5th.- IT IS CHEAPER. This results from two causes – the duration of disease is shortened, and the medicine is obtained at a smaller cost. Animals treated Homoeopathically recover mush sooner. In severe disease, such as inflammation of the lungs or bowels, the patient is cured in about half the time; of the treatment having been directed against the disease, and not against the constitution, as soon as the malady is cured he is able at once to resume his accustomed duties.
To the industrious portions of the community, whose living depends upon their own exertions, the labour and produce of their domestic animals, or both, a speedy recovery is of great importance; and it is a well-known fact, that such inconvenience and want have often resulted from the injudicious and protracted appliances of the old system of medicine. In consequence of the small doses of medicine which it is found most advantageous to administer in Homoeopathic treatment, a great saving is effected in the cost of drugs.
Besides, it enables the owner of domestic animals except in rare cases to treat them himself, without being obliged to send, perhaps to a remote place, for a veterinary surgeon. As the diseases of animals are generally of an acute character, and rapidly terminate either in recovery or death, the delay thus occasioned is dangerous, and fatal results ensue in cases which would have easily yielded, had proper treatment been instituted from the commencement.
As confirmatory of the above paragraph, the following facts deserve record. Mr. Davis, the well-known huntsman of Her Majesty’s buckhounds, states in a recent number of the Field “that last season he only lost three whelps from distemper under Homoeopathic treatment; whilst previously, under the old system, he lost half his young hounds.” The value of his statement may be estimated by the fact that Mr. Davis has been connected with their royal hounds for more that half a century.
Mr. Moore, Homoeopathic Veterinary Surgeon, who has the sole treatment of all the Midland Railway horses in London, states, that during the past four years, only one death has occurred; and that during a severe epidemic, Mr. Newcombe, the agent of the Company, visited the stables of the various Railway Companies, and the illness among the horses was 12 per cent., and many deaths; whilst in the stud under Mr. Moore’s treatment, it was only 5 per cent. and no deaths-the average illness being only 2 1/2 per cent. per annum, including accidents. (Homoeopathic Review, Dec.1864.)
6th.- ANIMALS TREATED ON THE NEW PRINCIPLE ARE NOT THEREBY REDUCED IN VALUE.
Bleeding, blistering, purging, and other painful and debilitating process are discarded; thus the period of convalescence is not only shortened, or even superseded, but the patient, having recovered of the disease, immediately regains his strength, because it has not been drained out of him.
The following case of CONGESTION OF THE LUNGS, treated by Mr. Moore, on the Homoeopathic system, and reported in the “British Journal of Homoeopathy” for July 1858, shows how disease is checked at once, without wasting the life power, or reducing the constitution. “I was requested to visit a valuable horse, the property of Mr. Walter Carter, of Manchester. Having been permitted to drink copiously of cold water, whilst perspiring and exhausted after a hard days labour, he had shortly afterwards a rigor (a sudden coldness with shivering) so violent that his legs tottered under him.
Three hours after this seizure I found the following symptoms :- Pulse strong, full, and 100 per minute (the normal pulse is 36), breathing laboured, and 84 per minute (the normal breathing is 8), conjunctiva injected, eyes watery, mouth hot and clammy to the touch, etc. To have Ammonium Causticum every hour. On the following morning the pulse counted 28 in the minute, and intermitted occasionally; all the other symptoms had disappeared and he eats, drinks, dungs, and stales as if nothing had been amiss. At two o’clock of the same day the pulse had risen to the healthy standard, and had assumed the usual character; in short, the horse was ‘all right’, and resumed work the next morning.”
How different is this to the old plan of treatment! A bucketful of blood would have been drained from this horse’s veins; his strength further reduced by the painful irritation of a mustard or fly blister applied over the entire surface of his two sides; he would have been racked by setons or rowels, and his bowels severely purged by aloes. And though such means may render the horse powerless, the disease often remains unsubdued. If he escapes the knacker, and after a month or six weeks mends, and finally recovers or is sent to grass for some months to regain his flesh, it not unfrequently happens that the animal is found unequal to severe or sustained exertion, in consequence of thick or broken wind, the result, not of the disease, but of the destructive treatment to which the afflicted animal has been subjected.
