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SIMILIA   SIMILIBUS  CURANTUR?
ADDRESSED TO
THE  MEDICAL PROFESSION,
          BY
CHARLES S. MACK, M. D.
 " It is better to debate a question without settling it, than to settle it
without debate."—Joubert.





           BOSTON AND PROVIDENCE
        OTIS  CLAPP  &  SON.
                   1888. 
         V/BK
           MI53s


/--'A,  /v/c?  -7//7 ,  >«-*  s_
    Copyright, 1888.
CHARLES S. MACK, M. D. 
SIMILIA  SIMILIBUS CURANTUR?
                            I.
   I  see nothing to accept  or  offer as  positive,  practical
proof that similars cure;  on the other hand  I  see  nothing
to accept  or  offer  as  positive, practical proof that  they do
not.  Until one has  seen  such  proof pro  or con,  he is
obliged to hold in abeyance the  question  of fact,  whether
similars cure.   A question of  opinion,  however, which he
must practically answer each time  he treats a patient is, Is it
worth while in this case  to  try to cure with a similar?   I
hope that  in  the following pages some light will be thrown
upon this question of opinion.
   When one  states publicly what he thinks of homoeopathy
it  is important, to himself at least, that in  doing so he be
very accurate.  I shall therefore offer no apology for stating
here what is   my  personal  position  in this matter.  My
experience with  homoeopathy has been very  limited.   A
question which cannot be answered  now  is whether I  shall
ever be able  to say that  I  know  I have seen cures  effected
through  similars.   At present  I cannot say  this, and  I
suspect  that the theoretical argument  in  favor of similia is 
4
Similia Similibus  Curantur ?
stronger than any practical  evidence of a positive nature in
individual cases which is obtainable today that similars cure.
I say of a positive nature:  the  difficulty is, of  course,  that
of distinguishing between recovery  or improvement  which
has occurred independent of any influence  from the  medi-
cine used, and  recovery or  improvement in effecting which
the medicine has been instrumental.   This difficulty obtains
whether the  treatment whose usefulness we would estimate
has been homoeopathic or non-homceopathic. I say, too, in
individual cases: the question as to coincidence  being less
of an embarrassment in considering a number of cases than
in considering a single one, absolutely accurate statistics of a
large number  of  cases  might  afford valuable  practical
evidence for or against the  efficiency1 of  a homoeopathic
drug to cure, but the difficulty of attaching proper weight to
statistical evidence in medical questions must be recognized.
In view of such difficulties one need feel no hesitation in ex-
pressing an opinion while he is not prepared to  adduce facts
for the  support of it.  I think  no  practice  is  more useful
   1 The question as to how much of a medicine  should be given is
aside from the subject of this paper.   As a matter of fact, however,
the attempt to cure with similars is usually made with small doses.  If
one is disposed to look upon the harmlessness of these doses as a
practical argument in favor of homoeopathy, let him, nevertheless, bear
in mind that the harmlessness of a given treatment may have absolutely
nothing to do with the question as to its efficiency. 
              Similia Similibus  Curantur?             5

today than  one which has regard to similia  as  the  law of
cure, but which  is ready in the treatment of any case to do
what may in that case promise more of usefulness than does
an attempt  to cure; and  that no other practice offers to
medical science such a prospect of future progress as does
that which has regard to similia as the law of cure.
  Each of the words  homoeopathy and cure has attaching
to it various meanings, and I wish to specify in what sense
the words are  used in this paper.  The principle expressed
in the formula similia similibus curantur is what the word
homoeopathy etymologically implies, and that principle is the
subject of discussion  in  this  paper.   We shall  use  the
word  homoeopathy as simply implying a recognition of that
principle  as law.   We shall  use the  word cure as  synony-
mous  with the removal of disease by means which do not
affect  primarily a  cause attacking man  from  without, but
which  do so modify the vital processes in a patient as to
enable him  to resist  morbific  influences.  Cure thus  de-
fined  does not necessarily involve the  idea that a disease
whose  natural course is  of definite  duration shall, as  a
result of  curative  treatment, have its  duration  shortened.
I am aware  that  there are  those who, after long  experience
and very careful  study, have  come to believe  that no such
thing is possible as curative medicine.  I think that such a
conclusion is  premature, if the theory of  homoeopathy is
correct. 
6
Similia  Similibus Curantur?
  In  defining Poison Webster says, "The ancient Greeks
" employed the same word both for a medicine and a poison ;"
he says too, "According to the popular notion, those articles
" only are poisonous, which are capable of producing morbid,
" noxious, or dangerous effects, in comparatively small quanti-
"ties; but there is no just foundation for such a distinction."
Now, similia implies that  any curative  medicine is a poison
— that if taken  in sufficient quantity in  health, it will
produce morbid effects.
