REMARKS 
ON THE 
CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 
OF 
HAHNEMANN. 
(FROM THE NEW-YORK JOURNAL OF MEDICINE.) 
THE EDITOR. 
NEW-YORK: 
J. & H. G. LANGLEY, 5 AMERICAN HOTEL, BARCLAY-STREET, 
OPPOSITE ASTOR-HOUSE. 
M DCCC XLVII. REMARKS, ETC. 
To arrive at a correct appreciation of Homoeopathy, vve must study 
the character of its founder; for in his mind we find its true type. 
Hahnemann was not destitute of genius, but he was thoroughly im- 
bued with transcendentalism. He was always devoted to theories and 
speculations, and had no regard whatever for experience or facts, 
except as they went to support hypothesis. Hence, he says, that the 
true physician will be cautious how he suffers himself to become 
attached to any particular remedies, merely because he has often em- 
ployed them with success; and that he will in like manner, also, be 
cautious how he suffers himself to be prejudiced against remedies, for 
the opposite reason, that they sometimes fail to succeed, (Organon, 
p. 27 f). He had, indeed, no correct idea of what ought to be expected 
of medical science, or in what it really consists. He saw that it was 
an uncertain science; but he had no proper conception of the causes 
of this uncertainty, or the proper mode of correcting it. A believer 
in the perfectibility of human nature, the tendencies of whose mind 
were to abstract principles in morals and politics, and to mysticism in 
religion, he thought that medicine ought to rest on an immutable basis, 
and have within itself the power of rising to perfection. His early 
life was considerably occupied in the study of chemistry and the 
natural sciences, and he seems to have concluded, that we ought to 
expect the same uniform sequence of cause and effect, the same unde, 
viating uniformity of phenomena in medicine, as in the other branches 
of physical science. We can readily understand how the mere 
chemist, who always sees the same actions resulting from bringing in 
contact certain substances, might at length be led to expect that the 
same uniform results'ought to occur in medicine ; and that, if they did 
not, then to conclude, that that was a science “ falsely so called.” He 
would be very likely to set to work to find out some universal law, 
like gravitation; some principle which might bind together all known 
facts, and serve as a basis on which to build a true system. But all 
this betrays an ignorance of medicine, and a total want of all correct 
knowledge of what ought to be expected from it. In the first place, 4 
notwithstanding all that has been done, there is great uncertainty in 
diagnosis—in our knowledge of the character and progress of disease 
—and it is not to be expected that our therapia, or art of cure, will 
be perfected any faster than our knowledge of these advances 
And then the action of external or internal agents upon the body 
never can be unilbrm, owing to the well-known fact, that we are not 
all constructed exactly alike. As two individuals, exposed to the same 
causes of disease, as cold, fatigue, etc., will be liable to he attacked 
by different disorders, so will they be differently affected by the same 
internal remedies, so that we have, and can have, no confidence 
approaching that of certainty, that similar treatment will be followed 
by similar results even in the same disease. The operation of our 
remedies is modified by constitution, climate, temperament, state of 
mind, and many other circumstances, which cannot always be ac- 
curately appreciated; hence, medicine can never, with man’s present 
organization, attain to Hahnemann’s standard, viz., that of a certain 
science. 
Whoever has carefully examined the writings of Hahnemann, will 
at once perceive, that he constantly violates every rule of philosophi- 
cal investigation. Instead of pursuing the mode of induction, as laid 
down by Bacon, he began by inventing the law, simiha similibus 
curantur, and then endeavored to find facts to support it. So wedded 
was he to his theory, that, if opposing facts were brought forward, his 
only reply would seem to have been, “So much the worse fur the 
facts ! ” One great source of fallacy in all his reasonings was his 
constant mistakes in tracing causation. 
1. In administering medicines to the healthy, for example, he invaria- 
bly set down all the subsequent phenomena, mental and physical, for 
days, weeks, and months together, to the article administered. The 
minutest sensations, even to the faintest moral emotions, were ascribed 
to the infinitesimal dose of the drug, and no influence was allowed to 
any other cause whatever. 
2. In treating the sick, he always ascribed the recovery to the 
effect of his medicine; attributing his failures to former allopathic 
treatment, or to some imaginary cause. 
3. He referred the symptoms of disease, also, to some imaginary 
cause, as sycosis, or itch, and then assigned to particular articles the 
power of removing this cause. 
