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WE ARE NOT AS BAD AS WE SEEM."
                    SOME



          LOCAL AND  GENERAL





EICRESCENCES  OF  HOMCEOPATHY,


                    BEINa



           REVIEWS  OF



                DR. HERING'S



"HOM030PATHIST, OR DOMESTIC PHYSICIAN,"


                    AND OP


     THE HOMOEOPATHIC "MATERIA MEDICA PURA,"



          By JOHN F. GEARY, M. D.







 These Articles have already appeared in the " Philadelphia" and " North Ameri-
can" Journals " of Homoeopathy," as portions of the series called "Our Literature."







             PHILADELPHIA:

 HENRY  B. ASHMEAD, BOOK AND JOB PRINTER,

           GEORGE STREET ABOVE ELEVENTH.

        SOLD  BY  ALL BOOKSELLERS.

                    1858. 
WB K
Q2cl2s
ItSt 
filiation.
 TO THE FRIENDS AND OPPONENTS OF-HOMOEOPATHY.

  I dedicate the following pages to the professional and lay friends
and opponents of Homoeopathy:—to its friends, because they must
regret whatever has a tendency to injure the good name, retard the
progress and pervert the character of a system of medical treatment,
which investigation and experience have proved to be both salutary and
effective,—a blessing by the bed of sickness, a boon to humanity! To
its opponents, since to ridicule its misrepresentations and caricature
the mere eccentricities of  individual  practitioners have  been their
strongest and only arguments;—to the learned and candid who should
not be deterred from the pursuit of  great principles by the short-
comings and weaknesses  of solitary professors ;—to the ill-informed
and narrow-minded, that they may learn one lesson, at least, neither
to denounce nor  deride  what  they have not knowledge  enough to
pursue or genius to appreciate.
                                        JOHN F. GEARY.
   No. 1427 Arch Stkeet, Philadelphia,
             October, 1858. 
 
Jnirodnrtiott.
  There is no cause so bad that may not be made to appear worse by
the unfairness of its  opponents, by the imprudence of its advocates,
or their unfitness for  the task they assume.   It would indeed be dif-
ficult to say which can inflict the greater injury.  Still we are inclined
to the conclusion, that it may suffer more in the hands of its reputed
friends, than it can from all  the  efforts of its enemies.   The latter
have  never been able  to  repress  the truth,  or  effectually to delay
its  progress; while the very revelations of the Almighty have  been
crushed, retarded, overlaid, and shut up in the very depths of darkness,
for ages after ages, by their self-constituted ministers and reputed
guardians !  Whatever  those who may deem it their duty to sneer at
any medical reform, or  those who  have been turned away disgusted
from  its consideration by silly caricatures and unfounded statements,
may think of that commonly known as homoeopathy, it can no longer
be  denied, that it  is at present a'great fact;  that in this country
alone there are nearly one thousand seven hundred medical men who
adopt the therapeutic law of  cure  implied in that designation.  Its
position  and  standing  in England and continental Europe, may be
gathered from the fact, that a large proportion of the best and noblest
in these lands, whether  distinguished by social position or education,
are its advocates.*  But, be that as it may, we want only a fair field
  * " Festival in Aid of the London Homceopathic Hospital.— A public dinner in aid
of the building fund of this charity took place on Wednesday, April 21,1858, at Willis's
Rooms, when the Duke of Wellington presided.  His Grace was supported  by the
Duke of Beaufort, Viscount Lismore, Viscount Maldon, Lord Rokeby, Lord Grey de
Wilton, Lord Cosmo Russell, the Hon.  R. Grosvenor, Mr. Truman, M. P., Major
Blake, Captain Fishbourne, R. N.,  Mr. Pritchard  (High Bailiff of Southwark,) Mr.
Sheriff Rutherford, Dr. Chepmell, Dr. Clarke, Dr. W. Bell, Dr. G. N. Epps, Dr. Baikie,
Dr. Kidd, Mr. Teldham, Dr. Wyld, Mr. de Michele, Dr. Tuckey, Dr. Bayes, Dr.
McKechnie, Dr. Ryan, Mr. Reynolds, Mr. Metcalfe, Dr. de Brereton, Dr. Dunn, Dr.
Drury, Mr Battye, Dr. Ransford, Dr. Guinness, Dr. Morgan (Plymouth,) Dr. Morgan
(Dover,) Dr. Joce, Mr. Ayerst, Dr.  Quin, Dr.  Hamilton, Mr. Cameron, Mr. Leadam,
Dr. Phillips, Mr. Mackern, Mr. D. Smith, Dr.  R.  Russell, Dr. Henriques, Dr. Hart-
mann, and about 150 other gentlemen, known as  supporters of Homoeopathy in the
metropolis and in the provinces.
  " The Chairman's appeal was liberally responded to by the company, and contribu-
tions were announced amounting to about £1,000—including twenty guineas from
the Chairman, fifteen guineas from the Duke of Beaufort, £100 from  the Earl of
Wilton, and £100 from Captain  Felix V. Smith.
  "A grand fancy bazaar was held on Friday and Saturday last, in the Riding School
of the Cavalry Barracks, Knightsbridge, in aid of the funds for the necessary altera-
tions, &c, in the freehold premises, Great Ormond street, recently purchased for the
London Homoeopathic Hospital.  The bazaar was originally fixed for Wednesday
and Thursday, but the Queen's state-ball on Wednesday, and  other fashionable

