A few more words in explanation of "My homœopathy and Hahnemann's" : with an entirely new diagram / by Æsculapius.

  • Aesculapius.
Date:
1868
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A few more words in explanation of "My homœopathy and Hahnemann's" : with an entirely new diagram / by Æsculapius. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    10 Now, would any one believe that even within this miserable dominion, Homoeopathy, according to its own advocate, should be capable of governing only through deceit ? That even here, it is only in so far as it follows the method of its despised and rejected ally, Allopathy, that it has any chance of keeping disease in sub¬ jection ? The author of the Pamphlet in question comes out with a few very curious confessions, so that there is nothing to wonder at in the following,—“A large amount of homoeopathic practice is conducted by very substantial quantities of medicine.”* This means, of course, that in the very circumscribed practice to which Homoeopathy is limited, a large amount of it is performed by “very substantial quantities of medicine.” Of course, it may be a question whether Dr. Reith in this place is talking like an ordinary man, or like the inhabitant of a microcosm ; as, however, he has emphasized his u substantial ” by the significant little word “ very,” we may venture to assume that the quantity indicated is equal to an ordinary Allopathic dose. Thus, within the little area which Homoeopathy calls its own, a large proportion of its work is done by exactly the same means as in ordinary practice. In so far as the patient is concerned it is not Homoeopathy—the Homoeopathy is all in the mind of the practitioner. This is another of those puzzling enigmas which it has been our duty to unriddle, since we entered upon this altogether mysterious subject. The key to the difficulty lies in the circumstance that the drugs are administered upon a different principle. It is the theory, not the practice, that in these instances creates the astounding distinction between the Homoeopath and the Allopath. The one gives you 25 grs. of Pul vis Julapse Co., if you have a capacious stomach, on the principle of similia similibus ; the other 25 grs. of Pulvis Julapse Co., all things else being the same, on the principle of contrarii contrariis. You, in your unprofessional simplicity, are at your wits’ end to know why persons so similar in their proceedings have such an antipathy to each other. It all arises from the difference of opinion as to how the Julap does its work, when it gets down into your stomach. There is a farther difference, however, in the case of Dr. Keith’s Homoeopathy, which must be very carefully noted, as it is his Homoeopathy, and not Hahnemann’s, that we are investigating. His system “ is not a dose, but a principle.” In fact, the dose may be anything or nothing, for the potency all resides in the principle. The dose is a mere hoax ; but, curiously enough, as the patient’s constitution has to be hoaxed by the principle into a sanitary condition, the hoax cannot be played off in the simple manner it might be, if the patient’s mind alone had to be hoaxed. The hoax must accommodate itself to the state of the patient’s bodily organs, in order to enable the principle to effect its cure.
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