Homoeopathy and the 
Public Health. 
AV'printed from The Clinique, June, i8qj AN ADDRESS ON If O MOW PA THY AND THE 
PUB Lie HEALTH. 
By R. LUDLAM, M. D., Chicago. 
VICE PRESIDENT OF THE WORLD’S HOM(EOPATHIC CONGRESS.* 
The public health is the counterpart of the common- 
wealth. That a system of medicine which has sustained 
itself independently and grown in a compound ratio for a 
hundred years; which has its own literature and its schools, 
its clinics, societies and hospitals, as well as its pupils and 
practitioners in every civilized community, is closely re- 
lated to the health of the people is self-evident. To doubt 
this proposition would be like questioning whether prot- 
estantism is related to Christianity, charity to benevolence, 
or the sunlight to the evolution of plants and flowers. If 
its recognition were commensurate with its deserts, and if 
its representatives had not been the victims of a class-bias 
that so far as possible has excluded them from the army 
and the navy, the hospitals and the eleemosynary institu- 
tions of this and of other lands, I should have a more 
grateful theme, and a better prospect of pleasing you in 
what I have to say on this occasion. 
Toleration has been defined as “the dogma of the 
weaker party.” If the reformer did not insist upon it he 
would never have a hearing. When he comes to be tol- 
erated within certain galling limits, he has already gained 
a foothold. From that time forward his success will de- 
pend upon the merits of his cause, his own and his com- 
rades’ tact and persistency, and the conduct of its followers 
when its claims have received the popular indorsement. 
I shall speak upon this latter point, for the “incom- 
putable perils of success,” as Lowell styles them, are not 
the least among those which beset our school of medicine 
at the present time. Our cause was a good one; there was 
need for a change in the harsh and harmful methods of 
treatment that were in vogue in Hahnemann’s time. He 
was a man of science, as science went in those days, but 
what was infinitely more important, he was imbued with 
the spirit of scientific doubt. He saw the defects of the 
ancient system and set to work to remedy them. To gain 
a hearing he must be aggressive. He characterized certain 
therapeutical abuses in such a way that some of his 2 
phrases fit and stick like the nicknames that school boys 
give each other. He had the faith and firmness which are 
moral weapons of an invincible sort. With a just and 
benevolent cause he felt it no crime to be a dissenter from 
the established church in medicine. He knew that “while 
the animosities are mortal the humanities are eternal,” 
and so, through a terrible opposition, he went forward in 
his chosen work. The merit of his cause is conceded and 
confirmed by thousands of physicians and by millions of 
patients in our day. If “the sweetest happiness that we 
ever know, the very wine of human life comes from sacri- 
fice—from the effort to make others happy,” what shall we 
not say for our hero, who, greater than Columbus, opened 
up a new world in therapeutics! 
“Necessity,” says Herder, “is the clock-weight that 
keeps all the wheels in motion.” The early followers of 
Hahnemann were forced to be on the alert to defend their 
cause and at the same time to develop its resources. Its 
great qualities and small defects had to be looked after as one 
would take care of a legacy. It was a legacy, but not for an 
individual or even for a family. It was a bequest for the bene- 
fit of humanity at large, and for the public health and welfare. 
The abuse poured upon the early homoeopathists, like that 
which was showered upon the early ovariotomists, is fast 
becoming ancient history. It is so much easier to accuse 
than to excuse them that the fashion is to revive the old 
bitterness whenever their methods or their writings are 
mentioned. We forget that, being placed on a frontier 
post of medical knowledge they must hold their ground 
and, if need be, fight’in its defense. Beset by furious and 
unscrupulous critics they were forced to charge their ink 
with gunpowder. ' In those days the controversial papers 
and the professional intercourse of parties on both sides 
abounded in brotherly throat-cutting. Almost every doc- 
tor, regular, irregular and defective, insisted upon giving 
his neighbor “a piece of his mind,” notwithstanding the 
fact that nobody had any peace of mind. Old doctors and 
medical students jptepecially, looked at homoeopathy through 
the prism of their own prejudices. The medical journals 
became like Punch, “a refuge for destitute wit,” and 
almost every old-school medical society took up the con- 
temptible business of running a partisan search-light for 
the detection and discipline of heretics. 