                               1* 
6
and no favor  here, to  be taken only for  what we  are worth,  and
be  allowed  to  bide  our  time, either  to  rise  or  fall  as truth and
humanity, which  we all  are  trying  to serve,  may  in time decide
for or  against.  We  shrink from  no field to which  honest  convic-
events on Thursday, rendered it desirable, in deference to the wish expressed by
many lady-patronesses, to postpone the bazaar until the two following days.
  " The bazaar was one of the gayest  and most aristocratic  re-unions that has been
seen in the metropolis  for a long time.  The Riding School, a large, lofty, and well-
ventilated building, was decorated with the flags of all nations.  The stalls ran
round the sides of the building, leaving a large open area in the centre for the proine-
naders, except opposite the entrance, where there arose a vast military trophy, hav-
ing for its base the silver kettle-drums presented to the first regiment of  Life Guards
by George IV., a superstructure of cuirasses, swords, helmets with nodding plumes,
&c, completed the trophy.
  " The list of lady-patronesses of the bazaar comprised five duchesses, three mar-
chionesses, eleven countesses, six viscountesses, and thirty-one additional ladies of
title.  The stall-holders were  the Duchess Emily of Beaufort, Maria Marchioness of
Aylesbury, the  Countess of  Craven, the Countess of Wilton, Lady Willoughby de
Broke, Lady Ebury, Lady Rokeby, Baroness  Alphonse de Rothschild, Duchess of
St. Arpino, Viscountess Newport, Lady Augusta and Lady Honora  Cadogan, Mrs.
Moore, of Liverpool; Mrs. Drysdale of  Liverpool; Mrs. Fussell, Mrs. Joseph Hoar,
and Miss Wilkinson, Mrs. Rosher and Mrs. Yeldham,  Mrs. Hamilton and Miss Cris-
pin, Mrs.  Leadam and  Miss Meymott, the Ladies of the Committee of the Subscrip-
tion Society, Mrs. and  the Misses Parry, &c.
  " The lady stall-keepers were early at the bazaar on Friday morning, in order to
receive her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge, the Hereditary Grand Duch-
ess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and the Princess Mary  of Cambridge.  The  Royal
visitors, who, attended by Baron  Knesebeck, arrived about twelve o'clock, after
passing amongst the flower-stalls, entered the bazaar  proper, making purchases at
almost every stall, and instituting the most affable inquiries relative to the articles
for sale.   At Mrs. Drysdale's  stall the royal visitors  purchased a little card box,
which, the Duchess was informed, was made by a poor girl who had been a Dispen-
sary patient, and who had  lost her arm.  At  the Fine Arts stall, kept by Lady
Augusta  and Lady Honora Cadogan, the Princess Mary purchased a  water-color
drawing, by Lady Augusta Cadogan, entitled "Homage to Raglan."  The Grand
Duchess also made some purchases of paintings and drawings, which reflected great
credit on the amateur artists by whom  they were executed.  At Lady Kokeby's
stall the Princess Mary, with her winning smile, called the attention of the Duchess
and her sister to some  Berlin work of her own ; to some bijoux sent by the Princess
Alice; to some  bead-work by the Duchess of Kent; to packets of gourd-seed from
the celebrated collection of Sans-Souci, and to a silver filagree basket, contributed
by the Princess  of Prussia.   The  Duchess of Cambridge,  who Is the patient of a
metropolitan practitioner of  homoeopathy, had herself sent some little offerings in
knitting and bead-work to  Lady Rokeby's stall.  Lady Wilton's stall exhibited
some magnificent embroidery and Berlin work, which obtained for the  amiable
Countess a well-deserved compliment to the taste and industry of the young ladies
of Heaton-Hall.  After a lengthened inspection of the  bazaar , and expressing their
gratification at the numerous objects of taste  and utility which they had witnessed,
the royal party took their departure.
  "About two o'clock the band  of the Horse Guards (Blue) takes up its station outside
the'Riding School, and gratifies the company  with operatic selections, waltzes, pol-
kas.   The company now begin to arrive, and the scene becomes very animated.
Muslin of course carries it over silk, as becomes the heat of the weather, and every
year these summer robes become lighter in texture and more graceful and artistic
in design. Fair Floras, bareheaded with  ravishing chevclures, who were presented
at the first drawing-room this season, and have already made a dozen conquests, trip
lightly about with fanciful flower-baskets and put a posy in your hands with such
a simple  and winning  grace, that your half-a-crown Iseems a paltry  return for the
condescension.  The sisters of one of the proudest dukes in the peerage, the friends
and companions of a royal duchess, sell you a pen-wiper or a traveling  cap, knit by
their own fair hands;  and a young duke, who is anxious  to speak to  them about 
7
tion may challenge us to open advocacy, and we  refuse no issue that
can be justly demanded.   But if the  public  have been  imposed on,
and the profession mislead by the  so-called "homoeopathy"  of per-
sons ^ whose medical  education must  appear  doubtful and very
deficient to every candid  and competent judge,  it is hardly fair to
charge  the individual acts  of the presuming and  the  unqualified
upon the educated members of the  profession, who are not, and can
never be  a party to acts  by which men of this  stamp,  every where
and in  every system, endeavor to force  themselves into undeserved
notice.
  The author of these pages  has for years labored to defend himself
and others from the sneers and insults directed against them in private
conversation and social intercourse—upon the gratuitous assumption
that they were the advocates of that extraordinary system foisted into
this  community by certain  self-styled  hornceopathists—and  which
has passed too long in this city for homoeopathy;  although these men
have  never been fair exponents of the system, nor has the miserable
mysticism with which they have  confounded and confused a clearly
demonstrated medical reform any  claim to  the  respect due to our
school.  To this day, every medical  man  of the opposite school whom
we meet  asks, in derision, " if we  practice  medicine on the plan laid
down in Hering's book?"  and insists on the fact,  that "he is the
head of our heap!"   Tired of being twitted and misunderstood, the
series of articles from which the following are taken, were commenced
in this city, as above stated,  and are still continued in' our Journal
published in New York.  Time, however, has proved that the circula-
tion of these periodicals has been too limited, or the prejudice against
them too strong to allow these strictures to have their due weight,
and to produce the  effect intended on those  without our ranks;
whether lay or professional.  It is to this fact alone their appearance
in their present form must be attributed.  We, individually, claim no
consideration; we  seek no favor, we desire no indulgence, we shrink
not from being considered, and even called, " outsiders;" since out-
siders have had their place not unfrequently in the advance guard of
all  great movements ;—even among the pioneers  of mental enlighten-
ment, material progress, and  divine evangelization!  Galileo was an
outsider, Columbus an outsider and an enthusiast; and even the per-
a raffle, waits until your purchase is completed, that he may not interrupt the com-
mercial transaction. The daughters of a countess talk to you about art. and when
you praise the pose of a figure in crayons, or the perspective of a water-color lands-
cape, you find you have been whispering your eulogies in the ear of the fair artist
herself. A fasionable viscountess, who presides over the refreshment-table, and who
has a half-dozen obsequious and much be-floured flunkeys behind her to bring her
hot-water and cakes, will do that for you which she never does for her guests, and
will pour you out a cup of tea with her own fair hands.  The viscountess was in the
Book of Beauty a few years ago, and still preserves the engaging smile which led
enthusiastic admirers to cut out her portrait and hang it up, Madonna-wise, upon
their walls."
 " Note.—The receipts were between £1700 and £1800."—(See " Illustrated London
News," under the above date.) 
8
secuted and crucified "Nazarene," was the outsider of his day!  Let
the craven who would shrink from what he feels convinced is a good
and a true principle, because it is neither the fashion, nor in the ascen-
dant, go down to his obscure  and soon-forgotten grave!  He wants
the pluck of the hero, and the  courage of a man!  Whatever  obloquy
belongs to the name of homoeopathy in the eyes of  many, we, there-
fore, willingly bear, convinced  from actual experience,  and some
reading and thinking, that it  is associated with the useful  and  the
good.  But we cannot submit to the degradation of being linked Avith
the fanaticism, superstitions, and ignorance revealed  in Hering's book
and provings!  If these were homoeopathy, we should scorn to wear
the badge.  Our reviews will speak for themselves; their imperfections
will be forgiven for the sake of the motive that prompted the efforts
of their author—to shake himself clear of what no honorable or liber-
ally educated man could suffer to hang to  his skirts.
   Should the quotations and extracts seem to any reader too absurd
and flagrantly ridiculous, easy access may be had to the book itself,
at the  publishers.  We have two copies at our office, and hundreds
are in  circulation throughout the country and city.
   And at the best, who that has  any professional pride or standing
would lend, or has ever lent himself to the fabrication of books for
"domestic" quackery? None,  but those who are ready to  feed upon
the offals of a respectable calling, can stoop to a species of clap-trap,
whose only advantage  can be  to  inveigle  old women and hypochon-
driacs  into the absurd notion, that  "they can doctor themselves."
He who lowers the medical profession to this standard is recreant to
his brethren, arrays himself with charlatans and empyrics, and there-
fore loses all right to consideration or notice.
  The quack and  the caterer for " domestic treatment," belong to the
same hungry and pilfering herd, who  prefer to prowl in darkness and
seize a portion of what belongs to others, rather than undergo the
toils and fatigues of honest and  hard labor in the clear light of day
and under the eyes of honest men.
  Europe and America have produced other exponents than these by
whom  this new system of therapeutics is to be judged, and in whose
hands it must stand or fall.   We have, therefore, the  right to demand
at the hands of all honest opponent's not  to be classed in the same
category with men whose only medical education is that derived from
a contemptible symptom list, and whose  only practice is founded on
a combination of old wives' fables and  German  superstitions.  We
repudiate  all  connection  with men of this  stamp, we desire to be
judged by other works  than theirs. 
OUR   LITERATURE.
                 A  REVIEW.*

  "2d Cit. I am, indeed, sir, a surgeon to old shoes; when they are in
great danger, I re-cover them."—Julius Caesar.  Act I.

  When the spirit of freedom  first  shines  upon  the
minds of men, who  have suiFered from time immemorial
under the  heavy hand and  the  galling  chains of des-
potism,  inspires them  to  break their bondage, and hurl
the tyrant  from his  seat of  power, nothing is more
natural, than  that  the  laws and  usages under  which
they had been held in thraldom—whether written in
statute-books^ or received from father to son, as indis-
putable tradition—should follow the fate of the despot,
and be  wiped out from the archives of the nation, or be
nullified by  new codes; and that  their memory should
perish as the days of darkness and fear had faded from
the minds of the people.   Or when, in  days of moral
gloom  and  unholy superstition, a light from heaven
breaks  in upon the  soul  of some  anchorite,  in  his
secluded cell, directs  his researches  to hidden records
in which are stored the disused, overlaid and forgotten
truths of everlasting life, and  prompts him to lift them
up as a standard to the nations;  and when these nations
kneel in simple reverence  and unaffected  adoration,