4. Hence, he was continually mistaking the nature of diseases, and 
claiming to have cured maladies which only existed in his own 
imagination. “ Diseases,’’ says he, “ are dynamic aberrations, which 
our spiritual existence undergoes in its mode of feeling and adins— 
that is to say, immaterial changes in the state of health, (Organon, 
P- '9)- 
5. So far from proving his law, “ similia similibus,” to be a universal 
fact, as laid down, Hahnemann admits important exceptions ; numerous 
enough to vitiate it as a general principle, and as a basis on which to 
erect a new system of medicine. “ In urgent and dangerous cases,” says 
he, “ or in diseases that have just broken out in persons who were pre- 
viously in health, such as asphyxia by lightning, suffocation, freezing, 
drowning, etc., it is proper, in the first instance at least, to re-animate 
the feeling and irritability by the aid of palliatives, such as slight 
electric shocks, injections of strong coffee, stimulating odors, warmth,” 5 
etc. Again, he says, “ every intelligent physician will first remove 
the occasional range; then the disease usually ceases of itself,” 
{Organon). Hahnemann admits, then, that the homoeopathic law is 
not a general one, that it does not apply—l, to cases of syncope, which 
are to be treated by stimulants; 2, to cases where life seems almost 
extinguished, where the ordinary measures are to be employed to excite 
re-action ; 3, to cases where offending matter exists in the stomach 
and intestinal canal, which are to be treated by emetics and cathartics ; 
4, to cases of habitual constipation which often require enemafa; 5, 
to chronic diseases, for Hahnemann observes, “1 have found, alter 12 
years of diligent research, that chronic diseases, treated homoeopathi- 
cally, even in the best manner, re-appeared, after having been fre- 
quently seemingly cured, and each year with a perceptible increase in 
their intensity.” In all chronic diseases, he states that remedies are 
to be directed, not against symptoms which really exist, but against 
the symptoms of one or other of three imaginary diseases, itch, sycosis, 
and syphilis, which were supposed to have existed at some previous 
time ; all chronic diseases, then, are exceptions to the law similia 
similibus ! 
6. Hahnemann not only refers phenomena to fictitious principles, 
instead of facts, and Jays down, as of general application, a rule whose 
exceptions, according to his own showing, are far more numerous than 
its applications, but he constantly institutes statements and hypotheses 
for facts, and puts forth his own opinions, without a shadow of evidence, 
as established truths. 
Such are the principal failings of Hahnemann, as a medical philoso- 
pher, but theqe are grave charges against him as a man of high and 
honorable bearing, to which we should not here allude, did they not 
serve to throw light upon his career and his system, and the motives 
which may have influenced him in its promulgation. The origin and 
progress of homoeopathy can best be traced in the mind of him to 
whom it owes its birth. In his early professional career (1800), it is 
admitted that he advertised a new salt, the discovery of which he 
claimed, and which he offered for sale under the name of alkali pneum, 
at the price of one louis d'or ($4) per ounce. The Society for the 
Promotion of Natural Sciences, at Berlin, procured an ounce of it 
from his agent at Leipzig, which was analyzed by Klaproth, and pro- 
nounced to be nothing more than common borax! Soon after this, 
Hahnemann advertised an “ infdllible preventive of scarlet fever,” as 
he termed it; the price of which was, also, a louis d'or; this was a 
simple solution of the extract of belladonna ! It has been proved 
by Professor Joerg, of Leipzig, that many of the quotations from old 
medical authors, made by Hahnemann, are false and fictitious ! These 
statements, long since made, have never been refuted ; it is admitted 
that his quackish practices chiefly drove him from Germany, to take 
up his abode in Paris. * 
It is abundantly evident that Hahnemann had no correct idea of the 
mode in which nature cures disease. Indeed, he sometimes denies 
that nature ever cures, without the aid of homoeopathic drugs ; and 
yet he thinks her powers are energetic enough to remove the much 
stronger disease caused by them ! Assuming disease to be spiritual, 
he attempted to find an antidote by spiritualizing matter, and as it was 
a bad, not a good spirit, his treatment amounted to nothing more nor 6 
less than sending one evil spirit into the body to chase out another j 
for we are not to forget it was an application of the similia similibus 
principle. It is a theory which begins and ends with spirits; it 
is German mysticism reduced to a system ; transcendentalism trans- 
ferred to medicine! The whole doctrine of homoeopathy, as laid 
down in the Organon, is but a jumble of contradictions and absurdi- 
ties. The whole doctrine of dynamization of medicines is contradic- 
tory in itself; at war with common sense and the laws of nature. At 
one time, we are cautioned against the use of dynamizations too low, 
lest they should act with too much power, and then he shows how 
power is developed by trituration and shaking. “Formerly,” says he, 
(Preface to Chronic Diseases, translated by Hempel, Vol. 111. p. 6,) 
“ when I was in the habit of giving a whole drop of the attenuation, 
mixed with a little Mater, I found that ten shakes developed the 
medicinal power of a drug to an excessive degree, and I, therefore, 
substituted two shakes in the place of ten,” etc. Again (/oc. cit.), he 
says, “In cases where great irritability and extreme weakness went 
hand in hand, and where smelling had to be resorted to, 1 employed, 
for that purpose, several vials containing globules of a different potency, 
the patient smelling of the highest potency, and every succeeding day 
of a lower potency, either with both nostrils or only with one, accord- 
ing as I desired to produce a stronger or weaker impression.” The 
same contradiction appears in the preface to his work on “ Chronic 
Diseases,” published in 1828, in which he says, “The power of small 
and highly-diluted doses was doubted, their greater fitness for effecting 
a homoeopathic cure, and the higher development of their dynamic 
action were overlooked, and, despite of the warning trials which 
enabled me to recommend small doses as the most appropriate for the 
cure of disease, my faithful assurances and reasonings were disdained, 
and medical men continued, for years, to jeopardize the lives of their 
patients by large doses,” etc. “ What would they have risked, if they 
had first followed my indications, and had employed small doses! 
