But if this be so, what becomes of the "curantur?" To that, we say it is far from proven. Medicine hardly ever—perhaps never, strictly speaking—cures; but it often materially assists in putting people in a curable condition, proper for the agencies of more natural influences. True. Well, then, may not homœopathy be good here? We doubt it; and for this reason: Medicine, to do good, should act on the organ to which it is directed; it is itself essentially a poison, and does well to relieve organs by which it is expelled; but if you give medicine in very small doses, or so as to institute an artificial condition of those sentinels, the nerves, you may accumulate a fearful amount of injurious influence in the system before you are at all aware of it. And it is the more necessary to be aware of this in respect to homœopathy; because many of the medicines which homœopathists employ are active poisons; as belladonna, aconite, and so on. We have seen disturbed states of nerves, bordering on paralysis, which were completely unintelligible, until we found that the patient had been taking small doses of narcotic poisons. We have no desire whatever to forestall the cool decisions of experience; but we earnestly request the attention of the homœopathist to the foregoing remarks; and, if he thinks there is anything in them, to peruse the arguments on which we found the law of which we have formerly spoken[85].
We must in candour admit that, as far as the inquiry into all the facts of the case go, as laid down by Hahnemann, we think the profession may take a hint with advantage. We have long pleaded for more accuracy in this respect; but we fear, as yet, pleaded in vain. Homœopathic influences may be perhaps more successful. Practically, the good that results from homœopathy, as it appears to us, may be thus stated: that if people will leave off drinking alcohol, live plainly, and take very little medicine, they will find that many disorders will be relieved by this treatment alone.
For the rest, we fear that the so-called small doses are either inert, or, if persisted in so as to produce effect, that they incur the risk of accumulating in the system influences injurious to the economy; which the histories of mercury, arsenic, and other poisons, show to be nothing uncommon: and, further, that this tends to keep out of sight the real uses and the measured influences of medicine, which, in the ordinary practice, their usual effects serve, as the case may be, to suggest or demonstrate.
Practically, therefore, the effects of homœopathy resolve themselves, so far as they are good, into a more or less careful diet, and small doses of medicine; which, as we have said, is a chipping off of the views of Abernethy.
We regret we have no space to consider the relation of homœopathy to serious and acute diseases. We can therefore only say that the facts which have come before us have left no doubts on our minds of its being alike dangerous and inapplicable.
One morning, a nobleman asked his surgeon (who was representing to him the uselessness of consulting a medical man without obeying his injunctions) what he thought would be the effect of his going into a hydropathic establishment? "That you would get perfectly well," was the reply; "for there your lordship would get plain diet and good air, and, as I am informed, good hours; in short, the very things I recommend to you, but which you will not adopt with any regularity."
Hydropathy sets out, indeed, with water as its staple, and the skin as the organ to which it chiefly addresses itself; but we imagine that the hydropathic physician, if he sees nothing in philosophical medicine, discovers sufficient in human nature, to prevent him from trading on so slender a capital. There was, no doubt, in the imperfection of medical science, a fine opening left for a scheme which proposed to rest its merits chiefly on an organ so much neglected.
There has never been anything bordering on a proper attention to the skin, until recently; and even now, any care commensurate with the importance of the organ, is the exception rather than the rule. Thirty years ago, Abernethy, when asked by a gentleman as to the probable success of a bathing establishment, said that the profession would not be persuaded to attend to the subject; and that, in respect to the capital which the gentleman proposed to invest in it, he had better keep the money in his pocket. This was said in relation to the general importance of attention to the skin, and also in connection with making it the portal for the introduction of medical agents generally. Abernethy was, in fact, the first who introduced into this country Lalonette's method of affecting the system by mercury applied to the skin in vapour.
Hydropathy deals with a very potent agent, and applies it to a very powerful and important organ, the skin; and it employs in combination the energetic influences, temperature and moisture; so that we may be assured there will be very little that is equivocal or infinitesimal in its results; that in almost every case it must do good or harm.