Undoubtedly the appearance of a structural alteration in the course of disease introduces a new order of events, sets in action new combinations of forces, and creates disturbances which must be reckoned with, even as mechanical accidents of the Pathological processes. But always behind the Statical lies the Dynamic condition; underneath the structural forms are the active changes which give them birth, and stretching far beyond the limits of Pathological Anatomy, and pervaded by the actions and interactions of multitudinous forces, there is a region teeming with manifold forms of disease unconnected with structural change and demanding the investigation which it would abundantly reward. It is in this mysterious and fertile region of dynamic pathogenesis that we come face to face with the primitive manifestations of disease, and learn how much knowledge from all sources is needed to understand it aright; it is here that we see how, without the help from Physics, Chemistry, and Biology, collecting, converging, and meeting in a common light, no single problem in disease can be completely solved; it is here that we are made to comprehend how the nature of a Pathological product cannot be determined by its structural character, but by the life-history of the processes of which it is only a partial expression; it is here that we observe how, in therapeutic experiments, the laws of the race are conditioned and even traversed by the laws of the individual; and it is here that we discover how clinical medicine is to become a science, and how she is already, beyond all question, at once the mother and the mistress of all the medical arts.”
(It is pleasant to find Dr. Clifford Allbut following in this direction his eminent predecessor. “Mere observation of disease,” he said in his inaugural lecture at the Middlesex Hospital School in 1900, “and morbid Anatomy have taken us almost as far these means can do. We must track our morbid processes in their earliest dynamic irritation, so as to arrest them at these stages.” (BRIT. MED. JOURN., Oct. 6, 1900)).
Hughes was a great writer and a scholar. He actively cooperated with Dr. T.F. Allen to compile his 'Encyclopedia' and rendered immeasurable aid to Dr. Dudgeon in translating Hahnemann's 'Materia Medica Pura' into English. In 1889 he was appointed an Editor of the 'British Homoeopathic Journal' and continued in that capacity until his demise. In 1876, Dr. Hughes was appointed as the Permanent Secretary of the Organization of the International Congress of Homoeopathy Physicians in Philadelphia. He also presided over the International Congress in London.