The rejected cases; with a letter to Thomas Wakley on the scientific character of homepathy / by John Epps.

  • Epps, John, 1805-1869.
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The rejected cases; with a letter to Thomas Wakley on the scientific character of homepathy / by John Epps. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

    82/146 (page 12)
    were used, and certain results in the aggregate called health, follow. These facts are indubitable. The homoeopathist sees these results are arrived at after the use of means, which he is led to select in obe- dience to an ascertained law: he has no other reason for using these means: he does use them: he sees results which he knew must result from means selected and em- ployed in obedience to the law (the law itself he knowing to be true): and he, seeing these results, to his mind, arising of necessity, maintains without hesitation, that here is an after—a post hoc; and that, as these result in obedience to the law, by which the means employed before (the a before) are regulated, he further maintains that these results are the consequence—the propter hoc. In fact, he sees antecedence and consequence; he sees them invariably as connected with the use of certain means in a given case, according to a fixed law. He has brought before him the view of the great mental philosopher. Dr. Thomas Brown : Power, in short, is significant, not of any pathy, when in reference to positive facts—facts capable of ocular demonstration, such were the impudent assertions of the Edinburgh Reviewer. To such little minds, if their organisation does not render them insensible to the advice, the following remarks in Chambers, may be recommended as worthy of attention :— What others had ascertained by experiment and careful inquiry, he [Dr. Gordon] repu- diated upon mere supposition. Wishing to be very philosophical, he mistook scepticism for caution, whereas investigation alone could have served his end. And thus, where he thought he was pillory- ing two empirics, he has only stuck himself up as a durable memento of the danger of over-confident disbelief.