cure: and finding the more deeply he penetrated, the more un- CHAP. IV. satisfactory were the results, he became disgusted, and determined to relinquish medical practice, for he could not conscientiously use means, concerning which there existed little or no positive knowledge. To repeat in his own words, as contained in his letter to Hufeland

"It was agony to me to walk always in darkness, with no other light than that which could be derived from books, when I had to heal the sick, and to prescribe according to such or such an hypothesis concerning diseases, substances, which owed their places in the Materia Medica to an arbitrary decision. I could not conscientiously treat the unknown morbid condition of my suffering brethren by these unknown medicines, which, being very active substances, may (unless applied with the most rigorous exactness, which the physician cannot exercise, because their peculiar effects have not yet been examined,) so easily occasion death, or produce chronic affections and chronic maladies, often more difficult to cure than the original disease. ·

"To become thus the murderer and the tormentor of my brethren, was to me an idea so frightful and overwhelming, that soon after my marriage, I renounced the practice of medicine, that I might no longer incur the risk of doing injury."

The honesty, the open-eyedness, and the conscientiousness that led him to the perception of these views, and to experience the agony which they produced, caused him to take this step of renouncing the practice of medicine: a step, which none but such a genius as Hahnemann could have taken; such step requiring a high intellectual power to recognize these views, and a high moral power so to appreciate their force, as to create an amount of conviction, equivalent to the enduring the sacrifice of the means of support.

His love of truth was rewarded by the great Author of truth.

Hahnemann became a father. His children became subject to disease. This roused his mind to fresh activity, to fresh mortification at the impotency of the medical art. He asked himself "where could I find assistance, sure assistance, without theories. of medicines, which rest only on vague observations; often even on pure conjectures; with these innumerable doctrines re

E

CHAP. IV. garding diseases which compose our systems of diseases or nosologies?

"Where then can sure help be found? exclaimed the sorrowing father, overwhelmed with the complaint and suffering of his dear children. Every where around him he beheld the darkness and dreariness of a desert: no consolation for his oppressed heart."

Against the thought, urged by many, that it is not in the nature of medicine itself to attain to a high degree of certainty, Hahnemann's benevolent mind rose rebellious.

"Blasphemous, shameful thought! I exclaimed with indignation. What could not the infinite wisdom of the spirit which animates the universe produce means of allaying the suffering caused by diseases which, nevertheless, it has permitted to afflict mankind?

"Is it possible that the sovereign paternal goodness of Him, whom no name can worthily designate; who provides liberally for wants even of animalculæ invisible to us; who sheds with profusion life and well-being through all the creation-should be capable of an act of tyranny, and not have willed that man, made after his image, should be able, with the divine inspiration which penetrates and animates him, to find, in the immensity of created things, means suited to deliver his brethren from suffering often worse than death itself? Could He, the father of all, behold with indifference the martyrdom to which diseases condemn the best beloved of his creatures, and not permit the genius of man (which, however, makes all things possible), to discover an easy and sure method of contemplating them under their real aspect, and of examining medicines to learn in what case each of them may be useful-may furnish a real and certain assistance? I had rather renounce all the systems in the world than admit such a blasphemous idea.”

Not being able to find out this method, he devoted his time principally to the study of the sciences of chemistry and mineralogy, and to the translation of a great number of interesting papers from the English, French, and Italian periodicals. By thus employing his time, he was enabled to enrich the German scientific journals with foreign and original articles of great value. Among the latter, his treatise on the mode of preparing a form of mercury, which he discovered, that derives from him!

its name, mercurius solubilis Hahnemanni, his researches on CHAP. IV. poisoning by arsenic,* with legal evidence of imperative importance to medical jurisprudence, and the celebrated Hahnemannean wine-test, which exposed and prevented the adulteration of wines with lead, conferred upon him an honourable reputation among the medical philosophers of the continent.

In one of his works he developed plans for the more scientific instruction of the apothecary, a work which brought him into great repute with the apothecaries of Germany, and exercised a most beneficial influence on that branch of medicine. In fact, all his writings, including the many interesting notes appended to his translations, "denote the learned and thoroughly accomplished physician, the strict and conscientious man, the earnest inquirer after truth and the profound observer."

Among the works which came under his notice, the celebrated work on Materia Medica, or Medicines, by the illustrious Dr. Cullen, was one. This was in the year 1790.