Under these circumstances, when their belief had to be 3 
kept up as a police force, it is no marvel that our brethren 
did and said some very unwise things. Like the lower 
brain centres that never sleep they had always to be vigi- 
lant, even at the expense of being sometimes vindictive. 
And some one has said that everybody has a little speck of 
fight underneath his peace and good will which he keeps 
for revolutions and great emergencies. In such a medical 
upheaval one must either fight for the supremacy of a fac- 
tion or for a principle; and in this case it was not merely a 
matter of medical labels and liveries, but of deciding so 
important a question as the best means of relieving human 
suffering and of curing disease. 
How well our predecessors did their work; what kind 
of fiber was in their faith, and how they defended it; how, 
as time went on, they were emancipated from controversy 
and left to cultivate their views and their peculiar re- 
sources; how the medical world, or the best part of it, has 
learned to treat them with a decent spirit of toleration that 
has finally soaked through the old rocks of prejudice, are 
matters of common knowledge in our day. As their an- 
tagonisms faded their resources were economized; as the 
radical and uncompromising spirit was torn down, the clin- 
ical quality took its place in their affections, their teach- 
ings, and their practice. 
After the enthusiasm with which each discovery is re- 
ceived come the difficulties of application, doubts and re- 
actions. It is a false philosophy which thinks more of 
methods than of results; as it is a spurious Christianity 
which puts a creed concerning the insoluble matters of 
faith above the mutual duties and interests of mankind. 
I think it was Goethe who said that: “whatever eman- 
cipates our minds without giving us the mastery of our- 
selves is destructive.” We are no longer engaged in an 
uncertain contest. Faith and works, and fighting and 
waiting have secured us a hearing, an opportunity, position 
and popularity. But there is the rub. Considering what 
the outcome of all sorts of antagonisms, moral and medi- 
cal, has been; that those who gain power and influence 
almost always become intolerant and thereby cripple their 
cause and compromise their position; and considering that 
doctors are subject to the same infirmities as statesmen, 
soldiers and politicians; that in this instance, especially, the 
the interests at stake are of vital consequence to the wel- 
fare of mankind, why should we not cultivate a larger 4 
measure of professional toleration? Surely we are unfit 
for such an endowment, if we fail to appreciate the respon- 
sibility that it brings, or to make the best possible use of 
it toward keeping our place in the line of the liberal pro- 
fessions. 
In the far away Northwest, they sometimes have hail- 
storms that thresh the grain in the field just before the 
harvest. There are some over-zealous disciples who act 
like a Dakota “twister” when it comes a few days too soon 
for the unlucky farmer. They have a passion for a label 
that amounts to an infirmity. Like a vulgar relation in 
good society, they invariably say the wrong thing at the 
wrong time; fancy that they are still living in a debatable 
and not in a progressive age; are always looking for the 
routes and resorts of an enemy; and cannot understand 
why the asperities of medicine should yield to the mellow- 
ing influence of time more rapidly than those of theology 
have done. You remember the old saying that “an honest 
man who lacks judgment is more dangerous than a thief 
who has discretion;” for so long as you watch the discreet 
wretch he cannot injure you, while there is no escape from 
the fool-friend. 
In the glorious emergency in which we are placed 
there are duties that draw like the invisible chains of 
gravitation. These duties pertain to our fitness and 
qualification as physicians, and to our tolerance of those 
whose professional views and opinions differ from our own. 
The greatly improved facilities for obtaining a sound and 
thorough medical education are filling the first of these 
requirements in a most satisfactory manner ; while the 
dissipation of the fog and mist of distance and Pharisa- 
ism among the fraternity is doing the rest. 
It is true that in certain quarters we still are the vic- 
tims of class-bias and of class-legislation. For there are 
those who continue to regard the representatives of the 
new school of practice with a muffled animosity against 
which our only shelter is the satisfaction of being in the 
right. But what concerns us, and those who believe with 
us, is of such exquisite importance and interest that, 
whatever the provocation, we cannot afford to quarrel 
with them any longer merely for the theoretical defense of 
our faith. We must use our own clinical spade, and we 
cannot answer for what will turn up. If some of the old 
roots of error, tradition, envy and unreason are thrown 5 
out of the medical field altogether, so much the better 
for the coming doctors and their patients, for our litera- 
ture, and for the general reputation of what used' to be 
styled, and should really become, a liberal profession. 
