\ C^5 wrvy-——— / HOM(E()PATHIA AND NATURE ' AGAINST ALLOPATHIA AND ART. gtnnuRl JMnss By d.e President Dr. EDWARD BAYARD, THE XEW-YORK COUNTY IIOMCEOPATHIC MEDICAL SOCIETY, OX THE ANX1VKRSARY OF HAHNEMANN'S BIRTHDAY. <} t L- ) $tto-g0rk: PRINTED BY HENRY LUDWIG, 39 CENTRE-STREET. 1858. \ * • , > * *j V a HOKEOPATHIA AND NATURE AGAINST ALLOPATHIA AND ART. 3nnol a»rtss DELIVERED iv ::-.£ P:ec:dent u:. EDWARD BAYARD. THE NEW-YORK COUNTY IIOMCEOPATHIC MEDICAL SOCIETY, ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF HAHNEMANN'S BIRTHDAY, ^ ^ S«to-g0rk: PRINTED BY HENRY LUDWIO. 39 CENTRE-STREET. 18 5 8. (< I • HOKEOPATHIA AND NATURE AGAINST ALLOPATHIA AND ART. AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BY DR. EDWARD BAYARD BEFORE THE NEW-YORK COUNTY HO- MEOPATHIC MEDICAL SOCIETY, OX THE ANNIVERSARY OF HAHNEMANN'S BIRTHDAY. Gentlemen of the Society—Ladies and Gentlemen: By an act of the Legislature of the State of New-York, passed April 13, 1857, the existence of Homoeopathia was acknowledged by law. Homoeopathic physicians were then endowed with the same privileges that Allopathic physicians enjoyed. Under that Act this Society was organized. By its constitution, its President is required annually to deliver an address before it. With peculiar propriety was this day selected for that duty, and I, who have the honor of having been first elected to the office of presiding over this Society, now stand before you to discharge that duty as I best may. An infant, born at Meissen, in Germany, a little more than one hundred years ago, on the 10th day of April, 1755, in the course of time, by the force of his intellectual power, labor and inspiration, became known to us; and that event "Shall ne'er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But (he) in it shall be remembered." For Samuel Hahnemann was a great man, and the founder of a great system, which has made his name immortal. His memory is loved, and his labors are honored. His example will be to his followers an anchor, to which they will hold fast in the hour of o Homoeopathia and Nature trial. Against all opposition his sun ascended, and it shone with increasing brightness through the clouds which for a time darkened the noon of his greatness. But a kind breath of Heaven swept away the mists, and Hahnemann stands like a beacon light, leaving his honors to live in the hearts of his dis- ciples. What glory on earth can equal his—the Discoverer of the Law of Healing? No discovery before or since can outrank it in importance. Without health, an actual blight rests on the powers both of body and mind. Such is the intimate connec- tion between them, that if the one is disturbed, the influence is reflected on the other. Sound thinking is dependent upon the soundness of the body. The brain, the medium through which the soul of man receives its impressions from without, and elimi- nates its thoughts from within, is a material part of this body. From this great nervous centre are poured forth the vital streams of health. Here, no doubt, are first made the impressions which disturb, derange and divert the healthy action. A little more than half a century ago, Samuel Hahnemann, breaking away from the past, and opening a new field of glory to his activities, as well as a new era of progress to the Medical Art, created an epoch in Medicine, by publishing his treatise, "Divinibus Medicamentorum Positivis." and also his "Medi- cine of Experience," and thereby himself celebrated the anni- versary of half a century of his existence. When the divine truths therein contained were announced, how coldly were they received by the Medical schools ! They resolutely set their faces against them; and, by denunciations and authority of great names of the past, attacked them with violence. But the lin-ht that had sprung into existence spread around them and beyond them, and the voices of adversaries, who, in the first years of the infancy of Homoeopathia, raised such a furious clamor, are dyin« away. Homoeopathia now conquers the masses, without an ef- fort, by the sole influence of her superiority. From the success of her daily labors she draws her irresistible power. She has taken many steps in advance since the half century of her ex- istence, and nothing can much longer impede her universal reign. Her opposers themselves, illuminated by her successes, will be- come her most fervent servants, and in time there will not be one who will not be constrained to do her reverence, and who will not against Allopathia and Art. 3 hold it an honor to carry high her colors and publish afar her glory. The pure light from above, that over fifty years ago was shed into one mind, has continued steadily to increase until it now shines in every part of the civilized world; but nowhere on this globe has the truth been so universally received and ac- cepted as in this free land of ours, where Truth needs no pa- tronage for its success. I cannot offer a higher evidence of this fact than the Legislative Act under which we are organized, and which represented the popular demand that Homoeopathia