  The difficulty of inducing with drugs effects which resem-
ble in any considerable degree  those of many diseases with
which we have to deal is not to be blinked, but  I  think
that a difficulty equally great, and of much the same nature,
must  be met by any practice which attempts to cure other-
wise than empirically.  This point will be touched upon again :
let us for the present observe  simply that  the  theory  of
homoeopathy finds no  obstacle  here; the  difficulty  is a
practical  one, and  while it may  embarrass one in the  treat-
ment  of some cases, perhaps very many cases, it need not,
I think,  deter him from  regarding similia  as  law.   Some
cases  may be incurable for aught similia says.
  There  is no inconsistency in accepting the belief that  in
poisons we  have curative  medicines, and at  the  same  time
admitting that medicines  may  be  useful which  are not
curative.    If in  anaemia the  blood  has  not  its normal
amount of  iron,  and that deficiency can  be supplied by 
Similia Similibus  Curantur?
7
administering  iron, well  and good;  but, though that iron
is called medicine and not food, administering it is certainly
a very different matter  from  prescribing a poison which we
hope will by modifying the processes of the vital powers be
an  instrument of  cure.2  Chemically  acting upon the  con-
tents of  the alimentary canal, or,  by means  concerning
which similia  says nothing, removing parasites which  have
been introduced  into that canal from the  outside world is
no  more prohibited by similia than  is mechanically remov-
ing from the surface of  the  body parasites or  dust which
have  adhered to  it in  its  contact with  its  surroundings.
Under  the  same  category  come the  cleansing of wounds
and the killing of germs which  have been introduced into
them from without.  Similia does not prohibit stimulating
   2 If the  view supported by Dr.  Richard  Hughes is  correct, the
action of a medicine useful only in supplying to the system an element
which is present  in health and absent  in disease does not fall under
any  law distinct  from the laws of dieteties.  [See his Manual of
Pharmacodynamics, Fourth Edition, page 339.]    Drugs  useful in
some such way as  this may  be indefinitely many,—preparations of
lime  or phosphorus may be among them: quinine  may be one. [See
"A contribution toward our knowledge of the pathological changes in
the fluorescence of the tissues," by Edward Rhoads, M. D., and Wm.
Pepper, M. D., in the Pennsylvania Hospital Reports, Vol. 1, (1868) in
which paper are recorded some observations  upon  effects of quinine
sulphate.]   If there is a curative medicine for such cases, it will so
modify the processes of the vital powers  that the deficiency, which is an
effect of abnormal processes, will not persist. 
8             Similia Similibus  Curantur?

a patient through the  duration of an acute disease.  It does
not prohibit the  use  of palliatives : it  says  nothing  about
them.   It does not say that  morphine may not be used to
relieve one  from pain in any part of his  body, any more
than it says that  ether may not  be used to render him in-
sensible for a  surgical  operation.   It  simply  does  not
recognize  this  treatment as curative, and  no more is it.
These  statements have  been made, and these illustrations
used almost ad nauseam, but no consideration of the claims
of similia as law is complete which does not define accurately
the borders of that field within which similia proposes to
establish its claims.
   The question may be raised, In removing a parasite from
the alimentary canal do I  not cure my  patient ?   No,  you
do not, if you use the word cure with the meaning we have
fixed upon  as that which it shall have in this  paper.   Cura-
tive treatment does not affect  primarily a cause  attacking
man from without.  Your treatment is most useful, but it is
prophylactic, not curative.  In removing the parasite  you
remove the cause of whatever  disturbance  your patient's
health has been  suffering, and what would,  had it persisted,
have caused prolonged disturbance : it is  probable that
when this cause  is removed his health will  be reestablished
without any curative treatment.    Mutatis  mutandis,  the
same  may   be  said  of local treatment  in other parasitic
diseases, of antiseptic  treatment in wounds,  etc. 
Similia Similibus  Curantur?
9
   In defining the meaning which cure should have in this
paper I have not, of course, intended to repudiate accepted
definitions of that word, and under some of those definitions
treatment which removes parasites, or effects ends analogous
to such removal is curative : indeed  the etymological  mean-
ing  of  cure does  not preclude palliation or even hygiene
and nursing from recognition  as  curative treatment, but I
find no impropriety in  limiting the meaning  which cure
shall have  while considering the claims  of similia, as  we
have limited that field outside of which similia has no claims
to assert.
   Both Webster and Worcester authorize applying the word
cure  to persons or to diseases.  One hears advocates of
similia  say that  treatment  under that law  is a treatment of
patients, and not of  diseases.   The idea is, I  think, pre-
cisely correct.  This treatment does not attempt to directly
destroy those morbific agents which affect man  from with-
out,—when that can be done it is on principles  other than
the one of which similia  speaks : what it does attempt is
to effect a cure  by so modifying the processes of the vital
powers  that they shall resist morbific influences.
   Whether  in   every  case disease has   its cause  in the
external world of nature need not be discussed here. Where
such cause exhists it bears to the disease  either the relation
which the  intestinal parasite does  to the  illness which  his
presence occasions, or that which an infectious  germ does 
10            Similia Similibus Curantur?

to the disease to which it gives  rise : the direct removal of
that cause when practicable is prophylactic, and may leave
the patient in circumstances to recover.   Until that  cause
is discovered  in the  case  of a  given disease — and  a  fair
question is whether all diseases have such a cause in  the
external  world — or where  the removal of that cause is  im-
practicable, or where one is already infected in such a way
that the removal of that cause will not relieve him, is  it  not
reasonable to try to cure  under guidance of similia ? 