  * See Philadelphia Journal of Homoeopathy, for August and Sep-
tember, 1855. 
10
would it not  be reasonable to suppose  that the degra-
ding ceremonials and childish follies of the dark ages
should disappear with the errors under whose shadow
they were  fostered?   But although these  results  do
finally spring  from all reformations, whether political,
religious or medical, yet undeniable  experience,  and a
long array of those stubborn things, called facts, furnish
proofs that results linger long and  depart  but slowly,
after their causes have  disappeared.  It would be easy
to show, by the history of ancient nations, and even by
"modern instances," that the chains and fetters which
vanquished tyrants had left to rust  on  the  fields, from
which they fled discomfited, have not unfrequently been.
picked  up, furbished  and fondly treasured,—by many
who looked back with  reverence on the "olden  and
better times,"—not  only as mementoes, but in  their
peevish  and fretful moods to shake them In  the faces of
those whose  liberties they  would still  gladly see  re-
stricted.  And who  needs  to be told  how  often the
stake-bound victim has  lifted up his eyes to heaven,
through the  flames  that consumed  him, according as
rival sectaries were  able, in their  turn, to  command
the arm of the civil power ?—or  how vigilantly and suc-
cessfully the  witch-finder magnified  his office, and with
what sage wisdom and holy indignation the legal func-
tionary  pronounced his verdict  upon some  wretch who
was the subject of old age, decrepitude  and mental
imbecility, rather than  the  specially authorized " ser-
vant of Satan," many years after  the  New Testament
had been recovered from its too careful conservators,
and scattered  far and wide among the people?   But 
11
time works  wonders;  and,  as  light diffuses,  the  very
footprints of the messengers of darkness fade from the
face of the  earth!   All we attempt to show by these
illustrations, is, that however sudden and effectual the
first and great efforts  that  introduce reformations, still
their final consummation is but  a thing  of gradual
growth under favorable auspices.
  Now, there  is no reason why medical reformation
should differ in its development and progress from those
noted  above.  Medicine being  purely  founded  upon
facts and  experience,  must needs  be more  slow  in
advancing, and longer in coming to maturity:  if indeed
such a thing as maturity can be predicated of  a science,
which  must always  change  with  every new disease, or
with the new phases of old ones  that must inevitably
spring up among different races of men, as they change
their climates, their  habits of life and their occupations.
   The  reformation which,  about sixty years  ago, took
place in our science, has been steadily progressing ever
since; and seems to  obey the laws, or yield to the neces-
sities,  which govern  and modify all similar movements,
whilst plodding its onward  way through evil  and good
report; and in spite  of determined and  often ungenerous
foes without,  and many imprudent and incompetent,
though well-meaning friends and advocates within.   As
we look to  the literature of a nation for its progress
and history, so it is to the  books of  our school in this
country we must look for the facts that lead to this con-
clusion.  And as "the written letter remains," and our
writings may any day be brought up in evidence for or
against our  system, we believe we  can  do no better ser- 
12
 vice to the cause, than by taking a retrospective glance
 at  the records of our  science since  it was introduced
 into this country, and openly and candidly avowing how
 much  can fairly be endorsed by us,  and how much we
 feel bound, in self-justification, to disown and put aside,
 as forming no part of our literature.
   There are so  many  examples of  childish  folly and
 silly superstition—demonstrating a total want of, and
 disregard to, sound  medical  science—in some  of our
 earlier records, that we are almost daily made to blush
 for them by  those opponents  who are too much in the
 habit of overlooking great virtues and  dwelling upon
 small vices.  And to cut  even this  narrow ground  of
 argument from under their feet, we have determined  to
 take up our  goose-quill and,  with a  few brushes of its
 feathers, wipe out, or nullify these exceptionable  acts  of
 old and partially enlightened legislators.  And if they,
 their followers or  their descendants, .should  feel ag-
 grieved when we  are compelled to raise a smile at their
 expense—for that is  all the  mischief we mean them—
 they must forgive us for the sake of that  good cause
 for which  they, -like  ourselves, should be ready to sacri-
 fice even a little feeling.  But should they  not meet us
 in this  spirit, we  shall try how  we  may outlive their
 frown, and survive even their malice;—whilst we answer
 them and  all  objectors with this argument and apology:
 11 Not that I loved Caesar  less, but thai  I  loved Borne
more."—"J  have done no more to  Csesar, than  you
should do  to Brutus"  And,  as before remarked, if we
may not at all times be able to suppress  a  smile, we
 shall  be fair,  candid and charitable,  make  full  and 
13
ample excuse for human frailty and short-comings, and
consistently with the just claims of our cause,—" which
is above all"—pass over every thing but palpable error
and downright folly.
  We must, according to our plan, first direct the atten-
tion of the reader to a small duodecimo edition, published
at Allentown, Pa., in 1835, called " The Homosopa-
thist,  or  Domestic  Physician,"—as  we  know  of
nothing produced in this  country  at  a prior  date—a
circumstance not at all to  be regretted, if, as may be
naturally  supposed,  an  earlier effort  must needs have
been  more  feeble.   Taking the book  as a whole, and
and making full admission for all it contains worth the
perusal even of those for whom  it was  intended, it can
only be a cause of sincere regret to  our  school that such
a production should ever have gone  into the world in
our name.   We doubt not  but even the author himself
will now agree with us in this opinion.
   Whatever may be the character  or  the real value of
the work before us, we have no wish to detract from the
motives which prompted its  author in sending it into the
world.  These, we  are  bound to admit, must have been
of the highest order,—a sincere desire to serve the com-
mon cause  of humanity and of  science.  And, if  we
except the common but small weakness  of men in gene-
ra^—the  desire to see. oneself in print, the "cacoethes
scribendi,"  or  the scribbling itch,—which,  alas,  even
"psorinum" fails  to remove,—we cannot conceive that
any thing  short of  a desire to place the means of an
easy and  pleasant  cure for all human ailments within
the  reach of every individual and family could  have
    *   2 
14
tempted him to risk  his professional reputation upon
this manual.
  But purity of intention, loftiness of motive, and even
self-denying toil do not always imply soundness of judg-
ment, scientific acquirements, extensive and solid infor-
mation, or even  elementary knowledge  in any given
case.   And all must  admit that authors, whose mission
it should be to enlighten the people upon the subject on
which they write, can hardly be excused if totally want-
ing in these  departments.   It  is not, however, by any
means a rare occurrence for men of defective or narrow
education, with some  claims to  natural, though ill-culti-
vated talents, to  mistake their resources,  if not  their
powers, and to  engage in undertakings for which they
are altogether unqualified.  And it is this which renders
their intended good and well-meant efforts positive evils:
—makes  them unwittingly injure  the cause they would
more  effectually have served  by quiet and  unassuming
labors in  the domain  for which  education, if not nature,
had  fitted  them.   Of such men we  commonly  say,
"that  their hearts are better than their heads;" that
they meant well, but acted  unwisely.   And of  them
every good cause has reason—if it may find a tongue—
to exclaim, "save me from my friends!"  We sincerely
regret to be compelled by the task we have assumed to
allow no  higher place to the author of the work under
consideration,—Dr. Constantine  Hering—than  that of
one of the above class—that of  a man whose zeal outran
his knowledge and judgment: and who has by this  one act
—to mention no others  of a  later  date at present—:
given our opponents  a decided advantage by laying our 
15
system open to serious and most injurious charges, from
which we suffer to this day.   And these must remain as
a stigma upon us as long as by our cowardly silence  and
guilty connivance, we permit them to stand as items in
our professional bill of fare.  From this charge we must,
individually, make an effort, though it be but feeble, to
clear ourselves.   And now to our task.   It will not be
needful to make any strictures upon  the  language  and
style of this book, simply because there is not a line of
tolerably correct English  from its beginning to its end,
and it has still less  claim to  style.   It is deformed by
every imperfection of speech  and diction which is com-
monly heard  in the  mouths of the vulgar every  where
—without  connection,  order, propriety  of  expression
or  accidence.   In style we can  only pronounce it an
amalgam of the  colloquial, the  grave, the solemn, the
didactic, the mystic  and the  slang—thrown together in
chaotic confusion, with an  apparent obliviousness of
there being  any such things  as  laws and rules in  lan-
guage by which writers are governed on all subjects  and
in  all  tongues.   Lest we may  be  accused of making
assertions without proof, by such as have not read  this
extraordinary book for themselves,  we will cite the fol-
lowing examples taken  at random.   The page on which
they may be respectively found is indicated by the num-
bers set down.
   22.  " When any  one has  sweaty feet."  The  model
for this elegant form of expression may be found in  one
English classical author.  One of the " two  fine  ladies
from town,"  introduced to the  family of the Vicar of
Wakefield, says in the midst of the dance, " by the liv- 
16
ing jingo I'm all of a much of sweat."  35.  " When
a person is so tired  as to feel fainty !" very feeble in-
deed.  58. " A feeling of emptiness in the pit  of the
breast!"  This is a very queer pit for a medical philo-
sopher to tumble  into—why not say stomach ?  it would
not be  half  so  bad;  but in avoiding this Scylla of
the stomach, he falls into the Charybdis of " the breast."
59. " Tedious consequences from  immoderate  smoking
are difficult to cure!"—we should  think they would, in-
deed, and much  more difficult to  diagnose, since they
form a new addition to the practice  of physic, upon which
we should like to  see a thesis.   60.  " When suddenly
dangerous  symptoms appear,"—an attempt at, when
dangerous  symptoms appear suddenly.   63, " Rising
of the blood into the head"—fine, very fine !   81. " We
are apt to inhale poison through the air !"—indeed  we
are " apt" to do no  such  thing, and for two very good
reasons; first, because we are very reluctantly compelled
sometimes to admit poisons through the mouth and nos-
trils ; and second, because there never was  any poison
in the air, its  component parts being oxygen, nitrogen
and  carbon.—But let  the learned author  explain  his
own meaning; he says, " old wells, caves, cellars, vaults,
and particularly old privies, contain frequentlg  air that
is deadly poisonous."  In all deference we submit that
this is not philosophy or fact, as, in  the conditions  at-
tempted to be described, they contain no air at all, but
deleterious gases, called by the uneducated  "foul air,"
which is capable of destroying animal life.  84.  " What-
ever has gone into putrefaction /" can't easily go out, of
course.   137.  " The bite of a mad dog, or of a raving 
17
animal."   We know of no animal addicted to " raving"
but the human animal, and he furnishes numerous well-
marked instances of the disease ; one of  its character-
istic symptoms is "to talk  irrationally," and "when
men thus rave we may conclude their brains are turned."
140. " The endless  variety  of remedies  increase with
every year, deserve" &c.;  how  can an endless variety
increase ?   A  school-boy would write, " increases," " de-
serves."   140. " With such any remedy will answer"—
a  housemaid  would  say "for such."   142. " When
pregnant women from a fall, misstep, or violent motion
and concussion of whatever hind,  receive pain!"  &c.
There  are upon record numerous strange and miraculous
conceptions, and this one, produced at Allentown, Pa.,
in 1835, is the latest,  as  far as we have  been able to
learn,  and certainly the  most  wonderful.   The preg-
nancy  of Rhea Sylvia was decently and indulgently at-
tributed to Mars,—and
            " Of Brian's birth strange tales are told,"—

as we are  informed in the  "Lady of the Lake," canto
3d; but so remarkable a cause of gravidity as "a fall,"
" misstep,"  or  " violent  motion  and concussion" is
without parallel in  sacred or  profane history.  And
even at the risk of being charged with want of due rev-
erence for the mysteries of nature, we feel  inclined to
deny the main proposition implied in the learned Dr.'s
words, whilst we freely admit  that cases  of pregnancy
may occur on which each, or all, of these counts may be
attendant  circumstances, or incidents ; though  in strict
medical jurisprudence  they would not be  allowed indi-
                         2* 
18
vidually or collectively to stand  " in  loco  parentis."
Still, we  have classic authority for the above  form  of
words;

        " Her apron grew short, and her heart it did ache,
         And she thought upon the fall coining home from the wake,
            She thought upon the fall coming home !"—Old Song.