should have legal recognition and complete equality with all other sys- tems of healing. Take, likewise, the fact that at this moment the authorities having in charge the public hospitals of this city and county, moved by numerous petitions from many of the most intelligent and wealthy of their constituents, have it under con- sideration to place one-half of these hospitals under the charge of Homoeopathic physicians. If this most reasonable prayer of those petitioners shall be granted, and Homoeopathic treatment be brought before the judgment of the country in fair compari- son with the works of its opponent, Allopathia—which now, with jealous exclusiveness, monopolizes all the public institutions— we believe that on that day the prestige of the latter will be lost. On that day, when our inveterate opponent, venerable from the length of her years, intrenched in her prejudices and great in her boastings, shall be tried before the country, neither her high pretensions, nor the number of her partizans will be of any avail to her. She will be tested by no other rule than the good and the true that is in her. She will not be permitted to evade the real issue, under the childish artifice that to her be- long exclusively the arts of surgery and midwifery—branches which she but holds in common with her Homoeopathic brethren —the only issues being the principles involved in the applica- tion of remedies to disease. We Homoeopathic physicians ab- jure Allopathia for this—she ignores nature and her powers, in her practice violates her, and in her place sets up the supremacy of her own art. We denounce her, because she is ignorant of the nature of disease. With her thousands of laborers, working for thousands of years, she has made little or no progress. And why ? Because she is so grossly material, ancr* because her at- tention has been directed to mere matter, and because the prin- 4 Homoeopathia and Nature ciples which pervade and control it, have been effectually hidden from her view. She is the offspring of Humoral Pathology, that can see but humors in the human system, which must be expelled. Hence comes the Evacuating School—hence comes the practice of opening the sluices of the body to give them vent—hence the Heroic practice, that with strong and powerful doses shocks and disturbs the human system. Nor has Allopa- thia, as the modern pathological school, taken many steps in ad- vance. Not less material here, she sees in organic lesions and structural alterations the substance of each malady; and hence her alterative and revolutionary processes. How vast the dif- ference between her views and those set forth by Hahnemann in his Principial According to him, each malady rests, in its first internal cause, on a peculiar disturbance of the vital principle— a disturbance occasioned by an influence foreign to the organism, and without a material cause. Every time that the efficient cause is only of a nature to produce a transient impression upon the vitality-pervading structure, it results only in a transient indisposition, more or less decided, as in acute diseases of longer or shorter duration. But if the efficient cause, on the contrary, is of a nature to produce a durable impression, it results in chronic malady. Hence the humors that are formed, and the organic lesions and alterations of structure, result from disturbed vitality. Hence the immaterial morbid activity, of which the material lesions and humors are the consequences, cannot be perceived in any other manner than in the symptoms and phe- nomena that it produces. This is as wholly impossible as it would be to perceive, otherwise than by their phenomena, Heat, Attraction, the Centrifugal Force, Gravity, and other imponde- rable forces of Nature. Nature is always in keeping, and she uses these immaterial forces in all her labors—the grandest as well as the most minute. Matter in her hands is but inert material. Pervading this with her constructive forces, she raises large islands from the depths of'the sea—shapes and compacts the tiny crystals of rock, whose aggregation forms mountain chains—aye, and builds worlds and constructs solar systems. Homoeopathia rests upon the idea and carries it in her walks among the sick, that Nature never uses matter as a cause posssessing powers per se. How widely against Allopathia and Art. 5 different, then, must her practice be from that of Allopathia! To establish the fact that Allopathia is ignorant of this, the na- ture of disease, we will quote from an authority that cannot well be denied—a man whose brilliant talents, profound learning and enlarged experience, have placed him in the highest ranks of the Allopathic school. We allude to Sir John Forbes, Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Phy- sician to the Queen's Household. From his position, learning and abilities, he fully comprehends, in their fullest extent, the views and principles of the Allopathic school, and we have the highest respect for him who, standing in the front rank of his profession, is able to see and admit its weakness and to point