\l
HOMCEOPATHIC TRACT
       TRIAL   OF   DR.   PELLET

                    IN THE COUNTY OF PUKEDOM.

CHARGED WITH PRACTISING HOMOEOPATHY, AND CONDEMNED  TO BE EXPELLED
              FROM THE RANKS OF THE " REGULAR1' PROFESSION.
   It may seem incredible to men who live  under our glorious institutions of
exalted freedom, that an honest man should, at any place or time, be persecuted
for his opinions in political, religious, or scientific matters;  but alas!  the age
of persecution has not yet passed away from this earth,  and the advocates of a
new doctrine must expect to meet the bitterest enmity from their conservative
opponents.  Would that that opposition were at  all  times based upon honest
zeal!  It is not, however: it is too often the fruit of selfish interests and pas-
sions.
   A trial has lately come off in the county of Pukedom' which shows that even
in that remote and scarcely known corner of the world, all  the  evil  passions
which the human heart is heir  to, have been let  loose against that redeeming
daughter of heaven—Homoeopathy.
   Doctor Pelleteer, an honest and inquiring practitioner,  had heard of the wide-
spread fame of Hahnemann, and of the increasing persecutions which that devo-
ted martyr to the cause of truth  had  suffered; and,  being naturally inclined to
side with the oppressed, he determined to investigate  Hahnemann's doctiines,
and  not  to condemn the man until a careful knowledge of his doctrines should
have been obtained.  He read  the Organon, the Chronic Diseases; he examined
the statistical tables exhibiting  the results of Homoeopathic treatment;  he read
the journals where Hahnemann's doctrine and its application to the treatment
of disease is expounded; he compared the elegance,  simplicity and precision of
the homoeopathic  treatment of  disease  to the  filthiness and  uncertainty of the
old-school practice; and the result of his investigation was not a condemnation,
but an unqualified adoption of Hahnemann's doctrines.   Although despised at
first for his defection from  the sound doctrines and his allegiance to the absurd
importation from the land  of mysticism  and  transcendental vagaries, and even
left by some of his best families, yet nothing daunted he unfurled the banuer of
the holy  cause of truth and progress in medicine, and openly avowed  himself
an adherent of the New System.
   Not content with practising  it  for  his  own  gain,  he endeavored to serve the
cause of  truth by making converts, and succeeded so well  in his laudable efforts,
that  his  opposing brethren soon began to feel the effects of his teaching upon
their pockets.                            «
   It is scarcely necessary to say  that the vengeance and hatred of the  alloeopa-
thic physicians increased  proportionally to the reduction  of their bills, and that
thev unanimously determined to  annihilate their homoeopathic brother.
   ;                                                    13 
14
TRIAL OF DR. PELLETEER.
  On an afternoon, when he had dispensed the blessings of his art to numerous
patients, the homoeopath received an invitation from  the  County Medical So-
ciety to appear before them, and to answer a charge of .malpractice  for having
cured Eva Glutton in the space of two  minutes of violent  spasmodic vomiting,
brought on by eating excessive  quantities of fish  and  sweet potatoes, and  for
having perpetrated that cure by an  insignificant and deceitful  pellet of the  so-
called thirtieth potency of nux vomica.
  The patient having been  requested to state the  facts of  the  case  before the
County Medical  Society, testified as follows:
  That she had eaten a considerable quantity of fish, sweet potatoes and apple-
dumplings; that three hours after dinner she had  begun to vomit, and that this
vomiting had continued until two o'clock in the night with unabating violence;
that she had thought her stomach would burst  from her efforts to  vomit;  that
for the last four hours she had vomited nothing but mucus  and water;  that she
had used every means in her power to  stop the vomiting, but without  any suc-
cess; and that finally Dr. P.  had  cured her in the short space of two minutes, by
placing upon her tongue a small grain of something which had a sweet taste,
and of the nature of which she knew nothing, except that it quieted her stomach
as by a charm.
  The defendant was thus interrogated by the President of the Court in rela*
tion to that matter:
  Pres. Is it true that you deviate from the regular practice  in the treatment
of disease?
  Dr. P.  I do.
  Pres. Is it true that you  have foresworn the time-honored processes of bleed-
ing, purging, blistering, vomiting, sweating, and  the  various  other derivative
means of our noble art1?
  Dr. P.  I have.
  Pres. Is it true that you  prepare your own medicines, thereby depriving our
associates in the noble and  lucrative  trade of physicking of an  immense per
centage, which, in many cases, amounts to several  hundred cents on the dollar,
and part of which goes into our own pockets?
  Dr. P.  I have abandoned the profit* accruing from the physicking business as
an illicit gain, and prefer giving my medicines gratis.
  Pres. Is it true that you  cure diseases without giving any medicines?
  Dr. P.  I give medicines, as every homoeopathic physician does;  but instead
of giving large quantities of the crude drug, I triturate the drug with  sugar of
milk, and afterwards dissolve a portion of the trituration in alcohol, shaking the
solution well and then mixing a portion of this solution with new alcohol, shak-
ing this new  solution again powerfully, and continuing in  this fashion, making
new solutions and developing new powers of the drug ad infinitum.
  Pres. Why do you not prepare your drugs as our apothecaries are in  the habit
of doing?
  Dr. P.  Because the common processes of our apothecaries frequently destroy
the remedial virtues of many drugs, as may be  seen by boiling onions, pepper,
mustard-seed, &c, all of which lose their virtues by boiling, but keep them when
triturated, and even  manifest  them  in a much  higher degree.   Homoeopathic
physicians act upon the disease directly by means  of the dynamic power of  the
drug,  and  not  in a round-about way by poisoning the organism and breaking
down the constitution with  large doses of the crude drug.
  Pres. That will do, sir, you may take your seat. 
