Correspondence between Professor Christison and Dr George E. Stewart on homoeopathy.

Date:
[1851]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Correspondence between Professor Christison and Dr George E. Stewart on homoeopathy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    dieted, without any arrogant assumption of the prophetic mantle, that the times are not, perhaps, very distant when it shall fare with Hahnemann’s discovery much as it did with Columbus’ egg. All the Salamanca Bachelors and Theologians were able to make the egg stand after Columbus had knocked the big end of it into a provi- sional and very primitive sort of a pedestal. Let only Homoeopathy force its way into Academies and Universities, and Hahnemann s dis- covery will turn out no discovery at all. The present hue and cry will lull itself into the professorial drawl of—We knew as much. To rectify a misapprehension which may, however, be con- beyed to your readers by the expression you employ in refer- ence to the discovery of belladonna as a prophylactic, I may quote Hahnemann’s own words to show that the discovery was really made by the light of the previously discovered Homoeo- pathic law:— “ I shall now relate the mode in which I made the discovery of this specific preservative remedy. The mother of a large family, at the commencement of July, 1799, when the scarlet fever was most prevalent and fatal, had got a new counterpane made up by a semp- stress, who, without the knowledge of the former, had in her small chamber a boy just recovering from scarlet fever. The first-men- tioned woman, on receiving it, examined it, and smelt it, in order to ascertain whether it might not have a bad smell, that would ren- der it necessary to hang it in the open air; but, as she could detect nothing of the sort, she laid it beside her on the pillow of the sofa, on Avliich, some hours later, she lay down for her afternoon’s nap. She had unconsciously, in this way only (for the family had no other near or remote connection with scarlatina patients), imbibed this miasm. A week subsequently, she suddenly fell ill of a bad quinsy, with the characteristic shooting pains in the throat, which could only be subdued after four days of threatening symptoms. Several days thereafter, her daughter, ten years of age, infected most probably by the morbific exhalations of the mother, or by the emanations from the counterpane, was attacked in the evening by severe pressive pain in the abdomen, with biting itching on the body and head, and rigor over the head and arms, and with paralytic stiffness of the joints. She slept very restlessly during the night, with frightful dreams, and perspiration all over the body, excepting the head. I found her in the morning with pressive headache, dimness of vision, slimy tongue, some ptyalism, the submaxillary glands hard, swollen, painful to the touch, shooting pains in the throat on swallowing, and at other times. She had not the slightest thirst; her pulse was quick and small; breathing hurried and anxious; though she was very pale, she felt hot to the touch, yet complained of horripilation over the face and hairy scalp; she sat leaning somewhat forwards in