out its errors: "For the mind of ordinary or inferior powers, here or else- where, can scarcely ever escape from the conventional thraldom in which it has been nursed." In his last work entitled "Of Nature and Art in the Cure of Disease," embodying the results of experience in a practice for the long period of fifty years, he says with much solemnity: "I would fain regard the present work in the light of a legacy to my younger brethren^ Speak- ing of the Allopathic school he thus expresses himself: " I believe that the doctrines respecting the power of nature to cure dis- eases, promulgated in the present work, are at variance as far at least as re- gards degree, with those entertained by many of our best informed and most experienced medical men, and are at variance in every respect, and in an ex- treme degree, with those entertained by the majority of our junior and ordi- nary practitioners." * * "The falsest and most absurd notions are entertained respecting the whole subject of the morbid conditions of the animal economy, and respect- ing the means deemed capable of modifying and removing them." * * " The morbid condition constituting disease, whether consisting of actions of a merely dynamic or functional kind, or consisting of alterations of structure or composition of the solids or organic fluids, or both, are all either the immediate result of the vital actions ordinarily existing in the system, or are, at least, produced in subserviency to, or under the control of these actions. In no case (with the exceptions mentioned) have we the simple, physical results of physical agents, chemical or mechanical,]operat- ing according to the laws of mere matter. Consequently the knowledge of these laws goes, at most, but a very little way, and frequently goes no way at all, in helping us to comprehend or explain the operation of the causes of disease, when best known. " What we (of the allopathic school, meaning,) term causes of disease, 6 Homasopathia and Nature are not real or efficient causes, or indeed, properly speaking, causes at all; they merely constitute, as it were the occasions, on the existence or presence of which, or so to speak, on the prompting of which the natural or vital functions of the living body set about forming the diseases themselves, and do form them." * * "It will thus be seen that disease, contrary to the vulgar notion of it, is no new thing superadded to the living body, and constituting a special entity in rerum natural Sir John Forbes thus states the views of the Allopathic school, for the purpose of pointing out its errors to his younger brethren, and at the same time states the true principles of the nature of disease, and which were announced by Hahnemann half a century ago. Again, he says in the work from which I have above quoted: " In a very early stage of my medical experience, I became impressed with the conviction that the most fruitful source of false views, both in pa- thology and practice, prevalent in the profession, originated in ignorance of the natural laws governing disease : in other words, in ignorance of the natural history of diseases. And all my subsequent observations, through a long series of years, has only tended to strengthen the impression." * * "It is very remarkable, however, that in regard to one most important part of the history of diseases—that, namely, of their natural course and event—infinitely less progress has been made ; insomuch that it may now be affirmed that the practitioners of the present day are, speaking generally, almost as uninformed in this particular as were their predecessors fifty or a hundred years back. " Such has ever been the want of trust in nature, and the over-trust in art, prevalent among the members of the medical profession, that the field of natural observation has been, to a great extent, hidden from them—hid- den either actually from their eyes or virtually from their apprehension." Thus we see that Allopathia, ignorant of the natural laws governing disease, regarding disease only as material, overlooks the immaterial essences, the vital powers, disturbances of which are alone disease. It apprehends not the laws which govern it. For we take it as the true principle, that all disease arises but from disturbing causes, acting upon the immaterial essences, the vital forces, creating abnormal conditions; and Nature has es- tablished a protective principle, as a law, that Vitality must re- sist these disturbing causes, powerfully, strongly and effectually, to restore herself to her normal condition—which done, is Cure, restoration to health. The existence of this law extends through. and is illustrated by, all animated nature. The constant activity against Allopathia and Art. 7 of this principle is essential to existence, and is found exerting itself through both the mental and the physical powers. From the first moment that life is impressed upon matter, till it ceases to be, it may be said to be attacked by a host of assailants. The great principle of change under chemical affinity, malaria float- ing in the air, the alternation