Homoeopathy : report of the speeches on irregular practice delivered at the Nineteenth Anniversary Meeting of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, held at Brighton, August 13 & 14, 1851.

Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Homoeopathy : report of the speeches on irregular practice delivered at the Nineteenth Anniversary Meeting of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, held at Brighton, August 13 & 14, 1851. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    hundred thousandth of a grain of lead in solution; and perhaps the same might be said of chlorine and silver. But the one hundred thousandth part of a grain would have to be diluted a million times more before it would reach the homoeopathic tenuity. And homoeopathy teaches that the disease that attacks the body, —disease of the most destructive kind, tending to subvert functions and destroy structures—disease that is clogging the very springs of life—that such disease is to be counteracted by something a million times less than the smallest quantity to be detected by the finest chemical test that was ever discovered! It is by such pre- posterous notions as these that homoeopathists delude themselves and the public. It is on such ineffable absurdities that fashionable fools rely for aid in sickness; and (who would believe it?) it is with men who profess and believe in such inanities that some of our profession have degraded themselves by consulting. I quite agree in the spirit of the resolutions, that there should be no shadow of compromise; and that under no pretext of meeting for diagnosis, for surgical aid, or for any other purpose, should there be any intercourse between regular practitioners and the abettors of tliis monstrous and mischievous delusion. [Loud cheers.] Be- lieving, nay, knowing, as we do, that homoeopathy is entirely a fallacy, we must feel it our bounden duty to discountenance it m every way, and boldly to warn the public against its mischievous sophistry and fatal infatuations. [Cheers.] Dr. E. Crisp said:—I trust. Sir-, that I may be permitted to say a few words upon this subject. Although I agree to the full extent with the gentlemen who have drawn up this report, I think they have not gone far enough, and have overlooked the fons et origo of the mischief. The faiilt, Sir, rests especially with the members of the legislature, who encourage quackery in every form: not only does the government of this countiy take money from the legitimate practitioner for his diploma (and many are present who have paid a large sum for diploma stamps), but it also legalizes quack medicines, and derives a profit fi-om their sale ; thus raising legitimate medicine Avith one hand, and knock- ino- it down with the other. Look again at our medical corpora- tions, and what have they done towards the discouragement of quackery l The President of the London College of Physicians has appointed a professed Mesmerist to deliver the Harveian Ora- tion; and in his Phai-macologia he says that one quack-mcdicine—
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