DR. SIMPSON'S PRACTICAL VIEW OF 110:10EOPATHY.
THERE are three leading methods by which our tenement of clay can be treated secanduni artem. 1. The allopathic or revulsive method; which consists in exciting a powerful counter-irritation, by acting upon a distant part of the system primarily affected, or upon a totally different system or organ. In this way, in- flammation of the brain is attempted to be relieved by exciting a powerful reaction in the intestinal tube ; inflammations of the lungs, by excitement of the skin and kiduies; irregular determi- nation of blood to the head and chest, by blisters, &c. to the legs and feet. And to insure the success of this plan, it would seem that the artificial disease must be stronger than the natural. 2. The antipathic; which acts directly upon the seat of the dis- ease, and by remedies whose effects are directly opposite to the morbid symptoms. Thus, constipation is assailed by purgatives ; inflammation, by bleeding ; sleeplessness, by narcotics ; a torpid state of an organ, by something that rouses it to action ; a morbid excitement, by something that lulls it. 3. The homropathic ; which proceeds upon the principle that similia similihus cu- rantur. Hence, the first canon of homeopathy is to administer a medicine to the sick that would produce the disease in a healthy person. Is the brain inflamed—give something that would create inflammation in the sane. Does the patient suffer from checked perspiration—prescribe, not sweat-producing medicines, but time reverse. Are the secretions torpid—do not by drugs ex- cite them to action, but administer something that would reduce them from vigour to torpidity. Though not essentially distinctive of the respective theories, there are these practical differences be- tween the second and third systems. The antipathic uses compound medicines, and in large doses : the homoeopathic prescribes doses imperceptibly minute; it only makes use of one drug in a disease, and seems to prefer those medicines whose effects are inexplicable, whose manner of operation is altogether inscrutable, and which are therefore termed specifics. The leading principle of homeopathy—that like cures like—has been occasionally and dimly indicated almost from the first reduc- tion of medicine to a science. In practice it is often acted upon willy-nilly. But its systematic exposition was reserved for SAMUEL HAHNEMANN; and the occasion was thus. Bred a physician, he had abandoned practice, on account of the doubts and difficulties with which it was beset, and occupied his time with literature and the study of chemistry. In 1790, when translating CULLEN'S Materia Medica into German, the views of the author on the action of bark led HAHNEMANN to conceive that its curative effects must somehow or other depend upon its physiological action ; and that, by ascertaining this, its pathological action would be elucidated.
To put this to the test of experiment, and avoid the error of confounding pathological with mere medicinal symptoms, he chose himself, a healthy in- dividual, for the trial, and swallowed a quantity of powdered bark, writing down with the greatest minuteness the various changes he observed in his feelings during the use of the medicine ; and he found in the general character of these symptoms, besides other peculiarities, so great a similitude with the fever en- geutlered by exposure to malaria, that all doubt as to the similarity ofac- tion between bark and malaria seemed altogether to be removed. -lie re- peated the experiment upon several other individuals, with nearly similar results.
Having thus commenced, as he conceived, so successfully, he went on experimentalizing, at first upon himself and his family ; and, after six years of unwearied industry and observation, he began to propagate his doctrine. As with all startling novelties, some em- braced it, some denounced it ; and the more sensible part of man- kind seem to have agreed to leave it to itself. Time author and his disciples, however, proceeded without bating one jot of heart and hope. The doctrine spread over the land of mysticism, Ger- many ; it penetrated Prussia, Russia, America, and France, where a Government commission, appointed to examine it, reported against it. In England, it has soma votaries and practitioners ; and a man of homeopathy was summoned from London to be in at MAernaAN's death. Here, however, after forty years, it occu- pies no recognized position ; at its head-quarters, it would seem front the statement of an eye-witness* to be in no very flourishing state; and there is also something like schism in the college, several practitioners of the new school treating the later produc- tions of their venerable master as fainted with fanatic mysticism, and showing a strong inclination in their own practice to pursue the antipathic where they are at a loss, or at least where the re- sources of homceapathy fail.
