Dr. Skinner, of Barton, Vt., is attempting to vend genuine medicines, to take the place of secret panaceas, of which I am not particularly averse.

I am a native of the Granite State, have a veneration for its laws, customs and habits, and feel a lively interest in the prosperity of its institutions. Yours truly,

Hydeparke, Lamoille County, Vt.

ARIEL HANTON, A. M., M. D.

HOMEOPATHY, WITH GLANCES AT OTHER MEDICAL DELUSIONS.

By M. R. WOODBURY, M. D., Northfield, N. H. Read before the Centre District New-Hampshire Medical Society, and published by order of the Society.

Religion has not been fuller of superstitions than medicine of delusions. In each, impostures and fanaticisms have sprung up in every age, from those of the darkest ignorance to these of the highest civilization. If the middle of the nineteenth century witnesses Millerism, Mormonism and spirit-rappings, why should we be surprised at Thompsonianism, chromo-thermalism, or Homœopathy? Doubtless this generation is wiser than all that have gone before it, but in many things it has a surprising way of showing its superior wisdom.

I have selected homeopathy as the medical delusion of the present time most in vogue, and fittest for examination; but before I examine into its pretensions, I wish to give a brief account of some other, and in some respects similar delusions and impostures.

Ignorance is said to be the mother of superstition in religion; in medicine, ignorance must be the basis of imposture. But as we find men who, in some matters may claim a high intelligence, misled and deluded in others, and running into the wildest vagaries, so we must not be surprised when we see delusive systems of medical practice encouraged by men of estimable character, general bearing and respectable talent. And this is especially likely to be the case when a medical system appeals to mystery and faith in supernatural agencies. We must dismiss the idea that it is the ignorant, in the common sense of the term, who are most likely to be misled in these matters. The most earnest believers in Millerism were those who could compare the prophecies, and cipher out the period of their fulfilment. The believers in Davis and his revelations are generally persons of more than ordinary intelligence. The Mormon community at Nauvoo is said to be remarkable for thrift and shrewdness. It may very well be true of them, as it is claimed, that the patrons of homoeopathy are generally among the intelligent classes. Mr. Locke's moon-hoax found its readiest believers among

those who possessed at least a respectable smattering in astronomy and optics. In this view we see the wisdom of Pope's oft quoted maxim:

"Drink deep, or taste not the pierian spring,

A little learning is a dangerous thing."

The man who begins to search after truth is more liable to wander in the mazes of error than he who quietly believes what he has been taught. If he has perseverance to continue the search, it is well; if not, it were better not to begin it.

The prevalence of medical impostures and delusions may be accounted for from the fact that all are successful. No medical practice ever failed to cure, no nostrum was ever long without its wonderful cases and impressive testimonials. The vis medecatrix naturæ, the power of faith, the influence of the mind over the body, secure the triumph of charlatanism and the continuance of delusion. In a certain proportion of cases of disease, the patient gets well, whatever the remedy; and in a certain portion of diseases, a certain impression upon the mind is of more importance than any action upon the bodily organs. It is no small part of medical science and skill to be able to discriminate such cases, but whether discriminated or not, they do not fail to redound to the honor of the physician to whom they fall, and the practice he has adopted.

Impressions on the senses produce powerful effects upon the system. An emetic may be given through the sense of sight. The spectacle of a strong sea, a rushing cataract, or a grand procession, is full of excitement. Some sights are stimulant, others the reverse. Strong light occasions headache, a sudden burst of sunshine makes us sneeze. A flash of lightning has caused and cured epilepsy. The view of an interminable desert affects some people with a sense of suffocation. The sight of blood causes fainting. The sight of a military flogging has caused in new recruits fainting fits, convulsions and epilepsy. Some of us can remember the disagreeable sensations caused by first witnessing some surgical operations. Certain sounds set the teeth on edge; others excite laughter, or tears. Music has often been used medicinally; thus David cured the madness of Saul. A sudden crash causes a fluttering and sinking of the heart, and a simple air gives to the Swiss soldier a home sickness that is an incurable disease. An old song has caused tropical fevers. A war charge rung out of Napoleon's trumpet would rouse his soldiers from what seemed a fatal lethargy. The poet tells us of those who die of a rose in aromatic pain. The same smells are agreeable and exhilarating to some persons, and sickening to others. We take some, and no one knows how many diseases through our noses. The adaptation of remedies to act on the nerves of the schneiderian membrane is worthy of professional consideration. Hahnemann, as we shall see anon, has not neglected this.