The worst which could have befallen them, was, that these doses 
would he of no avail. It teas impossible that they should do any 
harm ”! ! (p. 12). Where is potentization here ? 
The work on chronic diseases, comprising the materia medica 
(pure ?) of Hahnemann, is a heterogeneous jumble of crude tran- 
scendental imaginings, dignified with the name of facts; in which 
symptoms, observed or fancied in different persons, are intermixed, 
without distinguishing the dose administered, the order in which the 
symptoms were manifested; how they were grouped, or succeeded 
each other, or at what intervals of time they appeared. In short, it 
is a complete chaos ; in which the artificial symptoms said to be pro- 
duced on the healthy by medicines, are intermixed with those which 
are said to have been removed by the medicine ; both apochryphal in 
our estimation, and of no more value than the ravings of a madman-. 
We regard Hahnemann as a physician, in the same light that we do 
Swedenborg as a divine ; both were inspired by a species of wild 
enthusiasm, which enabled them to see things that never existed; and 
if they did not end their days in a mad-house, it was not because their 
insanity was doubted, but rather because it was of an inoffensive 
character, rather calculated to amuse and excite curiosity, than to 
disturb the peace of the community. 7 
The founder of Homoeopathy was born in Saxony, in the year 1755, 
and received the degree of M.D., at Erlangen; after which he re- 
sided for some time at Gommern, where he occupied himself in trans- 
lating works from the English, French, and Italian languages into 
German. It is not claimed that he had any medical practice, although 
he held himself in readiness fur the discharge of professional duties ; 
but after his nostrums failed, he abandoned all idea of practice, *• be- 
cause,” he said, “ it afforded no great principle by which he could, in 
all cases, guide his course.” It would not be uncharitable to believe, 
that he might have been actuated by other motives ; for he could not 
have been ignorant, that the physician has to deal with psychological 
facts, involving the idea of life, which, constantly varying, cannot be 
subjected to a system of the same rigid experimentalism as physical 
phenomena, and cannot, therefore, furnish the same definite law's. 
In 1790, Hahnemann claims to have discovered the similia similibus 
principle, while translating Collins’ “ Materia Medica,” by experiment- 
ing on himself, with cinchona bark, which, he says, produced all the 
symptoms of intermittent fever; although similar trials since male 
with the same medicine have uniformly failed in causing the same 
results. In 1796, he published his first dissertation on homoeopathy in 
Hufeland’s Journal. In 1805, he brought out a tr< alise on the vir- 
tues of medicines, and in 1810, the Organon appeared. In 1811, he 
commenced to teach his system in Leipsic, and is said to have per- 
formed the experiments on himself and pupils, which firmed the basis 
of the “Materia Medica Pura,” which appeared during the same 
year. Let it be borne in mind, that Hahnemann claimed to have 
discovered in homoeopathy an infallible method of cure, applicable to 
all cases, and never failing to eradicate disease Now turn we to his 
work on “ Chronic Diseases,” (translated by Dr. Hempel, New York, 
1845, Vol. I. p. 18,) and one of his latest productions. 
