THE STEPPING-STONE TO HOMOEOPATHY AND HEALTH BY E. H. RUDDOCK, M.D.
CHAPTER I
1. Homoeopathy
Introductory
This Manual is issued as a “Stepping-Stone” to the domestic practice of Homoeopathy; a few remarks, therefore, explanatory of this system of medicine, may appropriately precede its practical teachings.
Life is the noblest gift of God, and health one of its greatest accompanying blessings. To recover health when lost, and to preserve it in its integrity to the allotted period of human life, are the objects contemplated in the publication of this little volume. The reader is requested to pause a few minutes before entering on the subsequent practical details, in order briefly to consider some of the more prominent features, and a few of the advantages that would arise from the more general and extended adoption of Homoeopathy.
Early History:
Homoeopathy is a system of medicine for the cure of all curable diseases, first discovered and adopted over a century ago (A.D. 1790), by that great physician, HAHNEMANN. But we do not claim for that distinguished man the invention of Homoeopathy; he only removed the obscurity which had hitherto shrouded the subject of medicine, and unfolded to mankind a great law of nature, just as Newton discovered the principle of gravitation. Glimmerings of this science had been caught, many centuries before, by Hippocrates and others, but the illustrious Hahnemann was the first fully to grasp the principle, and to enunciate it is the law of healing and therefore of universal applicability. At first, its professors were few, and consisted of the immediate friends and disciples of Hahnemann; but, ever since, they have been steadily multiplying, so that now medical men of great intelligence and high moral principle are to be found practising Homoeopathy in every civilised portion of the globe. There are about three hundred avowed legally qualified practitioners in Great Britain; while if those who approve the system, and practise it in part or in secret, were added, the number would be far more than doubled. In the United States of America there are upwards of 10,000 practitioners, and many state-supported hospitals, universities and medical colleges.
Status of Professional Homoeopaths:
It is often represented that homoeopathic medical men occupy an inferior position to those of the old school. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The homoeopathic practitioners of Great Britain hold the same degrees and diplomas, have the same legal rank, and have passed through the same course of study, under allopathic professors, as their brethren of the old school. In some portions of the continent, and in America, Homoeopathy is practised coextensively with Allopathy. Moreover, there are many who practise.
Indirect Influence:
Homoeopathically, but have not the courage to avow it: and many others who, impelled by the influence which this system is every- where exerting, are greatly modifying their practice. Even the Lancet occasionally opens its pages to the teaching of Homoeopathy: an Allopath describes the successful treatment of nausea, retching, and vomiting, by a drop of Ipecacuanha wine in a teaspoonful of water, repeated at first every hour, and after- wards every four hours. The writer states that he was induced by the recommendation of a medical friend (no doubt a Homoeopath) to use this treatment, that he did it with the greatest scepticism, and with the fullest expectation of finding these small doses useless. Repeated successes, after the failure of lengthened trials of the usual allopathic armament, compelled him to believe in their efficacy. Indeed, Aconite, and various other of our well-known remedies, are frequently prescribed; and cases successfully treated by them are quoted in the allopathic journals. The use of single remedies, in one or two-drop doses, or even smaller, by medical men of the old school, satisfactorily proves the growing influence of Homoeopathy: especially when, as we have seen, the remedies so used are prescribed for diseases to which they are homoeopathic. The good thus effected by the discovery of Hahnemann is immeasurable. Its influence is both direct and indirect, acknowledged and unacknowledged, but always beneficent. Not only medical men, but tens of thousands of intelligent persons, in every civilized portion of the globe, confide in Homoeopathy as the best and most natural system of cure.
Homoeopathy pirated by Allopathic:
But the most convincing proof of the advance of Homoeopathy is to be found in the more popular of the allopathic works on materia medica and therapeutics, such as Dr. Lauder Brunton’s Pharmacology, Therapeutics, and Materia Medica (Macmillan, third edition, 1891), and Professor Sidney Ringer’s Handbook of Therapeutics (thirteenth edition, Lewis, 1897). In these books homoeopathic remedies are recommended by the hundred, but no acknowledgment is made to Homoeopathy or Hahnemann. And this is what constitutes the dishonesty of their action. In science and literature to appropriate the works of another without giving due acknowledgment to the real author of them constitutes piracy; and the works of the writers we have named are at once an unintentional monument to the genius of Hahnemann, and an equally unintentional monument to the writers’ own disgrace.
Homoeopathy going down?
It is true, the statement is often made by its opponents, that the new system is on the decline. “Homoeopathy is going down,” once remarked a medical man of the allopathic school. It is going down. Not however, in the sense he wished. It is sinking deep into the understandings and hearts of the people. Almost every where they are directing their attention to the subject. They try it, and in the hour of sickness confide in it; and if not conversant with the scientific proofs of Homoeopathy, they recognize in it a power to heal superior to that which they have ever experienced under the old plan of treatment.
What is Homoeopathy?
It may be advisable to answer succinctly this question before going further. Homoeopathy is a system of administering medicines for the cure of the sick, based on the fact that drugs have the power of causing in the healthy diseased states similar to those they have the power of removing in the sick. Thus quinine, which cures ague, has the power of causing attacks of fever like the ague fits; and Belladonna, which mitigates and prevents scarlet fever, produces in the healthy fever, sore throat, and a rash very like the symptoms of scarlet fever.
Homoeopathy appeals to Facts.
It is deserving of remark, that in the discovery of Homoeopathy, Hahnemann did not first conceive a theory, and afterwards seek for facts with which to uphold it. No! At starting, and at each successive step, he relied solely upon facts. What he learned was from well-observed and unquestionable facts, based upon carefully conducted experiments. His assertions were grounded upon facts, the result of patient and oft-repeated investigations. For several years he kept his discovery to himself; at the same time he was arranging and accumulating evidence founded upon facts, which was diligently collected and closely scrutinized. At last he could speak with the confidence of a man who was well assured that the statements he made were true, that underneath the superstructure of theory there was not an uncertain foundation of supposition and probability, but the firm rock of natural and immutable reality. Homoeopathy is still upheld by facts. Its foundation cannot be shaken. Its position is firm in spite of all the storms by which it has been assailed, and all the tests by which it has been proved. It is because it has stood the trial of experience that it has been preserved to the present time, and will be transmitted to the latest generations.
Single Remedy
Homoeopathic treatment is not only distinguished by its simple evolution from facts, but also by its simple exhibition of methods of cure. Only one remedy is given at a time, thus the pure action of each separate drug is ascertained, and the confusion resulting from mixing different substances in one prescription is avoided. Every remedy has an action peculiar to itself; and it cannot but happen, when several drugs are introduced into the system at the same time, that they interfere with each other. If, under such circumstances, good is effected, it is often impossible to determine which drug, or how many out of the number, have contributed to the result. Or if no good follows, and it be necessary to alter the prescription, then it must be also impossible to know what change to make, what remedies to omit, what new ones to add. Dr. Paris, a distinguished allopathic physician, says he was once told by a practitioner, in the country, that the quantity and complexity of the medicines which he gave his patients were always increased in the ration with the obscurity of their cases. “If”, said he, “I fire a profusion of shot, it is very extraordinary if some do not hit the mark.” “A patient in the hands of such a practitioner,” adds Dr. Paris, “has not a much better chance than a Chinese Mandarin, who, upon being attacked with any disease, calls in twelve or more physicians, and swallows in one mixture all the potions which each separately prescribes.” In Homoeopathy we only give one medicine at a time; its action upon the system is then simple and undisturbed; and we are no longer in doubt as to what is doing good.
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."