Homoeopathy unveiled : or, Observations on Hahnemann, his doctrines and treatment of disease / by William Perrin Brodribb.

  • Brodribb, William Perrin.
Date:
1851
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Homoeopathy unveiled : or, Observations on Hahnemann, his doctrines and treatment of disease / by William Perrin Brodribb. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    the most prominent symptom of apoplexy; but is opium therefore a remedy for that frequently fatal complaint ? Lead will give rise to the symptoms of colic and of paralysis, but it will not cure those affections. Instances might be multiplied; but a reference to the writings of homoeopathic physicians supplies us with a sufficient refutation of their own principles. [Tf each disease is to be cured by a medicine capable of exciting an artificial disease exactly resembling the original, what is the meaning of that host of dissimilar and opposite medi- cines directed to be given as remedies for each individual complaint P Hartmann, in his work on Acute Diseases, mentions no less than thirty-six remedies for pneumonia, fifty-two for rheumatism, twenty-nine for dysentery, twenty-one for diarrhoea, the majority of them being the same for each of these complaints. Surely all this is a wide departure from the simplicity of the first law,— “ Similia similibus,” &c., and cannot be regarded as a testimony of its truth. It must indeed be allowed that the inconsistent and contradictory character of such treatment is only apparent, since we find that all these dissimilar medicines are in reality reduced to the same level of nothingness by the infinitesimal doses in which they are given. When the billionth, quintillionth, or de- cillionth of a drop or of a grain of any medicine is given, it matters not what that medicine may be, whether it be opium or chalk, arsenic or ipecacuanha, since either of them, or any other, would be alike incapable of pro- ducing any effect whatever?) Dr. Malan has written Tpamphlet, entitled “ An An- swer to the Inquiry, How can such small doses have any effect?” as if such inquiry were ridiculous or vain.