II.
   It is conceivable that pure empiricism, /. <?., practice with-
out regard to any facts discovered  by scientific investigation
in  the  fields of  anatomy, physiology, pathology, materia
medica,  etc., should  bring us to regard  certain drugs as
curative  in certain  cases: it might from  time  to time  hit
upon a useful application of some principle without  recog-
nizing the  principle  itself.    Grant  that one  shall have
empirically hit upon a drug which is curative  in  a particular
set of cases : his experience can throw  light  upon a law by
which we can be guided to the choice of a curative medicine,
only by  showing  the  relation  between facts  which we can
know before his curative remedy is given; for any law, if we
are to be guided by it,  states  the  relation  between facts
knowable to us, and if it is to  lead us  to the  choice of a
curative  medicine,  we must  before  selecting our remedy
know those  facts and   what  relation  they  bear to  one
another.3
   3 See Dr. Carroll Dunham's Essay, " Homoeopathy the Science of
Therapeutics." 
 12            Similia Similibus Curantur?

  Now what in any given case are these facts?  The obser-
vations of Drs. Rhoads and Pepper in the Pennsylvania
Hospital Reports for  1868 already referred to (see note 2),
whether verifiable or not, suggest the possibility of a very
wide application of some such principle as that upon which
we  give iron to supply  a deficiency in  the blood of an
anaemic patient:  they suggest, too,  an  answer  well  worth
considering to our question.  We may by scientific investi-
gation learn that certain elements contained in certain drugs
are present  in tissues during health, but absent from them
under  the  influence  of  certain  diseases.  Here,  then, we
might  have what would at least  partially fulfil  the require-
ments  of a law  of  cure  for our guidance — the relation
between facts knowable to us before  a remedy is given.  I
see no reason why we may not  hope  for indefinitely great
progress in the direction here spoken of; but I do, I think,
see reason  for believing  that  in  this  direction we  shall
never arrive at curative treatment. In supplying a deficiency
resulting from derangement  of  vital processes  we do not
render those processes normal, a requisite to cure.  Nor is
it curative, however useful, to neutralize  or remove  disease
products, abnormal processes persisting.
  I am  inclined to  agree  to the  opinion  that  the facts
between which a  law of cure would define the relation are
effects  upon the system producible on the one hand by the
disease in question, and on the other  hand by the drug or 
Similia  Similibus  Curantur?             13
drugs (taken in health)  for which it calls.4   The reason for
thinking  that it  is  in their effects  alone  that disease  and
drugs afford the knowable data of which a law of cure would
speak is that  in  either case  an agent  in the  production of
these effects  is life, and  that we  are therefore as incapable
of knowing all about the  power operating these effects as of
knowing  all  about life itself.   It  may be  proper to think of
disease as something immaterial, and of symptoms subjective
or objective, including pathological changes, as manifestations
of disease but not disease itself.  It is, however, merely a
   4 In confining our attention to the question as to a law in accordance
with which drugs are curative, we would not imply an opinion as to
whether cure without drugs  is possible: mind cure, faith cure, etc., are
what we allude to.
   We shall not discuss here the question whether it may be useful to
give drugs alternately or  mixed,  one for  one part and  another for
another part of co-existing disease  effects.  If polypharmacy is admissi-
ble, it is proper that each ingredient in a mixture should be separately
considered.
   Of the effects producible by a drug I say  when taken in health.
When one's object  in prescribing a drug is something else than to act
upon an external cause of disease, or to supply  to the tissues elements
present in health but absent  in disease, he must, it seems to me, unless
he be guided by pure empiricism, have regard to what effects that drug
is capable of producing when its action is unmodified by disease. I am
far from desirous to maintain the accuracy of all those  provings which
purport to be records of symptoms  produced by drugs, but I  think the
method reasonable which, to ascertain the effects producible by a drug,
administers it in health and observes what  as a matter of fact are its
effects.   We may ascertain these same drug effects, when possible, by 
14             Similia  Similibus  Curantur?
question of definition what we call disease, but a question of
importance is whether we can know all  about  a disease —
its prime cause, all the detailed effects of that cause, and all
about the power by reason  of which this cause leads to
these effects.   I think we cannot.  To  cure, excepting by
chance or under guidance of a law, would imply, it seems to
me,  a superhuman grasp of the subject  with  which  we  are
dealing.   However  great and  useful  our  knowledge of
disease effects unmodified by drug  effects  and of drug effects
distinguishing them from disease effects where disease and a drug have
operated at the same time.  However reasonable the method of proving
poisons upon healthy human beings, certain limitations must obviously
be placed upon its practice.  A knowledge of effects observed ante-
mortem and post-mortem in poison cases, as well as  the effects which
drugs produce in the lower animals, is as available in  homoeopathic as
in non-homceopathic practice, unless proper indications for the selection
of a curative remedy are to be found in  subjective symptoms only, a
limitation which I at present see no sufficient ground for accepting.
