Homoeopathy : its present state and future prospects : being the presidential address, delivered at the British Homoeopathic Congress, held at Malvern, September 11, 1879 / by Richard Hughes.

  • Hughes, Richard, 1836-1902.
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Homoeopathy : its present state and future prospects : being the presidential address, delivered at the British Homoeopathic Congress, held at Malvern, September 11, 1879 / by Richard Hughes. 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.

    18/28 (page 16)
    actions already recognised in drugs. To this older doctrine the newer one was affiliated by its most energetic advo- cates, the editors of the Monthly Homoeopathic Review; and the connexion was admitted by Dr. Sharp himself in 1877,* when he allowed the existence of an intermediate range of dosage between his two extremes, by which first the action of the small, and then that of the large is developed. The whole doctrine (as regards pathogenetic action) has been summed up thus by another eminent supporter of it,— Dr. Jousset, of Paris:—f “1. Every drug produces on the healthy subject two successive actions, the primitive and the secondary; and these are always opposite one to another. “ 2. The stronger the medicine, the less marked is the primitive action; and if the doso is excessive, the secondary effect alone as a rule developes itself. “ 8. The weaker the medicine the more predominant is the manifestation of its primary influence.” I have been thus particular in tracing the history of these views in our own school, because they are being taken up in a remarkable way in the other camp, and it is well that their pedigree should not be forgotten. In 1868, Dr. Reith, of Aberdeen, arrived independently at Fletcher’s doctrine of the primary and secondary action of drugs upon the capillary vessels, and began to expound his views in the Edinburgh Medical Journal. He was at once told that they wore merely homoeopathy under another name. At first he repudiated the identification, hut, further enquiry convincing him of its truth, ho fearlessly acknowledged the fact. Ho of courso had to suffer the penalty of his honesty, and to go without tho camp, bearing the reproach of the cause he had espoused. He was, however, only a few years too soon. In 1875, Dr. Lauder Brunton, Lecturer on Materia Medica at St. Bartholomew’s, delivered himself thus in the British Medical Journal: “ The opposite action of large and small doses seems to be the basis of truth on which the doctrine of homoeopathy has been founded. The irrational practice of giving infinitesimal doses has of course nothing to do with tho principle of homoeopathy, similia similibus curantur: the only requisite is that mentioned by Hippo- crates, when he recommende mandrake in mania, viz., that tho dose be smaller than would he sufficient to produce in * See Monthly Homoeopathic Review, xxi., 658. t L’Art Medical, xlv., 182.