Here Hahnemann acknowledges the complete failure of homoeopathy 
in the treatment of chronic maladies. “ First,” he says, “ the treat- 
ment was satisfactory, then it became less favorable, and finally hope- 
less. Despite of these failures, the doctrine itself has been, and will 
ever be, founded upon the unshakable pillars of truth. Facts have 
confirmed its infallibility ! ” 
“ Why,” he asks, “ should homoeopathy have failed in thousands of 
cases, to cure such chronic ailments thoroughly and forever. These 
failures were perhaps owing to the small number of the homoeopathic 
medicines, whose pure action had been ascertained. The follou'ers of 
homoeopathy were satisfied with this excuse. But the founder of homoeo- 
pathy rejected it as a mere subterfuge. For the yearly increase of 
powerful homoeopathic remedies left the treatment of chronic non- 
venereal diseases in the dark, whereas, acute diseases, provided they 
were not fatal from their beginning, were not only considerably alle- 
viated by correctly-chosen homoeopathic remedies, but even promn'ly 
and thoroughly cured by the vis medicatrix of the organism.” (p. 18.) 
“Why,” he asks, “should this vis medicatrix of the organism, 
whose object is to restore the integrity of the organism, and to be in- 
defatigably active in completing the recovery from virulent acute 
diseases, have been insufficient to effect a durable cure of those chronic 
maladies, even when it was aided by those homoeopathic remedies, the 
symptoms of which corresponded most accurately to those of the dis- 8 
ease ?” In trying to answer this question, H. states that he was led 
to the discovery of the nature of chronic diseases, which he kept secret 
till the year 1827, when he communicated it to two of his disciples. 
“ I did so,” he says, “ in order to avoid the danger of seeing my dis- 
coveries lost to mankind.” He was then in the 73d year of his age ! 
This discovery consisted in ascertaining (?) that 7-Bths of all chronic 
maladies are caused by psora, or itch, and the remaining l-Bth by 
syphilis or sycosis, (wart-disease,) and of course that the treatment was 
to be directed against these imaginary and latent diseases, and not the 
apparent disease, or that which prevailed under a disguised livery. 
“ This psora,” says Hahnemann, “is the oldest, most universal, and 
most pernicious chronic miasmatic disease. For thousands of years it 
has disfigured and tortured mankind, and during the last centuries, it 
has become the cause of those thousands of incredibly different, acute 
as well as chronic, non-venereal diseases, with which the civilized 
portion of mankind becomes more and more infected upon the whole 
inhabited globe.” p. 23. Again, “ All natural chronic ailments now 
existing, which have not been produced by bad medical treatment, or 
by the fumes of quicksilver, lead, arsenic, etc., in the work-shops, and 
■which we find arrayed in the usual treatises on pathology as distinctly, 
bounded and separately-named diseases, originate in psora, as their 
fountain head,” (Loc. cit.) We leave these quotations without comment, 
adding one more jewel as a pendant to the string. ‘‘Careful observa- 
tions, comparisons and experiments, in latter years, have revealed to 
me the fact, that the tedious ailments of both the body and the soul, 
which differ so much from each other in their principal symptoms, as 
well as in the different patients, are all of them nothing but partial 
manifestations of one primitive chronic psoric miasm, in which they all 
originate, and whose innumerable symptoms form but one integral dis- 
ease ; and ought, therefore, to be regarded and treated as parts of one 
and the same disturbance. Of this nature are the great epidemic typhus 
fevers, like that of 1813 ” (p. 22.) 
A pi’oneness to secrecy and dissimulation were prominent traits in 
the character of Hahnemann ; disguise and concealment entered into 
all his plans, and influenced all his actions. From the time that he 
advertised his grand panacea, borax, to the very last years of his life, 
when he confessed that his system of practice had been an entire 
failure, so far as the treatment of chronic diseases was concerned, and 
that he had kept to himself for nearly 30 years the true theory and 
mode of curing this class of disorders, during all this long period he 
had been openly proclaiming the success of his system, as set forth, and 
its superiority over all others, in the management of every class of 
affections ; while, according to his own late confession, he was con- 
scious all the time it was a perfect failure. We do not wish to judge 
any man uncharitably, but we are directed by high authority to judge 
a tree by its fruits, and to this test we wish to bring the founder of 
homoeopathy. We cannot reconcile, we repeat, with honesty of purpose 
or even common humanity, this long and cruel silence regarding the 
success of his practice, while his deluded followers were trusting to it 