The position of homoeopathy in our charitable institu- 
tions is not what it would have been but for the opposi- 
tion that it has encountered from those who assume to 
monopolize all medical knowledge. Nor is it what it will 
become if we are fit and worthy for the places and the 
responsibilities that are rapidly falling into our hands as 
a simple matter of right and of justice. 
From those who will follow me with special reports, 
you will have the detailed proof of this growing freedom 
of medical opinion. You will gather the most encour- 
aging facts, showing that those who had dug a moat 
around our school of medicine to shut it in to itself, and 
to shut it off from all practical relation to the public 
health, have signally failed. The whole world of thought 
and action is permeated, but not saturated, with the prin- 
ciple of tolerance, and if we continue to watch and pray, 
to work and wait, a full share of recognition will yet be 
accorded to us. For it is a lucky thing that the univer- 
sal law of change can so modify our views of liberty and 
of justice that the right may finally triumph. The pow- 
ers that be are a shifting quantity, and this is an age of 
progress. 
The repression of thought and the stifling of medical 
investigation, except on certain prescribed lines, is an an- 
tiquated abuse against which the spirit of this age is in 
open revolt. There is no toleration in the holding of those 
who differ from us in contempt; but there is an under- 
current of sympathy with what is new and noble, mag- 
nanimous and merciful of which we can take advantage. 
We have had a cycle, or better perhaps, a cyclone of that 
intellectual agitation which is the first step toward reform; 
and now, if our professional views are not twisted or too 
narrow; if we do not in turn become intolerant and ego- 
tistical; if we can learn to forget all but the ultimate end 
of our mission to mankind, and take advantage of the 
ripening harvest, there is no reason why all that is good 
and true in homoeopathy should not be fully appreciated 
by the public at large as well as by the profession. 
The three factors in the stupendous reform that homoeo- 
pathy has wrought were its intrinsic and relative utility, 6 
the faith and fidelity of its early apostles, and the per- 
sistent political intrigue of its opponents, which was the 
daily bread of the inquisition. It is enough to say that 
from the foundation of the world these are the precise con- 
ditions upon which every reform that was worthy of the 
name has depended for its evolution and establishment. 
Although the persecution that we have suffered in times 
past has been a grievous burden, and has put us some- 
times at a great disadvantage, it really has been a blessing 
in disguise. For while, as every Christian must know, the 
professional disabilities to which we have been subjected 
were indefensible at the bar of the Golden Rule, they were 
indispensable to our sturdy growth and development. The 
winds of opposition have rooted our tree of knowledge. 
Left to our own resources, we were compelled to do our 
best for our patients, and for our branch of the healing art 
at all points of the medical compass. Hence the all-around 
growth of our school, and the impossibility, except here 
and there, that we should become and remain mere fanciful 
and factional doctors. 
Show us a form of quackery that can stand the clinical 
test of object lessons in all the practical branches of medi- 
cine and surgery, every day in the year, and before thous- 
ands of earnest and intelligent pupils and physicians; or 
one that has ever done first-class work in surgery, or in any 
of the various specialties. They have not even given the 
world that modern product of spontaneous generation, a 
decent gynaecologist ! 
But this Congress in which we are met comprises a 
host of representative men and women, who in many lands 
work as teachers, authors, and practitioners in every de- 
partment of the medical calling; whose scientific attain- 
ments and professional probity, scope, popularity and use- 
fulness are equal to those of a like number of physicians 
from any other school of practice. Judged by this stand- 
ard and by the fruit of their labor, as it is preserved in our 
literature and noted by the Recording Angel, we surely do 
not deserve to be classed as outlaws and charlatans. 
Twenty-three years ago and within a stone’s throw of 
this spot, an address was made before our National 
Society which in the light of recent development reads 
like a prophecy. It sounded a clear note from the warm 
and loyal spirit of our dear departed friend, Dr. Carroll 
Dunham. Liberty of medical opinion and action; a vital 7 
necessity and a great responsibility, was a theme that was 
worthy of the speaker and of his cause. 
