A popular view of homoeopathy / by the Rev. Th. Everest.

  • Everest, Thomas R. (Thomas Roupell), -1855
Date:
1835
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A popular view of homoeopathy / by the Rev. Th. Everest. 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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    prescribe any medicament for their fellow creature, they should have learnt accurately and exactly how far and in what way it was capable of acting on the organism of that fellow creature? And yet what are the sources from which the know- ledge of the properties of medicaments is derived 1 They are such as can give not the very slightest insight into or ac- quaintance with the real powers of those medicaments. Little as is the space we have to spare, it may be worth our while to enquire shortly into the nature of those sources. CHAPTER IV. Hahnemann asserts that there are four sources from which the existing Materia Medica has been derived. We will briefly touch on each one of those sources, although it certainly does appear that all of them are referrible to the last. First of all, certain general therapeutic qualities are attrib- uted to particular substances. One is still, as it was said to be in the time of Dioscorides, 1700 years ago, a diuretic; another a sudorific; a third an anodyne; a fourth an anti-spasmodic, &c. And supposing all this to be literally true, (which he asserts that it very rarely is when brought to the test of exper- iment,) what has been learnt excepting one property of each medicament] Nothing whatever is known of the action of any one on the rest of the organism — nothing of its special and peculiar power of affecting the rest of the frame — nothing of its influence and action on that part of the organism which is already affected, or on that which is not affected. Taken in large quantities, such and such a substance for instance is an anodyne. Thus much is supposed to be known, and it is prescribed and taken accordingly. A very desirable end, no doubt, to relieve pain! But who knows what symptoms of other kinds it is exciting all the while! Who knows what suf- fering it is preparing in return for the pain it has temporarily
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