THE

New-England Medical Gazette.

No. 5

MAY, 1887.

VOL. XXII.

Contributions of original articles, correspondence, personal items, etc., should be sent to the publishers, Boston, Mass.

EDITORIAL.

"HOMEOPATHY AND KINDRED DELUSIONS."

DR. HENRY I. BOWDITCH'S LATE ADDRESS before the Rhode Island Medical Society' is a pamphlet worthy of careful perusal by all those interested in the unceasing controversy between the opposing schools of medicine. The words of a scholar and gentleman can never be without weight; and when the speaker can, beside, lay claim to a record of fifty-eight years of faithful and successful labor in the ranks of the medical profession, surely not the bitterest opponent of the views advanced by him. can deny him a thoughtful and respectful hearing.

Dr. Bowditch's address, as its voluminous and explicit title indicates, differs materially from most of the utterances of his school on kindred subjects, in that it deals not so much with the fact and the merits or, from their point of view, the demerits of homoeopathy and eclecticism, as with the treatment which these protestants against the "true faith" have received in the past, are receiving in the present, and may wisely receive in the future, at the hands of their brethren of the "regular" school. And it differs yet more materially from the utterances of Dr. Bowditch's confrères, in that it ventures to condemn, and that in no measured terms, the senseless bigotry of

The Past, Present, and Future Treatment of Homoeopathy, Eclecticism, and Kindred Delusions which may hereafter arise in the Medical Profession; as viewed from the standpoints of the history of medicine, and of personal experience. By Henry I. Bowditch, A.M., M.D. From the Transactions of the Rhode Island Medical Society. Boston: Cupples, Upham & Co. Price 15 cents.

this treatment, past and present, and to counsel very radical changes and modifications in it, as regards the future.

Space forbids our making the exhaustive résumé of Dr. Bowditch's address which its importance deserves, and restricts us to mention of and comment on certain, only, of its more salient points. One of these is his theory which accounts for the rise and immediate popularity of homoeopathy, on the ground of the immense and wholesome re-action it embodied, from the barbarous methods of treatment then in vogue in the "rational" school. He not only admits, he dwells with weight and empha- · sis upon, the blind and cruel stupidity which salivated a patient into untold agonies, and bled him even for anæmia. He alludes to homœopathy and its "kindred delusions," it is true, with a sort of good-humored, grandfatherly contempt; his greatest praise being that they "only do no harm" to the deluded patjents under their control; but he roundly and unhesitatingly adds that this "doing no harm" was an immense and most merciful improvement on the frequently irreparable harm being contemporaneously wrought upon its patients by "regular" medicine. In view of these facts, and of his conviction that the re-actionary homœopathists, if left to themselves, would have naturally abandoned, in time, their "infinitesimals," all but the "infinitesimal grain of truth" which he generously allows may lurk in their theories and methods, and continued loyal to their early associations, Dr. Bowditch claims that the persecution, ostracism, abuse, and slander dealt out to them by the "regulars," were the wildest, the most impolitic, the most disastrous of follies. He speaks as one having authority; for in that memorable meeting of the Massachusetts Medical Society, which resulted in the expulsion of its members practising homoeopathically, Dr. Bowditch's voice was raised against this rash measure in no uncertain utterances of plea, warning, and prophecy. He told his colleagues that to expel the homoeopathists would be to perpetuate the existence of their tenets, and to insure them following and success. He has lived to see his prophecy fulfilled. A not unkindly twinkle will inevitably come into the eye of the homoopathist who marks the half-suppressed sigh breathing through the words in which this honored veteran points out to his colleagues of to-day how his prophecy has been fulfilled, how the

homœopathy of to-day has at its command hospitals and colleges, large private means and influence, and growing public honors and dignities; so that on our Massachusetts State Board of Health to-day, homoeopathy sits down in council side by side with "rational" medicine. So much for the past. Coming down to the present, Dr. Bowditch enters a ringing and most manly protest against the late action of the American Medical Association, in striving to bend its members' liberty of conscience to its own bigoted will. Concerning the future treatment of these "delusions," homoeopathy and eclecticism, Dr. Bowditch advocates a "few practical measures," which we cannot do better than to give in his own words:

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"1. Let every State Society follow the lead of New York, and let the members be allowed, without injury to their status in those bodies, to consult with members of other legally constituted' medical societies. Members would not be required to do so, but simply be permitted to consult without loss of reputation. I am well aware that this proposition will strike most of you with almost horror. You have been so accustomed to look down upon these sects, that you forget that they have schools where all branches of medicine are taught quite as well as in many of the smaller schools of the country, and vastly better than they were taught fifty years ago at the highest colleges. You forget that these sects have among their numbers as many honest believers in medicine as you have, although they may have, in some particulars, notions different from those taught in our schools. You shut your eyes to the fact that constantly consultations are going on between orthodoxy and heterodoxy. This is now done secretly or accidentally. Let it be openly done by those who wish to do so; for if men are true to Dr. Jackson's ideas, the regular fraternity can receive no detriment, and the sects will become less. Having no distinctive marks to separate them, all will become merged again in the medical profession as it has been handed down through the ages, always imperfect, yet always improving.

