The commonwealth. (Scotland Neck, N.C.) 1882-1884, 1883-03-15

vi C1c 4ucSGlOu Vi ESTABLISHING con-
sulting relations with duly qualified
member of the other. presents a
good opportunity of offering to the
general reader a few facts which
may serve to illumine existing error.
and prepare the way for the appre-
citation of some generally unrecog-
nized truths.
It may be safely asserted that the
chef obstacle which the profession
has to encounter, in the attempt to
harmonize the hitherto conflicting
system Of medicine, is the existence
of so violent prejudice among the
people in favor of one school or the
other, that the doctors income is
liable to suffer as an effect of any
concession to his liberal convict ions.
When an unknown physician ap-
pears in any community, and
solicits share Of public patronage,
what does the inquiring public first
demand to know concerning him ?
Does society take the measure of
his social standing, or estimate the
quality of his moral character and
training? Do his prospective pa.
tients seek evidence of his profess
sional ability, his special acquire
ments, or his general scientific cnl-
ture No. They submit him to no
such mental tests as these. They
content themselves with asking the
one grave question, lis he allopath
or homeopath % and, hearing reply,
assign him, according to their preju-
dlces, to an immediate place in
their mental register, as possibly
useful. or probably imbecile. What
important principle, then, lies back of
this oft-repeated query to account
for it's untailing repetition !? What
significance is attached to these op-
posing terms, and whence is it de-
rived?
In the first place, the words
homeopathy" and "allopathy" have
a common authorship. The great
founder and apostle Of the homeo-
pathic school. DR.. Hannemann, was
responsible for their coinage and
introduction to the public. With
the one he proposed to christen the
creed which embodied his own pecn-
liar tenets by the other, to throw
into sharp contrast the system of
the older and established school.
When Hahnemann promulgated
his new and remarkable dogmas,
they certainly came into direct COLI
sions with the then accepted opinions
and practice of the medical world.
They were conceived and brought
forth in an age of heroic measures in
medicine ; an age, too, in which the
sthenic types Of disease were largely
predominant, and when the lancet
and It's auxiliary depietives were &C
counted the unfailing paDaceas of all
human ills in which failure was not
a foreordained fact.
The Homeopathic tenets rushed to
the other extreme of theory, and, in
practice, won the faint praise Of do
ing at least no injury to human life.
But, starting thus from widely sepa'
rated points, the two schools have
steadily travelled forward along paths
set in inevitably convergent lines.
The unbridged space which lay be-
tween them a century ago has been
narrowed imperceptlbly in their on
war6 march. until men discover with
surprise that to-day, across the in
tervening chasm, they can safely join
their hands; and that, by mutual ap
proaches, they may soon walk side
by sioe in common effort for the re-
lief OF humanity, and yet keep stead
ily abreast of TRUTH Unconscious
ly receiving the impress of its oppo
nent's teachings, the older school has
learned, first to lessen, and then te
minimize it's doses; to improve the
preparation of its drugs. and to seek
for better forms and methods in theil
administrations. If it can boast the
direct salvation of no greater number
of lives, in consequence. it is at least
responsible for fewer deaths. Its dis
tinguishing characteristics have ever
been an active spirit Of investigation
and the consequent widening of the
limits of it's medical faith.
The homeopathy of to-day has
, also shaken from it's feet the dust O
more than one worthless theory. AL
though within its ranks are still mum
bered some so-cailed ''high dilution
ist," it's leaders have long ceased to
} insist upon infinitesimal dosage as
) an essential principle of treatment
| Not few of its representative mer
administer many of their drugs ii
crude form as the rule rather thar
, the exception Of practice. 1fit still
clings to its central dogma, its prln
cipal adherents no longer claim fol
it the respect or merit of uniuersa
lac. A careful study of the course
Of treatment commonly pursued %
leading practitioners, and lecom-
, mended by the highest authorities il
two schools, reveals the fact that, ii
, eighty selected forms of disease, rep
resenting maladies of every type ano
every stage six tenths of the rene
, dies employed by these supposedly
rival schools are identically the same
and differ only in respect Of dose
r The variance is no greater than pro