The mere memory of a delightful savor excites the salivary glands; our mouths water at the thought of a good dinner. The first taste of food ex

cites the whole digestive apparatus. There is a story of a French lady who paid fifty pounds for a bite out of the white shoulder of a handsome young baker, and who went into hysterics because she could not get another at the same price. The sense of touch, spread over the whole body, is susceptible of a great variety of instances. Persons may be tickled into convulsions, probably fatal ones. Touching the fauces causes vomiting; touching the internal surface of the bladder has produced vomiting, fainting, chills, rheumatism and epilepsy. A violent grasping of the arm, or a ligature around it, has arrested fits of mania and epilepsy. A laying on of hands was a part of the religious cure of diseases; the kings of England cured scrofula by touching, and magnetizers make use of passes. The touch of the cold hand of an executed felon has been supposed to have great virtue.

All the passions influence the action of the bodily organs through the nervous system; and such action may be curative or the reverse. Love, hope and joy excite and elevate; we have no better medicines in our pharmacopoeia. Sorrow, fear and despair weaken and depress; these passions may restore to health, or kill slowly or suddenly, according to their violence. "We cannot entertain a doubt," says Sir Humphrey Davy, “but that every change in our sensations and ideas must be accompanied by a corresponding change in the organic matter of the body." A word, a thought, a passing emotion, sends the red blood into the minute capillaries of the face, neck and bosom. There is no doubt that disappointed love has caused death by a gradual softening and final bursting of the heart. Dr. Valentine Mott gives such a case as having come under his own observation. Fear drives the blood from the surface, producing paleness and a peculiar pinched expression of the features; the limbs tremble, the power of speech is lost, there may come on relaxation of the sphincter muscles, a sudden diarrhoea, and even the hair sometimes changes its color; an effect no medicine we know of can produce. Fear has caused epilepsy, idiocy and insanity. It may also cure. The dentist's forceps cure the aching tooth before they are applied. Sir John Malcomb tells us of a Persian doctor who cured the ague by the bastinado, an expeditious and energetic mode of counter-irritation, perhaps, but probably producing its effects through fear.

Boerhaave cured a school of an epidemic epilepsy by threatening to burn the first one attacked, with a hot iron. Terror has cured the goitre, and the fear of an operation has caused the sudden absorption of a considerable tumor. Dr. Mott gives a case in which a troublesome neuralgia of long standing was cured by one of his lectures, in which he described the operation for its cure. After battle, men have been found without a wound, doubtless killed by terror. We all know the influence of fear upon the spread of epidemics. The angel of pestilence, say the orientals, went to a city to slay twenty thousand people,-a hundred thousand perished; the angel slew his twenty thousand, fear killed the rest. Anger, grief or joy may cause apoplexy, hæmorrhage of the lungs, inflammation of the brain, hysteria or in

sanity. Shame may cause suicide, or prevent it. A mania for suicide among the young girls of Miletus, says Plutarch, was cured by the magistrates' ordering the body of the first who should kill herself to be exposed naked in the public streets. "A merry heart doeth good like medicine," says Solomon, "but a broken spirit drieth the blood;" an observation worthy of the wisest of princes.

When we consider the wonderful effects of the passions and emotions of the mind upon the functions, and even the organic structure of the body, we cannot be surprised at the powerful influence which charms, philters, relics and mysterious ceremonies have appeared to have in the cure of disease. All sorts of medicine, or no medicine, with the aid of faith and hope, cure diseases. Give the medicine, or only pretend to give it, and if the mental impression is produced, the effect is the same. Simple bread pills, under this influence, are made to produce decided and various effects. The same inert substance will be cathartic, emetic, or sedative, if the patient is in the right mental condition.

