MY friend, professor Helmuth, presents to this Congress a plea, just and able, of course, as well as eloquent, in behalf of surgery as an indispensable force in the Homoeopathic school. The title of my paper, however, whilst in no way impugning his position, assumes the converse view, as equally just and even more essential.
The special field of homoeopathy, viz., Chronic Diseases, owing to insufficient obedience to the tenets of the Founder, having been largely relegated to surgery, we are being hurried along to practical oneness with the palliative school; and our testimony to curative medicine grows, I fear, more and more feeble.
“Distinct and commanding1” Less than this, I cannot for one moment admit, as the true status of our God-given system; and must demand for it, and for its study, universal recognition as such.
The Civil War played an important part in American medicine; firstly, by abstracting from ordinary practice and teaching the bulk of the surgical talent of the country; secondly, by the intensification of surgical enthusiasm and skill, in connection with a large military experience; and thirdly, by the initiation of a characteristic surgical talent of the country; secondly, by the intensification of surgical enthusiasm and skill, in connection with a large military experience; and thirdly, by the initiation of a characteristic surgical epoch, with imperious fashions and some fads of its own, on the return of peace. (this epoch, further stimulated by the Franco-Prussian war, now involves the whole civilized world.).
The effect of all this upon Homoeopathy has been almost revolutionary. Our surgeons, in the army and navy, were numerous, despite hostile regulations. These, upon returning to civil life, observed with indignation the decadence of anatomy and surgery, and of the scientific branches in our colleges, and bent their energies to their rehabilitation. Disruption of the faculties, reorganization and reform were the immediate and general results; and from that time our school has herein maintained, as the very least, a parity with the senior branch of the profession, this, also, having passed through a similar travail.
This happy conclusion, so creditable on our part, and so important, has not, however, proved an unmixed good to us. Nay, so far has the pendulum swung in the new direction that those of us who helped to set it in motion, with unaffected loyalty to Homoeopathy and to its founder, may fairly take counsel with conscience, and ask ourselves if this revolution be not tinctured with elements of retribution. Of old, surgery did obeisance to the genius of Homoeopathy, in our colleges and societies; now, it would almost seem, it is largely busy in trying to snuff her out!.
The loyalty of her true adherents of the American Institute is assertive, but to many this whole subject is but matter for the merest toleration, as one tolerates a demented patriarch, who must soon pass away and cease from troubling the now active generation.
The loyal spirit has, I believe, succeeded in putting the profession on record as demanding that the “Institutes of Homoeopathy,” including the Organon of Hahnemann, shall be taught in all our colleges. Yet how is this demand complied with? How? by thorough drill, beginning with the Freshman year, maintained in the Junior, and enforced and perfected in all the practical departments throughout the senior year, and in the post graduate curriculum, to which all Allopathic converts must needs look? Nay-not a bit of it?
Homoeopathic Institutes, being confused with the methods of the Old School-as if these were equally important (sometimes, indeed, and therefore called “Methodology”); These sacred truths of which we are the stewards, are cast, as an inert fragment of obsolete history, into the arena of the students’ novitiate, alone; and the post-graduate, as well as the senior, is, above all, not permitted to waste his precious time with them, or their teachers, at all, or to abate his attendance upon surgical and special sub-clinics, a single hour, for their sake.
The common complaint of both, in the East and in the West, is, that on leaving the Homoeopathic college, they feel themselves “utterly incapable of the systematic and thorough study of a Homoeopathic remedy.” This, I personally know.
A faithful teacher of Homoeopathic Institutes may have succeeded in germinating the genuine seed in the minds of the freshmen, all unprepared and unfit as he has found them (since the highest type of medical intellect is needed for its just appreciation and culture).
But in the succeeding years this seed is too often found to have been sown by the wayside, where the fowls of the air find and devour it, in its germinal immaturity; or, among the thorns of the semi-allopathy which spring up and choke it, as if through deliberate purpose. Indeed, if the second and third and post-graduate years had been planned for this obliteration of Hahnemannism, the result could scarcely be more complete. Our grand old man, Dr. Hering, if yet alive, would not hesitate, me thinks, to apply the moral of the parable, and say, “This is the work of the devil!”.
Indictment of the present, however just, can, however, do no good, unless the way out of its errors can be shown. A long intimacy with Hering and others of our “old guard,” seems to emphasize my duty here. Permit me, therefore, to attempt this task. My first remedy has already been hinted at, viz., the study of Homoeopathic Institutes continuously, throughout the three or four undergraduate, and also the post-graduate years!
All the chairs in our colleges should he committed to faithful support of this programme, whilst neglecting nothing belonging specifically to themselves. With the adoption of the four years’ curriculum, no plea of “lack of time” can be admitted, in the future, at least. Unfaithfulness to Homoeopathy alone can account for its neglect hereafter.
Secondly, the science and art of Homoeopathy must receive a logical classification in order for purpose of parallel and progressive study and teaching, in regular form. The intrinsic difficulties of this work heretofore have, indeed, been the sufficient excuse for much of the neglect here indicated, the reasons for which are evident, and need to discussion here. I offer the following suggestions in the hope of giving help, such as the hard experience and study of the pat thirty-eight years, my Homoeopathic period, based upon an original Allopathic education and practice of some years, have brought to myself.
Such a “classification in order” may be thus stated:.
PART I.-Hahnemann’s Organon, divided into chapters, according to general subjects. This reduces the mass of profound discussion to a simple and orderly arrangement, easy to study, and agreeable to read; Wesselhoeft’s edition, modified, being the preferred text. This should be studied in every year, in a continuity of evolution, by the parallel use of the following parts; that is, the several parts should be so taught, as so enforce, from their several standpoints, the principles laid down in the Organon itself; and in like manner, the other branches of medicine should be taught in the same spirit, and with the same tenacious purpose, from year to year.
PART II.-Aetiology.
PART III.-Symptomatology; Physiological; Pathological; Diagnostic; Pathognomonic; Pharmacodynamic;; Prognostic; Therapeutic. Also, Dietetic; Curative; Toxical; Pathogenetic; Surgical.
PART IV.-General Pharmacodynamics; i,e, the philosophy of drug-action, with reference to primary, secondary, and the more remote evolution of drug-effects; and in assimilation with the known development of “natural diseases,” in the order of febrile action, and typified in every paroxysm of an intermittent fever. Provings, rearranged thus, become a “speaking picture!”.
PART V.-Special Pharmacodynamics; the study of the individual provings, that is, of the Materia Medica proper, in accordance with Part IV. and with the aid of such classifications and generalizations as have proved helpful in the work of selection and individualization.
PART VI.-Clinical Therapeutics; the verification of provings at the beside; thus, the discovery of “characteristics” of the drugs, aided by the observation of repeated cures of symptoms not yet recorded in any proving. Besides, the illumination of pathology itself, and of its relation to various drugs, and hence the interpretation of symptoms-both of natural and of drug diseases. This part, in other words, has to do with the Homoeopathy of experience.
Let these six parts be now successively presented in detail.
The Organon.
PART I.-Chapter I.-The “Introduction.” Pages 17 to 46, called by Hahnemann, “A Review of Physic,” with old-time historical intimations of Homoeopathy, Criticisms, with Notes. Pages 47 to 63.
Chapter II.-The Functions of the Physician. Pages 65 and 66, Aphorism 1 to 6.
Chapter III.-The Autocratic Vital Force, the real seat of life and of disease, and the only proper Object of Treatment; its Sufferings, i,e, so-called “Symptoms,” Cure. pages 67 to 70, 7 to 18.
