A review of Professor C.B. Coventry's introductory lecture : delivered before the class of medical students of Geneva College, session of 1843-4 / by C.D. Williams.

  • Williams, C. D. (Charles Draper), 1812-1882.
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A review of Professor C.B. Coventry's introductory lecture : delivered before the class of medical students of Geneva College, session of 1843-4 / by C.D. Williams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

    13/24
    ing of the profound impression made by drugs on the system, says : It is for this reason, therefore, that they produce disease in the healthy organism ; and when they contribute to the cure of disease, it is in virtue of that morbific action which they exert on healthy parts. These quotations, we hope, will convince Dr. C. that there are at least some practitioners of observation, who believe that the action of medicines upon the healthy is a criterion for their action in disease. In continuation, Dr. C. says : I do not caution you against Homosopathy itself. Examine its claims: scrutinize its pretensions. If you become satisfied that infinitesimal doses, or what is equivalent, no medicine, [which he has made synonymous with Homoeopathy,] is best for your pa- tients, adopt it; but do not proclaim yourselves Homoeopa- thists or Allopathists, or pretend that you are wiser than your medical brethren. By the foregoing remarks, we can only infer that the learned Doctor is willing his pupils should smuggle into their practice the principles of our science, if they find them beneficial, provided always that Homoeopathy gets no credit for the same. We make the worthy professor a present of the inference. After this he gives us, what I had hardly hoped for, his reasons for these wholesale denun- ciations, in the following words: On the other band, be not discouraged by the temporary loss of business. I know how trying it is to the feelings, to be deserted by those for whom you have labored. It is pretty well known that a Homoeopathist has located at Utica ; and we may suppose from the above, that he is drawing largely upon Dr. C.'s business : and to this fact the world probably owes its pos- session of the Lecture on Homoeopathy. To sum up the whole and give a finishing stroke to the attack, he has given, in a note, the mode of preparation of the Homoeopathic medicines, and has set down a long row of sixty ciphers as a sample of the thirtieth dilution. From