In short, so far as concerns unmodified effects producible by drugs, the
facts before us are the same whatever our theory of practice.
   That which experience may have taught  us  to look upon  as  the
curative effect of a drug in cases similar to the one under treatment is
not admissible among the knowable facts of which a law would  speak,
even if our belief that the drug was curative  is correct, for a law does
not particularize instances illustrative of  the principle which it states.
I would not, however, withhold  respect due to the teachings of  experi-
ence. I  recognize the propriety of following  the  dictates of  pure
empiricism where they lead to useful practice, and that experience is
the tribunal before which the claims of similia as the law of cure for
our guidance must finally be vindicated or resigned. 
              Similia Similibus  Curantur ?            15

unmodified  by disease effects, it  can, I think, never enable
us to cure, unless under guidance of a law.
   If a law of cure defines  the relation between  effects  pro-
ducible by  a  disease and those  producible by the  drug
(taken in health) which can be an instrument to its removal,
that drug must,  I  think, be  capable  of producing effects
identical with  or similar to those  of the disease, or opposite
to those of the disease, or similar to these opposites :  I see
no relation other than one of these, which the drug effects
could maintain to the disease effects.   If this view is correct,
there is, it seems to me, a fair  argument by exclusion in
favor of homoeopathy.   Let  us  consider the claim  which
each of these  relations might make to being that which a
law of cure would define.
   It is probable that no disease taken  as a whole is opposite
to any other disease taken as a whole :  health is the opposite
of any disease  and in health  is found the opposite of any
symptom.  Still it is perfectly proper to speak of one disease
symptom  as  opposite to another,  for  the word  opposite is
used with different meanings :  the symptom of feeling warm
is opposite to that of feeling cold, a too rapid action of the
heart is opposite to a too slow, the symptom of dilatation of
an arteriole is opposite to that of  contraction. When we say
that one symptom  is opposite to another, we mean that the
two  vary  in  diametrically opposite  directions   from   the
standard found in  health.   When we  say that in health is 
i6
Similia  Similibus  Curantur?
found  the opposite of  any symptom,  we  use the  word
opposite with the  meaning which attaches to it when we say
that positive is the opposite of negative, or that  good is the
opposite of evil.
   Health is opposite to  disease as good  is to evil, or truth
to  falsity.   The  analogy which  this  suggests, even  if  it
possesses no weight as an  argument, may serve to illustrate
the theories which we shall consider. As there are symptoms
opposite to symptoms while the opposite of any symptom is
found  in health,  so  there  are evils  opposite  to evils (<?. g.,
miserliness and prodigality), while  in good is found the
opposite of any  evil, —  falsities opposite  to falsities  {e. g.,
an  overstatement and an  understatement  in regard  to  a
fact), while in truth is found  the  opposite of any falsity.
To attempt to cure with a medicine which  taken in health
would  produce symptoms opposite to those present is like
attempting to remove  one  evil  by introducing the opposite
evil.  It is sometimes said in favor of antipathic treatment that
whatever life and power man has he receives from the Prime
Source of life and power,  and  that  it is  reasonable to try
with medicines to force a diseased  body into such condition
that life and health can flow into it.   The idea is, of course,
that in the appoach toward symptoms  opposite  to  those
present a point may be reached where  the condition will  be
that of the standard found in health.  I  think there is a
fallacy here.   The  analogy would be with  the  attempt  to 
               Similia  Similibus  Curantur?            17

 reform a miser by forcing him toward prodigality until  his
 expenditures were made with proper freedom and proper care.
 An effect of this  attempt might be to conceal his miserliness(
 but  I should consider  it perfectly futile  as a  means to  his
 radical reform.  A miser recognizing his miserly disposition
 may aid in its removal by leading of his own free will an outward
 life into which goodness can flow from the  Prime Source of
 all goodness, but if he is radically reformed prodigality will
 have nothing to do with the  effecting of his new life  : the
 new life he enters upon will  be in no degree opposite to the
 old  in the  sense  that one symptom  is opposite to another;
 it will be  opposite  in the sense that health  is opposite to
 disease.   The question which concerns  us at this  point is
 not  whether  antipathic treatment  can ever be  useful, but
 whether it can be curative ; I think it cannot.
   The objections to attempting to cure with a drug capable
 when  taken in  health of producing symptoms  precisely
 opposite to those of the disease in question would obtain to
 attempting to cure with a drug capable of producing symp-
 toms similar to these precise  opposites.
   There is no such thing  as a drug  antipathic in the sense
 that  it is  capable  of  producing  health, the  opposite  of
 disease — no  drug can create health : such a drug would
 be a remedy for all diseases, a universal medicine, a panacea.
  The theory of isopathy leads  directly to an  absurdity.
