The preceding more or less disconnected portions of the text of Hahnemann’s great work—“Organon of the Rational Art of Healing”—are quoted here, not with the idea that they will convey to the reader a very clear idea of the doctrine of homoeopathy and of the way in which it is to be applied in the practice of medicine, but rather for the purpose of showing the extraordinary manner in which Hahnemann utilized his reasoning powers in his efforts to create a new pathology and a new system of therapeutics that would harmonize with this new doctrine.
A further inquiry into the manner in which the disciples of Hahnemann acted upon these principles of homoeopathy in the practice of their profession establishes the fact that they believed in the remedial efficiency of doses that contained as small a quantity as the billionth or the decillionth of a grain of the drug. In a report which he makes to the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh, James J. Simpson, the distinguished professor of midwifery in the University of that city, comments (1851–1852) upon these infinitely small doses in the following terms:—
If a grown-up man were gravely and seriously to assert to the world that two and two make five, the world would be inclined to look upon him as doubtfully rational, inasmuch as he defied the principles of common sense. And when other grown-up men tell the world that they can cure this or that disease with a billionth or decillionth of a grain of this or that common and probably inert drug, they express an opinion perhaps even more intensely and directly absurd than the doctrine of two and two making five; but they do not equally see through the absurdity and impossibility of the more complicated, but equally ridiculous idea, of the billionth or decillionth of a grain of oyster-shell, or chamomile, or belladonna, or the like, having any possible effect whatever upon the economy, for, resting contented with the mere name, they never once think or dream of what in reality a billionth or a decillionth amounts to.... For it is a sum the mere figures of which can scarcely give us any conception of its infinitesimal amount, viz., 1 followed by sixty ciphers.... Surely men holding such fantastical doctrines, are not men mentally fit to be members of such a Society as this.
In further corroboration of Dr. Simpson’s remarks, I may be permitted to furnish here a few brief extracts from Jahr’s “Manual of Homoeopathic Medicine” (Vol. I., pp. 386 et seq.):—
Symptoms produced by common House-Salt.—Rigidity of all the joints, which crack when they are moved,... Bad effects of a disappointment.... Frightful dreams of quarrels, murders, fire, thieves, etc.... Typhus fever with debility.... Awkwardness.... Numbness and insensibility of one side of the nose.... Speech embarrassed in consequence of the heaviness of the tongue.... Loss of appetite, especially for bread, and repugnance to tobacco smoke.... Numerous flaws in the nails.... Redness of the great toe, etc. (The list contains at least thirty additional symptoms.)
At the present day it is hard to believe that as recently as during the first half of the nineteenth century there existed an editor who was willing to publish such childish reading matter as the above. And yet one is obliged at the same time to admit that the appearance of text like this in a reputable book furnishes good evidences that there was no lack of readers to whom the information imparted proved acceptable.
Between the years 1850 and 1860, homoeopathy assumed a good deal of prominence in the city of New York. Many of the leading families during this period turned their backs on the regular practitioners,—the “Allopaths,” as they were then frequently called,—and confided themselves and their maladies to the care of members of the new school. This naturally led to much bitterness of feeling between the two groups of physicians, just as had happened at an earlier date in the larger towns of England and Scotland; and this condition of things lasted for at least twenty years. Hostile action on the part of the county and state medical societies proved of very little use in diminishing the popularity of the new method of treating diseases; and so it was finally decided to withdraw all further opposition to the new sect and to see what an attitude of indifference and the stopping of all persecution would accomplish. Thanks largely to this wise and sensible policy, homoeopathy gradually lost its short-lived ascendancy, and the more sensible members of the community returned to their former allegiance. What I have said in regard to the rise and fall of homoeopathy in New York is, I am confident, true in a general way of its fate in most of the other large cities of the United States, but I am personally familiar only with the conditions that prevailed in my native city.
I wish that I might speak with a larger measure of authority in regard to the causes that led to the favorable reception of this new sect in New York, but I am not able to do this, and I doubt whether anybody among my contemporaries is able to do much better than merely to suggest some of the more obvious causes which favored the popularity of the new school of practice. Among such causes I may mention the fact that in those days the practitioners of the regular school were in the habit of prescribing drugs in large doses and with very little effort to render them palatable. Take, for example, senna tea, of which bad-tasting medicine the patient was expected to take a large teacupful shortly after the early crowing of the cock; and if, a day or two later, a repetition of the same dose was ordered by the attending physician, can anybody wonder if the remedy was quickly pronounced by the patient much worse than the disease? Experiences like the one just narrated were by no means uncommon, and, as a consequence, many families did not hesitate to transfer their patronage to a class of physicians who never prescribed any remedy that had a bad smell or taste or that caused the slightest bodily discomfort. Then, beside, it is a well-known fact that, during the period now under consideration, the regular practitioners had, in not a few instances, been guilty of prescribing therapeutic measures which actually inflicted harm. Such, for example, were the giving of mercurial preparations in too large doses, the too frequent resort to bloodletting, etc. For all these reasons, it is not at all strange that for a period of several years (1850–1875) homoeopathy flourished in New York. In all fairness, therefore, it may be said that the great improvement in the manner of administering drugs which took place, both here and in European countries, during the period from 1860 to 1880, may be attributed indirectly to the influence of the new sect.
Hahnemann died in Paris in 1843, at the age of eighty-eight.