At the meeting in Deer Park I, a minority of one, protested against the doctrine and the principle upon which this new Materia Medica was based. I have not since that time changed my opinion; and the Materia Medica as incorporated in the Cyclopaedia of Drug Pathogenesy cannot stand, in my opinion, as the sacred books of the Bible. I do not now, and never have, believed in the method of arrangement as practical and adapted to the wants and necessities of the homoeopathic physician. In that respect I differ from Dr. Hughes when he says that he regrets that Hahnemann saw fit to put his Materia Medica into the schematic form, and perhaps that, therefore, Homoeopathy suffered. I believe, as an humble follower of Hahnemann, that he did the best thing for Homoeopathy, and that if he had not put his Materia Medica into the schematic form it would have almost died in its birth.
I differ now, have always and must always differ, from Dr. Hughes on the point. I cannot conscientiously do otherwise as a teacher and practitioner of Homoeopathy. The narrative form is extremely valuable for study. The narrative form of the Cyclopaedia is a book I prize most highly.
It is on the front shelf of my desk. I consult it constantly, but in prescribing for my patients I use the Schema, not the Narrative form. In studying for the preparation of lectures, for the working our of the points, the characteristic features of the action, and study of the, if I might almost coin a word, the Pathognomonic of the drug, I use the Cyclopaedia; but Hahnemann wanted to make it practical, and that is, I think, what the Homoeopathic profession of to-day needs. So Dr. Hughes’s paper goes on principally at first to speak of the arrangement of the Cyclopaedia.
Next he states that, in his opinion, improvement of the Materia Medica will come not from the improvement of the Materia Medica, mind you, as he says, but from exigencies. That we must have lectures upon it; it must be eliminated; we must have talks and sermons upon this Materia Medica itself, and, therefore, I wish to submit a few words on the subject-matter of Dr. Hughes’s address, rather than on the address itself.
The improvement of the Materia Medica has taken hold of the minds, I am happy to see, of many of the younger men as well as the older men in the profession, and Materia Medica clubs have been formed in various parts of our country; the Boston Club, the Baltimore Club, the New York, Materia Medica club, all having for their object the study and improvement of the Materia Medica.
Dr. Dake has very properly, and in accordance with my own opinion, sounded the keynote of his approval of the course adopted by the Boston and Baltimore Clubs in conceiving the Materia Medica. I entered heartily into that work, and I believe it to be true, as Dr. Dake has just said to you, that the characteristic symptoms of our Materia Medica will be found in the provings.
Yes, but only when the provings of a drug shall have been completed, as he himself modified his statement. There is not more than one or two drugs, perhaps, mention Lycopodium as one approximately complete, and on this of our Materia Medica are extremely complete. Most all of the drugs of our Materia Medica are extremely incomplete, and on this ground I base my objection to the improvement of the Cyclopaedia, because it threw out isolated provings.
Now, many of the most valuable symptoms to me for use in practice have been derived from my study of isolated cases of poisoning or isolated provings. A single proving, a single case of poisoning has given me most valuable indications. Symptoms for use at the beside which I consider characteristic, and which I rely upon and must continue to rely upon. Those provings have not been duplicated. These observations, indeed, have not been duplicated. I cannot use the Materia Medica which leaves them out, and consequently my manuscript Materia Medica is a large and constantly accumulating one.
I rely upon it. How, then, are we to know, except by symptoms, what to do with this enormous mass of materia medica? The making of a Materia Medica is really in its infancy; this proving of drugs is just commenced. As I said at the meeting at Atlantic City, we are laying the foundation, the ground-work for centuries of labor in proving is complete, so that we can prove a drug in every part of the body, upon every symptom, Boston and Baltimore Clubs cannot group their symptoms.
My own limited experience in proving teaches me that different conditions develop different symptoms. It is only when we have large masses of provers, over and over again, that we get the whole proof of the drug upon every part of the body susceptible to this drug action. It must necessarily be so; we cannot complete this work; it is in its infancy.