   But,  to be serious, if the above were written in Eng-
lish, it would  run thus,—"When  pregnant women are
hurt by a fall," &c.—and be no laughing matter.  144.
" Dislocation  is when  a joint has  been put out of its
proper place !"   This definition of dislocation is as great
a curiosity in  surgery as  the last case is  in obstetrics.
Ordinary books and  surgeons tell us that a joint is the
union of two bones, and that dislocation occurs when the
head of a bone  is forced  from  its place.   146. " The
most important  means of healing wounds is by combina-
tion." We should think that a " combination" of wounds
would be  an odd  mode  of healing them,—one in one
place being deemed  quite  enough.  The ordinary mode
in cases of  simple incised wounds we rather suppose  to
be by coaptation, or by  bringing the edges together.  So
at least say Liston and Miller:—but what of them ? 150.
" Let him lay high with the wounded part, and see that
no part of his body be pressed."  This seems to us a very
strange  piece of medical  advice, as it would not at all
seem unreasonable that the act of incubation or hatch-
ing should succeed that of " laying."  It would, to say
the least of it, be no fowl play.
   158.  " Heterogeneous particles in the  body," is the
heading of  a chapter treating of the extraction of for- 
19
eign bodies—a  truly  singular,  though high-sounding,
caption.   It  would, indeed, seem  from this and many
others, that, by a studied system, erroneous and unmean-
ing expressions  and collocations had been sought out in
order to supersede plain, correct and popular language.
   170. " When molestation remains after the danger is
passed" ! !   Here we confess ourselves at a dead stand;
to this description of a diseased condition we  have no-
thing to say, so  we leave it ww-molested.
   173.  " Potashes, it  is well hnown, are a substance
very fretting and burning !" it are, are it? the school-
master was certainly abroad at Allentown, Pa., in 1835.
   " If it  have  been occasioned by too great joy,"—cer-
tainly whether " it have" or not, one thing is   certain,
that if we pursue  this detail longer we shall either split
our  sides  with  laughter, or  go mad with indignation.
But may we not ask, in all seriousness, why this com-
pilation of unmitigated  trash has been allowed to  re-
main for so many  years to compromise and disgrace our
cause ?   And how it has  happened that, with  so many
able men in our ranks in this country, no one  has  had
the  courage to  disclaim this thing  and so disarm those
opponents who  are  always ready to  judge us  " by our
works."
   But verbal deformities and inaccuracy  of diction are
the lightest charges we have to make against this work.
We would be willing, indeed, to pronounce an exemp-
tion in favor of an  author who, through the medium of
"broken  English," conveyed great ideas, or even  cor-
rect and useful  information ; we might, it is true, desig-
nate them " diamonds  in mud," but  who would quarrel 
20
 with the mire that soiled  his fingers, when it expiates
 the offence with a gem ?
   We must arraign this book before the supreme court
 of our Profession, and  charge it with capital crime ;  as
 being guilty of violating our cause by false  therapeutics,
 gross empiricism and vulgar superstition;  by all which
 incalculable damage has been sustained by  pure homoeo-
 pathy !   In a word, it  stands  at  the  bar  indicted for
 " High  Treason" against the Majesty of Science !   The
 evidence we shall bring  forward shall admit of no doubt,
 even cross-examination  can be dispensed with.  It shall
 be acquitted  or found guilty upon the  confessions and
 admissions of its  own  pages.   These  witnesses  must
 needs be few, though fitly chosen, as the  limits of our.
 time  and space restrict us from  calling the  array we
 have ready to attend.   The plan  of the work is highly
 objectionable and ill-judged. It savors of mysticism and
 quackery; you are always prescribing a number,—19 or
 21, as the  case  may be—instead of  a medicine.   Thus
 one is eternally groping in the dark, and the mind, in
 vain, looks out for some  ray  of light as to what these
 ever-recurring figures   signify—a state of mind  that
 would at once be relieved  by simply giving the names
 of the medicines, as Hahnemann and all other wri-
 ters since his time have done.  But some men are so
 fond of being in the clouds themselves that  they will
 scarcely allow the  light of the  sun  to break in  upon
 others.   To say  the least of this feature, it was a great
 error in judgment,  and implies want of sufficient caution
 and care in the author.   On page 8  we find directions
given for the administration of  the  remedies  in these 
21
words:  "How to apply the medicine"—"1st, by smell-
ing ; 2d, by taking one or two globules;  3d, dissolved
in water."   Upon the first of these modes the greatest
stress is laid, from which we are to infer that Dr. Her-
ing deems it to be the  most efficacious, as well as from
the minute  directions given as to the mode of closing
one of the nostrils and  then " smelling at  the lower part
of cork"—doing which once or twice is  thought suffi-
cient,—and  in  dealing with children it is thought best
" to hold it to the nostril when asleep !"  Now a careful
perusal of Hahnemann's works  will show that he was
by no means so  confident on this  point, and  that his
faith was wavering, weak and unsettled in the efficacy of
"smelling."  Nor have the credible records of the qua-
lified  practitioners of  our school  in  this country  or
abroad,  been more fortunate  in  confirming the advan-
tages claimed for it by Dr. Hering.  Indeed,  it seems
very clear to us  that the reputable members of the pro-
fession have studiously "turned up their noses" at this
dogma.   One of the best informed, most accurate and
reliable  members of oiir school—Dr. Dudgeon, of Lon-
don, says with  regard to it:  " I  confess I have never
had the courage to employ it in acute diseases, nor the
impudence to use it in  chronic ones.   I cannot conceive
a case in which  it would ever present advantages  over
the other methods of administering the remedy."—Lec-
ture 18, page 511.  So that, on the whole, we  feel jus-
tified in pronouncing it one of those wild vagaries, which
men,  like  Dr.  Hering, who are  more singular  than
sound, adopt for the sake of doing something out of the
common way, and for which vagaries we should not,  as 
22
 a body, be judged.   So much for the general character-
 istics of the work, for we must now turn to its particu-
 lar marks of deformity.
   On page 43 we are gravely told, "when the stomach
 suffers from eating short fish or spoiled meat, give some
finely pulverized charcoal mixed with brandy."  "Brandy
 and water"  is so well known  and so fully established,
 that we need not add a word.  Some time ago " brandy
 and salt" was  the  universal remedy for all  ailments.
 We believe  it answered very well for liquor merchants
 as  long  as the rage lasted;  but it  remained  for  Dr.
 Hering to sound  the praise of brandy and  charcoal,
 and to him belongs the  doubtful honor  of blacking the
 face of homoeopathy with a filthy compound that hardly
 deserves the credit of being a cross between an allopathic
 dose and the  bolus  of  an itinerant  herb  doctor.   In
 holding forth upon drunkenness at pages 51 and 52, we
 see the amiable blending of  the clerical office with that
 of the medical philosopher ; and a little  homily is given
in the usual  style of prayer-meeting  doctors upon  the
religious aspect of the "disease;" after which,  on page
53, the drunkard is desired to " put a drop of sulphuric
acid in a tumbler with water, stir it well, and drink it in
the morning, and to repeat it every two or three  days till
it occasions uneasiness, against this smell of camphor."
And in case  sulphuric acid, cant, and camphor should
fail, the doctor goes on and says,—" we would advise
his unfortunate wife, his children, or brothers or friends
to administer to  him the following remedy in  a secret
manner
" Put a live eel into a bucket or narrow tub;  pour 
23
wine over it, and let it die.   Draw this wine in bottles,
and give it to the drunkard, and let him drink as much
as he will.  You may proceed in the same manner with
brandy; which, however, ought to stand for a short time
before being put into decanters." There is in this piece
of sage wisdom another "tale of a tub," and a wonder-
ful "fish story"—but in thinking of swallowing this dis-
gusting compound,—though we get new ideas of " wine
negus" and  "brandy toddy,"—we  confess  ourselves
compelled  to  hold our  nostrils strongly  compressed
between  our fore-finger and thumb, and cry " stinking
fish !" And with strange inconsistency, and more strange
want of faith in so purely scientific a draught as a rot-
ten eel in a bucket of wine or brandy, it is said once
more on the  54th page,  "should  this prove abortive,
try sulphuric  acid!"  and then the drunkard's friend
must mix it, diluted with water, in the food and drink
of the patient, morning,  noon and night,—his coffee,
tea,  soup, &c, &c, must  be in part, at least, made of
sulphuric acid, till it affects his stomach, when he must
have tea of bitter herbs, oranges or roots, and still his
sulphurated  "meat  and  drink"  in  tact—"until the
mouth gets sore,  then cease;"—and  then,  "in case
weakness of stomach, diarrhoea, vomiting, or giddiness
be the consequence, give No. 8; if the mouth becomes
ulcerated, give No. 7."   These would  certainly be very
likely results from the large quantities of sulphuric acid
the poor drunkard is to have smuggled into  his stomach
with every morsel of food and  every  drop of drink he
swallows, according to the advice  and directions of the
author of "The Homoeopathist," of Allentown, Pa., in 
24
1835!  An advice which the veriest tyro in science and
homoeopathy must laugh to scorn, and which the  most
superstitious  and gullable old woman Mould  think be-
neath her notice.
  Among the curative  methods for  mania a potu, on
page 56, " blood-letting, from five to six ounces, is fre-
quently of service, at first daily, then every other  day,
and let the patient drink plenty of cold water," &c, &c.
It is a relief to us once  more to find something we can
refer to learned authority. If any reader of this article
has not read Gil Blas, we  pity  him, and beg that he
will  oblige us by reading, as  he  can,  the  second and
third chapters of Book  the Second; he will find  there
honorable mention made of Doctor Sangrado, "who had
acquired a great reputation with the public by a pomp
of words, a solemn air, and some lucky cures, which had
done him more honor than he deserved."—Of the great-
ness of the man he may judge from these words address-
ed by him to his pupil:  " Thou art learned, Gil Bias,"
said he, "before thou turnest physician; whereas others
prescribe a long  time, generally all  their lives, without
ever becoming  learned."  His mode of  treating  each
and all of his patients  was short, easy and simple. " He
must be bled every day, and drink hot water in abun-
dance."  The reader can here see the striking analogy
between the formula of "The Homoeopathist" and that
of Sangrado,—the difference being simply that the for-
mer recommends hot, whereas Dr. Hering prefers  cold,
water after the bleeding.  Of the  many other points of
resemblance  between  the two cases,  the reader must
judge for himself. 
25
  On  page 166, we  find, " Whoever is troubled with
dyspepsia, should eat much  butter, and have  daily an
injection administered of warm water or milk"!—A no-
table prescription, truly, for curing or preventing dyspep-
sia !  Most medical men of both schools agree that butter
and fatty substances in general are the greatest promoters
of this disease ; but we live in an age of discoveries, and
who, in the grand march, would not say with Horace—

