Personal Experience of a Physician

by John Ellis

I was born in the year 1815, and on the 26th of November, 1891, was 76 years of age. I have not practiced medicine as a business for many years, and I never expect to practice again. As to money, my present business gives me all I need, and money to spare for benevolent purposes. I do not expect, nor do I desire, to receive one cent, directly or indirectly, for the writing of this pamphlet, or for the money which I expect to spend for paper, printing, binding, and sending it, post paid, to every physician and clergyman in the United States and Canada whose name I can get. I do it because I believe and hope it will be a useful work and instrumental in doing good, and that many who are willing and waiting will find useful suggestions contained in its pages, and that through their instrumentality humanity may be benefited.

A few years after I became a convert to Homoeopathy I met in a railroad car a venerable professor from the college where I graduated. We were mutually pleased to see each other, and after our congratulations were over I remarked to him that, so far as the administration of remedies was concerned, I had departed somewhat from the "general principles" which he used to inculcate, and that I had become a Homoeopathist. The Professor looked up with astonishment and exclaimed most earnestly: "I am sorry to hear that! I am sorry to hear that!" He manifested not the slightest desire to know why I had made the change, but was ready to denounce and condemn. It would be useless to talk to such a man. Before one can see a new truth, however plain it may be, he must be willing to either examine the question carefully himself, or to heed the testimony of those who have examined it. Fortunately, all physicians have not been like the above Professor; for there have been thousands who were educated in and graduated from Allopathic schools, some of them gray-haired men, who, like myself, have carefully studied Homoeopathy and cautiously tested the remedies upon the sick, who have become converts to the new practice, and who have ever after relied upon its remedies in the treatment of the sick. No intelligent physician of any other school has ever carefully read the Homoeopathic works, and has to any considerable extent cautiously used the remedies in the treatment of severe cases of various diseases, without being able to see the vast superiority of the Homoeopathic over the Allopathic treatment of disease; and no one, without prejudice, and willing to see the truth, will ever do so without being convinced. Can a man, with eyes open, on a clear day, go out at noon time and declare that the sun does not shine? He may make such a declaration while shut up in a cellar or cavern, or if he never opens his eyes. As one who has patiently and diligently studied and practiced both systems, I say without the slightest hesitation that Homoeopathy, as a system of practice, is as superior to Allopathy as the direct light of the sun is to the reflected light of the moon; in fact, much of the allopathic practice of to-day is but a reflection of the homoeopathic light. What intelligent physician to-day bleeds, blisters, salivates, or vomits his patients, as students were taught to do by preceptors, professors, and books fifty years ago? And why is such treatment so frequently, to say the least, discarded now by Allopathic physicians? Is it not largely because the success which results from the Homoeopathic treatment of diseases, has convinced Allopathic physicians and their patients that such violent disease-creating measures and remedies are unnecessary?

Homoeopathy is strictly a scientific system of medicine. It is based upon a law of nature—"Similia similibus curantur," or the law that remedies will cure symptoms and diseases similar to those which they will cause when taken by healthy persons. It is wonderful with what care, skill, and perseverance the new Materia Medica has been developed, mostly by intelligent physicians, commencing with Hahnemann, taking the different remedies in varying doses, and carefully and patiently watching the symptoms that follow, and writing them down day after day; and then, when similar symptoms occur in case of disease, giving the remedies and carefully watching and writing down the results. Allopathic physicians, as a rule, have not the slightest conception of the vast amount of patient and persevering labor in this direction which has been done by physicians as well educated as they are, and most of whom have graduated in the same schools, who have devoted their lives to this work. Are not these facts worthy of the consideration of every physician in the world who desires the highest good of his fellow men? It is well known to every intelligent physician that there is some truth in the homoeopathic law of cure, and that it has to some extent been recognized from the earliest periods of medical history. A cathartic remedy, even in Allopathic doses, will sometimes cure a diarrhoea, and an emetic will sometimes cure a nauseated stomach; but such remedies when given in large doses do not always cure, or they would generally be used by Allopathists; they sometimes seriously and even dangerously aggravate the disease, so that the vital forces do not react and thus effect a cure. Nitrate of silver and acetate of zinc, which applied to well eyes will cause irritation and inflammation, are often applied to inflamed eyes. The kine pox, which is a similar disease, is well known to either prevent or materially modify smallpox; and so I could go on enumerating cases where Allopathic physicians treat their patients in accordance with the Homoeopathic law of cure. The great discovery of Hahnemann was not so much the Homoeopathic law of cure, for some knowledge of that was possessed before his day, but the practical application of that law to the cure of disease. He found by careful experiments that diseases can be cured by remedies, which when given to the well will produce similar symptoms or diseases, in doses so small as not to seriously aggravate the existing disease or symptoms; and that all diseases may be thus treated with a success hitherto unknown. This discovery was accompanied by the most careful experiments by him and his followers upon themselves, to ascertain with the greatest possible care the effects of various remedies upon the healthy, so as to be able to make accurate prescriptions for the sick. Here you have most careful scientific investigation and experiments as to the action of remedies upon the well and sick, made, not by pretenders or quacks, but by well educated physicians, that should command the admiration and respect of every intelligent man and educated physician.