7th.- IT CURES DISEASES INCURABLE BY THE OLD SYSTEM. For instance, in PLEURO-PNEUMONIA, or LUNG DISEASE of cattle, the Homoeopathic system has effected cures, both numerous and incontestible. Peter Stuart Esq., of Ditton Lodge, near Warington, says: “I have treated upwards of one hundred and eighty cows, labouring under this malady; and of these one hundred and thirty were saved by Homoeopathic treatment.”
There were other good results besides, for the same gentleman adds: “Those that died under Homoeopathic treatment, died apparently without much suffering; individuals who had cows die under both modes of treatment expressed their astonishment at the ease with which those died that had Homoeopathic treatment, compared with the state of those that died under the common system of treatment.”
As applied to human beings, Homoeopathy would put an end to the torturous and inhuman treatment so often practised on the helpless and the dying, especially on children. “Why torture a dying creature, doctor? ” were the words and remonstrance of Douglas Jerrold to his medical attendant without a few hours of his death. The doctor insisted on administering medicine and cupping when he could scarcely move in bed.
His son and biographer, Blanchard says: “we waved the fans about him, giving him air, and still, at intervals, he talked faintly but most collectedly. The dawn grew into a most lovely summer morning. At ten o’clock the patient was cupped. He could hardly move in bed, and again said, ‘Why torture a dying creature, doctor? ‘ But the cupping took no effect.” This is a sad picture. Thank God, Homoeopathy is putting a stop to the use of such inhuman means, by substituting natural and gentle appliances; such as shall conserve the life powers, and diminish, not aggravate, existing sufferings.
So in other diseases, ordinarily attended with great fatality, or wholly incurable, the superiority of the Homoeopathic system is strikingly manifest.
If these and other advantages appertain to Homoeopathy, DOES IT PROGRESS, AND IS IT LIKELY TO BECOME UNIVERSAL? Most great discoveries and improvements have been obstinately opposed at first; but have triumphed in the end. Homoeopathy, in spite of the bitterest and most unprincipled opposition, from the first announcement of it by its great discoverer and heroic propounder, has continued to spread in an ever-increasing ratio, till now its boundaries are the boundaries only of the habitable globe. Wherever modern civilisation has penetrated, Homoeopathy, which its countless blessings, has followed in its track.
If it could not be destroyed in its early infancy, there is little to fear for it now that it is grown to the proportions of a giant. The public are everywhere embracing the new system. And though the public might have been deceived on its first introduction, such deception could not continue to be practised. Deception is such matters cannot last long. Nearly all its present adherents have been converted from the old system, through experiencing or witnessing the superior advantages of the new system, in spite, as it were, of those deep-rooted prejudices which it is difficult entirely to discard.
Thousands of families, on the other hand, are being reared up under Homoeopathy, who have never espoused, and probably never will, any other system. The predilections of such will be in the right direction, and they will become its consistent and unwavering advocates. Judging, then, of the future by the light of the past, and believing the saying that “truth is mighty and must prevail,” we are led to the inevitable conclusion that the doctrines of Hahnemann will ultimately penetrate and pervade all lands, and become the exclusive mode of curing disease.
LIST OF MEDICINES FOR INTERNAL USE With the dilutions and English names.
NAME OF THE MEDICINE DILUTION ENGLISH NAMES
1. Aconitum Napellus 1 Monkshood
2. Ammonium Causticum 1 Caustic Ammonia
3. Arnica Montana 1 Leopard’s Bane
4. Arsenicum Album 3x White Arsenic
5. Belladonna 1 Deadly Nightshade
LICENTIATE OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS; MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS; LICENTIATE IN MIDWIFERY, LONDON AND EDINBURGH, ETC. PHYSICIAN TO THE READING AND BERKSHIRE HOMOEOPATHIC DISPENSARY.
Author of "The Stepping Stone to Homeopathy and Health,"
"Manual of Homoeopathic Treatment". Editor of "The Homoeopathic World."