Like every kind of faith, homeopathy, it appears to us, is stronger to demolish than establish. The reader knows that phy- siology treats of the whole functions of the human body, whilst pathology only investigates the nature of diseases. Thereupon the homoeopathists can hold forth thus. We take large, philoso- phical, and extensive views ; for we profess to trace the effects of medicines physiologically, trying them upon the body in a state of health, and thence endeavouring to deduce their pathological action, from sure, simple, and natural experiments. You regular practitioners, or rather regular humbugs, wait till the part is dis- eased before you begin to act ; and then you go on by guess-work, knowing neither the origin nor cause of the disease, or whether it is primary or secondary ; whilst you are incapable of distinguishing between those symptoms which result from the disease itself, from the derangement of other organs affected by the disease, from the operation of foreign agents both external and internal, to which the sick are so susceptible, or from the mixed doses you con- jecturally administer. You timid jogtrotters, you safe practi- tioners, who, conscious of your own ignorance, content your- selves with prescribiTs' simples for the more obvious symptoms, and trusting to Nature for the rest,—and you, ye lEscula- plan murderers, whose maxim is " kill or cure," and whose cures of disease often induce " another more potent than the first,"—what right have either of you to sneer at the philo- sophical and systematic practice of a principle which you yourselves of necessity pursue by fits, without being able to render any other reason than that such is so? We can adduce numerous instances. Time Spectator must confine itself to one or two. Ipecacuanha, in large doses, excites nausea, vomiting, and various spasmodic affections ; in small doses, it is a most powerful remedy for these symptoms. Nux vomica, in large doses, occa- sions headache, vertigo, stupor, anxiety, dimness of sight, and various other distressing affections • yet it has long been success- fully used for similar affections. A quantity of henbane excites anxiety, convulsions, and a remarkable form of delirium ; but it is found to be an admirable remedy in nervous fevers with spasms, and delirium of a similar character.
The two main points for which an explanation is required in ho- moeopathy, are the reason of its curative effects, and the minuteness of the dose. The argument by which the first point is made out, we do not very clearly comprehend. It seems finally to rest upon the xis medicatrix Natant., but more immediately to depend upon the principle of reaction ; to be stated thus, so far as we can un- derstand it. If disease be excited by medicine, and the dose be then discontinued, a natural reaction takes place, to get rid of the diseased 'action, and restore the organ to its healthy condition. And upon this acknowledged principle, the theory of homceopathy seems to rest. The reason for minute doses is more intelli- gible. A diseased part is more susceptible of kindred excite- ment, as when the skin, for instance, has been irritated by the application of a very strong stimulus, a very weak dilution will ntlame it, which would be perfectly inoperative in another part. HAHNEMANN also found by practice, that what would be called moderate doses, induced what he terms exacerbation ; and, by creating an unnecessary action, produced that constitutional waste or shock which it is the great boast of homoeopathy to avoid. These two are principles which have no relation to the practice of the school, and in studying the subject should be dis- tinctly separated from it. The practice itself, it must be admitted, has the strongest taint of quackery. The minuteness of the doses has all the wonder-working air of a mountebank's nos- trums: the strong injunctions about the purity of the medicines, the long and tediously-elaborate examinations that are required, and the very rigid system of diet, declared to be indispensable, all seem like an empiric's preparations for failure. It will not have escaped the reader's notice, that the great difficulty of the art, • See the closing pages of Let's Animal Magnetism and Homeopathy.
the great triumph of the physician—the power of discovering what is the disease—is not advanced by homoeopathy. To the demand of its professors, to subject the theory to the test of ex- periment, no reasonable objection can be made, especially as it is deemed almost indispensable that the physician should experimen- talize upon himself. It is also probable, that if discussion and ob- servation do not establish homoeopathy, they will increase our knowledge of the properties of medicines.
But, it may be asked, does the discovery promise any advan- tage beyond giving one a better chance of cure? And the answer must be, unquestionably. Example is better than precept ; and some remarks upon the following case of Dr. SCHUHERTS, quoted by Dr. SIMPSON, will illustrate the advantage better than any general statements. Had any medical 'practitioner been called in to the following patient, he would have bled him profusely, and some till they had produced syncope. This ..;,old have been followed by active treatment ; the different se- cretory organs would have been stimulated to powerful action, and the patient reduced in every way. A very, energetic practice might have killed him : he might have felt the effects of the re• medics for life ; he would certainly have been left very weak, and only have recovered his former strength after a long convalescence. See how the homeopathist manages matters.
