Homoeopathy unveiled : or, Observations on Hahnemann, his doctrines and treatment of disease / by William Perrin Brodribb.

  • Brodribb, William Perrin.
Date:
1851
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Homoeopathy unveiled : or, Observations on Hahnemann, his doctrines and treatment of disease / by William Perrin Brodribb. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    all power of calculation, and to preclude all possibility of knowing what quantity of any medicine was given, or whether any was really given at all. With the inconsistency moreover peculiar to such minds, he be- lieved that by these means he developed new powers in his remedies, and thereby rendered them more active and curative. By a false principle of reasoning, every change for the better in any complaint of his patients was attributed to the suitableness of the dose : while on the other hand, every aggravation of the disease that took place, was considered by him to be a proof of its excessive magnitude, although given in precisely the same quantity. Under the influence of this belief, which distoSed and ruled his mind, he sometimes resorted to the practice of olfaction,* or smelling to a few globules, that the emanations proceeding from them might be inspired. At other times he directed them to be held in the hand for some minutes, that their curative power might be absorbed through the skin. On some occa- sions he would not give a second dose, until the former had spent all its power, believing that many remedies acted for weeks or even months. Who does not see in all these fancies, marks of a disordered imagination? and that the visions and illu- * “ If the patient is very sensitive, and it is necessary to employ the “ smallest dose possible, and attain at the same time the most speedy “ results, it will he sufficient to let him smell once to a phial that con- “ tains a globule the size of a mustard seed, imbibing the medicinal “ liquid attenuated to a very high degree. After the patient has “ smelled to it, the phial is to be recorked, which will thus serve for “ years, without its medicinal virtues being perceptibly impaired.” (“ Organon,” p. 298.)
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