    " Occupet extremum scabies; mehi turpe, relinquiest."—
     (May the itch seize the hindmost; I am ashamed to be left last.)

  On  the  7th page,  Part the 2d, as a cure for rheu-
matic headache,—" the steam of hot mush drawn  into
the nose, and the hair combed every evening," is the truly
homoeopathic and scientific prescription !
  The mode,  or  one  of the  modes, of dealing "with
shortness  of breath" is, by " anise-seed tea at night, and
smoking tobacco every morning" !!—page 89.
  0%. page 92, Part 2d, in pleurisy the patient is direct-
ed that he will " do  well to have a vein  opened,  and
when it is  once done, make a large incision and allow a
good quantity of blood to escape."  Now, with the ut-
most consideration for this author's word,  we distinctly
assert that we think he would do  much better to do no
such thing !   And we would like to know to what other
respectable homoeopathic authority  Dr. Hering  can refer
us for recommending this practice in a case where the
patient is presumed to have the remedies usually given
in the disease, at his  elbow ?—It has not often fallen to
the lot of men who   have studied  medicine from good
books and at colleges only, to meet with such a remedy
       3 
20
as that to be found on the 102d page, part 2d, of this
truly extraordinary work ;  it runs in these words : " we
may in many cases, relieve by tying, over night, around
the throat, the ivoollen stocking of a healthy person, and
who is  not of the  same sex as the patient."  Now, this
prescription, as before intimated, being entirely out  of
our sphere of knowledge and experience, Ave  will not
presume to pronounce on  its efficacy in the  face  of  so
high a  sanction.  But with respectful  humility we sub-
mit that its  administration is surrounded with a net-
work of difficulties.  We will suppose, for instance, that
the patient is a young gentleman,  still unmarried ; he
must in that  case, lay his mother or sisters under con-
tribution for the " loan of a stocking*!"  And should he
not be  blessed with these tender relatives,  he must pre-
sent his petition at the feet of " that idol whom  every
young  man has enshrined in his  heart."—Now if the
season  should happen to  be that in which ladies prefer
silk  or cotton, or if  it should  be the evening of the
day on which either of the ladies in question had  taken
a long  walk, we are sure  they might justly feel some he-
sitancy in lending the doctor's  prescription.   We will
neither present the other side,—that* is, the female  as-
pect of this question—nor pursue  it further, but  leave
it to the gentle reader to follow out the train of thought
for himself:  and we feel  fully assured that  he will  agree
with us that this remedy is  one of some  delicacy and
great difficulty, on whatever footing he  may place it.
   The  next advance upon the foregoing "specific"  is
no nearer  than the moon!   Treating  of  tape-worm—
page 165, those who may suspect this parasite  to hold 
27
his revels in their  intestines, must  look  out  for him
" about the new and full moon," at which time he may
be expected to come forth to  pay his respects to " the
glimpses of the moon!"  But the remedy which is to
compel the monster to reveal himself to the full light of
day, must be administered  " at the waning of the moon,
and the next full moon !"   Well,
          "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
         Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

   Who does not like, when the hour for rest has arriv-
ed, and Nature has drawn her  night-cap over her wrink-
led forehead,  to  enjoy the  refreshing  luxury of  her
"sweet restorer, balmy sleep" ?   Who does not, as he
lays  down  his weary limbs,  address  the  brother of
Death, and, with Ovid, say,
         " Somne, quies rerum, placidissime Somne Deorum,
           Pax animi, quern cura fugit, qui corpora duris
          Fessa ministeriis mulces reparasque labori."

But the god,  however smooth and soft the accents of
prayer and fervent the  spirit, will not always'shed his
oblivious  influences  upon  mortal  eyes,  but frequently
deserts his  post, 'perhaps, to  spend  the  night with
Cupid and the other troublesome  deities, whose  special
office it is to  disturb the  children of men both night
and day.  For such sleepless eyes and  restless heads
" The Homoeopathist" has  a  ready cure at page 252,
—Sleeplessness may be relieved or cured "by rubbing
the forehead with the palm of the hand, particularly if
it  be  done  accurately 101  times  and counted;  if  you
count wrong, still go on; if it do  not help, begin anew
from  the beginning, without  losing patience.   It also 
28
contributes much to sleep to fancy you had to write with
a very long pole, on a  high, exceeding  high wall, the
year and date in very large letters, first in figures, then
with letters" !  There is only one thing that could at
all improve this piece of medical wisdom, which is, that
the long imaginary pole were a real pole, and that the
sleepless man would actually use it upon the "very high,
exceeding high wall;" in that  case  we assure him  he
would, after the necessary muscular effort, sooner sleep,
and be less a dreamer.  Perhaps  it would make this re-
sult  doubly sure if he were  to go out  and collect 101
" decent-looking" paving-stones and bring them in a bag
into his bed-room.
  In  no less  than  three  different places,—pages 223,
and 274-5, is  Mesmerism called into requisition, with
full directions how to make the passes in straight lines
and high curves ! so that it is not thought sufficient that
homoeopathy should be an improvement and an advance
upon the old system, but this contemptible humbug, ex-
ecrated and  despised by all sound  thinkers  and well
educated men, must be  foisted in to patch up what Dr.
Hering thinks the failures of the  former.  We trust it
will be henceforth distinctly understood that these abom-
inations are anything but Homoeopathy.
  One more  novelty from this mass of confusion and
folly, and we have done with it.
  Page 245.  " Lying oneself sore.  This may be avoid-
ed when a vessel of water is placed under the patient's
bed, and renewed every day.  If water alone does not
serve,  then dissolve some globules  of„No.  15 in it"  !
And in case  this never-to-be-forgotten  remedy  should
fail to  cure " lying oneself sore,"—bed-sores, we should 
29
think—there is  another more far-fetched remedy still.
" A soft buck-skin  may be laid  under the patient, the
hair turned down and the tail end toward the feet of the
patient! by these means it may be avoided  or cured!"
Now, then, surely, " thereby  hangs a tail!"   Upon the
surface of " the water under the patient's bed" we shall
not raise a ripple, nor  shall we disturb the globules that
sleep in its  silent  depths and  send up their healing
powers through  bed  and  bedding, by  virtue of  some
profound mystery of  nature revealed only to Dr. Her-
ing, doubtless, by divine ordination !  But on taking our
leave, permit us to take also one turn out of the " buck-
skin :"—and while thus pleasantly shaking it up, let us
part with  friendly smiles and merry  faces, with the sat-
isfaction, that, if in this book we have  found no philo-
sophy, we have found plenty of " fun :"—
           " Semel Bryanus O'Linn bracca indigebat,
            Frater dedit rubra bovis pellem quam habebat,
            Hocque corpus cruraque noster induebat,
            'Frigido jucundum est,' Bryanus dicebat."
           " Brian O'Linn had no breeches to wear,
            So they bought him a ftwcfc-skin to make him a pair;
            The wooly side out and the fleshy side in,
            ' It is pleasant and cool,' says Brian O'Linn!"—Brallaghan.

