MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN,.
The subject I have chosen for my few remarks to-night is “The Challenge of Homoeopathy.”.
Homoeopathy is still, to judge by the number of practitioners who practise it openly, the “ugly duckling” of the medical profession. It is rather an old duckling now, but very much alive in spite of the rough treatment it has received. Many hard but so far ineffectual blows have been given to it, but it has survived them all, and as time passes on, its apparent ugliness is being questioned more and more by practitioners of the so-called “orthodox” school.
Eventually, for reasons which I shall attempt to put before you, a great majority, if not the whole of the profession, will acknowledge that here in Homoeopathy we have no ugly duckling but a beautiful creation, and then the chief regret will be, that its beauty, the beauty which belongs to all natural laws, did not gain universal recognition at an earlier date.
Unfortunately there is little prospect of any of us here living long enough to see this millennial transformation, but there are many indications at present, and there is every reason to believe, that in the course of time it will come. We are all striving after truth and knowledge. We are all therefore, I hope, endeavouring to keep an open mind. As the celebrated William Harvey once said many years ago:.
“True philosophers, who are only eager for truth and knowledge, never regard themselves as already so thoroughly informed but that they welcome information from any source, nor are they so narrow-minded as to imagine that any of the Arts and Sciences transmitted to us by the ancients are in such a state of forwardness and completion that nothing is left for the ingenuity and industry of others.”.
There is always this great need for the open mind or, in other words, this great need to be preserved from, and to continually struggle against, the acquisition of the bigoted mind. “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good” is still as necessary an admonition to-day as it has always been.
Before I begin to delve deeply into my subject, I would like to quote and associate myself personally with the words of Thomas Scott who, also many years ago, said :.
“For myself I here publicly confess that I will, to the end of my days, acknowledge it as the greatest obligation that any person can confer upon me, if, in the spirit of meekness he will point out to me any error or enthusiastical delusion into which I have fallen and by sufficient arguments, convince me of it.”. So with apologies to you for this rather lengthy introduction I shall now “get going.”.
The first question which naturally arises is, “What is Homoeopathy ?” A clear definition must be obtained and retained, for there are many who dismiss the subject from their minds simply because they do not know and understand what Homoeopathy really is. They have preconceived ideas about it or perhaps they belong to the group of the humble who say : “So-and-so, who knows far more than I do, says Its a lot of nonsense. Why should I bother myself about it,” and so they ignore it; save themselves a lot of mental anguish; save themselves from a lot of hard work and, if there is any truth in Homoeopathy, deprive their patients of what is their natural right–the right to be cured.
Homoeopathy may be defined as : That system of therapeutics which asserts that diseased conditions are cured by agencies, which in the healthy individual, produce similar symptoms to the symptoms of the diseased condition.
Note particularly the word “similar.”.
That is a definition of Homoeopathy, or if you prefer the term, “Homoeo-therapeutics.”.
It might be enlightening at this stage to consider some of the things that Homoeopathy is not.
Homoeopathy is not the administration of drugs in small doses. Homoeopathy is not the administration of particular drugs for particular diseases. There are no specifics in Homoeopathy. Homoeopathy is not the treatment of disease by the treatment of individual symptoms, and last, and, as usual, by no means least, Homoeopathy is not, when honestly practised, an easily acquired system of therapeutics. On the contrary, and I am sorry to have to say so, it is at the present time probably the most difficult branch of the science and art of medicine in existence.
At the beginning of my paper, some of you may remember that I used the words “the so-called orthodox school.” Now by “orthodox” I wish it to be understood that I mean the treatment of disease in a way which is not homoeopathic. A convenient, by no means precise, definition of such treatment has been termed allopathic, and at one time it was the universal custom to divide physicians into two definite groups, the allopaths and the homoeopaths.
These two groups spent much of their short life on this earth in mutual recriminations. The allopaths threw stones at the homoeopaths who picked them up and threw them back again at the allopaths. This state of affairs, so long as it was confined to academical argument, was productive of much good, but unfortunately the personal element soon crept in. Mutual animosity increased, and eventually a state was reached, similar to that which prevailed when “the Jew had no dealings with the Samaritan.” I hold no brief for either school in this respect.
It is a thing to be deplored that the followers of any science should descend to such a level, but as a believer in the homoeopathic hypotheses I can truthfully say that I have never allowed personal feeling to enter into my criticism of orthodox medicine. I must confess, however, that before I became convinced of this truth, I was guilty, in my ignorance, of saying some very hard things about Homoeopathy and its practitioners in general and particular.
Probably many, if not all of you here to-night, are at present in this latter state, but I for one, having once as it were lived in a glass house myself, do not propose to throw stones at you. But I would venture to give you this piece of advice: See to it that the stones you throw have behind them the conviction of a sincere belief and are backed up by facts which have been proved to be true. See to it that there is no hidden or personal animosity in your criticism, in other words, let it be criticism which will tend to the advancement of our noble art of healing, Let it be as destructive as you can make it so long as it is backed up by the facts capable of being proved and re- proved if necessary.
When the average orthodox physician begins to take an interest in Homoeopathy, the first thing that usually occurs to him is the apparent absurdity of it. How can such infinitesimal doses possibly have any effect ? The whole thing must obviously be nonsense. So having reached this quick conclusion, he shuts the book, or his ears, and so far as he is concerned that is an end to Homoeopathy for him. Let us take an imaginary but by no means improbable case.
Let us suppose that our imaginary orthodox physician is also an enthusiastic horticulturist. Having shut his book on Homoeopathy he goes out in rather an irritable frame of mind to his greenhouse. It is a summer evening and because it is summer and because it is evening he has had a little time for reading. It is also raining. The air is damp, otherwise he might have been tempted to have a stroll in the garden, so instead he goes into the greenhouse.
Walking slowly round but, as a good horticulturist, refraining from touching anything,he notices a new plant, a plant called Rhus toxicodendron, kindly sent to him that very afternoon by “so-and-so” who lives at number “so-and- so” and whose interest are also horticultural. He remembers that he was told by “so-and-so” that on no account must he touch this plant with bare hands, but being a rather contrary individual, he does touch it, just once, with his forefinger. It does not seem to him to be a very interesting plant, so after a brief inspection he passes on, and there for the present we shall leave him.
Next morning let us return to our imaginary friend. Surely this cannot be the same individual. He is still bad. His face and eyes are swollen and oedematus with small vesicles showing here and there. He is very depressed, complaining bitterly about the restless night he has had. All his joints are painful and, strange symptoms this, he tells us that he has had to keep changing his position al night in order to get relief. He is quite definite about this. Moving from one position to another gave him a temporary relief from pain.
His mouth is dry, his tongue is dry and brownish with a peculiar red triangular tip. At first he has difficulty in speaking but later his voice improves and as he keeps changing his position he waxes eloquent about his friend “so-and-so” who lives at number “so-and-so” and who was such a confounded idiot as to send him a specimen of Rhus toxicodendron.
As we retreat with expressions of sympathy his language becomes more and more theological ! He knows, however, that he is suffering from Rhus poisoning, but being very obstinate he has already forgotten that he was warned not to touch the plant with bare hands.
