E. E. MARCY, M.D., AUTHOR OF THE "HOMŒOPATHIC THEORY AND PRACTICE."
Dr. Marcy is one of the thousand or more physicians of the old school who have become homœopathists. With professional eminence, and a liberal fortune, he joined the converts to the doctrine of Hahnemann, and at once took rank among the most distinguished physicians of the new practice. Homœopathy is one of the grand facts of this age. It is no longer laughed at, but has reached that condition which enables it to challenge a respectful consideration from all who would not themselves be subjects of ridicule. Of educated and thoughtful men, in our large cities, it is contended that more than one-half are of its supporters. In Great Britain we see that Archbishop Whately, the Chevalier Bunsen, and Dr. Scott of Owen's College, constitute a trio of its literary adherents. Cobden, Leslie, and Wilson, are examples of its parliamentary partizans. Radetzky, Pulzsky, and General Farquharson, rank among its numerous military defenders. Leaf, Sugden, and Forbes, are three of its great London merchants. The Duke of Hamilton, the Earls of Wilton, Shrewsbury, Erne, and Denbigh, and Lords Robert Grosvenor, Newport, and Kinnaird, may serve for its guard of honor. Queen Adelaide was one of its numerous royal and noble patients, and the Duchess of Kent is the patroness of a great fair to be held for the benefit of some of its institutions in London during this present month of June—in the very heyday of the exhibition season. In France, Guizot, Changarnier, Comte, Lamartine, and some forty members of the Academy, are among its advocates. Here in New-York, it is sufficient to say of the character of the society in which it is received, that it includes Bryant, who has been among the most active of its lay teachers.
It is clear that homœopathy not only spreads apace, but that it also spreads in all sorts of good directions, through the present fabric of society. And this fact certainly conveys the idea that there must be some sort of truth in homœopathy; whether pure or mixed, whether negative or affirmative, whether critical of something old, or declaratory of something new.
Dr. Marcy is one of the leaders of the sect. He is the son of an eminent lawyer, who for more than twenty years has been in the legislature of Massachusetts; he was graduated at Amherst College, took his degree of Doctor in Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and for ten years devoted himself with great success to medicine and surgery in Hartford: in surgery, on several occasions, commanding the applause of both European and American academies. As a chemist, also, he greatly distinguished himself; and it is not too much to say, that in the application of chemistry to the arts, he has been more fortunate than any other American. At length, while travelling in Europe, he became a convert to the theory, similia similibus curantur, and renouncing his earlier notions, gave himself up to the study of it. He published, six months ago, in a volume of six hundred pages, The Homœopathic Theory and Practice of Medicine, of which a second edition is now in press; and he is industriously occupied, when not attending to the general business of his profession, with a voluminous work on Animal Chemistry.
It is admitted by the most wise and profoundly learned physicians of the allopathic practice, that the laws of that practice are for the most part vague and uncertain. The cumulative experiences of many ages have shown indeed that certain substances have certain effects in certain conditions of the human organism; but the processes by which these effects are induced are unknown, or not so established as justly to be regarded as a part of science. Facts have been observed, and hypotheses have been formed, but there has been no demonstrative generalization, really no philosophy of disease and cure; and while in almost every other department, investigation and reflection have led by a steady and sure advance to the establishment of positive and immutable principles, medicine has made, except in a few specialities, no advance at all, unless the theory here disclosed shall prove a solution of its secrets. Of these specialities, the most important has been the discovery of the homœopathic law in the isolated case of smallpox. Every body knows how difficult and slow was the reception of the principle of inoculation—of similia similibus curantur—in this disease; but it was received at last universally; and then arose Hahnemann, to claim for every disorder of the human system the application of the same principle. Right or wrong, the father of homœopathy gave us a system, perfect in its parts, universal in its fitness, and eminently beautiful in its simplicity. It has been half a century before the world, and though all the universities have parleyed and made truce with other innovations and asserted heresies, and opened against this their heaviest and best plied artillery, it is not to be denied that homœopathy has made more rapid, diffusive, and pervading advances, than were ever before made by any doctrine of equal importance, either in morals or physics.
We cannot but admit that we have been accustomed to regard the theories of Hahnemann with distrust, and that the principle of the attenuation of drugs, etc., viewed as it was by us through the media of prejudiced and satirical opposition, seemed to be trivial and absurd. We heard frequently of remarkable cures by Hahnemann's disciples, and even witnessed the benefits of their treatment, but so perfectly had the sharp ridicule of the allopathists warped our judgment and moulded our feelings, that we felt a sort of humiliation in confessing an advantage from an "infinitesimal dose." We could never forget the keen and brilliant wit with which our friend Holmes, for example, assailed a system which threatened to take away his practice and patients, deprive him of his income, and consign his professional erudition and ingenious speculation to oblivion. But the work of Dr. Marcy displayed these matters to us in an entirely different light, and guarded by walls of truths and arguments quite impenetrable by the most finely pointed or most powerful satire. His well-known abilities, great learning, and long successful experience as an allopathist, gave us assurance that his conversion to the school of Hahnemann could have been induced only by inherent elements of extraordinary force and vitality in its principles, and we looked to him confidently, when we understood that he was preparing for the press an exhibition and vindication of homœopathy, for such a work as should at least screen the layman who accepted its doctrines from the reproach of fanatical or credulous weakness. We were not disappointed. He has given us a simple and powerful appeal to the common sense upon the whole subject. In language terse, direct, and perspicuous, and with such bravery as belongs to the consciousness of a championship for truth, he displays every branch of his law, with its antagonism, and leads his readers captive to an assenting conclusion.
Dr. Marcy's work is the first by an American on the Homœopathic Theory and Practice of Medicine; it is at least a very able and attractive piece of philosophical speculation; and to those who are still disposed to think with little respect of the Hahnemannic peculiarities, we specially commend, before they venture another jest upon the subject, or endure any more needless nausea and torture, or sacrifice another constitution or life upon the altar of prejudice, the reading of his capital chapters on Allopathy, Homœopathy, and the Attenuation of Drugs and Repetition of Doses.