The  word  isopathy has  in this paper no reference  to  what 
i8
Similia Similibus  Curantur?
Dimglison defines as "the  cure  of disease  by the disease
itself  or  its products."  By isopathy  we mean the  theory
that a curative  drug should  be capable of producing  effects
identical with  those of the disease which calls for it, though
the proximate  cause of the drug symptoms is not  identical
with the proximate cause of the disease symptoms.
   If,  then,  we can exclude  as  non-curative, antipathic
drugs capable  of producing effects  precisely  opposite  to
those   present,  and drugs   capable of  producing  effects
similar to these precise opposites; and if, too, that kind of
antipathy which involves  a  panacea, as well as isopathy, is
out of the  question, I see nothing  left which can possibly
be a system of curative medicine  founded  upon law except-
ing homoeopathy :  for be it remembered  that we  expect a
law of cure to  define the relation  which the effects  produci-
ble by a drug must bear  to those producible  by the disease
which calls for it; and what can  the defined relation be, if
the effects  producible  by the drug are not identical with or
similar to those producible  by the disease, or identical with
or  similar  to  the precise opposites of the disease effects?
A  drug capable of producing  a  condition  similar  to the
opposite, health, is, if  its  effects  bear  any relation to those
of the disease  and are not similar to  the opposites of these
latter, homoeopathic; for any deviation from health in these
drug  effects involves, if they bear any relation to the disease
effects, a similarity to these disease  effects or to their oppo- 
              Similia Similibus  Curantur?            19

sites.   A drug capable of producing effects similar to disease
effects present is, of  course, homoeopathic.   If the analogy
we drew in considering antipathy is admissible as an argu-
ment (I think it is), and if we  have made no mistep, the
law of homoeopathy is not only a law of cure, if such a law
exists, but it is the only one.
  To sum up the points we have  suggested  for an argument
by  exclusion  in favor of  homoeopathy: if a law  of cure
exists, we  suspect it  must define a relation among those
represented in the  following lines;  we think that the rela-
tions  represented by  starred lines can be  eliminated,  and
that the only unstarred  lines represent the relation endorsed
by similia: —
  *Drug capable of producing effects precisely opposite to
disease effects.
  *Drug capable of  producing effects similar to symptoms
precisely opposite to those of the disease.
  *Drug capable of  producing  the  antipathic  condition,
health.
  Drug capable of producing a condition similar to the anti-
pathic condition, health, and having some relation  to disease
effects, but affording no similarity to symptoms opposite to
those of the disease.
  *Drug capable of  producing effects identical  with those
of the disease.
  Drug capable of producing effects similar to those of the
disease.
  The  difficulty of  producing drug  effects similar to the
effects of some diseases has been alluded to (page 6). Surely 
20
Similia  Similibus  Curantur?
 a degree, at least, of similarity in  effects producible by  a
 drug to those producible by the disease which calls for that
 drug is a far less severe criterion to  exact than identity with
 the  disease symptoms or with their  precise opposites would
 be, and it is no more severe, I  think, than would be that of
 similarity to symptoms  precisely opposite to those of  the
 disease.
   A enters a room blindfold and presumably ignorant as to
 the  whereabouts  of  an object  which  B has hidden.   He
 takes B's hand.   B's  endeavor is to in  no way influence  A's
 movements.  A presently leads B to where the object is.  In
 attempting to explain this phenomenon it has  been suggested
 that B  involuntarily coerces A when he would proceed in a
 wrong direction.   Whether satisfactory or not as explanatory
 of the phenomenon which has called it forth, the suggestion
 affords  an admirable illustration of one position which I
 think tenable in  regard to homoeopathy.  Those of us who
 do not feel that we have seen in practice proof that similars
 cure may still search for a law  of cure : if we essay to go
 in any  direction  other than that toward similia, reason, it
 seems to me, will not permit us to budge :  toward similia
 we may, I think, proceed without restraint.
  It is  not  my  object  in  this  paper to give a conclusive
 argument in favor of similia.   If it  were, I should  have,
among other things, to justify the analogy between cure and
radical reform, and to prove correct a view which seems to me 
              Similia Similibus  Curantur?            21

reasonable  and acceptable as to what is essential  to  such
reform. My object rather is to present some of the considera-
tions  by which I am led to think that similia is the law of
cure,  that regard to it as such  offers  to medical science a
prospect of future progress such as denial of it precludes,
and by which I am led to try to cure with similars.  Among
those considerations is  the following—that  the theory of
homoeopathy offers points of analogy, as it seems to  me,
with  what  are essentials  to  radical  reform, — points  of
analogy, too,  with some  of  the means  afforded  organic
beings for their growth in strength.
