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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    At the same time, the two may so interfere with each other’s action, as not to lead to the curative result. In other cases this may not happen ; hut what these are, Homoeopathists as yet do not know, and hence they prefer giving their medicines singly, or at most in alternation. I grant it is not impossible, that, by trituration, the medi- cines may become mixed with ammonia; but, without descend- ing to the pestle and mortar, you might have gained the same end, by informing your students that Homoeopathists did not restrict their patients from breathing the air containing the ammonia while they were taking the medicines; so that am- monia and tire medicine must be acting on the patient at the same time. What conclusion can you draw? Ammonia is unquestionably a valuable Homoeopathic remedy, but only when it is administered in a case of disease to which it is Homoeo- pathic. Were a person {to suppose a case) breathing atmos- pheric air containing no ammonia so affected by disease, that ammonia was indicated as the remedy according to the law svmilia similibus, I believe that even the amount of it he can inspire with the ordinary air, would effect his recovery; if it did not,. I would exercise my right to increase the dose. The same explanation—the fact of the Homoeopathicity of the' medicine to the disease—accounts for small doses taking: effect, even when they are administered in common spring water, whicli generally contains much larger quantities of several other medicinal substances. These other substances have no appreci- able effect, unless they are Homoeopathic to the disease, because it requires larger doses to elicit phenomena from the healthy system, or from a condition of the system bearing other than a Homoeopathic relation to the medicine—namely, not affected in a similar way to that in which, if healthy, it would have been by a sufficient dose of the medicine; in other words, not having its sensibility to the particular influence of the remedy exalted. IS o doubt the small doses will produce some effect even on a healthy organism, but it is so slight as to be imperceptible. \ ou say (in the notes):—u Reason and common sense must