"2. Let members of either of these sects join our State Societies, provided they prove to the State Examiners or Censors that they have studied medicine a proper length of time, and are able to pass the examination required of all applicants for admission, and provided moreover they agree to cease to call themselves by any peculiar name because they desire to enroll themselves as members of our time-honored profession.

"3. Let us endeavor to make the American Medical Association rescind the vote whereby it expelled the New York State Medical Society simply because, by its resolutions, it intimated that the fight between the regular profession and homoeopathy and eclecticism had lasted long enough, and that hereafter consultations would be allowed with all legalized medical bodies.'

"4. As interweaved with and intimately connected with this controversy, let us, on all proper occasions, and by' all means in our power, endeavor to induce the American Medical Association to annul the illegal action of the Judicial Council, requiring an annual signature by all the members to its so-called Code of Ethics, under penalty of not being allowed to attend and take part in the friendly intercourse and scientific discussions of the meetings; a measure which tends to keep alive our divisions, and encroaches upon our individual rights of conscience, instead of promoting that harmony in the profession of America which the Association, by its great power for good, might bring about at these annual meetings in various parts of the country."

It need hardly be said that the homoeopathic reader of Dr. Bowditch's address, will find in its pages frequent and flagrant injustice to homoeopathy, and never other than scant justice. He will find a score of points on which he must take sharp issue. . Prominent among these are the terms on which Dr. Bowditch advises his colleagues to receive homoeopathists back into the councils of the "regular" profession. It is passing strange that men so gentle and so truthful as the author of this address, should fail to appreciate the deep significance of the fact that in all the years of truth-seeking since the division in the medical profession came to be, it is homœopathy which has remained consistent to its central vital principles and practice, while " rationalism" has shed its theories as rapidly as a woman of fashion her gowns, and, like Leigh Hunt's pig, led its wearied followers "up all manner o' streets;" and in these years a hundred times as much in the way of successful methods of treatment of disease has been "borrowed"-"conveyed" in the atmosphere of Dr. Bowditch's gentle courtesy, we cannot say stolen from homoeopathy by its adversaries, as from them by it. It is not,

in the interests of the unity of science, of the higher gentlehood, let us hope it is not too late for reconciliation; but it is far too late for our ancient adversaries to dictate to us the terms of reconciliation. These can only be settled by mutual understanding, mutual respect, and mutual concession, and by the preservation intact to homoeopathy, of all the rights it has proved itself so amply able to defend. We also, in our semicentennial year, may refer with pride to our "time-honored profession;" reflecting that if growth, favor, worldly and clinical success, mean any thing, it has had, compared with the "time

honored profession" of our adversaries' boast, considerably more 'honor" in proportion to its "time."

But if homoeopathy meets, at Dr. Bowditch's hands, with scant justice, homoeopathists must note with hearty pleasure the "sweet reasonableness" of Dr. Bowditch's desire to do justice to them personally, as physicians and as gentlemen. Such a desire, so plainly and unaffectedly shown, must awaken in us an appreciation as kindly as itself, and cannot but stimulate us to meet candor with candor, and courtesy with courtesy.

THE HOMEOPATHIC FESTIVAL.

ALMOST a century has passed since Hahnemann, in the phrase similia similibus curantur, enunciated a principle in medicine which from that time to the present has been steadily changing the whole medical practice of the world. So absolutely different was it from the ideas then prevalent in the medical profession, that its acceptance seemed a condemnation of the existing methods, and the physicians who adopted it became medical revolutionists, and were looked upon by their associates as little better than traitors to the guild. It took thirty years to transport this monstrum horrendum across the Atlantic to the city of New York, and twelve years more- till 1837 - before it reached Boston.

Fifty years have greatly changed the medical world. The "monster" is far less monstrous now. The one physician in all New England who then was brave enough to accept the "law" of Hahnemann, has increased to a thousand. The law has thrown its protecting ægis over those who profess the new doctrine, and they have established societies, hospitals, dispensaries, and a school in this same New England. The profession, unable to maintain their bitter opposition, have incorporated the new principle with their practice. The community have accepted it gladly, and have indeed welcomed it as a boon.

Under such conditions, it is no wonder that the homoeopathic physicians of New England felt it a privilege, and even a duty, to mark the semi-centennial as a joyous occasion. To do this in a way that should bring together pleasantly thousands of their friends and patients, and at the same time strengthen their cause, was a most fitting celebration. Accordingly, on the 12th of April, almost the anniversary of Hahnemann's birth, in the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics' Association Building, some five thousand people assembled. They came from the different States in New England, and represented all the professions and