as their sheet-anchor, to the neglect of known established methods of 
cure. It is dreadful to contemplate the number of lives which were 
thus sacrificed to pride of opinion, and obstinacy of will;—lives hardly 
atoned for by late and reluctant confession, at a time when death 9 
seemed staring him in the face. Throughout his works, wherein are 
recorded his experiments with drugs on himself or others, we never 
find him stating the dose, or the intervals of administration ; so that it 
is impossible to verify his experiments if we would. He only directs 
to “ dynamize ” one drop, or one grain of the medicine, but how much 
he used in his experiments he leaves us to guess. Under Lycopodium 
he speaks of the “ wonderful medicinal properties, which can only be 
disclosed by trituration and succussion and under “ Salt ” he speaks 
of the peculiar processes of trituration and succussion bringing to 
light a new world of powers, which Nature keeps latent in crude 
substances ! ” 
We infer, of course, from these and other statements, that Hahne- 
mann’s experiments were performed with the little doses, although the 
symptoms, as recorded, are of the most painful and aggravated cha- 
racter, and such as the crude articles never would have produced ; yet 
he always contended, notwithstanding his statements that trituration 
and comminution developed such “ wonderful power,” that the high 
dilutions were infinitely safer, and that “ if they did no good, they would 
do no harm.” He acknowledges that he had “killed ” patients with 
drugs in their ordinary officinal forms, but had never done any injury 
with his potentizations ! and such hocus pocus as this he expected his 
purblind followers to swallow, as they did his confessions ; and if the 
truth were known, his practice would give the lie to his pretence, that 
“ latent power ”is developed by trituration. When we have swallowed 
at a time thousands of homoeopathic pellets, and tens of thousands of 
doses of homoeopathic dilutions, and when we have offered to swallow 
with our dinner, by way of dessert, all the homoeopathic medicines in 
the city above the third ’dilution, we have been told that the peculiarity 
of these remedies is not to operate upon the healthy, but only on indi- 
viduals whose disease bears to them a certain specific relation and 
affinity ; and when we have asked these same persons if Hahnemann’s 
experiments were not made with the infinitesimals, or high dilutions, 
the answer has been—nothing! Let them learn of Jahr, (Am. Ed. 
p. 4, 1838,) “Every cure, and for the most part, the symptoms pro- 
duced on healthy persons, have been effected with what are called the 
little doses.” 
We have always been puzzled to understand how it was that medi- 
cines made so “ tremendously potent ” by trituration, are safer than our 
doses of the same substance for which we claim no such power. How 
it is that such powerful agents have no sensible effect on a healthy man, 
when doses of the same substance, whose powers have not been so 
prodigiously developed, act with admitted power. And especially have 
we wondered why, if homoeopathic remedies are so “ tremendously 
potent,” it is necessary to suppose the body, in disease, to be specially 
susceptible to them, in order to account for their action at all, when the 
same substances, given in the same diseases, in doses not possessing 
this potency, act so powerfully as to augment the disease, and even, in 
some cases, cause death ! 
But Hahnemann explains the difficulty; the high “ potentizations” 
are, after all, absolutely inert, and if they do no good, they can never 
* Chronic Diseases, Am. Ed., Vol. IV., p. 81. 10 
do any harm. A careful examination of Hahnemann’s works, then? 
compels us to believe that he was artful, disingenuous, and insincere. 
We doubt very much whether he himself believed in his own doctrines 
for years after they were first broached, and such was the opinion of 
some of his own intimate friends. His want of success in obtaining, 
business in the treatment of disease, as well as the merited discipline 
to which he had been subjected, for violating the laws of his country, 
relating to the practice of medicine, had embittered his feelings against 
the regular profession, and against its modes of cure, and led him to 
invent some antagonist system or school, which would present an 
opposing front to those whom he regarded as his enemies. Some of 
his triends, however, who judged him more leniently, believed that his 
object in inventing his theory of similia similibus was, that it lessened 
the evils which he saw to arise from excessive medication ; and if 
adopted, would leave the cure in the hands of Nature, in whose re- 
storative energies he is said, by them, to have had the most unlimited 
confidence. On either supposition, it follows that he was influenced 
by other motives than a belief in the truth of his doctrines. 
