Letter to the physicians of France on homoeopathy / by Count Des Guidi ; translated from the French, by William Channing.

  • Sébastien Des Guidi
Date:
1834
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter to the physicians of France on homoeopathy / by Count Des Guidi ; translated from the French, by William Channing. 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.)

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    Grand Duke Constantine, six years ago, dedicated to you an ex- amination of Homoeopathy now become, a classic work, and which you alone have not read. » * Let us pass by a thousand developments so obvious to any one who is slightly acquainted with the history of discoveries, the nature of things, the heart of man and the character of nations ; and let us not hesitate to admit that the tardiness of Homoeopa- thy, far from justifying a prejudice against it, is rather an argu- ment in its favor. Is not its late promulgation an evidence of the tedious labors that consumed its early years'? The slowness of its march a proof of the positive, practical and immediate re- sults which it promises every where, and which must every where awaken opposition] In this respect are there many dis- coveries to which the rapidity of their diffusion does so much honor as is due to Homoeopathy for its delay] Let us go still farther and show, by the recital of what has happened to ourselves, that if there is evidence of the truth of Homoeopathy in the slow development, in the very struggles of its incipient existence, this evidence is still better recognized in the rapidity of its expansion so soon as it has attained the open air. In narrating the accidental circumstances, without which I should perhaps never have studied Homoeopathy, and the results which have since, abundantly recompensed the little that it has fallen to my lot to do to extend its usefulness, I trust I am so much within the scope of my subject, as to be pardoned the li- berty I am about to take of speaking a moment of myself. My wife, afflicted for many years with a cruel disease, had exhausted all the aids of medicine. Eminent practitioners of Lyons, Paris, Grenoble and Montpelier, had with affectionate in- terest, lavished upon her case their ablest advice; but to transient meliorations speedily succeeded new relapses, sometimes alarm- ing, and always evincing a constitution profoundly affected. Ex- pectant treatment and treatment very active, regimen, voyages, mineral waters, nothing had been neglected, nothing had had any durable success, when I determined as a last hope, to conduct her to the baths of Pouzzoles ; that ancient Serapis, so celebrated for the almost miraculous virtue of its waters. My patient here only encountered more acute sufferings, and a cerebral fever me- naced her life with immediate danger. In my distress, 1 earnest- ly solicited the hospital physician to unite with the physician of the baths, and aid me with their advice. The physician of the hospital proved to be one of my old friends, Dr. Cimone, of whose destmy I had been ignorant. We all hastened to the bed-side of the poor sufferer, and after some consultation, vague and un- satisfactory, Cimone, left alone with me, addressed me nearly in these words. To you my dear Friend, from whom I never had any thing to conceal, I will not disguise that I practice here an