As the one man among us best fitted to appreciate the 
peculiar position in which we were about to be placed; 
whose love for humanity and for his own calling was 
boundless; whose loyalty could not be questioned; whose 
regard for the opinions of others was always respectful and 
generous, giving every one credit for the good that was in 
him; whose faith was firm and steady, not fickle and fool- 
ish; whose opinion was worth more than anybody’s else 
argument; whose writings are neither fierce and feeble nor 
shallow and worthless, the text of that discourse reads like 
the Sermon on the Mount. 
The time, then, is passed which called for defenses and 
expositions of Homoeopathy, appeals for equal privileges 
and protests against oppression. We stand henceforth on 
equal ground as members of the great body of the medical 
profession, in which we shall take rank according to the 
worth of our work in the broad field of medical science. 
After a clear statement of his individual position on 
points of doctrine that were mooted then, are now, and 
always will be, he says: 
Notwithstanding this belief, I advocate entire liberty of 
opinion and practice. Nay, because of this belief, I plead 
for liberty; fori am sure that perfect liberty will the soon- 
er bring knowledge of the truth and that purity of practice 
which we all desire. 
So long as we are a body of physicians characterized by 
a distinctive name derived from the law of cure which we 
profess, I suppose that none will seek membership in the 
Institute, who do not substantially accept the law. This 
granted, I would have no exclusive creed, no restrictions 
relating to theory and practice, but would receive into 
membership of the Institute every applicant of suitable 
educational and moral standing. I deprecate any attempt 
to regulate or prescribe the opinion and practice of mem- 
bers of our school for two principal reasons. We cannot 
do it if we would, and we ought not if we could. 
We cannot. We are not a body claiming to possess in- 
fallibility. It belongs not to us to utter denunciations of 
what we may believe to be errors of faith and practice; nor 
to put forth an index of the allowed and the forbidden. 
We are a voluntary association of laborers; simply from the 
love of knowledge, as is the case with all workers in science; 
and we have no power to enforce any restrictions upon 
which we might determine. 
We ought not. Not until we have reached the absolute 
truth should we be justified in establishing a standard of 8 
faith and practice. How far we are from that position 
need not be argued here. Let us remember the wise 
course of the Bureau of Direction of the Paris Hospitals, 
when, in 1850, Tessier, of Ste. Marguerite, made known 
his conversion to Homoeopathy, and it was proposed to de- 
prive him, on that account, of his position as hospital phy- 
sician. The wise Chomel opposed the proposition, saying 
that every physician, who is thoroughly qualified to prac- 
tice, has the right to select his own mode of treatment, 
and to judge what is best for his patients, and may not be 
interfered with, unless his results are notoriously bad or he 
commit some act of unquestionable malpractice. “For,” 
said he, “ it is only by the exercise of this freedom that 
changes and improvements have ever been introduced in 
practice; and herein lies the only hope of further improve- 
ments. Tessier, in practicing Homoeopathy, has only ex- 
ercised the same freedom of selection which Bouillaud and 
Rayerand Louis and I have enjoyed, and as his results are 
as good as ours, we may not interfere with him.” * * * 
Do we demand liberty of opinion? Then must we 
take care that our opinions rest on a foundation of study 
and acquirements which embraces the entire circuit of 
medical knowledge, and takes in and honestly estimates 
every new contribution to it, no prejudice of place or per- 
son giving a bias to our reason. Then must we act in the 
spirit of Hahnemann’s noble admonition: “In a science 
in which the welfare of mankind is concerned, any neglect 
to make ourselves masters of it becomes a crime.” * * 
But, touching the open questions of medical opinion 
and practice—while each of us earnestly proclaims the 
opinions he has espoused, and zealously puts them in prac- 
tice, let us cultivate the catholic and noble spirit of Chilling- 
worth: “I will take no man’s liberty of judgment from him, 
nor shall any man take mine from me. I will think no 
man the worse man, * * * I will love no man the less 
for differing in opinion from me, and what measure I meet 
to others I expect from them again.” 
In the light of his leadership and wise counsel; in the 
light of what we have learned since he left this precious 
legacy; and because of the great and growing influence of 
our branch of the Healing Art, I plead for toleration; for in- 
creased breadth of culture and acquirement; for the careful 
fostering of the specialties; and for the thorough and ade- 
quate fitness of our physicians for their all-around duties 
and responsibilities. These are the industrial conditions 
of success and stability; and if properly and persistently 
applied, they will surely demonstrate the vital relation that 
exists between Homoeopathy and the Public Health.