Homoeopathic Success:
In respect to successful treatment, Homoeopathy is immensely superior to Allopathy. Patients who have been under both systems are best able to judge of their comparative merits, and such almost always give the palm to Homoeopathy.
Is the Public a competent judge?
It may be said, the public are incompetent to judge of such a matter; but it is not so; and although they might for a time be deceived, the deception could not last long. In matters affecting their personal interest, the public are remarkably shrewd, and seldom fail to arrive at a sound conclusion. Not only the general public, but also physicians among the most highly educated of the profession, after due investigation and experiment, have renounced the old for the new system of practice; while some of the most profound scholars and greatest nobles in the land are Homoeopaths. The clergy and ministers of all denominations are rapidly embracing the system. So, we venture to affirm, will all those act who have the moral courage to inquire, investigate, and think for themselves.
Homoeopathy and Cholera:
The superiority of homoeopathic over allopathic treatment applies both to acute and chronic diseases. Under the old system, when Cholera prevailed in this country, two out of every three patients were LOST; on the other hand, under Homoeopathy, two out of every three were SAVED. A medical inspector appointed by the Board of Health to investigate cases of Cholera, one who was always strongly opposed to Homoeopathy, thus wrote to one of the surgeons of the London Homoeopathic Hospital:
“I need not tell you that I have taken some pains to make myself acquainted with the rise, progress, and medical treatment of Cholera; and that I claim for myself some right to be able to recognize the disease, and to know something of what the treatment ought to be; and, that there may be therefore no misapprehension about the cases I saw in your hospital, I will add, that all I saw were true cases of Cholera, in the various stages of the disease; and that I saw several cases which did well under your treatment, which I have no hesitation in saying would have sunk under any other.
“In conclusion. I must repeat to you what I have already told you, and what I have told every one with whom I have conversed, that, although an Allopath by education, principle, and practice, yet, were it the will of Providence to afflict me with Cholera, and to deprive me of the power of prescribing for myself, I would rather be in the hands of a homoeopathic than an allopathic adviser.”
Constipation:
Take a further illustration of the superiority of Homoeopathy, as seen in the treatment of Constipation of the bowels. Allopathy cannot cure this complaint. It can only give aperients or purgatives; and these, so far from removing the evil, in the long run generally aggravate it; whereas, by a little perseverance in the use of her remedies, Homoeopathy cures it, even in the most inveterate cases.
Statistics:
We confidently refer, in a proof of the success of homoeopathic treatment, to the statistics of the various hospitals and dispensaries conducted on homoeopathic principles in this country, on the continent, and in America. We have not space here to record even a selection from that accumulated evidence which has now become so voluminous. Numerous volumes of homoeopathic clinical information, and the reports of the results of the practice of our hospitals and dispensaries, are open to the inspection of all; for Homoeopathy, differing in this respect from every system of quackery, courts investigation. Nothing is considered more inimical to its interests than concealment. Facts so bear out its inherent truth as to carry with them their own irresistible credentials, and these we are confident will eventually remove every impediment to its general study and universal practice.
Gentle Measures:
Pass from stern statistics to more pathetic associations. Contrast the chamber of the allopathic with that of the homoeopathic patient. In the former, there is the repulsive leech, the blister and its accompaniments sores, salves, and dressings the emetic and its disagreeable results purgatives, and their disgusting and hurtful consequences. Think of these as invading the last and most sacred hours of life, and being often inflicted on helpless infants and terrified children; as not merely unnecessary, but pernicious beyond calculation; as often destroying, or deadening, by such harsh appliances, or stupefying drugs, the very life intended to be saved! Turn now to the chamber of the homoeopathic patient. He is very ill, but the law of self-preservation is respected, and the “life’s blood is spared.” No leeches or blisters are used; the linen is clean, and the air is sweet; for there has been no emetic, no purgative, or salivation. Perhaps the only article indicative of sickness is a glass or bottle of medicine, inoffensive alike to both taste and smell, but potent to mitigate the sufferings of the patient, and restore him to health.
Jerrold’s Death-bed:
“Why torture a dying creature, doctor?” were the words and remonstrances of Douglas Jerrold to his medical attendant within a few hours of his death. The doctor insisted on administering medicine and cupping, notwithstanding extreme exhaustion. His son and biographer, Blanchard Jerrold, says, “We waved the fans above 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 puts and end to these inhuman means, by substituting natural and gentle appliances, such as shall conserve the life-powers, and diminish, not aggravate, existing sufferings.
