The prairie news. [volume] (Okolona, Miss.) 1851-1875, 1858-05-20
COMMUNICATED.
Review of Homeopathy.

.poWcu, tHcoHpdSseu ana lHttTItftu Win ny OH
tenth--nay, one hundreth part Of the quacker,
and .quacks he encounters in our own; and no les
in Mississippi than in other parts of the republic
Although the material interests ofproperty, trade
commerce, as well as social rights, may, in al
enlightened nation, be safely entrusted to MAORI
ties, yet many scientific truths in astronomy, met
aphyscs, anatomy, surgery, and therapeutics
which require years of profound study for the
comprehension, by even the greatest ntellects
would not be submitted to vote with any rea
sonablc expectation of u inst verdict from th,
mass OF the community. In medicine, majortie
are not always on the right side, nor minortie
on the wrong and the profitable side may b
with the few as well as with the many-with thu
false as well as with the true-with the dishones
as well as with the honest; whilst neutrality, fo
| the sake of gam, is little better than open war
fare against the truth. slightly differing frient
is little better than an avowed enemy. To Til,
discerners of the spirit of our era it must be evi
dent that extremes form its characteristic fea
lures. Witness its forward and retrograde
anarchists brilliant discoveries on the one hand
and its woderful decisions An the other If the
dark ages made less progress in the physical and
medical sciences than the present, they were less
disfigured by palpable fanaticisms and pretended
revelations. The mythic in antiquity, embodied
the ideal in its most beautiful forms; our age,
reversing the classical models, offers the most
hldous instead, among which is quackery All
of the quackeries which in every age, have de-
formed the face of society, claim common orig
in; claim to be the true interpreters of the eter-
nal laws of nature; claim to be the truth itself
claim TO be founded on experience, which, when
er word for truth. Homeopathsts may boast
ofthe intelligence of their followers, including all
sorts of celebrities Perhaps they can find in
equal numbers of their clients, as much general
intelligence, if not more than is found adhering to
the regular profession History shows that in
physic, this logic is invalid. All charlatanries
have good proportion of philosophers on their
ide-philosophers in everything but in medical
science. The learned have always patronized
innumerable decisions, as they now do spiritual
knockings These, however, meteor-lke, pass
away, to be replaced by others equally erratic,
while the fundamental principles of medical sci
ence, like the fixed stars, have twnked with more
or less briliancy, though often obscured by clouds
OF error, from the days of Hypocrates to the
present era. The march of legitimate medicine
is onward; its pathway Illuminated ever and an
on by new gushes of light which prelude more
glorious day. No science can boast of discover
les so interesting to humanity. 1t is sufficient to
name the discovery of the circulation of blood,
of vaccination, new remedies, anasthesia, or pain
destroying agents, and so On-all comparatively
recent. 1t cannot boast, it is true, of a panacea
adapted to the eyer-yarying condition of single
disease. Charatans of every age and every land
boast of infallible panaceas for all diseases The
fears and credulity of the multitude supply the
place of authentic evidence.
" Tincture or syrup, lotion or pill,
All tempt the sick to trust the lying bill
With cruel avarice still they recommend
More draughts, more syrups to the journeys end
1t may be doubted whether well-informed
believe the fundamental, peculiar
and deferential principles which distinguish Ho-
from what Is reproachfully termed
IF the Homeopathlsts cured and the
killed all their patients, which every
one knows is not so, the fundamental principles
of the former would not thereby be established,
that is the efficiency or potency of infnitesimal
divisions of dose would not be proven, but sim
ply this that non medication is better than any
medication. The expectant method of many
French Pathologists, not Homeopathists, would
be Notwithstanding more, least of all, the po-
tency of small doses and the omnipotence of ne
cation.
On the score of intelligence the Homeopathists
are not, as before admitted, so vastly inferior to
the regular profession as many imagine On all
sides humbuggry is epidemic, and the more it
is characterized by talents misapped, by in
telligence misdirected, and by sagacity, which
never deviates from the lures of selfinterest, the
more does its treason against humanity acquire
damnng potency, not found in any of its dynam-
cations, how much soever they be shaken.
Beyond the confines of mathematics, the logic
ian would scarcely find topics on which he could
found propositions more evidently impossible and
contradictory than those which constitute some
of the fundamental principles of Homeopathy.
1t may be doubted, as before minated, whether
the professed believers in this system believe it at
ALL for sincere belief is not tested so satisfactorily
by words as by actions. Many erroneous systems
of belief are wholly ignored in practice. Thus it
is with Phrenology, Lawyers, judges, and iur-
ors never consult the bumps of benevolence and
on the prisoners Uranium, in a
case of suspected murder, and, were Phrenology
a practical science, it would be of infinite use in
all the walks of life. Homeopathy, if legit-
nately carried out in practice, amounts to this
1t has no influence upon the sick except through
The imagination. Nature, as all know, will often
effect a cure when no drug, or even hurtful one
IS given. That Homeopathists often cure their
patients, is doubtless true. Instead of doses of
nfntesimal nothngness, their patients swallow
lllopathic ones, under wrong name. Plous