Homœopathy : explained and illustrated / by T. Battye.

  • Battye, Thomas.
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Homœopathy : explained and illustrated / by T. Battye. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    f lamentable effects produced by medicines, even universally agreed upon in particular cases: and they see that the remedy is far worse than the disease; anti yet they talk of ‘the old paths,’ as they would in matters of religion^ in which, the nearer they keep to the old notions the more they rest upon inspiration. One would think there was some parti¬ cular reason for Medicine to claim an exception from the general progress: when all the world must see, that even if men’s intellects had been as advanced in the infancy of the v/orld as in the present day, there was compara¬ tively no scope for its practice in times when men lived in the simplicity in which they formerly did. Besides, if novelty is an objection, it might as justly be made so to any other discovery when first made; for, (although many dis¬ coveries may be proved immediately,) the trouble or length of time necessary for Medicine to be proved, can never be considered not worth the spending over a science of such con¬ sequence : it might as well have been made an objection to Gunpowder, and have prevented its being fairly tried; for, though Gunpowder might claim the honour of having been years before mysteriously spoken of by Roger Bacon,—Ho¬ moeopathy may claim a still greater honour; for it was not only spoken of many years before, but exceedingly plainly, by the great Father of our Profession, Hippocrates; or by some one of consequence enough to be supposed to have been he; indeed, it was even acted upon, in many instances, by Hippocrates himself; although not then discovered as a funda¬ mental principle. For the general reader, I quote a com¬ ment, made by the learned Francis Adams, LL.D., in his ‘ Works of Hippocrates.’ “ The treatment of Suicidal Mania appears singular,—give the Patient a draught made from the root of Mandrake, in a smaller dose thaq will pro¬ duce mania.” The same Dr. Adams says also “ one cannot think of the change in professional opinions since the days of John Hunter, (at the close of the last century,) without the most painful feelings of distrust in all modes of treatment.” About a century before Hahnemann’s time, a Physician was imprisoned in Newgate for having cured Strangury on Homoeo-