As to the doses given to the sick, which have been such a stumbling-block to our Allopathic brethren, their size is simply the result of the most careful experiments. Everyone can understand that if we give an Allopathic dose of Ipecac to a patient already sick and vomiting, or of Veratrum album to a patient suffering from Asiatic cholera or cholera morbus, we will almost certainly aggravate the disease, perhaps to a fatal extent; for it is the reaction of the vital forces of the system against the new excitement caused by the remedy, which overcomes this new excitement and the diseased action at the same time. Now, if the action of the remedy is so severe that no reaction follows, then, of course, no cure follows, and even death may result.

The great beauty and excellence of the Homoeopathic system of medicine consists in the ability to treat patients successfully thereby, without making well organs sick, or aggravating existing diseased action, or creating an opposite diseased state, as you do when you give a cathartic remedy in a cathartic dose for constipation; in that case the reaction, if reaction follows, is not in the right direction, consequently the constipation is often aggravated. I have hardly ever seen, excepting in cases of mechanical obstruction, a severe and troublesome case of constipation that had not been caused by the use of cathartic remedies. So if we give an opiate, or an astringent, for a diarrhoea, we can see that it is a direct effort to restrain the disease by force, as it were, and we necessarily have to give large doses; and, if the vital forces react against this medicinal intrusion, the reaction is not in the direction of health. It is true that the vital forces sometimes overcome the diseased action in spite of the medicinal action; but it does not always do this, and subacute and chronic diarrhoeas are the result of the use of such remedies in some cases. To create disease of a well organ for the sake of curing disease in another organ, as is done when blisters are applied to the skin for diseases of internal organs, and when cathartics are given for diseases of the head or lungs, every one can see is a roundabout treatment; and while patients may sometimes be benefited by this calling off, as it were, the attention of the vital forces from the diseased action in other organs, still it is not a very satisfactory treatment as a whole; for you may lessen the vital power of resistance against diseased action, and may even cause serious disease of the organ assailed. I repeat, one of the great beauties of Homoeopathy lies in the fact that when remedies are given in accordance with its law of cure, they do not have to be given in disease-creating doses.

Hahnemann tells us that a single dose of the 30th dilution of Aconite, which contains but the decillionth of a drop of the tincture of the remedy, will cure acute pleurisy in twenty-four hours. I have thus treated patients suffering from pleurisy with a single dose of that remedy (it should be given soon after the commencement of the disease), and at the end of twenty-four hours have found the pain and fever all gone, and the skin moist and cool; and in one instance within two days the patient was on his way to California. I have never seen any such satisfactory cures of that disease from any kind of Allopathic treatment, nor from the low dilutions of Aconite or any other Homoeopathic remedy.

Hereafter I shall call attention of both physicians and the clergy to the causes and different methods of restraining or curing both spiritual and natural diseases; for there is the most beautiful analogy or correspondence between the methods of treating natural and spiritual diseases, and they must be considered in connection if we would clearly see the truth.

CHAPTER III.

THE DANGERS THAT RESULT FROM THE ALLOPATHIC TREATMENT OF DISEASES.

This treatment of diseases, more in the past than at present, consists largely in giving and applying remedies in disease-creating doses. The antiphlogistic treatment consists of blood-letting and the use and application of reducing remedies which directly or indirectly lessen the inflammatory or febrile action; but it is manifest that while it may lessen the activity of the diseased symptoms it also lessens the vitality of the system as a whole, and consequently its power to resist and overcome the existing diseased action; so that it is a serious question whether in many cases more is not lost than gained, and it is certain that, owing to the loss of blood and strength, convalescence will be more tedious. Then the use of remedies which cause active diseased action is not always safe. My own mother, at the age of 51 years, while in delicate health, was taken with a severe pain in her side. A physician was called. She thought an emetic would do her good. The physician gave her one, and she died during its operation, or immediately afterward. Her physician was so affected by this sudden and unexpected result that he had to go and lie down. At that time I was but 10 years old.