   Reader, the case for the Crown and Majesty of Ho-
 moeopathy and  Science is before you;  would that the
 counsellor had been  more capable and  the  pleading of
 a higher  order, for your  sake,—but a noble and a just
 cause can well dispense with the outward display and the
 extraneous circumstances  of pompous show.—It is yours
 to pronounce the verdict; it  shall be, it must be, "guilty
 upon all the counts!"
                           3* 
    OUR LITERATURE-A REVIEW.*

"Samuclis Hahnemanni Materia Medica Pura. E Germanico sermone in
  Latinum convorsa.  Conjunctis studiis ediderunt Dr. E. Stapf, Dr. Gross,
  et E. G. a Brunnow. Dresda? et Lipsia?, anno, 1S26."
" Jahr's New Manual," translated by Chas. J. Hempel, M.D. New York, 1853.
"Hull's Jahr." New York, 1851.
" Therapeutic Pocket Book," by Dr. C. Von Bonninghausen.  Edited by
  Chas. J. Hempel.  New York, 1847.
"Jahr's and Possart's New Manual,"  By the Same. New York, 1853.
          " *  * * * *  rudis indigestaque moles,
          Nee quicquam nisi pondus iners, coDgestaque oodem,
          Non bene junctarum discordia semina rerum."—Ovid.

   There is a far distant  period dimly seen thro, gh the
mist of years, when the few and scattered  inhabitants of
the globe dAvelt in those regions of  Eastern land where
humanity is said to have found its  first cradle;  where,
as we  are told, our  forefathers  first propagated their
species, first put forth their  new and wondrous powers,
first developed their full  and perfect proportions—glow-
ing in  the joy and beauty of health—first felt the stiig
of disease, drooped under the hand of decay,  and tasted
death.   It was  then  that necessity  and experience first
taught them to provide weapons of  offence and defence
against the fierce denizens of the field  and forest, and
to  seek appliances  against  the  occult  and  stealthy
attacks of pain and  disease  in their myriad  aspects,—
"the pestilence that walked in darkness, and  the des-