   It  is not unlikely  that  some will be reminded  by  this
analogy of  the remark made years ago that homoeopathy is
a religion, not a science.  To undertake to prove by analogy
from  dogmas as to what are essentials to radical  reform that
similars cure would, of course, be entirely unwarrantable ;  but
so far as the views concerning reform are reasonable  and
recognize principles  they may, I think, throw light upon the
question whether  it  is  worth while  to try  to cure with
similars. However proper it is to be cautious about accept-
ing the analogy as  an argument, it is equally proper to bear
in mind that truths in regard  to any two subjects will at
least  never conflict.   I  have no wish to urge an  acceptance
of the views presented in this  paper : I wish simply to offer
them, and  to let them  go for what  they are worth, and to 
22
Similia  Similibus Curantur?
remain free,  myself, to admit whatever force views counter
to them may have.
  There  is one point I should  like to speak of before pre-
senting the analogy alluded  to.  I do not think the theory
of homoeopathy at all less  acceptable because of  our not
comprehending how  a  cure can  be effected through the
instrumentality of a similar.   Do we,  or can we com-
prehend  why any effect of which a law  of nature  speaks is
such as it is?  Is  it not characteristic of a law of nature to
speak of processes or effects of a  power which we cannot
comprehend ? I quote from page 5 of " Natural  Law in the
"Spiritual World," by Henry Drummond :  "The Natural
" Laws originate nothing, sustain nothing ; they are merely
" responsible for  uniformity in sustaining  what  has  been
" originated and what is being  sustained.   They are modes
" of operation,  therefore, not  operators;   processes,  not
" powers.  The Law of Gravitation, for instance, speaks to
" science only of process.  It has no light to offer as to itself.
" Newton did not discover Gravity—that  is not discovered
" yet.  He discovered its law, which is gravitation, but that
" tells us  nothing of its origin, of its nature, or of its cause."
In the sense that Gravitation tells us nothing of the origin,
nature or cause of Gravity,  Similia tells us nothing of the
origin, nature or cause of  Cure : in the sense that Gravity is
not yet discovered, Cure would not be discovered by proving
Similia  to  be the law of cure.  If we  could comprehend 
Similia Similibus Curantur?             23
how a cure was effected  through a similar, we should, I
think,  be obliged to conclude that, though the statement
contained in  the formula, similia  similibus curantur, was
true, the truth stated was  not a law of nature.  A law  of
nature when known is something upon which man can rely
in precisely those circumstances where his  powers of com-
prehension are inadequate.
  On  page  7 of Mr. Drummond's book are these words—
"That the Phenomena of the Spiritual World are in analogy
" with the Phenomena of the Natural World requires no re-
" statement."  There is a system of philosophy which leads to
the conclusion  that the spiritual evils in our  surroundings
afford us the  opportunity of, by  resistance in temptation,
becoming freed  from the evils  which are in  us: this con-
clusion is to  me acceptable,  and analogous to it would be
the following—that in poisons are afforded  means by which
we  may be freed from bodily disease.6
  The theory of homoeopathy seems  entirely agreeable to
the belief that we are recipients of life from the Prime Source
   "This idea — that the endeavor to utilize poisons as instruments of
cure is analogous to the endeavor to utilize evils in our surroundings as
means to radical reform — is introduced here from a paper on " The
Use of Poisonous Drugs," in the New Jerusalem Magazine for March,
1883.  The idea  has appealed  to  me so forcibly as to make me feel
that those of us who have not seen what we consider positive, practical
proof that curative medicine is possible  make a  mistake, if we despair
of finding that it is so. 
24            Similia Similibus  Curantur?
of life, and, if cure  occurs, recipients  of the health which
replaces disease.  This belief  seems to  me reasonable, as
does also the belief that we  receive from that  same Source
whatever goodness replaces our evils  in  case  of radical
reform.   If  these beliefs  are  correct, man, to  be  radically
reformed, must confess his sins : the strength  to  shun  the
evils to which he inclines,  and the goodness which replaces in
him  the evils from which he is radically reformed must come
from the Prime Source of good.  A recognition of this depend-
ence and a  confession of  sins  are essentials of prayer.   It
seems  as if  one does in  taking a homoeopathic drug  that
which  is analogous to  confessing a sin.  If the question were
raised, Does not the analogy demand at this point and other
points  an isopathic drug?  I  should say I  think it  does not.
In confessing  a sin  man does  not  fully comprehend just
what his evil is : such  comprehension would be possible to
the Infinite Being alone, and He  cannot sin. In confessing
a sin  one cannot, I  think,  recognize it for just what it
essentially is.6
   6 If at this point the analogy demanded that a drug to be curative
must be isopathic, we should have, I believe, if we accepted the analogy,
to abandon the attempt to cure with similars,—or indeed to cure with
drugs at all, for  I  believe  that drugs  and disease cannot produce
identical effects.
   Would the drug be isopathic or homoeopathic, the taking of which
would be analogous to confessing a sin ?  If in confession one images
to himself precisely what his sin is, the analogy demands  an isopathic 
Similia Similibus Curantur?              25
   Our dependence upon a Source above ourselves for what
goodness is in us seems to be implied  in  the fact that the
drug.  Absolute truth in regard to a sin is unattainable by man: so far
as it is a means to his deliverance it is applied by the Infinite Being.
