Page:Quackery Unmasked.djvu/152

148 that they were untrue and could not be sustained. The whole system appeared like the dream of some wild fanatic—the vagaries of a disordered brain—a castle built in the air, which must be crushed to atoms by its own inertia. Yet his disciples announced it as a new and great discovery—the beginning of an important era in medicine, which was destined to overthrow and nullify all the knowledge which had been garnered up through all past time—a gift sent from Heaven to bless the world throughout all coming generations. Hahnemann was declared to be the spiritual messenger charged with the important mission of redeeming the whole human race from the curse of Allopathy.

As early as 1833, whilst Hahnemann was still living and teaching his peculiar principles in France, some of his most intelligent disciples began to question the tenets of their great master. In 1836, Constantine Hering, of Pennsylvania, who assisted in preparing for publication Hahnemann's "Organon of Homœopathic Medicine," makes the following declaration in his preface to that work (page 15):