VVe, however, cannot reconcile Hahneman’s conduct and writings 
with what are generally regarded by the world as candor and honesty ; 
and we will illustrate what we mean by his statements in relation to the 
part which nature plays in the cure of disease. It is self-evident, that to 
establish the doctrine that disease can only be cured by the administra- 
tion of something which causes in health symptoms analagous to those 
of the disease itself, it is necessary to deny that nature herself ever cures 
disease ; this Ilahneman did in all his earlier writings. Thus, in the 
“ Organon,” (Am. Trans., p. 30,) he says, “Allopathic physicians never 
discovered that all those pretended crises, those evacuations and deri- 
vations produced by nature, abandoned to her own exertions, pro- 
cure palliative relief for a short time only, and that far from contribut- 
ing towards a real cure, they on the contrary aggravate the internal 
primitive evil, by consuming the strength and the juices. No one 
HAS EVER SEEN THOSE EFFORTS OF SIMPLE NATURE EFFECT THE DURA- 
BLE recovery of a patient.” !! In another place (p. 30,) he calls the 
vital force “unintelligent, inconsiderate, and tending towards anything 
but a real cure,” on page 31, he denies that “efforts of pure nature” 
are truly “ salutary.” In severe acute diseases, the efforts of nature 
he says “ are never successful,” and in those of a mild form, “ only 
crowned with partial success,” (p. 26,) again “the miserable and 
very imperfect attempts which the vital powers make to assist them- 
selves in acute diseases, is a spectacle that ought to excite man to use 
all the resources of his learning and wisdom, to put an end by a real 
cure to this torment which nature herself inflicts,” (p. 26. Loc. cit.) on 
the other hand, in the preface to his 4th volume, on “Chronic Dis- 
eases,” he admits that the vital powers cure diseases unassisted by re- 
medial agents, but not without expending a portion of both the fluids and 
solids of our organism (p. 2,) “ we know,” he remarks, “with certainty, 
that the vital powers do not accomplish a victory over disease in a di- 
rect manner, or without making great sacrifices.” He then goes on 
to say, that though it is necessary “to assist and direct these vital 
forces by a properly-selected homoeopathic agent,” yet it is, nevertheless, 
these forces that conquer /” Here then we have an admission that nature 
is adequate to cure disease, although she finds it much easier when 11 
“ aided by a homoeopathic drug.” But how easier? Let our author 
explain. “By magnifying ever so little the enemy by which the vital 
forces are assailed, which we accomplish by aiding the vital forces by 
an artificially morbid influence closely resembling the disease, we in- 
duce those forces, as from an instinct of self-preservation, gradually 
to unfold all their energies, until they become powerful enough to con- 
trol the disease ; the vital forces are then restored to the regulation of 
the animal functions, whereas the artificial medicinal disease disap- 
pears of itself, so soon as we discontinue the use of those agents by 
which it had been established in the organism.” To say nothing of this 
singular mode of aiding nature by magnifying the enemy by which she 
is assailed, as if she could throw off a larger burden easier than a 
smaller one, the reader will perceive the downright contradiction of 
the views previously advanced, which we leave to be explained on any 
theory which appears most consistent. 
We have said that the law “ similia similibus curanlur ” is a pure 
fiction, founded on assumption and unsustained by facts. Converts to 
homoeopathy take its truth for granted without proof, and often without 
examination, simply because, so far as we can see, Hahnemann has pro- 
mulgated it. Although the science of medicine has always been found- 
ed on experience and observation, yet we are to believe that not a scintil- 
lation of medical (ruth dawned in the human mind relative to the proper 
mode of treating and curing disease, till the genius of Hahnemann rose 
upon the world to dim the pale twilight of Hippocrates, Celsus, Galen, 
Sydenham, Boerhaave and Haller. What evidence has he given us of 
candor, love of truth, and devotion to science ? Is it in the sale of his 
secret nostrums, his worthless panaceas, and scarlatina preventives, or 
his insufferable vanity, which led him to denounce the great lights in 
medicine of every age, and Paracelsus-like, boast that he embodied 
all wisdom and medical science in himself? It is confessed that Hah- 
nemann had tried but very few, if any experiments, when he announced 
the universality of the homoeopathic law. He had not even applied it in 
the treatment of a single disease at the time of its announcement, but ar- 
rived at it, as he acknowledged, chiefly from noticing the effects of a 
single medicine on himself, viz., quinine From that time until the 
appearance of the “ Organon,” he was engaged, not in applying his prin- 
ciple in the treatment of disease, but in experimenting with drugs in 
infinitesimal doses on himself and his students. The “Materia Medica 
Puraf (Part Ist,) which appeared in 1811, contained the results of 
these experiments, not one of which, we feel confident in saying, had been 
verified either by himself or any one else at the bed-side. That these 
effects were purely imaginary, we also feel assured, inasmuch as those 
described as resulting from certain agents, as charcoal, sal>, lime, etc., 
not only differ in to'o from any effects ever before or since observed 
from the same articles, although some of them have been in daily use 
from time immemorial, but they differ entirely from those witnessed by 
Joerg and his company of experimenters, when the same medicines 
were taken in appreciable doses. We have besides, again and again, 
taken them ourselves, and given them to others without ever observing 
the slightest effect. What evidence, moreover, have the practitioners of 
this school, in support of the universality and infallibility of this as- 
sumed “law?” Is it in the success of their practice? Far from it, 
for, of all modes of treatment,, it is well known that the homoeopathic 12 
is the most unsatisfactory and unsuccessful. Were it not for the 
regulated diet, which is usually adjusted according to the most approved 
rules of ancient and modern writers, and the confidence inspired by 
unlimited promises, which generally bear an inverse ratio to the per- 
formance, homoeopathy would never have met with sufficient success 
as to have gained a single convert, or have acquired even an epheme- 
ral foothold in the community. How then, we ask again, do the 
disciples of Hahnemann convince themselves of the truth and univer- 
sality of the law. Now we hesitate not to say, that they take it for 
granted, not only without evidence, but in the face of thousands of well 
established facts which prove its falsity. Their love of novelties, of 
hypotheses, of a grand, though false, generalization, outweighs their 
love of truth, of induction, of established facts ; and in the want of a 
well-grounded knowledge of physiology, pathology, and therapeutics, 
they adopt a system at war with all these, with reason, and with com- 
mon sense. A belief in Thompsonianism or ultra Hydropathy does not 
argue deeper ignorance of the true principles of the healing art, than 
a belief in homoeopathy. 
