Curiosities of Medical Experience

by J. G. Millingen

That the all-bountiful Creator, in permitting, for purposes unknown to us, mankind to be visited by so many scourges, has also scattered around us means to counteract these evils, cannot be a matter of doubt. Instinct leads animals to find out these salutary agents, and various specifics have been discovered by man. The rudest savage is in possession of curative substances unknown to civilized man, and performs cures where learning and experience have proved of no avail.

To extend the limits of specifics, must therefore be considered a most desirable step towards adding to our means of relieving disease; and in this pursuit it is impossible to bestow too much praise on the homœopathic observer. Enthusiasm—predilection to a favourite but persecuted system—may induce an ardent proselyte not only to deceive others, but unwittingly to deceive himself. It is therefore not only possible, but probable, that in the experimental investigations of the effects of medicine, Fancy, in her multifarious colours, may have depicted, with apparent fidelity, a state of body and mind that only existed in an excited imagination; but when we behold various individuals, distant from each other, and totally unconnected, observing similar results from the exhibition of various medicinal substances, we have no right to call their assertions into doubt. These assertions, moreover, are not laid down dogmatically, but are earnestly recommended to be submitted to the test of experiment. For instance, the homœopathist has found out that certain substances, by diminishing the energy of the heart and arteries, subdue inflammatory action as effectually as venesection. This is a fact daily witnessed, and of which any practitioner may convince himself. It is not asserted, that in cases of sudden determination of blood, which require immediate revulsion and abstraction of the vital fluid, homœopathic remedies will be found possessed of sufficient activity to afford prompt relief; but experience has fully proved that in cases which can admit of a few hours’ delay, these medicines very frequently supersede the necessity of debilitating the patient by a copious loss of blood.

Dr. Paris, in his admirable work on Materia Medica, has justly observed, “that observation or experiment upon the effects of medicine is liable to a thousand fallacies, unless it be carefully repeated under the various circumstances of health and disease, in different climates, and on different constitutions.” This has been the main object of the homœopathist; and a further quotation from the above distinguished writer will illustrate the importance of their labours. “It is impossible to cast our eyes over such multiplied groups (of medicinal substances) without being forcibly struck with the palpable absurdity of some, the disgusting and loathsome nature of others, the total want of activity in many, and the uncertain and precarious reputation of all, without feeling an eager curiosity to inquire, from the combination of what causes it can have happened that substances at one period in the highest esteem, and of generally acknowledged utility, have fallen into total neglect and disrepute. That such fluctuation in opinion and versatility in practice should have produced, even in the most candid and learned observer, an unfavourable impression with regard to the general efficacy of medicines can hardly excite our astonishment, much less our indignation; nor can we be surprised to find that another portion of mankind has at once arraigned physic as a fallacious art, or derided it as a composition of error and fraud. A late foreign writer, impressed with this sentiment, has given the following flattering definition of our profession: Physic is the art of amusing the patient, while Nature cures his disease.”

With such a lamentable view of the practice of medicine, can we be too thankful to those observers who strenuously endeavour to rescue it from the dark trammels in which prejudice and interested motives have bound it? In no country more than in Great Britain is such an investigation desirable. We have become proverbial from our incessant abuse of a farrago of medicinal substances; and what is usually termed an elegant prescription signifies an amalgam of various drugs and preparations, which most probably, by their affinities, neutralize the expected effects of each other; for, however great and flattering may have been the discoveries of modern chemistry, many of these affinities are unknown to us. Surely when our labours cannot detect any difference in the component parts of the purest Alpine atmosphere and the deleterious air of a loathsome dungeon, we cannot expect to form a correct idea of pharmaceutic combinations.

The mere hopes of being able to relieve society from the curse of constant drugging, should lead us to hail with gratitude the homœopathist’s investigations. That many physicians, but especially apothecaries, who live by overwhelming their patients with useless and too frequently pernicious medicines, will warmly, nay furiously inveigh against any innovation of the kind, must be expected as the natural result of interested apprehension; and any man who aims at simplicity in practice will be denounced as guilty of medical heresy. Have we not seen inoculation and vaccination branded with the most opprobrious epithets, merely because their introduction tended to diminish professional lucre?

In these remarks upon medicinal combinations, it is not meant to infer, that, because they are chemically incompatible, they are ineffectual,—experience has proved the contrary; but no one will contend that, if we can attain the same beneficial results from a single ingredient, administered in small quantities and at distant periods, as from the exhibition of repeated and nauseous doses of pills, powders, draughts, potions, &c. which hang over the bed of sickness, nay, of slight derangements, like the sword of Damocles, we have not effected a most salutary reform in the practice of physic. It is related of one of these ingenious and industrious practitioners, that, having seen a prescription, that only contained half a dozen medicines, he exclaimed, “What! nothing more?” To which the prescriber replied, “If you choose, sir, we’ll step over to the apothecary, and see what else he has in his shop.”