of the seasons, changes of heat and cold, poisons taken into the system, mental excitements, physical exertion—all of these, in their myriad forms, by this law, im- pressed upon her at the moment of her existence, she resists, and, as is most beautifully provided, by this very resistance she increases her power and her force. By virtue of this, the Aveak man becomes strong, and the invalid regains health. But Avhen her antagonists ovenvhelm her, that is disease. From this re- sults deranged functions and altered structure, in which changed functions and lesions of structure, Allopathia alone sees the cause of disease. This resistance of Vitality to the changes of chemical affinity is illustrated by the fact that it sustains organic and inorganic atoms which, aggregated, form matter, whose affinities are con- stantly in play to resolve them into their constituents, dissolving their union, as is witnessed, when life has departed, in the rapid operations of decay. That she sustains health in malaria is seen in the process of acclimation, by which man is enabled to main- tain existence in the most poisoned atmosphere, and Avhich may be so intense that vitality, to sustain herself, must commence the struggle with her existence, and be "to the manor born." That she resists the baleful influences of sudden changes from heat to cold, is shown by the impunity with Avhich navigators ascend from the tropics to a sunless residence within the Arctic circles. There Avater freezes, food freezes, wood freezes, iron freezes; but this poAver within man resists the frost, and defies a mighty agent which overcomes and changes the constitution of all matter around him. The power to overcome poisons, when taken into the human system, is seen in continued health in de- spite of agents inimical to life and constantly present, even in the food that nourishes us. And so perfect is the action of this power, that Ave do not recognise them as disturbing agents. She sustains herself against mental excitements and physical ex- haustion, and by her action restores the Avearied faculties and S Homoeopathia and Nature exhausted functions, strengthening the intellect by its use, and extending its capacity by its exercise, and to the muscle, flowing in increased quantities, gives it strength and endurance, in pro- portion to its use. This law of Resistance,, pervading matter, is the source whence cures, more or less perfect, can alone be made, and Avhich is ever absolutely and purely Nature's own work. But Allopathia, blind to this law, ignores the power of Nature to cure. \\ e charge upon her that she substitutes her art for Nature, and in proof of this we again cite Sir John Forbes : " Since the medical art assumed its present formal, bold and complicated character, it is only in very rare or exceptionable cases that the disease is left to Nature, or treated merely regimenally. On the contrary, the strong- est and most effective powers of art are usually employed for the very purpose of setting aside, or counteracting, or modifying in some way or other, the powers of Nature. Generally speaking, we may even say that all the he- roic arms of physic are invoked purposely to disturb, and obstruct, and overwhelm the normal order of the natural processes." From the time of Hippocrates until the present hour, there has never arisen a great and original mind in the Allopathic school, Avhich, dissatisfied with her empyricism and hypotheses, has failed to form new theories, sometimes approaching the truth, sometimes departing from it, creating new sects and abandoning old doctrines. Allopathia is ignorant of the exact action of the powerful drugs she uses, nor is aAYare of the profound and extensive influ- ence they exert. Sir John Forbes shows to us the source and character of the knoAvledge of the drugs she so freely uses. Listen to him: " Every drug that has at any time been regarded by anybody as possess- ing some special power, either in curing diseases or in influencing the func- tions of the organs in which they are supposed to have their seat; every drug that has been recommended by anybody, more especially by authors and teachers, simply as beneficial in certain diseases, though on no better evidence than that it was employed in cases that recovered! every drug that has been proposed by writers as of probable or even possible utility, on mere theoretical grounds ; every drug that has been suggested by analo- gies however vague ; every drug that has not been previously prescribed in the particular disease in hand; in a word, almost every drug in our over- flowing Materia Medica, whether inert or active, has been, on some ground or other, copiously prescribed in every variety of disease, under the sup- posed sanction of this pseudo-specific or empyrical indication. against Allopathia and Art. 9 " Nor let it be supposed that this empyrical practice is one of a past day only. It is at this very time in as great a vogue as ever, although its em- ployment may be often veiled under the technicalities of newer science. Nor is it confined to the ignorant