The profession is constantly assailed by the followers of Hahnemann 
for rejecting his doctrines without subjecting them to trial. Although 
not true to the extent alleged, we contend that the educated physician 
is justified in rejecting homoeopathy without testing it at the bed-side ; 
and this opinion is founded on the fact, that its doctrines are not only 
contradictory and at variance with themselves, but self-evident absur- 
dities. If the medical man, who seriously sets about their verification, 
does not endanger his reputation for soundness of mind, he, at any rate, 
compromits his character, as a thoroughly.educated physician, and a 
man of well-balanced intellectual faculties. Besides, it is unnecessary, 
an act of supererogation, to undertake the establishment of statements, 
which can be disproved by their opposition to facts already known, as 
well as their contradiction of one another. What would be thought of 
a man who should undertake to demonstrate that the three angles of a 
triangle are greater than two right angles ; or that two and two make 
five; or that a part is greater than the whole? What must be thought 
of him who believes that a grain of medicine can be so expanded as to 
fill a space larger than the solar system, and yet that the bulk of a 
mustard seed retains sufficient power to affect sensibly the animal or- 
ganism? Can a man believe an absurdity like this, and not need a 
dose of hellebore ? The distance between the earth and the sun is 
95,000,000 of miles ; twenty homoeopathic globules, laid side by side, 
extend to about an inch, so that 158,000,t-00,000 such globules would 
reach from the earth to the sun. But when the 30th (X) dilution is 
practised, each grain is divided into 100 000 000.000,000.000 000 000,- 
000,000,000,000,000,000,900,000 000,000 000.000 parts, so that a sin- 
gle grain of any substance, in the >th dilution, would extend between 
the earth and the sun, 1,262 ; 626,262 ; 626,262 ; 626 262 ; 626,262 ; 
626,262; 626,262 ; 626,262 ; 626,262 separate times ! Can a sys- 
tem of medicine which puts forth such statements as this, be worthy of 
serious investigation ? The medical man who is at all accustomed to 
examine, weigh, and compare facts, is justified, we say, in rejecting, 
at once, without examination, a system made up of such gross absur- 
dities and fallacies. He is bound to do it in justice to his own un- 
derstanding. 13 
One great objection to the ordinary and established system of medi- 
cine, among those who adopt the homoeopathic doctrine, is, the name- 
rous theories that have prevailed from time to time in the medical 
world. This seems to have been Hahnemann’s stumbling-block. But 
a man must be very ignorant who makes this a reason for rejecting 
ascertained facts. A theory is nothing but a mode of explaining pheno- 
mena ; we may adopt one, our neighbor a second, and another person a 
third, and still all agree as to the facts in question. And so it is in 
medicine. There is a general agreement as to ascertained facts ; these 
have always remained the same from the days of Hippocrates, amidst 
all the explanations of ingenious theorists. But what do we do, when 
we adopt homoeopathy? Why, nothing more nor less than deny well- 
established facts ; for example, that pain is relieved by narcotics ; in- 
flammation by cold and bleeding ; diarrhoea by astringents, and con- 
stipation by laxatives. Constant daily observation and experience are 
opposed to the fundamental principle of homoeopathy. If it be true, 
then the whole medical world have regarded as facts what were not 
such, and no cures have ever been performed, except upon that princi- 
ple ; and no one has observed correctly but Hahnemann. 