  * See  North American Journal of Homoeopathy for August, 1858. 
31
truction that wasted at noonday."  Urged by unceasing
pressure, and guided by that singular faculty, shared in
common with the lower order of animals, they sought
with eager  solicitude whatever  curative  or palliative
means  nature had fostered in  her bosom in  pity to the
wants of her children,  and liberally yielded to the re-
searches of rudimentary science as well  as to  those
instinctive  yearnings that, without  reason or art,  de-
tected  in a moment  the medicinal products of hill and
dale, of mountain, sea and  forest.
  Through the uncertain vision which  the glimmerings
of historical light afford us  of a later period in the career
of our race, we behold the wayside sufferer in painful
and prolonged expectancy, even of years' duration, sit-
ting in pitiable solitude awaiting the advent of some
wanderer from  a distant land, whose wisdom  might sup-
ply, and whose charity might administer  the required
medicament.   But,  alas, how often  did  the burning
tears of disappointment  stain his cheeks while even  in
sight  of  the water troubled by  the  flutter  of the
angel's wings,  it  became  the restorer  of  some  more
nimble  sufferer who was able  to step in  before  him !
In those days  of  scientific twilight and helpless afflic-
tion, whether in  Assyria, Egypt, Greece,  or Judea,
the necessities of the diseased first called into being the
office of the  physician.  The urgent and  ceaseless de-
mands of  the sick taxed to their utmost the  genius and
inventive  faculties of the  doctor, who must  be always
ready with means to cure, to  relieve,  or to  amuse the
fancy of his patient till  nature restored him,  or till
death with a single pang dispensed with  his services for 
32
 ever.  It was at this time and under such pressure, that
 the appliances of cure  in the shape  of drugs began to
 expand in bulk  and number; and with the addition of
 charms,  incantations,   exorcisms  and assumed  super-
 natural agency, under  their dark and varied hues, pro-
 gressed so rapidly and multiplied  so vastly, that in a
 brief period the world itself had hardly room to contain
 them. The first-born of these twofold elements, science
 and superstition, appeared afterwards  to the world under
 the classic title of "Materia Medica !"   And however
 difficult and  prolonged  the  struggles by  which it was
 forced into existence, it does not seem  to  have fared
 any better in after years under its new dignity.
   To those who have watched its progress, it appears ad-
 vancing and retrograding, succeeding and failing, curing
 and killing!  Lauded to-day, execrated to-morrow; now
 moving with stately and dignified step, and  anon stum-
 bling  with tottering gait and tipsy uncertainty!   Here
 basking with  serene and scientific aspect  in the face of
 day, there with shaded and downcast brow sneaking and
 skulking, like a knight of the post.  By and by lifting
 on high the mace of accredited authority,  and exclusive
privilege  to kill and to slay "according  to law," and
then,  in mountebank garb and grinning gyrations, like
the merry-andrew  at a  country  fair,  proclaiming with
unblushing impudence  the  virtues of its  "patent pre-
scriptions " and quack nostrums; as duly protected by
Royal Decree, or  the edict  of a  Republic !  It would
indeed seem as if in these latter days Mercury had stolen
his medical sceptre from Apollo, and in one of his merry
moods lent it as a wand to Momus, that he may amuse 
33
the gods at the expense of mortals, by turning some of
the gravest efforts of their medical faculty into feats of
legerdemain!
   "A drowning man will grasp at a straw;" but the dis-
ease-stricken sufferer will often trust the empty jargon
of the most insolent knave that ever vended a "specific,"
whether he pretend to  diagnose his condition "by ap-
plying a glass tube to the eye,"* or attempt to cure by
holding a globule of "the eight-thousandth dilution" at
the distance of a yard from the nose.   Indeed it is, and
has always been, one of the wecik points of humanity to
commit its highest and most serious  interests into the
most unsafe hands, provided that they are  recommended
by improbable or supernatural assumptions  in science
or religion!   This should, perhaps, reconcile us to the
strange  and   anomalous  condition  of medicine,  while
Science  herself has  taken  up her abode  with men on
the earth, and  hourly guides their  fingers with uner-
ring certainty to  every triumph  that can be achieved
within the wide range  of the material universe.   And
yet, how singularly indifferent does  she appear in the
one department  that mostly  affects  human happiness
and health; or, is it because we stupidly and stubbornly
refuse to follow her leadings  and at her bidding  apply
the resources which Nature  at  her command has so
abundantly provided ?
   Materia Medica, to  be all that is  claimed for it by
  * In this enlightened city, a fellow whose only mode of diagnosis
is that stated in the text, enjoys a most extensive practice, and is
accumulating the largest fortune of any man in Philadelphia. 
34
 our opponents of the old school,  (when contrasting it
 with new  discoveries  and innovations, at other  times
 they ever lament its  uncertainty  and  defects.) should
 stand out as a distinct and well-defined branch of medi-
 cal knowledge; it should be founded on known and unde-
 niable elemental  principles, and be able with reasonable
 certainty to answer its intended object.  In other words,
 it should be the clear  development  of practical thera-
 peutics, and furnish ready to the hand of the medical
 man, reliable means of relief or cure.   Pathology clearly
 and unhesitatingly points out the true characteristics of
 a given  disease,  denotes its  class,  states its name, de-
 monstrates its local  boundaries  and  the point at which
 it concentrates its greatest intensity, as well as its reflex
 action on tissues  or organs at a distance from its imme-
 diate neighbourhood.   Why should not Materia Medica
 be equally clear in responding to our reasonable claims?
 Or must we conclude that the assumptions of  its advo-
 cates, when tilting against Homoeopathy, are, for the most
 part, "sound and fury," an empty profession, unreliable
 and fictitious ?  It is not intended here to swell the  echo
 of that silly and thoughtless cry— equally foolish and
 unfounded—that  would deny to the medical appliances
 of the old school  any salutary or curative effects, nor to
rank them  in the category of "unmitigated evils."   It
is more rational  to admit that most of them are excel-
lent tools, often  unskilfully  handled,  and very  fre-
quently effective  in a high degree,  in spite of  the  rust
with which  they  are coated, and  some  clumsiness  in
their use.  We desire to confine ourselves to such state-
ments as can be sustained by undeniable facts, whether 
35
we deal with the defects of the old or the new system of
Materia Medica.  But whatever be the redeeming quali-
ties of the old method it cannot be considered as resting
upon a scientific  basis.   Its sturdiest  advocates cannot
show that it is a series of inductive  conclusions from
unassailable  facts which  may again be  reproduced if
necessary; nor can  they show us the definitions, axioms
and postulates on which it rests.  And, still more im-
portant, let them show us a scientific classification, clear,
sound  and practical, in  which each division shall rest on
its individual utility and prove its inalienable relation to
the grand superstructure.   But is the sense of  security
produced by such a  combination that which  is  experi-
enced  by the student  at  every step  of his  progress?
Does he not rather feel himself left in a state of painful
bewilderment as to the selection of his  remedy in the
hour of need ?   Has he not the widest latitude of choice
among a countless variety  of dubious agents?   Must he
not submit to the wildest hap-hazard empiricism in their
administration ?  Science confines herself within known
boundaries, and owns no possessions  in the  dominions
of chance.   It is true that the student of the old school
system,  in  his perplexity  can fall back on a certain
time-honored classification of drugs, but  of so  singular
and fictitious a character that it only serves as the ignis
fatuus of the wanderer, to lead him off from the safe and
solid road to sink in darkness and dismay into the depth
of the quagmire.   It is conceded by the very  highest
authority  that  this  classification is  neither scientific
nor useful, and  only allowed  by sufferance  to occupy
a place from which the  boasted advancement  of our 
36
brethren  has  never been  able  to  remove  it; because
there was nothing rational to take its  place!  But let
us glance at it for a moment, and then turn  to our more
immediate object.
   In any attempted classification of Materia Medica, it
would naturally suggest itself to a reflecting mind that
some arrangement of medical substances in accordance
with their effects upon the different organs and tissues
of the human body, should be deemed a sine qua non
in their successful administration.  But instead of any
such  approximation towards a  scientific  standard, we
find them so grouped  as merely to  indicate  their effects
on the active functions of the system; as if these abnor-
mal deviations, however produced, were  the cause rather
than the effects of a diseased  condition!  This conclu-
sion must necessarily  divert the  attention from the wise
precept, "ferre causas," to a mere  trifling with results;
the suppression of which (their removal by such means
is impossible) can neither  aid the patient toward reco-
very, nor  the  physician in arriving at a philosophical
appreciation of his condition.   What  does  it avail us
to know that there are "Emetics" "Cathartics," and
"Expectorants,"  with all  those other nauseous  com-
pounds which make up the  useless and arbitrary cata-
logue which has come down to us  from the dark days
of  empiricism,  through all "that  blaze of light  and
knowledge" so vauntingly  set forth, but which, in this
department, has only served  to  deepen and extend the
shadows cast by these  mystic tumuli across the highways
of science and art ?  It is not necessary that we should
indulge in strong expressions in condemnation of this 
37
arrangement, when the very highest authorities  among
themselves have spoken in  deeper  and more emphatic
terms of depreciation  than  we should  like to employ;
the only exceptions being those creatures of mere terms
and  technicalities—too numerous in both  schools—
whose opinions always go for nothing, save where par-
tizan clamor  requires  the aid of empty noise to shout
down formidable  and fatal  opposition.
  So that while  we  feel called upon to make some
severe  but just strictures  on the  manifest  defects of
our own, it must  not be supposed that they imply any
commendation of a system whose disposition has shown
it to be too proud to acknowledge its errors, too slothful
for  advancement, and too conservative even to replace
positive and  self-evident evils by manifestly practical
benefits.
  But our own " Materia Medica Pura" is "very con-
siderable " in bulk of volume, extent of phraseology, and
multiplicity of meaningless words.  But  how are we to
deal with it? since we must  candidly acknowledge at
once, whether the admission  prove our native obtuseness
or not,  that in dragging our weary and almost hopeless
way through its winding and tangled mazes, we feel com-
pelled  to  inscribe  each of the rather singular "pochet-
books"  at the head of our article with the title, Materia
Medica Obscura!
  Let it, however, be distinctly understood that it is not
our intention, nor do we consider it our province, to sit
in judgment on the translation of these works.   Favor-
able opinions have already gone forth of the  arduous
labors  of  Dr. Hempel  and others in the same field;  and
        4 
38
 doubtless from many who are competent judges, as well
 as from some who evidently know nothing of German,
 and very little indeed of English; whether " to the manor
 born," or sprung from  continental Europe.  Our present
 review must, therefore, take another direction.
   We premise  that these compilations  in their present
 form  cannot be  considered as having any claim what-
 ever to  the style or title of "Materia Medica Pura" in
 the strict and  scientific sense attached now  by learned
 men  of the medical profession to  these words.   They
 form  neither the Materia Medica of our school, nor in-
 deed  of any  other.   What  elementary principles, or
 great fundamental truths lie buried in their depths is
 another question.  A block of marble is not a Venus de
 Medici  or a "Greek Slave," till the  cunning chisel of
 the artist has  reduced  it to  either "thing of beauty."
 When we consider the singularly arduous and important
 labors of Hahnemann,  his revival  and establishment of
 the great law  of cure, in  spite of the  most powerful
 opposition, his careful and elaborate pathogenetic  inves-
 tigations, we are surprised that even before  his death,
 they had not terminated in some well-knit and concise
 system,  convenient and satisfactory  for the practical
 purposes of the medical profession;—a body of tangible
facts  enforcing their irresistible conclusions  on  every
 cultivated man  whose   mind  was  open  to conviction.
 But  words are  not always things, and if,  with our-
 selves, some of our readers have despaired of gleaning
any satisfactory information after  much  labor and  toil
among these "provings" and "repertories," "manuals"
and "keys," let  them  remember that it is a common 
39
peculiarity of the most gifted minds to reject a mass of
mere  words,  while they  eagerly  embrace  new  ideas,
grapple with  new  propositions, and store up new facts
for future use.   These form the elements of the man of
genius.   The great work  which stands at  the  head of
our list, taken  as  a whole, must  be allowed to be un-
questionable in its integrity as a history of such prov-
ings as were made by the founder and those who aided
him in  his personal labors, and must necessarily form
the solid ground-work of a true system of Materia Medi-
ca.   It was  by these  provings that  the clear light of
medical reformation  first  broke through the clouds of
time-honored fallacies and superstitions.
   But if  Hahnemann intended  to claim  any higher
place  for this work than that of  a mere symptom list,
it is certain that, like many other great men, his judg-
ment  was led captive  by his zeal, and  caused him to
overlook all scientific method, while he threw together
in one confused heap grand masses  of purely elemental
principles, which require  some less gifted hand  to dis-
entangle,  arrange and mould  them into  a shape that
shall  subserve  the great  object he  had  so much at
heart.
   Great  discoverers   have  seldom  been   mechanical
enough to turn to practical advantage the truths  which
their  genius had drawn from heights and depths beyond
the reach of ordinary workers.  And it is but fair to
admit that in recording his drug-symptoms, Hahnemann
did not display such acuteness and clearness in  arrange-
ment and  system, as one would  expect  from so  sound
and original a thinker.   Or, perhaps, in his earnestness 
40
to be  clearly and fully understood, his anxiety carried
him too far, leading him to multiply his indications and
symptoms to such a degree, as to render it often difficult
to discover the wheat among the chaff,  or to detect that
which  is often of the highest consequence among the
useless, the puerile and the contradictory.   But if  this
great man has erred a little, many of his self-constituted
followers  have  done  nothing else but copy his mis-
takes and enlarge on  his  blunders. ' Indifferent  to the
grand fundamental principle which lies  at the root of all
medical science, and which has made its reviver immor-
tal, they seized  on  his trifling eccentricities as well as
on the weakness of his  advanced age,  when  second
childhood had succeeded the mental vigor of manhood,
and exhibited the small points of his character and the
excrescences of his  system in so strong a  light as to
expose us to the ridicule  and  scorn of such as  would
look no  deeper than this  outer surface into Homoeo-
pathy !
  Entirely unscientific themselves, they had  no  strong
appreciation of,  or warm sympathy with his  great  law
of cure; being mere mechanics in theory and practice,
they have only rung the changes on the " original prov-
ings,"—
        " Still heaping mountains piled on mountains to the skies,"