Mr. S** *, thirty years of age, strongly built and of a choleric tempera- ment, fell suddenly ill ou the I 1th of January, afar exposure to severe cold. He had shivering-tits, alternating with transient fleshings, felt restless and un- easy, and suffered much from pain of a pulsating kind in the head, with sore- ness and beat in the eyes. lie hoped, by taking a cup of some diaphoretic in- fusion to cut the disease short ; but in this he was disappointed, as he grew worse from hour to hour, so that, on the following day, Dr. Schubert was sent for, and found hint as follows.
lie has not slept through the whole of the preceding night, and is much af- fected with giddiness of the head, especially when he attempts to sit up. He is repeatedly falling into tits of violent delirium, raves, shouts, and insists upon getting up, struggling violently with his attendants when prevented from doing so. In his lucid moments he complains of a kind of mental preoccupation, and of a feeling of weight and fulness in the head, which is also the seat of severe fixed, burning, and compressive pain. mingled with some of a shooting kind. The eyes are particularly wild in their expression, bloodshot, and intolerant of light, the pupils contracted, and be fancies he sees fantastic images and flames dancing before him. The hearing is very acute, and lie complains of buzzing and other noises in the ears. The face is hot and flushed, and now and then covered with a clammy perspiration. He sneezes frequently, and there is a sense of fulness in the nose, from which at times a few drops of blood are discharged. The pulse is extremely quick, hard, and concentrated ; the skin dry, hot, flushed, and tense; the respiration hurried and sighing, the voice hoarse, and articulation difficult. The lips are of a vivid red, hot and parched, and the patient complains of heat and dryness in the mouth ; the tongue, of the bright- est red, is slightly coated with tenacious mucus; the thirst is great; there is, too, a feeling of constriction in the pharynx, and he is observed to make fre- quent efforts at deglutition. The appetite is absolutely null ; he complains of nausea, and has vomited some mucus tinged with bile. Ile is also troubled with hiccough. The bowels ate constipated ; the urine, of a high colour, causes a sensation of scalding in the urethra.
For the treatment of these symptoms belladonna appearing to be the most ap- propriate remedy, Dr. Schubert immediately exhibited to the patient one drop of the 30th dilution in a little water. Toast and water was ordemed for di ink, and a little panada was to be given if he asked fir food. Time moat was darkened, kept cool, and well ventilated, and noise of every kind forbidden.
Dr. Schubert saw the patient again in the evening, when lie found a con- siderable amelioration of all the symptoms, but particularly of those of the head ; and hence nothing further was given. During the night he slept quietly for some hours, and before noon the next day the improvement was obvious to every one. The patient was now in complete possession of his faculties, and as far as the head was concerned, lie complained only of some weakness and con- fusion of intellect, and of a weight and internal sense of oppression, but greatly less than it had been. The other symptoms were also much mitigated, though no evacuation of the bowels had yet taken place. The improvement thus begun, progressed till evening, and during the night the patient had several hours of refreshing sleep, which was accompanied with a gentle perspiration. On the following day, the 14th, he wished to get up, but was prevented by his physi- cian; he complained, however, of little else than want of appetite ; but the tongue was still slightly coveted with a white fur, though quite moist, and the bowels had begun to act. For these symptoms he subsequently took a drop of bryonia 15, and in a few days afterwards felt himself restored to perfect health, having been confined to his bed for five days only.
Upon this quotation we presume to make no comment for the practitioner, except to say that the one drop of the thirtieth dilu- tion, is some millionth part of a drop of the original extract of nightshade, the first dilution being one to nine, and the others proceeding upwards in geometrical ratio. The common reader may take one of three solutions,—that the case is a sign of an approaching revolution in medicine, that it is a miracle, or a lie. The book that has given occasion to this exposition, is divided into three parts; the first of which narrates the history of homoeo- pathy, endeavours to expound its principles, and to maintain its superiority over the other systems of practice. The second sec- tion treats of the homeopathic Materia Medica, including the drugs it acknowledges, the modes of preparing them, and the rationale of their prescription. In a scientific point of view, Dr. SIMPSON is more of an homoeopathic devotee, than he would seem to be in the practical application of its rules ; for he admits that, in the present state of our medicinal science, recourse must sometimes be had both to the allopathic and antipathic modes. As regards the author's literary character, he has the merits of distinctness in arrangement and clearness in expression, except in the exposition of the abstruser parts, where his meaning is not very easy to follow, and some- times not intelligible; a defect which is aggravated by the employ- ment of mystical words, without defining the sense in which he uses them, and so far as we can perceive, without the plea of ne- cessity, as terms in common use would have answered equally well.
Previous page