The truth which man applies is  necessarily imperfect.  If my view is
correct,  similia  recognizes  different  drugs  as in  different degrees
curative in the same circumstances: the greater the similarity between
the effects of a disease and those of a drug, the greater the efficacy of
that drug as an instrument of cure: the more nearly perfect the image
we attain of what a sin is, the more useful such imaging.
    Evil has in its very nature that which renders it unapproachable by
the only Perfectly Good Being.  By analogy the effects of disease or,
what would be the same, those of a drug isopathic to it would have in
their very nature what would keep them and a perfectly good being
forever apart.   Where one is  so depraved that he cannot  be reformed
the attempt to forcibly control him  is in order, and, by analogy, where
one is incurably diseased antipathic treatment may be  useful.  I think
that neither isopathy nor antipathy finds any analogue in the process of
radical reform or any place in curative treatment.
   At one extreme of three states of affairs, which are at least supposable,
we might have a  perfectly good being, and evil: these would have in
their  respective  natures what would keep  them apart.  At the other
extreme we might have those irredeemably bad, and evil:  these  would
have  in their respective natures what  would render them inseparable.
Between these extremes we might  have a being who, unlike the perfectly
good being, should fall into evil, but into evil from which he, unlike the
irredeemably  bad,  might  be delivered, and, what would I think be
analogous, into disease of which  he might be cured.   A  drug whose
effects bear  any relation to those of a  disease in question, but which
does not supply a deficiency  which that disease has caused (see note
2) must, I think, be  isopathic, antipathic (or approximately so) or
homoeopathic.  It seems to me that homoeopathy is the one system
under which we may, by analogy and exclusion, hope  for guidance  to
a curative medicine. 
26
Similia Similibus  Curantur?
Commandments,  excepting  where  they teach our depend-
ence, tell us almost, if not quite, exclusively of the  things
we are not to do,  and  the  theory of homoeopathy seems  in
keeping  with  the   principle  thus  implied.7   May  not a
homoeopathic drug  exhibit8  to what of health and strength
remains  in  the system an image of effects  to be shunned,
and  would  not this be analogous to what the Command-
ments do in  so  far  as a negative  form  obtains  in  them?
Whether cure or radical reform be the thing sought, strength
to shun  forbidden ground must come, if at all, from  that
Source  upon  which we are dependent  for all our strength.
It seems as if the  principle of which we here speak were
illustrated in  the  form of those civil laws  which, to prevent
wrong-doing,  prescribe 8 what shall  not be done, or  of the
command to a child not to do  so and so.
   7 In " Dred," by H. B. Stowe, one of the characters has been at-
tempting to support the institution of slavery by  referring to Bible
History.  " 'Well,' said Clayton, ' the greatest evidence to my mind of
the inspiration of the Scriptures is, that  they are yet afloat, when every
new absurdity  has been successively tacked to them.' "  The isolated
fact that this  negative form prevails in  the  Commandments would,
perhaps, have no significance, but there are  those who  think that a
principle is illustrated in this fact. Swedenborg says, " But the reason
why such things as relate directly to love and charity are not. com-
manded, but that it is only commanded that such things as are opposed
to them should not be done, is that in so far as a man  shuns evils as
sins in so far he purposes the goods which are of love and charity."
   8 These words exhibit and prescribe  are used in speaking of drugs:
we exhibit or prescribe a medicine. 
               Similia Similibus  Curantur?           27

   We speak of a homoeopathic drug's appealing to what of
 health and strength remains in the system : it is to what is
 good in one that we appeal, if we would  reform him, not to
 what is bad.  If as an effect of abnormal processes arterioles
 are  dilated, the aim   in  exhibiting a  homoeopathic drug
 would  not be to forcibly  contract them : it would be to
 appeal  to the remnant of health and strength that through it
 processes  which are abnormal might  be so modified  as to
 become normal.   If  this attempt  were  successful, the
 dilatation of the arterioles, which  is an  effect of abnormal
 processes, would not persist.
   The  fact just alluded to, that no attempt is made with a
 homoeopathic drug to  force a cure, corresponds with what is
 to me an acceptable feature in the theory of homoeopathy.
 We have spoken of man as a recipient of what goodness is in
 him : a  mere passive recipient,  however, he is not, for if he is
 to be radically reformed, he must be in freedom to do right
 or to do wrong; an essential to radical reformation  is that
 one should in freedom  choose to do right.   If radical reform
 could be forced upon one, the reformation of criminals would,
 perhaps, be a less  difficult matter than it is.  It is reasona-
 ble, I think, to believe that neither radical  reform nor cure
 can be forcibly induced.
  Without trials or temptations one cannot grow stronger.
Trying  experiences  are good  medicine.   An essential to
radical reform is that one  be  subjected to temptation, and 
28
Similia Similibus Curantur?
be left free  to resist or to succumb.  The attempt to cure
with a homoeopathic drug seems analogous to subjecting one
to temptation, and  at the same time  leaving  him in free-
dom.9 The power to resist in temptation, or to be radically
reformed, or to be cured of disease one can  possess only as
he receives it from the Prime Source of power.