* Professor Christison, in his standard work on Poisons, has recognized Hahnemann's labours in reference to the testing of arsenic. Referring to Hahnemann's work, "Uber die Arsenic Vergiftung," (Upon the poisoning by Arsenic,) he thus writes, p. 260 :-"It is stated by Hahnemann in his elaborate work on Arsenic," &c. He quotes Hahnemann's work, first, in relation to the quantity of arsenic that water by boiling will take up; second, in reference to the test of oxide of arsenic ; third, as to the quantity of oxide of arsenic soluble in water at blood heat with agitation; fourth, as to the quantity in the solid state that Hahnemann professed himself able to detect. Professor Christison quotes Hahnemann, fifthly, in proof that the garlic odour of the arsenious acid vapour is not a satisfactory test. Hahnemann states, that" phosphorus, phosphoric acid and the phosphates give out a similar odour"; sixthly, that this is not a satisfactory test, because, further, a small portion of vegetable or animal matter obscures entirely the alliaceous smell; seventhly, in reference to the solubility of the sulphurets of arsenic in water; eighthly, in reference to the time in which arsenic taken is fatal; ninthly, in reference to the effects of arsenic, ae a poison on the limbs; tenthly, as to the effect on the hair and the skin; eleventhly, as to the effects of the famous poison aqua toffana, in reference to which Christison remarks, "an equally vigorous and somewhat clearer account of the symptoms is given by Hahnemann; twelfthly, in reference to fatal results in two cases, reported by Hahnemann, where arsenic had been applied to a cutaneous disease of the scalp.

It is quite certain, that had not Hahnemann exhibited great tact and extensive research in reference to arsenic, Professor Christison could not have been able to have quoted from him so many particulars; and had not Professor Christison believed Hahnemann's statements to be those of a conscientious and an accurate observer, he would not have quoted them at all.

CHAP. IV.

In translating the article on Peruvian bark,* he was much struck with the account given of the febrifuge, or fever-expelling properties of this valuable remedial agent. He determined to try it upon himself, (a mark of that decision of mind so essential to investigation), and being in the enjoyment of robust health, began his experiments. The first dose produced symptoms in him similar to those of intermittent fever or ague, which bark so often effectually cures: the resemblance between his symptoms and those which are presented in intermittent fever, for which he knew this remedy was famous, so struck him, that he was, in a moment of inspiration, thus breathed upon his dormant genius, led to glance at, and to discover the first lines of the truth, written in creation, that the law, on which the beneficial application of all medicines is founded, is this, that medicines cure diseases by their power to produce, when taken by healthy persons, symptoms similar to the diseases they cure, or to quote Hahnemann's words, "that medicines can cure those diseases only, which are analogous to those which they themselves are capable of producing."

law.

Hahnemann had as yet discovered only the first traces of this aw. He had discovered that Peruvian bark, administered to a healthy person, produces symptoms, similar to those, which are present in the disease, which it cures.

But Hahnemann was not one of those men whom Lord Bacon described as "beginning to build ships with materials not sufficient to make boats." He continued his experiments on himself, his wife, his family, and his friends, for a period of six years, experimenting with different medicines, and found the same truth to be exhibited in reference to the various medicines he tried, namely, that they produced, when taken by a healthy person, the same symptoms as are presented in those diseases, which these medicines are known to have cured.

* Regarding the effects of Peruvian bark, some writers have denied the effects produced on Hahnemann. They assert that Peruvian bark will not produce intermittent fever in a healthy man; that is, their assertion of impossibility is to be deemed equivalent to the destruction of a fact. They show their ignorance of even allopathic medical literature, in thus asserting. In the Journal of Health and Disease, page 209, vol. iii., will be found a full statement of the facts collected even by allopathists demonstrating the accuracy of Hahnemann's observations.

It may be remarked here, that other observers had noted, but CHAP. IV. without any reference to the existence of the law, that mercury, if taken improperly, produces diseases exactly similar to those it cures that the itch is cured by sulphur, and sulphur taken, others have suggested and Hahnemann has established, will produce an eruption similar to the itch.

:

After six years' patiently and carefully conducted experiments, Hahnemann, at length, in the year 1796, published his views in a periodical, namely, Hufeland's Journal, therein proclaiming the grand principle, already stated, namely, that diseases are cured most quickly, safely, and effectually, by medicines, which are capable of producing in a healthy person symptoms, similar to those existing in the diseases. These views were published under the modest title, "Concerning a new principle for discovering the curative virtues of medicines." Notwithstanding sneering animadversions were the only reply he received, and he gained no co-operation to aid him in the inquiries, which the principle if investigated as to its truth necessitated, he determined to tread the path of enquiry.

Still pursuing his investigations with unwearied assiduity, cheered, no doubt, by the nobleness of the pursuit in which he was engaged, he fifteen years after the discovery of the principle, presented to the world a work, in two volumes, modestly entitled, "Fragmenta de viribus medicamentorum positivis, sive obviis in corpore sano;" (Fragments connecting the positive or obvious powers of medicines on healthy persons.) This work, containing the results of his experiments with twentyseven medicines on himself, his family, his zealous friends and disciples, was published in 1805.

This work, the product of fifteen years' diligent research and experiment on his own person and on the persons of those, who had the zeal and the martyr-like spirit to endure the sufferings necessarily produced, was answered either by indifference or by downright ridicule.

In 1810, having had five years more experience, he published his work," Medicine founded on Experience," forming the basis of his "Organon of the healing Art," (Organon der Heilkunst).

In this work he attempts theoretically to explain and demonstrate the homœopathic law, indicates the manner of its applica