Two sides to a question : a few observations on Mr. Braithwaite's "Temperate examination on homœopathy" / by William Bayes.

  • Bayes, William.
Date:
1860
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Two sides to a question : a few observations on Mr. Braithwaite's "Temperate examination on homœopathy" / by William Bayes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    shivered journalistic scurrility, and has hit you, in the retire¬ ment of your Restros^pect^ so hard as to produce a tolerably sharp rebound. This causes me, as one deeply interested in the success of Homoeopathy among the profession, to rejoice in this new evidence of the spread of what I believe to be truth in medicine.” That professors of medicine oppose Homoeopathy in their schools, should excite no wonder. The function of professors is conservative,” not progressive; their part is to preserve science as it exists” from the too rude shocks of new ideas, of new systems; to act as buffers” between new and old, in order to moderate their collision. I have therefore nothing to say against the part originally assumed by professors of medi¬ cine when they opposed the theory of Homoeopathy. They were bound to oppose it, as they are bound to oppose every new science until it triumphs over their opposition by the innate force of truth, until its facts become so patent and so incontrovertible, that they are forced to receive its theories. I do not wish to cavil at this professorial opposition, but simply to point out that the opposition of professors, to any new science, has so strong an antecedent probability, as to amount almost to a certainty, and that therefore its existence is no argument against the truth of Homceopathy. Professorial opposition to new truths has no permanence. Already the number of professors of medicine in European Universities, who have examined and have consequently adopted Homoeopathy, suffices to shew a fair promise of the dawn of truth;” a number more than sufficient to shield those less known and humbler of its supporters from the stigma of quacks” and ‘Hmpostors,” so constantly flung at them by the less honorable of their opponents. The Alma-
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