HOMOEOPATHY.

New Zealander, Volume 10, Issue 890, 25 October 1854, Page 3

HOMOEOPATHY.

To the Editor of the New-Zkadander. Sir, —Dr. Fischer at the conclusion of an admirable and decisive letter has intimated his intention of withdrawing altogether from newspaper controversy, and therefore will not 1 suppose reply to Dr. Philson's last epistle. Although such is perhaps the wisest and most dignified course, it is yet a matter of regret to me, for no one in Auckland so well as Dr. Fischer could have advocated the cause of Homteopathy. Pity indeed so good and true a cause should need an advocate, yet its earnest apostles may take consolation from the fact that J ustin Martyr wrote “ an

Apology for Christianity.” I could have wished tint it had fallen to another and abler pen to write what is indeed not an apology for, but a defence of Homscopathy. I intend to say nothing here about the case of Mr. Hill; a case of which I should think the public were almost tired and which I maintain has been satisfactorily explained by Dr. Fischer. The Allopathic doctrines of medicine were propounded in the most remote antiquity. Amidst the universal darkness which succeeded the dissolution of the Roman empire, science and learning disappeared from the world, or shone only with a faint and glimmering light from (he recesses of convents. It is to the monks we owe those feeble remains which have descended to us of ancient glory and wisdom. They were the philosophers, the historians, the architects, the physicians of their day, and it was not until the year 1522, that England could boast of a college of physicians. It is from these soi rc is that the Allopathists derive their system and ideas. In every other science since that time, those important discoveries have been made which change the face of nations. With some few exceptions medicine has remained stationary. Innoculation, introduced from the East, by a woman ; and the discovery of the circulation of the blood by Harvey are amongst the more important. Each for a time was strongly combatted by those who should most readily have embraced it, but each finally prevailed. Every now and then since that time has arisen some talented physician who has discovered a new remedy, some skilful surgeon who has succeeded in a new and superior operation. But the vital principle of medicine has continued down to this day to be the same as that which was in practice amongst superstitious and ignorant men, ere the invention of gunpowder had rendered steel armour useless, ere tne first hook was printed or the first voyage of Co lumbus undertaken. Diseases have been gradually multiplied under the mild and beneficent treatment of Allopathy ; men’s Uvea have been growing shorter, and existence has become more painful. Yet God allotted to man three score and ten years and in the first ages of the world there was little sickness. It is now about 50 years ago that Hahnemann discovered his imm irtal principle, no doubt the fundamental law of nature, the kejastone of the healing art, “ simiba similibus curanter.” With the utterance of those words there dawned upon the world a new light, there arose for it, a new hope that this generation unlike their fathers, unenfeehled by suffering or by remedies worse than the disease may sink at last into timely graves, like autumn fruits ripe and ready for harvest. It has always appeared to rpe a mysterious thing, the allopathic doctrine of diseases being cured by their contraries ; that is to say that heat will cure cold, and cold, heat. It has always seemed to me in direct opposition to the harmonious laws of nature radiating ns they do from one pure unity. Yet the allopathists do not even adhere to their own law. Their remedies ai - e compounded and administered under no law save that of experiment, and the few specifics which by this mode of proceeding have been discovered are pure homseopathics. But the Allopath is ignorant of the curative modus operandi, for he has never studied the action of his drugs upon the healthy frame. Conceive a mixture composed of four acids each neutralizing the other, and two other drugs converted by the acids into active poisons, fancy the effects of that potion on the delicate and intricate organism of the human frame. Contrast with this the one single, simple globule of Homoeopathy. And tell me you who laugh at infinitesimals, can you show me the substance of any disease? Can you take miasma into your hand and make it visible tome? Where is infection ? All that we know of it is, that it is. And so with the lemcdy, it is sufficient that it is there, however minute, an atom can control an atom ! The law of Hahnemann is in unison with harmony. “ Lite cures like.” Once proved, once ascertained beyond a doubt, and medicine becomes indeed a science, is indeed “second to none in moral dignity and usefulness save to the Christian ministry.” The very name of “ quackery” hides its diminished hea l before the grand truthfulness of that plain, and simple law. The action of a drug upon a healthy person; the symptoms carefully noted down, and wherever in a diseased person those same symptoms appear, then that drug is the remedy pointed out, and if taken in time, mud cure. Dr. Philson can scarcely know as much on the subject of Homoeopathy as he would wish us to suppose, when he talks about active as opposed to infinitesimal doses. Infinitesimal are active doses. And (when the remedy is carefully chosen) the more active, the more healing, us they are infinitesimals. Dr. Philson declines “ Dr. Fischer’s invitation to the bedsides of his patients,” and “cannot be expected to have any fellowship with the prolessors of such a system.” Yet, sir, James Clarke and Dr. Locock, two of the most eminent physicians of the day, have distinguished themselves by their courteous demeanour towards their homoeopathic brethren. They have never made any difficulty of meeting in consultation at the request of their patients any homoeopathic practitioner. Dr. Philson says that “ Homoeopathy is rapidly declining in England and in Europe generally.” In confutation of this I have only to mention that the King of Prussia has lately appointed a chair.of homoeopathic medicine in his capital ; that there are also chairs for homoeopathic, medicine at tire universities at Munich and Prague; that there is one in contemplation at Paris ; that the King of Hanover, the Hanoverian royal family and household, King Leopold of Belgium (uncle to our Queen) and the Fmperor of Austria, are all under Homoeopathic treatment. So is the Queen of Spain. The Emperor Louis Napoleon in the course of the year 1853, decorated Dr. Nunez a homoeopathic practitioner of Madrid, with the badge of the Legion of Honor, on account of the benefits conferred on the inhabitants of the South of France bythe doctrines of Hahnemann. And the great Napoleon "as cured of pityriasis while he was tat Elba by|a homoeopathic physician, and pronounced homoeopathy to be the greatest and most beneficial discovery which had been made since the art of printing. 1 cannot do better than close my letter with these memorable words, which, with the above facts 1 have thought it my “duty” to lay before the “meditations” of the public.—Yours, &c., Harpsicord.