Homœopathy : its nature and relative value / by Archibald Reith ; with an appendix by D. Dyce Brown.

  • Reith, Archibald.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Homœopathy : its nature and relative value / by Archibald Reith ; with an appendix by D. Dyce Brown. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    pernicious system; and, according to the confessions ol its own adherents, does more harm than good. What else could be expected from a system which attacks healthy organs by drugs, in order to cure diseased ones, thus pro¬ ducing two diseases instead of one ? Homoeopathy, on the other hand, acts only on the dis¬ eased organs. In accordance with natural indisputable laws, the dose administered, while it influences the affected part, is powerless elsewhere. If the medicine selected be not suited to the case, no effect follows its administration, either on the disease or other parts. If, again, the symptoms be increased by the medicine, it is a proof that the proper remedy has been chosen, but that it has been given in too large a dose. An Allopath, when he finds a medicine pro¬ duce an aggravation of symptoms, contents himself with the unscientific idea that it does not agree with his patient, and accordingly suspends its administration ; while a Homoeopath infers that the proper medicine has been given, but in too great a quantity : he, therefore, reduces it until he reaches the curative dose. He thus at the same time avoids injury and effects good. In the former case, the doctor does not know what he is about: he prescribes at random, without any rule to guide him. In the latter, the doctor proceeds on a definite, well-ascertained plan, guided by the law of similars. Homoeopathy is as much a natural law as the ordinary physical laws of the universe; and in most cases, where disease is curable by natural means, this law will guide with more or less certainty to the remedy. The principle of Homoeopathy has been recognised from the earliest times. It was a saying of Hippocrates, the Father of Physic, that some diseases are cured by medicines which produce similar effects, and others by medicines which produce opposite effects. The following is a Homoeo¬ pathic passage from his works ; “ Give the patient a draught made from the root of mandrake, in a smaller dose than c
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