What is homoeopathy? : a new exposition of a great truth / by Wm. H. Holcombe.

  • Holcombe, William H. (William Henry), 1825-1893.
Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: What is homoeopathy? : a new exposition of a great truth / by Wm. H. Holcombe. 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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    diseases, in strong doses, on the healthy man. Both par- ties use poisons to cure. The situation, extent and char- acter of the poisoning or artificial disease are the only mooted points. A slight, similar, morbid impression in the diseased spot, is the simple and beautiful law of Homoeopathy. The Allopathist, having no such thera- peutic law—nothing but his crude and often contradictory theories to guide him—produces very strong morbid impressions, sometimes similar, and sometimes dissimilar ; sometimes in the diseased point, sometimes in distant points ; often in both. Sometimes one of his medicines produces one set of these symptoms, whilst another medi- cine produces the other. Sometimes a second medicine is required to undo what he had effected by the first. He pulls down, only to build up again. Now he blows hot, then cold ; and so on. In fact, his philosophy is a labyrinth and his practice a chaos. Hahnemann states our therapeutic law in the following terms: A dynamic disease in the living economy of man is extinguished in a permanent manner by another, that is still more powerful, when the latter (without being of the same species) bears a strong resemblance to it in its mode of manifesting itself. Leaving out the unnecessary and unestablished hypothesis, that the new disease is stronger than the old one, this formula is the most practical and beneficent generalization which has ever been made in the science of medicine. A dynamic natural disease (not a mechanical or chemical deviation from the normal standard) is best cured by producing a similar (not the same) dynamic disturbance in the same parts and tissues, which therefore manifests itself by simi- lar symptoms. This is the only indication in Homoe- opathic practice. This is the clue which leads us out of