The following historical anecdote is a forcible illustration of the preceding remarks, and also of the main subject of my thesis :

"In 1625 the city of Breda, exposed to a long siege, suffered all the miseries bad provisions and distress of mind could bring upon its inhabitants. Among other misfortunes the scurvy made its appearance and carried off great numbers. This, added to other calamities, induced the garrison to incline toward a surrender of the place, when the prince of Orange, anxious to prevent its loss, and unable to relieve the garrison, contrived to introduce letters to the men, promising them the most speedy assistance. These were accompanied with medicines against the scurvy, said to be of great price, but of still greater efficacy, and many more were to be sent to them. The effects of the deceit were truly astonishing. Three small phials of the medicine were given to each physician, and it was publicly given out that three or four drops were sufficient to impart a healing virtue to a gallon of water. We now displayed our wonder-working balsams. Not even were the commanders let into the secret of the cheat upon the soldiers. They flocked in crowds about us, each one soliciting that part might be reserved for his use. Cheerfulness again appeared in every countenance, and a universal faith prevailed in the virtue of the remedy. The effect of this delusion was truly astonishing; for many were quickly and perfectly recovered. Such as had not moved their limbs for a month before were seen walking the street with their limbs straight, sound and whole. They boasted of their cure by the prince's remedy."

History is full of similar cases, giving us the basis of a rational explanation of the temporary success of all kinds of medical frauds and impostures. Many of the vulgar superstitions in medicine have at some former period received the sanction of the most learned doctors. For example, where a rusty nail is run into the foot, it is a custom to carefully grease, not the wound,

but the nail, and lay it away. This very doctrine was once taught by the first surgeons in Europe, who applied oils, balsams, &c., to weapons, and ex plained their influence upon the wound upon the doctrine of sympathy; nor were they ever in want of remarkable cures to sustain this theory.

When Sir Kinston Digby was sent for by his friend Mr. Howell, who had been severely wounded by a sword, the surgeon asked for something which had the blood of the wound upon it, and procuring a garter which had been used to bind it up, he soaked it in cold water, and we are gravely assured that as he did so the inflammation left the wound, returned again when the garter got dry, but was again allayed when the water cure was applied by proxy-perhaps the most pleasant mode of taking it. This theory and practice was explained and advocated by such men as Van Helmont, Burgravius, Descartes, Kircher and Gilbertus. Strauss gives an account of a remarkable cure performed by Lord Gilbourne upon a carpenter who had cut himself with his axe. The axe was carefully anointed, properly bandaged, and hung up in a closet. The wound behaved admirably and was fast healing up, when one day word came to his Lordship that his patient was worse, the wound having become inflamed and painful. His Lordship went straight, to the patient?—No, to the axe, which he found had fallen down and got uncovered. On putting it right, the wound rapidly recovered!

At this period the materia medica was full of mysteries and horrors, fit to act upon the imagination. Every druggist kept such elegant preparations as the powder of baked toads, and moss from dead men's sculls, some doctors giving preference to that which grew upon the sculls of murderers.

When astrology was fashionable, it was supposed that the virtues of medicines were impressed upon them by the influence of the stars. Their color was thought to be the sign of this influence. White substances were refrigerant, red ones heating. Red flowers were given for diseases of the blood; yellow for the bile. In small-pox everything in the room was made red, to bring out the eruption. As late as 1765 the emperor Francis I, was ordered by his physicians to be rolled up in a red cloth, but he died notwithstanding. Blue cloth was thought good for glandular swellings. Red is still considered a healthy color. Under astrological influences, medicines were collected at particular times and in the prescribed manner, to have the desired efficacy.

Amulets, talismans, precious stones and metals have been used, not by the vulgar, but by the most learned and eminent physicians, to cure diseases; and there are scattered over the world in every direction the remnants of these superstitions. It is but a short time since the power of the kings of England to cure scrofula was a universal belief, and their cures were certified by the first physicians of the kingdom. But there is no end to this subject, and I must confine my further remarks to the most curious of the medical delusions of the present time, and one which compares favorably with those to which I have alluded; I mean the theory and practice of homœop athy.