I want to say to you, and should have spoken if it sooner, that, in my opinion, the improvement of the Materia Medica must come about through its application at the bedside. Improvement in methods of provings? Yes. Improvement in the interpretation of symptoms? Yes.
When an observation comes to my hand, an isolated observation of the effect of a drug, and I test it, and the test is repeated at the beside, it fixes its value in my estimation had must do so in your. We cannot yet dispense, I will say, with clinical symptoms-I can not believe in them; but we cannot dispense with our experience obtained from the application of drug symptoms at the beside. We all of us come to rely upon them. We all of us see more or less, perhaps, doubtful symptoms. We cannot depend entirely upon the book, because I may say that no drug is yet completely understood, and se do not know what may be developed in the future. The value of what has been verified repeatedly at the beside cannot be overestimated.
If a single observation of a single individual serves me well every time, I will hold to it as a good symptoms, and my cure is homoeopathic. So I think the course taken in the New York Materia Medica Club (of which, I am sorry to say, I am a very poor member, having attended a meeting) meets with my hearty approval.
Their course is able to test the symptomatology of our Materia Medica; it is practiced at the beside, in the dispensary, in private practice, and week to week coming with “this symptom and that symptom cannot be verified at the bedside; but this symptom is always verified at the beside.” We make notes of these; we underline them in our books; we rely upon them because they have been repeatedly found to severe us well. Our improvement in Materia Medica lies largely, it seems to me, in the clinical application of it.
There is much more to say, but I will not detain you longer.
CONRAD WESSELHOEFT, M.D., of Boston, Mass.: I shall only detain you a few months. I want to make a few brief allusions to Dr. Hughes in reference to myself. He has honored me by reference to my elimination or exclusion of Cactus, referring to the method which I have employed in coming to that conclusion. Perhaps I may be wrong, but what I want to discuss is the method, or else Cactus would not have been excluded. Likely there were flaws in the method. The method was simply that alluded to by Dr. Lane, Dr. Bates and others, of comparing the results of proving-making a careful comparison of provings. It is by comparison alone-a great number of comparisons-that any true results in science can be reached.
The experiments were very painstaking and thorough. The reasons for which I threw some doubts upon the utility of Cactus was not only because comparisons of the provings gave that result, but because I also made personal provings upon it with the same result. I was willing to sacrifice my valuable person to so valuable a medicine and for the good of mankind. No I alone, but a good many of our students in Boston, have reproved Cactus a good many of our students in Boston, have reproved Cactus a good many times any very thoroughly since Dr. Ravenna, in Naples, first came out with his marvelous proving of Cactus.
If there is error in my conclusions, very likely it is owing to the difficulty of the matter, but not owing to the principle upon which it was done. Why should not I exclude Cactus on careful comparison, when Dr. Hughes takes it upon himself to deal with Natrum muriaticum in the way he does without any provings or reproving muriaticum in the way he does without any proving or reproving or comparison at all? He gives no reasons why; he has not made any comparisons or provings with Natrum muriaticum as I have done. He has made no reproving. If Dr. Hughes is justified in throwing out a medicine on such reasons as those, I think I should be justified in throwing some doubts at least upon the utility of the proving.
I have carefully compared and reproved, and spent not only days, but weeks, in doing so myself. Now, there may be a great deal of good in Cactus. I have in my possession a two-ounce bottle of tincture of Cactus, presented to me by my old friend in Brookline, who obtained it in Naples from Dr. Ravenna. He brought this to me, and was very anxious that I should prove it, and I did so. I went carefully to work to make the provings, merely to show that I could not effects from it- from twenty to thirty, forty or fifty drops of that very powerful stimulant. Those of us who have proved it have done so not only with the potencies -first two, four and five tincture graduated doses-but have carried it to the ounce, and got no other results.
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.