Homoeopathy unmasked: being an exposure of its principal absurdities and contradictions. With an estimate of its recorded cures / [Alexander Wood].

  • Wood, Alexander, 1817-1884.
Date:
1844
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Homoeopathy unmasked: being an exposure of its principal absurdities and contradictions. With an estimate of its recorded cures / [Alexander Wood]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    riably disappointed in the results. It would be going. beyond our province, to explain why this is the case; it is a deep-seated peculiarity of. the human mind, and it is sufficient for us to know that it is so; and even were it otherwise, it is plain, that the very nature of medicine precludes the possibility of arriving at any certainty from its results, unless these were derived from observa- tions much more extended than the Homoeopa- thists have as yet registered, or than they are ever likely to obtain. Medicine has, indeed, its own certainty; a cer- tainty very closely resembling that of the poli- tical and moral sciences; a practical certainty, and one to which Cabanis has given the name of “a certainty of probability ;” but this certainty can never be exclusively founded upon the results of phenomena so fluctuating, so uncertain, and so uncontrollable, as are those of life. In sciences resembling medicine in these respects, the results are never regarded as the criteria of the science. In agriculture, for example, it is universally ad- mitted, that many unforseen occurrences may arise, to defeat plans the most judiciously conceived, and most scientifically executed; and, therefore, success or failure are not regarded as affording an infallible index of their wisdom. And are not many of the influences which powerfully affect the body, as much removed from the control of