Homoeopathic Medicines are Specific:
An important, advantage attaching to our medicines is, that they only act on the diseased parts. Thus, in affections of the brain, the bowels are not operated on by purgatives; or the liver, mouth, and bones by Mercury; or the skin by blisters; but such substances are administered as have been proved to operate directly on the brain itself, and upon the brain in that particular diseased condition which exists when it is brought under treatment. So in diseases of the chest; the bowels, liver, and skin are undisturbed, and only that part acted on which is diseased. This is a great advantage. Under such treatment disease cannot be produced in healthy parts, and the disappearance of the primary disease is a sign that it is absolutely cured.
Homoeopathy and Children:
Our medicines are not disagreeable. This is an advantage which every mother who knows that her children have a natural and proper disgust of old physic, 1 “Many a medicine given to children is so horrible that a medical practitioner ought to be present to count the pulse, and to watch the countenance during its administration, just as is properly the case at a military flogging.” can appreciate. Adults swallow nauseous draughts and pills in the hope of deriving benefit therefrom; in the case of children, however, the prospect of benefit is often far more than counter-balanced by the horror and disgust which the abominable compound excites. And, further, the diseases of children are influenced most strikingly and favourably by homoeopathic medicines; and every practitioner has often received the warmest thanks of parents from whose children the most alarming diseases have been removed as by a charm.
Experimental Practice
We do not try experiments with our drugs on the sick. The practice of trying the effects of drugs on persons suffering from disease is cruel and dangerous: cruel, because it torments the patient already suffering from disease; and dangerous, because it often undermines the constitution, and interposes obstacles to that natural tendency to recovery which Infinite Goodness has interwoven with life. Homoeopathic drugs, on the contrary, are always tried on medical men and their friends when in health, in repeated and sufficiently large doses to ascertain their properties before administering the smaller and attenuated doses, of such medicines to the suffering.
Preventive Medicine:
But Homoeopathy is preventive as well as curative. Its medicines have the power of preventing, or arresting at the very outset, many diseases, such as Colds, Influenza, various fevers, Cholera, etc. In the practical portions of this work it will be found that we have suggested preventive as well as curative measures.
Future of Homoeopathy:
It may be asked, “Will Homoeopathy ever become universal?” We reply, most great discoveries and improvements have been obstinately opposed at first, but having truth for their basis, have triumphed in the end. So Homoeopathy, in spite of the bitterest and most unprincipled opposition which it has received from the very commencement, has continued to spread in an ever- increasing ratio, so that now, wherever the sun shines, and the light of European civilization has penetrated, and suffering humanity is found, Homoeopathy is acknowledged and embraced as one of the greatest and most humane of modern discoveries. We have an impressive illustration of this in the case of Hahnemann, the first expounder of Homoeopathy: he was cruelly persecuted, and finally driven an exile from his native Saxony; yet now, the very city of Leipsic from which he was banished is adorned by a monumental statue, in bronze, which perpetuates his memory. If Homoeopathy, then, could not, in its early infancy, be destroyed, it has little to fear now that it has grown to the proportions of a giant. Nearly all its present adherents have been converted from the old system through experiencing or witnessing the superior advantages of the new, in the face of those deeply- rooted prejudices which it is difficult entirely to discard. Thousands of families are now being reared under Homoeopathic influences, who have never espoused, and probably never will espouse, any other system. The tendencies of such persons will be in the right direction, and they will become its consistent and unwavering advocates. Judging then of future by the light of the past, and believing the saying, “Magna est veritas, et prevalebit,” we are led to the inevitable conclusion that Homoeopathy, founded as it is upon truth, upon an immutable natural law, will ultimately become the exclusive and universal mode of curing all diseases which are curable by drugs. 1 For terse and telling arguments in favour of Homoeopathy the reader is requested to peruse the following tractates: “The Practical Test,” “Scarlet Fever,” “Measles,” “Burnett’s Fifty Reasons for being a Homoeopath,” etc., and the series of Homoeopathic League Tracts. (See list at the end.).
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."