The Pathogenetic Effects of Some of the Principal Homoeopathic Remedies; Tr. from the German, with Introductory and Practical Observations

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1838. Excerpt: ... INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. The proud position which homoeopathy has now attained, not only in Germany, its birth-place, but in almost every country of Europe and America, renders it at least unwise and impolitic, in any person professing the art of medicine, to reject that system without a full and fair examination. The striking fact that its numerous professors have all been educated in, and have practised on, the old principles of medicine, that they are all converts from the ancient school, and that, with the consequent knowledge of both doctrines, they now declare homoeopathy to be of incalculable importance, would render such rejection even culpable. A circumstance tending happily to pave the way for the final and complete admission of the truths of homoeopathy, is, that physicians, who do not profess to adopt this system, do yet, in B many instances, cure their patients on the homoeopathic principle; a fact proved by experiments on healthy subjects, which show that the medicine employed in such cases is always precisely the one capable of producing ra disturbance in the organism similar to the disease which it removes. That such accidental or empirical treatment (for it is founded on no defined principle) should frequently be unsuccessful, it is but natural to expect; for the large doses, usually given, can often serve only to aggravate the malady, in consequence of the vis vitce being too feeble to re-act against them. By such doses, may often be produced violent commotions, evidenced by vomiting, purging, perspiration, &c, which exhaust the action of the remedy, without its even reaching the disease. In spite of these difficulties, however, some medicines, sulphur, mercury, cinchona and a few others, are so generally successful in the cure of a c...