That eminent physician, the late Sir Philip Crampton, was in the habit of warning all his gouty and rheumatic patients to avoid the use of colchicum, terming it a “desperate remedy,” and affirming that it was better to bear any amount of pain than have recourse to it. This was the deliberate opinion of one of the most able men in his profession, who must have been fully impressed with a conviction of its injurious effects; yet this remedy is continued to be prescribed to thousands, with what result let those who have experienced it testify. Here then again is a serious disagreement in practice between members of the medical profession, in which one party must again be wrong. If those who use colchicum are to be ranged amongst the latter, where our own sufferings [[9]]under it would place them, their victims may well be pitied. If colchicum be not a poisonous drug, why did Sir Philip Crampton so strongly inveigh against it? If it be, can that system be right which prescribes it as a remedy? Such is the system termed orthodox, styling all who presume to differ from it quacks.
Before we proceed to inquire whether any escape is open to us from this unsatisfactory state of affairs—whether any system has been discovered more intelligible in its principles and more certain in its action, whose professors are found to agree in their practice, instead of maintaining opinions directly opposed to each other—we would respectfully address a few words to those whom we have often heard exclaiming, “I cannot believe that a system which has existed so long as the allopathic can be wrong; if it were, it would long since have been exposed and its errors refuted. No; when I reflect how long it has existed, I cannot but believe it is right.” To such we will merely say that we charitably hope they do not call this exclamation an argument, and that if they reflected for a moment they ought to remember numberless instances where error has existed for centuries unrefuted, and acquiesced in by all mankind; that on their principle error ought to prevail in exact proportion to its greatness, since the oldest errors are the earliest, and the earliest are, generally speaking, the greatest, the infancy of every science being its most imperfect stage. According to them, we should at present believe that the sun moves round the earth, because this doctrine prevailed for upwards of 5,000 years, and “if it had been wrong it could not have existed so long.” If such persons studied human nature better, they would acknowledge the truth of Horace’s lines, especially when applied to the medical profession, who, with some honourable exceptions, have on every occasion opposed all innovation on their system with the most uncompromising hostility—
“Vel quia nil rectum, nisi quod placuit sibi, ducunt,
Vel quia turpe putant parere minoribus et. quæ
Imberbes didicere, senes perdenda fateri;”[2]
an hostility which can only be ascribed to the effects of professional habit and prejudice. In such a profession reform must be brought about by the action of an enlightened public opinion, which, unwarped by prejudice and unfettered by [[10]]professional trammels, is free to perceive truth, and hold to it when discovered. When the public take the lead, the medical profession will “move on,” but not before. We are sorry to be forced to make these observations, but we appeal to the history of the medical profession past and present, and to the observation of our readers, in confirmation of their truth.
Sir Bulwer Lytton has well observed:—
“A little reflection taught me that the members of a learned profession are naturally the very persons least disposed to favour innovation upon the practices which custom and prescription have rendered sacred in their eyes. A lawyer is not the person to consult upon bold reforms in jurisprudence. A physician can scarcely be expected to own that hydropathy will cure diseases that have resisted an armament of vials.”
On looking about us for some therapeutic system more satisfactory than the allopathic, simpler in its principles and more consonant with the laws of nature, we select for examination hydropathy, on account of the great success which has attended its practice, the simplicity and rationality of its processes, and the high recommendations it has received from several eminent men, amongst which we extract the following. Mr. Herbert Mayo, Senior Surgeon of the Middlesex Hospital, speaking of hydropathy, thus expresses himself:—
“It (hydropathy) more than doubles our power of doing good. Of course it will meet with much opposition, but none, come from quarter it may, can possibly prevent its progress, and its taking firm root. It is like Truth, not to be subverted.”