TRIAL OF DR. PELLETEER.
15
  The Court here adjourned for an hour;  after the lapse of which period the
President charged the members as  follows, in the absence of the defendant:
  " Gentlemen :—It is with feelings of dismay and deep sorrow that I announce
to you the melancholy fact, that the new German humbug, which  has been  so
much talked of in the newspapers  and has upset the brains of a number of the
best and most respectable members of our profession, has infected this remote
abode of sound medical doctrines, and is likely to cast a firebrand amongst us
which will consume our influence, our bank-bills, our privileges, and enkindle
a flame of horror and indignation against us in the hearts of our deluded pa-
tients.  Can we expect  to succeed in stemming the current of this new oppo-
sition ?   Would  it  be safe to expose ourselves to a shameful defeat in attempt-
ing to crush an infant, which, like  Hercules in the cradle, might prove a  terrific
giant?  Friends, I scarcely know what to advise in this perplexity.  If we could
enjoy the fruits of our imposition ten years longer, we might have succeeded in
amassing snug fortunes  and retiring from practice, leaving the field to that pest
of reformers, which it shall be my constant prayer the devil may take to himself
to all eternity, to  the great comfort of our weary and lazy souls.  It is true,
gentlemen, and we all confess it among ourselves, that we ought to be ashamed
of ourselves for the gross deception which we are constantly  in the habit  of
practising upon our patients, making them believe that we know all  about the
nature and origin of disease, and have an absolute control over the results which
we intend to effect with  our drugs; whereas we know that  we  are in the dark-
est ignorance on  all those subjects, and frequently effect much less by means
of our cumbrous and ludicrous prescriptions, than  a common peasant does with
a simple drug from domestic practice.  However,  can we yield  without  losing
caste with our patients, who have suffered themselves to be duped for thousands
of years past by our practices, and  imposing and dignified charlatanism?   Shall
we admit to those homoeopaths—the devil take their souls—that we are a pack
of dunces, as we know we are—a  gang of shameless pretenders and remorse-
less vampyres, sucking the blood  of our fellow-beings,  and chuckling  at the
good-natured simplicity  with which they suffer themselves to be humbugged by
our cunning and poisoned by our nostrums?  Shall we renounce influence and
income?  Shall we consent-to be  made the laughing-stocks of the present and
of  all future  generations?  Shall we admit that we are a parcel of gross and
beastly materialists, and that our practice is characterized by the  most  disgust-
ing filthiness,  and by any thing else which can offend the  refined feeling of a
man of education and a Christian?  We  shall have to do so after a while;  we
shall have to bid farewell to our pots and kettles, and to the  racking brews with
which we have inflicted untold  tortures upon our  deluded  fellow-beings; but
shall we not  rather continue wielding power as long as  we can, and use it to
satisfy  our insatiable appetite for  gold?  My brethren, we cannot think  of
makino- any concessions to the homoeopaths; they are  a band of determined,
industrious and conscientious inquirers after truth; they inflict pain upon them-
selves in order to ascertain the most expeditious mode of freeing their  patients
from it; and  their appeals to the  common sense of men are  so powerful and
irresistible, that they finally must  triumph over the most obstinate opposition.
But as long as we can, let us remain in possession of the wealth of the world;
and in order to accomplish that purpose let us lie and cheat, and let us unite in
giving out the homoeopaths for what we are ourselves—scoundrels, quacks and
impostors." 
16
TRIAL OF DR. PELLETEER.
   This brilliant, eloquent address was boisterously applauded by the members
of the Court, and it was decided to expel the homoeopath from their ranks.
   This  gentleman having been called  in to hear his  sentence, it was read to
him in the following terms by the President:
   " Whereas, it has been proved by your own admission, that you have ceased
to respect the sublime  leech and  the  glorious mustard-plaster; that you  have
sworn destruction to our salves and decoctions, and contemn the unfathomable
arcana of our art, which are deeper than all human  understanding; therefore
we have decided, for the dignity of our craft, that you  be expelled from our
ranks as a traitor, a dynamist and a homoeopath."
   The  homoeopath received the sentence with a smile, and left that company
of pretenders without regret.
   But so far from losing ground by his  expulsion from  the Medical Society,
his patients clung to him with so much more zeal.  The following address was
issued by them in behalf of the persecuted physician:
   " Fellow-citizens:—We have heard  with astonishment and regret that Dr. P.
has been expelled from the County Medical  Society,  on  account  of his prac-
tising homoeopathy.  It is not our intention to defend  homoeopathy for its own
sake; but whereas we can affirm, as men of honor, that our sufferings are much
more speedily,  thoroughly and  permanently relieved  by homoeopathic  means
than they ever were before by the usual mixtures and decoctions; that it is just
as pleasant to take a homoeopathic powder as it is disgusting to swallow the
common pharmaceutic  potions;  that the apothecaries now have never any bills
against us, whereas formerly we had not only to pay our doctor's fees, but also
large sums for drugs which scarcely ever did us  any  good; therefore we take
great pleasure in recommending Dr. P.'s system  to the adoption of our fellow-
beings,  and  in  urging  them  to set down Dr. P.'s expulsion  from the County
Medical Society as the result of malice, vengeance, and disappointed selfish-
ness.
                          Signed)                     P. Stormer,
                                                      F. Trtjthteller,
                                                      W. Goodman,"
                                                        And many others.


             From the Homoeopathic  Examiner, Vol. V. p. 149 J
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