Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 22.djvu/552

536 to the general reader a few facts which may serve to illumine existing error, and prepare the way for the appreciation of some generally unrecognized truths.

It may be safely asserted that the chief obstacle which the profession has to encounter, in the attempt to harmonize the hitherto conflicting systems of medicine, is the existence of so violent a prejudice among the people in favor of one school or the other that the doctor's income is liable to suffer as an effect of any concession to his liberal convictions.

When an unknown physician appears in any community, and solicits a 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 patients seek evidence of his professional ability, his special acquirements, or his general scientific culture? No. They submit him to no such crucial tests as these. They content themselves with asking the one grave question, "Is he allopath or homoeopath?" and, having reply, assign him, according to their prejudices, 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 its unfailing repetition? What significance is attached to these opposing terms, and whence is it derived?

In the first place, the words "homœopathy" and "allopathy" have a common authorship. The great founder and apostle of the homœopathic school, Dr. Hahnemann, was responsible for their coinage and introduction to the public. With the one, he proposed to christen the creed which embodied his own peculiar tenets; by the other, to throw into sharp contrast the system of the older and established school.

It is worthy of remark that his followers have, until recently, accepted, with singular uniformity, their leader's distinctive term, while his opponents have always, and with few exceptions, repudiated the name thus contemptuously bestowed upon them, and which has fastened itself to them through the influence of popular usage. The definition of these terms is somewhat obscure. Homœopathy does not now possess, in toto, its original significance. In its earlier day it represented a group of dogmas, which most of its younger disciples disown. Infinitesimal dosage, increased potency by means of dynamization, the unification of disease, etc., have ceased to be essential planks in the homoeopathic platform. According to more recent interpretation, it may be defined as a system of medicine based upon the one theory, "similia similibus curantur" or the doctrine of a similarity existing between the physiological and the curative action of drugs.

Allopathy, on the other hand, may be said to mean—in so far as it means anything—the application of medicine upon the principle