The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English: or, Medicine Simplified, 54th ed., One Million, Six Hundred; and Fifty Thousand
John Stuart Mill · en
Although this school is of comparatively recent origin, yet it has
gained a powerful hold upon the public favor, and numbers among its
patrons very many intelligent citizens. This fact alone would seem to
indicate that it possesses some merit. The homeopathic differs from the
allopathic school principally in its _"law of cure,"_ which, according
to Hahnemann, its founder, was the doctrine of _"similia similibus
curantur"_ or "like cures like." Its method of treatment is founded upon
the assumption that if a drug be given to a healthy person, symptoms
will occur which, if transpiring in disease, would be mitigated by the
same drug. While it may be exceedingly difficult for a member of another
school to accept this doctrine and comprehend the method founded upon
it, yet no one can deny that it contains some elements of truth.
Imbued with the spirit of progress, many of its most intelligent and
successful practitioners have resorted to the use of appreciable
quantities of medicine. This school associates hydropathy with its
practice, and usually inculcates rigid dietetic and hygienic
regulations. Many homoeopathic remedies are thoroughly triturated with
sugar of milk, which renders them more palatable and efficacious.
Whether we attribute their cures to the infinitesimal doses which many
homoeopathists employ, to their "law of cure," to good nursing, or to
the power of nature, it is nevertheless true that their practice is
measurably successful. No doubt the homoeopathic practice has modified
that of the other schools, by proving that diseases may be alleviated by
smaller quantities of medicine than were formerly employed.
THE ECLECTIC SCHOOL.