Having possessed himself of so much of such knowledge as was within his reach, Hahnemana then began the investigation of the great and dominating question: Given a knowledge of diseases as expressed by signs and symptoms, and a knowledge of drug properties as ex pressed by signs and symptoms, can we discover between them any general relation that will guide the physician in his search for the cura tive drug? In this work of °interrogating nature° he had already been led to infer what her reply might be. His experiment with Peru vian bark had given him a somewhat emphatic hint. Then followed the six years of experi ments upon himself, his family and friends; with what result we have already seen. Ac companying and following came the 'ransacking of the libraries*— a work for which few men were so will fitted. This literary search re sulted in two important discoveries. First, that when two diseases manifesting quite similar symptoms appear in the same organism, they antagonize or annihilate each other. This sub ject is carefully outlined in the (sections 42-45) and in section 46 the writer cites a score of illustrative instances obtained from the pages of contemporaneous literature, the authority being carefully mentioned in every citation. The second result of this literary search is that it corroborates the view with which Hahnemann set out, namely, that even under the modes of treatment in vogue before his day, undoubted cures frequently re sulted from the action of drugs possessed of the power to cause symptoms similar to those of the cases cured. Some of these cases are well worthy of study by these interested in medical subjects. In the earlier editions of the 'Organon' and in the 'Essay on a New Prin ciple for Ascertaining the Curative Powers of Drugs,' these published cures are reported in extenso, the literary source being given, to gether with the name of the physician in each case. In the Dudgeon translation of the fifth German edition the same list occupies 31 pages of the appendix. In practically all of the cases reported, the mere name of the disease is suffi cient to suggest the fact of similarity between the symptoms of the malady cured and the symptoms of the drug prescribed. In other cases the symptoms themselves are given with more, attenion to detail than was customary at that period of medical history. If we sum up the remedies named in the 'Essay,' together with those mentioned in the 'Organon,> we have a total of 63 drugs to which Hahnemann was able to ascribe homceopathic cures occurring in the practice of physicians who had no knowledge of the homceopathic principle. In presenting this list of cases successfully treated with the similar remedy, Hahnemann had made nearly 500 cita tions of writers who had no suspicion that any general law of therapeutics was involved in the operation of their prescriptions. The degree of similarity shown between the pathogenetic prop erties of the drugs administered and the symp toms manifested by the patients seemed, in most cases, to be positive and emphatic, and in some instances striking. In what he has to say regarding the curative effects of opium this fact is graphically shown. He says: "A condition of convulsions without consciousness, resembling the death-agony, alternating with attacks of spasmodic and jerky, sometimes also sobb'ng and stertorous, respiration, with icy coldness of the face and body, lividity of the feet and hands and feebleness of the pulse (precisely resembling the symptoms of opium observed by Schweikert and others), was at first treated unsuccessfully by Stiitz with potash, but afterward cured in a speedy, perfect and permanent manner by opium. According to Vicat, J. C. Grimm and others, opium produces an extreme and almost irresistible tendency to sleep, accompanied by profuse perspiration and delirium. This is the reason why Osthoff was afraid to administer it in an epidemic fever which exhibited similar symptoms, for the sys tem he pursued prohibited the use of it under such circumstances. It was only after having employed in vain all the known remedies and seeing that death was imminent that he resolved to at all hazards and behold, it was always efficacious. J. Lind also avowed that opium removes the head troubles, and the burning sensation in the skin and the difficulty of perspiring during the pyrexia ; under opium the head becomes free, the burning febrile heat disappears, the skin becomes soft, and its sur face is bathed in a profuse perspiration. But Lind was not aware of the circumstance that opium produces very similar morbid symptoms in the healthy. Alston says that opium is a rem edy that excites heat, notwithstanding which it certainly diminishes heat where it already exists. De la Guerine administered opium in a case of fever attended with violent headache, tension and hardness of the pulse, dryness of the skin, burning heat, and hence difficult and debilitating perspiration, constantly interrupted by the ex treme restlessness of the patient. He was suc cessful in this case because opium possesses the faculty of creating an exactly similar feverish condition in healthy persons, of which he knew nothing, 'though it is stated by many observers. In a fever where the patients were speechless, eyes open, limbs stiff, pulse small and inter mittent, respiration labored, snoring and stertor ous and deep somnolence (all of which are symptoms perfectly similar to those which opium excites), this was the only substance which C. L. Hoffman saw produce any good effects. Wirthenson, Sydenham and Marcus have in like manner cured lethargic fevers with opium. C. C. Mathai, in an obstinate case of nervous disease, where the principal symptoms were insensibility and numbness of the arms and legs, after having for a long time treated it with inappropriate remedies, at length effected a cure by opium, which, according to Stiitz, Young, and others, causes similar states in an intense degree. Hufeland performed, by the use of opium, the cure of a case of lethargy of several days' duration. How is it that opium, which, as everyone knows, of all vegetable sub stances is the one which in its primary action (in small doses) produces the most severe and obstinate constipation, should be one of the most efficient remedies in constipation of the most dangerous character, if not by virtue of the homceopathic therapeutic law, so king un recognized? The honest Bohn was convinced by experience that opiates were the only reme dies in the colic called omiserere; and the cele-; brated F. Hoffman, in the most dangerous eases of this nature, placed his sole reliance on opium combined in the anodyne liquor called after his name. Can all the ((theories" contained in the 200,000 medical books which cumber the earth furnish us with a rational explanation of this and so many other similar facts? The great German physician and philosopher was careful to credit other medical men with hav ing obtained foregleams of his great discovery. "How near," he says, °was the great truth sometimes of being apprehended!" And again, "There have been physicians here and there across whose minds this truth passed like a flash of lightning without ever giving birth to a suspicion of the homceopathic law of nature."
From Hahnemann's literary and experi mental investigations alone, both he' and his disciples have unhesitatingly justified their be lief in a general curative relation between drugs, as represented by their symptoms, and diseases as represented by their symptoms, and their belief that this curative relation is prop erly set forth by the word "similarity." The proofs herein presented are considered con clusive, although similar evidence has been con• stantly accumulating in the writings of medical men of all schools, and in the practice of hun dreds and thousands of homceopathic physicians for more than a century.
In Hahnemann's foot-note (Dudgeon's Appendix to the
The exact number of physicians practicing homoeopathy in the United States cannot be. ascertained with accuracy, but it is known to be not less than 12,000, and has been estimated as high as 18,000. The number of people em ploying these physicians, regularly or irregu larly, cannot be less than 15,000,000. Thus has the influence of homceopathy extended during its American career of 75 years. The influence of homoeopathy upon public and sentiment has been beneficent and pronounced. Laymen and physicians have alike learned from the practice that large quantities of potent and dangerous drugs are not often necessary to de termine recovery from disease, and physicians have reached the wise conclusion that cures sometimes occur under the influence of small doses, as well as quantities with larger. ' Bibliography.—Ameke, of Ho mceopathy) ; Boericke,