or inexperienced among us, but'adopted and followed by men of the greatest abilities and greatest eminence in the profession. " No doubt it is followed by such men not from any fixed convictions of its propriety or usefulness, but rather from the influence of other causes— from conventionalism or traditionary habit; from indolence or carelessness ; from indifference founded on a just reliance on the restorative powers of nature ; from consciousness of the inherent deficiencies of art, and from the uncertainty of having any agencies of greater promise at. command." And Allopathia calls this Science ! How vague, how unsatis- factory such knoAvledge ! How unphilosophical, how dangerous the practice founded on it! When Ave reflect that human life and human health are put in peril by it, no Avonder that Hahne- mann, before he made his discovery of the Homoeopathic law, was made to exclaim: " It was agony to me to walk in darkness, with no other light than that which could be derived from books, when I had to heal the sick, and to pre- scribe, according to such or such an hypothesis concerning diseases, sub- stances which owed their places in the Materia Medica (the then Allopa- thic Materia Medica meaning) to an arbitrary decision. I could not consci- entiously treat the unknown morbid conditions of my suffering brethren by these unknown medicines, which, being very active substances, may (un- less applied with the most rigorous exactness, which the physician cannot exercise, because their peculiar effects have not yet been examined,) so easily occasion death or produce new affections or chronic maladies often more difficult to remove than the original disease. To become thus the murderer or tormentor of my brethren was to me an idea frightful and over- whelming. "Where could I find assistance, sure assistance, with our theory of medi- cines, (meaning Allopathic,) which rest only on vague observations—often even on pure conjectures—with these innumerable doctrines regarding dis- eases, which composed our nosologies ? He only can remain calm in the midst of such a labyrinth, who believes, without examination, all that has been said upon the virtues of medicines, because he meets it in a hundred volumes." Who that believes in the beneficence of the God in AAThom we live, can doubt that He has provided and placed within our reach a remedy for the ills of man, and that in harmony "with the rest of creation some buy must exist restoring health, and that that law is within the comprehension of His creatures? If man 10 Homoeopathia and Nature abandoning hypothetical reasoning, with true scientific A'iew fol- Ioavs Nature's and only Nature's lead, closely observing her si- lent workings, the law must be discovered. And we maintain that Samuel Hahnemann was such discoverer. So it was. Hahnemann found that every plant, and every mineral, and every substance that had the power to disturb the vital organism, had its own peculiar and distinct action, no two of them producing perfectly similar effects in their entirety. Thus he made the great discovery of the Natural History of medicinal substances, developing in its most minute detail the action of each substance. How scientific, how philosophical, how perfect, was the plan he adopted. And in what other way could such knowledge be ob- tained, than by exhibiting the drug upon a healthy organism ? All, then, that is required to ensure a positive and pure result, is, in the first place, to take care that no artificial interference disturbs the process and its progress—and in the second place, to observe and to accurately and minutely chronicle the progres- sive events. It is a case of simple observation throughout; no sifting of premises, no elimination of causes, no grouping or balancing of effects, being requisite to ensure a just conclusion. How it stands in strong contrast with the empyrical knowledge of the effects of drugs contained in the Allopathic Materia Medica! To give a drug to a sick man, and from recovery infer powers in the drug, ignorant of the laws under Avhich that reco- very was made—not having knowledge of the natural history of the disease! Could such conclusions be other than imperfect and lead to grave errors? The sufferings endured—were they the results of the medicines given, or of the disease? Who can ansAver? Hoav do the drugs act? All is dark, all is uncertain, all is supposition, when the highest interests of humanity de- mand that the information should be clear and manifest. By Hahnemann's method of testing the action of medicinal substan- ces, what pains and sufferings, Avhat distortions and diversions of nature's forces were brought to light, that othenvise must have been forever unknown, not recognised as the action of medi- cine, but supposed to be the effects of disease, throwing into deeper obscurity its natural history. Hahnemaun shoAved that the duration of medicinal action extended to months, to years, through life-time. His provings established the startling fact, against Allopathia and Art. 11 intimately affecting man in all his relations of