New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1875-05-17

empirical stage, it ia Homeopathy. 1t is based
mon the two simple ideas OF Like cures IKE,
and of infinitesimal doses. Nothing could be
more positive than the correspondent relation
which it maintains of medicine to diagnosis.
Its strength is in its "prOvings," and these
without charging its theory, have IN
finltely extended its pharmacy. But 1t
seems at first, the most unpromislng
system in the world for anything like
cclcctical compromise. How if it should turn
out after all to be the best in that regardl At
the meeting to which we have alluded DIR.
Dennis said: eve are not Bomeopathists or
"Allopathists primarily, but physicians search
81 ing after truth, for the good Of mankind"
Wherefore, DR.. Dennis said, if he found
"plasters aud blisters useful, he should use
" them.n OF course there was not wanting
physician who made objection to the catho-
licity thus implied, and who sti9matlzed
it as "apostasy." We confess that
following our first impulses we should have
done likewise. But DR.. Mcneil followed with
something Of the same bold sort He actually
disagreed in some particulars with Hahn
"emann himself; and believed in external ap-
OBLIGATIONS not exactly as system OF cure,
"but in order to relieve the patients and sat-
"isfy their minds" DR.. Youlin claimed that
there had been advancement and new dis
"cOveries since the days of IIahncmann.
Local applications might be purely ho-
meopathic." Prof. Lillienthal announced
to the Council that having been called
TO man apparently dying, she sud-
denly made up his mind to bleed him, and
I" did bleed him until he brcathed easier. 1t
"might not have been homeopathic, but it was
"the thing for the case" Perhaps it will not
do to regard these concessions as an abandon
ment of the Hahnemannic theory. 1t is
possible that local applications may be
found, as well as vcncsectiOn, quite con-
sistent with that theory by which we mean
that what is usually called heroic treatment
may at times prove most thoroughly hOmeo-
pathic to the disease, by dcthroning it and
substituting another more easily yielding to
small doses. However Hahnemann's disciples
may have censured allopathic doses, they
have never denounced them as inert while
we see no reason why the operation Of blood
letting may not be referred to the category Of
surgery, with which, strictly speaking, hOmeo-
pathy has really nothing to do.
Singularly enough, while the HomeOpathists
are discussing the propriety of blood letting,
the American Medical Society at Louisville,
KY, has been listening to paper from DIR.
Samuel D. Gross of Philadelphia on the i'm
portance of the operation as therapeutic
agent, in which that old-school gentleman
spoke feclingy Of the lancet as can obsolete
"instrumcnt and of vencsection as ga
"lost art.' The doctor avOwed him.
self an advocate of blOod-lctting, and be-
lieved that its value would ere long be again
generally recognized. There was something
wrong" he said, in the discontnuance of
:" the practice" especially in diseases of an in
flammatory character.
We DO not say that it is any comfort to
know that whichever school may become domi-
nant, we shall probably retain the time
honored institution of blood-lctting. But it
certainly is great comfort to find that our
Doctors, on either side, are still wisely and
literally investigating.