The influence of homœopathy on general medicine since the death of Hahnemann / by R.E. Dudgeon.

  • Robert Ellis Dudgeon
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The influence of homœopathy on general medicine since the death of Hahnemann / by R.E. Dudgeon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    23/40 page 23
    ana the “ exact opposite” of a sound argument against homoeopathy, I believe few will be disposed to disagree with me. The old nursery riddle, “What is likest to a cat looking out of a window?” with its answer, “ A cat looking into a window,” might have taught Dr. Moxon that likeness, so far from always involving the idea of identity, sometimes coexists with opposition. The con¬ fusion in the learned lecturer’s mind on the subject of likeness reminds us of the intelligent African who declared Csesar and Pompey to be “ bof bery like, ’specially Pompey.” The impossibility of answering such argu¬ ments seriously must be my excuse for departing from the grave style which ought to characterise your presi¬ dent s address. But even the wise Solomon admits that folly may sometimes be treated homceopathically. Dr. Moxon’s arguments, however, are the wisdom of Solomon compared with the way in which homoeopathy has always been treated in the medical societies, whenever the subject lias been brought before them. All pretence of argument is eschewed, and the evening is passed agreeably in the recital of stories about homoeopathy, of the “ cock and bull” order. The latest instance of this is fresh in all your memories. . It happened in the youngest of the metropolitan medical societies, the Clinical Society, which was established a few years back on superfine scientific principles. The members of this society had a lively discussion on homoeopathy a short time ago, which, of course, as they were all of one mind on the subject dis¬ cussed, they had all their own way. Each member tried to trump the narrative of the previous speaker by some more harrowing recital of the atrocities perpetrated in the ] name of homoeopathy. Curiously enough the stories told f were mutually contradictory. Thus, while one member stated that the homoeopathic medicines contained large doses of poisonous drugs, the next speaker asserted that I he had it on the best authority—that, namely, of a dis¬ charged assistant to a homoeopathic chemist—that the globules and tinctures contained no medicine at all. He was followed by an eminent physician. Dr. A. P. Stewart, who gravely repeated the old story first promulgated some thirty years ago by the notorious travelling doctor for Bradshaw’s Continental Guide, Dr. Edwin Lee—by the by, the youth on the side of the Tweed Dr. Stewart comes from, when they hear an improbable story, are in the
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3