life, that each drug had its peculiar power of disturbing his mental and moral condition, as well as his physical condition; that this action was invariable and certain, in a greater or less degree, according to the intensity of the action of the drug. Take, as an instance, Mercury, a medicine which Allopathia so universally prescribes. Hahnemann, in his provings, has shown its action on man's men- tal and moral condition to be "ill-humor," "disposition to be an- gry," "to fly into a passion," "great susceptibility," "humor quarrelsome, mistrustful, suspicious," "distraction," "inadver- tency," "difficulty of conception," "entire unfitness for medita- tion," "dread of labor" and "disgust of life." What fond pa- rents, administering grains of Mercury to a child, prescribed by Allopathia in her gross doses, would suppose that they may be making an indelible impression upon the facile sensorium of their offspring, and giving rise to the above moral manifestations as proven by Hahnemann? Who could suppose, or trace to their causes, these effects, by any merje effort of human reason? They could have been obtained in no other Avay than by observations on a healthy organism, and never could have been seen; because they merely alter the disposition of the moral state, Avhich alter- ations would be attributed to disease, or to peculiarities of moral character; and, under the supposition that the evil existed in the will or the spirit of the child, it has often been subjected to sharp reproof and punishment. The poor sufferer could no more control those mental manifestations, than it could control the pains and aches of its body. As Avell might the opium-eater re- sist the dreamy and fantastic fancies that gather around him, or the lethargic drowsiness that OA'ercomes him. The will was shackled by the drug. Hoav serious the reflections on the very o-rave consequences that must follow, when childhood has been subject to repeated action of such medicine, until it permeates the whole system, perverting the normal conditions of the mind as well as the body, setting aside the individuality and forming a character under the influence of drugs. Hahnemann an- nounced that the duration of repeated gross doses extended through lifetime. This Allopathia, in her ignorance, sneered at.. The cause of the duration that he had seen in his investigations of the natural history of drugs, has been brought Avithin our com- 12 Homozipathia and Nature prehension in the recent trial of Madeleine Smith, charged with the murder by poison of L'Angelier. Portions of his brain, his heart, lungs and intestines were subjected to chemical analysis by Dr. Frederick Penny, Professor of Chemistry in the Ander- sonian University at Glasgow. He reported to the Court, under oath, that he had subjected to a chemical, analytical process, the several organs mentioned, and detected Arsenic in the brain, in the lungs, in the heart, in the liver and in the stomach, and con- cluded that the poison had entered the body during life. Thus this poison, taken into the blood by the absorbents, is carried to all these nobler organs, and deposited, and there more or less influences their structure and functions, or both. There lying, there interwoven in the tissues of the brain, a constant source of recurring action, they alter and distort the very disposition of man, giving new traits of character. To examine a medicament of every day use, Chamomile, chamomilla vulgaris, the ordinary mild tonic of the Allopathic school. In turning to the provings of Hahnemann, we find among the moral symptoms that Chamomilla produces "a sort of stupidity," "taciturnity," "apathy to pleasure and to external objects," "hypochondriacal humor," "a tendency to misapply words when speaking and writing," "mischievous disposition in children." Who could have supposed, from the mere exercise of reason, that these manifestations of character could have been the effects of the household remedy of Chamomilla, given in large doses? A case Avithin my own practice proves the truthfulness of this proving of Chamomilla. I was called a few years since to see a lady, Avho had suddenly become hypochondriac. Her friends entertained fears that this was the commencement of a serious affection of her mind, for there was an unaccountable change of character. She who had been of a mild, kind and genial nature, Avas become sensitive to offence, and had a repug- nance to conversation. She who formerly sought society, now avoided it. Yet she was not insane. She felt and understood her unhappy condition, but she could not control it. The power of her will was gone. Upon inquiry, I found she was taking, and had for some time taken, under the direction of an Allopa- thic physician, who had prescribed it as " mild tonic for the sto- mach," a Avine-glassfull of the decoction of Chamomile each day. against Allopathia and Art. 13 She was fully and fairly under the action of the drug. The dis- continuance of its use, and a few Homoeopathic doses of its anti- dote, removed all the symptoms, and restored her to her wonted condition. Let