Correspondence relative to the introduction of homœopathy into the hospital.

Date:
[1868]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Correspondence relative to the introduction of homœopathy into the hospital. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    irregular way ; and you must be prepared to face the consequences of your act. I will not enter upon either an exposition or a defence of Homoeo¬ pathy ; but there are one or two points in your letters to which T must allude. You say that Homoeopathy is “ negative and inert,” and that you are not singular in your disapproval of it, the Profession having \ pronounced judgment against it. You will observe, however, that the Profession has also pronounced judgment against the present system of Therapeutics, declaring it to be not only negative and inert for the cure of disease, but also positively injurious to the patients. Homoeopathy, then, cannot be worse than the old system, and certainly can never do harm. Again, I claim my right to use non-oflicinal preparations, even although the medicines can be obtained only from a Homoeopathic chemist, and bear the opprobrious name. Their quality and strength is no secret ; some are stronger, some weaker than the corresponding officinal preparations, and are prepared according to definite princi¬ ples ;—which is more then can be said of those secret nostrums and potent quack medicines so often prescribed systematically by medical men. I take leave, besides, to give a plain denial to your unwarrantable statement that Homoeopathy has been “ often and ably refuted.” The subject has not been so easily disposed of as you imagine. The very fact that eminent men have taken the trouble to write voluminously against it, proves that they considered it too formidable an adversary to be lightly disregarded. The statements of Galileo were “ often and ably refuted” by those who would not look through the telescope ; the discovery of Harvey was “often and ably refuted” by those who would not experiment for themselves ; Vaccination was “often and ably refuted” not many years ago, by the very wisest men of the time ; and in this way, but in no other, has Homoeopathy been “ often and ably refuted.” So far from what its adversaries have written against it being able refutations, they are, to candid readers, only miserable exhibitions of what prejudiced minds will do when they meddle with a subject they are totally ignorant of. They will write clever nonsense about the errors found in Homoeo¬ pathic works, but they will not look into the root of the matter, nor make a single practical experiment. One of the standard opponents, however, makes the confession—and I pray you to mark it well -that he found Homoeopathy so successful as far as he tried it, that he has adopted it in his own practice. You do not know, perhaps, that some of those who undertook to write against Homoeopathy, in the course of their investigations became convinced of its truth, and were thus turned from opposition to strenuous advocacy. So much for the able refutation ! As you seem to lay great stress upon “ eminent authorities,”