[A paper read before the last Annual Meeting of the Vermont State Homœopathic Medical Society, by the Chairman of the Bureau of Materia Medica. E. J. Foster, M.D., C.S.B., who not only graduated from the Hahneman Medical College, Philadelphia, in 1869, but received a certificate from Dr. W. W. Keen's Philadelphia School of Anatomy, and was two years in the clinic classes in two Allopathic hospitals.]
That which distinguishes Homœopathy from all other schools of medicine is its materia medica, and its shibboleth is Similia similibus curanter. Only in this does Homœopathy differ particularly from the regular schools of medicine, the college curriculum in other respects being virtually the same.
Samuel Hahneman, of searching and progressive mind, educated in the old school of medicine, could not be satisfied with the blind and crude way in which the members of that profession were groping; nor was he content in the Stygian darkness which surrounded them. Turning his eyes toward the light he began to follow in a better way, a way that led out of the mazy intricacies of barbarism, ignorance, and superstition. He purified the nauseous compound, prescribing the one pure and cleanly drug; and not only this, but he removed medicine far from the crude and material, by the use of dilutions. He promulgated the law, that Like cures Like, administered his dilutions with wonderful effect, and behold! the world was amazed at his practice and teaching.
All manner of evil things were said by his opponents concerning him and his method. He was even persecuted and ostracized; but see "how great a matter a little fire kindleth!" Homœopathy has spread over the land, and its followers are numbered among the most intelligent men and women. It has brought the greatest revolution in material medicine, and proved one of the greatest boons to suffering and sick humanity. It set aside the barbarous modes of torture, blistering, vomiting, bleeding, purging, salivating, tetoning, and burning. It brought light, pure air, refreshing water, cleanliness, and nourishment into the rooms of the sick and to the famishing invalid. In fact, the blessings it brought and the changes it wrought for the better are innumerable.
The spirit of the age ever leads onward and upward. Truth does not relapse: so we go no more back to the "wallowing in the mire." The clanging bells of time are sounding the death-knell of old methods and medical practice. Hear some of the peals!
Dr. Jamison, of Edinburgh, said: "Nine times out of ten, our miscalled remedies are absolutely injurious to our patients."
M. Magendie, of France, said: "Medicine is a great humbug."
Dr. Evans, F.R.C., London, said: "The popular medical, system has neither philosophy nor common sense to commend it to confidence."
Dr. Bostock said: "So far as the practice of medicine is concerned, the benefit is rather in anticipation than in existence."
Prof. A. H. Stephenson, of the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, said: "The older physicians grow, the more skeptical they become as to the virtues of medicine."
Dr. B. Waterhouse, after lecturing for twenty years in the medical department of Harvard university, said: "I am sick of learned quackery."
Dr. Cogswell, of Boston, said: "It is my firm belief that the prevailing mode of practice is productive of vastly more evil than good: and were it absolutely abolished, mankind would be infinitely the gainer."
Dr. Johnson. Surgeon-extraordinary to the King, said: "I declare my conscientious opinion, founded on long observation and reflection, that, if there was not a single physician, surgeon, apothecary, man-midwife, chemist, or drug on the face of the earth, there would be less sickness and less mortality."
Dr. Trail said: "The critic who will take pains to examine the standard works of the most popular authors on theory and practice—Good, Watson, Wood, Thacher, Eberle, Elliotson, Dunglison, and others—will find, on almost every page, the most contradictory theories supported by equal authority, and the most opposite practices recommended on equal testimony."
Dr. Rush, of Philadelphia, after a life of long experience in witnessing the effects of drugs upon the human constitution, declared to his medical brethren: "We have done little more than to multiply diseases and increase their fatality."
Count Tolstoi, of Russia, said: "The invalid thinks to make his life secure by the use of medicines, and the medicines slowly poison him. If they do not bring about his death, they at least deprive him of life, till he is like the impotent man who waited thirty-five years at the pool for an angel to come down and trouble the waters."
These are a few among many portenous declarations. The time is coming when the nostrums of quacks, and the filthy and obnoxious medicines prescribed by Old School physicians, will be looked upon with disdain, and will not be tolerated by enlightened people.
As the crude and excessively material in nature give way to the more subtle and immaterial, so in medicine, the baser must give way to the more refined and pure. Though Allopathy has been instrumental in robbing many and many a poor victim of his alloted time of life in this mundane sphere, yet she is not to be despised, since she gave to the world a Hahneman, who came as a purifier and refiner, one who taught the purest and best method of material medicine.