me call your attention to a recent event which may have been a mere coincidence, yet may not have been, as an efiicient cause was present to produce the effect. You all, doubtless, have read the account of the execution of Orsini and Pierri at Paris; Orsini entertaining his fate with manly fortitude, having his mind and all his faculties in command, natural and calm; Pierri, excited, voluble and loquacious in the extreme. In the language of an eye-witness, "his tongue was not at rest a mo- ment, not even when his body was bound upon the slide, and his neck placed beneath the fatal axe." The world will say of the one that he died like a man, in the full possession of his powers; many would add that he died heroically. Of the other, by reason of his unnatural excitement and babbling, the world will say that he Avas of a timid, weak, and many,would add, a craven spirit. This may be so; but on examination we will find this fact. On the morning of the execution, a strong extract of Coffee was offered to both. Orsini declined it; Pierri drank freely of it. Now, if we again turn to the Materia Medica of Hahnemann, to learn the action of Coffee upon the healthy organism, we Avill see it set forth in these words : " Great mental and physical excita- bility," "vivacity and elevation of the imagination," "excessive loquacity." Herein may be found the cause of the difference in the bearing of these two men. The one natural, maintains his individuality; the other, under the influence of a drug, unnatu- ral, may have lost his individuality. And in this connection, let me state the principle, that where strong excitement already exists in an organ, drugs which produce effects similar to that excitation, always greatly increase it—drugs Avhich, otherwise overcome by resistance, would produce little or no appreciable effect. Alcohol has undoubtedly inflicted much injury upon mankind ; but Allopathia, with her drugs, has afflicted the human race with far greater evils. The one is but a diffusible stimulant, which by excessive use, and by its excitements and re-excitements, wears out both body and mind. But the other, affecting life in 14 Homoeopathia and Nature its seats, distorting and perverting the currents of vitality, act as poisons. Allopathia is an art. If she relieves, she does it by revulsions by diversions, by revolutionary processes, substituting her art for nature—creating disease. We hold it to be a principle founded in truth, that any art or system of medicine that sub- stitutes itself for the poAvers of Nature, if persisted in, must eventually break down the human constitution. And this is true; for art is at best but the work of man—Nature is the Avork of Deity. The one, from its source, must be imperfect, and limited by the intelligence that devised it. The other, from its origin, cannot be improved. It is Avell for the patient, that Nature possesses the power of resistance, and the ability to resume her normal condition. She may be, and sometimes is, overwhelmed by massive doses, and if in the course of events they are frequently resorted to, the constitution must inevitably fail. And I would ask, What is constitution? I define it to.be the poAver of the vital organism to resist disease, and maintain or resume its normal condition. Let us look still further into its laAV. We have already spoken of the poAver of Resistance. Let us examine for a moment its extent. It increases Avith use, within certain limits. But if those limits are surpassed, so that the poAver is prostrated, she becomes enfeebled and may never again be restored to her ori- ginal elasticity. And by every recurrence of prostration, she becomes more and more enfeebled, less and less vigorous, and slower and slower in her recovery. Let us take an example of common occurrence. You find a patient who has taken a severe cold, so profound that the lungs become involved; inflammation is the consequence, resistance gives way, and the disease prevails. But by this force of Nature he sloAvly recoA'ers. Resistance has been enfeebled by the shock. He is again exposed. His con- stitution before the attack could have protected him without an effort, but now, Aveakened anew, it is easily overwhelmed. He may recover ; but if he have a succession of attacks, death will ensue. What position does Allopathia place herself in, when she uses her strong doses to produce her revulsions ? Does she seek to strengthen the effort of Nature—the tendency to restoration— against Allopathia and Art. 15 when she prescribes? Does she not rather assault the already weakened citadel ? Is the effect of the disease which she has engendered by her drugs, less disastrous than the disease she combats ? Both tend to the same results—utter prostration of Nature. Would not the natural powers be in a far better con- dition if they had been permitted to act against one disease, than if their forces had been divided to fight this double battle? Hahnemann, having examined the principal drugs in use in the Allopathic school, and accurately observed their action on the immaterial essence, Avhose