until every other branch of the noblest of all sciences
seemed lost in one universal fog of symptoms, extend-
ing to the very verge of the rational horizon, and dark-
ening the whole heavens; till even by the closest scrutiny
no other object revealed itself to the eye of the student 
41
but  an  unsightly,  lame  and forbidding  dwarf—an
Asmodeus in everything but intellect!
   "The Symptomatology,"   the  "New  Manual," (a
pochet-booh (!) of two octavo volumes, embracing twelve
hundred pages each, full  of nothing, but symptoms !)
"Hull's Jahr,"  " Jahr and Possart's New Manual"—
another of the polyphemous pochet-boohs—and Hering's
inflated "gas-bags," form the protean monstrosity which
has  sprung  from the  laboratory of these enchanters!
These  have  now assumed so  formidable an appearance
and so forbidding an aspect, that scarcely a man of large
views or scientific acquirements thinks it worth while to
lose  a thought on what seems only fit capital for broken-
down mechanics, charlatans, and quack doctors.  And
which has become, indeed, the means of flooding the pro-
fession  with a race  of symptom-doctors, dubbed by  one
another, whose  only qualifications for their assumed
calling is a total  ignorance of every branch of medical
and  general knowledge.  It would be both useless  and
indeed impossible to attempt a detailed criticism of the
contents of these productions, in which all that was  ori-
ginally sound, simple and reliable, has been so overlaid
as to render it as rational to seek useful information in
them as it would be to turn single-handed into the  sta-
ble of Augeas.  Here we have layer upon layer of iso-
lated indications, useless repetitions, and  long-labored
lines of little words and phrases, which no human intel-
lect  can grasp, and no amount of  human  industry turn
to any. useful  purpose.  The brain on which they could
be stamped must needs be of the fossil class.
   It is a very singular feature, and one which very  rea-
                         4* 
42
 dily impresses itself on the mind of the student of our
 provings, in their present state of crude and conglome-
 rate amalgamation, that every medicine  on the list is
 made to produce  similar, and indeed  almost identical
 conditions.   So closely do these  approximate, that one
 name might well indicate every abnormal change which
 they are said  to produce in the human  system !   Nor is
 this all, for the converse is made to appear also true.
 For the  same substance  that  brings about a series of
 given  symptoms  now, is forced,  by and by,  to  pro-
 duce the very opposite phenomena; till every single me-
 dicine, without one word of  qualification or explanation,
 seems to embrace within  its  expansive range every ail-
 ment incident to the human family, rendering it a work
 of supererogation to  call in at any time the  aid of  the
 other, equally potent, and no less effective, agents!
  To fortify us with greater strength, so that at all times
 we  may go forth armed to  the teeth,  we are gravely
 presented with a long array of drugs " that act  on  the
 right side," and another battalion " to act on the left;"*
 about one hundred " to  act on the angles of the eye,"
 fifty-nine or sixty  "for the external angle,"  and sixty-
 four "for the  inner  angle!" some to act "before the
 ears," some " behind the  ears," some " below the ears,"
 and some "on the lobes of the  ears !"   Surely seeing
 and hearing, even in the case of  the  blind  and deaf,

  *  A few days ago, a grave medical philosopher of this city, asked
a lady patient, if " the pain in the side was better ?" she replied in
the negative; and he, looking at his notes, said, " he did not wonder,
since she had been taking  a left side, instead  of a right side medi-
 cine !" 
43
should be matters of course after this.   The male gen-
itals have one hundred and ten remedies  to  fall back
upon in time of  need; the penis one hundred and eight,
the glans, the prepuce, the testicles, the scrotum, &c,
have  separate resources  proportionately  large!  The
"heel," the "back of the foot," the "sole," the "toes,"
the "big toe," the "tips of the toes," the "ball under
the toes," the  "toe-nails," and  "corns," may in  all
cases of trouble  come to a fair understanding with  no
less a force than six thousand and three well chosen and
carefully adapted medical aids !   (Vide Bb'nninghausen,
pp. 130, 131, et  passim.)  But how hopeless  and vain
the task to seek  for information among this hocus-pocus
of vulgar  jargon, huddled  together by a half-crazy en-
thusiast, to say no worse of him; who had the impudence
to assert  " that  he killed  two mad dogs on the spot"
with one  globule of Jenichen, the horse-trainer's high
potency!   It is not then in  this, so-called, "Materia
Medica Pura," that we can  hope  to find a classification
or analysis of medicines which should naturally and ne-
cessarily lead us to a knowledge  of those lesions they
are most likely  to relieve or cure.   We  find  ourselves
sent at every step, on a " wild-goose chase," hunting up
fractional atoms of  "pains," "aches," "feelings," and
" sensations," till it  becomes a  matter  of doubt with
the mere symptom-hunter whether his patient is in the
wholesome and natural throes of child-birth, or writhing
in the agonies of the worst form of colic.   And it is very
certain that he who exclusively devotes himself to this
miserable and bewildering system of symptoms, must be
ignorant that there is such a thing as a disease having a 
44
specific character, a period of invasion, growth, crisis,
decrease and termination.   Having his head full only of
these disjecta membra, how can he refer  each symptom
for a correct idea of its meaning, as well as the cause of
its appearance to some  known form of disease to which
it points as an index ?
  But if for a moment we  admit that every one of these
almost countless symptoms or indications, is a positive
and  reliable  fact—which  every one knows is not the
case—of how much value could they be  to the medical
profession in general, as they have been huddled toge-
ther in these books by editors who have  strained their
ingenuity to its utmost tension in order to weave puzzles
and  enigmas out of Hahnemann's provings?  Collec-
tions of facts  intended to  bear on any  given  subject,
must cease to be useful when neither synthesis can give
force to their  combined  testimony, nor analysis  add
weight to their individual declaration.  But that the
deduction of general scientific conclusions should be the
great end of such collected information,  does not seem
to have passed before the minds of our great compilers.
They remind one of a miser, who, having  spent a barren
and  useless  life in collecting in one sack,  pieces  of all
denominations—gold, silver, copper—should in the end,
as he sits in misery and rags, estimate his wealth by the
bulk of the bag !
  The great architects of  our mighty  "manuals"  had
forgotten, doubtless, that a student of medicine  would
naturally desire  to  learn  something of  the history of
each  medical substance, of the source whence it  is de-
rived, of the  manner in which  it came to  be used for 
45
curative purposes—by instinct, accident, or  experiment
—and why it is possessed of medical virtues at all.  It
would not, we conceive, have been beneath the notice of
even the most distinguished thinkers to dwell a little on
these points, and tell us of the mine whence the mineral
is drawn, of the climate which the animal inhabits, of the
region which  affords sap to the herb and the plant;—
why and how our great predecessors had happened  to
choose any one or more of the same order or class in pre- *
ference to others ?  Nor would it be amiss to know that
Nature-—"the kindest mother still"—has wisely and
providently provided  in  every clime and country effec-
tive means for the  relief or cure of such forms of dis-
ease as are peculiar within its limits.  As natives, or in-
habitants of the American continent, we should not lose
sight of the  circumstance that the  constitutional  and
hereditary  tendencies of the  human family accompany
them in their  constant migrations, and  assume new as-
pects under distant and different climates.  Here where
the children of all  lands seek and  find a  home, and
bring with them their vices   and their virtues,  their
strength and  their weakness, it would seem  peculiarly
desirable that our medical studies should embrace a wider
and more  generous  range than that prescribed to them
by the feeble and barren  capacities of the symptomat-
ologists.
  The collectors of our provings have overlooked their
true design,  and thus far most  effectually  contracted
their  utility, since they ought to have known that the
value of every new truth in this field is only seen as it
forms a link in a chain of evidence that unites the rela- 
46
tion between the effects of any given drug on the heal-
thy human organism, and the pathological developments
of some  known form of disease.  We conclude, there-
fore, that in spite of our boasted progress and new
light, a Materia Medica, that shall command the respect
of enlightened  and learned  men everywhere, challenge
the esteem and defy the cavils of our opponents and be
valuable  in the hands of the  practitioner, has yet to be
evolved from this mass of crude and chaotic materials,
which have been thrown together, mainly by our  German
brethren, with  more industry than skill, and  with  an
evident design "to make a new booh," rather than com-
pose one  which should contain anything new or  useful.
  It would not  be generous to close these remarks with-
out an expression of commendation due to the scientific,
extensive and accurate labors of Dr. Teste, the first who
has made some approximation towards  supplying this
great want of our  school, and who  has  tried to reduce
to something like  order the fragments  left us by our
great discoverer,—whose mission, never perhaps under-
stood by  himself, went no further  than to indicate the
great leading truths of a medical  reformation,  leaving
it to minds of more limited inspiration and less  compre-
hensive grasp to mould into an art the scientific deduc-
tions he had initiated.   Still Dr. Teste's very important
and valuable work  falls far short of the present  require-
ments of our practice, whilst its plan seems to  us open
to objections which it would  be out of place to  canvass
here.
  An effort  is being made in another quarter which we
can only  notice  now as affording a hope that at some fu- 
47
ture period, apparently distant, a work may be produced
which should make us independent of the symptom rolls.
Although it would be premature to judge of an unfin-
ished work, its  character so far compels  us to express
our regret that it only appears from quarter to quarter as
addenda to a quarterly Journal, which necessarily defers
to a very far off time a book that promises fair to fill the
vacuum so prejudicial to our cause  and the cause of suf-
fering humanity, as well as to the individual interests of
every member of the profession.  And though we would
not urge too much  the  "willing steed,"  we  must ven-
ture the hope that the gentlemen who have undertaken
this arduous and useful labor, may find it in their power
to hasten it to a more  speedy termination, and  add to
the value of their gift by contracting the length of our
season of expectancy.
THE end. 
 
j>4^  yi^u^  <&.,&

»V^
SOME
LOCAL AND GENERAL
EXCRESCENCES OF HOMEOPATHY.
By JOHN F. GEARY, M. D.
(T
                    \

PHILADELPHIA.
    1858.
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