Both reject all former theories and observations as worthless. Their light is the true and only light. “The medical world was in total darkness till I arose,” said Hahneman; and so said Thompson.[20]
As Hahneman said, “the Allopathic method never really cures—the Homœopathic method never fails to cure;” so said Thompson, the “regulars” cure no one—my system always cures curable cases.
Both claim that all who get well under their system are cured by it, and give no credit to nature; and upon these asserted cures they build the reputation of their systems.
Both began their career as arrant quacks. Samuel Thompson sold his patent rights to practice after his theory; and Samuel Hahneman sold his secret nostrum for the cure and prevention of Scarlet Fever.[21]
Both were exceedingly dogmatical and authoritative, and both quarrelled with their followers who did not yield to all their assumptions.
The followers of both have very generally imbibed the spirit of the “venerated founders” of these systems, and are very sure that they are right, and everybody else is wholly wrong.
The followers of both look upon physicians as a body as being wilfully blind to the truth, and unwilling to adopt anything new, simply because it is new.
There are a few points in which those noted “reformers” differ, which I will very briefly notice.
While Thompson was an illiterate man, Hahneman was an educated man; and, if the making of many books is a proof of learning, then he was a learned man. Thompson’s Materia Medica is but a single little book; but Hahneman’s Materia Medica fills six large octavo volumes.
Thompson’s theory is rude, and has no air of learning. Its philosophy knows nothing of the modern chemical nomenclature, but reckons earth, air, water, and fire, as elements. Hahneman’s theory, on the other hand, has a long name of classic Greek derivation, is more finely spun, and is learned in its guise.