Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 23.djvu/758

738 by a single sentence. He says: "Hahnemann paid no attention to pathology or cause of disease, but only sought for symptoms. For instance, in a case of dropsy, the cause, whether it be from the heart, the kidneys, or the liver, is not inquired into, but the symptom dropsy is treated."

It is clear that the writer here uses the term "cause of disease" as synonymous with the part affected, which is to confound cause and effect, and he substitutes his own nosology "dropsy" for the group of symptoms which indicate, not dropsy, but the remedy to be selected. The fact that the heart or kidneys or the liver is affected does not indicate or prove that the one affected is the cause of disease. It proves that the disease has affected that part, and it follows by an inexorable law that the part affected can only be cured by removing the cause. It is this inversion of cause and effect, of disease and its point of attack or expression, this ignorance of Nature's laws, which induces the allopath to attempt to cut out the core of what he calls cancer; thus trimming the branches of this mighty disease, to strengthen it at the roots, seated deep down in the system. It is like cutting down a locust, and producing a forest from the roots. How can a school, which has been a thousand years dissecting dead bodies to discover the vital principle, hope to free itself from its dogmas? As well might it be expected to discover the electric fluid by dissecting a yard of telegraph wire. Professor Calderwood, who is not a homœopathist, demonstrates, as a scientist, from the discoveries of the foremost physiologists and psychologists, that, by tracing up all of the group of symptoms along the nerve-fibers, we will reach a common nerve-center in the brain, differing in area and location with differing groups of symptoms. This nerve-center is operated upon by certain sensor nerves. The whole object of the homœopathic physician, who is true to the law, is to trace these symptoms to a common nerve-center, and then to select a remedy which, acting upon that nerve-center, will, on the line by which Nature cures, stimulate a reaction, and thus restore the equilibrium, which is perfect health.

The law of Nature's cure is, by rousing up reaction against disease, to restore the disturbed forces to their exact counterpoise, where action and reaction are equal. The allopathic method of creating a new disease to cure the old one is a violation of this law, and at the very outset the regular school must begin by an apology or an excuse, either that Nature has denied to men the means of executing her laws, or that man is ignorant of the means she has placed at his disposal.

As an abstract question, preference must be given to that method of cure which creates the least disturbance in the system, and, as a consequence, leaves it less liable to relapse or a second attack; which does not by antagonizing the vital forces reduce or destroy its economies; which does not work by rule of three; as the remedy is to the