Again, we are justified in rejecting homoeopathy, without subjecting 
it to trial, because its recorded results, in relation to the operation of 
drugs, are opposed to ordinary experience. Take common salt, for ex- 
ample. Hahnemann gives us 44 pages of symptoms, many of the 
most painful and aggravated character, produced, as he says, by inti- 
nitesimal doses of this agent, (Chronic Diseases) ; but though the 
world has used salt from the days of Adam, no such poisonous effects 
have been observed to arise from it, till the founder of homoeopathy 
discovered them. Of course, as in all other cases, he gets over the 
difficulty by attributing them to his “peculiar processes of trituration 
and succussion,” which, he says, “ bring to light a new world of powers 
which nature keeps latent in crude substances,” (Vol. IV., p. 295, 
Am. ed.). But these results, strange as it may seem, have never been, 
and never can be, verified, for the good reason, that they are wholly 
the offspring of his imagination. We may refer to carbonate of 
lime, charcoal, silex, etc., for examples of a similar kind. In fact, the 
entire homoeopathic materia medica is opposed to reason and the 
common experience of mankind, and therefore needs no experimental 
trials to prove its falsity. 
The practitioner can never be justified in abandoning methods of 
treatment, which, in his experience, he has found successful, for new 
and untried modes ; especially when in opposition to reason and ob- 
servation. The want of success, which converts to homoeopathy plead 
guilty of, during their allopathic practice, is not owing to any imper- 
fection in the resources of the art, but to their own ignorance of the 
proper modes of employing them. Their medical education has been 
radically deficient, or their minds are incapable of profiting from clini- 
cal experience. We know men, who are very learned, so far as a 
knowledge of the literature of the profession is concerned, but at the 
bed side they are entirely powerless ; they know not how to apply 
their knowledge ; they are always as likely to resort to wrong as to 
right treatment. It is not strange that such should take refuge in a 
system which claims to give them an infallible ride, a lair, which falsely 
claims to be of easy application, and to always lead to successful results. 14 
We do not believe that any man of a well-constituted mind, whose 
faculties have been properly cultivated and trained, whose medical 
education has been conducted as it ought to be, and who has ordinary 
tact in applying his knowledge in the treatment of the sick; we say, 
we do not believe, that any such, have ever, for a moment, been led 
astray by the vagaries of Hahnemann, or can be found enrolled among 
his disciples. They know that absolute certainty is not to be expected 
in medicine ; a science which deals, not with the simple relations of 
matter, but with organization, ever varying, and governed, in its innu- 
merable changes, by a subtle principle ; ofthe Jaws ot action, of which 
we are, necessarily, to a great extent ignorant, and whose existence, 
even, we recognize only by its effects. They see in it the “ certain'y 
of probability ” as Cabanis calls it; the same certainty which attaches 
to the political and moral sciences ; which encourages the agriculturist 
to plow, and sow his seed, and the mariner to push out boldly into the 
trackless ocean. Because unforeseen occurrences may arise, to de- 
feat the best conceived plans, are we to conclude that chance and hap- 
hazard enterprises are, therefore, best? The influences which aflect 
the body, are as much beyond the control of the physician, as those on 
which the produce of the earth depends; and that physician who, be- 
cause absolute certainty is not attainable, rejects the experience ofthe 
past, and the accumulated facts of former ages, would be equally wise 
with the farmer, who should, for the same reason, reject the facts and 
results of agricultural science. 
We have proved that homoeopathy fulfils none of the conditions of an 
inductive science ; but what are its results, when brought to the test of 
clinical experience? Absolute failure. Is there such a person, at the 
present day, as a pure practitioner of homoeopathy, as its rules and 
principles are laid down by Hahnemann, confining himself solely to 
infinitesimals, and high “ dynamizations ? ” Is there one, who does 
not, occasionally, give medicines in ordinary, or appreciable, or poison- 
ous doses, or who does not, at times, resort to the allopathic methods, 
the “ contraria contrarils ” rule of proceeding? We trow not. Have 
the practitioners of this school found that certainty in results, that uni- 
versality of the homoeopathic law, boasted of by Hahnemann, which is 
to serve as the polar star to guide them in the path of cure ? From 
the honest and the conscientious, there can be Hut one reply. 
Homoeopathy, however, has not been productive of unmixed evil; 
for it has taught us the wonderfully restorative powers of Nature, when 
aided by the enforcement of rigid dietetic rules ; and it has thus lessen- 
ed the amount of active medicines given. Assuming, as a basis, a 
hypothetical fact, which later experiments have disproved, proceeding 
on analogies which are dissimilar, involving contradictions irreconci- 
lable, homoeopathy has, at every stage of its progress, made war upon 
common sense, drawn largely upon human credulity, violated all the 
rules of philosophy, and has now settled down into that slough of con- 
tempt, from which its ablest advocates can never succeed in elevat- 
ing it. 
“ Roques cat in pace ! ”