hundred thousand tons of coke
In one short year; and see the adjacent soil
Yielding in torrents lubricating oil;
While clanging hammers and anvils' ring
Proudly proclaim your " iron city "—King.

As progress  opens wide these new domains
Fair science liberality proclaims.
Physicians, once material, can show
That great results from smallest forces grow;
That all the atmosphere is filled with germs,
Arranged and  classified with curious terms;
That each disease a special microbe claims
With scientific though jaw-breaking names,
That in our food, our ice, the air, the ground,
Bacteria subtle everywhere  abound.
That life itself, with all its joys and woes,
Comes from a bioplast which no one knows.
They call it protoplasmic, and it grows.
The microscopists of to-day can tell
That man himself is nothing but a sell.

With these o'erwhelming revelations known,
The doctors now have less dogmatic grown,
Each honest man—but honest he must be—
Allows his friends the utmost liberty
To cure his sick, as conscience may direct,
Without  regard to " pathy " or to sect, 
DR. HELMUTH'S  POEM.
For old-time dogmatism now forsooth
Is overpower'd by the march of truth.
For truth is golden, beautiful and pure,
Though error ofttimes may its path obscure;
The voice of rancor may its progress mar,
As sombre clouds eclipse the brightest star;
Ancient opinions may obstruct its light,
And misconception  veil it from our sight—
Yet as the mists of  old delusions fade,
And fierce invective sinks int» the shade,
Truth's glorious light will then refulgent shine
Undimmed and peerless by  a right divine ;
 For God  is truth, and truth  must ever be
In man a  near approach to Deity. 
 
WESTWARD THE STAR SIMILIA TAKES ITS WAY.

            By T. P. Wilson, M.D., Ann Arbor, Mich.

        O'er lofty Alleghenies, forest crowned,
          Through untold ages swept the mighty sun;
        And eagles from their towering series found
          No path of human progress yet begun.
        Now, at their teeming bases cities rise,
          And fruitful fields o'erspread their glowing sides;
        And millions look with proud and happy eyes
          Where Peace with Plenty regal power divides.
        Lo !  from the East, the glowing light we see,
          Where brightly  gleams Similia's rising star.
        Before its coming,  Death and Darkness flee,
          And Hope's bright gates of gold are left ajar.
        Though but a half a century ago,
          It leaped the mountain's bold and rugged crest,
        It lighteth every path that man may go,
          And flecks with glory all the broad'ning West.
        To Hahnemann and Reichhelm well  we give
          All honor, which to them is just and due;
        Immortal in our praise they ever live,
          Because, to thee,'O! loved Similia, true. 
 
 
Galaxy Put. C9 Phiiada. 
           List of Officers and Members
                        —OF—
THE  HOMCEOPATHIC  MEDICAL SOCIETY
                        —OF—
          ALLEGHENY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.
                        OFFICERS.
                         1887.
    President,    .    .     .   J. C. Burgher, M.D.
    Vice-President, .     .     J. F. Cooper, M.D.
    Secretary,    .    .     .   C. H. Hofmann, M.D.
    Treasurer, .    .     .     J. B. McClelland, M.D.
                       Censors :
    C. C. Rinehart,M.D.         L. H. Willard, M.D
                J. H. McClelland, M.D.
                 Executive Committee :
    J. F. Cooper, M.D.,        L. H. Willard, M..D.,
    Wm. R. Childs, M.D.,      W. H. Winslow, M.D.
               J. H. McClelland, M.D.
                         1888.
    President,    .    .     .  J. F. Cooper,  M.D.
    Vice-President,  .     .    Z. T. Miller, M.D.
    Secretary,    .        .  J. Richey Horner, M.D.
    Treasurer,  .     .    .   J. B. McClelland, M.D.
                       Censors :
    C. C. Rinehart, M.D.,       L. H. Willard, M.D.,
                J. H. McClelland, M.D. 
72
SEMI-CENTENNIAL.
             Executive Committee :
J. C. Burgher, M.D.,    J. H. McClelland, M.D.,
Wm. R. Childs, M.D.,   L. H. Willard, M.D.,
             W. H. Winslow, M.D.
                   Members:
C. F. Bingaman, M.D.
M. C. Blystone, M.D.
E. E. Briggs, M.D.
J.  C. Burgher, M.D.
M. J. Chapman,  M.D.
I. B. Chantler, M.D.
Wm. R. Childs, M.D.
J.  F. Cooper, M.D.
John Cooper, M.D.
J. B. McClelland, M.D.
J. H. McClelland, M.D.
R. W. McClelland, M.D.
T. T. McNish, M.D.
Z T. Miller, M.D.
G. A. Mueller, M.D.
R. V. Pitcairn, M.D.
R. Y. Ramage, M.D.
J. S. Rankin, M.D.
MargaretL. Crumpton, M.D. W. C. Ranson, M.D.
S. W. S. Dinsmore, M.D.
W. F. Edmundson, M.D.
R. K. Fleming, M.D.
John L. Ferson, M.D.
H. W. Fulton, M.D.
Chas.  Gangloff, M.D.
F. H. Grimes, M.D.
F. C. Gundlach,  M D.
C. D. Herron, M.D.
C. H. Hofmann, M.D.
H. H. Hofmann, M.D.
J. Richey Horner, M.D
W. H. Kern, M.D.
Wm. D. King, M.D.
W. J. Martin, M.D.
C. C. Rinehart, M.D.
J. F. Roberts, M.D.
L  G. Rousseau, M.D.
C. P. Seip, M.D
O. R. Shannon, M.D.
S.  F. Shannon, M.D.
Mary E. Smith, M.D.
Pearl Starr, M.D.
J.  Bailey Sullivan, M.D.
J.  H. Thompson, M.D.
F. P. Wilcox, M.D.
L. H. Willard, M.D.
Chas. A. Wilson, M.D.
W. H. Winslow, M.D.
W. W. Wolfe, M.D. 
 
 
 


^il-
mi
/


^

mm
'i-Wi'i

w	W2S		
111		|p||||	lliM

is&J-
H	Bill
fes^p	
ife

§#m 
 

'3£
^-'■"'.^•ll-
§r-" -
?.-'#^:^.« '■■:■ ■■■.■■;'
-'",v''i"j-"."'>"''.V/",v^^ ■'■''•'' .•,■•■
NLM  Drjl3417M_7
NLM001341747