Specifics may be divided into two classes; the one producing a peculiar effect upon particular organs, the other producing general results. Thus, the action of cantharides and digitalis on the urinary system, of emetics on the stomach, of certain purgatives on the small intestines, and of others on the large ones, are generally known; whereas the action of mercury and opium is still a matter of controversy. A study of these effects constitutes the chief object of the homœopathist; and, having determined their peculiar action, these medicinal agents are given singly, and, as we have already observed, in the most minute doses.

It is this division into infinite fractions that has drawn upon the homœopathic practice the denunciation of the allopathic physicians, as it is considered utterly impossible that such imponderable particles can produce any beneficial or prejudicial effect; and the Academy of Medicine of Paris, when officially condemning the doctrine, asserts, in support of this argument, that great danger arises from it “in frequent and serious cases of disease, where the physician may do as much injury, and cause no less mischief, by ineffectual means as by those which are prejudicial.”

This is perhaps one of the most important points of the homœopathic doctrine. If these fractional doses are inert, and yet the disease is cured, then must the successful treatment be solely ascribed to the dietetic regimen and the efforts of nature. However, experience has afforded abundant proofs that these infinite atoms do produce positive and evident effects. What appears to our feeble organs an atomic fraction may produce phenomena on the organism which we cannot comprehend, but should not therefore be denied. Let one grain of iodine be dissolved in one thousand five hundred and sixty grains of water, the solution will be limpid; let two grains of starch be dissolved in two ounces of water and added to the first solution, and the liquor will forthwith assume a blue tint. In this experiment the grain of iodine has been divided into ¹⁄15360. Dissolve the four-hundredth part of one grain of arsenic in four hundred thousand parts of water, and the hydric-sulphite will bring it into evidence. Let a five-thousandth part of arseniate of ammonia be dissolved in five hundred thousand parts of water, and the addition of the smallest proportion of nitrate of silver will obtain a yellow precipitate. Numerous experiments of a similar nature may be daily resorted to, to prove that the most minute particles of two substances possessed of chemical affinities may be brought into action, although diluted ad infinitum. But the power that the smallest particle possesses in producing natural phenomena cannot be more evidently proved than by Spallanzani’s experiments in fecundation. This physiologist having wrapped up a male frog in oil-silk, fecundation could not take place; but having collected on the point of a camel-hair pencil a particle of the fecundising fluid, he succeeded in vivifying thousands of eggs. Surprised at this result, he dissolved three grains of the secretion in a pound of water, and one globule of the solution was endowed with the same faculty. In this case the globule of water only contained ¹⁄2994687500 part of one grain. This curious experiment has been tried with a similar result by Prevost and Dumas. How imponderable and impalpable must be the effluvium which enables the dog to track his master for miles! the particle of atter of roses that perfumes a whole chest of clothes! and what must the power of the aroma be which is preserved for thousands of years in some Egyptian mummies! Would the vulgar believe in the wonders of the solar and gaseous microscopes unless they were exposed to view? In these we behold in amazement myriads of individuals in one drop of fluid, each of them as perfect in organization as the mighty mammoth of old or the sagacious elephant of our days, endowed with distinct habits, destructive and reproductive propensities and faculties.

It has been advanced by the opponents of homœopathy that the insignificant dose of three or four medicinal globules cannot possess any power, since one might swallow a thousand of them with impunity. To this it is answered, that it is only under certain morbid conditions that these medicines act by their homœopathic affinities. Moreover, it is well known that small doses of medicinal substances will frequently produce more powerful effects than larger quantities. Tartar-emetic, sugar of lead, calomel, afford daily instances of this fact; and it is also admitted that many substances act differently upon the healthy or the sick. An individual in health can take any food without apprehension; but when his functions are deranged, the slightest imprudence in regimen may lead to serious consequences. There are primordial and inscrutable peculiarities in our constitution that cannot be accounted for; and the medicine which relieves one patient will aggravate the sufferings of others. The exhalations of the American rhus are deadly to some persons, but innocuous to others; and many poisons which cause instantaneous death to some animals may be given with safety to others. Whence has arisen the controversy regarding damp sheets, which many maintain are not dangerous, simply from the fact that a healthy person with a vigorous circulation may sleep in them with impunity, when a feeble and languid subject will be exposed to some dangerous determination of blood?