While he did not teach the absolute and exclusive use of high dilutions, yet that was his established practice; and among his most successful followers have been those who have conformed to his method. Among the most brilliant cures wrought by Homœopathy are those accomplished by the use of high dilutions. In my own practice, of about twenty years, my grandest cures have been the result of high dilution. Time and time again has the homeopathic physician asked himself, and others have asked: Where is the medicine, the virtue, in these high dilutions? How is it possible that they can accomplish such stupendous results? Yet there before his eyes is the patient relieved of his ailments; and nothing else could do it, everything else imaginable having been tried in vain.
Here is a case in illustration, which occurred in the city of Montpelier, Vermont, and resulted in converting Dr. G. N. Brigham into a belief in high dilutions, which he prescribed until his death. The spring I was graduated from the Homœopathic College in Philadelphia, 1869, I was called to see a case with Dr. Brigham, which had been in the hands of Allopaths for months, without any relief whatever. Dr. Brigham also had treated the case for some time, with no good results. After examining the case, he asked what I should give. I told him. He replied: "I have given that, and all other things that seem applicable." I said: "You have not given it high enough." He asked: "How high a dilution have you?" I said, "Eighty thousandth." He said: "Give me some, and we will make this a test case." He took the dilution and administered it: a sudden change came over the patient, and she was restored.
Many theories were put forth, and in different ways were questions answered, but not satisfactorily.
In 1866 Mrs. M. B. G. Eddy, a homœopathic practitioner, solved the problem, and has given the correct answer to the world, an answer which will endure the test of all time: "Mind is all-in-all. Divine Mind and its ideas are the only realities." Upon this foundation has she built a most wonderful superstructure. From Homœopathy has sprung another revolution, which, in its power to reform, to heal, and to renew, is far greater, while its scope is far wider. It steps entirely out of and beyond the material and sensual into the wholly mental and spiritual. Its stately steppings will be felt not only in the medical field, but in the theological world also. It is a harbinger of universal peace and harmony.
My experience in medicine led me to believe that there was a different force acting from that which was attributed to medicine, and that mind was the controlling power. So in this direction have I been looking for light, little dreaming of the effulgence that was to satisfy my longing gaze.
When my attention was first called to this new-old truth, I would not give it a thought. Then two of my former patients were cured by Christian Science Mind-cure; but I said: "It may do in some cases, especially if there is not much the matter with them." In May, 1887, I went to see an old army friend, as I supposed for the last time in the mortal body. The physicians had given him up as an incurable, and soon to die. His disease had lasted over twenty years. To my surprise, I found my friend at work as if nothing had ever been the matter with him; and he was, as he said, perfectly well, having been cured by Christian Science Mind-cure.
From this time I began to investigate Christian Science for myself, to see what it was, and learn if it was better than the system I already knew. In November last I went to the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, the only college of the kind now in existence, presided over by Rev. Mrs. Eddy, and graduated in the Primary Class, which teaches the method of healing. Since coming from the Metaphysical College I have administered only mental medicine, and with much better results than I ever obtained from material medicine in like cases. Several cases of diphtheretic sore throat, with intense fever, were relieved in two calls. One case of erysipelas, spreading over the side of the head, I saw only once, for it disappeared the next day. Colds, coughs, and fevers are quickly relieved. It is the same with gastralgia, indigestion, diarrhœa, heart-disease, piles, rheumatism, and all cases that naturally come in regular practice. One lady, who had not been able to walk since the birth of her child ten or twelve years before, and had employed twelve or fifteen physicians, is now walking, by the aid of this treatment.
Two cases of pleuro-pneumonia yielded quickly. The first was the case of a young man. delirious when I first saw him, and the worst case I ever had in this stage. He was up and dressed at the ninth call, and discharged by me, requiring no further treatment. The second patient, a more delicate woman, was taken similarly to the first. Her trouble yielded as readily as the other, and in about two weeks she went six miles to make a visit.
A very delicate little girl, taken with uncomplicated pneumonia, was not confined to her bed forty-eight hours. A man who had a stone thrown upon his foot, causing swelling, stiffness, and excruciating pain, was relieved in a few moments. Many other cases might be cited, but these prove sufficiently, beyond all doubt, the merit and supremacy of Christian Science Mind-cure.
I have also tried this system of treatment in my obstetric practice, with vastly improved results over the old way. It has strangely sustained the patient during gestation, and immediately after confinement, and mitigated the pains during labor. Physicians, not in the line of Christian Science, can testify their surprise at witnessing the labor of childbed rendered painless by the aid of Christian Scientists, which, all must admit, is a new experience.