  I said  it seemed  as if the theory of homoeopathy offered
points of analogy with some of the  means  afforded organic
beings for their  growth  in strength.   It  seems  to  be by
reason of one and the same principle that man is  strengthened
in good  by  resisting  in  temptation,  that  muscles  are
strengthened by use and that oaks are strengthened by with-
standing storms.  Men, muscles and oaks  receive  their life
and strength from the same  Source.  We  are  not, I think,
confounding   in   this paragraph a  principle applicable  in
health exclusively with one applicable in disease exclusively.
I suspect that there is a general principle, a particular appli-
cation of which is the subject under discussion in this paper,
— that to this principle a being dependent for life upon a
Source  above itself is  universally  subject, and  that  the
principle is no more suspended during  health than  are  the
  9 Swedenborg says, " For in temptation man, to appearance, is left to
himself alone;  and  yet he is not left, for God is then  most  present in
his inmost parts, and supports him." Neither here nor in note 7 do I
ask  that  Swedenborg be accepted as authority,  but are not the ideas
expressed in the quotations reasonable? 
               Similia Similibus Curantur?           29

laws of hygiene during disease.   That man often succumbs
in temptation, that muscles may be overtaxed and that  oaks
are sometimes blown down does  not, I think, vitiate what-
ever force the analogy suggested  may possess; for, however
useful poisons may be, they are  unquestionably capable of
doing harm.
   It is only after  considerable hesitation that I present to
the medical profession  the  analogy drawn  in  this paper.
The cause of my hesitation will be  readily guessed.   The
analogy  deals on  one hand with  topics upon  which  it is
certainly well, as a rule, to keep  one's views as  inconspicu-
ous as possible when those topics are not  immediately under
consideration.   Views upon these  topics are diverse, and
discussion of them is often unprofitable.   It will serve our
purpose in this paper to regard any views  expressed  as  sim-
ply opinions,  and as in  no respect points of  unalterable
belief, for the  question with which we are primarily  con-
cerned is one of opinion,  viz., whether  it is  worth while to
try to cure with similars.  I strongly suspect that the analogy
presented may  throw light upon this question;  let this be
my apology, if  one is due, for offering it.   "Nothing could
" be more false both to Science and to Religion than attempts
" to adjust the two spheres by making out ingenious points
" of contact in detail. The solution of this great question
"of conciliation, if one  may still  refer  to a problem so
"gratuitous, must be general rather than particular.   The 
30            Similia Similibus Curantur?

" basis in a common principle — the Continuity of Law—can
" alone save specific applications from ranking as mere coin-
" cidences, or  exempt them from  the  reproach of being a
" hybrid between two things which  must be  related by the
" deepest affinities or remain forever separate."   [" Natural
" Law in  the Spiritual World," p. xii.]   " Certainly I never
" premeditated anything to myself so objectionable and  so
"unwarrantable in  itself, as either  to  read Theology into
" Science or Science into Theology.   Nothing could be more
" artificial than to  attempt this on the  speculative side;
" and it has been a substantial relief to me throughout that
" the idea rose up thus  in the course of practical work and
" shaped itself day by day unconsciously." \_Ibid., p. x.]   An
attempt to prove by analogy from  " the speculative side "
that similars do or  can, as  a matter of fact, cure  would  be
altogether different from an attempt by analogy to get light
upon the questions, — Is it worth while  to try  to cure with
similars ? Is it  better today to  deny the claims of  similia
or to test  them further?
  Among them who consider it  probable that no  universal
law of cure  exists are those who think  that mercury cures 10
syphilis and that quinine cures 10 malaria.   I know no estab-
lished fact concerning the effects of  mercury upon syphilitic
   10 Here we use the word cure without reference to the particular
meaning fixed upon as that which it should have in this paper. 
Similia Similibus  Curantur?
3i
patients which  militates against the belief that similia  is the
law of cure.  One who has never read, with this question of
similia  in mind, what is said under " Physiological Action "
on pages 737, 738 and 739 in "The National Dispensatory"
[Stille  and Maisch :  1880]  may find there  much which, I
think, does not, at least, oppose the belief that similars cure.
If the suggestion, already referred to,  concerning  quinine
sulphate in Vol.  1 of  the Pennsylvania Hospital  Reports
(1868) is  virifiable, one need  not, to account for quinine's
being useful in the treatment of malarial patients,  demon-
strate a similarity between its  effects and those of  malaria.
One  in accepting similia need not  reject  the use  of these
drugs.
   While, then, I see  nothing to accept or offer  as  positive,
practical proof that similars  cure or that they do not, I am
disposed  to try to cure  with similars excepting where non-
curative treatment promises  more of usefulness than does an
attempt to cure.  I  am equally disposed, however, to urge
the importance of exercising the utmost care when the ques-
tion of fact is up, whether in a given case satisfactory  results
bear  to treatment with similars the relation of effect to cause. 
 
 
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