HOMOEOPATHY

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 437, 31 December 1861, Page 3

HOMOEOPATHY

To the Editor of the Colonist. [Conclud'-d from our last iiumlier.] In a discourse to which I have already alluded, I thought it my duty to offer the following cautiou to my pupils;—-' The first question which should present itself to you in the management of a particular case is this : Is the disease one of wh eh the patient may recover, or is it. not ? There are, indeed, too many cases in which the patient's con. dition is so manifestly hopeless, that the fact cannot be overlooked. Let me, however, camion you that you do not in any instance arrive too hastily at this conclusion. Out' knowledge is not so absolute and certain as to prevent even well informed persons being occasionally mistaken on this point. This is true, especially with respect to the affections <of internal organs. Individuals have been restored to health wh> were supposed to be dying of disease in the lungs or mesenteric glands. * * * * It is a good rule in the practice of our art, as in the common affairs of life, for us to look on the favorable side of the question, aa far as we can consistently with reason flo «o. | niigty have ddea \\^ tytiwtol MMfawiw*

c , especially a source of error to not very experienced practitioners, by simulating more serious disease; seeming to resist for a time all the efforts of art, and then all at once subsiding under any kind of treatment, or, just as well, under none at all. Now, if it should so happen that a medical practioner, from want of knowledge, or from a natural defect of judgment, makes a mistake in his diagnosis, and the patient whom he had unsuccessfully treated afterwards '■eeovers under the care of auother practitioner, it is simply said, 'Dr. A. was mistaken'; and is not considered as anything very remarkable that the symptoms should subside while under the care of Dr. B. But if, on the other hand, the recovery takes place under the care of a homoeopathist, or any other empiric, the circumstance excite? a much larger portion of attention ; and we really cannot very well wonder that, with such knowledge as they possess of these matters, the empiric should gain much credit with the public. So far the practical result would seem to be that homeopathy can be productive of no great harm; and indeed, considering it to be no treatment at all, whenever it is a substitute for bad treatment, it must be the better of the two. But there is great harm nevertheless. There are numerous J cases in which spontaneous recovery is out of the question—in which sometimes the life or death of the patient, and at others the comfort or discomfort of his existence for a long time to come, depends on the prompt application of active and judicious treatment. In such cases homoeopathy is neither more nor less than a mischievous absurdity ! and I do not hesitate to say that a very large number of persons have fallen victims to the faith which they reposed in it, and to the consequent delay in having recourse to the use of proper remedies It is true that it very rarely happens, whenever symptoms show themselves which give real alarm to the patient or his friends, that they do not dismiss the homoeopathist and send for a regular practitioner; but it may well be that by this time the mischief is done, the case being advanced beyond the reach of art. That the habit of resorting to homoeopathic treatment which has prevailed in some parts of society should have ccasioncd much dissatisfaction among the mass of medical practitioners, is no matter of wonder. It cannot be otherwise than provoking, to those who have passed three or four years of the best part of their lives in endeavoring to make themselves well acquainted with disease in the wards of an hospital, to find that there are some among their patients who resort to them for advice only when their complaints have assumed a more painful or dangerous character; while they are set aside in ordinary cases, which involve a smaller amount of anxiety and responsibility, in favor of some homoeopathic doctor, who very probably never studied disease at all. But it cannot be helped. In all times there have been pretenders, who have persuaded a certain part of the public that they have some peculiar knowledge of a royal road to cure, which those of the regular craft have not. It is homoeopathy now; it was something else formerly; and if homoeopathy were to be extinguished, there would be something else in its place. The medical profession must be content to let the thing take its course; and they will best consult their own dignity and the good of th» public by saying as little as possible about it. The discussions as to the evils of homoeopathy which have sometimes taken place at public meetings, have quite an opposite effect to that which they were intended to produce. They have led so:n«s to believe that homaeopathists are rather a jeraecuted race, and have given to the system which they pursue an importance which it would never have had otherwise; just as any absurd or fanatical sect in religion would gain proselytes, if it could only make others believe that it was an object ot jealousy and persecution. After all, the harm done to the regular profession is not so great as'many suppose it to be ; a very large proportion of the complaints about which homoeopathista arr consulted, being really no complaints at all, for which a respectable practitioner would scarcely think it right to prescribe. There was a time when many of the medical profession held the opinion that not only homoeopathy, but all other kinds of quackery, ought to be put down by the strong hand of the law. 1 imagine that there are very few who hold that opinion now. The fact is, the thing is impossible, and even if it were possible—as it is plain that the profession cannot do all that is wanted of them, by curing all kinds of disease, and making men immortal—such an interference with the liberty of individuals to consult whom they please would be absurd and wrong. As it now is, the law forbids the employment in any public institution of. any one who is not registered as being a qualified medical practitioner, after a due examination by some of the constituted authorities ; and it can go no further. The only effectual opposition which the medical profession can offer to homoeopathy is by individually taking all possible pains to avoid, on their own part, those errors of diagnosis, by means of which, more than anything else, the professors of homoeopathy thrive and flourish ; by continuing in all ways to act honorably by the public; at the same time, never being induced, either by good nature or by any motive of selfinterest, to appear to give their sanction to a system which they know to have no foundation in reality. To join with homoeopathists in attendance on cases of either medical or surgical disease would be neither wise nor honest. The object of a medical consultation is the good of the patient; and we cannot suppose that any such result can arise from the interchange of opinions where the views entertained or proposed to be entertained by one of the parties as to the- nature and treatment of disease are wholly unintelligible to the other. Yours, &C, B. C. BRODIE, K.G.8., Doctor of Civil Lawg, Fellow of the Royal Society, Sergeant-Surgeon to the Queen, Surgeon to H R.H the Prince Consort, Fellow and Member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, formerly Surgeon to St. George's Hospital, and President of the Council of Medical Education and Registration of Great Britain and Ireland, &c, &c, &c. To the Editor of the Colonist. Sir—-1 observe in the leading article of last Saturday's Examiner, in reference to the Grey coal, the followingsttitsment:—'A private firm here, Messrs. Curtis Brothers sent a small sample of the coal to England and obtained an opinion and an analysis'— and from the general tenor of the article from which I quote, the public are led to suppose that the Government did nothing and Missis. Curtis everything. Now I have ever) reason to believe, on good authority, that the analysis obtained by the above firm, was at leaet so far recognised by tlu Superintendent that it was paid for out of the public purse. This Jesuitical mode of stating a fact savors very strongly of an inte >tion to induce the uninformed to believe ' that which is not.' FAIRPLAY.