Homoeopathy vindicated : a reply to Dr. Joseph Kidd's Laws of therapeutics / by E.W. Berridge.

  • Berridge, Edward William.
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Homoeopathy vindicated : a reply to Dr. Joseph Kidd's Laws of therapeutics / by E.W. Berridge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    9/50 (page 7)
    situation.” Here, at the very first, we find a slander against our Master. What proof has Dr. Kidd that Hahnemann was guilty of an “ artificial and exaggerated minuteness ” in his provings of medicines ? Will he condescend to inform us how minuteness of detail in a scientific experiment can be either “ artificial ” or “ exaggerated ? ” Does he mean to tell scientific men that any detail in science can be too minute ? Certainly no one will ever accuse Dr. Kidd of having fallen into the supposed error with which he charges Hahnemann, for his cases, as detailed in this book, are often so vaguely given that it is impossible to draw any definite conclusion from them, except, indeed, that Dr. Kidd made a wonderful cure, often after somebody else had failed, which perhaps, however, is the very conclusion he wished his readers to arrive at. Dr. Kidd, as a professed Homoeopathic physician, ought to know that Homoeopathy requires the utmost minuteness of detail and individualization ; and that symptoms apparently in- significant, and, to the pathologist, utterly inexplicable, often decide the choice between two or more allied remedies—a choice which makes all the difference between a tedious and a rapid cure. But to carry this into actual every-day practice requires hard work, patience, and an earnest—often very arduous—search into the Repertories and Materia Medica, even in the presence of the patient. This is too laborious for some who are lazy ; too infra dig. for others who desire to play the part of the fashionable physician, and, trading upon a previously acquired reputation, pro- fess to their deluded dupes that they can “ see their case at a glance,” allotting to the investigation of their condition a brief modicum of time, equivalent to about three minutes per corpus vile. It has its reward, however. Apropos of this matter we will make the following quotation from Hahnemann’s Organon (section 149, note):—“ But this laborious, sometimes very laborious, search for and selection of the homoeopathic remedy most suitable in every respect to each morbid state, is an operation which, notwithstanding all the laudable books for facilitating it, still demands the study of the original sources themselves, and at the same time a great amount of circumspection and serious deliberation, which have their best reward in the consciousness of having faithfully discharged our