disturbance could be known only by its symptoms, faithfully recorded them, and was then prepar- ed to treat the action of disease, disturbing that immaterial principle, also only known and appreciable by its symptoms. Then was he able to apply the principle of " like curing like." The medicines he administered, acting on the disturbed vitality, irritants producing similar symptoms, and the resistance excited against their action, in the recoil stimulated resistance of the vital forces against the disease, until health was restored. By this mode of cure, and by Nature's powers and by Nature's method, he developed resistance, and strengthened the constitu- tion of the sufferer. How Nature restores the constitution, let us see. A man has weakened his resisting powers by the indulgences of civic life and sedentary habits. He has slept on down. He has enervat- ed his existence, excluding himself from the free air, not letting the winds of Heaven visit his face too rudely. He has neither run, nor Avalked, nor fatigued his muscles. He never inspired his breath deeply. He sheltered himself from the heat and cold. All this enfeebled him. In other words, his con- stitution was weakened. For by Nature's law, powers dis- used fall into decline. Without having disease, he has be- come delicate. He seeks restoration by a journey to a dis- tant land. There he runs, and walks, and exercises his mus- cles, even to fatigue, and rouses up the resistance of the vital essences. His muscles expand. He breathes deeply and long, and his lungs are enlarged and strengthened. He is now able to throw himself upon the ground, with only Heaven above him, and to rise refreshed, despite the night Avind and the falling dews. His constitution is restored. What before would have 16 Homoeopathia and Nature sickened, perhaps killed him, now makes him strong. This is Nature's oayii beautiful Avork. Hahnemann finds the vital power disturbed. By his method of cure, he affects the part diseased, in its exact and peculiar direction. With a remedy nicely adjusted to the precise degree of the patient's feebleness, and rousing up his resistance, little by little, he restores health. It is Nature's cure, after her own mode. Art is not here substituted for Nature. Who could hesitate to choose between the operations of two systems so totally different. The one, though it may give relief, must, by the violation of the principles of Nature, injure the constitution. The other, being in harmony Avith Nature, mars no part of her work. It is for these reasons, Gentlemen of the Society, that we have abandoned the Allopathic school, in which we have all studied, and whose principles Ave have all examined, and whose diplomas for proficiency in her learning we have all had conferred upon us. Why, it may be asked, do our Allopathic brethren reject truths so momentous, and fraught with such advantages ? The answer doubtless lies, in the extreme minuteness of the doses which Homoeopathia uses, attenuated almost beyond the appreciation of the human mind. Hahnemann, after he first discovered the LaAV of Likes, used large doses, not being aAvare of the extreme impressibility of the vital power Avhen deranged by disease. In that peculiar disturbance it becomes exceeding- ly sensitive to a similar irritant. And such knoAvledge could not be obtained othenvise than by experiment. If Hahnemann had merely reasoned upon the small doses, necessary to secure re- sisting action, he would, like our Allopathic brethren, have ne- ver practised Homoeopathia. But Hahnemann, seated at the feet of Nature, patiently examined her Hiavs and was willing to be taught by her. He said, " I cannot put my poor judgment in opposition to a fact of Nature." Sir John Forbes—admitting many of these truths, and seeing that the principles of Nature were outraged by Allopathia, and seeing the true nature of dis- ease, its subtle and ethereal essence, and believing that it is by the poAver of Nature that disease must be cured-"—Avith all this knoAYledge, stumbles, and is turned aside from Homoeopathia by her small doses. He can see nothing in them, reasoning upon against Allopathia and Art. 17 their inappreciable character, instead of proving them in the way pointed out by our great master. Sir John, having out- stripped his contemporaries, and risen above his school, falters. being almost in view of the good land which he fondly hoped would one day or other be reached by Medical science. Like some traveller, who, having toiled many a Aveary mile up the side of some steep mountain, pauses ere he reaches the summit. from Aveariness of exertion, must fain be contented with this elevation. Had he taken one step more, all Nature would have been revealed to his view. So with Sir John. If he had taken but one step more, he would have beheld, and admitted, the glorious truths discovered by Hahnemann, and by him announced to the world. And Ave believe that generation after generation will fall back upon this great man's judgment, until there is left but one Medical school of reliance, and that the School of Hahnemann.